Skip The Line
The 10,000 Experiments Rule and Other Surprising Advice for Reaching Your Goals By James Altucher
Book Summary
He's the best selling author of Choose Yourself and The Power of No. With over 40 million downloads for his podcast and interviewed some of the greats on his podcast such as Tim Ferris, Mark Cuban and Arianna Huffington. Consistently a best selling author with titles such as Choose Yourself and the power of no. I see him as a phoenix, constantly rising from the ashes reinventing himself after his many life setbacks.
He is James Altucher and his latest Skip the Line: The 10,000 Experiments Rule and Other Surprising Advice for Reaching Your Goals is a playbook on bouncing back and crushing it. He shares his experience around mastery. How he took some of his interests and got so good at them to create money making businesses. And his hook is dispelling the 10,000 hour rule around mastery. He says it's not about spending time and repetition but executing on 10,000 experiments to see what works so you can by pass the line and skip ahead.
Here are the five big ideas from Skip The Line.
Big Idea #1 - Be well to survive
This ravishing gentleman here. Remind you of anyone? Yah I didn't know either but Herbert Spencer coined the phrase survival of the fittest after Charle's Darwin's theory around how the superior physical force shapes history.
This may be true during the earlier days but a lot things have changed since Herbert's passing in 1903.
James remixes it with survival of the wellest. The headspace we have between these two meat receivers is now the most critical factor for today's survival. Imagine, if you were constantly content and satisfied with your life, how could anyone even yourself bring you down? You would be unstoppable!
What are some ways to get there?
Big Idea #2 - Exercise your possibility muscle
Nothing weighs you down more than hopelessness. However, James jedi mind tricked him out of the red several times by adopting the mentality of possibility. The more he practiced this the more it became a way of living than simply a tactic that helped lift his spirits.
This remind me of the adage of becoming 1% better a day. Train your brain to be 1% better exercise it like any muscle. And like any other muscle if you don't use it enough it becomes weak and shrinks. Minus 1% and a weak mind never helped the survival of the wellest.
James suggested the mental exercise of generating 10 ideas every day. He uses a waiter's pad and simply goes to town and writes top ten lists. Anything goes. Like anything. Top ten ideas for businesses, top ten friends he wants to re-connect with, top ten lists for top ten lists. No matter how absurd we have to exercise it. Doing the rep is better than losing the rep. The more ideas you generate the more the world of possibility will make you positive.
Big Idea #3 - Flex your idea muscles
Now that you've been exercising and building your possibility muscle don't you want to show the world your gains? How ripped you are?
Even among you humblest of folks this is where the magic happens. Sharing your ideas especially if they are ideas for others creates tribes. Let me explain.
Ever notice how you warm up to others when you share a commonality? Maybe you were both from the same university. Maybe the love of sushi or maybe you two know the same person. Commonalities are what bond us and sharing ideas especially if it benefits the other person establishes common ground.
That's why we shouldn't be afraid of sharing our ideas. If we do we limit our options to connect with one another.
When you get to the state of sharing those lists with others that's where the magic happens. James shared some of his top ten ideas resulting in many surprising opportunities to consult with the likes of Google, Facebook, Quora, Airbnb. Whoa.
Big Idea #4 - Choose your right idea
So you have a bunch of ideas. Great! Now how do we nail down which ones are worth pursuing? The ones you can actually launch and see initial results. Simple. You determine to what James calls the conspiracy number. This is how many things have to conspire to make this idea a reality? The lower the number the better.
Here's an example he uses. Your idea is to publish a book. Cool. Seems as though there are five steps:
Write the book
Agent has to like it
Publisher sees potential to acquire it
Bookstores want to display it
People buy it
Your conspiracy number is five. Seems like a lot of steps. How can we reduce this number to test how well this idea can be? Instead of writing a book, do you make a podcast, design an online course, maybe even begin writing a newsletter? All seem to have a direct path and only rely on one person to execute. You.
Out of all your ideas, figure out the one with the lowest conspiracy number and go down that path.
Big Idea #5 - Be a life scientist
Now that you have a foundation for generating ideas and determining the right one to spend your time on, you have to begin experimenting. Along the way a little voice may challenge you. Make you doubt yourself. It could be someone or maybe even yourself. To avoid this, think more like a scientist where you create a hypothesis in executing your idea and just go at it.
The main points here are to be objective and not attached to any outcome. This will allow you to get yourself to the finish line without letting anything stand in your way.
Reminds me about being a child. All curious. Just doing and seeing what would happen with no expectations.
Like that time I saw my parents put the key in the ignition and I thought hmm I could probably do the same and drive the house if I put the key in the wall ignition. This way, I can bring all of my toys everywhere. Yah. Let's just say, I was shocked that it didn't work.
The faster we learn the faster we earn from our idea.
Now for the recap:
Be well to survive
Exercise your possibility muscle
Flex your idea muscle
Choose your right idea
Be a life scientist
Have you read the latest by James? Remember to flex your idea muscle and share what you gathered from your read in the comments below.