In his book Choose Yourself, author, blogger, entrepreneur and provocateur James Altucher talks about being at wit’s end before an aha! moment that changed everything. It was a moment, he says, when he realized that “nobody else was going to do it for me.”
As Altucher writes:
If I was going to thrive, to survive, I had to choose myself. In every way. The stakes have risen too high not to … [T]he middle class has caved in, jobs are disappearing, and every industry is in the process of transformation. In order to keep up, individuals have to transform also. That means every second, you have to choose yourself to succeed.
Altucher is brilliant, brash and possibly as crazy as his hairdo. But my friends and I can’t stop discussing and debating his ideas these days.
I think some of his contentions are great and some are nuts. You’ll think some of his contentions are great and some are nuts. And you and I won’t agree about which ones are which. But what’s important is that he’s got many of us reorienting our views of work, life and success.
Here’s a snapshot of Altucher’s world, a new world which he says compels us to place our fates into our own hands rather than leaving them for even another moment in the hands of the overlords of a dying world.
- The fulltime job is going away. The old notions of security are going away. And only suckers will continue to put their faith, their hearts and their treasures in an obsolete system in which large institutions can be reliable teats on which to suckle until retirement age.
- The decline of the corporate caretaker and the death of the fulltime corporate job aren’t all bad. Given how the old institutions can’t guarantee security to you, and given how the gatekeepers in every industry are disappearing, you no longer have any excuse to avoid doing things that you love, things that make you come alive.
- You don’t need to own a house. In fact, you’re better off avoiding the bondage of that so-called investment, Altucher argues. And you don’t need a car, he adds. In fact, you should be trying to simplify your life and your possessions so that you could almost “disappear” Why? So that you can easily move and reinvent yourself as many times as you need to, when old pathways inevitably lead to dead ends and when
- You’re wasting your time trying to gradually build your pension plan. Actually, Altucher doesn’t say it in such a circumspect way. He says, “Your retirement plan is for sh-t. I don’t care how much you set aside for your 401(k). It’s over. The whole myth of savings is gone.”
- College is a waste of time and money. Hell, high school might be too, he says, as he believes there are better and faster paths to meaningful success and happiness. (I’ll argue in a subsequent article against his point, but I do think that some good comes from at least letting the thought roll around in the head of prospective students as they play the draining, hyper-competitive sweepstakes of college admissions).
- Go big or go home (hopefully not a home that you have a big mortgage on, based on Altucher’s anti-home-ownership doctrines). Trying to incrementally nudge your way to promotions, salary raises and corner offices is an exercise in futility.
- There’s plenty of money to go around. Don’t sit around resenting the 1%, Altucher says. Just adjust to the new reality. “There is more money floating around than ever before,” he writes. “And a lot of that money is buried and hidden from you. Time to reach out and touch it.”
- Write a book. Now. Publishing your own book is one the simplest, fastest and best ways to capitalize on the way in which gatekeepers in every industry are disappearing. You can scribble out a book about what you know; it can be available on Amazon in no time; and it can give you instant credibility, a calling card for the sort of expertise that you’re going to make a living on for the next few decades.
“You no longer have to wait for the gods of corporate America, or universities, or media, or investors, to come down from the clouds and choose you for success,” Altucher writes. “In every single industry, the middleman is being taken out of the picture, causing more disruption in employment but also greater efficiencies and more opportunities for unique ideas to generate real wealth. You can develop those ideas, execute on them, and choose yourself for success.”
I find Altucher’s analysis to be bracing, invigorating and terrifying. My own temperament is infinitely more cautious. Though I’ve dabbled in many things in my life, I’ve been primarily aligned with the same institution for the past 31 years—two-thirds of my life. Running off to chase dreams isn’t part of my DNA.
At the same time, I’m more willing than ever to believe that I need to make it part of my DNA.
In coming days, I plan to kick around some of Altucher’s more provocative insights, defending some and rebutting others. And your own reactions and insights will be very welcome. Is the system truly broken, and is it time to create new systems that work for us?
