James Altucher

I got an email the other day. Someone asked me, “When you are totally out of luck and feeling incredibly down, how do you spark that creativity up so you can get going again?”

When I was twelve years old I had one purpose in life. I wanted to be a Colonel. And not just any colonel. I wanted to be an Honorary Colonel in the Kentucky State Militia. Just like my hero – Colonel Sanders.

When I was 30 I sold my first company to a company that eventually went bankrupt.

Is it bad that I wanted my now ex-wife to have an abortion before she had my first kid?

Whenever I suggest “Don’t send your kids to college,” a lot of very smart people invariably respond: “Well, what else should they do?” And this amazes me. I guess it’s really hard to figure out what people aged 18-23 should do during the most vibrant, healthy years of their lives when they grow from being a child to an adult.

You can’t make money without selling something real. You can’t make something real without first imagination manifesting itself in your head. You can’t have imagination without surrendering yourself to an idea that you want to create something of value to other human beings.

I got a death threat last week from a guy who’s a senior at Brown University who didn’t think I could track him down. More on that in a second.

I spent the entire 90s writing bad fiction. 5 bad novels. Dozens of bad stories. But I learned to handle massive rejection. And how to put two words together. In my head, I won the Pulitzer Prize. But in my hand, over 100 rejection letters.