It took me a while to realize that Tim Ferriss’ now world-famous book was not about working LESS. What he was really trying to show us was how to work smarter, maximizing the finite amount of energy, attention, and time that we each have in our lives.
When I started digging into his methodologies, I had just had the best workweek of my life. Through a combination of my skills in both the live audio and studio audio domains, I managed to make more than $12,000 in only six days. (…first time I’ve ever admitted that number in public). While that sounds like an amazing thing and a feat that I would want to replicate every week of my life, here’s the short version of what I *really* did:
– I worked 22-23 hours each day.
– I only ate once per day and usually that was when someone else brought food to me out of kindness.
(Side Note: most of what I ate that week consisted of things I would never eat in the course of my “normal” life, i.e. vegetables. But when you have no other options, you will eventually eat anything that someone else sits in front of you… especially when it’s free.)
– Of the six 1-2 hour periods where I actually slept that week, most of those were on a thinly carpeted floor without a pillow, blanket or any other object resembling bedding.
– None of my work was creative (even though it was working with audio).
– Even though that week involved working with a number of world famous people in a high profile job at a beautiful venue, I never enjoyed a single moment of that week.
– Tacking on the Sunday work that I usually did at the time, I actually worked eight days in a row.
– By Sunday night / Monday morning on that eighth day, I went to bed and was there for almost three days.
Being honest, I felt the effects of the stress and exhaustion for many weeks afterwards. While no one else seemed to notice a change in the quality of my work or the volume of work I was capable of over the following month, I noticed every single bit of it. I still think that some of my worst work was done in the month following what had been the biggest financial windfall of my life up (to that point).
What I learned after that week is that being busy doesn’t equal being successful and getting paid such a large amount of money, in this scenario and under these conditions, was not worth the fallout that resulted afterwards.
Enter Tim Ferriss….
If you’re not familiar with Tim and his books, just Google “4 Hour Workweek” or go to TimFerriss.com and you’ll find everything you need to.
I don’t have time in this blog post to go through how his philosophies have changed how I do what I do. Instead, let me point to a talk that he gave many years ago that hits most of the high spots for you. After hearing him talk about these principles, it might make a lot of how I do my work make a lot more sense to you.
Yes, I have fired troublesome customers (even some that were paying me a lot of money). I have made people wait to hear back from me instead of jumping at every single beck and call that I receive. I have raised my fees at times when other people were slashing theirs by as much as 75%. I have said “No” (politely) to low paying gigs and sessions that then opened up opportunities for other musicians, engineers, and producers to step in and take that work away from me. I have turned down touring opportunities that others would have given their kidney for because of poor working conditions, low pay, or bad management.
Any decision I have ever made which seems to go against every single norm or expected process in this business is directly because of the things I’ve learned from Tim Ferriss. And I can say that I stand by every single one of my choices.
Want to get a little more insight into what I’m talking about? Well, you can either hit “play” on the YouTube video below or swing over to this particular episode of his podcast: https://tim.blog/2021/11/18/sxsw-presentation-2007-the-4-hour-workweek/
That will explain EVERYTHING!
I don’t recommend this sort of work life and methodology for everyone. But if you’re frustrated with the hamster wheel that everyone else wants to put you on, I would highly recommend checking it all out.
You can also get a copy of Tim’s life changing book, “The Four-Hour Workweek” by clicking THIS LINK.