I am Reinventing Myself.

I have read "The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Reinventing Yourself" by James Altucher from TechCrunch roughly 20 times since October 19th. It probably works out to EVERY DAY since I first read it. I've let it bake. I've let it permeate my cells. It is in my breath.

I started my first college class since 1989 last Monday, October 28, 2013. The class is The History of the Ancient Mediterranean. I love history. My wife is found of saying with a "can you believe this?" voice that I "read history for fun." I am weird. I understand. My goal is to teach. After years of thinking about it and thinking about it some more, it finally dawned on me that I love history and that I should do something about it. My short term goal is to become an adjunct history teacher at a local community college. I need a degree for that. Empire State College is going to let that happen for me.

Back to Reinventing Yourself.

I am reinventing myself. This article is fantastic. Altucher makes a ton of great points. I am going to run through some of them here and hopefully, tie it back to my path.

1. REINVENTION NEVER STOPS. The only constant is change. We are always in a state of change. Altucher says we decide whether we go forward or backward. In a sense, my decision to go back to school is a decision to go backward and FINISH what I started in 1986 at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

2. TIME IT TAKES TO REINVENT YOURSELF: FIVE YEARS. From the article:

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
• Year Five: you’re making wealth

 My thinking is to a) do what I love and b) create a side hustle for myself. I am not too worried about creating wealth from it. But I am not ruling out wealth. :)

3. WHEN CAN I START DOING X? Altucher says TODAY. "Start buying 500 books one at a time and start...." I love it. I just bought approximately 10 books for my first class. Only one was on the syllabus, but I bought others because I know I am going to need them soon.  He goes on to answer the question of "What if I can't read 500 books?"

GIVE UP.

I love it.

4. HOW SHOULD I NETWORK?

Make concentric circles. You’re at the middle.
The next circle is friends and family.
The next circle is online communities.
The circle after that is meetups and coffees.
The circle after that is conferences and thought leaders.
The circle after that is mentors.
The circle after that is customers and wealth-creators.
Start making your way through the circles.

This is probably the biggest take away from this article. I was already on this road of reinvention. This is a great field manual for how to connect with others to LEARN.

The next biggest take away is to start teaching via YouTube. 

Start with an audience of one and see if it builds up. 

Again, this article is so great.

I've been stressing about the actual coursework. I had lost sight of the end goal. I need to do more than just take class after class. I need to get out there. I need to hustle. YouTube, here I come.