Would you like to have a good job? It won’t happen without a good mindset and accurate understanding of the world around you. This book will give you both. It is one of the most important books I have ever read.

It’s become a cliche, that employment isn’t what it used to be anymore. The guy, who gets a job in his 20s and retires in the same company 40 years later doesn’t exist anymore. There has been a major shift in the economy, marked by a fragile financial system, government regulations and disruptive new technology. What skills do you need now? How can you get some security? Charles Hugh Smith comes to the rescue. I have become aware of his book by reading his blog. This book is short – 164 pages. But it is a heavy hitter. This is a book that I have referred back to and reread. I plan to read it again next year. What is it that makes it so valuable?

What strikes me most is the simplicity of his profound insights. It is easily understandable, and it makes immediate sense. The language is simple. It provides a perfect combination of theoretical understanding as well as practical information. You get told what to do after you understand why it is necessary to do so. This is a book every high-school student as well as every employee should have read and reread already. Both audiences would understand the content immediately and benefit greatly from it.

Smith begins with a big-picture view over the economy. What is our economy? He explains five different economic models and shows how our economy implements different aspects from each model. One unifying aspect in all these models is centralization. Centralization is an important development over the last century and whenever centralization occurs, fragility is introduced. We are experiencing this fragility now. With regards to the implications for job seekers, Smith concludes:

In this era, security comes from embracing adaptation and learning, rather than trying to get hired by a centralized bureaucracy for life. This emerging era will favor do-ocracies, where the more a person does, the more influence they will have, as opposed to bureaucracies, which seek to eliminate individual risk and accountability.

The next chapter deals with the nature of work. What does it take to be productive? He proposes that it takes hard-skills, soft-skills and values. If one of these is missing, no matter how much the others are emphasized, there will be no production. Another important concept is that of mastery. It’s not enough to just have basic skills. There has to be mastery in at least one, preferably two fields.
In chapter three, he outlines the eight skills of professionalism, that everyone should develop in themselves:

The skills needed to establish and maintain a livelihood in the emerging economy are the abilities to:

1. Learn challenging new material over one’s entire productive life
2. Creatively apply newly-mastered knowledge and skills to a variety of fields
3. Be adaptable, responsible and accountable in all work environments
4. Apply a full spectrum of entrepreneurial skills to any task, i.e. take ownership of one’s work
5. Work collaboratively and effectively with others, both in person and remotely (online)
6. Communicate clearly and effectively in all work environments
7. Continually build human and social capital, i.e. knowledge and networks
8. Possess a practical working knowledge of financial records and project management

He outlines the importance of personal values. Personal values like self-discipline, delayed gratification, being able to focus for a long time are what enable someone to develop his skills. He mentions that…

…the quantity and variety of books in the household is a better predictor of students’ test scores than household income.

These values can be developed even if they have not been introduced in childhood. People can develop their willpower and build new habits that put them on a new track towards success. They just need to know what habits and values to implement and a conviction that they really need to do it. What matters is to reckognize reality:

We have to live in the economy we have, not the one we hope will evolve in the future. What we do control is our own professionalism, values, integrity, authenticity, knowledge, skills and human and social capital.

Chapter four does a great job, outlining what’s wrong with the educational system from start to finish. Students aren’t being taught to think for themselves, or to learn by themselves. They go through a system with rigid rules and end up with a piece of paper that won’t tell anyone how capable they actually are.

Credentials prepare students not to create value in the real economy but for acceptance to the next level in the accreditation bureaucracy.

This is why chapter five deals with the concept of self-accreditation. Instead of accrediting schools, he supports the concept of accrediting the student. If a college certificate isn’t enough to tell an employer what kind of person you are, then you have to create a new kind of certificate. This certificate consists of real life projects that have been completed and serve as proof of your competence. Smith explains the steps necessary to certify your own work and how to do so. It requires work outside of the regular educational system. He also demonstrates the value of online education over against institutionalized education. What matters is that people learn how to solve real life problems.

We can summarize the process of accrediting yourself in five steps:

1. Learn and put into daily practice the eight essential skills/values of professionalism
2. Learn how to learn to mastery, i.e. master new knowledge and apply new skills.
3. Demonstrate your mastery and problem-solving by completing real-world projects
4. Assemble independently verifiable accounts of your abilities, experience, skills and professionalism from people with direct knowledge of your completed projects: colleagues, employers, supervisors, advisors, mentors, clients and peers.
5. Distribute your completed projects and third-party verifications to networks of people, agencies and enterprises that are active in your chosen field.

He talks extensively about the value and purpose of networks. What they are, what you can expect and how you should approach increasing your personal network. The main point here is to become helpful and productive to others. This expands your skills and earns you a good reputation – both of which are important assets when you’re looking for a job. One of my favourite quotes can be found in this chapter:

The professional never considers himself unemployed; he is self-employed at all times, building human and social capital. The professional response to unemployment is to be productive for eight hours a day, regardless of the pay or lack thereof, day in and day out, rain or shine, because work isn’t just about earning money, it’s about creating value and meaning and living authentically.

The last chapter serves as an excellent summary to really drive home his main points. I wouldn’t be able to do justice to it, so I’ll just urge you to read the book. I’m leaving you with a few more quotes:

Embracing what we’re told is insecure—self-employment, project-based collaboration, worker-owned cooperatives, and so on—is actually more secure in a rapidly changing economy.

Though career-counseling and personality exercises can aid our self-discovery, there is no substitute for actually doing the work you think you may like. Completing real-world projects also gives you an opportunity to hone your professionalism and self-management skills.
In today’s competitive economy, those whose interests and personalities align with their work will outperform those with little interest in the work other than the security of a paycheck. The accredit yourself process will help identify endeavors where you will be more successful and fulfilled and those that aren’t a good match and where you are less likely to be competitive.

The ideal collaborator is someone who sees no line between employment and self-employment, someone who owns their work regardless of the circumstance. They operate with the same values and ownership whether they are employed by an organization, collaborating with others on a project or are self-employed. This is the ultimate adaptability and thus the ultimate security.