Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.

Richard Bach – Illusions

A book that had a huge influence on me when growing up was Richard Bach’s “Illusions“.  The basic story revolves around a pilot who one day meets a self-proclaimed messiah while giving demonstration flights to people in small towns.  After forming a friendship, this stranger starts mentoring him in all the necessary skills required to be a messiah – skills he claims are there to be learned by anyone.  It’s a pretty simple story, told in what my girlfriend describes as Bach’s “heavy-handed parable” style. Her MA in English literature doesn’t lie; one could be forgiven for dismissing it offhand, but it drove me to question the conventional career choices that most of my classmates were choosing.

Fast-forward a dozen years or so and I’m following a few interesting people on some internet nonsense called twitter. Between dumb luck and random links from creative and inspiring sources I happen to be following two particularly interesting strangers called Cody McKibben and Jun Loayza, who along with Monica O’Brien, Andrew Norcross, Carlos Miceli, Adam Baker, and intern Dariane Nabor have set up Untemplater – A site devoted to taking control of your life and career in a way that defies convention.

To kick off the site launch, they’ve lead with their free Untemplater manifesto which contains six real-world case studies of the untemplater lifestyle. The untemplater concept is about breaking away from conventions of living. Where entrepreneurship becomes the “alternative” to a corporate 9-to-5 job, entrepreneurship itself can take on a pattern of long hours doing grunt work while ignoring loved ones. The lifestyle design concepts from Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek are a real eye-opener, yet drive some to pursue independence at any cost, ignoring interesting opportunities that smell too much like what they have defined as ‘work’.

The case studies are six genuinely interesting independent stories of personal success, with inspiring ideas to make you think about where life can take you. Some might dismiss this concept offhand, but like Illusions, it might inspire you to take your life beyond what others tell you is possible.

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.

Grab the Untemplater manifesto, you won’t be disappointed.