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