Choose Yourself

by James Altucher

I started out as a computer science major. I then got excited about improvisational comedy. I then somehow ended up as CEO of Twitter. We live in a world where the yellow brick road has many forks and can take us on many incredible journeys. It’s increasingly difficult to know the final destination of these journeys.

The day and age of the massive corporations that take care of us from beginning to end are over. But that is exciting news. It means we can choose the life we want for ourselves. You choose that life by doing the best you can right in this moment. Right now. By being bold in this moment. Right now. There is no other moment to wait for. Twitter is about the entire world conversation right in this moment. It’s the improvisation, right now, of the planet. And yes, it’s often comedy. And it’s often about people reinventing themselves and starting new conversations for their lives.

There’s no one path. There’s every path. Every path starts with this one moment. Did you choose yourself for this moment? Can you be bold? Then all paths will lead to the same place. Right now. #chooseyourself — Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter

In some cultures, like Buddhism, you want things in your life to disappear, to reduce your needs and desires. To achieve some form of enlightenment. I believe in this brand of spirituality as well. I don’t think it and abundance are mutually exclusive at all. If you lower your expectations, for instance, your expectations are easy to exceed.

This is about a new phase in history where art, science, business, and spirit will join together, both externally and internally, in the pursuit of true wealth.

Rejection—and the fear of rejection—is the biggest impediment we face to choosing ourselves.

You can’t hate the people who reject you. You can’t let them get the best of you. Nor can you bless the people who love you. Everyone is acting out of his or her own self-interest. What you need to do is build the house you will live in. You build that house by laying a solid foundation: by building physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

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The phrase financial freedom includes the word financial but it also includes the word freedom: freedom to explore the blessings that surround us. Freedom to help ourselves so that we can help others. Freedom to live the life we choose to lead, instead of having to live the life that has been chosen for us.

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The only truly safe thing you can do is to try over and over again. To go for it, to get rejected, to repeat, to strive, to wish. Without rejection there is no frontier, there is no passion, and there is no magic.

Dwelling on negativity won’t suddenly have positive results. It only brings more negativity into your head. You can’t buy happiness with the currency of unhappiness. The idea that we need to “pay our dues” is a lie told to us by people who wanted our efforts and labor on the cheap. You need to build a positive base: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Once these four “bodies” are working in harmony, you can reach out into the world. You build the foundation for the house you want to live in.

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People are walking around blind. If you are the one who can see, you will be able to navigate through this new world. You will be the beacon that will enhance the lives of everyone around you and, in doing so, trigger the actual law of nature that says when you enhance everyone around you, you can’t help but enhance yourself.

🙌🏾 I know and love a lot of beacons. I’m blessed with lots of people who know what life is about and generously share their treasure trove of experiences and lessons learned with the people in their lives. Lots of respect for said people.

When you give up searching for frontiers, inevitably you end up stuck in a swamp, sinking deeper into the mud the more you struggle to get out. I’m not sure that analogy holds, but you get what I mean. Success comes from continually expanding your frontiers in every direction—creatively, financially, spiritually, and physically. Always ask yourself, what can I improve? Who else can I talk to? Where else can I look?

But the most important thing these rejections gave me was a sense that NEVER AGAIN should I rely on the whims of one person to choose my success or failure in any endeavor.

No matter how hard it tries, a ripple that laps onto the shore will never be as powerful as the ocean that created it. The goal is to be the ocean—the central force in our existence that moves mountains, creates all life, shakes continents, and is respected by everyone. This book is about becoming the ocean. About choosing yourself to be the ocean. So everything that you do emanates out like ripples, everything you do moves the earth, and enhances your life and the lives of all the people around you.

This book is about becoming the ocean. About choosing yourself to be the ocean. So everything that you do emanates out like ripples, everything you do moves the earth, and enhances your life and the lives of all the people around you.

We’re going to learn how to do what we enjoy, first. I’m not just talking about those “only pursue a career you enjoy” platitudes, either. I mean it down to your very thoughts. Only think about the people you enjoy. Only read the books you enjoy, that make you happy to be human. Only go to the events that actually make you laugh or fall in love. Only deal with the people who love you back, who are winners and want you to win too.

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Every time you say yes to something you don’t want to do, this will happen: you will resent people, you will do a bad job, you will have less energy for the things you were doing a good job on, you will make less money, and yet another small percentage of your life will be used up, burned up, a smoke signal to the future saying, “I did it again.” The only real fire to cultivate is the fire inside of you. Nothing external will cultivate it. The greater your internal fire is, the more people will want it. They will smoke every drug lit by your fire. They will try to ignite their own fires. They will try to light up their own dark caves. The universe will bend to you.

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All you need to do to live longer is to constantly make sure you are doing everything you can to protect your heart and the blood that flows through it. This is a function of diet, exercise, sleep, and other things. If the heart gets sick, you die. When you finally die, make no mistake, it will be because the heart got sick.

Imagine now you have three other bodies alongside your physical body: an emotional body a mental body and a spiritual body. Imagine a life force that flows between them and through them, much like blood. Imagine a central core that must keep everything healthy. Just like you must keep your heart healthy to live a long, productive, and even happy life, you must keep these other bodies healthy as well and exercise them on a regular basis. A daily basis. A minute by minute basis.

It is from a foundation of health (in all four bodies) that you build the platform to choose yourself.

THE PHYSICAL BODY. The shell that we must take care of to live. It houses everything we do. And it’s pretty simple. We know when we are doing bad things to it. Too often we think, “Once I achieve X, Y, Z, goal, I’m going to get back in shape.” But it doesn’t work that way. Not that you need to be ripped and jacked or eight-packed or whatever. You just need to be healthy. And you know what I mean? You need to shit regularly. That’s it. And how do you do that? You don’t eat junk food. You sleep seven to nine hours a night. Avoid excess alcohol. Exercise. And by exercise I don’t mean run eight miles a day. I mean take walks.

THE EMOTIONAL BODY. Emotionally I try to surround myself with only positive people who inspire me. This way I can learn to be positive. To be a beacon to those around me. It’s important to avoid people who bring you down. Not in a cruel way. But avoid engaging or overly dwelling on people who are constantly draining you of energy.

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You can’t be beautiful unless you get rid of the ugliness inside. People become crappy people not because of who they are, but because they are crapping inside of you. Stop letting that happen.

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THE MENTAL BODY. Your mind desperately wants to be the BOSS. It needs you to be very, VERY BUSY with BS stuff so it can do all the things it’s good at: obsess, worry, fear, be depressed, feel exuberance, forward thinking, backward thinking, thinking thinking THINKING until… burnout. So you need to tame the wild horse or it will tame you until you are a slave. Nobody wants that. The way you tame it is through focused use.

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. Most people obsess on regrets in their past or anxieties in their future. I call this “time traveling.” The past and future don’t exist. They are memories and speculation, neither of which you have any control over. You don’t need to time travel anymore. You can live right now.

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When you surrender and accept the beautiful stillness around you, when you give up all thoughts of the past, all worries and anxieties of the future, when you surround yourself with similarly positive people, when you tame the mind, when you keep healthy, there is zero chance of burnout.

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igniting the fire on the inside burns a light so fierce it can’t be burned out. Instead, you will brighten the galaxy. You will add brilliance to the lives around you. You will become a beacon, a light that attracts abundance, instead of a flickering fame that is eventually smothered.

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So people find themselves on the floor. Without “a life,” as they put it. They obviously have a life. They are breathing. But they don’t know how to choose life for themselves. The masses rely on others to do it for them. They have given up their Life to live a smaller “life,” ruled by others. I get that. It’s happened to me over and over again. But this reliance on others has to come to an end. It was always a myth. Everything we hoped for. The society that we were told would be here, waiting for us, is completely gone and is never coming back. You can either take the blue pill (become depressed about an artificial reality that is never going to return) or take the red pill (fully enter the Choose Yourself era and take advantage of its opportunities).

External changes in your life are like the final ripples of the ocean that lap onto distant shores. A promotion, a raise, a new job offer, a new relationship. These are the final ripples. The ocean is inside you. Becoming aware of that infinite presence doesn’t require meditation in a cave for fifty years. It involves simply being healthy. Healthy not just physically but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

For now, the Simple Daily Practice means doing ONE thing every day. Try any one of these things each day:

A) Sleep eigh...

B) Eat two meals instead...

C) N...

D) No jun...

E) No complaining for one...

F) No g...

G) Return an e-mail from five...

H) Express thanks to ...

I) Watch a funny movie or a sta...

J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be...

K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te...

L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out f...

M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something tha...

N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item ...

O) Surprise s...

P) Think of ten people you are g...

Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin i...

R) Take the stairs instead of t...

S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!...

T) Tell someone every day that yo...