{"id":3490,"date":"2014-08-01T23:00:19","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T21:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/?p=3490"},"modified":"2014-12-04T16:27:33","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T15:27:33","slug":"humor-i-love-it-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/?p=3490","title":{"rendered":"Humor, I love it part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NO\"<\/a>Quote from the quoted author below:
\nAnd I needed fewer and fewer things to make me happy. That\u2019s the Power of No. That\u2019s true minimalism.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My guest are coming late, so here is a short page that is finished in my head.<\/p>\n

Few days ago someone wrote somewhere where I could read it this:<\/p>\n

Hi, everybody!<\/em><\/p>\n

Just fimished a very nice book, and thought that maybe you would enjoy it …<\/em>
\n James Altucher – the power of No<\/em><\/p>\n

I laughed out loud when I read this and wrote a few hours later this:
\nHi Dan etal,<\/em><\/p>\n

The power of No, great title. Clearly\u00a0 leaning on Tolle’s Title.<\/em>
\n I laughted out loud when I read it.<\/em>
\n Looked around a bit.<\/em>
\n Read this: http:\/\/www.jamesaltucher.com\/2013\/09\/how-the-power-of-no-saved-my-life\/<\/a><\/em>
\n And it’s for sale all over.<\/em>
\n At bol for instance: http:\/\/www.bol.com\/nl\/p\/the-power-of-no\/9200000023178913\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Thanks,<\/em><\/p>\n

hans<\/em><\/p>\n

Here is the text of the\u00a0 part under the first link. I think this is important knowledge and insights that the author shares. Enjoy.<\/p>\n

How the Power of No Saved My Life.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/center>The first girl I dated after separating from my wife asked me what my net worth was on our first date.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was honest and I told her. She said, \u201cthat\u2019s not enough.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I asked her what her ex was worth but she said, \u201cwhy do people always ask that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Her ex was well known, 20 years older than her (maybe 30), and probably worth over $100 million according to the newspaper.<\/em><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a saying (it\u2019s a saying because one person has told it to me but I repeat it everywhere as if I had made it up): \u201cYou never know what someone is worth until they declare bankruptcy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I felt bad about not having enough so I told her some things I was working on.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNone of that stuff ever works out,\u201d she said.<\/em><\/p>\n

And she was right. None of that particular stuff worked out. But I didn\u2019t know it then. I wouldn\u2019t know it for years.<\/em><\/p>\n

Another time I asked her, \u201chow come you never introduce me to your friends?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And she said, \u201cBecause you\u2019re too crazy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Which made a lot of sense. I do NOT introduce my crazy friends to my normal friends. One of her friends was running for Senate or Governor or something. That would\u2019ve created a lot of problems if he was seen hanging out with a crazy person. But I could\u2019ve maybe offered to be Vice-President if he ever made it that far.<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes you give a carrot but they take the whole stick.<\/em><\/p>\n

One time she said to me, \u201cmy people can destroy your people.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Which I doubt. My people at that time were largely zombies. In the movies you often see the Governor or the Head of the Joint Chiefs totally powerless against the Zombie army.<\/em><\/p>\n

But I couldn\u2019t tell her that and reveal my true identity.<\/em><\/p>\n

I said, \u201cMaybe.\u201d We were in a Mexican restaurant, which I considered neutral territory considering as how my DNA tests showed I have some Canadian blood in me.<\/em><\/p>\n

We broke up. I\u2019d like to think I broke up with her if it wasn\u2019t for that one conversation where she called me and said, \u201cI\u2019m not ready for you. I need time. Maybe A LOT of time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And then I broke up with her.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was in a Borders bookstore at that moment and she was at President Obama\u2019s first inauguration, and I still had a Blackberry.<\/em><\/p>\n

Those big buttons that required the slightest of pushes. We were texting. I remember typing out, \u201cb\u2026r\u2026e..k\u201d and then backspacing. You know the drill. I miss my Blackberry.<\/em><\/p>\n

How things have changed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back then just a smidgen of Chinese food could cause enlightenment. People were having orgasms over politics and the country was heading towards the Apocalypse.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days when nothing semeed to matter except being lonely, eating hot dogs for breakfast, being scared of going broke, being forced to move rooms every 29 days by NYC law since I lived in a since shut-down hotel, and wandering around bookstores looking for women to hit on.<\/em><\/p>\n

But then I gave up.<\/em><\/p>\n

I started saying \u201cNo\u201d to people who weren\u2019t right for me. I started saying \u201cNo\u201d to everything I didn\u2019t want to do.<\/em><\/p>\n

I started saying \u201cNo\u201d to mindless meetings, mindless events, mindless people who were bad for me, mindless food or alcohol, mindless anger and regret. Mindless TV and news.<\/em><\/p>\n

I started saying \u201cNo\u201d to colonoscopies and other things related to painful medical experiments. I listed all the things I could say \u201cNo\u201d to and I still do.<\/em><\/p>\n

When you have a tiny tiny piece of shit in the soup it doesn\u2019t matter how much more water you pour in and how many more spices you put on top. There\u2019s shit in the soup.<\/em><\/p>\n

I had been saying YES to the wrong things for 20 years.<\/em><\/p>\n

Within six months my life was completely different. I met Claudia. I moved out of hotels. I was working on ideas that actually made money. And I needed fewer and fewer things to make me happy. That\u2019s the Power of No. That\u2019s true minimalism.<\/em><\/p>\n

Every six months since then my life has changed. Even in the past few days, remarkable things have happened.<\/em><\/p>\n

When you start just saying \u201cNo\u201d to the bad things, the \u201cYes\u201d compounds every day. It compounds automatically, the way interest does in a non-US bank.<\/em><\/p>\n

When she asked me what my net worth was I could\u2019ve just said, \u201cNo\u201d and got up and not wasted three months of my life. But as easy as that sounds, I didn\u2019t know how to do it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now I do. Now I\u2019m free. I dumped the old soup. Now I can finally drink from the soup I just cooked<\/em><\/p>\n

Was signed James Altucher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quote from the quoted author below: And I needed fewer and fewer things to make me happy. That\u2019s the Power of No. That\u2019s true minimalism.     My guest are coming late, so here is a short page that is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/NO.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tD9I-Ui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3490"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3498,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3490\/revisions\/3498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hansvandergugten.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}