Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
$10.33$10.33
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
$7.57$7.57
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: ZBK Books
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Image Unavailable
Color:
-
-
-
- To view this video download Flash Player
Audible sample
Choose Yourself! Paperback – June 3, 2013
Purchase options and add-ons
New tools and economic forces have emerged to make it possible for individuals to create art, make millions of dollars and change the world without “help.” More and more opportunities are rising out of the ashes of the broken system to generate real inward success (personal happiness and health) and outward success (fulfilling work and wealth).
This book will teach you to do just that. With dozens of case studies, interviews and examples–including the author, investor and entrepreneur James Altucher’s own heartbreaking and inspiring story–Choose Yourself illuminates your personal path to building a bright, new world out of the wreckage of the old.
- Print length274 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJune 3, 2013
- Dimensions6 x 0.62 x 9 inches
- ISBN-101490313370
- ISBN-13978-1490313375
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now
Frequently bought together
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Product details
- Publisher : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 5.1.2013 edition (June 3, 2013)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 274 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1490313370
- ISBN-13 : 978-1490313375
- Item Weight : 15.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.62 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #93,329 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #596 in Entrepreneurship (Books)
- #1,766 in Success Self-Help
- #2,421 in Personal Transformation Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
Videos
Videos for this product
3:55
Click to play video
Choose Yourself The James Altucher Story Ep.8 Review
Huzza Creative
About the author
James Altucher is a successful entrepreneur, angel investor, chess master and prolific
writer. He has started and run more than 20 companies and is currently invested in over 30.
He is the author of 18 books, including WSJ best-sellers: 'The Power of No' and 'Choose Yourself'. His latest book, "Reinvent Yourself" was #1 in the Amazon store shortly after its release.
His writing has appeared in major media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Observer, Techcrunch , The Financial Times, Yahoo Finance and others. His blog, JamesAltucher.com, has attracted more than 20 million readers since its launch in 2010.
He hosts a successful podcast, "The James Altucher Show" with guests of the caliber of Tony Robbins, Mark Cuban, Pieter Thiel, Arianna Huffington, Coolio, etc. His podcasts have had over 30 million downloads.
Join him at JamesAltucher.com or on Twitter @Jaltucher on Instagram @altucher
You can also text him questions on his personal cell phone (203) 512-2161.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book refreshing and thought-provoking. They describe it as an enjoyable read with a conversational writing style. Readers appreciate the humor and honesty of the author. The story is relatable and inspiring, with simple techniques to improve one's life.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book inspiring and thought-provoking. They say it provides simple techniques to improve their lives. The book is packed with wisdom and generates ideas. Readers describe it as a broad self-help book written by someone who is not a professional.
"...I already knew it would be smart and funny in a humble way and, above all, really useful. "..." Read more
"...book that I have tried my best to summarize below - the book is definitely an eye-opener and should be on everybody's reading list...." Read more
"...it first came out, and it remains one of my favorite books, packed with great advice...." Read more
"...Otherwise, it’s a pleasure to read. Packed with wisdom, creatively written with a breezy and conversational style, Choose Yourself is..." Read more
Customers find the book easy to read and enjoyable. They say it's a great pick-me-up that will reach out and grab their hearts. The chapters provide value and are thought-provoking. Overall, readers describe the book as refreshing, fun, and hopeful.
"...So I'm confident that the ideas I've just read will work miracles in my life now...." Read more
"In "Choose Yourself", James Altucher has written an amazing book about how one can go about doing something on one's own...." Read more
"..."Choose Yourself" when it first came out, and it remains one of my favorite books, packed with great advice...." Read more
"...value between 2 buns of English filler muffins and it's not a bad way to start your day...." Read more
Customers enjoy the writing style. They find it conversational, easy to read, and unique. The author narrates his own writing, which makes the stories more relatable. Readers say the book is easy to understand and gets right to the point. While some find it a bit long at times, it's a must-read for anyone in the workforce who wants to navigate the workplace successfully.
"...THIS book spells out the exact, many quite simple though not always so easy, things that probably pretty much anyone, anywhere, can do to ensure he..." Read more
"...that I really liked about this book is that it feels like a well articulated hard copy of the life-lessons that I have already learned but can't..." Read more
"...James Altucher has a casual conversational writing style and is quite funny at times...." Read more
"...Packed with wisdom, creatively written with a breezy and conversational style, Choose Yourself is ready to be chosen by the curious reader who wants..." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's humor. They find it witty and engaging, with an irreverent, breezy style. The writing is described as entertaining and humorous, with a conversational tone.
"...I already knew it would be smart and funny in a humble way and, above all, really useful. "..." Read more
"...Regardless, it is certainly written with a level of informality that will offend some and attract others...." Read more
"...James Altucher has a casual conversational writing style and is quite funny at times...." Read more
"...Packed with wisdom, creatively written with a breezy and conversational style, Choose Yourself is ready to be chosen by the curious reader who wants..." Read more
Customers appreciate the author's honesty and authenticity. They find the stories raw, personal, and real. The book is described as honest, authentic, and powerful.
"...He is bloody honest - he has lived the highest highs and the lowest lows, and then did it all over again...." Read more
"...He is very honest about his life, discussing his successes and failures very honestly and openly...." Read more
"...the importance of building a solid foundation of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual elements...." Read more
"...The writing is accessible, concise, clear and occasionally a little crude...." Read more
Customers find the story relatable and inspirational. They appreciate the author's personal story of success and how he arrived there. The book provides helpful wisdom and anecdotes, with a dose of raw reality that really gets their brains working. It's an amalgamation of self-help book, memoir, and life-hacking manifesto.
"...But the core story, the real-world examples and the ideas presented will make you think, open your eyes to opportunities that you've never..." Read more
"...James gets that stories connect. He also gets that people LOVE stories and they connect with people on an entirely different level than presenting..." Read more
"...James is asking you to head the world on... straight, honestly, courageously (without fear of rejection). And all you have to do is ask!..." Read more
"While I suspect Mr Altucher is actually part cyborg, his book is relatable, prophetic and timely...." Read more
Customers find the book straightforward and well-written. They say it provides practical ways to start the process of change. The book is accessible and enjoyable, providing a simple blueprint to help you make that choice.
"...THIS book spells out the exact, many quite simple though not always so easy, things that probably pretty much anyone, anywhere, can do to ensure he..." Read more
"...different problems can all be absolved with the same clean, simple solution...." Read more
"...lot more in me than I thought previously, it really does become a much easier task once you've made your brain "sweat" like Altucher suggests..." Read more
"...He just asks that you try the Daily Practice, which is practical, doable, possible for all of us...." Read more
Customers find the book emotional and relatable. They appreciate the author's raw, honest stories about his successes and failures. The gratitude and affirmation are appreciated. Readers mention the book is a feel-good read that resonates with them.
"...It's about realizing what's possible, stripping away emotional baggage, washing away constraints that you've been indoctrinated to believe since..." Read more
"...how to brainstorm and discover new ideas, how to live and love better with our fellow man; which include the type of virtues we all aspire to attain...." Read more
"...My Altucher's words on gratitude were affirming and comforting. Most good book will teach you something...." Read more
"It would be easy to dismiss this book as amateurish given its quixotic tone and amorphic structure (it badly needs an editor), were it not for the..." Read more
Reviews with images
From fantasizing about driving into a concrete wall to something akin to mental health.
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2013I've been reading James Altucher's blog "The Altucher Confidential" at http://www.jamesaltucher.com for a while now and like it enough that, as soon as I found out that James had published "Choose Yourself" I clicked over here and grabbed and read it right away.
I already knew it would be smart and funny in a humble way and, above all, really useful.
"Choose Yourself" is written in a way that is easy and fun and smart. Another thing I love about it is that James shares that he has figured out how personally to extricate himself from enough difficult personal experiences that he has personally acquired and can impart some of the kind of wisdom that I formerly associated mostly just with folks like the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Viktor Frankl.
What I liked most about reading the book "Choose Yourself," apart from the engaging style, is that all of the ideas in it are fully compatible with the (admittedly wholly made up, but treasured nevertheless) religious beliefs that are at the core of my life. A key element in being Jewish is understanding that a motivated individual can make real, positive changes both in his or her life and in the world. One of my favorite Hasidic teachings says that every person should carry two pieces of paper, one in your right hand pocket and the other in your left. On one of the pieces, you write the verse "I am but dust and ashes." On the other piece, you write a very different verse "Bishvili nivra haolam / For my sake the world was created."
I believe that to be guided by both of those statements and keep those two opposing truths in balance is the challenge, that, when met, can lead me to success in my life. I believe that on one hand, our lives and our troubles and accomplishments are part of a much larger whole happening in the world, but each time I get flooded with pride over my own success, then it's time to pull out that slip of paper that says, "you are but dust and ashes" and put some of that hubris in perspective. We're human. The goal is not to do everything perfectly right, it's to continue to be in the game, to keep figuring out how to put my precious time into things that really matter. I've been grappling with how to do this and James' Daily Practice presents a doable means of accomplishing it for me.
Plus, more generally, the ideas in "Choose Yourself", in the most direct way I can imagine, support the truth of the popular saying that "God helps those who help themselves" - which, each time it comes to mind, invariably conjures up an image for me of God in the guise of some adoring Jewish grandmother, heaping extra slices of smoked sturgeon onto the plate of a person at an abundantly spread buffet table, who is ALREADY helping himself to as much as he likes of whatever he likes.
THIS book spells out the exact, many quite simple though not always so easy, things that probably pretty much anyone, anywhere, can do to ensure he or she will have more "smoked sturgeon on their plate" than they could possibly imagine even wanting and floods a reader like me with long-awaited hope.
I also watched a video of a promotional talk that James Altucher did for this book and I also found that helpful, so I posted links to the book and the video on Facebook because I can't think of anyone I know who could NOT get hope and benefit from exposure to James' thinking. And here's what I personally liked most about James Altucher's video presentation: his explanation of what it means to "get to yes" - as I understood James, getting to yes means simply to stimulate the other party to make any offer at all, then immediately to say an unqualified "yes" to that offer (almost regardless of its nature).
Why did that stand out for me so much? Because, in my own life, I experience as profoundly frustrating the fact that I often find myself hemmed in with "no." This "just say yes" idea has really got me thinking about whether I ought to alter at least a part of my core belief system in order to gain more freedom in my life. And any shift in perspective can be considered a miracle. So I'm confident that the ideas I've just read will work miracles in my life now. You might like reading the book, too - even if what you get out of it is entirely different from what it said to me!
And if you want the book for free, just prove to James that you've read it and he'll refund your cash or donate it to "Women For Women International" for you. Can't say fairer than that, can you? I call that generous.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2013In "Choose Yourself", James Altucher has written an amazing book about how one can go about doing something on one's own. There are many things to learn from the book that I have tried my best to summarize below - the book is definitely an eye-opener and should be on everybody's reading list. I truly enjoyed reading the book.
The book can be thought of as divided into 2 main sections - the first one being "WHY" one should choose oneself (now), and, the second being "HOW" one can do it. There are a few chapters describing case studies that are indeed very inspirational. Here's what the book says, in a nutshell:
The days when you were taken care of (by large corporations) or chosen (for a "job") are over as technology replaces people. Not only that, no sectors in the industry are hiring full time workers; instead they are relying on outsourcing or temporary workers - the middleman is being taken out of the picture, causing more disruption in employment but also more efficiencies and more opportunities for unique ideas to generate real wealth. You need to unlearn the fact that someone has to choose you, that you cannot choose yourself, or in other words, do something on your own.
It's time to choose ones own path and build your own platform. More often than not, you will not know the destination, but you need to be bold enough to choose it for yourself, right at this moment. Choose to commoditize your labor or choose yourself - to be a creator, an innovator, an artist, an investor, a marketer and an entrepreneur. And if you don't, never blame anyone but yourself. You don't have to ask for permission, you need to grant yourself the permission.
To choose yourself successfully, there are three very important criteria:
1. CHOOSE TO LIVE BY TRULY LOVING YOURSELF FIRST
2. ONLY DO THINGS THAT YOU ENJOY. Learn to say NO, eliminate, simplify
3. DO THE DAILY PRACTICE. Ignite the fire within.
The starting point is developing the inner perspective or the foundation, built around the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bases; it is from a healthy foundation of these four bases that you build the platform to choose yourself. Trust that when the foundation is built, the rest will follow. How you build this is as follows:
1. Physical Body: healthy eating, daily exercise, sleep well, take breaks at regular intervals, preferably walk during breaks, take adequate rest.
2. Emotional Body: surround yourself with positive people. Avoid people who bring you down and/or induce negativity.
3. Mental Body: tame your mind by becoming an "idea machine" (come up with 10 ideas a day on anything that can improve life).
4. Spiritual Body: live this moment, right now. Don't time travel into the past or future.
This part is similar to the Habit 7 (Sharpen the Saw) that Stephen Covey describes in his great work "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"; James gives his own brilliant interpretation that is contemporary.
It's not your external life that need to change (you anyway have very little control over that), but external changes flow from the inside. It is always inside-out, not outside-in. The simple daily practice means doing ONE thing every day from the list put down in chapter by the same name. All of this is under your control, so just do it and don't fret over the results. The right thing will happen. This is how you ignite the fire within you. Don't worry too much about trying to find your "purpose" in life. Once you decide to choose yourself, be open, try different things. Cut out the desperation and despair that "purpose" entails. It's okay to be happy without one. And, always, love yourself.
To choose yourself, you need to start by getting rid of your past baggage, de-clutter your brain, and maybe suffer a "little death" to be born again. The point is to resurrect yourself, so you can start afresh, to get the freedom that dispappearing implies. Ask yourself if your job is satisfying your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. If not, quit your job, and if you can't, do the daily practice to enable you to find the right place where you belong. You will find ways to develop alternative sources of income so your reliance on one source of income diminishes. The opportunities are there, you need to flexible enough to take advantage. If you are in crisis, turn despair on its head. Start with baby steps; BUT, it's most important to start, NOW.
If you have an idea, don't focus on the money, focus on the value you can create for those who would be using your service. Do this:
1. Build your product
2. Sell it to a customer ("Becoming a Master Salesman" chapter describes the 10 keys to selling)
3. Start shipping
4. Then quit your job
The other key aspects of choosing oneself are covered as:
1. 7 effective habits for conquering mediocrity
2. How to focus your mind?
3. Honesty is the only thing that works.
4. How to handle rejection and failure?
Here are seven chapters (mostly inspirational case studies) that are a must re-read:
1. Sara Blakeley's story of Spanx in the chapter "It doesn't cost a lot to make $1B"
2. Bryan Johnson's story of Braintree in the chapter "Let's get specific: what should I do?"
3. "Nine Lessons from Alex Day"
4. Dashama's story in the chapter "The Curious Case of the Sexy Image"
5. 5 lessons learnt from Gandhi in the chapter "Gandhi chose himself to free and entire nation"
6. "Nine things I learnt from Woody Allen"
7. "How to become an idea machine?" - it's a goldmine
The only reason I don't rate this book at 5 (I wish one could rate 4.5 on Amazon) is because it takes a bit of work towards the latter half of the book to connect the different chapters to the overall theme; it's not very explicit and takes some effort on part of the reader.
Top reviews from other countries
-
Julio Cesar RuizReviewed in Mexico on March 27, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Para tomar notas.
Excelente libro. De esos libros de los que tienes que tener a la mano papel y lápiz para tomar notas.
Julio Cesar Ruiz
Reviewed in Mexico on March 27, 2021
Images in this review - Amz CustomerReviewed in Spain on December 22, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Great advices
James is one of my favourite podcasters. This book is about changing your mindset, a call to action. Choose yourself!
- GUILHERME ZAWADZKIReviewed in Brazil on February 24, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Choose your self
Inspiring and also very well written. This book brings some points about life and work that really should be spread.
- Pronob MukerjiReviewed in India on August 12, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars A BOOK APT FOR THE CHANGING TIMES
James Altucher has written a pragmatic book, very apt for this day and age. Though published in 2013, the book touches upon a few pertinent issues which we seem to be grappling with most of the times.
My takeaways from this book :
1) Don't expect any employer to choose you till the time you do not 'Choose Yourself'. The paradigm of job search and recruitment has changed completely from the nineties till 2010.
2) Companies/business houses look for VALUE which will make a difference to their lives. As prospects to an organization we wish to work in, showing value is the only way to a foot in the door.
3) Values come from IDEAS and ideas lead to EXECUTION. Our idea muscle has to be exercised constantly since it weaken very quickly.
4) The 10 Daily Practices which Altucher recommends are worth a try for every professional. Try one a day at least.
Highly recommended.
-
FrancescoReviewed in Italy on February 9, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Good solutions to improve
I liked very well this book because it was a mixture of experience of the writer, and you can imagine yourself in him, with mistakes and successes that a normal person could have in its life. The writer advices a lot of strategies to pass the hard steps that life oppose to you telling examples of VIP's life that has choosen themselves.