"The Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth" by James Altucher book summary
The choose yourself guide to wealth by James Altucher, two-time Wall Street Journal best-selling author, who has run his own hedge fund and VC firm, and has started and run more than 20 companies.
The author’s fundamental concept is that you should be working on your ideas instead of others’ ideas, and as a corollary you should train yourself to come up with good ideas! To do that, you need to become an Idea Machine. Exercise your idea muscles so that you can problem-solve situations more effectively, create meaningful connections with others by sharing powerful ideas that benefit them, and build your own wealth.
- So how do you become an Idea Machine? -
First, buy a bunch of waiter’s pads, which are easy to carry around and designed to force you to be concise. Then, EVERY DAY, come up with a list of 10 ideas. Within 6 months, you’ll be a true idea machine with the power to change your life and reinvent yourself.
Why 10 ideas? Because that’s how many ideas are required to stretch your idea muscles. You can probably come up with 4-5 ideas easily, but after that your brain starts sweating, and that’s how it grows.
What type of ideas should you be looking for?
Naturally, you can’t come up with 10 business ideas EVERY day. Or even 10 good ideas. But that’s not the point. It’s about getting in the habit of coming up with ideas consistently.
- Get your idea juices flowing… -
Here are some ways to get the juices flowing: combine 2 ideas to create a new idea at their intersection, or take old ideas and give them a modern spin – perhaps applying a new business model or technology, or think about industries where you could remove the middleman, or write 10 things you’d like to learn. The ideas don’t even have to be about yourself. Pick a business you find interesting and come up with 10 ideas for it to grow or improve customer service. And share with the founder or CEO. Maybe they won’t care, but you never know. After you start coming up with great ideas, you’ll start seeing the benefit of sharing these ideas with others freely.
- Conclusion -
The author has tried, tested, failed, and succeeded a lot. He doesn’t make a pretense to always know or prescribe the RIGHT way, but he shares what’s worked and hasn’t worked for himself. We can take advantage of many of his painful experiences, avoid his mistakes, and invest our time, money and ideas a better way.
