Name: Choose Yourself
Rating: 4.1 (223 reviews)
Author: James Altucher

What’s in it for me? Become more decisive and carefree.

After reading these blinks, you’ll

Stop worrying about pointless things. You’ll no longer spend time and energy worrying about things you can’t change, and you’ll instead focus on more creative and meaningful ventures.
Stop letting other make decisions for you. You’ll lose the fear of rejection that makes most people passive pawns of others’ decisions. Instead, you yourself will take control of achieving your dreams.
Stop surrounding yourself with the wrong people. You’ll learn to distance yourself from people who just drain your energy and make you angry.

The American Dream of a steady middle-class job and “keeping up with the Joneses” is over.

If you were to ask your parents about their ambitions as they were growing up, many of them would probably tell you, “I wanted to get an education, get a steady job and then buy my own house.”

From the end of World War II until the global financial crisis in 2008, the population of the United States was living The American Dream.

What was behind this dream? In a word: work.

Early in this period, as men went off to fight in Europe, many women entered the workforce. Yet when the war was over and soldiers came home, women continued to work. For the first time, both men and women in significant numbers were wage earners, putting food on the table and paying the bills.

With two people working, families had more disposable income than ever before. This meant that they could purchase cars, bigger houses and new appliances, experiencing a standard of living of which their parents could only have dreamed.

However, behind the shiny facade of the American Dream was something sinister: a marketing strategy designed to get people to spend money. Americans were increasingly encouraged to express themselves with their cash, showing off their successes by owning more stuff than their neighbors.

Since the advent of 2008 financial crisis, however, the American Dream has come to an end.

Steady, middle-class jobs are a thing of the past. To reduce costs, companies have either outsourced jobs to developing countries or simply replaced employees with technology.

Today, many jobs are only temporary, and offer a worker no security or freedom. Millions of people encouraged to invest in their education, then find a steady job and live the American Dream are now either unemployed, or overqualified and underpaid for what they do.

It’s a devastating story. But should we be sad about it? As you’ll see, there’s a positive side to the death of the American Dream, as it has led to a new, promising era.

We are now in the “choose yourself” era, in which you must exert control over your life.

So the American Dream is over. But that’s not a bad thing. We are now moving into a new era of personal freedom.

The previous era of working and spending was dependent on other people controlling your life.

Our fear of rejection means we are forever waiting on someone else to decide our fate.

Have you ever stared across a coffee shop at someone you thought could be the love of your life?

If you have, chances are you did nothing about it. But it’s not just you: most of us would rather wait for the person we desire to come and talk to us.

To choose yourself, you have to take care of both your physical and mental “bodies.”

So, you’re fired up and ready to start living in the “choose yourself” era!

But how do you start? It can be quite daunting, to go out and sell yourself – and face rejection – on a daily basis.

A solid foundation for choosing yourself is having healthy spiritual and emotional “bodies.”

In the previous blink, we learned that having the confidence to “choose yourself” depends on having healthy physical and mental bodies.

But that’s not all you need. There are two more bodies you have to nourish: your emotional and spiritual bodies.

Establish daily routines to improve your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual “bodies.”

Now that you know what to do to build a solid foundation, there’s nothing stopping you from getting out there and thriving in the “choose yourself” era.

Right?

Searching for your life’s purpose is pointless and stressful, and can lead us to pseudocide.

Be honest with yourself. Are you afraid that you haven’t yet found your true purpose in life?

The fear that comes from not knowing what to do with our lives is a great source of stress. Yet there’s no reason to worry: some of the world’s most successful people didn’t find their true purpose until much later in life.

Choosing yourself requires cutting out the middleman and getting the most value from your sales.

Getting into the right mind-set and maintaining a strong foundation and healthy bodies is all well and good. But how can you make a living from it? How do you succeed financially in the “choose yourself” era?

Let’s look at the example of Bryan Johnson, the entrepreneur behind the multimillion-dollar credit card service Braintree.

The only way you can succeed in the “choose yourself” era is to be honest.

For the longest time, the maxim, “crime doesn’t pay,” seemed idealistic and out of step with reality. Fraudster Bernie Madoff, as just one example, conned people out of an incredible $65 billion in 2008.

Although Madoff was arrested before he ever got his hands on the money, for many people his “success” confirmed that the easiest way to earn lots of money was to lie and cheat.

Choose Yourself summary