James Altucher’s 2017 Reading List

He was in Auschwitz. His friends and family were dying all around him. He was tortured both physically and psychologically.
But he found the vein of meaning deep inside of him to keep going. And not only to keep going, to actually hope, and be excited about a future he didn’t even know if he would live for.
Read that one book alone. Read it over and over.

Cheryl had an advice column called “Dear Sugar”.

I was reading the column long before Oprah recommended “Wild” by Cheryl and then Wild became a movie and “Tiny Beautiful Things” (the collection of her advice column) became a book.

She is so wise and compassionate. A modern saint. I used to do Q&A sessions on Twitter. I’d read her book beforehand to get inspiration about what true advice is.

When a writer or an entrepreneur, or a manager, or an employee, or a…whatever…sits down to get to work, he or she is often met by “the resistance”. The excuses that come up: I can’t do this. I am too old. I don’t have enough money. I’m scared. “The War of Art” is the guide to getting through that block. The comfort zone is papered up and cemented shut by our excuses. Learn to blast through that wall. Because on the other side of the comfort zone are all the tools of success.

It only came out recently. I had so many questions about it that I flew to California and interviewed him about it for my podcast.
It’s the collection of all the knowledge and wisdom he gained from the 100s of people he interviewed.
I leave it out on my floor and read a page or two whenever I pass it.
It’s already filled with 100s of my notes (see below). It’s maybe the one physical book I keep around. The rest, including my own books, I keep on my Kindle.

You ask about success. To be successful you have to avoid being “fragile” – the idea that if something hurts you, you let collapse completely. You also have to avoid simply being resilient. Bouncing back is not enough. Antifragile is when something tries to hurt you and you come back stronger. That is real life business. That is real life success. Nassim focuses on the economy. But when I read the book I kept asking myself, “how can I apply this to the areas of my life where I feel most fragile?”

Michael moved to an empty patch of forest, set up his trailer, and started to meditate in the early 70s.

He surrendered to whatever happened in his life.

Well...what ended up happening is that he created a multi-billion dollar company.

His book is about the spiritual beauty of surrender. And how that can go hand in hand with financial success.

I was so astonished by the book that I contacted him and flew down to Florida and stayed several days in his “compound” and interviewed him about his success. I re-read the book at least once every few months.

In this iconic bestseller, popular business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin proves that winners are really just the best quitters. Godin shows that winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt—until they commit to beating the right Dip.

Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out fun…then gets really hard, and not much fun at all. You might be in a Dip—a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac—a total dead end. What really sets superstars apart is the ability to tell the two apart.

Winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can beat the Dip to be the best, you’ll earn profits, glory, and long-term security.

Whether you’re an intern or a CEO, this fun little book will help you figure out if you’re in a Dip that’s worthy of your time, effort, and talents. The old saying is wrong—winners do quit, and quitters do win.

What would a messiah be like if he lived now. Would he care about politics? Would he care about the constant things people scream about on social media?

Or would he care about peace in the heart. And peace in our every day activities. And beauty. And being calm. And trusting the universe around us.

I go with the latter and so does this book.