The title is a my way of paying homage to James Altucher and his book “Choose Yourself”.
I felt the need to recommend this title to all of you. James’ story has all the makings of a movie of the week.
A computer geek, entrepreneur, speaker, investor, and author; James, like many of us, decided early that he didn’t want to be a “slave to the man.” Now at the ripe old age of 45, he has all the personal, spiritual and professional freedom any of us could ever ask for out of life.
The title of the book is actually quite fitting. The book is marketed as a guide to building a career and lifestyle that leave you as an independent; not someone reliant on society and the traditional economic system (i.e., working in a cubicle or factory where you get a “guaranteed paycheck” twice a month.)
Essentially, you have to choose yourself in order to gain independence. Simple enough, right?
Unlike a lot of the hype-filled books out there, he delivers a much different – more comprehensive message than simply “do it”, “get motivated”, “you’re the king/queen of your own destiny”, etc.
He uses exclamation marks (!) quite sparingly and digs into methods for building yourself up; whether you find you’re currently broken and down in the dumps, or you’re simply young and don’t know where to start.
In Choose Yourself, James Altucher weaves his own life story and those of many other successful entrepreneurs into the philosophies he’s trying to teach us.
Not once will you see a plug for his motivational speaking or consulting gigs. The book is all about helping you.
Highlights:
Investment markets are unstable, unemployment is always certain…
- This is nothing new, but it’s the starting point for Choosing Yourself. To be the master of your wealth and to also diversify that wealth as much as possible to insulate yourself from the troubles of society.
You have to be happy before you’re wealthy in order to enjoy it…
- I know, I really, really do: what wealth-building genius/slash motivator doesn’t say this, right? His “Daily Practice Ritual” will show you this is more than just an empty mantra he’s copied from a Tony Robbins/Jim Rohn seminar.
Tons and tons of popular success stories are shared in the book– he relates their success to the “Choose Yourself” approach…
- One that really stuck out to me was the story of sexy billionaire Sara Blakely, the creator of Spanx Hosiery. I’m not going to go into this too much, but she’s the youngest female billionaire in history. Read Choose Yourself and study Blakely too – how she created and marketed her “bunchproof pantyhose” is a template for success anyone can benefit from.
- He devotes an equal focus to web startups including Brian Johnson’s, the founder of braintree.com, who went from appliance salesman to a million-dollar net worth in less than two years, which then turned into multi-millions a short time later (Brian’s big on looking for “boring” business models to get rich to usurp the barrier to entry in more popular industries like health and MMO.)
Altucher explains that you have to be a multi-faceted entrepreneur to ensure long-term wealth…
- He’s an author, angel investor, salesman, marketer, motivator, web designer, and webpreneur.
- James created and owns half of stockpickr.com – which is now integrated with Jim Cramer’s thestreet.com – he GAVE them a 50% share of his site in order to build influential relationships, and increase profits on the site!
He recommends a series of mind and spiritual enhancement exercises he calls the “Daily Practice”…
- The Daily Practice involves 4 key areas of personal and professional growth: Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual. These aren’t cheesy by the way, check out some snippets here on his site, or just by the book on entire book Amazon for $1. There’s one for every letter of the alphabet and he suggests just one a day.
- I personally liked Q: Forgive someone. He suggests writing that you forgive someone on a piece of paper if you don’t want to do it in person, then burning the paper. Apparently, studies have shown this has the same effect on your brain as forgiving them directly face-to-face. There are tons of revelations like this in the book.
Choose Yourself is a goldmine for business ideas and ways to extract successful ideas from your brain…
- You can tell he’s been there and done that. Once you read his blog or his books, you can really see he’s one of those guys who’s risen and fallen, and kept trying. He knows how to get the most out of a day, week, year and he’s not one of those types who preaches that you need to work 20 hours a day to do it.
- There’s a ton of great ideas for starting a business . No hype – just solid ideas for getting started and training your brain to get things done.
He’ll refund our purchase price if you don’t like/agree with what he outlines in his book – seriously…
- As long as you can prove you bought it and that you indeed read the book (not bad eh?)
- If you don’t have the money, you can contact him at jamesaltucher.com and politely ask him for a digital copy.
Takeaway
This book is pure gold for an entrepreneur. He talks at length about personal growth, networking, marketing, wealth building, and so much more.
You won’t feel like you’ve read a dozen carbon copies of the same book when you start reading this one. His writing is unique and the message is an inspirational takeaway on the ups and downs in life, as much as it is about career success and financial independence.
And oh, by the way, he also has a stock trading book that’s a best-seller, called “Trade Like Warren Buffet” that’s worth a read. Please share with me when you have read that, will ya?