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This is going to be kind of a short post today mainly because I’ve been feeling kind of gnarly for the last couple of days and I’m going to spend the rest of the day sitting on the couch with my MacAir laptop reading some blogs and listening to Frank Sinatra’s Nothing But The Best and some Fleetwod Mac songs I’m going to go get from iTunes in about 5 minutes. This is one of the nice benefits of working at home.

I’d much rather be a bit more active today and go through our regular shopping routine with my wife, but that’s the commitment I have to break today, not one where I have to phone the boss early in the morning and cough or sneeze over the phone to let them know I really don’t feel well. This is another nice benefit of working for yourself, not only can you sit around and do nothing all day (which I don’t recommend very often), you don’t have to grovel to a manager and ask for time off or go in sick and pass around your germs to everyone else at the office because you feel like you just have to be there.

If you want to work at home, something I do highly recommend, you may not need as much income as you think. It’s all in the way you look at wealth, what your priorities are and how you spend your money.

Working at home is wonderful, my wife is much more understanding than any boss I ever had.

Today’s thought is another that was found in Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4 Hour Work Week, but originates from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have troubles.”

This can be related a lot to the get rich quick mentality that is so prevalent on the net today. You especially see it in the multitude of ebooks for sale promising everything from blogging riches, to Adsense riches, to a quick buck in real estate, to numerous other methods of creating money.

Methods may create some quick cash, but principles are timeless and create true wealth. Are you thinking about how you can cash in on the net with the latest technique for manipulating Google or are you thinking about how you can help other people get what they want or need from life?

Sometimes it can be a struggle between these two competing drives for the Internet businessperson and I am as guilty as the rest.

Your thoughts?

I was listening to the Jerry Doyle Show yesterday and he was talking about rapper MC Hammer and the incredibly lavish lifestyle he lived, that is of course before he went broke. During the height of Hammer’s career in the late 80’s and early 90’s he spent money at an astonishing rate buying things like a fleet of cars, race horses, a $2 million marble floor, helicopters, swimming pools and on and on. He even had an entourage of around 300 people that were mostly paid to the tune of $500,000 per month.

So what is it about money that causes people to go completely nuts like this? The way you think about money is the key. If you think about money as a commodity that you can get stuff with, you are more likely to end up like MC Hammer if you come into a lot of it. However, if you look at money as what you can do with it, you are more likely to be part of what Timothy Ferriss calls the new rich in his book The 4 Hour Work Week.

The book is all about how, instead of just acquiring more stuff, you can actually live life to a much fuller degree and have the time and money to do it. Timothy has done everything from danced in Tango competitions in Buenos Aries, won national titles in Chinese kick boxing, learned new languages from private tutors in 6 months, traveled to and lived in some of the most exotic locations on Earth and basically lived life on his own terms.

He describes the new rich as those individuals who would rather not live the deferred life plan of working 40, 60 or 80 hours a week for 40 years, saving for retirement and hoping to spend a few years doing what they really want before they die. The new rich live life today and participate in the things that enrich their lives and others lives as well, and they do it on a lot less money than you would think, mainly becaue they aren’t bound to getting more and more stuff.

Timothy’s thinking and his methods of doing things are right on target to get you closer to a lifestyle of complete freedom. However, prepare to be shocked when he shows you that you are the real culprit that has kept you from being free. He then shows you how to completely eliminate the things in your life that aren’t serving to bring you to the ultimate goal of freedom. Most of us waste huge amounts of time, me included, on things that truly serve no purpose.

Tim rightly points out that it is way more important to be effective than it is to be effecient and then devotes two entire chapters on how to eliminate all of the crap in your life. And he’s talking about everything here, from the news (how much of a waste of time is that?), to voicemail, to email, to useless meetings and more.

The book then goes on to show you how he created what he calls muses that basically put your earnings on autopilot so you can go out and play or take a trip around the world. Then he goes into how to travel anywhere in the world and have mini-retirements for 6 months that cost about as much as most people spend on a 2 week vacation or what he calls binge travel.

Timothy has included tons of resources and web sites, many that I didn’t know about, that cover important topics such as finding products to resell, licensing your ideas, manufacturing products and he also includes incredible travel sites that show you where to live for pennies on the dollar, how to get discount airfare in the range of 60% to 80% off and how to completely disappear if that’s what you want to do. You won’t believe all this could be packed into a 293 page book.

Read The 4 Hour Work Week and be prepared to be seriously challenged on what is important to you, how you want to live life, and how you think about money and wealth. This book could rock your world.

Alan