May 26th, 2009: I couldn’t get to sleep last night because of this book. (read part 1 of the review here) It just had me completely wound up in all the possibilities that exist for us to really take control of our lives. The world is changing. The old models of education, learning, teaching, publishing, and content-sharing are really starting to seem like they’re on their way out – or rather, that the premises and suppositions supporting them are on their way out. Of course we’ll always have traditional print and news media, etc. alongside the newer forms. But with so much “democratization” of content production it’s really a whole new game.
I realize this is by no means a new sentiment. It’s been lauded for over a decade now in magazines like Wired and now fully taking over with discussions of “Web 2.0.” There’s a good and less good side of it for everyone. Life gets faster with much more convenience, but that also means we need to work harder at relaxing.
One thing you might realize reading this book is that it might be time for you to tune up your own game to “keep up” in a way that benefits you. I’m not talking about keeping up with the Joneses, or being busy for busy’s sake or self-improvement for self-improvement’s sake. I just mean that it’s easy for us to get sucked into our routines: we spend so much time trying to craft out what works for us, that we may not notice that part of our life has also disappeared behind the veil of routine. A well-oiled machine makes no noise.
I’ve made it to about page 90 in the book so far, and if this is all the book consisted of, it would be worth it. But there are another 190 pages or so to go!
“Do the thing you can’t not do.” – Gina Trapani (Lifehacker.com)
Here are just a few! of the topics Fields touches on in the first third of the book:
- how to take advantage of information gaps in order to fulfill a niche need
- how to design and deliver your own educational programming – and get paid per view
- stories of how three BFA grads made it big by “repurposing” their fine art knowledge
- the success story behind Copyblogger.com (and how you can replicate it)
- the amazing backstory to Lifehacker.com
- how to set up your own franchise and licensing deals
- all the freelancing resources you could possibly ever need
- how to clone yourself and make your business scalable
The book is clearly a wealth of resources – less a sit-down and read in peace type of book than “get out your pen and paper and start making notes for yourself” type – Seth Godin’s blurb is dead on: get ready to get inspired and take action. Because this book isn’t much about theory and “good ideas” — after the first few chapters, it’s all resource that you can act on almost right away.
Do You Need To Read This Book?
It would take too long to cover the entire book here, and I like to leave some bits unmentioned anyway so that you have something completely new to discover for yourself, but I’ll try to summarize my evaluation here in a few take-home points.
1. The book is not just about getting you inspired. If you’re already fired up but don’t know details like how to incorporate your business or how to determine if there’s a market for what you’re thinking about selling, this book shows you how to do all the nitty-gritty stuff too. In fact that makes it an even leaner, meaner machine – it bypasses much of the flowery details, assuming you already know where you’re headed and that you just need a set of wheels to get there.
2. Imagine the Four-Hour Work Week more deeply integrated with social media and “web 2.0″. Same principles, plus all the details on how to run everything online. From Firefox add-ons and privacy issues to Facebook polls and iTunes education, this book (released early 2009) is the most up-to-date you’ll find right now (which is not to say it’s about to become obsolete – the principles and tips in here will continue to remain relevant once you get started on them).
3. If you’re not taking advantage of the wealth of resources in this book, your competitor already is! Not to say that there are only a few winners in this game, but the brute fact is that we’re all behind if we’re not up to speed on some of the stuff in these pages. If you want to get ahead you need to know what the current average speed is of the rest of the market. This book gives you the pulse on what’s happening in internet marketing and lifestyle design business technologies.
In fact, there seems to be so much in here that will allow you to bootstrap your way to financial independence based on what you already love doing, that I’d even suggest this book might be all you need to do it.
May 27, 2009 (eve): I’m still only at page 157 and I’m still blown away by the ideas I’m getting now that I have this information. I seriously doubt that you could make it this far yourself and not feel the same way. If you want more information before buying his book, check out his site: Career Renegade, where you can also download a free copy of the introduction.
Have you already read it? Am I being too generous with these compliments?:) Let me know what you think in the comments below!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The compliments are only too many if they’re disingenuous. If these are motivating and helpful to you than let the compliments fly.
“I just mean that it’s easy for us to get sucked into our routines: we spend so much time trying to craft out what works for us, that we may not notice that part of our life has also disappeared behind the veil of routine. A well-oiled machine makes no noise.”
A very interesting thought. I’ve added this book to my list to consider reading (which unfortunately keeps growing WAY faster than I cross them off)!
BTW, saw your Twitter updates about upgrading to 2.7.1. I remember how nervous I was the first time I upgraded (I held out for a long time because I was certain I was going to screw up), but it went fine. After you’ve done it once it gets a lot easier and quicker.
@SMI – hopefully the comments are helpful to others, as well!:)
@Blake – yes, it took 4 hours, but the upgrade seems to have worked OK. I’m told it’s all auto-update from here on in, so that’s good.