A few weeks ago, we mashed-up James Altucher’s “Choose Yourself” mindset with Tom Rath’s jarring research about our tragicomically low levels of wellbeing. (Rewind here.)
Rath diagnoses our wellbeing which needs improvement. Altucher offers a vaccine.
Read on for three more key takeaways from the middle third of Altucher’s “Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth.”
Improving your physical, financial, social, community and career wellbeing may depend on it.
Know Your Secret Value (p.105)
While Altucher applies this concept to negotiations and corporate buy-outs, it applies to the individual just as well.
If you know your secret value (your special talents), then you’re never just, as JA puts it, “working out the terms of your slavery.”
Know exactly what you bring to the table. If it’s not valued or respected, shake it off and move on. No harm, no foul.
Remember, Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail”? There’s an audience that needs what you have. That yearns for what you have—you just have to find it.
Secret Value meet Adoring Audience. Adoring Audience meet Secret Value.
Do you know how many rejection letters our most accomplished writers received before finally getting published?
How many platinum selling artists got “thanks, but no thanks” letters from big label execs early in their careers?
U2 “not suitable for us at present.”
We should expect to get knocked down, dismissed and discounted. It’s part of the game. Yet, if you don’t know your secret value, it’ll take you twice as long to get off the mat than it should.
Grab a pen. Find a chair. Write a letter to yourself. Explain and describe to yourself your secret value–in your work, your relationships, your community.
Stand up from that chair a new man, woman, student, executive, teacher, physician, coach, person.
Now, own it.
I Don’t Have A Talent (p.136)
Do you think that? Do you really think that?
This is similar to uncovering and owning your secret value, but it’s different.
If you don’t know your secret value, you can thoughtfully explore your natural talents and figure it out.
If you’re in denial about having any talent, you’ve dug yourself a hole. That’s ok. However, as they say, just quit digging.
Quit listening to the guy/girl/peer/lie/vendor/boss/colleague/lie/hiring manager/firing manager/desk jockey/lie/advertisement/reality show/tweet/blog comment/movie/lie/joyless bitter jack wagon who ever made you feel that way for even one nano-second.
It’s a lie.
People are entitled to their own opinions; not their own facts. – Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Fact: There’s only one you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. And, you are incredibly talented.
If you own, grow and focus your natural talents, you’re pretty much Iron Man, Captain America and Marvel’s next ten blockbuster action heroes rolled into one.
Been a while since you’ve quieted your mind and intentionally explored your unique, innate talents?
Take StrengthsFinder to get the ball rolling.
3. The Power to See Things Differently Than Everyone Else (p. 146)
Ever read William Gibson’s, “Pattern Recognition”? Learn to be Cayce Pollard. Haven’t read it? No worries.
Pollard is Gibson’s trend-spotting protagonist who travels the globe to solve a mysterious Internet meme in the mid-2000s. Fun stuff from the guy who coined the term “cyber space”.
Open your eyes. Open them wider.
We’re living in the end of an era. Traditional power brokers are losing control by the minute. Others have explored this in much greater detail than we will today, but start understanding this. Fast.
Past: Secrecy. Top-down. Need to Know.
Present: Transparency. Horizontal. We all already know.
As Altucher says, “Without those skills (trend-spotting), someone else will start making choices for you and ultimately you will have to live with someone else’s choices and not your own. And that won’t be pleasant.”
Key question: What are you doing about it?
If you can’t answer that question, again, you need to carve out some more “me-time” asap.
Drinking a warm glass of “today will be pretty much like yesterday” is a top shelf curse for some major life heartburn. This heartburn isn’t treated with a purple pill.
Altucher continues: “Think of each trend like a rainstorm. It’s coming down and you can’t block it. But you can open up an umbrella and be safe. There are many things that can fit under a big umbrella. The bigger the trend, the bigger umbrella you can have.”
Consider a few trends we’re living through right now: biotech, robotics, financial tech, the “observation industry,” the evolving “temp workforce.”
These trends are literally all around us. How can you play in these arenas and take advantage of these trends? You don’t have to be a biochemist or a Google engineer.
There are hundreds of ways to jump in and participate in our rapidly changing world—for profit, for social change or just for fun.
However, you have to start thoughtfully observing these trends through your lens and giving them your tilt.
The cool news? If you tilt any trend 5 to 10 degrees, you’re the only person who can view that trend, opportunity or industry in just that way.
There are many different ways to uncover unique opportunities by combining current trends and your unique perspective (brain-storming, mind-mapping, etc.) which we won’t cover today.
However, hopefully, you’re now energized by your ability to process trends differently than others and to take advantage of your one-of-a-kind perspective.
Commit to punching PGS* in the mouth this weekend. Apply Altucher’s tips to your week. Get ready for a refreshing boost in your wellbeing.
With a little creativity, each tip can help improve any, and all, of the five elements of wellbeing.
Check out Altucher’s whole book here: Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth. Well worth your time.
*PGS = “Pretty Good Syndrome.” This is what happens when we neglect any of the five key elements necessary for a thriving wellbeing—physical, career, social, community and financial.
Recapture your wellbeing and defeat PGS. You owe it to yourself and everyone you care about.
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Cheers,
DW
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