I know books like these are notorious for fluff and philosophical bs, but I wanted to be able to gain something out of it. And I did learn some motivating things, like resilience and courage but in the context of work, all of his advice felt generic and something plucked out of mental well-being articles. There were chapters dedicated to suggesting sites like Craigslist and VillaTourist to uproot our lives to our dream place and stay. Really? You don’t think the average person doesn’t know these resources you’re sharing? I could get distracted by something else while listening, then after coming to fully listen to it again, it’d be the same generic advice. Like I said, FLUFF.

Also ignorance. And creepiness. There was a part in the book where the author was giving a verbal pat on the back to a man who’d been able to quit his job and achieve financial freedom to travel to some tropical island and marry a Polynesian ‘babe’ . Yeah I can’t unhear the cringe in a white man fulfilling his American dream by having a foreign beauty on his arm. And this was supposed to encourage me to want to pursue the 4-hr work week. Riiiiiggghhht.

But my biggest issue was the morality and practicality of his advice to employees who wanted to do this. Outsourcing our work? Automating it? Yes I recommend doing this but this is Likely not possible for a blue collar worker to automate a hands on job or a Corporate 9-5’er (like myself) where “outsourcing” work with sensitive government information would spell a criminal sentence. Best case scenario, you’ll just get outright fired. Outsourcing your job is usually forbidden in an employee’s contract. Which then turns into for Ferris, “just try to become a contractor/consultant instead of an employee” .Like...is that supposed to be easier? Again with the delusions and out of touchness with reality.

So yeah. I won’t completely knock it because the intent and overall advice is genuine, but I would have NEVER read through 300 pages of it (thank god this was an audiobook)