Choose Yourself

by James Altucher

It’s one thing to know “The Secret” or take whatever life-affirming steps you’ve read about in order to bring positivity into your life, but it’s something else altogether to actually create opportunities for yourself.

Oxytocin levels can be boosted by the foods we eat, how we exercise our mind, how we associate with others, and even is partly responsible for how we cultivate an attitude of gratitude toward both the positive and negative events in our lives.

People are walking around blind. If you are the one who can see, you will be able to navigate through this new world.

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?

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.

Picture your body for a second. You have a heart that pumps blood one hundred thousand times per day, or seventy-two times per minute, sending 1.3 gallons of blood through your body. If there’s any blockage—in a vein or an artery—you’ll die very quickly. Within minutes. That’s a heart attack. Blood cleans the system, sending water, oxygen, and nutrients to every part of your body. 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.

Here’s an exercise I do that can help in this regard: I try to be quiet. Instead of speaking the average 2,500 words a day that most people speak, it would be nice for me to speak just one thousand words a day when possible. This forces me to carefully choose my words and who I engage with.

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.

In I Was Blind but Now I See, I wrote about how people no longer needed a home or an education. How both are leashes that society has created to hold you down and prevent you from growth.

Your tribe, in part, is defined by you (you seek them out) but also defines you (you’re in the tribe of entrepreneurs or you are in the tribe of cubicle people).

To know that there are at least twenty people who independently can help you to achieve the success you need. You build up this list of twenty people the old-fashioned way—you help them. The only way to create value for yourself is to create value for others.

think of two people in your network who don’t know each other but you think can add value to each other’s lives. Introduce them. Do this every day. Get better and better at it.

When every day you wake up with that motive of enhancement. Enhance your family, your friends, your colleagues, your clients, potential customers, readers, people who you don’t even know yet but you would like to know. Become a beacon of enhancement, and then when the night is gray, all of the boats will move toward you, bringing their bountiful riches.

Finally, try to label your thoughts: “future” or “past.” If you can do that, you stand a pretty good chance of remaining in the present.

She promoted herself down every avenue. That’s what you have to do to succeed. You can’t have any shame. I have a lot of shame in promoting myself, which I have to get over. She had no shame. Not to over-repeat a catchphrase, but Sara didn’t wait for anyone to choose her. She chose herself in every way.

If you want to be successful, you need to study success, not hate it or be envious of it. If you are envious, then you will distance yourself from success and make it that much harder to get there. Never be jealous. Never think someone is “lucky.” Luck is created by the prepared. Never think that someone is undeserving of the money they have.

Right now, list ten ideas that are “too big for me” and what the next steps might be.

Shake things up. I have a very strict routine every day. I wake up, read, write, exercise, eat, attend meetings (phone or live), then reverse the process: eat, write, read, and sleep.

1. Twitter Search I’ll search phrases like: “I wish I had” “I just paid someone to” “is the worst product” “is a horrible company” “has a terrible website” “is my favorite website” “does anyone know how”

The reality is, most people should not be at work. Why? Other than the many reasons already elucidated in this book, it’s simply because most people are bad at their jobs. It’s rare that someone is actually good at what they do. I know maybe ten people who are good at their jobs. This is not a criticism. It’s just a fact. And basically, robots are better. That’s why Apple is moving production back to the United States, because too many Chinese people were killing themselves in their factories. Robots don’t kill themselves, and they get the job done faster.

“A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” — Gandhi

STAY IN TOUCH. It’s hard for me to not burn bridges. I tend to do it too much. But I’ve found great success when I’ve not fallen into the bridge-burning pattern I often succumb to. Example: I once tried to sell an early company I started to Omnicom, the big ad agency. I met with the woman who made these decisions for Omnicom. She felt we weren’t ready yet. Every month I sent her an update: new clients, new sales numbers, number of employees. I also offered to help any of the agencies that Omnicom had. One time I called her on behalf of one of my clients to see if she could recommend any agencies within the Omnicom family to help one of my clients. In other words, I offered her real value. After about a year of me doing this every month, she rallied three of the agencies within Omnicom to come over and check out my company. All three made offers. Did I accept any? No, but I was able to leverage those offers into a better offer from someone who came completely out of the blue.