Choose Yourself

by James Altucher

In some cultures, like Buddhism, you want things in your life to disappear, to reduce your needs and desires.

fact, “the American Dream” comes from a marketing campaign developed by Fannie Mae

There’s a saying, “The learned man aims for more. But the wise man decreases. And then decreases again.”

I hate to sound like a weirdo Buddhist, but the only things that really matter in this world are the relationships you have with the people you love, and the meaningful things that you do. Haters don’t fit anywhere into that. Don’t devote any mental space to them.”

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.

by building physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

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.

But it points out how hard it is for us to do things for ourselves unless we are given some implicit permission.

time? When all that time we were free without realizing it. There are no chains on me as I write this. But the feeling is immense: all I want is

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.

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.

Set a goal: I’m going to come up with ten ways I can have more time for myself. Or I’m going to come up with ten ways I can make my job better. Or ten business ideas. Make sure the list you plan to do is a hard one.

look at the roofs of buildings. Finding the art in the city around me is a good technique to keep me right here, when everyone else is in the time machine.

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.

That’s the problem. A corporation wants identity to go away. He wanted his best and his brightest to be mediocre so that the corporation, not the individuals inside of it, would burn bright. What’s going to happen is that his company will lose, and all of his “stars” will go supernova on their own.

Often when we attach our happiness to external goals: financial success, relationship success, etc., we get disappointed.

HOW DO I SELF-PUBLISH?

entrepreneurs can’t use the excuse that “I don’t have time, I’m running a business.” This is your business.

If you have a story to tell or a service to offer (it doesn’t matter what), love yourself enough to choose yourself. Take control of your work, your life, your art. The tools are out there. Now you just need to use the tools inside yourself.

don’t like the word purpose. It implies that somewhere in the future I will find something that will make me happy, and that until then, I will be unhappy.

The desperation and despair that focusing on “purpose“ entails.

When you are young, you think you can climb that mountain. But when you start to get a little older you realize, “Damn, if I fall now that’s a long way down.”

But I hope everyone follows the advice of the Daily Practice, where you internally get healthy enough to make the decisions about what is right for your life instead of relying on century-old customs and antiquated ideas about “property rights,” “education,” “jobs,” “politics,” and so on that have kept people enslaved with ancient philosophical shackles.

Read two hours a day. 2) Write ten ideas a day.

Do this: Build your product Sell it to a customer Start shipping Then quit your job.

“I feel like money makes you more of who you already are.

If you’re an asshole, you become a bigger asshole.

If you’re nice, you bec...

TEN KEYS TO SELLING:

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you can’t—either way you are right.”

It’s how do I make all ideas smaller and achievable?

Some good places to start are brainpickings.org, thebrowser.com, and (not safe for work), extragoodshit.phlap.net.

I asked people to help me come up with more ideas for coming up with ideas.

Don’t underestimate the power of being social.

And being honest at every level is really the most effective habit of all if you want to have massive success.

It’s only through stillness that one can actively create.

Nothing is more important than the cultivation of yourself. So many people think they will save the world if they defeat “them,” where “them” is some evil force that is bringing the world down. But once you divide the world into categories, into an “us” versus “them,” then you immediately become a “them” and lose touch with who you really are. And before long you’re calling me a fucking douchebag on the Internet.

He once said, “You must first be the change you want to see in this World.”

Try this exercise: pretend everyone was sent to this planet to teach you. Famous people, dead people, your neighbors, your relatives, your co-workers. This will give you a strong feeling of humility. And guess what, you will learn from people, you will appreciate them more, and they will actually appreciate you more. Because everyone loves to teach.

“To be experimental, first you have to know how to use all the rules of grammar. You have to be an expert first in tradition.”

time. My takeaway? Study the history of the form you want to master. Study every nuance. If you want to write, read not only all of your contemporaries, but the influences of those contemporaries, and their influences.

It’s actually ABNORMAL to “get close” to not being rejected. It’s even more abnormal to be “accepted” or to “succeed” in some conventional sense.