[Beyond Borders]

(04-30-2014 03:28 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  

To me, it sounds rather like circular reasoning, kind of like this:

"Here is a location-independent business idea: create a website and sell e-books to people on how they can set up a location-independent business."

So............I take it you didn't read his book then?

[RexImperator]

(05-01-2014 03:15 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 03:28 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  

To me, it sounds rather like circular reasoning, kind of like this:

"Here is a location-independent business idea: create a website and sell e-books to people on how they can set up a location-independent business."

So............I take it you didn't read his book then?

No. Just his blog.

[RXB]

I don't get the Ferriss hate. While his stuff is corny, it does open people's eyes. On top of that, his books are priced at an affordable amount.

I could see hating him for lying and selling 10,000 eBooks, but his material can be obtained either for free on his blog, or for a couple bucks off Amazon. I'd rather spend an afternoon reading some cheesy but inspiring drivel from Ferriss than I would wading through a bunch of negative trash about leftoids ruining America.

While I can't say that Ferriss' work directly helped me to succeed, it did inspire me to start my own business.

[Volk]

I will say here the same thing I've said about Feriss, about RSD, about GManifesto and also applies to Roosh himself: Take what you need and what applies to you. Simple as that. Too many people are looking for gurus and don't want to think for themselves.

In this case, from Feriss I have taken many important lessons in metalearning and lifestyle but at the same time, I've discarded more than 70% of the stuff he writes.

So should be with everyone, think for the most important person in your life: You.

[Beyond Borders]

(05-01-2014 03:15 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 03:28 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  

To me, it sounds rather like circular reasoning, kind of like this:

"Here is a location-independent business idea: create a website and sell e-books to people on how they can set up a location-independent business."

So............I take it you didn't read his book then?

Hate to put you on the spot, but his blog doesn't preach that either.

In fact, it's one of the more scattered popular blogs on the internet.

He talks about everything from physical performance to mental performance writing to philosophy to travel (plenty of stuff guys here would be interested in). And even his entrepreneurship articles don't specifically advocate marketing to the MMO niche.

There are plenty of things to criticize about Ferris, but I notice a lot of people put words in his mouth in order to do so. It's a tendency I believe we should do our best to avoid when criticizing anyone.

(05-01-2014 06:24 PM)Volk Wrote:  

I will say here the same thing I've said about Feriss, about RSD, about GManifesto and also applies to Roosh himself: Take what you need and what applies to you. Simple as that.

This exactly.

If you approach human interaction with the mindset that everyone is flawed (from the world's gentlest saint to the world's richest man) and that everyone has something to teach you (even the homeless meth addict in the street), you can't go wrong.

I've always tried to embrace this mentality. Even when I meet shitty people who don't seem to have anything for me, I try to use the experience of dealing with them as a learning lesson.

The point is, use your own filters to everything people say. Take what you can and walk away a better person.

Ferris is far from perfect, but he has far more gold nuggets than many others, which has made his books worth reading. He has changed a lot of lives very tangibly.

If you're too resistant to outside perspectives, you stagnate. Fill your mind with opposing viewpoints and draw your own conclusions.

Want to learn how to think outside the box? Read Ferris.

[Glaucon]

Ferriss has some good ideas, but the most important aspect is inspiration. He has a great energy which sticks to you and makes you do something about your life.

We men are romantics, we need some goal to aspire to.

[XXL]

Interesting....

Quote:

Freedom porn is a religion mostly built by Tim Ferriss. You may have read his book "Four Hour Workweek", which promises you to give you the tools to build an automated source of income. There is no need to slave away in a 9-to-5 job. Just find a way to exploit your fellow man and do whatever you want in your spare time. If this sounds too good to be true, then it's because it is. Ferriss later on even came out telling people that it "never was about just working four hours a week". What a joker!

So, the book is not about working just four hours a week, but instead about building your own business. The examples he gives are downright ludicrous, like importing shirts from France and selling them with a big margin. Yeah, right! What Ferriss doesn't take into account is that Google AdSense is rather expensive, and given abysmally low conversion rates, you'd probably end up spending several hundred dollars on online ads before selling one item that brings in only a fraction of the cost of selling it. This is hardly a sustainable business.

But the bigger problem is that he is giving people false hope. As a result, you have then guys like Frost moving to Thailand, confessing in a book that they have no real idea how to make money, but just writing a book, in the hope that this will then generate enough money to live off. It doesn't seem to work out for him, but even if it did: How many people would be able to move to a Third World country, write about the experience, and live off it, until the story got old and nobody would buy it anymore?

Tim Ferriss tries to make you believe he's a regular shmuck like you and me. In fact, he is all but, and there are strong reasons to believe that he only got the foot in the door due to his wealthy family. Let's just recount the facts: Ferriss grew up in East Hampton. If you look it up, you'll learn that "Demographics in East Hampton are skewed by the fact that more than half the houses are owned as second homes (often from some of the wealthiest people in the country)." This sounds a lot as if Ferriss belongs to the "1%". Then he went to a school with a student/teacher ratio of 5 to 1. That's hardly like inner city Detroit. In case you are interested, St Paul's School charges about $50,000 a year.

In corporate owned media, this would be the point for someone to chime in and say that I am "envious" or "jealous", and if you've been brainwashed by right-wing ideology, you'd now say that I am a "hater." However, I only want to illustrate the background of "self-made man" Tim Ferriss. That he later on went to Princeton to get a degree in "East Asian Studies". How fitting! I don't know how familiar you are with higher education, but the general rule is that the more bullshitty a subject is, the more it merely serves as an excuse for the children of the rich to get a place there. It's not as if you can really measure performance in those fields objectively, after all.

Now you may say, "Yeah, Sleazy, I get what you are aiming at, but why do you bother?" Let me tell you something: I have attended an elite institution myself, the London School of Economics, and I have encountered the kind of guy Tim Ferriss is far too many times: Those people have an absurd sense of entitlement, and if they don't get their way the normal way, they have no qualms of cheating. They think the rules just don't apply to them. (Just look at the "elites" in banking, business, and politics! It's exactly the same mentality.) I was thus not surprised that Ferriss admitted in his book that he was, after getting a bad grade on a university paper, pestering the lecturer for hours, with the intended consequence that this guy would think really hard before giving him a bad grade ever again. How do you call this kind of behavior? Yes, it's cheating, and not "finding a loop hole."

Further legendary tales of Ferriss include him detailing how he cheated on a national championship, I think it was Chinese kickboxing. He claimed to have simply dehydrated himself thoroughly, and then he went on to just push the guys out of the ring. Tim was proud of that "loop hole". If this isn't utterly dishonest, then I wouldn't know what is. This is only the beginning, though, because Tim's first company sold snake oil: pills that were supposed to boost your brain power. I read some stories about him selling questionable supplements to bodybuilders, too. But let's not bother with the products, because there are much worse things going on behind the scenes.

In fact, when I read his "success story," it just sounded fishy. I guess I have just met too many stupid, arrogant assholes in my life who would be complete failures if they didn't have a wealthy family to chip in a few $10k here and there. My hunch was that Ferriss' claim to have raked in a ton of money with his company "BrainQuicken" doesn't quite add up. Sure, he can now tell the world that he sold the company (for an undisclosed amount) and since then invests in other companies. But isn't it far more plausible that his family sits on a few hundred million dollars if not more, and he's simply investing that money?

Here is what an insider of the supplement industry had to say about Ferriss' business, pointing out that even if Ferriss "made $40k" a month, which he doubts, it's still an entirely different question how much of that revenue turned into profit. Those are just excerpts of a discussion, but you can easily follow the link and check the sources yourself:

Bodybuilding.com has over 8,500 products. 1.2 million members with a 10% conversion rate (a gift there, should be about 2-3%) makes 120,000 purchases.

120,000 purchases /8,500 products = 14 sales for BQ off that site.

The hits to Tims's old site are easily conformable. This is the internet here people. Do the math yourself, and anyone can quickly see that BrainQUICKEN does not generate anywhere near that income.

[...]

Bodybuilder.com is pretty straightforward. Go to the site and pull the numbers off the top page. Simple math tells you he isn't making much there. Check the page views per month on BQ. Those numbers just don't add up to anywhere near 40k.

Ferriss didn't have to bother about a few $10k here and there because he surely got money from his family to help him out with. It doesn't stop here, though. Have you ever looked at the reviews of "Four Hour Work Week" on Amazon? Here, have a look! You may say, awesome, thousands of people recommend his work. This can't be bad? Well, if you dig a little bit deeper, you'll find that there is something fishy going on. I quote from a review on Amazon.co.uk:

Finally, to conclude what is quite possibly the longest review I have ever written, I would like to comment on the number of five star reviews this book has garnered over on Amazon's US website. If you have been so patient as to read all the way to the end of this review, you surely deserve to know that the author of this book has a hugely popular website and quite a devoted following, based in part on a previous bestseller he wrote: The 4-Hour Workweek. This may also explain the truly massive number of helpful votes the current "Most Helpful" review has achieved (at the time of posting, it has over 2,000 helpful votes).

In fact, having seen a number of other reviewers claim that this book gained a suspiciously high number of positive reviews rather too quickly, I decided to do a little detective work myself. By sorting the reviews from oldest first, I very easily verified that 110 reviews of this book were posted on the 14th of December 2010. Of these 110 reviews, all but 5 gave the book five stars. Of the 5 reviews that didn't give the book five stars, all but one gave it four stars. Obviously it's now equally easy for you in turn to verify all this for yourself; provided, that is, you don't mind counting to 110! Curiously, a disturbingly large number of reviews (again, almost all five star) also happened to appear on April 26 2011. I've no idea why April 26 2011 was the magic day, but if you do happen to know, then please leave a comment on this review letting me in on the secret. I'm quite curious myself! Again, all this applies to Amazon's US website, not the UK one.

In the end I can only say that I went into this with an open mind. I did actually buy the book, and I didn't throw away that money just so I could write a nasty review. I also took a very serious shot at the weight loss program contained in the book. And yes, just like anyone else on a weight loss program, of course I wanted it to work. However, I find that I cannot reconcile my own experiences with the countless rave reviews this book seems to attract.

Draw what conclusions you will.


Tim Ferriss promotes using "virtual assistants", so I wouldn't be surprised if he was ordering them to hype his books online.

This concludes my research on Tim Ferriss. If you want to know why this guy annoys me, I openly admit that it is due to an ingrained dislike of people like him: sons of the rich who believe the world has to bend to their rules, and if they hit a brick wall, aren't afraid to lie and deceive. Ferriss addresses your greed and laziness in his books, and he wants you to believe that his background and connections have nothing to do with his eventual financial success. "Four Hour Work Week" may indeed have been the first one. I hope this article sobered you up, or confirmed your suspicions.

[Beyond Borders]

(05-02-2014 03:20 AM)XXL Wrote:  

Interesting....

Quote:

Freedom porn is a religion mostly built by Tim Ferriss. You may have read his book "Four Hour Workweek", which promises you to give you the tools to build an automated source of income.

Actually, it doesn't promise that at all. In fact, in the book, he specifically states that he won't be giving you the tools because there are enough books out there that do that. What he gives you are paradigm shifts, a look at what's possible if you think outside the box, and a few basic ideas of how people are building these types of businesses.

At the end of the chapter, he offers resources you can check out if you want to get "the tools." This is a strategy he appears to have lifted from Ralf Potts, the author of Vaganbonding - one of Ferris' favorite books.

It's now a strategy many authors, especially ebook and Kindle authors, use in their books.

Quote:

There is no need to slave away in a 9-to-5 job. Just find a way to exploit your fellow man and do whatever you want in your spare time. If this sounds too good to be true, then it's because it is. Ferriss later on even came out telling people that it "never was about just working four hours a week". What a joker!

Came out later? He said it in the original book. The book was never about working four hours a week. The title was chosen based on an online split testing campaign. His original choice was "Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit," I believe.

Quote:

So, the book is not about working just four hours a week, but instead about building your own business. The examples he gives are downright ludicrous, like importing shirts from France and selling them with a big margin. Yeah, right!

Yeah, you must be right. I'm sure no one in the world makes a profit by importing and then reselling shirts...

In any case, I thought it was clear when I read the book that the examples were just that....examples. I would have to go back to reread and verify, but that's how they read. They were simplistic presentations of how the concept works.

Quote:

What Ferriss doesn't take into account is that Google AdSense is rather expensive, and given abysmally low conversion rates, you'd probably end up spending several hundred dollars on online ads before selling one item that brings in only a fraction of the cost of selling it.

First off, you've made it clear you have some catching up to do becaues you're mixing up Google Adsense with Google Adwords. Adsense is a program where you take ads and place them on your site and get paid when people click on them (it doesn't cost YOU anything).

Adwords, which is what you're talking about, is the other side of the program, for people who buy the ads to be placed on sites and in Google search engines.

Anyways, things were way different back when this book was written. Adwords had a far lower barrier to entry and learning curve. Also, most PPC programs take time to learn, so you will spend several hundred dollars in the beginning to learn, but the idea is you improve your strategy as you go.

And following Ferris' advice, you would be seeking out advice from qualified sources on how PPC works before diving in headfirst. Again, he does not claim to give you the "tools," - just the general concept. It's only a small portion of his book and it is meant to offer general coverage, yet it's where everyone focuses their hate.

Quote:

This is hardly a sustainable business.

How do you figure?

Again, you're honestly suggesting that using an example of a guy importing shirts and reselling them through paid advertising is not a sustainable business model? As if it's never been done? Come on...

It's just an example, but it's not exactly a magic dragon either.

Quote:

But the bigger problem is that he is giving people false hope. As a result, you have then guys like Frost moving to Thailand, confessing in a book that they have no real idea how to make money, but just writing a book, in the hope that this will then generate enough money to live off. It doesn't seem to work out for him, but even if it did: How many people would be able to move to a Third World country, write about the experience, and live off it, until the story got old and nobody would buy it anymore?

Vast oversimplification.

I can't speak for Frost, but there are many, many examples of others who have thrown caution to the wind and left the country to pursue their dreams because of reading this book. Including myself and many others I know. It's very doable, and not just by writing books about the experience.

False hope...ha For as long as people have been making seemingly "foolish" decisions to grab what they want in life, others have been hating on them and calling them fools. If you really think packing your bags, heading off in search of adventure, and making it happen abroad is an imaginary quest, there's nothing I can say to dissuade your from that thinking.

In fact, you don't even need the internet to do it. I meet people all the time who have done without the web - many of whom never read Ferris' book (interesting, the exact type of people profiled in his book...). In fact, he also gives a lot of examples in his book that people ignore - non web-based - like a guy who runs a surfing business, english teachers, freelancers, writers, and so on. Even people who work the corporate rat race but take mini-retirements off to travel.

The web stuff is presented as the ideal way to go because of automation, location-independence, and expanded markets.

If you really think what he presents is nothing but false hope, well, you're simply wrong. Plenty of people run these types of businesses.

Quote:

That he later on went to Princeton to get a degree in "East Asian Studies". How fitting! I don't know how familiar you are with higher education, but the general rule is that the more bullshitty a subject is, the more it merely serves as an excuse for the children of the rich to get a place there. It's not as if you can really measure performance in those fields objectively, after all.

Is East Asian studies a bullshity field? I would think these days such a focus could open some real doorways, especially with his experiences and studies abroad - as well as the connections you say he had and business savvy. On top of that, even if you're right you've got people at all levels of society in the past decade or so getting bullshit degrees.

Quote:

In corporate owned media, this would be the point for someone to chime in and say that I am "envious" or "jealous", and if you've been brainwashed by right-wing ideology, you'd now say that I am a "hater."

Interesting - wonder why anyone would say that about you... (cough cough)

Quote:

I have attended an elite institution myself, the London School of Economics, and I have encountered the kind of guy Tim Ferriss is far too many times: Those people have an absurd sense of entitlement, and if they don't get their way the normal way, they have no qualms of cheating. They think the rules just don't apply to them.

Quote:

I guess I have just met too many stupid, arrogant assholes in my life who would be complete failures if they didn't have a wealthy family to chip in a few $10k here and there.

'

Quote:

I openly admit that it is due to an ingrained dislike of people like him: sons of the rich who believe the world has to bend to their rules, and if they hit a brick wall, aren't afraid to lie and deceive. Ferriss addresses your greed and laziness in his books, and he wants you to believe that his background and connections have nothing to do with his eventual financial success.

Quote:

In the end I can only say that I went into this with an open mind. I did actually buy the book, and I didn't throw away that money just so I could write a nasty review.

Yeah, no bias or hate from you at all...

Quote:

Have you ever looked at the reviews of "Four Hour Work Week" on Amazon? Here, have a look! You may say, awesome, thousands of people recommend his work. This can't be bad? Well, if you dig a little bit deeper, you'll find that there is something fishy going on. I quote from a review on Amazon.co.uk:

Quote:

Finally, to conclude what is quite possibly the longest review I have ever written, I would like to comment on the number of five star reviews this book has garnered over on Amazon's US website. If you have been so patient as to read all the way to the end of this review, you surely deserve to know that the author of this book has a hugely popular website and quite a devoted following, based in part on a previous bestseller he wrote: The 4-Hour Workweek. This may also explain the truly massive number of helpful votes the current "Most Helpful" review has achieved (at the time of posting, it has over 2,000 helpful votes).

In fact, having seen a number of other reviewers claim that this book gained a suspiciously high number of positive reviews rather too quickly, I decided to do a little detective work myself. By sorting the reviews from oldest first, I very easily verified that 110 reviews of this book were posted on the 14th of December 2010. Of these 110 reviews, all but 5 gave the book five stars. Of the 5 reviews that didn't give the book five stars, all but one gave it four stars. Obviously it's now equally easy for you in turn to verify all this for yourself; provided, that is, you don't mind counting to 110! Curiously, a disturbingly large number of reviews (again, almost all five star) also happened to appear on April 26 2011. I've no idea why April 26 2011 was the magic day, but if you do happen to know, then please leave a comment on this review letting me in on the secret. I'm quite curious myself! Again, all this applies to Amazon's US website, not the UK one.

As someone who used to be a regular reader of Ferris' blog, I can vouch that he has genius ways of getting reviews and has an extremely natural grasp of how to market. He often runs contests when his books are released, offering winning prizes to those who qualify by leaving him a review. I believe he typically doesn't necessitate a positive review, but most people in such a scenario will leave a positive.

And love him or hate him, you cannot deny that Ferris has (and had) the know-how and ability to get raving fans promoting him whenever possible (a portion of whom were not born speaking English). His existing fans truly believe he has radically changed their lives in a lot of different ways and are jumping at the bit to leave reviews. Just go read his comments on his articles.

There are a lot of bad things you can say about him, but implying he doesn't have the marketing savvy to generate 110 5 star reviews in one day is WAY off-base.

All that said, I wouldn't be completely surprised if he did pay for some reviews starting out. It was a common practice among IMers for a long time to get their book some starting ground.

If you've ever once purchased links for SEO or likes on Facebook, you can hardly talk. Maybe you haven't, but these types of things have been the norm for a long, long time.

I don't personally purchase reviews and never will, but I do understand how the culture of IM encourages that type of behavior.

Ferris being a guy willing to cut corners - apologetically, I might add - it's definitely possible.

Quote:

I also took a very serious shot at the weight loss program contained in the book. And yes, just like anyone else on a weight loss program, of course I wanted it to work. However, I find that I cannot reconcile my own experiences with the countless rave reviews this book seems to attract.

So did I. And lost 30 pounds ridiculously fast.

Quote:

Draw what conclusions you will.

I most certainly will.

[strengthstudent]

I have read his 4 hour week and 4 hour body, didn't really like the latter one but 4 hour week opened my eyes to many possibilities.

Tim Ferriss has also marketed himself as the world champion of tango, but apparently it was a "tango world championship" rather than something of a real deal where the real experts of tango participated in. His Sanshou championship is probably partly(or entirely) fake as well. I think majority of his "achievements" before the success of 4 hour week were mostly bullshit marketing.

[germanico]

(05-02-2014 12:40 PM)strengthstudent Wrote:  

apparently it was a "tango world championship" rather than something of a real deal where the real experts of tango participated in. His Sanshou championship is probably partly(or entirely) fake as well. I think majority of his "achievements" before the success of 4 hour week were mostly bullshit marketing.

I once got a second place at a tae kwon do championship.

We where only 2 guys at my weight class there. Does that makes me a "Top 5 state championship fighter"?

Certainly not. But I could brag abut it to anyone who wasnt there.

If I wanted to.

[lonewolf]

I read the 4 Hour Work Week and started my first internet business about a month after. Followed his blueprint to the T.

It's now making me a good $1000 a month.

I wouldn't say what he wrote was really new or unknown, but I haven't found it anywhere else so nailed down. I literally just followed his blueprint and it was a no-brainer.

I'm indebted to that man.

[kazushu]

The book sells a lot of pipe dreams but for people who are at the tipping point and have the pieces in place to work online or from home and just need a nudge, it can be the catalyst that gets them going. It did that for me and I've been working while traveling from the inspiration the book gave me since 2010.

[Felix]

Behind Tim Ferriss is Ryan Holiday, Media Manipulator, Unorthodox Marketing Strategist. Author of Trust Me, I'm Lying.

Tim Ferriss is all marketing and all of his books should set off red flags that are consumed by the masses for EZ quick fixes in life.

Ryan Holiday literally got his start editing Robert Greene's wikipedia who referred him to Tim Ferriss to edit HIS wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Holiday
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying

Ryan Holiday is actually a cool guy and his new book on stoicism is a great read as well as his other marketing books.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Obstacle-Is-Way...1591846358
http://www.reddit.com/user/ryan_holiday

He is the face of Growth Hacking which is basically techniques for going viral in the tech age.

http://www.reddit.com/r/GrowthHacking/

I learned about Ryan through Robert Greene as he was an understudy of his and I'm a huge fan of Greene's work.

Here are Ryan's clients: http://brasscheck.net/

Tim Ferriss also has a new podcast on iTunes and his latest guest was Ryan Holiday himself promoting his new book.

Tim Ferriss' quote on Ryan:

Quote:

Ryan is part Machiavelli, part Ogilvy, and all results. From American Apparel to quiet campaigns he's run but not taken credit for, this whiz kid is the secret weapon you've never heard of.

I could go on for awhile. I'm surprised no one has pointed this trail out yet.

[heavy]

Bump because...well because of the fascinating stuff this guy produces. Stumbled across this interview with him for his The Four Hour Chef book...which I'm going to go pick up from the library.

It sounds like Chef isn't just a continuation of his 4H series of books, but more of an all-inclusive how to for learning and life.

It's a good interview, whether you're a fan, a hater, a doubter, never heard of him, or whatever. You can tell what a brain he is the way he rattles off little facts and details of things he studied and wrote about years ago.