2130: [Part 2] The 9 Surefire Ways to Fail at Anything by James Altucher on Personal Development

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[00:00:24] This is Optimal Work Daily, The 9 Surefire Ways to Fail at Anything, Part 2 by James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com 6. Lack of Focus One time I had several things going on. I wanted to start a tea company. I wanted to start a record label. I wanted to have a TV show. I wanted to write a novel. And I wanted my business to be a success.

[00:00:52] Sometimes lack of focus is good, but only if you can connect the dots. If the TV show would promote the business, then that connects the dots. If you're a writer, but want to learn how to play poker, then write a book about learning to play poker. If you want to make a phone and make a music player, make a phone that plays music. Focus is not about doing one thing. It's about doing many things that connect and combine in ways nobody ever thought of before.

[00:01:18] Focus is about connecting the dots so that one vision emerges. It's not about falling down a rabbit hole where nobody sees you again. 7. Bad Knowledge One time I wanted to learn to be an investor. I saw some people were day trading and making money, so figured I'd try. It was a disaster. I was just following others, and I thought I was smart.

[00:01:40] 8. Bad Knowledge

[00:01:58] 8. Bad Knowledge

[00:02:36] They made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Actually, I did refuse it, but then they put out a press release saying I was an investor. 9. Bad Knowledge I helped them out. The company grew. It was a great company, great clients, good employees, but one shareholder was a criminal. And the people who introduced me to this company were also no good. I should have stayed away. But I got involved with them, and then with the company. And then the criminal was caught, and the company went to zero.

[00:03:03] All that time wasted. A ton of money lost. I got a story out of it. 9. Inability to Shift Every year since 2003, I've written a book. This year is the first year I have no desire to write a book. Although the year is not over yet. Instead, I saw that more people were listening to my podcast than reading my books, and the number of people listening to my podcast was going up huge each month. So I doubled down, and about to quadruple down, on doing my podcast.

[00:03:32] Is it a different business? Is it a lack of focus? No, I'm connecting the dots. I'm writing about each podcast. I'm exploring my interest in each podcast. Often I'm making new partners and friends and future partners with each podcast guest. Shifting, reinventing myself. I have to do it every day. It's not one day. It's not this day. It's every day. Looking around, reinvention is hidden in the cracks of everyday life that most people ignore.

[00:04:01] The person who is reinventing walks into a room and says, What is weird about this? The people who can't reinvent try to control every situation in life and ask, Why are things going wrong? The world is mentally ill. The wrong question to ask someone who is mentally ill is why. Instead, shift and reinvent every day. There's an easy way to avoid the nine ways to fail. Take any area of your life. Improve it 1%.

[00:04:29] That's the quote-unquote secret of not failing. If you do this every day and it compounds, then you improve 3,800% a year. 3,800%. 38 times. You're only competing against the person you were yesterday. But the people who don't do that ultimately fall into one of the nine I've mentioned. If you don't try to get healthier, you get sick as you age. If you don't improve your relationships, you start serving their time in the prison of this lifetime instead of serving your own time.

[00:04:58] If you don't improve your creativity, you end up arguing politics on Facebook and disappear into the normalcy of that life. If you don't improve your ability to reinvent, you get stuck in traffic in the same lane everyone else is in. There was that one path, the secret path, that you could have taken. But you didn't notice it. My very first client in business was a diamond dealer. Very successful. I made his website. He was the first person to pay me to build a website. I took the money he gave me and finally moved to Manhattan.

[00:05:28] I moved to the Chelsea Hotel where I lived for many years and met many friends and got many stories. The diamond dealer explained everything about diamonds to me. The entire industry. The crookedness of it, but also the beauty of it. He had a secretary. She had a giant scar on her cheek, but I thought she was beautiful. And she seemed very kind. Maybe the scar had showed her what it was like to be less fortunate than others. I was always too shy to talk to her. I wanted to make her laugh. I made his website and started my first business.

[00:05:58] But would it have been so bad if I just connected the dots and licked the scar right off of her face? You just listened to part two of the post titled, The Nine Surefire Ways to Fail at Anything by James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com. And thank you again to James, who has founded or co-founded over 20 companies and published 20 books.

[00:06:23] He's also a contributor to the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Tech Crunch, and the Huffington Post. He's an entrepreneur and a writer, an investor, trader, and podcaster, as he mentioned in the post. And you can hear him interview a bunch of talented people on his podcast, The James Altucher Show. So please do check that out and show James some support. But I think that's going to do it for today. I thank you so much for being a subscriber to the show. Have a great start to your weekend, and I will see you right back here tomorrow as usual.

[00:06:52] That is where your optimal life awaits.