Choose Yourself

by James Altucher

BE AN EXPERT. When you start a business and you have a service or product that is good enough for people to use over other similar products or services, then you are now an expert in your space. Even if you are new to the space, you’re an expert. I like that feeling. I like giving talks. I like writing about the areas that fascinate me. I like starting businesses or being involved in sectors of industry that fascinate me. Sometimes you shouldn’t be an expert and yet you still are. When I started 140love.com, a dating service for people on Twitter, my site failed miserably. I was actually invited to give a talk at a Twitter-related conference. The title of the talk was “Twitter and Love.” I was going through a divorce, and I had been dumped by four or five girlfriends in a row. Now I was supposed to give a talk about love. The irony is so thick I could spread it on sandwich bread if bread wasn’t so high in carbs. Anyway, that business died fast. And I didn’t show up for the talk on the day of the conference. They had to find a quick replacement. Sorry, Jeff Pulver. He never invited me to speak at a conference again.