How To Get Rich According To Tim Ferriss

There are a million ways to make a million dollars, and this is how Tim Ferriss did it. Tim Ferriss is someone we routinely follow because he's always doing something interesting or has something smart to say. Ferriss is a successful author, entrepreneur, investor, public speaker, and human guinea pig, as he likes to refer to himself. With an estimated net worth of over 100 million U.S. dollars, he's flipped the script on conventional wealth building.

Welcome to alux.com. So here's how to get rich according to Tim Ferriss, a series by alux.com. First up, you gotta design your life before your wealth. Tim Ferriss is known for coining the phrase "lifestyle design." He believes you shouldn't defer your life until you're too old to actually enjoy it. Instead, you should design your ideal life now and then find a way to afford it. This is an idea we also subscribe to.

So what does it actually mean, though? Before you make any deal and before you start any business, take a minute to imagine your perfect life. Where do you live? How does your house look? Who do you hang out with? What do you do on weekends? What do you look like? What do you wear? What do you eat every day? What kind of car do you drive? Where do you go on vacation? These types of questions help you to visualize what your ideal life actually looks like.

This is your design: a way to live your own life on your own terms and enjoying it to the fullest. You need to write this down to have a crystal clear idea, and after that, you go backwards. How much money, roughly, do you need to afford that? What kind of skills do you need to acquire to build that kind of wealth? What industry should you go into? What kinds of people do you need to meet? When you do this, you give your wealth journey a clear purpose. It's a lot easier to put in the work when you know exactly what you're working for.

Become a master of outsourcing. Ferriss's widely popular book, "The Four Hour Work Week," is based on this principle. It's more about optimizing your time and efforts rather than strictly working four hours a week, so let's get that out of the way first. Now, Tim Ferriss believes that you, as an entrepreneur, should solely focus on high-impact activities and create systems that allow for more freedom and flexibility.

So for this to happen, you need to first understand the value of your time and secondly find ways to massively increase it. This is also something Naval Ravikant suggests; only he goes backwards. He first sets up a ridiculously high hourly rate for himself, something like 10,000 U.S. dollars per hour, and then he finds a way to justify it. But regardless, what it means is you should put all of your energy into doing things that have a huge impact.

So that could be conceptualizing a new product that can bring another revenue stream into your income, having meetings with people that can open up important doors, or investing your time and energy into acquiring a new skill that can massively scale your business. This is where outsourcing comes in.

Let's say the things you do amount to about 1,000 U.S. dollars for an hour of your time. That means if you can outsource a task for less than that amount, it's generally a wise financial move to do it. As an entrepreneur, if your time is best spent on business development, then you shouldn't occupy it with anything else.

Becoming a master of outsourcing is about empowering yourself to live more fully and work more intelligently. It's about recognizing that we live in a world rich with talented individuals who can help you on your journey, and leaning on them is a strategic move.

Many retirements: Tim Ferriss likes to rebel against conventional ideas, and one that he's been really adamant about is the idea of retirement. He believes that working diligently for several decades with the hope of enjoying leisure time much later in life is just a bad plan. Instead, Ferriss challenges this notion with the concept of many retirements—a series of meaningful breaks throughout your life instead of one final grand retirement.

And there are several key benefits to this approach, and they all tie into you being a better entrepreneur. Firstly, it allows you time to rest, recharge, and gain new perspectives, making you more effective and possibly even more creative when you return to work. It also challenges the notion that your identity is tied to your career.

You've probably met the people whose whole personality is their work; that's all they talk about, that's all they do, and eventually most of them burn out and realize too late that endless grinding doesn't necessarily get you anywhere faster. But many retirements challenge the status quo and ask fundamental questions about what life and work are actually for.

If you don't get to enjoy the fruits of your labor throughout your life, you might find it pointless in the end. It's recently required a mindset shift, and Tim Ferriss loves it when he finds new ways to look at old ideas in order to get a deeper understanding of how life should be lived.

So what are these mini retirements? Well, think of them like breaks or sabbaticals that allow you to enjoy life, recharge, and think creatively about making money. They can last anywhere from one to three months or even six months to a year. They're not periods of spontaneous traveling and leisure, but more so periods of time where you take things super slowly and give yourself time to really think things through.

Imagine starting every year with the same energy you had the first time you started all of this.

Fear setting: Fear is one of the most powerful emotions you can feel, and Tim Ferriss suggests you should use it to your advantage. In essence, fear setting is about liberating yourself from the paralyzing effects of fear and reframing the way you approach life's decisions. Tim Ferriss introduces fear setting as a powerful exercise that, in many ways, is the counterbalance to goal setting.

While goal setting encourages you to outline the positive outcomes you want to achieve, fear setting encourages you to confront, deconstruct, and examine the fears that are preventing you from taking action. It's a structured approach to addressing the worst-case scenarios associated with making a significant decision or a change in one's life.

The process involves three fundamental steps:

1. Defining: Clearly articulate the fears that are holding you back. What are you afraid of? Get specific and get it all down on paper without judging yourself.
2. Preventing: For each fear, list the steps you can take to decrease the likelihood of it happening. This could include plans, actions, rules, or strategies.
3. Repairing: For each fear, consider how you would recover if it does happen. What would you do to set things right again?

Fear setting is so powerful because it brings clarity to ambiguous fears and creates a practical road map. It allows you to dissect your fears, understand them more clearly, and develop actionable plans. The exercise often reveals that many of our fears are either unlikely or not as bad as we imagine them to be, or are things that we can actually handle pretty well.

It helps to remove the paralysis that fear often induces and aids in rational, clear, and forward-thinking planning.

Invest in learning: Tim Ferriss is a big-time advocate for continuous learning as a means to personal and professional growth. He believes that investing time and resources in acquiring new skills or knowledge yields significant dividends throughout your entire life. For Ferriss, this isn't confined to formal education; no, no, it involves reading extensively, taking courses, engaging with mentors, and seeking new experiences that challenge and expand one's perspective.

Such an investment is not about immediate monetary returns; rather, it's about building a richer, more informed, and adaptable life. This mindset encourages people to view learning as a lifelong journey, emphasizing that the skills and knowledge you accumulate are assets that can open doors, solve problems, and enhance your understanding of the world. In essence, for Ferriss, learning is the best investment you could ever make in yourself; which is something that we wholeheartedly agree with, and that is why we built our e-learning platform and invested so much money in the Alux app.

Build a personal brand: This is something that he and Richard Branson, who we covered in the previous video, have in common. They both understand how powerful a brand can be and how to leverage it. You see, a strong personal brand becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. As you share value, your reputation grows. As your reputation grows, more opportunities arise, which in turn provides more value to share.

For Ferriss, building a personal brand is less about self-promotion and more about becoming a trusted, reliable source in your field, thereby attracting opportunities instead of having to constantly chase them. A personal brand doesn't mean being famous; it means that when you put your name on something, people expect quality, and that is extremely powerful.

Think big, but take super small steps: Tim Ferriss believes you should have bold and almost audacious goals. He believes that thinking big is the starting point to significant achievement. However, one thing he always mentions is that big goals are often overwhelming and intimidating, and it's very common for you to get paralyzed by the sheer scope of that goal.

It's also very common to have low morale and to burn out when you're working towards something that feels so far out of reach. And trust us, okay, low morale and burnout will kill any kind of momentum you might have. It's really hard to push through constantly; we as humans are not designed for things like this. Which is why Ferriss believes that with every big goal, there should be a series of smart tasks that can be done daily or, worst case, weekly.

Now, smart tasks is actually an acronym; it stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. You've heard this before. This approach helps to turn a seemingly insurmountable project into a series of small, achievable milestones. Ferriss suggests constantly focusing on these smaller tasks and making regular progress day by day.

This not only allows individuals to build momentum but also to instill a sense of accomplishment and motivation that fuels further action.

Network differently: Tim Ferriss is renowned for his unique approach to networking. Instead of the traditional role of accumulating a vast number of shallow connections, he advocates for fostering deeper, more meaningful relationships with a select group of individuals. For Ferriss, networking is less about quantity, more about quality. He seeks out connections that offer mutual value and foster genuine friendships.

One of his strategies involves bypassing the obvious big names in favor of what he calls the rising stars in various industries. Ferriss believes that it's often more beneficial to connect with individuals who are on their way up, as they are usually more responsive and more open to forming mutually beneficial relationships.

He also emphasizes the importance of offering value upfront when establishing a new connection. Instead of asking for favors when you first meet someone, Ferriss recommends starting off that relationship by helping the other person in some way. This could be through providing information that they would find useful, making an introduction to someone they would like to meet, or helping them to solve a problem that they're currently facing.

Master the art of saying no: Tim Ferriss has long emphasized the importance of mastering the art of saying no. In a world filled with endless opportunities, invitations, and requests, the ability to turn down what doesn't align with your goals and priorities is crucial. Ferriss argues that saying yes to everything is a fast track to stress and burnout, and ultimately dilutes your ability to focus on what is genuinely important.

For Ferriss, saying no is an exercise in setting boundaries and protecting one's time, energy, and attention. He often quotes the famous saying, "When you say yes to others, make sure you're not saying no to yourself." He understands that by refusing what doesn't serve us, we create the space for what does.

Moreover, Ferriss believes that saying no should not be viewed as a negative act; instead, it's a positive and proactive choice that enables us to commit to our own goals and priorities. It's not about being dismissive or selfish; it's about being intentional. To master this art, Ferriss suggests developing polite but firm scripts for declining offers and requests, and he advises practicing this so it becomes comfortable and a natural response.

He also underscores that saying no graciously, without lying or being confrontational, is a skill that can and should be cultivated.

And lastly, enjoy the journey. For Tim Ferriss, the journey toward achieving one's goals is just as important, if not more so, than the actual outcome. Ferriss consistently advocates for a lifestyle design that places value on the present moment and not just on some distant future reward. This perspective challenges the common assumption that hard work and sacrifice today will inevitably lead to happiness and satisfaction tomorrow.

"Enjoy the journey" is a mantra that encourages us to find contentment and satisfaction in the process rather than constantly deferring happiness until we reach some kind of certain milestone in the future. Ferriss believes in setting ambitious goals but also emphasizes the significance of appreciating all of the steps along the way—the learning, the challenges, the growth, and even the setbacks.

For Ferriss, enjoying the journey means making a conscious effort to live a full and meaningful life every day rather than waiting for someday. It's a reminder that life is happening right now, and that every moment is an opportunity to choose happiness and contentment.

And there you have it, my friend. These are ten things that we gathered from Tim Ferriss, from his knowledge on how to live the life you want. And of course, for those of you sticking with us until the end, we've got a bonus: Money is multiplied by the number of W's you control—what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it. For Tim Ferriss, the true value of money is the ability to allow you to take control of your time and life.

It's not about accumulating wealth in your bank account but a tool for crafting a life on one's own terms. If you liked this video, Alexa, you'll really love the one we did on Warren Buffett, which you can check out next right here or by clicking the link in the description. We'll see you back here next time. Alexa, take care.