Firstly, I would bet many people who trash on the book haven't actually read it. Beyond that, I imagine many people who did read it thought that simply reading

Firstly, I would bet many people who trash on the book haven't actually read it. Beyond that, I imagine many people who did read it thought that simply reading it would magically make them have the idyllic life of travel, few hours worked, and good income. It still takes a lot of work to setup an income system, and it probably takes multiple attempts and variations before finding some success. For me, the most valuable section of the book was about worst case scenarios. The author also had a TED talk, "Why you should define your fears instead of your goals", which basically gives you an exercise in a series of "what if?"s. What if I quit my job and try to do my idea? What if that fails? What if I run out of money? ... Eventually you arrive at the bottom, where the only two paths are death (which I don't think he goes into :P) or getting back up. And this is where the illumination comes - once the fears are defined, and recovery is imagined in some detail, it becomes clear that the fears are probably way overblown and scary. In reality, especially if you have some talent which you can convert to some kind of income (even working a regular job), then you can recover. It's not the end of the world if you fail. There are other nuggets in the book, just as there are in many of his other books. Just don't expect that reading one of his books makes you him (or some other successful figure).