My Impressions: The Unemployed Millionaire

I read this book once in 2014, forgot about it, read it again.  No wonder the book seemed strikingly familiar. 

The Unemployed Millionaire: Escape the Rat Race, Fire Your Boss and Live Life on YOUR Terms! 

 

I dug out my folder of notes on books and surprisingly, the 2014 version vs. this year’s version look very similar.  I guess my mind focuses on the same things. 

Here are a few quotes I thought are cool:

• Don’t be a Try-Baby
• Clear out all the words like “hopefully,” “can’t,” “maybe”—and the killer, “try.”
• Most men die at age 25 and are buried at 65. —Dr. Nicolas M. Butler

Ever since I watched the movie “The Rock” (1996) starring Nicolas Cage, I’ve grown strong hatred towards the word “try.”  I have quoted it many times over the years, “Winners DO, losers try.”  Deep down, there seems to be a psychological reason to fall to plan B if you have a plan B.  Without that fear of losing, you don’t fight as hard, you don’t force yourself to go through, or go around the problem.  When you finally fall back on the worst case scenario, you just kind of throw your hands in the air and say, “Oh wellz~~” like it wasn’t such a big commitment. 

Throughout my life, some of the biggest changes in my life were because I had no option to try, and had to make happen.  Some were by choice (quit my job, flew to USA, and then applied to MBA without a backup plan), some were not by choice (being laid off and had to pack my bags the same day).  Seems like once we develop that “worst case scenario” and have a remedial plan, we generally don’t push ourselves as hard because it’s “not that bad if it doesn’t pull through.”

   

Maybe it takes an addict of risk or a psychopath to voluntarily cut off all backup plans.  But hey, why not try something new if your life has been relatively flat?

Then finally, there were quite a lot of helpful tools on marketing, notes on management, and how to manage your projects.  One of the more important concepts I thought was on USP (unique selling proposition).  Reading it reminded me of something my professor said.  Speed, quality, and price – You can choose to focus on any one or any two, but you can’t have all three.  The point is to find the best strategy that fits with your constraints and resources, and double down on what can give you the best competitive advantage.  Or something like that.