I’m going to warn you right now, this post has nothing to do with RepRap or MakerBot.

Three years ago I was  unemployed with a big fat mortgage payment.  The year that followed my newfound unemployment was a roller coaster.  I took contract work for others, I had a few small clients of my own, taught myself how to program in PHP/MySQL, built my first website, tried to turn that website into a business, did some freelance programming, and generally did whatever I could do in order to make ends meet.  It was an exciting and scary time.  About a year after becoming unemployed I accepted an unsolicited job offer and have been there ever since.

I wish that I had read Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week and Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start back then.1  I just finished reading the FHWW for the first time and I’m glad I bought it.  Like Reality Check and The Art of the Start before it, these are books I’m positive I will be using as reference manuals.  It would have been sooo helpful to have Guy’s book around when I started my first website business.  I needn’t have learn so many lessons the hard way.

The same goes for the FHWW.  Tim’s book includes a lot of advice that would have been invaluable to me as an unemployed entrepreneur-by-circumstance2 .  Basically, when I had a surplus of time and deficit of money.  With a steady job I no longer have a deficit of money3 , but I do have a deficit of time.  Some days I will daydream about what I could accomplish if only I had a little more time in the day.  I won’t know until I try, but the Four Hour Work Week may just be my chance to find out.

Suffice it to say, I’ve read both books and will probably re-read both again soon.  If you’re unemployed or want to start a business4 , you should definitely pick up both of these books.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled nonsense.  :)

1. Guy’s new book Reality Check is an updated and expanded version of “The Art of the Start.” [↩]
2. As opposed to an entrepreneur-by-choice [↩]
3. And, by no means a surplus!  Haha! [↩]
4. Perhaps a MakerBot or RepRap based business? [↩]