James Altucher

John Wallace, former star pro athlete was telling me how great an athlete I was. “I saw you break dance, man,” he said, “that requires athleticism. That requires coordination.”

Harrison Ford was a carpenter before he was the biggest star in the universe. George Lucas needed carpentry work on a door in the studio. Harrison Ford knew Fred Roos who was working for Lucas.

You are sales. You are design. You are customer service. You write the marketing. All in service of fine craft for a customer. This is how you become a master at what you do.

They are almost to the finish line as children now. I try now to just always be honest with them. To listen to what they want. To explain rather than argue. To let them ask questions about what sort of breed the “adult” really is and answer with the truth.

I looked at the list and got scared anyway. I felt like a con man.

I know a thing or two about financial disasters. This is so far from a financial disaster it’s almost ludicrous when I looked at the headlines this morning.

I kept trying to do the things we HAD to do. School, safe job, grow older, stay married. I wanted to do all these things. But I kept messing up and getting depressed.

Do I do these things? I can tell you that when I haven’t my life has fallen apart. And when I have, I can do whatever I want.

I was civilian because I didn’t believe I deserved anything. I didn’t believe I deserved money unless my boss, and his boss, and his boss, thought I deserved more money.

And I started to write. I was writing about all the bad stuff. Someone even said, “this is like watching a train wreck in action.” But I wasn’t afraid anymore. And I started to find others like me.

Doubt turned me into a schemer — how can I juggle job, family, relationships, customers — and still do a good job at everything I was doing.

I think everyone, if they sit down and think about it, has a philosophy of life. Something they do that is sacred to them.