30 Days of Genius- James Altucher

James' words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• Physical health, personal relationships, creativity, practicing gratitude
• These are a few of my favorite things! Just kidding, it's what James tries to practice every day. If he takes care of each of these four, he knows he is having a good day.

• The world is full of hyphens (5 creative projects)
• CJ has repeated this often, and now he found a supporter. It seems everyone is defined by their side projects now. Do more of these, and you will find more happiness and more success.
• It has been found that 5 creative projects is the perfect number to inspire the greatest creativity. Juggle lots of balls, because that's when the going gets good. 

• A lot of success is about knowing how to do tiny experiments
• Test things in little ways. Run small experiments. Try something, learn to let it go. Create mini versions of the future you want to imagine. 
• In other words, don't commit 100% of your time and money to something until you've tested a small version of it. 

• See what’s happening now, and let others decide if that’s the future. 
• It's too hard to predict the future. Let others do that, because they'll make more mistakes than good decisions. It's your job to do things well today, and make today a priority every day.

• Technology doesn’t excite me that much- what excites me is the variety of choices it brings
• I suppose those two are one and the same, but James draws a clear distinction. Technology is a toy box of opportunity. It presents options within itself, and by nature of providing ways for us to explore other opportunities as it saves us time in the realm of the mundane. Thanks, technology!

30 Days of Genius- Tina Roth Eisenberg

Tina's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics.

• What are you side projects?
• Side projects inspire creative work in themselves and in your main work. They are works of passion and interest. They force you to deal with constraints of time, money, and resources, but often come out with great results. Have side projects- it's fun and important to the world. And to yourself.

• Confidence is impressive, enthusiasm is infectious. Confidence is about yourself, enthusiasm is about something else.
• There are two ways to pitch an idea or inspire an audience. Always choose to intermingle enthusiasm into your confidence. Confidence could be more practical and unbiased, but it's enthusiasm that really gets others inspired to your dream. 

• The thing that’s hard is there to keep everybody else out, not to keep you out -CJ
• CHASE JARVIS DROPPING FIRE. You should be thrilled to do that hard things, because that means no one else is doing them. You are unstoppable because you are controlled by you. You can't speak for anyone else's will power or abilities- but you can always accomplish the hard thing.

• Stop complaining. Fix it, or let it go.
• Tina's advice? On point. If you find yourself complaining about something for extended periods of time, either devote the effort to fix it, or agree to let it go and move on with your life. 

30 Days of Genius- Neil Strauss

Neil's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• You don’t know if it’s good. You just know that you made it. 
• You can't critique your own work as well as the rest of the world can. You don't know if it's good or bad. It's simply yours. Release it, and see what comes of it. 

• You throw a pebble in a culture and you don’t know where the ripples are gonna go. The question is- are you going to throw it. 
• Taking risks is important to you and to the world. Risk-taking ensures that you're making a difference. What that difference becomes is always a mystery. But that the difference exists is reliant on your risk taking.

• Don’t share it until you think it's good. If you’re sharing something that you know is imperfect, you’re losing your opportunity for valuable feedback
• This is a clarification on the common entrepreneurship trope of 'release as early as possible.' Put out good work, not bare bones work. This does not mean to wait until it is perfect- just until you are happy with it.

• Lock yourself in a room. Remove all distractions. Remove all excuses. 
• So much of procrastination is self-imposed distraction. Phones ring. Internet gets exciting. Friends say hi. If you remove all of these and set rules for yourself- like the writing 20 pages before getting your freedom from your self-imposed cell- you'll find that creating is less daunting than it seems. 

• Money can’t buy happiness, but experiences can. And money can buy experiences. 
• Money isn't evil. It should be sought after, but for the right reasons. Not for the sake of money, for the sake of opportunities.

30 Days of Genius- Austin Kleon

Austin's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics.

• What can I do that will mean the most to the most people
• Take action with great consequences. Do things that create waves, not ripples. Spend your time in a world in which your actions mean something to people other than yourself.

• Good poets copy great poets steal
• If you follow one person it's plagarism. If you follow many then it's innovation. Take from the wisdoms of others. They worked hard to make your work more meaningful. 

• Creativity is about having a network
• You need other people around you to inspire creativity. You can't do it alone. And you shouldn't have to. It's not that the lonely artist or the mad scientist or the single passionate entrepreneur is dead. It is simply easier to be a team player. 

• Productivity is so overrated in so many ways. 
• A fascinating little statement. Productivity means you don't spend time with your mind aimlessly wandering the ether of it's imagination. Being productive and being innovative are often on opposite ends from each other. And you need the latter to ensure that your productivity is going towards a good cause. 

• I’m going to make the worst thing I can make
• Do things as a test. Stretch your imagination. Put weird constraints on your work, and you'll return with fun results.

• "Everyone the same age as you is really just an alternate universe of your life with choices you didn’t make"
• I LOVE this concept. We could have all been the 22 year old, or 40 year old, or 87 year old who lives next door. Instead, we did what we decided to do. And that's what got us here. Think about the choices your counter-universes made. Look into how people older than you are living. Decide where you want to go, and the life choices that will take you to that universe. 

30 Days of Genius- Daymond John

Daymond's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics.

• "It wasn’t that moment. It was the 6 years leading up to it."
• There isn't a moment that changes lives. Well sure, maybe there is. But that moment does not exist without the years of effort it took to get there.
• The most noticeable thing about the Empire State Building is the radio antenna on the top. But no one would ever notice that if it wasn't for the hundreds of floors below it. 

• "You still have to wake up at 5:59am and go to sleep at 12:01"
• Just because things are easier to start today than ever before (and, without a doubt, they are), doesn't mean it takes anything less than crazy hard work to succeed.

• "You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with"
• A classic. We all mold ourselves to the person we are spending time with. Mold up, not down.

• You have to be able to put yourself in 2-5 words. “I’m on a quest"
• Who you are, what you stand for, and what people think of you should all be summed up simply.

• Be active in your own education
• Waiting for education to come to you is the broken model we still live in today. It's the K-12. Want to learn more and be more? Take control.

• "Life is a series of mentors."
• We're always learning, and there are always people out there to teach us. Always have a mentor, no matter the discipline. 

30 Days of Genius- Brandon Stanton

Brandon's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• "Always be tough on yourself, always be tough on your work. Humans of New York is never the same as it was 6 months ago."
• You should always be changing as a creative and an individual. Good work is different today than it will be tomorrow. You should be critical of your past work so that it can constantly grow and change.

• "It’s a blessing to be the first one who gets bored with your own work."
• You are the first person to see your work, so you should be the first person to get bored with your work. That means you'll be the first person who wants to create new work, and it will constantly be different.

• "People listen when I speak because I very rarely speak."
• Make your words meaningful. Make your audience value your output, because it is rare and thoughtful.
• Wasn't it Napoleon who said "do not speak unless you are the smartest one in the room."? And look where that got him...

• "We all have advantages and disadvantages unique to ourselves. But everyone has the same capacity to work."
• You'll likely not be the best at something. You're also almost definitely not the worst. But the one thing you can be great at is work. It's one of the few things truly within your control. Work harder and longer than anyone else, and you'll see great results.

• "Following your dreams is nothing but hard work."
• Don't be the musician following her dreams without playing your instrument every single day.
• You're not actually following your dreams as a photographer without taking 100 pictures every single day. 
• Don't make "I'm following my dream" an excuse to not work hard. You need to work doubly hard to bring your talent to the forefront.

• "People are paralyzed by the need to make something great."
• Great work is a long, tedious road. It's spotted with releases of good things, long before there is something great. 
• As an amateur anything, you cannot be afraid of releasing something not great. Put the work out there, it won't ever be perfect anyway. 

30 Days of Genius- Kevin Rose

Kevin's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• "Go after the space with no competition"
• Very much like what Peter Thiel advocates- competition is for losers. If all the big players and best entrepreneurs are tackling one market, why would you try to go after that? 
• Kevin did social media years ago, before others were doing it. Now he's in the luxury watch market. Because there is no one at his level in that market, so that's enough of a reason to go after it. He can have an impact there that is much more tangible and attainable than in a crowded space. 

• "The best founders are the ones that see something before anyone else"
• This isn't trackable in the moment, but so clear after the fact. Founders disagree with something in the world wholeheartedly, and this is often proven through the story of the company's founding.
• Uber was on AngelList trying to raise money because no investor would believe in what they were doing. 

• "I want my Wikipedia page to have a list of so many failures. The fun in life is launching something no one else has done before. Because who cares?"
• Wow- one of my favorite lines in this entire series. Let's dissect sentence by sentence.
• 1) How cool is this! A list of a bunch of failures, perhaps punctuated by a few successes, likely in dozens of industries, to describe a career. Every few years your life is in a different arena.
• 2) If you're someone who agrees with this, that is an intense and risk-laden statement. Because launching something no one else has done before means, innately, that you will fail. And sometimes be poor. And often be mocked. But if you can handle all that- then the fun in life is totally about starting things no one else has before.
• 3) WHO CARES! As long as you can feed yourself and you're not doing anything evil, nobody cares what you're doing or thinking of believing. Or if they do care and they do negatively judge, then you should not care.

• "Founders have an internal drive that something must exist, and that comes from a very creative place."
• Founders have this idea, deep inside themselves. They see the end product (if there is really ever such a thing) and work through the creative process to go from nonexistence to reality.

• "What can be most beneficial is something different"
• If you're in a rut, or you're looking for creative ideas within your discipline, or feel stuck- try doing something very different. Completely unrelated to your focus. That can create inspiration in the field of your main focus.
• Creativity begets creativity.