The Freaks Shall Inherit The Earth Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: The Freaks Shall Inherit The Earth is Chris Brogan’s manual to help you do business your way, not care what anyone thinks, own your art and still use media in the best way possible to remain profitable.

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What I like about Chris Brogan is that he doesn’t care if I like him. He just does his thing. We need more of that. It took me over a year to find out that following “best practices” is exactly not a best practice. But you have to find the right people to tell you that first. Chris Brogan is one of them. So is Seth Godin. And James Altucher.

Ignoring everyone isn’t our default setting. As I read more about it, I get ever surer that it will have to be for us to succeed. If you don’t you’ll only find that nobody cares about average, nobody sees you if you fit in, nobody thinks you’re doing something new.

In Chris’s words, you’ll have to become a freak first. In the best sense of the word.

Here are 3 lessons from The Freaks Shall Inherit The Earth to show you how, and how it’ll help you succeed in business:

  1. Don’t fit in, standing out is always better!
  2. If you can overcome personal problems, you can overcome business problems too.
  3. Use your media effectively to build content, a community and a marketplace.

Feeling freaky already? Let’s unleash your inner rebel!

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Lesson 1: Embrace your inner freak, because standing out is always better than fitting in.

The very first step towards unleashing your inner freak is to accept that you have one. If you don’t like yourself with all your quirks and awkward traits, no one else will either. Freak in this sense doesn’t mean that all you do is look weird. That may be the case, but it doesn’t have to be.

A freak is someone who thinks differently than others, who doesn’t just want to survive, but to live and have fun, and who therefore doesn’t think too much of rules and systems.

Freaks are the people who quit consulting jobs to start hacky sack businesses, who call the same person 365 times in a row to get what they want, who hand out chocolates on Wall Street and build jetpacks in their spare time.

Everyone’s a freak at heart. You have a weird hobby too, I know you do. Thanks to the internet, freaks can now dominate thanks to their refusal to fit in. You can find fellow cat hat knitters, rice car model makers and board game creators all over the world and connect with them.

Plus, no gatekeepers. Zero. You can publish a book, host a TV show, start a podcast, anything you want. Just accept that you’re a freak and you can start thinking about how to run your business your way.

Lesson 2: When you can overcome personal problems (which you can), you can overcome business problems too.

I’m sure you’ve overcome one or the other personal problem in your life, right? Like getting over a tough break-up, fixing your kid’s mobbing issues in school or dealing with a shitty co-worker.

Guess what: if you can move past personal problems like these, you can move past business problems too.

People are always scared of all the things that could possibly go wrong after they start a business, like running out of money, not getting any customers or hiring a terrible person. And all of these things will happen. But you can deal with them. They’re just different problems, not harder problems, or impossible ones.

Just see these as challenges. Like you wouldn’t date an egoistic person twice, focus on not repeating your mistakes in business, and you’ll learn to deal with them over time.

Oh and by the way, quitting is a legitimate strategy too. Sometimes things are just not meant for you to work out. There’s nothing wrong with throwing in the towel, as long as you’re doing it for the right reasons.

Lesson 3: Use media to build content, a community, and a marketplace for your business to thrive.

So what do you do to get your inner freak out into the world? Simple: You use the media available to you. As the word suggests, media function as a mediator for you to get your story across to others. Chris says good media are like a campfire that you and your tribe can sit around and then talk to each other to share ideas and experiences.

He says to use media well and make a profitable business, you have to create three things in particular:

  1. Content – this is where you show how you’re different, give people something to share and talk about and turn your ideas into art.
  2. A community – the place for your audience to get together and talk to you, but also to each other, about the values you share, the things you could do to make the world better and what rules need to be broken to do so.
  3. A marketplace – this is how your business actually becomes a business, thanks to products and services you offer, all centered around your core message and helping you and your community reaching your shared goal faster.

That’s all I’ve got for today, except: What are you waiting for? Get out there and make change happen!

The Freaks Shall Inherit The Earth Review

The Freaks Shall Inherit The Earth is a very cool call to action, because it doesn’t tell you to do something specific (aka follow this template I’m giving you), but to do what’s right for you. It’s like a kick in the butt with the perfect sized shoe – hurts enough to get going, but not so much that you already dread starting.

If you’ve been procrastinating on getting yourself out there, this is for you.

Who would I recommend The Freaks Shall Inherit The Earth summary to?

The 23 year old computer nerd, who got a boring job, because he thought he was too weird to be accepted for anything exceptional, the 37 year  old, who always plays matchmaker for her friends, but thinks she’s bad at business, and anyone who isn’t building a platform online yet.

Last Updated on August 2, 2022

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Niklas Göke

Niklas Göke is an author and writer whose work has attracted tens of millions of readers to date. He is also the founder and CEO of Four Minute Books, a collection of over 1,000 free book summaries teaching readers 3 valuable lessons in just 4 minutes each. Born and raised in Germany, Nik also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration & Engineering from KIT Karlsruhe and a Master’s Degree in Management & Technology from the Technical University of Munich. He lives in Munich and enjoys a great slice of salami pizza almost as much as reading — or writing — the next book — or book summary, of course!