Book in review: Choose yourself
Internet is an amazing thing. It keeps surprising me every day. Few minutes of browsing and vola you find something that helps you, something that you needed, something that you did not know you were looking for. It’s like that seek and receive synergy or whatever it’s called.
So why am I so excited? I have been reading a blog post / monthly report by Tomas Laurinavicius ( honestly not exactly reading, but more quickly scanning the page from the curiosity ) when my eyes suddenly stopped by a title “Choose yourself” by James Altucher. It is a really catchy title and I have to admit, I was intrigued.
It was a 12 min TEDx talk where this funny looking guy talks about his experience. I think it was a combination of well-put thinking, humor and stage performance. I was suddenly hooked. I personally recommend watching that talk, as within 12 minutes he explains the core of his thinking and ideas that he calls “Choose yourself”.
And I think it worked on me. Well, it did. I went buying his audio book called as the talk “Choose yourself”. It’s a short 4 hour listen, but with some simple ideas that are easy to apply. And don’t get me wrong — simple can still be powerful. Some of the most influential ideas in our world were simple. Let me give you quick glimpse of that book.
Choose yourself by James Altucher
Choose yourself is a book about a simple idea: now is the time where we decide how we are going to live. But it’s a different kind of motivational book. This is the book where the author shares his experience how he managed to lift himself from the failure and misery when he was really low, wanting to kill himself to a success of his life that he has right now. As individuals, we have no power to influence external changes around us, but what we have the power off is ourselves. The author says that external changes are the ripples of within. Simply becoming healthy emotionally, mentally and spiritually will help to drive the change around us.
But when you’re down below it is just so difficult to start and do something, and it is so difficult to suddenly rise and say “All is good, I’m good”, but what this book recommends is to pick one thing from the list and do it every day, until you think that it’s a right time to do two things from the list. The author calls it daily practices.
List of daily practices:
1. Sleep 8 hours
2. Eat two meals instead of 3
3. No TV
4. No junk food
5. No complaining
6. No gossip
7. Return an email from 5 years ago
8. Express thanks to a friend
9. Watch a funny movie/watch a standup comedy
10. Write down a list of ideas
11. Read a spiritual text
12. Say to yourself: I am going to save a life
13. Take up a hobby
14. Write down your entire schedule and cross out one thing and don’t do it anymore
15. Surprise someone
16. Think of 10 people you are grateful for
17. Forgive someone: write it down and burn the paper
18. Take the stairs instead of elevator
19. Don’t say yes instead of saying no
20. Tell someone every day that you love them
21. Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love
22. Shower, scrub, clean the toxins from your body
23. Read a chapter of a biography about someone that was an inspiration to you
24. Make plans to spend with a friend
25. Breath deeply for 10 min
It’s a book worth reading/listening to and at least worth trying to do one of these daily practices.
P.S. Yes I did managed to screw my drawing up by making a spelling mistake 😱, oh well…put that h back in there 😂
