Skip the Line - by James Altucher

ISBN: 0062998927
Date read: 2021-06-26
How strongly I recommend it: 3/10
(See my list of 360+ books, for more.)

Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.

I love James Altucher for his unique vulnerable thinking. Many of his books have fresh surprising ideas. Unfortunately, this book has less than his others. But it’s a fine overview if you’re feeling lost and need motivation.

my notes

When someone tells you that you can’t do something, they are trying to imprint their own wish for you onto you.

Dick Fosbury was a high jumper in the 1960s. He was mediocre at best. He did an experiment one day. He jumped backward. Coach begged him to stop. “It won’t work. You can’t do this.” He won the gold medal at the 1968 Olympics just a few short years later. First everyone laughed, then everyone told him not to do it, and then every high jumper switched to his method. He changed the sport forever. He didn’t do it by practicing 10,000 hours more than everyone else. He did it not by falling into line but by stepping out of line. He skipped it.

If you have $1 in a savings account and the account pays 1 percent interest per day, then in 365 days you will have $37.78.
If you get 1 percent better each day, your skill, if it can be measured this way, will be 3,800 percent better.

To advance further, be public.
Share your results.
Write a post about what you’re doing.
Every week share a bit more.
People start to engage with your posts.
You’re the expert everyone goes to about that subject.
People share ideas and suggestions with you.
Tap into the hive mind.
Become 1 percent more known for being that person.
Your network expands.
Now you’re not only getting better at your skill, you’re also carving out your own little area in the niche.
Collaboration and the sharing of ideas gains knowledge and builds your expertise.
After 365 days, you’ll be a lot better than someone who just learns one new thing a day.
Connected to so many, you’ll have more opportunities to form a unique perspective than isolated experts.

Being the only is more important than being better.

You can also lose 1 percent a day.
You can say, “Aww, it’s only one day. Don’t pressure me!”, but if you decrease in knowledge by 1 percent a day, then at the end of the year you’ll have only 3 percent of the knowledge that you once had. You will have lost nearly all of your skills.
People who remain too satisfied, who go to work and do their routine and don’t focus on that 1 percent of improvement and learning, will be outpaced by others and left with excuses like, “Well, that guy doesn’t have a family like I do” or “I guess other things were more important to me.”

It’s so easy to lose interest in something you weren’t that passionate about in the beginning.

The key to successfully experimenting is to be prolific.
Picasso painted more than 50,000 paintings in his lifetime.
Richard Branson has started more than 300 companies.

There is no one skill called “business.”
Microskills in business: sales, negotiation, idea creation, execution, leadership, management, marketing, selling the business, project management, follow-ups, networking, delegating.
You have to study and focus on each of the microskills.
Whatever you are interested in, break out a pad and list at least ten microskills needed for success in that field.
Make experiments to learn those skills.

The connections of your connections are a much more reliable source of opportunities than your direct connections.

Your idea/possibility muscle must be exercised.
If you can’t see all the possibilities that are right in front of your face, you will not be able to take advantage of them when the time comes.

You can only be good at the things you are obsessed with.

When you say to someone “What do you need?” you’re giving them a homework assignment - to figure out what they need help with.

Reading: Someone might spend thirty years of their life developing a skill and then share the knowledge learned in those thirty years by writing a book.
If you read the book carefully, take notes, reread, repeat, then it’s as if you are absorbing thirty years of that person’s life into your mind.
Reading turns every author into a virtual mentor

Book about frame control called The Power Bible:
In every high-stakes situation, one person has the frame.
You can’t constantly control the frame or the people around you will get ‘frame fatigue’.
But the key is to be aware of the frame so that when you need to take control of it, you can.
How many things are you doing to appease the person you are speaking with?
How far are you willing to go to appease this person?
Am I in their frame?
Am I comfortable with being in their frame?
Ask questions that are aimed at them providing information on how they know what they know and why you should trust them.
Take back the frame by “labeling” their behavior.
When a frame shift occurs, you normally experience the shift as a change of emotion.
The key to retaining or regaining control of the frame is being nonreactive.
When you react to the emotion delivered by the new frame, you are caught within that frame and have added energy to it.
If you feel a change, interrupt the pattern.
Be intentional about your frame, about the frames you wish to enforce in your life. Think about how you want to act, what kind of life you want to have, the perspective you want to come from. Think about how you want to be treated. Now make the decision to have that be your frame.

How many things have to conspire to make this a good idea?

Ask advice. Give respect and acknowledge the other person’s status.

The 80/20 Rule applies to itself.
Four percent of your work gives you 64 percent of the value
0.8 percent of the work will give you about 51.2 percent of the value.