The Power of No by James Altucher and Claudia Azula Altucher
8 You Have the Right to an Abundant and Fulfilled Life
You are entitled to say NO to the scarcity complex, and any other complex, for that matter. You have the right to notice the fearful thoughts that do not belong to you, but rather simply pass through you—the ones that intend to scare you, cajole you, and keep you small—and to let them go, one at a time.
9 You Have the Right to Be Here Now
You are entitled to say NO to time traveling. Angers and regrets are in the past. Anxieties and worries are in the future. Traveling to the past or the future will not help you now. You have the right to say no to what is not happening right now. It will never solve your future problems but will always sap your present strengths.
The Power of No has helped us, the authors, literally survive. With it, we have freed ourselves from the society, institutions, friends, loves, colleagues, bosses, and belief systems that tried to build a cage around us. Those that have tried and still try to control us.
Each No eliminates a cage. Each level of No we describe in this book sets us free. As humans, we are all entitled to find that freedom, whatever form it takes. Whatever form we want it to take.
And why not? Infinity existed before we were born. Infinity will exist after we leave this planet. Why not reach our full potential, unveil our mighty powers, during the small sliver of time we visit here?
Whenever I’ve found myself reaching for those four words, I want to die, it’s not physical death I am craving but a different type. What I’ve wanted, again and again, has been the death of the old ways, the death of behaviors and patterns of thinking that no longer serve me, the attitudes and responses that keep me going in circles and stuck. I have wanted the death of what has to die within me so I can find a new life.
One of my little girls got up and wandered into the room I was sitting in. “Daddy,” she said, “I’m having a bad dream.”
“Go back to sleep, honey.”
“I can’t. I’m afraid to.”
“Count a hundred sheep.”
She was wiping her eyes. “That never works,” she said.
“Try this technique,” I told her. “Instead of sheep, list a hundred things you are grateful for. That’s always a nice way to fall asleep.”
“Okay,” she said and went back to her room.
There’s a very simple trick to living longer. And it doesn’t involve doing more things. We almost feel silly telling you this: don’t do things that will cause you to die.
I wrote down ideas every day for articles I could write and businesses I could start. Bit by bit I started to get paid to write. If you don’t exercise the idea muscle, it atrophies just like any other muscle. And it atrophies quickly. You must work the idea muscle every day to turn into an idea machine.
Often you hear it’s not about the end; it’s about the journey. This is not true. It’s not about the journey, and it never was. It’s about right now. It’s about choosing to be healthy in those four areas right now and saying no to everything that blocks that.
Right now is the only place you’ll ever be. Choose not to waste it.
There’s a story about Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22, finding himself at a party made up of a bunch of Wall Street hedge-fund managers. A man comes up to him and points to a young guy in his 20s. The man says, “See that guy over there? He made more money last year than you will make in a lifetime of writing your books.”
Heller turns to the man and says, “I have one thing that he will never have.”
The man laughs and says, “What?”
Heller says, “Enough.”
At first, realizing that the things we strongly believe in can also be seen as “stories” can be shocking. Don’t worry if you find yourself unsettled or perhaps even angry, if you finally get a glimpse into the fact that, for example, money is only a story that has been going around for no more than a couple thousand years. There was no money before then.
Saying No to Being a Slave
JAMES: The average person works at a job. Fine, you might say, a job is a lot different from slavery: I can take a water break, for instance. And sometimes go to the bathroom. And when I talk to people who are the same sex as me, there aren’t even any rules governing what I can say. And I get a salary. Great.
If, like most Americans, you have a mortgage, there goes at least 20 percent of your salary, sometimes more. Your company likes you to own your house because you are less likely to quit.
Then there are student loans you are paying off. For the first time ever, more than half of the unemployed have college degrees. That is pretty scary. You got this degree because (in part) you thought it would get you a job. But it didn’t guarantee anything, and now you have to pay for it. Some percentage of your salary is sliced off every month to pay for that degree.
Then some portion of your salary goes toward health, upkeep of your relationships (they always cost money; this is not being cynical, just realistic), and your transportation to your job (they force you to pay your own way to your slave quarters).
How much goes to you? You wake up before dawn. You travel. You work hard. You come home late. You’re feeling stuck. You’re mildly depressed and may take medication for this. And you have trouble sleeping and digesting.
Shouldn’t you get paid more?
Then there’s behavior. “I can do whatever I want,” I used to say. In fact, when I was at a job I felt free. I could “sneak out” at 4 P.M. I could take lots of breaks. Vacations were big.
But did you look at the manual? There’s a big manual. And sometimes there are workshops devoted to going over the manual.
For example, they have rules about how you may or may not talk to people; everything is regulated.
You can’t talk to your boss a certain way. Because for all of your slaving away, all he has to say is “You’re fired” and that’s the end.
You can’t wear what you want. Most office situations have a uniform, either explicit or implicit.
You can’t be friends with whom you want. You’re mostly just friends with the people you spend your day with—the other slaves. When they leave the job you never talk to them again.
You can’t be creative when inspiration hits. “Anything done on equipment owned by the company is intellectual property owned by the company.” Good luck arguing about that one.
You can’t have an office romance even though those are the only people of the opposite sex you know. For one thing you might get fired. And Human Resources can read all of your e-mails.
If you want more money, you have to beg for it. There are entire seminars created just to teach people how to ask for 5 percent more money at work. People are scared to death to ask.
And by the time you get home to have real social interactions, you’re tired and bitter and angry about work.
Isn’t there another way?
Yes. There are always alternatives.
Now, more than ever, most people can make more money by being creative and figuring out how to offer services on their own.
Money won’t solve all of your problems, but it will solve your money problems. Don’t let them take your money so they can keep you in slavery.
You want to own your time. To own your work. To own the value you create for others. To own your thoughts. To protect yourself so nobody can fire you. Not to be owned by the bank or the government or a boss. Not to be owned by your relationships.
“I can’t just quit my job!” you might say.
And we agree with this. Don’t quit.
But …
Start by being an explorer.
We live in a $51 trillion economy. You helped create it, just as slaves and death and misery helped create the beautiful pyramids. But 90 percent of what you create is taken from you.
Start to explore what parts you can take back. Work every day on ideas. List every interest you’ve had since you were a kid.
If you are having trouble with this, go to a bookstore. Look at every book that interests you and write it down. List every business or job that can be started from that interest. Read every day about your interests. And if you are still having trouble with your interests, focus on your health instead. List all the things you can do to make yourself healthier.
If you get bored with what you are reading, then no problem, find another interest to read about.
Don’t be angry at the people at work, even your boss. They are all slaves also. You need to break free from them. Don’t waste your free thoughts on the other slaves with their Rolex shackles.
Study the lives of people who aren’t slaves. What did they do? Study the people who seem to have broken free. What are they doing? Keep working on your idea muscle. You do this by writing down ten ideas a day. It doesn’t matter what the ideas are. It doesn’t matter if they are good or bad. This is just exercising. This is physical therapy applied to the mind so that your idea muscle doesn’t atrophy.
I did this myself. I worked my mental muscle every single day, hard. And in six months my life changed completely. In fact, as I’ve said, every six months my life changes completely.
Sixteen years ago my boss yelled at me. He’s a good guy and has since broken free himself, but one time he yelled at me and I couldn’t yell back or I would risk being fired. I felt like crying. Actually, I did cry.
So I went to the library on Forty-First Street and Fifth Avenue. I found a science fiction book I had read once as a kid. It had that cellophane wrapping and a library card in it. And it had that smell you get when you open the aging yellow pages.
I went three or four levels down, to my private bathroom in the library, my sanctum sanctorum. And I sat there and I read about a man who lived forever and was happy. And the world disappeared and for a brief moment I was no longer a slave.
From that moment on, I plotted my escape. And every day since, I figure out new ways to escape, new ways to be free. New ways to own my world.
What if you are in a crisis? It’s too hard to do this!
The trick is to catch your thoughts as they happen. Even the thoughts of pain. You will always have painful thoughts and experiences.
But slow down. Take a deep breath. And surrender.
Pain, emotional or mental pain (worry, anxiety, regret) in particular, is an example of the brain trying to protect you. Poor brain! It is only trying its hardest.
It thinks that by bringing up painful thoughts it will keep you from touching the fire again.
We love our brains, but sometimes they are annoying.
So you have to domesticate your brain the way you domesticate a dog.
With each thought that comes up, label it either useful or not useful.
If I worry about two people talking behind my back, this is not useful. It’s none of my business what they think of me. I don’t want to be curious about the negative opinions other people have of me. Or else I’d be curious all my life about all the wrong things.
What is useful then? Functional things. If I say, “I need to pack lunch for the kids right now,” that is useful. Unless I can teach them to pack lunch for themselves, which will be useful at some point as well.
What is actually going on here is that you are separating yourself from your brain.
Just as you can control your breath when you need to, it’s important to be able to control your brain when you need to.
Often the brain doesn’t need this. Just as you often don’t need to tell your breath what to do. But sometimes you need to get involved.
Most people don’t do this. Most people go through their days with the brain completely in charge. You can see them in the street, their eyes glazed as they wend their way through regrets of the past and anxieties of the future. They don’t know how to escape.
Saying no to others means first saying no to your brain—to the anxieties and the regrets and the not-useful thoughts. Practicing exercises like this one will help you do that.
Then you will be able to climb above ground. You will see the beautiful and enormous world that is there waiting for you. You are on the path of No, and yes, to be corny about it—there is no return.
I attended a workshop once in which the facilitator gave all of us a rubber band to wear on our wrists. For the duration of the week, whenever we found ourselves complaining, we were to stretch the rubber band far and wide and let it go, so it would hit us.
It was a slap on the wrist, and an excellent way to teach me, at the body level, that complaining hurts. It was saying a firm No to all complaints.
It’s often hard to feel compassion for the people you despise most in life. But everyone is going through their own situation. Their own personal struggles with loneliness and isolation and fear. And then they die.
Don’t feel pity toward your enemies, but don’t waste time on blame either.
Being aware of the thoughts that flow through our minds is powerful because usually we just go through life as slaves to them.
Letting our thoughts go and being present without naming what is happening all the time gives us a rest and an opportunity to let something else in. Maybe wisdom, maybe peace.
“Treat everyone else as if it’s their last day.”
Our brains want us to feel as if the resources of the universe are scarce. For 400,000 years, resources for humans were scarce. We had to hunt and gather. But starting only recently in human history, we have been blessed to move beyond this mentality. This phase in our evolution is about abundance instead of scarcity.
I love to hit people. I love to. Mike Tyson
God lets everything happen for a reason. It's all a learning process, and you have to go from one level to another. Mike Tyson
Mr. Arthur Ashe, he was good. I read some of his books. He knew about everything, but he was real quiet and didn't talk much. I never met him. Mike Tyson
As long as we persevere and endure, we can get anything we want. Mike Tyson
One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation. Arthur Ashe
The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight. Arthur Ashe
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. Arthur Ashe
A wise person decides slowly but abides by these decisions. Arthur Ashe
From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life. Arthur Ashe
You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing. Arthur Ashe
Worry has never once solved a future problem but it will always steal away your strength today.
I’ve learned lots of pointers, and they all come back to one thing—sit in silence: let it happen, let yourself drip into this moment just as you are, in complete acceptance. If emotions appear, let them. Then release them. That’s it. When we release an emotional issue instead of getting all wrapped up in it, we help the issue lose its power over us.
At first, said Thich Nhat Hanh, the monks and nuns would connect with their own inner pain to access compassion and chant to us a song. What a great way of accessing compassion! I had never noticed it, but when I feel pain, then I can relate to the pain of others.
We are not our thoughts.
My deep wound gives me plenty of mud from which, when the time is right, a lotus may blossom.
Silence is the sign of a professional. You even see it in the movies. The gruff hit man who doesn’t talk about what he’s seen on the job. The soldier who won’t talk about the war.
You know not to ask a professional what he’s working on. What he’s seen. It’s in his world and part of who he is and how he moves and expresses himself.
Her silence is the top of the pyramid. Her vast experience is everything that lies underneath.
Buddha said, “Life is suffering.” This is not pessimism. It’s not the opposite of positive thinking. It’s reality. We get sick. Our jobs and friendships and relationships go up and down. Our anxieties and regrets come back again and again. And we grow old and undergo all the pains and troubles that come with that.
He said, “Suffering comes from craving.”
One time, after the Buddha’s son, Rahula, joined him on his journey, the Buddha took him for a walk. He gave his son fatherly advice.
All he said was this: “Before, during, and after you think, say, or do anything, determine if it will harm someone.”
That’s it.
Instead of being negative, being grateful for the things in your life that you feel are actually good. --Quote by Myself
Go on a Gratitude Diet. For the next ten days, when you wake up, think of ten things you are grateful for. They can be important things (family and friends, for example). Or they can be small things (the sun is out).
Two hundred to 500 books equal one good mentor.
b) You start from scratch.
Every label you claim from before is just vanity. You were a doctor? You were Ivy League? You had millions? You had a family?
Nobody cares.
You lost everything. You’re a zero. Don’t try to say you’re anything else.
f)Get your idea muscle in shape.
Take baby steps. At first write just ten ideas a day. They can be bad. For example, ten things I like: ice cream, strawberries, cake, sleep, light, silence … you get the point. Do not worry. Write the ideas. Do it every day. The muscle will grow. Then write 20, then 100.
Some people tell us, “I can’t. I just can’t. I just have four or five ideas and then nothing else.”
Our response is “Okay, you don’t need to come up with ten ideas. You need to come up with twenty ideas!” You need to learn how to come up with bad ideas. The idea muscle grows stronger with repetition.
Then the ideas start to get better. Then the ideas flow. Then the idea muscle will turn into a machine. Then you will see the world for what it is: an ocean of creativity where everyone is clinging to the bottom, afraid to let go and float.
But you, my friend—your eyes are wide open.
You let go. And the ocean takes you home.
g)Time it takes to reinvent yourself: five years.
Here’s a description of the five years:
Year One: You’re flailing and reading everything and just starting to do.
Year Two: You know who you need to talk to and network with. You’re doing every day. You finally know what the Monopoly board looks like in your new endeavors.
Year Three: You’re good enough to start making money. It might not be a living yet.
Year Four: You’re making a good living, and you can quit your day job.
Year Five: You’re making wealth.
Sometimes you get frustrated in years one through four. You say, “Why isn’t it happening yet?” That’s okay. Just keep going. Or stop and pick a new field.
j)When can I say to the world: “I do X!” where X is my new career?
Today.
k)When can I start doing X?
Today.
If you want to paint, then sit in front of the canvas today and paint. Start buying 500 books, or getting them from the public library, one at a time, and reading them. Learn a little every day, and keep painting.
If you want to write do these three things: Read. Write. Take your favorite story by your favorite author and type it word for word. Ask yourself why he wrote each word. He’s your mentor today.
If you want to start a business, write all the specs and details of the idea for your business. Reinvention starts today. Every day.
m)What is “it”? How do I know what I should do?
Whatever area you feel like reading 500 books about. Go to the bookstore or the library and find it. If you get bored three months later, go back to the library.
It’s okay to get disillusioned. That’s what failure is about. Success is better than failure, but the biggest lessons are found in failure.
Very important: There’s no rush. You will reinvent yourself many times in an interesting life. You will fail to reinvent many times also.
q)What if my family wants me to be an accountant?
How many years of your life did you promise your family? Ten years? Your whole life? Then wait until the next life. The good thing is: you get to choose.
Choose freedom over family. Freedom over preconceptions. Freedom over government. Freedom over people pleasing. Then you will be pleased.
s)My spouse is worried about who will support/take care of the kids.
You will. After you work 16 hours a day, seven days a week in a job you don’t like, use your spare time to reinvent.
Someone who is reinventing always has spare time. Part of reinvention is collecting little bits and pieces of time and carving them the way you want them to be. That is the Power of No in action: you say no to the superfluous distractions because you must find some time for you.
jj) What if I’m passionate about two things and I can’t decide?
Combine them and you’ll be the best in the world at the combination.
oo) What else should I read?
After books, you can read websites, forums, magazines. But most of that is garbage. Start with 500 books.
HOW TO STAY SANE IN A CRAZY WORLD: A Modern Book of
Hours to Soothe the Soul, by Sophia Stuart
MIRACLES NOW: 108 Life-Changing Tools for Less Stress, More Flow,
and Finding Your True Purpose, by Gabrielle Bernstein
NOTHING CHANGES UNTIL YOU DO: A Guide to Self-Compassion
and Getting Out of Your Own Way, by Mike Robbins