Reinvent Yourself

by James Altucher

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

BE RESPECTFUL.

DON’T BE ENTITLED.

DON’T BE DISAPPOINTED.

“No, you’re building a connection. It’s almost like you’re sharing a story. They will relate to you. You have to get good at connecting with people in 10 seconds.”

Every attempt at art depends first on connection. Every business depends on connection.

“Everyone always asks me what camera I use,” Chase said. “But greatness is about storytelling.”

I learned to be persistent. That love (or anything) is a quantity game before whittling down to quality.

I also learned that time heals everything.

So, at the end of the day, every emotion gets watered down with age. And even a “no” forms ...

You choose yourself one choice at a time. You choose yourself every day. You choose yourself with all of your fears and hopes mixed together and nobody knows what’s going to happen. But if you do it with a sense of mission, a belief in your vision, what happens may not be what you expect, but you will never say, “I wonder what would have happened…”

DO WORK YOU BELIEVE IN SO MUCH YOU’D GO TO JAIL FOR IT

LOOK AT YOUR LIFE FROM A DISTANCE

GO TO THE PEOPLE

“ARRANGE WHATEVER PIECES COME YOUR WAY”

ALWAYS TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN LIFE

“LEAVE YOURSELF OPEN TO WHATEVER COMES UP”

WE ARE “DOOMED” TO MAKE OUR CHOICES

Wayne asked, “What’s the difference between good and God?” The answer is “O.” Not just ‘oh’ but ‘zero.’ So whatever makes you feel good, whatever energizes you and lights you up inside, that’s God. That’s God telling you that that’s what you are meant to be doing.

“SELL YOUR CLEVERNESS AND CREATE A SENSE OF AWE”

DON’T REGRET YOUR LIFE Wayne said to me, “The number one regret of the dying is ‘I wish I had the courage to live the life I wanted rather than doing what others wanted of me.’”

“THERE ARE THREE WAYS TO ENLIGHTENMENT” Suffering: reflecting on pain in the past and learning from it; Being present: learning from what you’re going through right now; “Getting out front”: being proactive rather than reactive.

They didn’t need anything to keep them entertained. It’s a story. But this is the way I would like to live: with my friend and my health intact, and not a material care in the world.

As a wise man once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

“If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.”

“Going from PayPal, I thought: ‘Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?’ Not from the perspective, ‘What’s the best way to make money?”

“Never do something for the money,” Coolio told me. “Or the girls,” he added.

“(Physics is) a good framework for thinking… Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.”

“It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.”

I always think this is the magic equation: persistence + love = abundance.

Ultimately, 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 think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”

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).

ancillary

Someone asked me yesterday, “What do you feel strongly about?” I said, “Nothing.” He said, “That’s a strong response. Don’t you worry about death?” I said, “Why waste any part of today worrying about something that will happen later?”

Biologically we’re one species. But politically, for thousands of years we’ve divided ourselves up with false and artificial borders.

How many of us do that simple act, the creation of art and beauty, every day? I don’t.

“The media only writes about the sinners and the scandals, but that’s normal, because a tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows.”

Francis’s quote: “No one can grow if he does not accept his smallness.”

Another Pope Francis quote: “This is the struggle of every person: be free or be a slave.”

Even if you are stuck at the bottom of solitary confinement in jail, you can still choose to be free inside your spirit. This is not self-help B.S. This is your choice: do you be miserable or do you root yourself in your inner freedom? Why choose to be miserable? And yet, often when I wake up in the morning, all my past memories suck me in as quickly as possible and it’s an effort not to say “ugh.” Then I’m a slave again. It’s a practice every day to choose freedom.

His quote: “Living together is an art. It’s a patient art, it’s a beautiful art, it’s fascinating.”

Many studies show that the key to contentment and confidence is three things: *Growing competence in a pursuit you love *Strengthening every day the relationships around you *Increasing your freedom of choices

“If we start without confidence, already we have lost half the battle and we bury our talents.”

“When you are with the Dalai Lama, you feel as if he loves you the way a mother loves her baby.”

He chose the name Francis when he became pope because of Francis of Assisi. Why? He explains: “Francis of Assisi loved, helped and served the needy, the sick and the poor; he also cared greatly for creation.”

“To care greatly for creation” is the essence of choosing yourself instead of letting anyone else do it for you.

Gandhi said, “Because before I could tell your son to stop eating sugar, I had to stop eating sugar first.”

One of Gandhi’s financial backers once said, “It’s very expensive to keep Gandhi in poverty.”

I suspect the financial backers felt they had some influence on Gandhi. But money means not...