James Altucher is a man I admire, for both his story and his work. I recently came across his philosophy on becoming an idea machine, and using entrepreneurship to give your life purpose. Being philosophical myself, I found his methodology very interesting and thought you’d enjoy a synopsis (and of course my own words).
James writes:
I was out of ideas when I googled “how to kill myself “.
A rather startling beginning, James shows us just how serious his situation was. He was sure that three things would happen if he kept up with life: he would go broke, no one would ever kiss him again, and he would die because (and here’s what I loved) self worth = net worth.
What a powerful realization that was for me. As entrepreneurs, we get caught up in the fantasty of fame, fortune, yachts, islands, etc… and factor that into our net worth – our wealth. But it turns out, we may have been looking at this from the wrong angle. Once we strip away what I like to call our “gross worth” (this being money, power, and fame) what are we truly left with? Our self. Our own self worth. So in theory, James is absolutely right, our net worth is in fact our self worth!
Now how did James dig himself out of such a grave situation?
I started coming up with 10 ideas a day and I’ve written about this several times before: it saved my life, my career, my friendships, made me better friendships, partners, opportunities, a wife, better relationships with my kids, and lots of kisses!
Ten ideas a day?? That’s insane! Even though I’m always thinking of new, innovative ideas, I rarely get to ten solid and sensible ideas. James encourages us to exercise our “idea muscle” and preaches that if we don’t exercise our idea muscle, it will atrophy and we would lose the ability to be creative.
And so James encouraged people to write down 10 ideas every day, no matter what. He goes on to say that the first three are always the easiest, then the next two are harder, and the last five become nearly impossible. But he says to write down any idea, no matter how silly. For instance.
They should improve squeezable mayonnaise containers by adding 35% more mayonnaise for the same price.
That wasn’t so hard now, was it? Good luck with the next 9.
If you want to check out James Altucher’s article or even the rest of his blog, you can navigate to this link: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2015/01/faq-on-how-to-become-an-idea-machine/.
Have a great day brainstorming!
