I’ve been following Baker over at ManVsDebt for a while now so naturally I was excited to hear about his participation in a group effort to shatter the status quo.

I just completed my second read through (uninterrupted this this time) of the Untemplater Manifesto. The first was completed sporadically throughout the afternoon as I sat in my cubicle with my alt-tab ninja mode on red alert.

The document serves as a more intimate introduction to each of the founding members along with a clear definition of their collective mission. Helping as many people as possible break free from the undesirable templates in which they currently find themselves seemingly locked.

From the opening two questions (to which I responded HELL YES and HELL NO respectively) to the final paragraph calling readers to action, the entire piece feels like an ongoing conversation oozing with authenticity. Each contributor shares his or her story (as opposed to tells). It is the no holds barred, often ugly truth about what they have been through and continue to go through as untemplaters, perfectly balanced by the incredible amount of happiness and energy that pours from every one of them. Each of them launched his or her untemplater life at various points and now find their paths running parallel.

As a 20-something cube rat grinding out an existence I’m a huge fan of their “in the trenches” approach. As much as I love and value the works of people like Tim Ferris and Pam Slim, it IS hard for me to relate to them on a personal level. When I look at this crew, I see myself where they were only a few short months or years prior vs the seemingly vast distance to where the aforementioned titans play. Granted, I know the discrepancy is only a matter of perception but logic isn’t always the best of motivators. I love variety and multiple perspectives so I was instantly a fan of being able to hear six unique voices all in one place. Did that sound a little schizophrenic to anyone else?

As icing on the cake, there are quotes from some awesome movies laced throughout. Anyone who has followed Baker for a short time knows he has a soft spot for Fight Club.

Now this is supposed to be a review so I’m going to put on my critic hat for just a moment. I thought the overall layout was clean and consistent, but maybe a little too clean on some of the pages. A huge amount of white space made if difficult to focus on the content. The other thing that detracted slightly from my experience was the sheer busyness of the text. Multiple fonts, formats, sizes and colors were just too much. It made it incredibly difficult to track across a single line of text. While I appreciate the use of differentiating styles in order to give certain words and phrases additional impact, in can be overdone to the point of having the opposite effect.

*critic hat off*

All in all, the Untemplater manifesto is a highly inspirational piece depicting REAL Gen-Y’ers to which I feel many our of generation will be able to REALLY relate. I’m looking forward to the awesome content this crew is sure to create.