danielle

Since I mentioned James Altucher in my worldview post and consider him one of my major influences, I thought I’d talk a little more about that. Specifically, I’d like to discuss what about his worldview appeals to me and how I’ve applied things he’s suggested.

What does it mean to choose yourself?

In the worldview post, I said that Altucher’s mantra is “choose yourself.” What does that mean? Of course, one way to read it is, “Stop waiting for someone else to choose you.” I think a lot of people have this fantasy that someone is going to come along, recognize their greatness, and launch them into the lavish circumstances they deserve. I feel confident saying this because:

1. I was one of those people for far too long, and
2. I see people reflect that mentality in their behavior all the time.

Of course, the slight problem with this fantasy is that it’s not gonna happen. Even worse, acting as if it will happen will almost certainly make you worse off in the long term. So what choosing yourself is really about is taking responsibility for your life (sound familiar?).

A lot of people interpret choosing yourself as an entrepreneurial thing, and that’s as good a starting point as any, but Altucher himself has said on several occasions that choosing yourself can be applied to pretty much any arena of your life. Indeed, I’ve had the most success applying his principles in my personal life.

Discovering Altucher

I’m not sure exactly when I stumbled across Altucher’s blog – probably late 2012 or early 2013. I’m a bit more confident, although not 100%, about what led me there. For longtime readers of his blog, it wasn’t the usual thing that leads people there. I believe I had Googled something related to writing. In any case, his post, “33 Unusual Tips to Being a Better Writer” was among the results. If you’re interested in improving your writing or just want to get a feel for Altucher’s writing style, I recommend checking it out.

Toward the end of that post, he recommends another post (capitalization in the original): “How to be THE LUCKIEST GUY ON THE PLANET in 4 Easy Steps.” I’d been impressed enough with the writing tips that I figured I’d check out that post, too.

In that post Altucher outlines what he calls the Daily Practice. It revolves around trying to make small improvements every day in your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual lives. I won’t recap it here because you can get the details straight from him in the link I gave. But I do want to talk about the emotional component because that had the biggest impact on me.

“I don’t get close to anyone bringing me down. This rule can’t be broken.” – James Altucher

Applying what I’ve learned

The above quote goes against what most of us are taught. Especially as women, we’re taught to take what’s handed to us and not make a scene. You don’t want to be one of those difficult women, do you?

I want to offer a quick clarification: I don’t read this as kicking someone while they’re down, and I don’t think that’s Altucher’s intent, either. It’s not about turning your back on someone who happens to be down on their luck in a given moment. But if you’re honest with yourself, you know the difference between that and someone who somehow is always in terrible situations that they’re sure aren’t their fault. For the sake of your own mental and emotional health, you have to keep the latter group at a distance, even if they’re friends or family.

I like the way Sri Ramakrishna (another important influence of mine who I’ll probably talk about in a future post) phrased it:

One need not hug the ‘tiger God.’ One should keep away from him and salute him from a distance.

Becoming less tolerant of the negativity I allow into my life has done wonders for my mental and emotional health. If you want to explore this idea further, I suggest reading “How to Deal With Crappy People.” It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

In yesterday’s post I briefly mentioned best-selling author Jeff Goins’s idea that worldview is more important than niche. It turns out that later in the day I had the pleasure of attending a webinar with Goins on this very topic. What did I learn?

What is a worldview, anyway?

Goins argues that all successful writers, regardless of niche or genre, ultimately express a worldview in their writing. He gave an example of Ernest Hemingway. According to Goins, Hemingway’s worldview was that everybody had the chance to be courageous or show grace under fire. Setting his stories in war zones and other high-conflict situations gave Hemingway the chance to demonstrate this worldview in his characters.

The nice thing about a worldview is that it offers more flexibility than a topic or a niche. Let’s apply this to a real blog that I read regularly. James Altucher has been blogging and publishing books for the last several years under the theme, “Choose yourself.” His background is mostly in technology and finance, but he’s been able to apply the principles he’s learned in the business world, especially those relating to the entrepreneurial spirit, to a variety of areas. One way to state his worldview might be, “Every person can use entrepreneurial principles to improve all aspects of their lives.”

OK, so what’s my worldview?

The worldview expressed in the previous paragraph was structured that way for a reason. Goins suggests framing your worldview in the form: “Every {blank} can/should {blank}.” “Every person should lift weights.” “Every business owner can carve out time to meditate.” You get the idea.

I have pretty eclectic interests, so I thought it might be difficult to come up with a worldview. But it was surprisingly easy to find a common theme underlying all my interests. I often find myself saying some version of the idea, “You don’t have to take the life that is handed to you.” Far too often we assume our options are more limited than they actually are. So how can I express this using Goins’s formula?

“Every person should make the effort to craft a life that works for them.”

It’s a work in progress, but I’m not married to it. I can change it anytime I want. But for now it’s a good reflection of where I am. I also like that it doesn’t put me out there as some kind of expert. But by talking about what has and hasn’t worked for me, hopefully others can get an idea of what might or might not work for them.

This worldview also gives me the freedom to discuss a variety of topics, as long as I can tie them in. And if the tie-in becomes a problem down the road, maybe then I’ll need to re-examine my worldview. Another important point Goins made is, “It’s better to be clear about the wrong thing than not to be clear at all.” It’s much easier to change direction if you don’t like where you’re headed than it is to overcome the inertia to get moving in the first place.

Sidebar: isn’t that quote beautiful? I think I’m going to make a wallpaper out of it or something.

So what do you think? If you have a worldview you’d like to share, you can do so in the comments or hit me up on Twitter at @daniellegaither.

A little over a year ago I went to a workshop in my research area, and one of the speakers gave their advice on getting through graduate school. They voiced an opinion I’ve heard expressed many times – that graduate school requires monastic levels of dedication, and any outside interests just distract you from the goal at hand.

This advice came to me at a time when my faith was wavering in my research abilities, and I thought that maybe I had shown a lack of dedication to my work. There was certainly some truth to that, as some days I’d spent more time looking online at, say, photography equipment than doing research. So I figured I would take this person’s advice and work hard to make research my top priority in life. I cut way back on my other interests, even going so far as to block several photography-themed websites from my browser at work.

As with many forms of self-improvement, I didn’t expect to enjoy every step of the journey. For example, when someone starts an exercise program, they often have to resist the urge to stay in bed with all their strength. The exercise itself has its own difficult moments. However, the benefits that make all the difficulty worthwhile eventually start to appear.

One thing has increased with respect to my research: I’ve written more since August 2016 than I have in probably the 2 or 3 years before that combined. But said writing has not led to publication. While originally my faculty mentors were saying I just needed to polish the implementation of my work, we’ve now reached an understanding that there seems to be a more fundamental problem.

In a nutshell, the last 8 months or so have been some of the worst of my life. Although maybe I didn’t need to pursue my external interests to the extent I did, it turns out that stuff was helping keep me sane. Some people find a deep support network among their fellow graduate students, but that just hasn’t been the case for me. There’s a variety of possible reasons for that, none of which are anyone’s fault or particularly relevant here.

I don’t know if that workshop speaker is right or wrong. I do know that if they’re right, I’d rather walk away than torture myself for a diploma.

For the record, I haven’t given up on graduate school yet. My co-advisor is out of town for a few weeks, and I’m supposed to propose a revised research plan upon their return. I’ll post updates here as they happen.

At least some good news has emerged out of all this. The first piece, if you haven’t already guessed, is the reminder that I need to honor what’s best for me. The second piece of good news: although my research has not been well received, my writing ability has been. Pretty much every paper I’ve submitted has been complimented extensively for the writing.

So what does this mean going forward? For one thing, it means that I’m not going to treat this kind of writing as a distraction anymore.

What am I going to write? For now, I’m just going to write about whatever’s on my mind. I know a lot of the conventional wisdom says you’re supposed to have a niche and stick to it, but Jeff Goins proposes an alternative: rather than find a niche, articulate a worldview and build your platform around that. I like this idea a lot, in part because there’s no way I’m going to stick to one topic. Evenutally I’ll worry more about who my audience might be and all that, but for now, I’m just going to write regularly and see what happens.

I’d love for you to join me.