2209: [Part 2] How to Be Persistent and Get Success by James Altucher on Building Discipline

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[00:00:55] This is Optimal Work Daily. How to be persistent and get success. Part 2 by James Altucher of JamesAltucher.com.

[00:01:08] B. Time Management. For every attempt, you will become more and more efficient with your time. You will hire better, bad employees are the worst wastes of time, and you will learn how to pre-qualify customers better. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten on a plane, traveled a thousand miles, made my impassioned pitch, everyone loved it, and then I returned home with nothing, nothing, nothing.

[00:01:33] It feels so bad. Didn't they like me? Didn't they like my idea? Didn't they think it was important that I flew a thousand miles to see them on their home turf? Didn't they? I think it takes about 20 failures to really get time management down to a science. C. Idea Execution. Most of the time, we have good ideas, but have no idea how to execute it. We waste time thinking we need a lawyer to execute something. They will execute your idea, that's for sure.

[00:02:02] Or an accountant, or a partner, or a programmer, or a salesperson, or a venture capitalist. Or we need to be living in Paris if we want to paint a good painting. Or we need to be isolated for six months if we want to write a good novel or book. Or we need to meditate to be enlightened. Or we need to be educated to get a job. None of these things are true. They're just excuses. All excuses are myths, are lies we tell ourselves to keep ourselves inside on a sunny day.

[00:02:32] With persistence, you learn how to hunt, how to kill, how to eat. D. BS Detection. I was at a dinner once to hear a pitch. It was with a fund I didn't like, so I should have known better. They said, just listen to this guy. He had a great pitch. He had a technology which would take steam coming out of factories that he would then recycle back into the factory so they would save energy and costs. He would charge only on what he saved the factory. Then he had another pitch.

[00:03:02] Strips that he would place on the highway that would absorb the energy of the cars driving over and feed it right into the electric grid. He said, quote, One day on the Long Island Expressway and I could power New York State for a month. End quote. He had more pitches. On and on. Finally, I was thinking to myself, he's going to pitch me a time machine. The next slide? A time machine. I left the dinner. My business partner was laughing. Did he just pitch us a time machine?

[00:03:31] Eventually, you get BS detection, so you don't even take those dinners. Much better to sleep. E. Persistence gives you luck. A lot of times I'm playing chess online and I'll win and someone will say, You got really lucky. As if I couldn't win without luck. And then we'll play again and I'll win again. And then usually whoever said that will log off quickly without saying goodbye. There's a saying. Only the good players are lucky. How do you get lucky? I'm not the best player in the world,

[00:04:01] but I've put in thousands of hours studying and playing and losing. Persistence is an intimate dance with loss. And through that dance, you find that failure mated with passion produces luck. F. Calmness. If every house you live in burns down, you begin to learn how to be calm in a fire. The more calm you are, the more lives are saved. The more possessions restored. Persistence gives you calm. Whispers what you should do in emergencies. Without persistence,

[00:04:31] you won't know to stay low and let the smoke rise over you so you can breathe. With persistence, you learn that life is filled with change. And that the more accepting you are of the change, decay, and hardship that life is filled with, the more you will navigate them to find the treasure and wisdom that awaits that acceptance. G. Giving up. You also learn when you should give up on an idea. Sometimes you don't need to persist on one idea. Sometimes an idea is just bad. But through constant trial and error,

[00:05:00] you will learn when to give up and move on to the next one. You will learn how to keep your expectations low. Low expectations improve your ability to make quick decisions that don't rely on false myths, shame, and excuses. When you expect nothing, then suddenly you will get everything. H. Strength. The world is divided into two types of people. The ones who blame and the ones who take responsibility. It's the latter that ignite that inner fire,

[00:05:29] that seek internal improvement in all four bodies, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Every single day, grow the fire. Jerry Seinfeld used to say when he would write down a new comedy sketch, he'd put an X down on the calendar. Finally, he would have a line of Xs. He liked looking at the Xs. He didn't want a blank. Don't make a blank. Every day, improve those internal fires. And I, trust.

[00:05:58] If you know you are building that internal fire every day, you will be content with what you have. You will trust that life will take care of the rest. You will never be left lacking. You will never be left wondering, what if? You will know the exact moment you need to step out of the way so abundance can force its way in like a tornado. You will trust deep down that it will happen. That's the key to persistence. Improve the internal fire every day. Do the daily practice to ignite it.

[00:06:26] And expect absolutely nothing. So you will enjoy when you inevitably get everything. You just listened to part two of the post titled How to be persistent and get success. By James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com. Fall savings are happening now at the Home Depot. Save up to $500 on select appliances. Plus, enjoy free delivery when you spend $998 or more.

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[00:07:41] And I shared a little bit about James after yesterday's episode. But to tell you a little bit more about him, he has founded or co-founded over 20 companies and published 20 books. He's also a contributor to the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and the Huffington Post. He's an entrepreneur, writer, investor, trader, and podcaster. And if you check out his podcast, you'll hear him interview a bunch of talented people. The show is called The James Altucher Show,

[00:08:10] and you can always find it in the top charts of the business category of Apple Podcasts. And again, James' website is jamesaltucher.com. That's A-L-T-U-C-H-E-R. But that's going to do it for today. I appreciate you listening every single day. Of course, that is how we can keep this show going. So have a great rest of your day, and I will be back again with you tomorrow for the Monday show, where your optimal life awaits.