How do you reinvent yourself when it seems you have lost everything? James Altucher, managing director of Formula Capital, the author of five books and a successful entrepreneur, often failed before he succeeded. In this video interview with DailyFinance, Altucher tells how he created wealth, lost it and created it again. He explains the critical lessons he learned and that many of us should now apply to our own lives.

Fact is, even though the recession apparently ended in June, 2009, the economy is still in dismal shape, unemployment is still around 9.6%, stocks are not back to where they were and many people, to put it simply, are depressed.

Altucher's rise, fall and subsequent rise led him through jobs that required, among other things, interviewing prostitutes in the wee hours of the morning. Back in the heady days of dot com mania, Altucher went on to create a web services company, Reset, Inc. which he sold in 1998 for an undisclosed amount (but most certainly for several million dollars) and then invested the proceeds in Internet stocks only to lose it all when the tech bubble burst.

He eventually came back after writing software to model the markets which he used to trade for hedge funds before starting his own fund of funds. He then started Stockpickr.com which he then sold to TheStreet.com in 2007.
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In the video below, Altucher discusses the critical lessons he learned through it all and explains how all of us can use our "idea muscle" to reinvent ourselves, even in tough times.