4 Hour Workweek - Tim Ferriss

On the whole, it's a very entertaining book, and it certainly made me rethink about how I'm doing things in my life. Tim is a good writer - he made a compelling vision and easily convinces the reader that a 4 hour workweek life is easy to achieve. However, I think hard work ultimately is necessary to get one to one's destination, and I bet Tim worked real hard to get to where he is today.

Nonetheless, he paints a compelling picture that stirs something within me to want to ultimately get to the endpoint he has painted. And he has very good ideas/ principles that we should learn from:

1. Lifestyle design - We need to rethink about the current paradigm of "working till you are half dead before enjoying the fruits of retirement at 62". There are too many important moments and experiences along the way that should not be missed. We have to build "mini retirements" into each and every station in our lives.
2. Pareto principle - Or otherwise known as the 80-20 rule. One needs to be able to let go of the 80% that contributes little to one's final destination either in life or in career. Many times when we fret and get sidelined about the small things, we need to take a step back and refocus our energies on the 20% that matters most. E.g. as the middle manager in my branch, while vetting and picking up grammatical errors in submissions is important, the 20% that I should be doing is: (i) setting the vision and strategy and (ii) training my team to no longer need me to vet. Often I don't do this enough.
3. Managing processes - Eliminate and automate processes whenever possible. This should become second nature rather than a "do-it-once-a-year" kind of a review. For example, if I can eliminate myself from the decision process, do it. Understand the risks, apply the 80/20 rule, and manage the risks. The benefits often outweigh the risks.
   
4. Hobbies - The book awakened in me my memories of how much joy learning something new and becoming good at it is. Tim's "mini-retirements" are pretty much times when he takes 2-3 months off to immerse himself completely in learning and perfecting a new skill or simply immersing in a new experience.
   
5. Business as the way to go - Based on his story, it seems to validate the reality that owning a business is the only way to optimise the income-time tradeoff (after one's business is up and running, that is!). Other jobs all require one to invest more and more time as one moves higher in appointment or in wage.
6. Wealth, money and time - We should stop thinking of wealth in terms of money. Having an abundance of time to do the things one wants to do is a form of wealth. By being creative, one can actually find experiences that one can relish with one's time without too much cost. Once this is achieved, one realises that being a millionaire is really not necessary for one to have a good life. In fact, having loads of money and no time makes one really poor!

I must say that there are many other ideas in Tim's book that I did not feel are key to my life right now. And there is certainly alot of bashing going on online about how he is just a snake-oil salesman. But I really do think that the book has given me a hard shake-up, and my lenses a good wipe. I'm seeing my life in new light again.

Made in America - The Walmart Story

Sam Walton grew Walmart from just one store in 1962 into 8,500 stores worldwide today employing about 2 million people. This is quite an amazing feat to accomplish within one lifetime, and I hoped to learn a little about how Sam achieved this.

My initial guess was sheer tenacity, attention to details, relentless focus on efficiency and customer service. Sam was probably really good at putting good people where they can contribute the most. The book bore some of these out, but there are also other important lessons within:

1. Focus on training employees. Sam set up the Walton institute to train his employees, particular those without degrees. This mirrors what Jack did at GE.
2. The bigger that Walmart got, the more important it is that we think small. Sam's lesson here is that one needs to stay focused on the little things that one used to diligently abide by when one was starting out even as one progressed and became more successful. In Walmart's case, he cited examples like treating customers well, greeting them, and discussing the performance of individual stores at management meetings (wow the attention to detail!) And Sam warns against stifling ground up innovation as the bureaucracy grew.
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Communication becomes more and more critical as the company grows, so that everyone is on the same page and good practices are spread quickly throughout the network. Platforms include computers, phone calls and many meetings! He said: Communicate everything to your partners. The more they understand, the more they will care. The moment they care enough, there's no stopping them.
   
4. Push responsibility and authority down, while forcing ideas to bubble up. Sam used this mantra a number of times. He wants to empower people on the ground, especially those with the passion and ambition, to help the company grow. At the same time, he helps ideas "bubble up" through encouraging people to raise ideas at meetings, and personally visiting each and every of his stores to pick up good ideas.
   
5. Reduce layers. Bureaucracies tend to fix problems by introducing new "layers", or extra personnel. Sam's philosophy is to stay lean and to limit the number of layers.
6. Hands on. Sam was a completely hands-on executive. He literally visited all his competitors' stores, taking notes and learning everything he could from them. He continued doing this even when Walmart was already expanding like wildfire in the US. Such dedication!
   
7. Commit to your goal. Sam said that he believed that he overcame all his hurdles simply by the force of passion.
   
8. Treat your associates as partners. In other words, give all your top executives a stake in the future of the company.
9. Celebrate your successes. Everyone likes to be on a winning team, and hence it is important to create that culture within the team.
   
10. Listen to EVERYONE in your company. And figure out ways to get them to talk to you. He really meant listen - he wants to know what is going on from his associates.
    
11. Exceed your customers' expectations. This one's standard, but absolutely important.
12. Control your expenses better than all your competition.

And lastly, he said that it is ok to ignore all of these "rules" from time to time and "swim upstream". Be prepared for people to tell you that things would not work.

All in all, a very good book that provided a good insight into how Sam thought and operated. His tenacity and commitment to growing his company was the main trait that jumped out at me. He really gave his company his all. I believe that he must have had tremendous energy to be able to run thousands of stores and yet drive each one to operate at the peak efficiency to remain at the forefront of competition. However, it is also enlightening that he said in his last chapter that he definitely had moments when he wondered if he was putting in too much for the company and it was time to lay back. (He did say that he would probably make the same choices if he could live his life again.) Seems like great accomplishments clearly require great sacrifices.