Unemployable:
How To Be Successfully Unemployed Your Entire Life
Author: David Thomas Roberts
Publisher: Self-published, Texas, 2016
Very Sound Advice For Generations X, Y, and Millennials
This book is not for those who want to play it safe,
have a steady income (when they have a job), or go home and watch TV after a
day’s work. It is for risk-takers, people who value freedom over money (but who
know they can do better), and like to be responsible for others as well as the
bottom line.
David T. Roberts tried working for others and knew that
wasn’t for him. And then he went to town trying to set up his own business or
two. In the process, he learned some valuable lessons that he shares candidly
with his readers. He tells people to not just wish “for toys” that others have
but to do something about being able to afford them – and to do it now, not
sometime, not tomorrow. He concluded early in life, that “Everyone is created
with an equal opportunity to become unequal.” If the reader’s behavior is
changed by that statement alone, it’s worth the money he/she paid for the book.
The author believes that if anyone can bring “value to
an idea” then he/she is an entrepreneur. The early chapters of the book
describe how you can detect if you should work for someone else, or if you
should be your own boss. Once that is determined, he then uses a chapter to communicate
the pros and cons of education but ultimately ends up saying that whether we
like it or not, today’s education systems are geared to teaching us “how to
work for someone else, period” and likely turning a person into “a little
communist”.
The rest of the book gives us the tools we need to work
for ourselves and be “unemployed”. He
starts with the need for us to become financially literate. I love his “Here’s
a tidbit: If you make a million dollars this year and you spend one million and
one dollars this year, you are broke!” Duh. How much simpler can
it get? To this he adds great advice on mortgages and acquiring things for the
sake of status.
He throws in some history on the growth of
“micro-businesses”, the importance and advantages of “sales” jobs, and from
personal experience, teaches us much about networking marketing. There’s also great and detailed advice for
anyone considering a franchise; when a business plan is necessary and when it’s
not; why you need to avoid those who would discourage you; where to get
valuable personal advice; and where and when to raise money and when not to.
There’s a whole chapter on two important rules in
business and ten most common mistakes that result in failure. He tackles the
issues of partnership as well as the family business, identifying pitfalls to
be avoided. Next he talks about “Renegade Marketing” and social media – but
that’s material you’ll need to discover for yourself in Roberts’ book. His last
chapter deals with the “taxman” and the role we all have to keep government in
check to preserve free enterprise.
The “bonus” is a twenty-six-page glossary of terms which
should become second nature to all pursuing the exciting world of being
“unemployed”. I’m seriously thinking of giving the book to my grandchildren
long before they finish high school. And
even for this baby boomer, the book provided advice that is most critical to
success and could be applied to my own “un”-employment as a consultant, long
after I retired from working for those other guys.
·
Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord
Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, December 22, 2016. www.accordconsulting.com
Get the book here: http://astore.amazon.com/accorconsu-20
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