Quotes from James Altucher

You create your luck by being healthy and not regretting the past or being anxious about the future.

I can tell you this: Everything in my life that I am happy about it is the product of a huge mistake.

Money you lose you can always make back. But even five minutes of time lost is gone forever.

I keep track of my blog stats, Facebook subs, my Amazon rank, Twitter followers, Facebook likes per posts, my chess ranking. I get stressed when they all don't go up.

If two people believe in the same story, they might be thousands of miles apart and total strangers, but they still have a sense they can trust each other.

Ultimately, the best speakers are the ones who have put 10,000 hours into listening.

Somebody has to be on stage, and some people have to be in the audience. That's the only difference. Don't put any thought as to why you are on the stage or how you need to be 'better' than the people in the audience. You aren't better. You're simply the speaker.

Poor speakers create an artificial divide between themselves and the audience. They feel they need to do this in order to establish their own credibility.

Luck is created by the prepared.

DON'T LEAD A DOUBLE LIFE. Everything you do takes up space in your brain. If you live a double life (and you know what I mean if I'm talking to you), then that extra life takes up neurons and synapses working overtime. The brain can't handle it. It starts to degrade instead of grow.

But business is just a vehicle for transforming the ideas in your head into something real, something tangible, that actually improves the lives of others. To create something unique and beautiful and valuable is very hard. It's very special to do. It doesn't happen fast.

The best way I have ever found to fill that hole is not to seek external motivations to fill the emptiness, but to ignite the internal fire that will never go out. To light up my own inner sky.

If you don't give yourself permission to create a new world, chances are nobody else will.

If coming up with ten ideas sounds too hard, then come up with twenty.

DON'T GOSSIP. One time I trashed an entrepreneur I had invested in to another investor. Later that day I was supposed to have dinner with the first entrepreneur. By that time, just four hours later, he had heard I trashed him. He never trusted me again. People always hear. And if they don't hear, they feel, because word gets around. And you can't predict this. And it's another way of living a double life.

Hold your breath. Try holding your breath for just thirty seconds. That's all it takes. Try it right now while you are looking at this line. Now…on the twenty-ninth second, do any opinions matter?

One candle can light a thousand other candles and still remain lit itself. Be that candle.

In other words: master the form you want to operate in, get experience, be willing to be imperfect, and then develop the confidence to play within that form, to develop your own style.

Replace a complaint thought with one of gratitude or compassion.

all I was doing was sweeping everything under my bed. My room would look spotless but it was actually still a disgusting mess. The same thing is true of most people's lives.

Out of silence comes the greatest creativity. Not when we are rushing and panicking.

Perfectionism is the enemy of the idea muscle. 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.

When you say yes to something you don't want to do, here is the result: you hate what you are doing, you resent the person who asked you, and you hurt yourself.

Excuses are leaks in a boat. When you cover one, another pops up, and it's even bigger. It's hard to keep the boat repaired and get safely to shore if you have an excuse mind-set.