My (Failed) Attempt at the 4-Hour Workweek

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The year was 2012. Tim Ferriss’ best-selling book, The 4-Hour Workweek, had peaked on the NYT bestseller list for 5 years running. Everyone in my immediate social network and on Twitter was raving about it – this was the path to building a six figure plus ‘passive’ income… focused on outsourcing most, if not all, of the operations of a company to third parties around the world for dirt cheap prices.

The goal? Work from anywhere, anytime, with nothing more than a laptop and internet connection to gain freedom from the 9-5. How? By systematizing your company – having other people complete all the minutiae of the day-to-day operations – you are free to pursue other projects of your choosing. Or not, and just live on a beach in Mexico forever while your machine made money for you.

I, like many others, was shocked that this could even be a possibility let alone reality.

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Fastest Way To Learn a Language: Act like a child.

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I was two months into my new job in Rio de Janeiro when I asked my co-worker to hand me a hard penis.

His gaze shifted towards me and his eyes paused, narrowed, and a cheeky grin slowly came across his face. Within ten seconds the normally stoic Jose was on the floor, doubled over laughing. “Oh shit,” I thought, “What did I just say?”

It wasn’t the first time I’d made a mistake when learning Portuguese and it wouldn’t be the last. Confusing ‘pão duro’ for ‘pau duro’ (the squiggly line, the tilde, above the ‘a’) proved to be the fatal error – instead of asking for bread, like I had intended, I had asked Jose for something very different.

The nasal tone of the tilde is a critical distinction among many similarly sounding words in Brazilian Portuguese. But no matter how many times I had tried learning the language with audio tapes, YouTube videos, or through immersion, the lesson had never really sunk in until that one fatal error I made with Jose.

I now pay very close attention to the tilde when speaking Portuguese.

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The definitive answer when someone asks 'What do you do?'

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This is a curious question.

When asked by an Uber driver I often respond with “I am in the water industry” - and quickly follow-up by asking ‘And you? Is this your 9-5?” That’s often enough to keep them talking and take the focus off of me.

I’ve never been particularly good at answering this question. I don’t know why.

In part I feel like most people that ask aren’t genuinely interested in hearing the answer. At best, it’s meant to be a conversation starter and a way to build common ground so they can find a way to make a potentially awkward car ride more enjoyable. At worst it’s a way to discover how much money you make, your political or religious affiliations, your sexuality, ethnicity, or something more secret.

And then, typically, talk about themselves.

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