Reinvent Yourself

by James Altucher

it first has to come from within: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. I.e., write down 10 ideas a day. Be around good people. Be grateful,

the IRS says the average multi-millionaire has seven different sources of income.

All the people I’ve ever had on my podcast—200 successful artists, billionaires, astronauts, athletes, writers, entrepreneurs, inventors—have reinvented themselves over and over.

FREEDOM RELATIONSHIPS COMPETENCE

practice. Without following my own advice, the advice becomes worthless.

Blaming and complaining are draining. They never solve future problems and they only drain away energy from this moment.

We want that ugliness and fear that lives inside to be outside. We want to point the finger at it.

If you’re great at ideas, or great at execution, but you eat poorly and are constantly sick, then you’ll be constantly sick and never get anything done. We’re as good as our weakest link. Find the parts of your life where you can jump on the steepest learning curves and make that jump.

The one thing in common from anyone above is that they practiced their art every single day. It’s hard to sit down every day and… sit. Blank paper. Blank canvas. Blankness.

Picasso also says, “I am always doing things I can’t do—that’s how I get to do them.”

I only live in Airbnbs and

of all

Yes, very much so. I had spent 90% of my life in Airbnbs over the prior three years and just about 100% in the last year. In 2014 I even wrote an article, “10 Ways to Improve Airbnb.”

What five adjectives do you want to describe your life, or the objects you create, or your relationships?”

“HOW DO YOU FIND YOUR LIFE’S CALLING?” I ASKED CHIP. “What did you love doing when you were 6, 8, 10 years old?”

I thought back to when I was 10 years old.

“Despair = Suffering - Meaning.

“Then get back to what you loved when you were younger. Start to brainstorm how you can bring that even a little bit into your life now. And a little bit more the next day. And so on.

When you have a quantity of ideas and things you are trying, you will find quality.”

exercising my idea muscle. If you write down 10 ideas a day, you have 3,650 ideas in a year. And maybe one or two will be good.

sayings are fun to say and hard to live.

LISTEN to what people tell you.

BE HUMBLE. Some people are great people. They are kind. They are humble. They are productive. They are competent. They get things done. Then they get AMAZING things done.

When you compare, you despair. When you are humble, you learn. When you get curious, you get better.

Chris. “Continually investing in the success of others is what will eventually lead to success for yourself.”

Do you know someone who is feeling entitled? Is he angry most of the time? Entitled people are the ones who later say, “I should’ve been X” and they are bitter and then life is over. Entitlement. Ceiling. Entitlement. Ceiling. I

If I can’t listen, I can’t learn. If I am speaking, I can’t listen. If I am answering, I’m not asking.

The only skill for survival and success is having that ability to connect. I’m glad I learned something from Chase.

OK. Sometimes you have to take a rest to re-energize.

Wake up tomorrow and say, “I’m going to save at least one life today.” Even helping an old woman across the street counts. Even responding to an email and helping someone make an important decision saves a life. Even reaching out to a distant friend and asking how they’re doing can save their life. You can save a life today. Don’t let the sun set without doing that.

REST WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO.

it is great to just rest and be happy and not move when you don’t have to. Those doors will open eventually.

RID YOURSELF OF EVERYTHING YOU DON’T NEED.

it takes 10,000 hours to master something.

not about looking good in a yoga studio. It’s about staying physically and emotionally healthy so you can focus on your spiritual life.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

six, bad things happen in cycles. Good things also. Trusting that the kindness you are putting out there is compounding in a secret bank account for you means waiting for that bank account to deliver its returns. It will.

magic equation: persistence + love = abundance.

wealth comes to those who create wealth for others.

When I was running a software company, we always knew it would take one great programmer to solve a hard problem in one night versus 10 mediocre programmers taking a month to screw up a problem even worse.

if you want to make a TV show, don’t rely on the gatekeepers. Take a camera. Make a YouTube video. Make 100 YouTube videos. Now you have a show. All by yourself.

I always wonder about the phrase “change the world.” Perhaps the most valuable starting point is to do everything I can to change myself each day: to be physically healthier, to be around emotionally healthy people, to be create, to be grateful. To try and improve in these areas 1% a day.

A small level of fear is motivational. It forces me to have a backup plan. The average multimillionaire supposedly has seven sources of income. They all have backup plans.

“Life is too short for long-term grudges.”

when something bad does happen, rather than blame, I try to think about what I learned. I don’t want to make the same mistake again.

every day it’s worth trying to be a little better (even just 1%, an amount so small it can’t be measured) in physical health, emotional health, creativity, and gratitude.

Someone once asked me whether it was better to be good at a lot of things or GREAT at one thing. The answer is exemplified by the Rolling Stones. They were “good” at EVERY style of music and thus became the GREATEST at the intersection of all of those styles.

It’s hard to be the greatest at any one endeavor, but by combining passions, it’s much easier to be the greatest in the world at the intersections of those passions (because there are billions of things that can intersect, you can find your own place in the “long tail of passion” to be the master of).

My theory always in any career is that it takes one to three years to do the studying required. About two years before you are making any money at the new career. Three to four years before you are making a living from it and five to six years before you are killing it. But it requires persistence each day.

Lennon and McCartney went up to the apartment Jagger and Richards shared and basically riffed out “I Wanna Be Your Man” to help the Stones put together the release that was their first major hit.