They tend to run out of material after a while, so repeat themselves a lot and endlessly self-promote.Ĭhris outlines these self-promotion strategies in his chapter 'The Power of Your Own Small Army' so I wonder if this is advice provided by LifeRemix or if they just pick it up from one another. Each writer is a self-declared expert in his/her field, but has no formal training. I used to have many of these added to my GoogleReader, but I have dropped them one by one over the years. Halfway through I realized Chris is part of the Life Remix network and I probably heard about this book from one of the partner blogs (Zen Habits, The Happiness Project, Get Rich Slowly, etc). But this wasn't a practical guide (let's start with - how do you figure out what you want?) or even inspiring (how hard is it to find incredible examples of people who chose the road less traveled and did remarkable things?). I want to set my own rules, live the life I want, and change the world! That's the subtitle. Okay, so his tone really rubbed me the wrong way from the start, but I tried to keep an open mind.

He is very scornful of paths that did not work for him, especially all forms of traditional schooling.Īnyone who disagrees with him is sleepwalking through life, content with the status quo, not living up to their potential. To me, this sounds like the process of growing up and is not too remarkable. And somehow he turned out okay! Better than okay! So you will too! And finally he became depressed after 9/11 (he mentions he was downtown a few days before but not sure why this is relevant) and so he moved to Africa. He quit a FedEx job when he couldn't get there in a snowstorm. Now he proclaims that most of college is busywork and he didn't learn much of anything (not surprising given his strategy). He noticed he could get passing grades in community college without really trying so signed up for as many classes as he could. The author is awfully smug as he looks back at his unconventional choices. I like the cover design and title, but that's about it.

The art of nonconformity