The James Altucher Show

"We all lived through it. But one fun or interesting realizations I came to in reporting the book was... Can we curse on your podcast?"   "Yeah. Anything goes."   "... Is just how much shit happened in the world between 1999 and 2015."   Chris Smith is the author of The New York Times bestseller, "The Daily Show (The Book): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests."   He interviewed 144 people, including the host Jon Stewart, Craig Kilborn, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee and so many other people.   "You know, Jon Stewart's a guy who had an upper-middle-ish class upbringing in New Jersey, went to William and Mary, came into comedy sideways. He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do after college."   I needed to know how Jon Stewart did it. How he redefined Late Night. How he broke out and rose to the top of comedy. And how he used humor to disrupt it all - mainstream media, mainstream politics, the news.   "He would wear the same thing in the office everyda

I wish I was as smart as Steven Johnson. I asked him, "What is your one favorite thing that everybody thinks is bad for you that is actually good for you?" He didn't want to tell me. "My kids might listen to this later," he said. But he told me... He's the author of "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation," "Everything Bad is Good for you," and the recent "Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World"- how the idea of "play" more than anything else, is what created the modern world. "I regret saying this a little, but, the assumption that video games are just a terrible waste of time and that this generation is growing up playing these stupid games is really... it's so wrong," he said. He was talking about using play for education reform. "If you think about it, we walk around with a bunch of assumptions of what a learning experience is supposed to look like: listening to a lecture, watching an educational video, taking an exam to test your learning." I was gonna puke.  "I've been watchi

You know that game where you flip a card, see the face and turn it back over, then try to find the match?   That's the game we're going to play...   Write down your values. I told Jairek mine. I had three.   Jairek is a life coach. And Tony Robbins is his dad. But that doesn't matter. Because Tony didn't invest in his son's strengths. He invested in weakness.   "I didn't really have an understanding of what real hard work was," Jairek said.   So in college, Jairek went to Canada and stacked lumber.   "You've known me a long time," I said. "What's a weakness I have that you think I can work through?"   "I'll tell you how we find those," he said.   Step 1: Review your values   Jairek said, "Let's do this right now. If I were to ask you what's most important to you in life, what would you say?"   "Humans..." That was number one. Connecting with people I care about.   "Being an honest person who acts with integrity."   "And creativity."   So here's the card game... Imagine you have all the cards face down o

Mike Massimino failed his PhD the first time. Failed the astronaut test the first three times. Failed to get the highest evaluation when he walked into space the first time. And almost destroyed the Hubble Telescope on the last attempt the US was going to make to fix it. But he did it. He did it all. Two things I noticed about him. One thing is he kept saying things to me like, "I wasn't the smartest in X but..." He said that about his classmates. He said that about his neighbors. He said this about his fellow co-workers. He said this out in the middle of outer space. 350,000 miles away from home. In my podcast, years later, he was still saying that. He's a liar. He got his PhD from MIT in "robot arms on Mars". He went into space twice. He fixed the Hubble telescope so now we can see images like this: By the way, he failed the astronaut exam because his vision wasn't good enough. He then figured out how to TRAIN HIS EYES TO HAVE BETTER EYESIGHT. I never even heard of that before. He passed his next

It's the most commonly believed lie. It will make you lose all your money. It'll make you wake up in your 40's or 50's and wonder what you're going to do about retirement. It will make you develop your worst possible habits.   For me, it was drinking. And waking up face to floor. I was ugliest when I was unhappy. That's true for everyone.   Unless you hide it with plastic surgery and cocaine.   The point is I care about myself now. And not a lot of people say that.   But it's important.   I should care about me more than anyone else... even my daughters. But sometimes I mess up. Sometimes I love them more than me.   Even on airplanes, they say, "Put your mask on before assisting others." If you put a mask on your baby before you put a mask on yourself, your baby will never know who you could've been.   If I don't put my oxygen mask on first everyday, then my kids, my friends, everyone I meet, won't know who I really am.   They won't know me at my best. They'll know me passed out on the floor because I tried s

Kamal was totally lost. His father had died. His job over. His relationship gone. He felt adrift, depressed, broken. He was so lost he wandered the world trying to find his way back. Twenty years later he wrote the novel about what happened - REBIRTH. The novel is about how he discovered for himself the ancient art of the pilgrimage. How to be a wanderer. How to be lost in a world with too much GPS raining down. Would a pilgrimage, a wandering, solve his problems? I read Kamal's book. The book comes out today. I had him on my podcast (also out today). I wanted to find out how even in our daily lives we can go on a pilgrimage. Even if I'm in a cubicle, can I break free, can I become a wanderer Sometimes I also feel stuck. But I don't want to go away for months at a time. I want a pilgrimage in my life right now! From what I can gather from reading the book, REBIRTH, and talking with Kamal, a pilgrimage has several parts: A) SEEKING AN ANSWER Something happened. Something confusing. Something that wasn't in the

"When I was a struggling writer, before I wrote my first book, I got 190 rejection slips."   He taped them to the walls like a serial killer.   "My wallpaper was rejection slips."   "What was the worst one...," I asked Ben Mezrich, a New York Times bestselling author. Over the past five or six years, I've probably read all of his books. He wrote "Bringing Down the House," which became the movie "21". He wrote, "Accidental Billionaires," which became "The Social Network" where Jesse Eisenberg played a seemingly evil Mark Zuckerberg.   The New Yorker sent him just a page with the most powerful word known to man.   "It was just, 'No,'" Ben said, "I was rejected by a janitor at a publishing house because I sent a manuscript to an editor who was no longer working there and the manuscript ended up in the trash can. A janitor took it out of the trash, read it and sent me a rejection letter."   That was his big chance. Not Ben's.   The janitor.   "I've never wanted to write a book," Ben said. "I wanted to write. I wa

How can you use mass hypnosis to control 60,000,000 people so they vote for you to become the leader of the world? Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, knows the answer and has known it for years. So I called him and asked. I needed to know. He told me how Trump won. And he told me how anyone can use these persuasion techniques to improve their lives. What if you can get people to do whatever you want just by using the right words and subtly hypnotizing everyone you meet? It sounds like a science fiction novel. But it's true. It's what happened, and it happens every day. Who are the victims? You're the victim. Scott Adams predicted in September 2015(!) that Donald Trump would become President because, "he is the best master persuader I have ever seen." Scott Adams trained as a hypnotist and master persuader for years. "Once you realize that everyone is completely irrational," Scott Adams told me, "your life gets a lot easier. "You can start to use the principles behind this to see why people really do things,

  "When did you decide to go from being a lawyer to a full-time writer?" I asked Gretchen Rubin. She wrote the #1 New York Times bestseller, "The Happiness Project." It was 2001. "At the Supreme Court, I was surrounded by people who loved law. They were reading law on the weekends. They were talking about law at lunch time. They just loved, loved, loved law. And I knew that I didn't." I felt pain in my legs. That's the feeling I had in my body the last time I didn't love something. I couldn't sit around anymore. I got up mid-meeting, walked straight to the elevator and left. "I think a lot of people want to leave what they're doing, but they don't know where to go," Gretchen said. A) How to find where to go "I was looking up at the capitol dome," Gretchen said, "And I thought, 'What am I interested in that everybody in the world is interested in?' That's when she wrote her first book, "Power Money Fame Sex: A User's Guide." Her first step was research. That's also what she did for fun. "That's a big tip-off

Dan Ariely was burned all over his body. He lived in the hospital for years. He grew up there. Now he writes about pain. And irrationality. And meaning. He had nerve damage from the burns. And no skin to protect himself from pain. The nurses slowly peeled back his bandages. He begged them to rip them off.   They wouldn't. He wanted quick pain and fast relief. They did it slowly for peace of mind. Not his. Theirs. Dan calls this "irrational behavior." He says, "being irrational are the cases where we think we will behave in one way, but we actually don't. And the reason I care about this is because those are the cases in which people are likely to make decisions." He helps predict behavior. So you can respond the way you'd expect you would... not the way you actually do. "It's an interesting conflict," he says. We talked about his new TED book, "Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations." ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey t

Steven Pressfield wrote all of the greatest books for writers. He's a pro. And in part 1 he talks about turning pro. Now he talks about HOW to develop your skills. "I have a writing practice," he says. "And what that sort of means is you detach yourself from the outcome and you're looking at the long picture. If somebody says to me, 'Steve you're gonna live to be 97.8 years old. Are you going to be writing the last day of your life?' I'll say, 'Yes.' And I don't give a shit if it sells or not. I'm in it." Be in it. Because it's not just a habit... it's your life.   ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, 

HOW TO GO FROM AMATEUR TO TURNING PRO? I had a full time job. I was trying to run a business on the side. I was pitching two TV shows. And I was obsessively playing chess day and night and traveling to tournaments. And nothing was going well. My attention was scattered. I was unhappy. I felt stuck. One time I was talking to one of the partners in my side business, Randy Weiner. I said to him, "I'm reading this fascinating book about chess endgames". He said, "I don't care about that! Why are you even looking at those books? Chess is a game for kids. You should be working at this business full-time." The next day I quit my job. I joined the business full time. I never played in another chess tournament ever again. I stopped pitching TV shows. I went from being an amateur to being a pro. Which is why I'm glad the other day I spoke to Steven Pressfield, author of "Turning Pro", "The War of Art", "The Legend of Bagger Vance", "Do the Work", and more than a dozen other great books and novels. Sometimes it seemed l

I was very late and I was very upset at myself. I had flown three thousand miles. I moved into an Airbnb right next to where Tim was staying. I had written thousands of notes on ripped pieces of paper and stuck them all throughout the book. I had notes written up and around all the margins. I listened to dozens of his podcasts. And I've known him for years. All morning I had jotted down possible questions. And I was late to meet Tim for our podcast. Because the west coast is three hours a way in time travel from the east coast. That's how stupid I am. I rushed over and he was waiting. Tim follows his own advice. He was relaxed. No problems. I apologized, we spoke for awhile, and then started the podcast. Three hours later...not even close to done but we stopped. I want to be a better person in life. I want to be healthier. I want to be more creative. I want to find what is hidden inside of me, dig around, unleash it. I want to find the strength to do that. It's not an easy to thing to do. To scrape the dirt a

I was very late and I was very upset at myself. I had flown three thousand miles. I moved into an Airbnb right next to where Tim was staying. I had written thousands of notes on ripped pieces of paper and stuck them all throughout the book. I had notes written up and around all the margins. I listened to dozens of his podcasts. And I've known him for years. All morning I had jotted down possible questions. And I was late to meet Tim for our podcast. Because the west coast is three hours a way in time travel from the east coast. That's how stupid I am. I rushed over and he was waiting. Tim follows his own advice. He was relaxed. No problems. I apologized, we spoke for awhile, and then started the podcast. Three hours later...not even close to done but we stopped. I want to be a better person in life. I want to be healthier. I want to be more creative. I want to find what is hidden inside of me, dig around, unleash it. I want to find the strength to do that. It's not an easy to thing to do. To scrape the dirt a

The Explorer's Code:  I wanted to wake each morning, not anxious about my day anymore. Not worried about what so-and-so would say, or where my career was going, or what was I going to write today. My only job each day is to explore something new. So I called up Josh and asked him how I could be an explorer. He told me. - Have A Mission Every day, whether it's "be creative today." Or "go some place you've never been" or "talk to ten random strangers", make a mission. Learn something new. Missions are for people who DO. Mission statements are for people who DON'T. -Uncomfortable Situation Try to put yourself in as many uncomfortable situations as possible. "For instance," he said, "you should apply for a temp job. See what it's like." Or maybe one day you and a friend can make a bet: who can get the furthest out of town with just $100. The uncomfortable zone is where you find out who you are, the comfort zone is where you sleep. Task: make a list of uncomfortable situations. Stretch the idea muscle. -Partners/T

What does it sound like when you change your mind? That's the name of Seth Godin's next book. He only printed 5,500 copies. And he's not printing anymore. He doesn't just view a book as pages surrounded by two covers. He makes a 3-dimensional object that's beautiful to look at and read. "It's not new," he said on my podcast. "It's the best of the last four years of my work. And it's illustrated with hundreds of photos by Thomas Hawk, who's the most prolific and talented internet photographer." The book weighs 18 pounds. And it's 800 pages long. I asked him about art and marketing... and he told me about life. A) START FROM THE BEGINNING "No business, no project, no novel ever started big," Seth said. It started with fear, uncertainty, excitement, possibility. Tons of "what if's" that lead to real action. And real action halts the what if's. The what if's turn to what is. Seth said, "Instead of saying, 'I need to leap to the middle,' say, 'I'm going to start with people who want to engage with me.'" All succes

Brian Koppelman and his wife Amy Koppelman saved my life. Many years after he ruined my life. First off: when he wrote the movie "Rounders" I became obsessed with poker. I went to the same club he played at and played for 365 nights, including the night my first daughter was born (I was there for the birth though!) .   I was an addict. But eventually I stopped in order to start another company. I wish I had never stopped because that other company cost me all of my money at the time.   Then he wrote several of my favorite movies after that. I didn't even know it was the same director until the first time I interviewed him here.   Now he is writing and producing my favorite TV show, "Billions" on Showtime. About an aggressive hedge fund billionaire going after an equally aggressive US Attorney played by Paul Giamatti.   Brian has been on the podcast several times but there's always so much more to talk about in terms of creativity and inspiration and how to succeed as an artist / entrepreneur.   Ditto for his

WHAT I CAN LEARN IN ONE MINUTE THAT WILL CHANGE MY LIFE FOREVER Stephen Dubner (Freakonomics) has a new podcast and it just hit #1 in the iTunes charts. "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" is the name of it and it's about to change my life. He came over to play backgammon and I asked him about it. He told me he became a journalist because it was an easy way to start talking to people. He said, "If I ask people to tell me something I don't know," then I often learn new things and it keeps the conversation going. My mind blew open. I'm tired of freezing up. Feeling too paralyzed to talk. I'm a shy introvert. This will help unfreeze me. For everyone I meet, I will try to learn something I don't know. I'll simply ask them. This will be my new habit. --- I listened to Dubner's first podcast of the new show. I learned something new from one member of the audience. First off, it's a hard podcast to create. Listen to it. There are three panelists. There's a fact-checker. And there's 100 people in the audience. I've neve

He died. He was giving a speech, sat down, and the next thing... he was dead. They called an ambulance. They got paramedics. They did that thing. They brought him back to life. But his body didn't like living. He died again. Eight more times they used machines to convince the machine in his body that we call a heart, to come back to life. Please come back to life, the machines said to his heart. And finally his heart decided to stay. After that, things changed. Like they often do when we die at the age of 47. "There are three things," Chip Conley, now the head of hospitality for AirBnB, told me, "a job, a career, and a calling." "I had been building and running hotels for 20 years. It was my calling to be in the hospitality business. I built over 50 hotels. But it was starting to feel like a job." "When I died, I realized I couldn't do it anymore. I had to go back to my calling." Within a few years he had sold his business. He had nothing left to do. "I had faith in my calling, though," Chip said. "Something

http://ryanholiday.net/dear-dad-dont-vote-donald-trump/ ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltuchershow.com------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsiHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on social media:YouTub