Cm's video: Choose Yourself Summary

Choose Yourself is a call to give up traditional career paths and take your life into your own hands by building good habits, creating your own career, and making a decision to choose yourself. I love James Altucher. I’m not even afraid to say it. I remember the exact day I first read one of his articles, because it was the day that I started turning my life around, June 20th in 2012. I’ve been on his email list ever since (the only one I never unsubscribed from), so expect this to be biased – go team Altucher! James originally self-published Choose Yourself in 2013, and set the perfect example of how to use his book. At first, you could only order the book via Bitcoin. Later he published it on Amazon, offering anyone who sent the receipt and a picture of themselves reading to give their money back, or donate it to charity. I donated 🙂 Here are what I think to be the 3 key takeaways from the book: 1.The American dream the middle class keeps chasing is dead. 2.You have to make yourself the only person who controls your dreams. 3.Choosing yourself begins with a daily practice of good habits in 4 areas. Let’s learn from the master! Lesson 1: The American dream the middle class keeps chasing is dead. Remember how 2 days ago you learned that women taking up careers post World War II lead to the rise of processed food? It’s the same reason that lead to the creation of the American dream: the house with the white picket fence, 2 kids, 2 nice cars in the garage and a big vacation every year. Both parents working meant more income, which made this lavish lifestyle affordable, which is when the idea that a perfect life is mostly based on consumption became the ideal standard that we started chasing. The plan was clear: get a good education, get a safe job, work hard, hopefully be promoted and thus able to keep up your expensive lifestyle until you retire. But in 2008 the American dream bubble abruptly burst. The world’s biggest financial crisis lead to companies ruthlessly cutting costs – mostly in the form of people. Almost everything can now either be outsourced or done by technology, which is why thousands of college graduates now find themselves unemployed or underpaid – the end of jobs is here. But what should you do if your fancy college degree now only gets you a job at McDonalds? Is it all bad? No. Here’s what to do. Lesson 2: You have to make yourself the only person who controls your dreams. I can’t believe I couldn’t remember where I read this, I wrote a whole article about this sentence, after all. I’m texting myself this very sentence every morning, for Pete’s sake 😀 But now I do. You have to make yourself the only person who controls your dreams. This one sentence contains everything you need to know about choosing yourself. If financial freedom is your dream, then you have to control your income, which means creating products, freelancing, making passive income from affiliate marketing, selling books, courses, teaching seminars – do any one, or even better, all of these. Want to make your own hours? Then you have to control your time (which leads to the same conclusion). Why aren’t you the only one who controls your dreams already? Because you’re afraid.