The James Altucher Show

"You used to be arrogant," I said. He didn't know. I later decided it's arrogant to call someone arrogant on your podcast. Or anywhere else. I had a lot to learn. It's a good thing we had 90 minutes left in the studio. And dinner plans after. "I'm sure other people must have told you that around that time," I said, referring to when we first met a few years ago. My podcast guest, Ryan Holiday, dropped out of college at age 19. By age 22, he was the director of marketing for American Apparel. Twitter, YouTube, and Google all use his work as case studies. Now he's 28, a writer and owns his own business. When I sold my first company, it completely destroyed me. I know where I went wrong. Ryan's new book, "Ego is the Enemy," helped explain why. In this episode, I'll tell you what I learned. And how you can avoid making the same common mistake. Consider this interview a cheat sheet. Listen now. ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will

I was trying to cheer someone up. "The sun feels nice," I said.   "I don't even notice those things," he said.   He was depressed. But I thought I could help.   They say you can't make everybody happy. But really, you can't make anybody happy.   I know this. But it doesn't always stop me from trying.   Six months ago, I did my first stand-up show. Now I have a new experiment. I take one photo a day. And I tell a story.   But I haven't stopped thinking about stand-up. And I want to get better.   So I interviewed Gary Gulman. He's one of my favorite comedians. Top two. Him and Louis C.K. I'll throw Amy Schumer into the mix. Top three. He started 23 years ago. And I've watched his Netflix series, "It's About Time" twice (so far).   The best way to learn anything is to study the masters.   Studying Gary taught me there are two steps to developing talent in anything:   Step 1: Start somewhere Gary first tried stand-up in 1993. But that's not how he got started.   Before that, he watched comedy. He repeated bits to

The coffee pot at my cubicle job always smelled of fresh piss. It was probably rotting from the bright lights and manhandling. We all were. Maybe if I slept more, I would've quit my job (the right way). I would've chosen myself sooner. I'd leave the fog with clarity. That's what sleep can do for you. "This moment is all we have, and my mother always used to say, 'Don't miss the moment.'" "When you're exhausted, you miss the moment because you are just living in some fog, either of the past or the future," said Arianna Huffington, who recently published "The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time." In her latest book (and on my podcast), Arianna Huffington reveals the secret to being awake and living a "fully vital, fully present, fully joyful" life. Listen now. ------------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 a

I was getting good at saying, "no thank you" to certain thoughts. Sometimes it was just conversations I didn't want to have. Like this one I'm writing. If I were sitting with you, I doubt I'd say any of what I'm about to. I guess that's why I have questions. Because maybe you know something I don't. Maybe I can learn from you. And I do. I always do. There's a formula for loneliness and a formula for connection. No matter the gravity of your sinking, we are all just inches above the ocean. When I ask question, I watch people discover answers they didn't know they had. And I feel them light up. They connect with themselves. But I pretend it's me. I asked Tony Hawk about his career. We talked about falling a lot. But I'm avoiding the metaphor about "falling" and getting back up. Because then you'll think I'm transitioning from falling to failing. And there's already enough dirty, failure porn out there. So maybe, here's something new.... 3 questions I asked Tony Hawk: (on my blog) ------------What do YOU think o

You have a unique set of advantages and disadvantages. And you'll hear a lot about overcoming difficulties in today's podcast. But these are the steps:  Step 1. Find out what's different about you Step 2. Use your setback to create your skillset Step 3. Stop trying to figure it out Listen now and go to my blog for the full show notes. ------------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

"Imagine... If you had suddenly learned that the people and the places and the moments most important to you were not gone, not dead, but worse- had never been." I was in LA at Imagine Entertainment. It's Brian Grazer's studio. He produced A Beautiful Mind, 8 Mile, a bunch of Jim Carrey movies. He's worked with Eddie Murphy and produced my favorite TV series, Arrested Development. "I bought the book A Beautiful Mind with the thematic intention of trying to make a movie that would help de-stigmatize mental disability," he said. So he created an alternate reality. And he's done this in his own life. "You see, the nightmare of schizophrenia is not knowing what's true," the psychiatrist said in A Beautiful Mind. He was talking to John Nash's wife as she watched her husband get electroshock therapy. She loved a schizophrenic man. A brilliant man. She let me him keep his delusions. They weren't real. But what's the harm? Nothing. Unless you almost drown your baby. He won the Nobel Prize. And I cried. His mind broug

"You're scaring me now," I said. "Don't scare me." I was laughing. But I meant it. The news, the doom and gloom, the fear, it makes fresh air turn to vomit. Chunky streams of acid. I bet Ron Paul has thin stomach lining. We were talking about freedom. And if there's any left. I usually ignore all the doom and gloom. That's what works for me. But we talked about opportunities, hope, trends, the innovation economy.  And freedom. "I don't even like politics. I did it only because I could get a voice out there telling people what was going on, what you need to do, and what the substitute has to be. Believe me, we're going to have a chance," Ron Paul says on today's podcast. Did you hear that? "We're going to have a chance..." I like that. If you pay attention, you'll see the future is already here.  What does that mean for you? I don't know. Maybe you'll go to space or make millions investing in robotics. You have thousands of new opportunities to create your own wealth and freedom. And you can start right now. 

I'm homeless. By choice. I wrote about it. And it turned into a debate. Now I'm sharing the discussion with you. My podcast listeners and answering your questions.  "Does minimalism mean having no accomplishments?" "Does minimalism mean not having a lot of possessions?" "How do you deal with kids if you are a minimalist?" "What's the first step I should take? Should I throw things out?" This isn't something I usually do. Welcome to my experiment of the day.   ------------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 Presiden

I would've taken the money. A couple hundred million. He could've sold the business for a 100, 200 million dollars. Bill Gates wanted to buy it. But he didn't sell. I wanted to know why Steve Case, co-founder and former CEO of AOL said no to being a millionaire. "The simple answer is I really believed in the idea of the internet and believed in AOL and believed that it could change the world," he says on today's podcast. Investors said, "What are you talking about? This internet thing? Why would normal people ever want to get connected to this?" People thought he was crazy crazy. But he could see the future. That's the thing about the future. Nobody wants to see it coming. Back then, nobody wanted to connect to the internet. They missed opportunities. "It was a hard struggle for a decade before we finally broke through," he said. The future paid off for Steve Case. And now it can pay off for you. He believed they could change the world. He was right. "Six, seven years later, [AOL] had gone from a few hundred

"Everyday is a new day." ...unless you have a routine. Then it's just "eat, sleep, shit, repeat," like they say in Billions. "Don't you want to create memories? Don't you want to build your life resume and get as much out of life as you can?" Jesse Itzler said on my podcast. He's the co-founder of Marquis Jets, owner of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, endurance athlete, former-rapper and now he's an author. "I didn't have a resume," he says. "I didn't want to have a resume. I didn't want to work for anybody." Jesse built his life. "I had no background, no experience and I had no connections." He's self-made. I don't know who's in charge of my life. Maybe me. I chose myself. And I still do. Everyday. But I also lend my life out. At least once every 24 hours. "We're constantly dodging arrows," Jesse said. "Each arrow is time." "Routines are great, but they're also a rut," he said. "I thought wow, this is amazing. I have great balance. I have a great routine. I'm in my routine. Everything is my routine..." And he neede

You have no idea. None of us did. Until now.Everything I've done for the past two years is unfolding before me.I interviewed Dr. K Anders Ericsson. You know his work. He discovered the 10,000 hour rule.The rule that says if you do 10,000 hours of "dedicated practice" you can master a field. But what we've been lead to believe is false. And it's finally being corrected. Today.  Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise uses thirty years of research to reveal what we never knew before, including:What you're truly capable of, how you can achieve it, and where to start. I started this podcast two years ago. And I just realized what it's actually about.  Everyone I interviewed has one thing in common: peak performance. They excelled in their field. They're the smarter person in the room. They mastered their craft. Go to jamesaltucher.com for 7 things I learned about how to become a PEAK performer ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey th

Before writing this, I closed my eyes. I allowed myself to rest. I went from, "think, think, think" to nothing. And nothing felt good. Nothing worked. Nothing is my success. Today. I used to have another kind of success.  I was a hedge fund manager, web developer, producer, investor, corporate employee, CEO, writer. I still do some of these jobs. But not because "they" tell me to. I look back and see desperation. I was desperate to secure my future. My income. My relationships. There was always a risk of getting fired. I knew my then-wife could decide she didn't love me anymore. My kids could, too. I was shrinking. Physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually shrinking. I thought if I was miserable, "they" would help me. They didn't. I bled out on the floor.  And then I chose myself. Now I do the daily practice. I experiment. I find what works for me. And I write about it. Because advice is autobiography. But something is still stopping me. And, if you've read to here, I bet there's something stopping yo

He didn't have permission. But he did it anyway. And one day Elon Musk called him. "He was either going to make life really horrible on me or he was going to cooperate with the book" said Ashlee Vance, author of the New York Times bestseller and Wall Street Journal's "best books of the year," Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Ashlee did 200 interviews before Elon agreed, proving permission is not a starting place. I wish I wrote the book. But I didn't. My "quest" is different. Instead, I mastered curiosity. I called people and recorded. I did a ton of research. I read every book, article, interview and watched every talk. I've spent 10,000 hours interviewing and more than 10,000 hours preparing. I didn't need permission. And neither do you. Here are 5 ways to bypass the gatekeepers: A) Master something Like anybody, Elon is smart in some things and probably stupid in others. But he mastered his interests. Mastery is learning 90% of everything you could learn about a subject. You

The most powerful currency in the world is not what you think. Not anymore. We're turning to a new economy with two powerful currencies. And you have an opportunity, right now, to build a more fulfilling and rewarding life. I'm going to tell you what these two currencies are and how to leverage them successfully. I'll tell you what works for me. But before I do, I want to introduce you to Derek Sivers. He's an influential thinker, speaker, entrepreneur and the zen master of entrepreneurship writing. If you're starting a business, you have to read his book, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur. It's in my top three. Derek built his business, CD Baby, around doing people favors. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians. Derek later sold CD Baby for $22M and gave the proceeds to charity. "If you focus entirely on others the world seems to reward you the most," he says. That's one of the two most powerful currencies today: favors.

If I didn't listen to my pain, I'd be dead.  I've interviewed hundreds of "successful" people. When they look back, they see two things: struggle and a story. These are hero stories -- choose yourself stories. Directed by pain, they found passion. Because they listened. I was alone, on the floor, broke, desperate, hopeless.  I ignored the pain. I wanted to die. And then something shifted. But you don't need to hit rock bottom to be successful. You just need something that ignites you.  "There's a moment, a chemistry, where people find a spark... something inside you triggers greatness," said Terry George. He wrote and directed the award winning film, Hotel Rwanda, and the upcoming film, The Promise, about a love story during WWII's genocide. "I'm not interested in suffering," he says. But he is. "I'm interesting in alleviating it." He grew up Catholic during Ireland's struggle for civil rights across a divided nation. "I got beaten up in playgrounds and shit like that. There was definitely a sense that you we

Fifteen percent of you won't like this interview. "I like that," he says, "I like being doubted." But I don't doubt Gary Vaynerchuk. And that's why I'm giving away 100 copies of his brand new book, #AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness. The details are on my podcast. Gary will be the first to admit that he doesn't know everything. But he knows everything about everything he knows. "I talk emphatically and with enormous bravado about the things I know and understand," he says, "and I hedge and punt things I don't understand." Gary is transparent. Authentic. Self-aware. And successful. So successful that I dont even like introing him. He wants you to win. And I do, too. "When you understand yourself, you're able to navigate the world," he says. But navigating is hard. I have more misunderstandings than understandings. That's ok. Because it allows me to be curious everyday, do this podcast, write and read three, four or five books a week. "Self-awareness is the sing

I never thought about sex with Barbara Corcoran. I still don't. But she brought it up. We were talking about entrepreneurship. And she said how old she was when she lost her virginity. Twenty-three. I wanted to know how she turned a thousand dollars into a five billion dollar company. Then: $1,000. Now: $5,000,000,000. I wanted to know how she founded The Corcoran Group, the largest company in real estate. And how you become the type of entrepreneur Barbara Corcoran chooses on Shark Tank. I'm going to tell you how to get Barbara's investment. If that's what you want. But not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur. According to Barbara. "I found a real difference between the superstars and everyone else," she says.   And I agree. That's why I wrote The Rich Employee. Entrepreneurship isn't everything. But it can be. Barbara reviews thousands of investment opportunities. And most hear "no."  She says you have to have "a nose for entrepreneurship." That's how you get a "yes," from Barbara Corcoran. But before y

I'd rather be an alien. I'd rather be myself. Than be liked. It makes sense... why you'd want to be liked. Think about it. From an evolutionary standpoint, when you're liked, you're safe. You're in the tribe. People protect you. But now, I'd rather be an alien. I don't want stress. I don't want to worry, "Do I fit in?" There are consequences to being liked. You start compromising. You stop taking risks. You follow the herd. You get stuck in a crappy job at a fluorescently lit cubicle. Where they can watch you. You stop taking risks. You wonder, "Is this ok?" Ok to who? Not you. Not the only person who matters. I'd rather be an alien. If I'm an alien, I can act like I just landed here. And I'm not supposed to know if I fit in. I'm forced to be myself. No trying. Just forced. I can surrender. My guest today, used to be in a tribe. I won't say it's the worst one. But it's bad. Turney Duff is the New York Times bestselling author of, The Buy Side: A Wall Street Trader's Tale of Spectacular Excess, where he tells

I don't want to be afraid. But I am. I'll explain why. But first, I want to introduce you to Adam Grant. He has the solution to my problem... And maybe your problem, too. Adam is the youngest tenured and highest-ranking professor at the famed business university The Wharton School, a writer for The New York Times, and the New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. In researching his new book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam met with today's most successful and innovative entrepreneurs.  Why? To get answers. "We have a ton of guidance on how to generate ideas," he says. But what about after? What do you do? Originals teaches you how to bring new ideas into the world. And really, there's no grand theory on how to be "original." But there are tricks... And Adam discovered some patterns among today's most successful entrepreneurs. He spoke to Google's co-founder, Larry Page, Warby Parker's founders and CEOs, and thought leaders like the renowned wr

Ask the world this question, and you'll drown in failure. You'll lose. Anything you take, anything you earn, will be foul. I bet you've asked this question before. Maybe everyday. Maybe all your life. "How can I get?" How can I get rich? How can I get happy? How can I get more? There's no return on getting. It leave you with nothing. Or worse than nothingness. Emptiness. But there's another way. It's simple. And it works for me I'm going to tell you how to earn your worth. It works for me. And it works for my podcast guest, Russell Simmons, "the third richest figure in hip-hop with an estimated net worth of $340 million." He gets. He told me a story. "That was my first realization that hard work turned into something," he says. "I had never been on a plane. I had certainly never been out of the country, and landing in Amsterdam they're like, 'Mr. Simmons what would you like?' I'm like, 'Oh shit Mr. Simmons.' That was a revelation. I was a grown man I could get things I wanted." But not all his life. He grew u