(If you have yet to read Part 1, I recommend you do before part 2. And...apologies as the first link may have been broken. We're working on it!)
About a “Jim Lifetime” later, in August of 2002, I began a year-long exchange of hand-written letters with Mr. Johsens.
That was another eventful year—in July, I had lost my dad and in December my first son, Skylar, was born. In our letters, Mr. Johsens and I were inspiring each other to continue our writing projects, in the spirit of John Steinbeck’s Journal of a Novel, Steinbeck’s record of one-way correspondence between him and his publisher friend and editor Pascal Covic. I had begun working on a book that would eventually become this Get A G.R.I.P., and Mr. Johsens, who had retired the year after Jim died, was writing a book about the human brain. The details of those letters are fresh in my mind. Why?
Because this past New Year's, while cleaning out a closet, I came across that set of letters, and I had photocopied the ones I was sending to Mr Johsens. Re-reading the letters re-inspired me to write, and I resolved this year to publish at least 2 blog entry-articles a month.
By now you might be asking “What about those 246 Ways?” Well, last month, I was thinking about possible titles for upcoming articles, knowing that I would need 20 more for 2019. In a matter of minutes, I came up with 10. How? I followed James Altucher's advice and had written 10 ideas per day for 6 months about two years ago. Ever since then, I've found it fairly easy to "come up with new ideas," just as James promised. So those first 10 were easy, as expected.
Then for fun, I thought, "Why not come up with the list of 20? It's only another list of 10." They came easy too. So I thought, how many could I come up with, and what if all of them started with "Re-" ? It was like a race, and idea after idea hit the paper. I just went for the max! My notebook now has 246! I share these results not to impress you but to impress upon you that the exercise works. You can find 246 Ways to Engage an Audience, or to do anything else you want, if you start taking action, writing down 10 ideas per day for 6 months.
By the way, the list now has 246, but actually it was only 236 the Monday I started. When I learned I’d be speaking speaking on the topic as a "Legendary Toastmaster" on March 11, I wanted 10 more in honor of 2:46, the time on the clock when, 8 years ago that day, many of us in Japan experienced something that would change many lives forever. Then one more potential way to "engage an audience," one more title, appeared: “Re-inspire.” I hope you are, as I was, re-inspired… to do whatever it is you want to achieve… between now and Jim.