Want to Be More Creative and Change Your Life? Become an Idea Machine
05 Nov 2024 #miscWriting 10 ideas every day saved James Altucher from bankruptcy and changed his life.
If you don’t know James Altucher’s story: he’s an American investor and author. He sold one of his first businesses for millions and lost everything. Not once, but a couple of times.
In his darkest moments, about to end his life so his family could claim his $4M life insurance, he bought cheap waiter’s pads and started to write ideas to change his life and make money.
In his blog posts, podcast interviews, books, and TED talks, he recommends the same habit:
Become an idea machine by writing 10 ideas a day.
You don’t need to come up with 10 brilliant ideas.
You just need to come up with 10 bad ideas every day. You need to build your idea muscles. Yes, your idea muscles atrophy like any other muscle if you don’t use them.
If you don’t know how to start, write 10 areas you want to write 10 ideas about.
Write 10 ideas to:
- Get a pay raise
- Get a promotion
- Find a better job
- Make extra income
- Expand your network
- Ease your boss’s job
- Land your next client
- Help your best client
- Grow your online presence
- Improve your team’s processes
After following this habit for weeks, out of those hundreds of ideas, one will be a decent one. Then, write 10 ideas to execute on that idea.
An idea machine writes ideas for others too and gives them away without expecting anything in return.
Months later after starting to write and give away ideas, James was flying to visit companies and discuss the ideas he gave for free.
After learning about becoming an idea machine, I gave 10 ideas on a LinkedIn comment to a coding non-profit running out of cash. I also DMed the CEO of a SaaS to give him my ideas for his landing page and product documentation. I’m still waiting for my free plane tickets to discuss my ideas though.
Want to change your life? Start writing 10 ideas every day and become an idea machine.