7 Things I Learned From the First Blogger

Recently by James Altucher: How To Be a Human

I was first called “Charlie Brown” in 8th grade. I refused to stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance with the other kids. I didn’t like being forced to do anything. Afterwards some kids came up to me.

“Hey Charlie Brown,” one of them said, “you a commie?”

“No,” I said, “I just don’t like being forced to do something.”

“He’s more like a Linus,” Larry Sorbino said. Having stayed back a grade or so he was having more sex than anyone else in junior high school. I was definitely jealous of him. Everyone laughed because he was the leader of the roost. “Linus, hahaha.” And then for the next few months people would pass me in the hallway and sneer, “Hey Linus, haha” or, when they forgot who Linus was, “Hey Charlie Brown, haha!”

Since I was about 4 years old I had been buying the Charlie Brown collected strips. Usually after a doctor’s visit my mom would get me a book of the strips. I was thinking this the other day because I took my kids to Friendly’s. The waitress came over and said, “what would you guys like?”

“Well,” I said, “first off, about 38 years ago I left a Charlie Brown book in a Friendly’s by accident and when my mom and I came back to look for it it was already gone and I’m wondering if since then anyone has reported it lost or if it’s maybe in the lost and foud.”

“Uhh,” the waitress said, “I’ll check.”

“Daddy!” both my daughters said and they were embarrassed. Why’d they have to have a daddy like me? Even Claudia said, “oh no.”

The Wall Street Journa... James Altucher Best Price: $1.21 Buy New $10.41 (as of 08:50 UTC - Details)

“But,” I said, “I’m serious. I really wanted to read that book and my mom had just gotten it for me. We were coming from the doctor’s office. I had a vaccine shot then. I needed Charlie Brown.”

Charles Schulz, the creator of Charlie Brown, wrote the strip from 1950 to 2000, just about every day. He was basically a blogger. I don’t even know if he missed a single day.

It’s hard to come up with ideas that are meaningful every day. But he did. Here’s 7 things I learned by reading his various biographies and also by probably reading every strip he every produced.

1) He made over a billion dollars in his lifetime. Nowadays when we think of a billion dollars we think of a guy like Mark Zuckerberg or the Groupon guys, who seem to have made a billion dollars overnight. We get jealous (I do) and think, “I could’ve done that. These guys got lucky.” But Charles Schulz showed that through recessions, stagflation, wars, high taxes, low taxes, whatever – persistence and making sure you’re creative every single day so each day you outshine yourself and your peers a little bit more, will get you a billion dollars. Creativity every day is the key part.

2) He had a creative process. I may have mentioned my own process before.

My process: I wake up around 5am, give or take. I drink 3 cups of coffee and by the third cup I’m at the computer writing. I read for about an hour – only strong autobiographical voices (fiction or non-fiction) [See My Summer Reading List], then I write a blog post. I write at least a post a day even if I don’t post every day. It takes me anywhere from a half hour to eight hours to write a post. A typical post is 800 – 2000 words.

How to Be the Luckiest... Altucher, Mr James Best Price: $2.49 Buy New $7.95 (as of 10:50 UTC - Details)

Charles Schulz’s process: He woke up and ate a jelly donut. Then he’d try to come up with an idea, a process he said took him between a few minutes to 3 hours. Then he would draw and ink up the strip, which would take up to another three hours. He “posted” every day, 7 days a week.

I think creativity doesn’t happen spontaneously. I think the key is persistent exercise of the creative muscle. Doing the same process every day so your brain and body expect it and know what to do once you are “in process”. That makes the possibility of having spontaneous GREAT ideas come out during those hours much more natural and easy. [See Nine ways to light your creativity ON FIRE]

3) Success happens over decades. I said this in #1. But it’s a specific point also. Charles Bukowski wrote for three decades before he was able to make a living at it. Charles Schulz built Charlie Brown into a powerhouse over the course of five decades. For the first two decades of Warren Buffett’s investing career, nobody knew who he was. Now he’s the richest man in the world. [See 8 Unusual Things I Learned From Warren Buffett]