Even that isn't really true. It might be where he ended up, but he didn't start there. He was working day and night to get his supplement company off the ground. It was only after he had some solid clients and established it that he was able to start making some decisions that led to reduced hours focused on it... which where then spent on other ventures (mostly angle investing, consulting, and writing it would seem).
Too many people pick up the 4 Hour Work Week thinking they will read it and go from their 9-5 job to a 4 hour working week at their own business in the course of a week, and that's just not realistic. I don't think it ever was. The book does have some interesting tips and ideas that can be applied to any job to help save some time, which is all I really took away from it.
Most of the people who preach about passive income and snake oil salesmen. I just recently heard someone classify their YouTube channel as their passive income stream. Sure, once they make a video it can keep earning without them doing anything, but for a successful channel they need to be writing, recording, editing, and posting a ton of videos on a regular basis over the course of many years. And if they stop the channel will start to die. That isn't passive at all. The same goes for courses that take an incredible amount of work to produce. They also need to be maintained, comments/questions answered, etc. People make a lot of money selling these "passive income" streams while hiding the dirty little secret that they are actually working all the time. They just aren't directly trading time for money, which can act as a force multiplier.
It seems like the only real passive income is via investments designed around income production, like dividend stocks. But the person has to do something to get enough cash to start making that possible, which is no trivial matter.
That all being said, there are a decent number of digital nomads who aren't working 4 hour work weeks, but are still living the type of life the book talks about. That Vagabonding lifestyle where you work enough to keep traveling. It's just that the work is online instead of working at local pubs or farms where you're traveling.
