Scott Hanselman

Hanselminutes Podcast 70 - Interview with Timothy Ferriss, Author of the 4 Hour Workweek

June 29, 2007 Comment on this post [7] Posted in Podcast
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The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss My seventieth podcast is up.  In this episode I sit down with New York Times Best Selling Author Timothy Ferriss of the 4-Hour Workweek. Tim has an interesting take on how to focus on what's important in your life and offers techniques to be more effective. Scott comes at it from the programmer's perspective. Photo courtesy of John Lam.

DSC_0046If you have trouble downloading, or your download is slow, do try the torrent with µtorrent or another BitTorrent Downloader.

Do also remember the complete archives are always up and they have PDF Transcripts, a little known feature that show up a few weeks after each show.

Telerik is our sponsor for this show.

Check out their UI Suite of controls for ASP.NET. It's very hardcore stuff. One of the things I appreciate about Telerik is their commitment to completeness. For example, they have a page about their Right-to-Left support while some vendors have zero support, or don't bother testing. They also are committed to XHTML compliance and publish their roadmap. It's nice when your controls vendor is very transparent.

As I've said before this show comes to you with the audio expertise and stewardship of Carl Franklin. The name comes from Travis Illig, but the goal of the show is simple. Avoid wasting the listener's time. (and make the commute less boring)

Enjoy. Who knows what'll happen in the next show?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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June 29, 2007 23:08
Holy shit! (pardon my Cantonese) That's sweet! I literally just read his book a couple weeks ago and he's my new hero. ;) I told Rob Conery to read it and he's following its dictates like it's his personal bible. Looking forward to listening to this.
June 30, 2007 7:18
Extremely inspiring... he really struck me as being an intense person. I felt encouraged to hear that I follow many of the same rules that he does. I'm constantly turning ever day decisions into "happiness functions". As in poker, I try to come up with an EV (expected value) for the outcome. Ultimately, this leads me to decisions that create a more balanced life.
July 06, 2007 12:30
Wow This is brilliant Scott!

An excellent, very useful show, that is accessible to more than just the usual geeks! (I got my wife to listen to it and she found the discussion fascinating!)

Keep up the good work.
July 15, 2007 3:12
I could hardly hear what he was saying, but what I did hear... what a load of bollocks. Sounded like Anthony Robbins bullshit.
July 23, 2007 17:20
Scott,

I've think you've been taken in by this huckster.

He's shows his true character early in the book with his kickboxing story, winning by looking for loopholes and shortcuts. First by making the outrageous claim that he dehydrated himself for the weigh-in but gained back 23 (or was it 28?) pounds by the next day. Then, to disregard the spirit of the sport and win on a technicality of pushing his opponent out of the ring 3 times. I can understand it as a stunt to prove that the rules of the tournament need to be changed. I don't understand how he can be proud of his claimed achievement.

Is this the way you want to practice development, looking to dupe your clients with shoddy software, skipping 80% of your tests and quality checks and looking for loopholes in contracts? Perhaps you'd rather outsource all that and just watch the money roll in from some exotic location abroad.
Sam
July 23, 2007 22:21
Sam - Ya, the kickboxing story disturbed me as well. It's totally against the spirit of the sport. However, I enjoyed the book overall, particularly the time management ideas later on. Take it for what it is, an interesting aggregation of techniques, some good, some not.

I like your software development analogy...
August 04, 2007 2:56
Really enjoyed this episode. The interview definitely clicked with me. Would you be able to post the "reply" you received from his virtual assistant (minus incriminating info, of course)? After the podcast, I went to Itunes and purchased the audiobook, which I NEVER do. I normally get my audiobooks from my local public library... Anyway, great job.

Regards,

SW

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.