I wish I had come up with the term “life hack”, but I didn’t.  I first heard it from my partner Mike Fisher who applied it to Tim Ferriss during our discussion of his book “The 4 Hour Work Week”.  Wikipedia indicates that “life hack” is a programmer’s term used to describe what we’ve sometimes called a “simple solution to a complex problem”.  I’ve never heard it used that way before, so in my world the credit will always go to my partner Fish and his definition.   A life hack, says Fish, is a person who takes shortcuts through life to achieve personal goals.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not jumping on the “I hate Tim Ferriss” bandwagon simply because he is a seemingly overly self promoting, ego centric, self involved individual (fyi – I can’t stand those types of people).  In fact, I think his book has a number of well disguised great points in it.  I also admit that I suffer from a bit of book envy – his has been on the NY Times bestseller list for over a year and the best our book has done is to reach number 256 on the Amazon best seller list for a couple of hours (you should still buy it by the way – it’s calling you – you “need” it)

The first point that I love is that Cash is King, though Tim really doesn’t call it that.  Good job Tim for restating and obfuscating something taught (but ignored) in finance classes the world over.   Way to repackage an important lesson!  Unfortunately, Tim doesn’t seem to understand that if everyone simply goes for the high paying low work “cash today” jobs our last bastion of supremacy – the high tech startup community – would cease to exist.  Name one company that changed the world in terms of products or software that did so without having to sacrifice cash today for a huge shareholder reward tomorrow.  Sure, there are companies like 37 Signals that do an incredible job at balancing their business and personal lives but 37 Signals isn’t going a Microsoft in the’ 80s, an eBay in the ‘90s, or a Google, Facebook or Salesforce in the ‘00s.    It’s a great idea and it fits the needs of many people.  But if absolutely everyone takes the lower risk, high cash route our innovation and startup engines would crater.

I also love Ferriss’ notion of mini-vacations.  Even in the startup community these can be useful to try to keep employees from burning out and keep companies rejuvenated.  Finally, I like his notion of not allowing other people to control your time.  We absolutely all should be looking for simple solutions to complex problems (the Wikipedia definition of life hack) and looking to simplify our lives and eliminate time drains.

My primary concern with Ferriss’ book is the tone and manner of his approach.  At one point he describes his experience winning a kickboxing championship by finding a loophole in the rules that allow him to simply push an opponent out of the ring and win.  He claims that this action is neither immoral nor unethical.  True, they weren’t against the rules – in fact he studied the rules in order to know how to game the system.  In a game whose spirit it is to test skill, he used the rules against the more skilled player.  By “gaming” (note: not “cheating”) the weight system, he put himself at a comparative advantage.  Great – Tim knows how to screw the spirit of the game by using the rules to his advantage.  While I am a huge believer in cutting through bureaucratic red tape and in testing the rules and eliminating or fixing them when they don’t make sense, I would never suggest breaking the spirit of a relationship or system.  There’s an implied consent to abide by the spirit of engagements (such as tournaments or client relationships) regardless of what the “rules” say.   Breaking that spirit doesn’t make you smarter – it just makes you less honorable.  I’ll make a distinction between honor and ethics here.  Honor is abiding by the spirit of a relationship.  Just ask yourself – would you be comfortable doing business with someone like Ferriss, or would you be worried that he might test the limits and boundaries of your contract given his approach to kickboxing?

My next concern with Ferriss’ approach also has to do with spirit; the spirit and tone of his presentation.  He sounds like he is all about himself.  He comes across as a person who loves himself, believes he is a deific gift to mankind and in general reeks of the same self loving stench as some investment bankers (not all of them mind you – but some of the ones with whom I’ve dealt in the past).   As my partner and I have written time and time again – “Leadership Isn’t About You”.  It’s about the team.  If you preach selfishness, as Ferriss does in his book, you by definition can’t be selfless.  If you aren’t selfless in your leadership, you will sub-optimize your results.  This doesn’t mean you won’t be successful – it just means that you won’t reach the maximum potential.

I absolutely believe we should all look for more “life” in our work life balance.  Work from home, get more done in less time, look to bend the rules or eliminate those that don’t make sense, and understand that cash is king.  We should also hope, however, that there are still some enterprising people out there willing to sacrifice to make huge advances.  So too should we pray that there are leaders who understand that a great team led well can equal more than the sum of its individuals and that these leaders are willing to give selflessly in their role.  Finally, I hold out hope that not everyone will violate the spirit of engagements as Tim would seem to preach.  I believe it is this approach and mindset that is at least partially responsible for the corruption that we see in corporate America, the real estate and dot com bubbles and the failure of the banking industry.  Don’t be a life hack.  Work smarter, play more, get more done – but don’t be a blemish on the face of humanity.