Day 70: 3 Things I’m Holding Onto From “Choose Yourself” by James Altucher

Head colds suck. Welcome to the week wedged between Christmas and New Years. It’s the week that I try my best to figure out what to be more of a mom or a business woman. It’s not always something that I get to choose on my own. If there are sniffles involved then chances are I’m on call as mommy. Other times it’s the week that over-indexes on playdates — for which I choose to attend each one.

Right now, it’s me who feels yucky . On a client call today, I sneezed eight times? As I’m writing this, I’ve sneeze twice thus far. The great thing is that today is when I am reading Choose Yourself by James Altucher.

Here is what I’m picking up so far…

The learned man aims for more while the wise men aims for less….I’m paraphrasing everywhere in this piece and sneezing along the way.

It’s obvious to see how this plays out based on my family. Some family members want more and this has them in financial troubles. Other family members aim for less and this has them in financial bliss. It’s tough when you’ve been exposed to both ways of thinking. I own a town home. I want a detached home. Is it to declare that I made it? Or to keep up with the Jones? Maybe, it’s to fulfill my mother’s unrealized dream to have a house. Sometimes, I even forget why I want a house when what I really want is being able to travel anywhere, anytime, without worries. I never once in my life thought I needed an anchor? To me a house, is an anchor. And, my favorite home, was an apartment we rented. I didn’t need to own it to feel yummy inside. So there’s that pull however there’s no way I’m slipping into that house-trap aka mousetrap unless it’s possible that it can be less expensive than a rental in the future.

It’s better to build your own platform than to rely on a “jury rigged” system.

The irony is that if I went to corporate America then I could easily afford the home. Easy-breezy. Some folks might find that obnoxious yet I set myself up for that kind of success. I was blessed to attend amazing schools. I worked dam hard to get through some of the most boring/complex subjects in school. Yet, if I were to remain true to myself then going back to corporate America would not fit in with my definition of living an extraordinary life. My definition of an extraordinary life excludes a Metro-North commute. It would also be void of micro-managers. I would not include me using company jargon — heck no the English language has some many beautiful words. I don’t want to limit my vernacular to business speak. Yet, that’s not my primary motivator for building my platform. My primary motivator for building my platform is that I want to show my three sons that they can build their own platforms one day.

Kids, see this as mommy building something cool so you can too.

You don’t have to rely on others to hand-pick you to be successful based on their terms.

True story: the day I got married I was thinking to myself. Man I should buy an SUV, live in the suburbs, and work at American Express forever. This thought passed my mind on my wedding day. However, it scared the s*it out of me. I felt like a small piece of me would die. I had seen managers, directors, and VPs who were miserable there. Their misery really had nothing to do with American Express as a company at all. Instead, it was because these employees were working for Amex because they felt they had to. The truth is several had inhumane commutes. Others were daydreaming about their kids that they wouldn’t get to see. One candidly quit because continuing to be successful within Amex no longer worked for her mental sanity. She had two kids now. No can do bugaboo, as I’d said these days. I was an analyst at the time and I saw this woman as one of the bravest people I had ever know. She had the MBA, the VP status, the success, and she broke down in tears in front of her team. I saw her and fast-forward to today, I’m certain if I had stayed in corporate that would have been me.

I’m not done with reading James’ book yet I wanted to real-time explore the thoughts that cropped up in my head.

It’s hard to stay so grounded. It’s a challenge to not want a bigger house. It’s tough to build out a platform.

All these things are hard yet worth it.

How do I know this? The number one reason why my clients come to me is because a new jury selection had been made. We can call it what is his here: i.e. changes in leadership motivate some of the best employees to make career moves. And, I get to help them plan their escapes.

Subscribe to An Interview with Melissa Llarena the podcast. My plan is to interview talented people who figured out how to build untraditional careers of substance. My guests would have had the guts to say NO to traditional options, brains to make sometimes wacky interests profitable, and creativity to pull it all off.

Gary Vaynerchuk, happy to meet you at LGA, EWK, JFK in January for five minutes on my podcast which I launched because you pushed me to following the James Altucher Show Ep. 260. BYOA-I’ll bring my Altucher-style due diligence thinking, contemplation, and questions to my interview of you. #garyveeandjamesistarted