Review of "Unemployable: How to Be Successfully Unemployed Your Entire Life!" by David Thomas Roberts

Review of

Unemployable: How to Be Successfully Unemployed Your Entire Life! by David Thomas Roberts ISBN 9780996259040

 While the title makes it sound like the book is a blueprint for how to freeload throughout life, the content and purposes are far different. Roberts’ goal is to demonstrate how it is possible to create and manage your own business rather than spend your life as a functional cog in an employment machine. The one clear and important point of the book that all people should understand is that there is NO such thing as a secure and stable job. The business world is changing at a very rapid speed and what is a solid business line today is a topic for the history books tomorrow.

 Another thing is very clear, succumbing to your urges to create and develop your own business is not for everyone and there two very hard questions that must be honestly addressed. The first is an honest appraisal of your own abilities, do you really have the skills, expertise and understanding to run a business? For many, this is the point of failure of their business dreams, a false belief that they know what they are doing. Roberts deals with this point.

 The second question is a hard and honest appraisal of the business that you are about to start. Hard and honest examinations of the potential market, revenue estimates, accurate cost projections for the creation of the product or service. Roberts also deals with this point. He also puts down the one thing that all entrepreneurs should consider the fundamental reality, unless the circumstances are unusual and you already have a revenue stream in place, be willing and able to survive a year with nothing more than trivial personal income from the business.

 Books in this genre tend to put me off, often because the writers believe that if their advice is BOLDED AND CAPPED it is somehow better and will be taken more seriously. To his credit, Roberts does none of this nonsense.

 Many years ago, when I made the decision to leave the corporate world of putting my livelihood in the hands of people who didn’t care whether I earned a living or not, the best advice I extracted from books was the two hard questions that I previously mentioned and the reality of low expectations of income from a new business. Success in your new business is not assured and an 80 hour week may become your new norm, but there are few pleasures better than making it work. While there are no guarantees of success, reading this book will improve the probability of you making it work.

 Although his use of the phrase “Renegade Capitalist©” to describe people that start new businesses strikes me as a bit absurd, for success in a new business means that you have blended well into the capitalist structure. 

This book was made available for free for review purposes.