The 4-Hour Dentist
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bygonebureau.com
Am I seriously the only person on HN who has gotten useful, effective stuff from both of Tim's books? Does everyone just hate him because he's such an effective promoter that they assume he must be selling snake oil?
4HWW led me to quit my job and start freelancing, spend three months traveling through Asia, build some online passive income streams, and generally have a healthier respect towards my time and how I spend it. The 4 Hour Body has led me to completely change my diet over the last 6-8 weeks and I feel incredible, better than I have in a long time.
I know I'm not the only one, but am I the only one on HN?
Taken like that, it's not an attack, just some gentle ribbing. And it's not even directed at Tim per really -- it's the rest of us who eagerly buy into such over the top nonsense that's really being made fun of.
(I haven't read the book or know from Tim. But I'm very familiar with this style of writing. In my 20s I bought all sorts of these books and tapes, so this style has been around for a long time)
"To be honest lady, Tim Ferriss is the ONLY REASON I FOUND YOU."
Posted by Sasha on June 3, 2010 at 3:17 pm | permalink"
pretty much sums it up.
4HB I can say that I don't feel like I've gotten anything of value from it. I felt really disappointed and let down by it. I also felt like some of the advice in there was so wrong it bordered on being dangerous.
Tim Ferris is highly controversial on HN. He's got a lot of supporters and a lot of detractors on here. I've been both.
As for the 4-Hour dentist, I think that it was really funny. Actually laughed.
Note: the above would have to be done without breaking a smile.
Actually, I guess it depends what you mean by self-help: I enjoyed "Getting Things Done" and "Crush It!"...do those count?
I do wonder why HN readers seem to dislike Tim's books so much.
HOWEVER, he has data to back up a lot of his claims and a lot of the tips he gives are great. So if it takes some of these techniques to sell, maybe it's worth it. His books are a lot more substantial than other self-help books.
Salesman first, maker second. That's backwards in these here parts.
It actually shows something about the HN crowd. We're actually susceptible to marketing; the stuff we value is stuff that doesn't look like 4 hour workweek, even if it might work better.
EDIT: It's actually Robert Kiyosaki, how embarassing.
Roert Kiyosaki wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kiyosaki
Robert Kiyosaki is the hack who wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad, a book that advocates highly risky real estate maneuvers and multi-level marketing. His books are endorsed by the newest incarnation of Amway.
"A number of people asked me about Robert T. Kiyosaki and his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. When I said I didn’t think he was a real-estate guru, they insisted he was. Several told me I would like him, that he preaches a message like mine. Eager to find such a guru, I bought his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, in a bookstore.
Summary Rich Dad, Poor Dad is one of the dumbest financial advice books I have ever read. It contains many factual errors and numerous extremely unlikely accounts of events that supposedly occurred.
Kiyosaki is a salesman and a motivational speaker. He has no financial expertise and won’t disclose his supposed real estate or other investment success.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad contains much wrong advice, much bad advice, some dangerous advice, and virtually no good advice."
You have to admit the description of assets and liabilities (85% of the book) is spot on and excellent advice for many people. Look at any Indian immigrant with taxi medallions or franchises.
Four Hour Work Week (despite not having THAT much actionable information for me) was the book that inspired me to stay in business for myself when times got tough.
Maybe Four Hour Body will be the book that inspires me to not be fat, who knows.
I was just in a miserable mood and relief came in an unexpected place. Cheers!
(sorry this is off topic to the rest)
Unfortunately, these messages are (1) packaged in the form of breathlessly-sold, instant-results snake oil; (2) explicitly modeled on the past 20 years of Men's Health and Cosmopolitan magazine covers; (3) contain obnoxious levels of social signaling and influence-via-association.
The reality is the above three factors are what have contributed the most to his renown. People want to instantly become wealthy, famous, and desirable with zero effort. They want to believe that someone (anyone) can provide these things, and they're willing to pay money on the off-chance they're able to deliver. They want to be associated with someone who travels around the world, hangs out with famous people all day, and seemingly succeeds in everything.
Ferriss promises people exactly what they want, so they buy. Simple as that.
The operative question for all of us on HN: what Ferriss does clearly works. Do you choose to emulate him? Why or why not?
Why? 1) TF accomplishes things first, and then publishes these accomplishments - martial arts, ballroom dancing, swimming, building muscle mass - he really did these things.. better than others. 2) Regarding the substance of his book, nearly all important info is either grounded in his direct experience, or referenced by thoroughly researched science. He picks his words very carefully when making claims. 3) TF is goal oriented and rational in his approach to learn skills.
Yea, I wish his writing style was a bit different.. I'm just more cerebral than his average reader. However, when TF releases the '4-hour Promoter', I will be buying this. His promotion skills are just another area he has mastered. This guy is not a natural promoter, rather he is a golden example of how to learn skills and apply them with measurably improvable results.. his ability to promote is just another example.
The formula works: promise people they too can become a NYT bestseller, speak at TED, and get invited to Davos in less than four hours of effort.
Your question is interesting though: if you have genuinely good content (or functionality), do you market it as aggressively as possible, knowing that if you don't, less useful stuff by superior marketers is going to win out? Doesn't game theory indicate that you should, if you want to positively impact as many as possible?
If you can semi-credibly promise to give people instant results in wealth, physique, sex, etc - your offer will sell.
The real question isn't whether or not you choose to market your offer aggressively. It's whether or not you choose to enter those specific (proven) markets, using that specific (proven) approach, knowing full well that you're intentionally exaggerating for the sake of attention and results.
Personally, I've intentionally made the decision not to go that route. It makes my job more difficult, but it's a tradeoff I'm willing to make.
Well... sure. We can, right?
Step one: Phone Carnegie Hall. Ask them how much it costs to rent the place for a while. They do that, as attested by this rentals page:
http://www.carnegiehall.org/article/the_basics/art_hall_rent...
It is probably quite a lot, but it may be less than you think.
Step two: Find some musicians with actual talent to fill out your program at the Hall. Hint: Classical music students are not rich. And they love to perform. And they're astonishingly talented.
Better idea: There are a bunch of college a-capella groups. There are a bunch of high school music groups. All those folks might love to perform at Carnegie Hall. Especially if it's an event with a bunch of other groups. And their parents might love to come. And their friends.
Step three: Schedule your concert. Charge enough admission to cover the cost of the hall and whatever you have to pay your musicians. Donate any leftover money to a charity. Preferably one with lots of supporters who want to come and fill out your audience at Carnegie Hall.
Step four: Come up with something you can play during your more-than-slightly-comedic opening act. I'm a banjo player, so naturally I suggest the banjo. It sounds cheerful and three chords will get you through a lot of folk repertoire. Fallback position: The kazoo. (But don't overstay your welcome. The joke will get old very fast.)
And you're on!
What have we all learned from this Ferris-esque exercise?
A) Being a concert promoter is not, in fact, rocket science. (Being a consistently profitable concert promoter is a different matter. But that isn't our necessarily our goal, is it?)
B) Oops, by "make Carnegie Hall" we didn't actually mean "stand on stage at Carnegie Hall and play an instrument in a way which entertains hundreds of people". Not just that. No, we meant something much more intangible and ineffable and... well, unobtainable. We want to Arrive, whatever that means. What does that mean? Perhaps we should think about that. And what of all the people who have made it to Carnegie Hall, many times, to public acclaim, but still have found themselves unsatisfied or even terrified? (Did you know that Vladimir Horowitz retired from live performance at the height of his career because of debilitating stage fright?)
Take for example the 4-Hour body's section on ultrarunning. I'm training for a marathon so I know how hard it is, yet the way it's written about in the book is (to my recollection - don't have my copy here) "20 minutes 3 times a week and you can run 50K". Then you read closer, and closer, and there are detailed training schedules with some long runs, and it's actually sensible - but the initial wow is definitely along the lines of snake oil.
I think Tim just knows what will get people to bite, but underneath it all he also knows how to achieve (most of) the things he writes about.
1) Common-sensical faffery ("Don't waste time!")
2) Meaningless, feel-good faffery ("You have all the power you need, right inside you!")
3) Snake oil ("Hold a magnet to your head for four hours a week and become a Nietzschian Ubermensch!")
None of these categories are really valuable content, so self-help books get a reputation as blatant time-wasters at best (due to the copious faffery) and harmful scams at worst (due to the snake oil). When somebody says something sounds like a "typical self-help book," most of the time they're really saying it sounds like one or more of those things.
What I'm saying makes perfect sense to people who can't stand the industry and Tim Ferris. I don't know what it looks like to you.
There will always be people who love something, regardless of what it is, and whether it works or not.
Tim's books have some worthwhile advice backed by solid data and also some very anecdote-based conclusions. If you're not flat out calling him a liar, his methods have worked for at least himself. That's all that he claims. If you want to know if they'll work for you, try some of them or do the research yourself.
No, no, that's not true. What he suggest to his readers, like low carb diet, or no-news diet is quite a hard work.
I've seen various endorsements here on HN of the diet and the training regimen. In both cases I have a point to make: almost all of you are seeing novice gains.
Strength coaches recognise this phenomenon. The novice can see amazing gains in hypertrophy and strength in a short time with very little stimulus because they have never had to adapt before. Their capacity for adaptation is barely tapped by infrequent training and they're coming off a low base. It is not uncommon to see total newbs put on a decent weights program add substantial weight to both bar and body in 8 weeks.
In fact, novices are so underadapted that almost any training at all will see improvements in strength. Riding a bicycle will improve squat maxes, for the novice.
Likewise with diets. Often folk swear by diet X because it works for them. One of three things is usually happening:
1. It's their first diet, and they're simply having a caloric deficit for the first time in their lives.
2. They're still enthusiastic and regimented when they make the endorsement. Boredom has yet to set in and sabotage the gains.
3. They're an experienced dieter, having tried quite a few; but this particular diet just so happens to fit their particular combination of taste, hormonal cycles, insulin resistance, adipose senstivity juuuust right.
It's not linear. Did you gain/lose 10kg this month? Don't count on it next month. Maybe 9. Don't count on it for a year, either. In my first month serious weight training I added 60kg to my squat max. If progress was linear I should be squatting several tons by now.
But it isn't. Eventually you require more and more stimulus to disrupt homeostasis, to force new adaptation of the muscle, bone, tendon, nervous, cardiovascular and endocrine systems.
Take my sport: Olympic weightlifting. When I first started I went from naked bar to snatching 60kg in about 6 weeks. On a linear basis I would be snatching 750kg or so at this point, which would make the world-record holder by a factor of 3. Of course that doesn't happen, currently I am just shy of snatching 120kg.
With a goal of snatching 130kg in March, I am now training twice a day, four days a week.
Elite-level international competitors in my sport will train 3-6 times per day, 6 days per week. At the elite level it takes enormous stimulus to cause adaptation. 4 hours per month, let alone per week, just isn't going to work.
One more thing. Apparently Feriss mentions hCG in his book as an aid to sexual performance. Does he mention that its major use as post-cycle therapy for steroid users? Because, to be quite honest, I would be surprised to find any iron sport enthusiast using hCG who wasn't also performing the twist-and-jab exercise first.
Yes, generalizing - yes, a select few people will read this kind of press then go out and change their life, start a series of successful endeavors and make love like a wild badger / hamster / emu / whatever the popular animal is for the moment, but from my general experience of the kind of people that love these books, it's a form of fantasy or escapism.
I'm surprised your reply didn't get downvoted to hell simply because it injects spades of uncomfortable, sweaty reality to this specific kind of goal. Tim Ferris' achievements seem to be the intersection of several other significant bodies of work / effort that contributed to easing the pathway to achieving other things, but they are sold as if he woke up a few weeks ago and made it all happen.
Most people will need to at least invest significant material or psychological effort to get to the point where they can enable similar actions, but it's not going to bother the majority because they'll never get to that point of action - testing the validity of a fantasy tends to destroy the associated pleasure.
Edit: The similar scenario I always think of with 4HWW is the Banksy / Exit through the gift shop / Mr Brainwash thing - the guy basically outsourced everything to do with an art show (including the creation of art), crammed it all into the shortest window possible, and only _just_ scraped through the process (while destroying his health and having what looked like a complete breakdown). Additionally he created no lasting value or developed any meaningful skills (in either art or event co-ordination). Made some money, sure, but I'm not entirely sold in the tradeoff there.
...but from my general experience of the kind of people that love these books, it's a form of fantasy or escapism.
I'm also not familiar with these books (except for discussions of them on HN, where they get a lot of negative comments). I'm American -- born and raised -- but come from a multicultural background and can't relate to a lot of popular American stuff. The above comments make me think/wonder if this is an American phenomenon, kind of like how everyone talks about wanting to win the lottery. I get all kinds of flack for rolling up my sleeves and working to resolve my problems. Americans seem to have the hardest time with that. Maybe it is selection bias, but foreign friends seem to have a much easier time wrapping their head around the choices I have made to genuinely resolve problems that are supposed to be "unresolvable".
My anecdotal observation is that people who have a huge love of Christmas and theme parks are typically people with their head in the sand, who only want escapism and god forbid that you offer them a real solution. That might involve work. That might involve being uncomfortable. That might lead to divorce or changing jobs or something.
Sigh.
It was about 15 pages long, and can be summarized as "go and find some heavy things, then lift and drag them around for the rest of your life. Don't skip any days in between. Expect results in 3-6 years". The book itself is pretty useless, but it was a reflection of "there's no science here, just start".
I'm putting some hyperbole in that, but it was a distinct change for me at the time. Not saying I've got everything solved, but as a general rule if something causes me to spend more time imagining doing things than actually doing things, I try to avoid it.
One of the aspects in all this that incites the want to attack the style of book is that some of this is basic beyond books, beyond anything else - eg, if you want to lose weight, eat less and get off your ass. You don't need a book, or a hack, or even clever thought about it. Go the hell outside and move around a lot.
Full disclosure: I'm an Australian as well.
Superficially, I am white, I am American and I am middle class. This causes many people to view me as culturally "white middle class American", which is not really accurate. It gets me into hot water because it causes my behavior to be wildly misinterpreted at times. I don't really do Christmas and other American holidays anymore. I don't see any real value in it. It's like a cultural meme of "salvation" -- knight in shining armor, Santa Claus, lottery tickets. I stopped speaking to one woman who was constantly whining to me about her utterly prosaic problems (as if they were the worst problems ever in the history of human kind and no one else had any) but turned a deaf ear to all attempts to gently suggest she do something about it. Her answer to absolutely everything was: It's someone else's fault and I'm going to win the lottery.
The foreign friends you have are in the US because they are hard workers, they are not hard workers because they are foreign.
A lot of the foreign friends I have had I have only known online. They were not in the US but usually in some other country. I used to have really bad insomnia and when it was 3am in California, most of America was asleep. But it was midday elsewhere and there were people awake in such places and willing to talk to me. Nor did I mean to indicate they were specifically "hard workers". But they were people who understood doing things that are uncomfortable on many levels, making really big sacrifices for something one values and so on in a way that seems alien to many Americans.
I have a form of cystic fibrosis and I have given up all my furniture and I sleep on the floor. I can't tell you how many people I have met online who are desperately ill and would clearly rather die a slow torturous death than contemplate giving up their couch. I can't relate to the idea of desperately clinging to your material possessions when they are helping to kill you and they cannot relate to my choice to have almost no possessions in order to be drug free and breathe without pain. Foreigners are typically much more understanding of that choice and are much more likely to be civil to me on a CF list where many Americans openly attack me and moderators frequently side with my attackers.
Europeans often have more holidays and do more traveling than Americans but don't usually have as many material possessions -- like a TV in every room of the house -- and aren't generally as steeped in North American "affluenza". It is a different set of values.
The thesis of the 4-hour body is to understand as much of the science as meaningful, and then to do the absolute minimum in terms of diet and exercise in order to improve your body. As you know, the book is written for a general audience.
As an elite athlete, it may be easy for you to look at the situation and say 'you are seeing novice gains'. But thats not the point. The point is that the book is a knowledge repository for me to accomplish the goals the author has set forth.
Instead of just criticizing, perhaps you can offer a suggestion for a better alternative of a knowledge repository aimed at the goals and the audience Tim Ferriss is trying to impact?
And my point is that the absolute minimum is all you need to get novice gains, in any system. High reps, low reps. High frequency, low frequency. High intensity, low intensity. High density, low density. High volume, low volume. High tempo, low tempo. They will all work for the novice, just not very long. Nothing I have heard about this book changes this fact.
> Instead of just criticizing, perhaps you can offer a suggestion for a better alternative of a knowledge repository aimed at the goals and the audience Tim Ferriss is trying to impact?
For novices, the go-to golden standard is Starting Strength by Rippetoe. He's a strength coach with decades of both practical and research experience. I'd back him in a controlled twin study against Feriss for AU$1000 right now.
At a novice level there is a minimum amount of work that can be done to get the desired outcome. Further, an intermediate or professional athlete also has a minimum amount of work that can be done to get their desired outcome. In every goal, no matter what your experience or skill level, there is a minimum amount of work for the desired outcome.
How do you quantify this minimum amount of work is? The 4 hour body prescribes a methodology of continual trial and measurement. That is what the book is about.. applying this principle to your goals for your own body. And, he has sections in the book for both beginners and more experienced athletes.
Occams Protocol, as the book refers to it, is really a brilliant principle if you can just remove yourself from your expertise in this subject for one minute.
Starting Strength looks great. I started lifting about 15 years ago - my first read was Arnold's 'Encyclopedia of Body Building'. Either of those books would take me a few weeks to really absorb. The Four hour body took me about 6 hours to read, it encouraged me to cut back my workouts from 6 hours per week to 3 hours per week - so far with solid results. That is significant, that is important to me - that is something that I would like to share with other people.
btw, I would not take your bet, however, if that challenge was to happen, I would not bet against Tim Ferriss.
OK. Admittedly I am attacking my own impression of a book I don't own (and don't plan to). Technically I am beating up a strawman, which is always an uneven fight.
> How do you quantify this minimum amount of work is? The 4 hour body prescribes a methodology of continual trial and measurement. That is what the book is about.. applying this principle to your goals for your own body.
Thank you for the best point made yet. I think it's great to experiment on yourself. I keep a log for more or less this purpose. However, it is problematic to generalise from "this worked awesomely for me" to "this will work awesomely for everyone forever", because novice gains dry up fast.
> Starting Strength looks great. I started lifting about 15 years ago - my first read was Arnold's 'Encyclopedia of Body Building'. Either of those books would take me a few weeks to really absorb
Yeah, I had Arnold's book in high school. Spent hooooours in the gym doing every variation of shoulder exercise known to man. My only really fond memory of the book is that it insisted on squatting and by god I did lots of them. Squats have never let me down.
> The Four hour body took me about 6 hours to read, it encouraged me to cut back my workouts from 6 hours per week to 3 hours per week - so far with solid results.
I am very pleased it is working for you. I note in passing that Starting Strength aims for 3 workouts of 45 minutes duration -- less time than you are spending now.
Edit: a good book to follow Starting Strength is Practical Programming for Strength Training, by Rippetoe et al.
Outside of those 8 weeks, the benefits are going to rapidly decrease, and then you're going to need a bit more science to continue with.
When you focus on problems becoming an entrepreneur you won't become an entrepreneur. When you focus on health you will get healthier. Nothing new here. So I don't think parent missed the point. But maybe for some Tim Ferriss books are reminders to focus.
Interestingly I've also seen the complaint that "all strength coaches know that if you've already had training experience, it's very easy to regain muscle pounds". So you gain if you're a novice, you gain if you're experienced… you gain…
> Likewise with diet. Often folk swear by diet X because it works for them.
(added emphasis). So it works…
> It's not linear… Elite-level international competitors… just isn't going to work.
I doubt I would bother writing and marketing a book for such a minuscule audience, especially if they have little or nothing to gain from it.
> Apparently Feriss mentions hCG…
He does point out risks, and caveats and even writes that surely he'll be wrong on some things. I know that likely people will completely overlook that, but what can you do more than explicitly point out things this way.
There are parts of his work with which I disagree, or at least believe the advice could be different, better, more specific, or in cases more general, but I also get "filled with dread, suspicion and an instinctual need to take a piss" when some just decide to offer such negative appraisals even when they "haven't read any of his books".
As they say, to each their own.
Regaining lost strength happens fast for two reasons.
1. Neural adaptations last longer than muscular adaptation.
2. A detrained, previously elite athlete has the same untapped recovery capacity as the novice.
> (added emphasis). So it works…
For a while. Added emphasis. And you cannot draw universal conclusions from anecdotes, no matter how compelling. What works for you may not work for me, except insofar as both diets will require caloric deficit to do anything.
You're right that I may be attacking a strawman, but honestly, miraculous workout/diet regimes are not new to the iron sports universe. The critiques of one apply almost universally and without exception to the others. Aside from anabolic steroids, there are no silver bullets.
Credit also to my first Oly coach, Jack Walls. He churns out record-breakers like a factory.
[1] aka Mohamed F. El-Hewie.
> "filled with dread, suspicion and an instinctual need to take a piss"
To take the piss, not a piss: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_the_piss
If your fitness base is extremely low because you spend all day, every day sitting down, then any regular training program is going to force your body to adapt. But once you do adapt, you will need to either change programs, increase the intensity, or increase the frequency in order to continue seeing gains. This is simply because your body has adapted to those fitness requirements.
Of course, with a whole lot of knowledge and a whole lot of self-control, you could be more effective, but Ferriss's whole idea is being effective with minimal effort.
I anticipate losing another 15-20lbs this next month. I'll report back then, the next time a 4HB criticism is posted here.
I'm hoping somebody can provide a direct link that demonstrates just how wonderfully the OP nailed the style of Tim's book!
"Be careful of reading health books. You might die of amisprint." - Mark Twain
People love a system. LOVE A SYSTEM.
Anything that promises to take the work of determining what will lead to success out of an equation will be wildly popular.
"Always Eat Before 9pm" "Don't Sell on a Monday" "Drink 43.2mL of water per dollar you earn"
will all, ALWAYS, be more popular then "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Why do we need to know this? Because your startup will be more likely to succeed if it presents a systematic solution to a problem (OMG OPINION).
"Hello, ladies, look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse."
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone
playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with
unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in
twenty minutes. I...
http://lesswrong.com/lw/3nn/scientific_selfhelp_the_state_of...
Words of wisdom in any age. Utterly fantastic.