We recently read James Altucher’s book Choose Yourself. We picked it up read it and sent him the confirmation. The irony is strong on our end over here. He provides an example of people misjudging others by the title of a book (read our website name) and provides an example by… Tucker Max. Can you guys understand the hilarity of this? For those unfamiliar, Tucker Max provides stories of hooking up with chicks and James Altucher is a hedge fund manager.
With the intro out of the way lets go ahead and jump into a quick review.
Positives
Individuality: He talks at length about the loss of individuality in corporate culture. Overall we agree. Nowadays we are actually becoming COGS within a large corporate wheel. Everyone who has a functioning positive mindset and good ideas should take a step out of their comfort zone, learn some niche knowledge and realize that corporations are not there to help you.
Becoming Well Rounded: In usual James fashion, he speaks to building out your mind, body, soul and set of friends etc. We agree with all of this. We take a slightly different approach by focusing more on lifting weights instead of walking but the point is clear. In order to build yourself up you have to care about your health which includes your body, sex life, mental health and maintaining a positive mindset.
Have Themes: This was probably one of the best sections where he talks about having life themes versus life goals. This is a great idea and we believe everyone should jump to this mindset. Instead of having “hard-set” goals like making $100K this year, have a goal of “consistently failing and recovering“. At least this is our interpretation.
Blogging: This is another good section where he speaks to his views on running a blog. Overall one idea is using a blog as a networking tool. Given the content of this blog that is essentially the route we must take. Since we have no identity we have to build trust in a much harder way. If we wouldn’t lose our jobs over it, we would happily put our full names on this obscure internet screen right now.
Problem Solving: He provides a plethora of ideas on problem solving. That is another thing that we agree with. Instead of trying to make a trillion dollars, simply think about your current skill-set and ask yourself what problem can I solve and then go and do it.
Haters Gonna Hate: We’re a bunch of D-bags so unsurprisingly we agree with this part of the book. You really cannot change people’s opinions so even if you are correct a hater would not be swayed, instead they will spend their time trying to bring you down with their negative outlook on life. Best to ignore or kill them with kindness.
The Most Important Sentence in the Book
“But once you divide the world into categories, into an ‘us’ versus ‘them’, you immediately become a ‘them’ and lose touch with who you really are.”
This sentence needs to be read to the entire man-o-sphere and to every feminist around the world. There is no way either group is going to get their message across by attacking each other on a daily basis. The laws need to change and become entirely equal which leads us to where we disagree with the book.
Cons
Blogging Trust: One piece that the book seems to miss is this: If you have a message that needs to be delivered but you will lose your job/career/business because of it how do you deliver that message? This is a major theme in the man-o-sphere that we agree with. We believe we are right when we say marriage is a complete scam for men in today’s society. If women want equality that is fine however, a divorce should also be equal. Currently the odds in a court room are stacked against men because we are seen as morally below women. This is entirely unjust, both a crying woman and an emotionally distant man should be given equal credibility in the court room.
Relationships: The second part we disagree with should be clear based on the above point, we do not believe it is healthy to “only sleep with women you love”. It is our view, that the current culture is sick making any sort of level of love temporary insanity. The United States is a hook up culture at this point in time. If you don’t believe us just look up the growth rates of Tinder and Bang with Friends. You should not take a relationship seriously in the current toxic environment. If the environment changes our views will change as well.
With that said he will unlikely ever read this but we will attempt to earn some trust with cold hard cash (money talks). Here’s the email we sent to him.
“Attached please find a link to to your book review along with photographic proof that it was read. In addition, if you provide a backlink or tweet to our review we will donate $100 to any charity you wish with proof (Including WomenForWomen International – we are not women haters after all – donation would be made within 48 hours) and you can keep the profits from the sale. Otherwise please let us know how to go about reimbursement”
TL;DR: Pick up the book and read it, if you don’t like it simply return it for a refund.
