Reinvent Yourself:

Today I am going to be doing a book review on Reinvent Yourself by James Altucher.

If you are a reader of this blog then you know one of my favorite authors is James Altucher. The way the man bleeds on the pages is incredible. He is able to take any of his life’s successes or failures and turn them into something inspiring.

What I liked about this book is that it wasn’t just about James. He deconstructed hundreds of interviews he has done over the years. Creating a one-stop shop for uplifting content.

The book reads the same way as Tools of Titans. It is a book that could be cherry-picked for the information most useful for yourself. The book is one you can go back to in different parts of your life when you need the specific information the most.

I wanted to write about the best parts of the book that I saw for myself. The following are the things I learned from Reinvent Yourself:

Five Things I Learned From Reinvent Yourself:

All my life, I had tried to be creative, but I kept trying to force that creativity into something that would generate money instead of just being creative just for the sake of it.

One of the first parts of the book I highlighted right at the beginning. It is because its one of the biggest things lacking in the creativity world.

Go to Google and type in anything about blogging, vlogging, or creating in general. The majority of the links that you’ll find are how to make money doing these things. I got into this to not come home and waste my time doing things that won’t matter in the future. Creating isn’t about making money. It is about expressing yourself and helping people.

Now do not take the above sentence the wrong way. We all want to make money for the work we do. But if that is the sole purpose of why you are doing it then it is for the wrong reasons.

Money can fix a lot of problems but it can not generate passion in you every day. You must be creating for the sake of creating. Otherwise, I will see you in 5 years when your platform is no longer around.

I want to help people and hone my skills for creativity in the process. The money would be great for all the hard work I am putting in. But it is secondary. The primary is all about the execution and the helping of others. 

“Happiness is based on the world ‘happenstance,’ which refers to something outside of yourself.” You need to find well-being from within.

One of the biggest struggles in my life. I wrote before about the constant battle for happiness. The quote here is one of the hard truths in life I need to grasp.

We are always looking to others for happiness. The truth about happiness is that it’s created from within. You can generate that by doing. By not coming home and self-medicating with Netflix until you go to work the next day. This blog has made me happier in the three months I have been doing it than any movie can. Going to bed knowing I put something out there that was not there the night before.

I am working on being more positive in general. My goal is to be the guy who people look up to because no matter what I persevere. I can handle anything that’s thrown at me and maintain my happiness throughout.

Learning never stops. Many people die at 25 but are not put in the coffin until 75. The learning stopped for them early. 

I just blogged about this in Virtual Mentors: Using Social Media For Success. Mentors are easy to find today. The best learning I get these days is following the biggest influencers on Social Media. They inspire me every day to continue to pursue my dreams. Mentors prove to you that it is not about the destination but all about the journey.

Learning is something I try to do every day. I read articles, books and watch vlogs. The people whose content I consume keeps me learning. It keeps me focused on doing the things I love while learning something new.

My YouTube channel is far from perfect. But I am learning. I have taught myself so many things from watching fellow YouTubers. Editing video, using a vlogging camera, and how to talk to a camera where things that I had no idea about. But with the process of learning through these Mentors, I have a foot in the door on all these things.

Your legacy is not what you do. It’s what the people who you teach do.

This ties in with Mentors and with Leaving A Legacy.

No one got to where they are today without the help of someone else. Influencers that have made it got there by learning from others.

Tools Of Titans opens up with Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about how he is not a self-made man. It was the people and mentors that helped him along the way that got him to where he needed to be.

We can apply this to ourselves. Not only are we providing help to others, but one day they can pass on your advice to someone else. There is no better feeling than having someone tell you that your content helped them.

James Altuchers books sell so many copies because he is vulnerable. His vulnerability teaches people how to not make the same mistakes he has. James has gone through so many things in his life he can help with just about anything.

I want to get to the point someday where I can write like James. The lessons I learn from him weekly are worth their weight in gold. Someday I will write like James and be able to provide the help people need. The help people can teach to others.

“Don’t be sad when you fail and happy when you succeed. Both are going to happen again and again at every new level.”

Life is all about the journey. No matter what you do in life, you are going to have successes and failures.

Just think about how many days you spent thinking it was the worst day of your life. Or that you would never get good at something.

I am going through this right now. I create content but don’t have the audience yet. The audience will come when I have put the work in. When I have honed my skills into something that people can get something from.

I don’t see any of this as failures and I never will.

Success will never come if I do nothing. That is why I am here creating all the time. Success is going to come as I cultivate the necessary skills to reach people in a positive way. To mold something that they can use in their day to day lives.

Whether I have successes or failures it does not matter. I am here for the long game and I am always moving forward.

Conclusion:

Just as with Tools of Titans, Reinvent Yourself has something for everybody. The takeaways I described are what is most beneficial to me at the time I write this article. I am sure in a few months or years I can come back and find something else of value.

I encourage anyone looking to Reinvent themselves to check out James Altuchers book.

Let me know in the comments what you thought of Reinvent Yourself or any of James’ books. Thank you for reading!

Links and Resources:

• Reinvent Yourself by James Altucher
• Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
• New World Ronin by Victor Pride