Derived from The Magic of Thinking Big, by David J. Schwarz, derived from Ulysses, by James Joyce, and not derived from Dante, not by Shakespeare. Any daggers?

The Biology of Belief by Bruce H. Lipton
The Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Attractor Factor by Joe Vitale
The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz

The Magic of Thinking Big - Dr. David J. Schwartz

Understand your intolerance for self-help category in books... generally, I detest them too. But once in a while, when the world around looks too complex, reading simple books like "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull", "Prophet", even "Who Moved My Cheese?" and "The Magic of Thinking Big" has helped me...

I was once a 13-year-old girl and loved writing short stories and learning about business. Some books that worked for me:
- The 4-Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Guy Kawasaki
- The Magic of Thinking Big, by David. J Schwartz
- Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey

One not super related to business but a great short read: Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. That book taught me to think creatively about my goals and not to allow traditional expectations to stop me from accomplishing them.

Read The Magic of Thinking Big. You're not a wantrepreneur - you've tried something and been paid for it, and that's a big step that a lot of people don't get to.

Changing your mindset is the first step. Don't think that because you only have five hours a week to work on your project, that it is forever relegated to "side project" status and capped out at $100/month.

It sounds like you want to focus on web apps, many of which are heavily dependent on organic search traffic. The first thing that I'd do after reading the book is to get a SEMRush free trial - a lot of affiliate sites have 30-day free trials. Look at how many people are searching for your target keywords, the keyword difficulty score, what advertisers are bidding for the keywords, and traffic of comparable sites.

If everything checks out, look at how you can improve on the comparable sites. Everything has potential for improvement - even if your tool works exactly the same way as a competitor, just optimizing the website copy (do a ton of A/B tests and talk to your users) could yield impressive results.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a great gift for those who are beginning their careers. It influenced my thinking and motivated me in many important ways. Today-- 13 years since my first reading -- I realize that what I'm doing today (4 years into entrepreneurship) is based on beliefs that took root during that first year out of university that I studied texts such as Rich Dad Poor Dad. Other texts included Tom Peters's books (The Brand You, Re-Imagine!), The Magic of Thinking Big, and The Millionaire Next Door.

Difficult to add anything to the superb advice already given but I want to endorse:

- overseas travel (go to a completely different culture than your own)
- exercise (even just going for a walk round the local park while listening to some music)
- de-clutter (this is really, really beneficial - I've just moved house and the feeling of throwing out years of accumulated crap was fantastic)
- socialise with some new people

Finally, be wary of books and seminars, etc - sometimes I find if someone is so completely off the scale in terms of achievement rather than motivating me it has the opposite effect. Don't be afraid to stop reading/leave an event if you find you're not getting energised by it.

A good book that's easy to read is The Magic Of Thinking Big. Nice, simple advice and a good pick-me-up. It's full of common sense and useful steps you can take to get re-energised.

Finally, I just want to echo what others have said: there's no rush; don't pressure yourself. There's a great quote on PG's website... "Your twenties are always an apprenticeship, but you don’t always know what for."

Good luck.

Great. More middlebrow dismissal. [1]

Instead of just dismissing an article for the obvious points, try to identify at least one idea that could be considered novel or worthwhile. In this article, the suggestion of "X will inevitably be part of the future, so I will build it" is a novel idea, at least to me, and especially with the list of real-life examples he gave.

That is completely different than building what people want. For example, a different color phone case for a new smartphone is something that many people want, but not a "future" idea as the article suggests. Robot butlers like in The Jetsons [2] will inevitably be part of the future, so there's an idea.

Learn to think positively and see the potential of all things, including "obvious" articles. I'd certainly recommend The Magic of Thinking Big [3], namely the example about prisons.

[1] pg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Jetsons_characters#...

[3] http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B002V1BMPI

Thanks mindcrime, I couldn't have said it better myself. I suppose I should have left my goal out, but I thought it was useful context. Where I live and work (palo alto), modest 3 bedroom homes average $2,000,000. Nice ones bump up into the $5,000,000 range.

I think money's not fun to talk about, since it's easy to hurt someone's feelings due to people having such radically differing worldviews.

I am very ambitious, and personally 500k a year is a good "start" towards success. There's a lot of great books about the power of thought. I like "The Magic Of Thinking Big".

I was in the same situation some time back.

"Decided" it was time I must change myself.

Picked up "The Magic of Thinking Big". I get the general hate towards self-hep books, but in many cases they do create a positive future image and that is essential to take the next step.

Get an accountability buddy. Search reddit or discord for that. And go. Use the 5-second rule.

Go out in the morning sun. Take the unknown routes. Spark your creativity. Go out of your comfort zone once in a while.

It will take time but you'll eventually get better.

Spend $100 on a random stock. Learn, improve, adapt.

Make notes.

You do not need to prove anyone else. Make a commitment to yourself and stick to it.