About a year ago I read 4 Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferris, for the first time. It motivated me to take a look at my business and my life. It truly inspired me to look at the things I was spending my time on and do more fun things. Do things I enjoyed doing, etc., etc.

You can see this video here from 11 months ago where I go to the zoo w/ my kids and talk about taking them to Barcelona for a month. And, yes, as I mentioned in the youtube video above, I’m still a strong believer that you should use your kids as reason, and not as an excuse. A reason to be healthy, a reason to have fun. Not the excuse to stay away from exercise, lay around the house, never travel.

Oh, and you can see some pictures & blog posts of that month-long trip to Barcelona on http://www.havekidsstilltravel.com and there’s even some videos here on the blog somewhere.

At any rate - that’s all good. But let me tell you how 4HWW F&$*#’d me up.

I cut out parts of my business that I actually enjoyed. I viewed them as time consuming for the return and didn’t want to ‘need to do them to survive’. I’ve focused more on income streams that develop recurring income. And I’ve got a great little team of people that I give many of my rote tasks to. Honestly, the recurring income is still under development … but it’s in motion.

This is all good and well, but half the time I’m bored out of my freakin’ mind!!! If it were 100% up to me, I would try to just travel the world for a year; but my wife won’t buy in to the idea right now. She’s 30 and let’s just say I didn’t marry her because of her “Susie Homemaker” qualities. Andrea is great at a lot of things, wants to feel productive, and deserves to be able to pursue whatever she wants to pursue. (Hint: she does not want to pursue a life of following Harris around the world with 2 toddlers in tow.)

Don’t get me wrong, we travel plenty - small trips right now since we just  moved to Scottsdale, AZ from Minneapolis … unpacked, big house, checkin’ out the area, etc. So, we haven’t done any big trips since last October. But that’s fine.

My point is this — what’s the point of lowering your workload, if you don’t do anything <b>FUN</b> with your free time??

I certainly figured out that if you make a BIG GOAL (a mini retirement as described in 4HWW), it certainly does give you energy. But the bigger idea that I missed was this:

If there are things that I truly enjoy doing inside of my business, I should keep doing them! Don’t cut ‘em out just because they’re time consuming or don’t have as big of a direct ROI. Do ‘em for the pure enjoyment of doing them. Sure, a brotha’s gotta pay the bills — but a little while ago, I really was very close to bliss - having fun in my business, making kick-ass money doin’ it, and travelling quite a bit.

So, I’m turning over a new leaf. A year after 4 Hour Work Week, I hereby don’t mind if I have a 40 hour work week as long as I’m enjoying it. (And I think this actually *is* part of what Ferris was trying to say as well — DO WHAT FEEDS YOUR SOUL.) Hell, I don’t care if I’m “working” 80 hours as long as 76 of those hours are fun! :)

So, those of you that have been following me for a while - thus starts another chapter in Harris Fellman trying to define to himself what works best for him. Maybe some will work for you, maybe not. Thanks for stickin’ around - get ready for some more “Fun Harris” real soon.

Comments always welcome. :)

Harris Fellman

P.S. I just started on twitter — follow me if ya want: http://twitter.com/harrisfellman

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