Quotes from James Altucher

So I say, "Yes, and…" then elaborate on what is good about her idea and how I think it can be made even better and why.

I would sit snug in this giant couch inside this giant apartment in the dark thinking, "how stupid was I? I made money when it was easy and then I lost it all.

I was too demoralized to stop it or to start anything new. I would lie around, unable to get myself back up and start generating new ideas.

Every night I woke up in dread, terrified of yet one more insecure tomorrow. I wasn't even brave enough to kill myself. And the truth was only leading me closer to a death agony. The agony that youth was gone, and for the rest of my tomorrows I was finished, crushed by my responsibilities, and the carved out hole of loss inside of me.

My theory always in any career is that it takes one to three years to do the studying required. About two years before you are making any money at the new career. Three to four years before you are making a living from it and five to six years before you are killing it.

Why limit yourself to a single passion? Here's a secret: you don't have to worry about "finding" your passion. You're naturally going to get passionate about what you are good

On the path to mastery, everything will go wrong.

Humans are smarter now than they were 40,000 years ago.

Come up with ten ideas you can write newsletters about.

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 Quote from the pope: "If we start without confidence, already we have lost half the battle and we bury our talents.

Every day I seek out mentors: people who have great experience to help me, particularly in areas I am new to, excited about, and know nothing about.

What happens when you stop gossiping? You have more time (gossiping consumes a lot of time). You have more friends. You have no risk of insulting the people who you otherwise would have insulted. And you gradually move ahead in the ranks of everyone who succumbed the shortcomings of gossip.

Technology, outsourcing, a growing temp staffing industry, productivity efficiencies—these have all replaced the middle class.

I read all the books they like and have spoken publicly about. I read all the analysis on the books so I can discuss it with them. I read all of their books. I read about people they've previously mentored and what happened.

Except you can't outsource your ability to build and deepen relationships. You can't outsource "you".

Perfectionism is your brain trying to protect you from harm—from coming up with an idea that is embarrassing and stupid and could cause you to suffer pain.

If you're broke and close to death, you have to start coming up with ideas. If you destroy your life, you need to come up with ideas to rebuild it.

The ideas have to be so good that it's possible they have never thought of them before. I write, let it sit, rewrite, let other people look at them sometimes, and finally send.

natural state for human beings. We need to explore. We're curious. We want to adapt constantly to new environments and use the part of our brain that evolved specifically so we could create new works of art or new productions.

I am not available 99.9% of the time. But I always make myself available for people who I look up to as mentors.

People do what they want until they are injured like a kid putting his fingers on the stove.

There were plenty of other times when I was working too hard, dealing with people I didn't like, getting my creativity crushed over and over, and so on. When you are in those situations, you need to plot out your exit strategy.

Take control of whom you report to, what you do, and what you create. Don't just do what's listed in your job description.

Believe it or not, sometimes it's just as good (often better) to read all of their materials rather than be directly mentored.