The James Altucher Show

Everyone I've ever dated (before my second marriage) was just practice. Telling my second grade crush I was in love with her and getting laughed at - practice. Posing as a psychic on Craigslist to meet women - practice. I could have chosen not to do those things. I could have been too embarrassed or said I don't want to be "that guy." But then I would have been holding myself back. Don't waste time and energy contemplating if you'll be successful. I get it. You're afraid. You don't want to get stuck or let go of a good thing. Recognize, though, that your fear won't generate wealth and freedom. So how do you know what's right financially? My guest today, Kevin O'Leary says, "There's no guarantee. You have to try things." Before becoming a successful entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and millionaire shark, Kevin tried and tested different jobs. He picked up garbage. This wasn't for him. He wasn't invested. Sometimes the key to success is to say no. Not to invest. If you aren't invested, you can keep trying new

If she told me to jump off a bridge, I just might do it. She was the only friend who would tell me anything, and I would do anything for her. I think I love her. Growing up, I wanted to know everything-sex, bullying, whether I was normal or not. I was curious-confused really. Kids were mean and girls were pretty. Judy Blume was the only one who would answer my questions. I was asking, "What is it all for?" And she told me. I thought, maybe this is what finding God feels like. She's a No. 1 New York Times best-selling author with more than 85 million books sold. Successful? Yes. But it's more than that. "I represent childhood," she says, "I think when somebody represents your childhood, that's special. I'm lucky people tell me that." Her book, "Forever," taught me about sex. "Blubber" explained bullying. I read Judy Blume's books because I had questions and she had answers. So where did she come from? At age 25, a man took her on a date. He stayed the night and never left. They got married, had two little babi

This is for the writers.  Write something that doesn't suck.  It's a simple goal.  With low stakes, Amy Koppelman wrote "I Smile Back," which was rejected at least 80 times. It was rejected because it resembled the truth too much. One publisher said, "This is the reason we got into publishing, but I can't sell this." Now, Sara Silverman is starring in the movie. She's the main character, Laney.  I was scared for the Laney. The book bleeds.  Sometimes you have to feel sorry for someone else to stop feeling sorry for yourself.  Good fiction can do that. It's how you can escape.  They say you can't run away from yourself. But they lie all the time. Amy wrote letters. She was depressed. She needed an escape. When she recognized sadness in someone else, she wrote him letters. Years later, with a pair of scissors, she cut and pasted a story together. That's how she got her book. She wrote with scissors. In today's interview, Amy reveals how you write great fiction. I wanted to know about the sadness inside her. Doe

Do you have a favorite book you return to over and over again? James does, and today the author of that book joins him on The James Altucher Show. Many of you know James does a Twitter Q&A every Thursday. But what you probably didn't know is that before he jumps online he rereads one book... He turns to Sugar for inspiration. Sugar is the fictional character in Cheryl Strayed's book, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. Cheryl Strayed has had a rough life: sexual abuse, divorce, past drug abuse, and her mother's death. All this pushed her to do something radical with her life. She decided to take a hike. Not your everyday hike; she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Coast Trail from the Mojave Desert through California, Oregon, and Washington - and she did it alone. The hike finally healed her, and she turned it into her NY Times bestselling memoir, Wild. The book was then turned into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon. Oprah loved the book so much she restarte

Lewis Howes is great. He has achieved Olympic level successful in many areas of his life and today with the launch of his brand new book, The School of Greatness, he adds Bestselling Author to the list. On this episode, I ask Lewis what it takes to be great. Without hesitation, Lewis says that it all starts with a vision. You have to visualize what it is you really want. You have to dream it. Lewis says that before you can achieve greatness and success you have to understand what greatness and success looks like for you. Take a notepad and a pen, go out into nature, lay there in silence and write down what your perfect day would look like. Lewis says that everyone faces some type adversity in their life, but the ones who achieve greatness figure out a way to use the adversity to their advantage. We discuss some amazing examples of people who have achieved greatness after adversity, like Kyle Maynard. I hope you enjoy today's episode as much as I did. I know you can be great. Links and resources: The School o

If you're running your own business, then you know by now that you have to care about what you're doing if you want to be successful. Making money can be a goal, but it can't be your only goal. You have to work toward something greater than just turning a profit. On today's podcast I talk with Bryan Johnson, someone who knows full well how much you have to care if you want your investments to pay off, and he's found the perfect balance between being financially successful and changing the world.  I talked with Bryan two years ago (and I actually put the interview in my book Choose Yourself!). I invited him to that first interview because he had established Braintree, a payment platform for many online businesses and entrepreneurs, and it was immensely successful. But I'm bringing him back this time around because a lot has changed in two years. Bryan sold Braintree to Ebay for $800 million and has since used that money to start a venture capital fund for what he likes to call "save the world" sort of companie

Today's guest changed my life. Seeing as he helped to invent Blogger and Twitter, he probably changed your life too! The Internet's last decade and a half of development as a forum for writing has taken place in large part on platforms built in part by Ev Williams. Evan "Ev" Williams is on the show today to talk about his new blogging platform, Medium, and how he worked his way up to the top spot he is now. "I worked my whole life basically broke and in debt," he tells me, and this may be a familiar situation for you. Struggling to realize your dreams, working hard to create something new the public wants - we've all experienced these efforts in one way or another, and some of your attempts may have been more successful than others. The hardest part about running your own business is not only having the confidence to take the risks, but also to pull yourself together if that risk should fail. Even success can come with its own stress. Working to create Blogger and Twitter led Ev to a ton of success in media,

Naveen Jain is the founder and CEO of one of the biggest companies from the dot-com boom era, and now he has set his sights on the moon.   His company, Moon Express, plans to send a rocket to the moon as a business venture to collect rare minerals and resources, and then bring them back to Earth. He also plans to make travel to the moon and other planets accessible to all of us at some point in the future. Naveen is the founder of InfoSpace, the first company to develop services that were sold to other companies that then white-labeled those services on their own web sites. According to Naveen, InfoSpace was the first company to realize that people would eventually want to use the internet on mobile devices. Naveen co-founded Intelius, the information commerce company that gives users access to basic information about people all on one site. In 2010, Naveen started Moon Express with the goal of bringing rare minerals back to the Earth for use in a number of applications, such as energy uses. Going to the moo

Are you willing to disobey your parents? Cassey Ho came from a typical Asian family. They gave her three choices for her career... doctor, lawyer or engineer. She had to bring honor to her family. But that wasn't Cassey's calling. She had the entrepreneurial spirit, and she just had to follow her dream. Fast-forward to today, and Cassey has almost 2.5 million subscribers to her YouTube channel Blogilates TV, with one of her videos now approaching 7.5 million views. And that was just the beginning. She has created a whole line of products that's growing quickly. Listen here today as she shares with James how she advertises her "brand." ------------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!-------

This week I've got something important to say to every message board across the internet: "Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom with the dishes." Sound familiar? That's PJ O'Rourke, world-renowned talking head and published author, whose political humor and commentary make him the butt of many an insult on message boards everywhere. He's on the show today to talk about politics and why humor is always the best policy, especially if you want to really make a difference. When it comes to being funny in politics, humor is your only option. "You really don't have a choice," PJ tells me. "To take it seriously is to indicate you're an idiot." And the same applies to the way you run your business, so be careful! If you take yourself too seriously, you're only going to end up missing out on the important, finer details. Because even in business you are still involved in politics one way or the other. Maybe you're the member of a committee, maybe you design your staff meetings as a form of de

This is my first threesome on the show! Tucker Max, Nils Parker, and Dr. Jeff Miller are all here to discuss their new book Mate: Become the Man Women Want. But what does dating have to do with business? Believe it or not, marketing yourself for social relationships is related to marketing your business for success. In fact, from Tucker's point of view, they're almost one in the same. "Dating and sex is [seen as] a battle between men and women, and that's totally wrong." He says, "You want to create win-win relationships," a relationship where you and your partner(s), whether they be professional or romantic, both come out on top is exactly what you should be seeking. When Jeff and Tucker met over a steak dinner to discuss Jeff's recent social and evolutionary psychology talk at a conference, it wasn't necessarily a romantic meal. Jeff's point of view is not trickling down to the young men and women who could truly benefit from his kind of information, and both authors were worried about the perceived misconc

How do you summarize a highly colorful life of an inventor, billionaire and philanthropist? In this episode of The James Altucher Show, our guest is John McAfee. James and John talk about the high and low points of John's life. Just days after this interview, John announced he is running for President of the United States. Listen to John and see if you can decide if he's going to get your vote. He is probably best known for McAfee antivirus software, which he created while working as a programmer for Lockheed Martin. Even with extraordinary success, John never measured his self-worth with his net-worth. Rather, he saved more than $30 million since he began McAfee. After a time, he turned the reins of of his successful antivirus company to Bill Larson, former VP of IBM. John has had a controversial career. He's spent his life on the run, has admitted to using and selling illegal drugs and has been arrested for illegal possession of firearms in the U.S. Despite this, he still remains ever-relevant decades later

Hank is one half of the popular YouTube duo VlogBrothers. The show is co-hosted with his brother John Green, author of the New York Times bestselling book The Fault in Our Stars. The show boasts a loyal group following, amounting to around 2.6 million viewers. The brothers are also the brains behind a fundraising campaign called "Project For Awesome," through which they're organizing the community to take over YouTube with charity work for a day. Hank is well-known for being an Internet entrepreneur, article writer/contributor to a variety of publications like the New York Times, Scientific American and Mental Floss. In addition to the successful Brotherhood 2.0 project, he's also produced science-based videos like the popular "SciShow" and "Crash Course." He is also the inventor of 2D-Glasses for those who have trouble watching 3-D movies; this is his least successful business venture to date, by the way. Speaking of merchandise, he also owns DFTBA records, an online store he co-founded with his friends. He'

Penn Jillette is a famous magician - he's one half of the duo Penn and Teller. He has made a career out of sleight of hand and tricks. He credits Teller with getting him into magic. Penn's specialties are juggling, writing, and comedy. He suggests that when you choose a career you go into a field in which you know you can improve. He continued his education at "clown college." He was "forced" into comedy, but he wanted to be a brooding French poet. While at clown college, he learned wire walking, juggling, and tumbling. Penn says card tricks are actually a form of juggling. ============ Special Note: Both Penn and James will be presenting LIVE at next month's Stansberry Conference in Las Vegas. If you're interested in joining them and more than 30 additional speakers for two full days click here. This year's conference will take place at one of the newest and most luxurious destinations on Las Vegas Boulevard - the Aria Resort & Casino. ============ When he first began with Teller they went to bad magic s

This weekend Dr. Wayne Dyer passed away.   James wants to recognize the influence Wayne Dyer has had on his life. We're very sad about his passing. Here is one of the last interviews Wayne Dyer has done and it is with James...  During that interview James asked Dr. Dyer what he saw as the arc of his career. "What has your message been and how have you seen it evolve?" Without hesitating, Dr. Dyer responded... "Well, it's really been always about self-reliance, in one form or another. I've often said that I really feel that I had a conversation with God just before I showed up here on this planet in 1940 and I was asked, 'What would you like to do on this trip?' And I said, 'Well, I think I'd like to teach self-reliance.' And God said, 'You want to do that for an entire lifetime? Just teach self-reliance?' "I said, 'Yes, that would be a great lifetime.' And he said, 'Well, then, we'd better get your little ass into an orphanage and we'd better let you have all of these different experiences, so that once peopl

Today James welcomes Josh Foer to the podcast. Josh is a U.S. Memory champion, award-winning journalist, and bestselling author of Moonwalking with Einstein, which details his journey to becoming a U.S. memory champion.                                            ============ Special Note: Both Josh and James will be presenting LIVE at next month's Stansberry Conference in Las Vegas. If you're interested in joining them and over 30 additional speakers for two full days click here. This year's Conference will take place at one of the newest and most luxurious destinations on Las Vegas Boulevard -- the Aria Resort and Casino.                                         ============   Taking some of the ancient memory techniques he learned during a yearlong trip to Europe, Josh was quickly able to master techniques that have not yet made their way across "the pond." Having this advantage over American competitors allowed him to become very successful in a short amount of time. Once he brought these European techniq

James Hong is one of the founders of the infamous site Hot or Not. What started out as an innocent experiment turned into a cultural phenomenon and lucrative business. Hot or Not was a website that allowed users to upload their photos to the site so that other users could rate them as "hot" or "not." Soon after, a dating site was added, and a new form of internet speed dating began. Hot or Not was part of the dawn of social media, preceding Youtube, Facebook, and sites like Tinder. James shares his observations of human nature and how the site proved age-old truths about attraction. People who submitted the photos were, for the most part, confident enough to know the site was all in good fun. Others took it too seriously. In the long run, "hotter" people found the site and stayed based on the reaction to their photos. James and his partner built the site as a side project that started out with an invite to friends - and grew to 30 thousand visitors. Online source photos were used to begin the concept of the s

What if someone told you that your behavior was controlled by a powerful, invisible force? Nick Morgan, the author of Power Cues, joins James today to tell the fantastic story of how, after a serious concussion that left him in a coma for about 10 days, Nick lost the ability to read other people he knew. He could no longer read their body language. He couldn't read the cues. After a couple of months of agony, something switched back on. That experience awakened in Nick a lifelong interest in body language, gesture, and voice, and a drive to understand how people really communicate with each other. Listen here today as Nick relays some amazing stories about how you can take control of your communication. Regards, David Newman   P.S. For a very limited time, I want to send you a brand-new, hardback copy of my new book for FREE! All I ask is that you cover the shipping costs (just $5). ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that wi

By its very nature, social media lends itself to users showing the highlights of their lives and sharing their best moments, but only after they've cropped, edited and refined those moments. Casey Neistat, the prolific creator of YouTube videos that have made us look at our world a bit differently, thinks it's time we use social media to share the authentic moments of our lives. His new app Beme allows for social media interaction to take on a new level of realness. Casey Neistat, film director, producer, and YouTube creator, has gained a huge following. Millions of people look forward to his daily vlog on his YouTube channel. Casey and I recorded a podcast back in January 2015 (Ask Altucher Ep 202). What brings us together this time is a new app that Casey co-founded that  could significantly change how people view social media. Named Beme, the app uses snippets of videos the user takes and then sends them to other Beme users. It does so without giving the user the opportunity to edit the video. Casey says t

Is it possible to transform your life on the eve of your 40th birthday, and experience meaning, vitality, and purpose like you've never before imagined? Rich Roll is a wonderful example of how a person can transform his life. Overweight and burdened by his own demons, on the eve of his 40th birthday, Rich began a transformation that resulted in him becoming an accomplished vegan, ultra-endurance athlete, wellness & plant-based nutrition advocate, and motivational speaker. His wife, Julie Piatt, is an accomplished yoga teacher, chef, artist, and musician. Their recent book collaboration, The Plantpower Way, includes guidance, recipes, and outstand photography that is designed to guide the reader to long-term wellness in body, mind, and spirit. Together they join Claudia and me for this episode that is in the spirit of a great chat around the dining room table with good friends. Some of the topics we discuss over tea include: Working together as a married couple and the relationship of the family The posit