RG 153 – Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy with James Whittaker
Nuts and Bolts
James is an Australian expat living in LA and the author of Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy, which is the companion book to the original 1939 self help book. James made his first dollar as a child when he was living in Brisbane and he helped his father package up his Wealth Creator CD-Roms. For his book James has interviewed over 100 successful people to quantify what has made them great.
James grew up in Brisbane and was a financial planner for 10 years until he went to do an international MBA with 9 months in Boston and 3 months in Shanghai. When he was in Boston he saw that people his age were living their entrepreneurial dream and taking action to manifest their dreams. He realized that this was the main difference between them and him and so he decided to take action. After his MBA he never properly moved back to Australia and instead he settled in LA where he worked at a marketing agency. At the same time he was setting up a CrossFit gym in Australia with 2 friends, a social media brand and an active wear brand. More recently James was approached by film makers who were going to make a film about Napoleon Hill’s book and James created a business plan about how they could approach the movie, and then he joined the team as a writer. He realized he was spreading himself too thin and so he moved away from his businesses in Australia and committed to his work in the US.
While working with the film makers he started to write the companion book to the original Think and Grow Rich. James notes that nowadays people consume media in a visual way, which is hard to do in a book so he wrote the book in a cinematic style with lots of stories. The original book was written as a self help book but people often made the mistake of reading it like a novel, James points out that the best way to get the most from the book is to constantly think ‘how can I implement this in my life’. The first step towards success is to know what success will look like in your life and this makes it easier to take your first steps. The formula for success is the same for anyone across any industry; you need to be clear on your values and what your goals look like, for successful people their success has already happened in their heads and they’re just acting out what they already know to be true. The next step is to never accept temporary failure as permanent defeat. When something goes wrong you need to find the gift in acceptane by finding a way to convert adversity to an equal benefit. The third step is to surround yourself with the right people. James’ final tip is to wake up each day and make the decision to win or else you’ve already made the decision to lose.
Top tips
- Most important habit – Daily 5 minute journal
- Most important tool – Phone notes app
- Most important failure – First 23 years of life he let life happen to him rather than going after it
- Contact – Jameswhitt.com
