hello everyone and welcome to another
YouTube hangout super excited to be here
with my very special guest there’s so
much that this guy does it’s hard to
introduce him but I’ll give it my best
shot he’s an author he’s an entrepreneur
he’s an investor
he’s a podcaster he’s a chess master USA
Today named his book choose yourself as
one of the 12 greatest business books of
all time and I just found out that even
though I was released in 2013
last week was still the number one
nonfiction book on Amazon so that’s
awesome
he’s been called the Oprah of the
internet it said he owns fifteen things
to his name he likes a tip in two dollar
bills
feels like college is a waste of time he
was rich and then lost his condo and
loss of a 1 million dollar loss and said
that he’s made every mistake in the book
so that’s a lot to go over he’s got a
new book that is working on reinvent
yourself yeah tell me about yourself if
you repeatedly lose everything and have
to come back so see you become an expert
I love it man welcome aboard by the way
maybe many of these work things are
connected maybe the kind of person who
thinks college is a waste of time is
also gonna lose a lot of money
repeatedly you never know I could be
wrong about everything
so you know the audience here is
entrepreneurs mostly entrepreneurs are
want to be entrepreneurs I’m reading
through your bio I’m trying to figure
out man we got chains for half an hour
where can we pull out the most value
here uh and one of the things that I
really was intrigued by was your daily
practice so maybe we start there or how
would be found success through your
daily practice as an entrepreneur and
then what kind of feedback and advice do
you give to other people we’re trying to
struggle with their daily practice sure
yeah so I mean what a lot of what was
happening was I made money
I built a business it was a great
business in the 90s building websites
for other companies sold it cashed out
lost everything then I made it up built
another business built it up made money
lost it throws up another business built
it up so
Goldin made money uh lost it
I kept doing this over and over again
and at some point you have to ask you
know I’ve done this so many times the
common denominator is me I can’t really
blame anyone else I can only blame me
and I did it so many times it’s almost
like statistically significant if I say
to myself what am I doing wrong on the
way down and what am i doing right on
the way up so it was kind of easy then
to figure out well here’s what I’m doing
right on the way up uh you know
forgetting what I was doing wrong on the
way down because it was different things
each time but on the way up always a
hundred percent of the time in each
business and there was like maybe 20
different things that I could say this
about four things I was doing well
physically I was maintaining my health
emotionally I was hanging around with
good positive people who I loved and who
loved me creatively I was making sure I
was creative every day and so that could
mean exercising this creativity muscle I
call the idea muscle so writing down ten
ideas a day every single day because
your idea muscle will atrophy if you
don’t exercise it every single day just
like it’s like if you don’t walk for two
or three weeks you’ll actually need
physical therapy to walk again because
your leg muscles atrophy so fast the
idea muscle atrophies even faster oh I
have to pee after a day or two so you
have to really exercise it every single
day and it improves if you exercise it
like you become an idea machine and you
need to do that in today’s world where
it’s not like you can just kind of hide
in your cubicle and get promotions and
so on you have to actually really you
know do something to achieve success so
and then finally it was important to be
this sounds kind of cliche ish I almost
be saying it now but I had to learn to
be grateful instead of being anxious so
you know gratitude and anxiety and
complaining can all exist in the brain
at the same time like you know and in
particular it’s very easy to be grateful
for the easy things in life I got
grateful for my kids I’m grateful for
I’m alive whatever but it’s really
little to be grateful for what I call
difficult gratitude
so like I lose my leg how can I be
grateful for that you know thank God I
haven’t lost my leg I think I’d have a
hard time being grateful for it but that
would be an example of a difficult
gratitude problem so that’s in a
nutshell the daily practiced physical
emotional mental and let’s even call it
spiritual health trying to improve on
that every single day one percent a day
and that I don’t want to say catapults
me to success because I’m not quite sure
what that means
but I will say whatever I have a failure
my bounce back gets faster and faster
each time no matter how large the
failure is and I’ve had some enormous ly
large values even in the past two years
much bigger than any I’ve had before in
my life and and yet I bounced back
incredibly quickly now just by reminding
myself to get back to this daily
practice so my audience likes to give me
a hard time because I always play with
my ring and I have it on my thumb or
have it on different fingers I hear
something happening in the background
some clicking like I do I have poker
chips sort of playing away poker chips
it’s interesting is that is that a thing
it’s a thing Zuri is it always poker
chips or just you have to have something
uh I don’t know I just got these poker
chips actually I used to play a lot of
Poker and when you’re when you play
poker and you’re like soon they’re
thinking it’s like not unusual to like
play with the chips while you’re
thinking right so I’m sorry I apologize
I will put them over here not like it
it’s good go for whatever helps the
Credo problem anymore
not yet I was just curious because the
Gaspee water where we bring up my thumb
and I don’t I just I play with it and
just ends up on my thumb sometimes
instead of my finger it’s just I like I
like having it well I’m thinking I I you
know you know what I used to do and this
is really bad for a podcast but I used
to do this a hundred percent of the time
if I was on the phone with somebody is I
would as soon as the phone would ring
I’d be picking up the phone and I’d be
firing up the internet Chess Club and I
start playing chess as soon as I got on
the phone and I could never have a phone
conversation without playing chest at
the same time and what would happen is I
wouldn’t really be paying attention to
my phone calls and my chess ranking
would go down I’m into that chess club
because you really can’t multitasking is
a really bad
say no you can’t nobody can really
multitask I think that’s sort of a BS
thing and uh but I was just addicted to
doing that and it wasn’t really helpful
now I actually have better phone calls
and I play chess better
how about multitasking on a bigger scale
where you’re trying to be an
entrepreneur and an author and a chess
master ain’t like all these things and
entrepreneurs get their attention
divided can you do it or what advice you
have to make it happen
you can’t do it right so so what I tend
to do is um
in the morning is always devoted to
really focus or I try as hard as
possible really focused writing and
believe it or not entrepreneurship is
sort of easy compared to uh something
too creative like writing or taking
photographs or whatever so I’ll save the
afternoon for easy things like
entrepreneurship and then usually the
lessons from entrepreneurship will feed
back into the writing so all the time
then I’m engaged in like
entrepreneurship activities I’m thinking
to myself how can this feed into the
writing like I just wrote something a
little while ago about a guy I’m in a
bob with an ax in a deal and how he’s
such an excellent networker it goes
above and beyond all the BS articles I
see like ten ways to network better or
how to be charismatic or whatever like
all those articles are BS and I see
somebody who actually has made you know
tens of millions of dollars from
networking and I see exactly what he
does and it’s so different from any of
these articles so I just I wrote about
that because again I see him you know I
last saw about a month ago but I saw
what he was doing on a daily basis and I
wrote about it today and so what about
other things like when you’re when
you’re playing chess are you also
thinking back to the book are you also
thinking about entrepreneurship is it
all just like a end to you or they
separate things no they’re all they’re
all mix like chess you know so I grew up
I grew up playing chess and I knew many
and playing games of any sort is a great
way to speak a language to adults if
you’re a kid like if I’m a kid I’m not
going to talk about politics or religion
to an adult but if I’m a kid and I play
chess and you play
we’re the same level and we speak the
same language and so I get to learn I
got to learn many things uh growing up
playing and one of those things you
learn playing games is essentially how
to be a killer
without having to kill people and so
when I play you know the path to mastery
in chess or poker or back at or any game
is not that different from the path to
mastery in any other area of life and so
it’s something that I can address in
writing because I think a lot of my
writing and a lot of my podcast and so
on is about peak performance and is
about that path to mastery and I’m
fascinated by it because I’ve attempted
it not necessarily succeeded that it
attempted it so many times and so so
playing chess and trying to understand
the subtleties of it definitely feeds my
writing do you purposely make time for
chess like you do for writing no no I
not anymore
used to write in fact uh I used to yeah
we might attack my my 17 year old was
visiting me yesterday and I convinced
her her boyfriend oh let’s let’s go over
to Union Square and see what’s going on
there um but really what I wanted to do
was run into the chess players outside
and just play some games of chess like I
didn’t care if my kids had a fun time or
not the brutal truth right there yeah
good out here they’re at a museum so I
can say it out loud they don’t want
water to video
they’re never gonna listen to this video
hey hey hey come on man I’m dead maybe
they’ll go back oh why do we gotta
listen to what daddy said um so back to
the schedule how this routine that helps
you what do you do when you fall off or
when you feel like I got it taken care
of I don’t need to do that gratitude
thing today like how do you get back on
that horse when you fall off you just
get back on you can’t you can’t regret
falling off because falling off is is
this two arrows so the first arrow is
when you fall off a summer routine and
that will hurt you the first I will
always hurt you but the second arrow
which is feeling regret or guilt over
falling out of a routine
the second hours what kills you so you
can’t feel that second arrow you just
have to get back on the routine I never
feel guilty about missing it now if I
don’t write every day I actually do feel
that second Harrow a little bit but
that’s unhealthy and I try to get back
on the routine as fast as possible do
you feel the immediate gratification
Paul the tasks like the gratitude thing
is it like resonate immediately with you
that it brings you that joy to do it or
is it something you have to convince
yourself to do know it immediately you
immediately feel the effect because
again you can if I’m not doing it I
could be feeling anxious about I tended
to be an anxious type of person so if
I’m not doing gratitude and all these
other things were practicing the idea
muscle and writing and and being healthy
and and being around good people um I
tend to feel more you know worse about
myself or anxious and me all these
things have immediate effects and they
have a long-term effects that you build
up like now I almost never hang out with
people who don’t satisfy me in some way
like I I’m really good at saying no now
hmm and for someone who’s doing so many
things when you get into you know that’s
data flow how do you how do you stay
there and not you know feel like I gotta
go do my podcast we’re gonna write this
book or like I’m really in the zone on
this thing do you try to stay there you
just come back to it later what’s your
process through that yeah I mean usually
there are a lot of things to do per day
but again nothing beats for me uh
writing in the morning so and if I don’t
write in the morning that I just sit I
just figure out I go back and forth to
be reading and trying to write and I
just stay focused on that until I write
which might mean bad things I might then
not return phone calls or emails or be
involved in logistics that I need to be
involved in or companies that I need to
be involved in so I get behind a lot of
stuff but but writing is the thing that
I feel has the most impact for me both
personally and professionally and
creatively and I just try to make sure I
do it every single day would you let
that
the physical health and you know
emotional health and all all that other
garbage would would you let that bleed
into the rest of your day like just you
wake up and you’re insanely inspired and
the writing is off the charts and like
the next thing gonna write is just
you’re so proud and happy in the moment
but you have this you know interview
with this Evan Carmichael guy or you
know you got to deal with this business
or whatever like would you let that
bleed would you push that stuff off I’m
just curious where the boundary is when
you’re like when you’re really in that
zone feeling it about in the zone no I
don’t I all I need to do is check the
box so I need to say okay I wrote
something good today it might take me 15
minutes it might take me nine hours you
can’t you can’t do anything all day long
I don’t believe in you know maybe if
you’re computer programming or playing a
game like I was like a computer game you
can do it for 12 straight hours but I’ll
tell you a story
so Anatoly Karpov was the world chess
champion for like I don’t know um
something like 10 years 11 years and he
was always one of the greatest players
in the world
then he said the maximum he could study
chess per day was three hours so this is
the guy was like the peak performer in
his field and he was the best and maybe
that one of the best ever the top three
or four ever and all he could do was
maximum study three hours a day he
couldn’t do more so you can’t really do
something all day long I don’t really
believe that flow works that way if you
could if you could engage in flow for 15
minutes a day you know so flow is this
kind of um mental state where you’re
doing something you love and and you
forget everything else sort of fades
away you feel like this zone of quality
and and so on I don’t think I don’t
think it’s important to do it all day I
think it’s just important to get in that
state like let’s say one once or twice a
day you know but not stay in it all day
that’s impossible well you’ve got a lot
of fans already in the in the live
audience we got lower writing in I’d
kiss you if I had the chance to run into
you on the street James so that that’s
one of the more exciting ones my
comments are coming up um oh but I’ll
have to brush my teeth all the time then
to the topic of choosing yourself for
people who aren’t familiar what’s the
thesis of the book well think about this
Evan what are you doing right now you’re
doing kind of a TV show this is like a
little talk show you have here now it
used to be the case you had to be either
David Letterman or Jay Leno to have a
talk show uh two people out of seven
billion now you could be David Letterman
oh you can be you know a David Letterman
Jay Leno or Evan Carmichael like you
have your own talk show you got rid of
you said I don’t need CBS or NBC or ABC
to approve of Evan Carmichael I could
just call up anybody I want
and interview and interview them and put
it on the third largest search engine in
the world YouTube or the second largest
search engine in the world you created
your own talk show you don’t you didn’t
need a gatekeeper so that’s choosing
yourself but at a deeper level it’s
doing this daily practice so that you’re
healthy enough to do what you did so if
you’re like you have it you know you
have this picture this background of you
with your beautiful family if you didn’t
have like you saw your emotional
stability if you didn’t you weren’t like
physically healthy like if you were sick
in bed you know dying of something if
you weren’t like grateful for these
opportunities in your life like I can
see you take a lot of care in the show
you have these huge posters hanging up
behind you of your of your heroes and
the legends in your life like you know
obviously you’re creative you put
together the show you ask on people who
interest you do you read a lot so so you
do this daily practice I can see and
then you’re allowed to choose yourself
get rid of the gatekeepers and say oh I
don’t need youtube I don’t need a
publisher I don’t need someone to
approve of me or promote me or hire me
or I don’t need to work up and be a
sound engineer than a comedian and I
have a talk show you just went out and
did it and that’s that’s choosing
yourself in a variety of ways so it’s a
problem for people that they don’t see
that they have the opportunity to be
their own NBC or they don’t have the
courage to go and take the leap or both
both I got remember one time
talking to a guy and he and he actually
was in the business of placing ads on
YouTube shows and and I and I said why
don’t you do and but he was really into
gaming and I said why didn’t do a
youtube show about gaming those are
really popular like a youtube show about
minecraft she can’t get more popular
than that right now and he said well I
don’t have a good enough camera and I
said are you kidding me I’m give me your
phone and he had like of the latest
iPhone and I said your iPhone has a good
enough video camera for you to make
popular YouTube videos in fact and and I
told an example Michelle Phan her first
fitting shelf on has millions and
millions of YouTube views a billion view
tube views on her makeup tutorials her
company her makeup company now I think
is valued in something like 50 million
dollars but her first 55 videos but
she’s shot on her iPhone video camera
were horrible low quality whatever and
then she should put it with salt but
it’s idea-driven so she did a video
about how lady got how to makeup how to
do your makeup like Lady Gaga does huge
views through the roof regardless of the
quality of the camera and then now
suddenly from the advertising she had
enough money to buy a better camera and
she became she’s this huge star now she
chose herself completely and uh you know
there’s there’s no excuses anymore for
for stuff like this
so how do you break through the limiting
mindset like I need the camera I’m not
good enough I’m you know whatever like
that blank when you look in sales in the
mirror and they say I’m not successful
because of you know whatever that blank
is that’s the path beyond it the path
the path is these this daily practice
everyday
physical health which just it just might
mean eight hours of sleep eat well move
around emotional health be around people
who inspire you and who and who will
support you in your dreams creative
health like write down ten ideas a day
spiritual health like be be grateful
everyday just do that every single day
and you’ll you’ll get the mindset that’s
a guarantee like that I’ll give you your
money back if you don’t if you don’t get
the bikes
watching this video is their recommended
time length is it 15 minutes in each
King is it’s just checking the box
however long it takes two minutes two
box just check the box and you know what
duel was intent like you know try to get
a little bit better at it so you know
try to eat a little better every day try
to try to be like one guy one guy wrote
to me and said I’ve been following your
daily practice I’ve been sleeping well
exercising eating well I’ve been writing
ten ideas to day around and then on
Friday nights I go out with my friends
and they laugh at all my ideas what
should I do and I wrote back to him and
I said um I have a great idea for you
stay home on Friday night and again so
he easily could have improved his daily
practice by just not hanging out with
those friends who were putting him down
don’t hang out with people who put you
down all the time those articles are
good friends
yeah and is this something you recommend
starting the day with or doesn’t matter
doesn’t matter but you know it’s an all
day long thing if you catch yourself but
let’s say you drop you’re commuting into
New York City and there’s traffic on the
George Washington Bridge you could
either say oh there’s traffic on the
George Washington Bridge I hate this or
you could say wow I’m driving into the
most amazing city in the world that
everyone else wants to be into at the
same time as me this is such a great
thing I’m really grateful for it so it’s
kind of like a way of catching yourself
all day long and saying oh oh I’m bored
waiting at the dentist office I could
take out a little pad and um you know
write down ten ideas a day my ten ideas
for today so you know it’s something to
do all day long so how do you how do you
catch yourself this is our little pad
okay always available I got a pen
somewhere and my family I always steal
pens from hotels I highly recommend that
what’s better I’ve had in today’s world
to catch yourself right because you have
you might have 30 40 50 years of this
conditioning of always complaining and
your dad always complaining on the
George Washington Bridge so you always
complain it you know like it like the
people around you everything you’ve been
taught and trained and conditioned to is
to be that negative
person or just you fall back to that
automatically so how do you I think once
you have the awareness it’s like okay
I’m gonna do it now you know James had
to do it but how do you have you catched
in the moment you have a visual cue or
just something that you know if you are
frustrated try to think of something
better how do you catch it you know it’s
funny the kind of cliche answers to this
which which I’m just going to mention
but I am NOT suggesting this is
meditation so meditation is not about
like everybody’s all gonna meditate and
then it’s gonna feel great I’m gonna get
blahblah enlightened or whatever that’s
not what meditation is about meditate
the only thing meditation is about is
about catching yourself when you start
going down a bad path with your thoughts
like if you start feeling anxious or
blaming or complaining meditation
teaches you it’s not about those minutes
when you’re meditating it’s about the
rest of the day when you’re not the
meditation is like practice for catching
yourself while you’re thinking you know
these thoughts but but don’t meditate
I’m not recommending that another way to
do it is if when you’re walking around
let’s say you live in a nice big city or
whatever when you’re when you’re walking
around just just try looking at things
you don’t wouldn’t normally look at like
look at the top of if you were going to
New York say look at the tops of all the
roofs all the rooftops around you you
know architects they kind of have to
like make these boring buildings but
then at the very top date they get to
have their fun so I’d be extra gardens
or Gaga gargoyles or statues or whatever
so look at the rooftops around you and
you kind of get used to looking at
things that the average person is not
looking at look at people’s faces look
at just just try to do things throughout
the day that you wouldn’t normally do
and that will help you to learn to
disrupt your routine and to think
outside your normal thought patterns so
do you set a reminder to think outside
the box think outside your routine I
mean I think I think as entrepreneurs
it’s something that we just do naturally
right we look for the difference we look
for something new and amazing creating
art remarkable things but for people who
may not do that every day who are so
used to just as maybe been beaten out of
them that childlike wonder and curiosity
ah all right here it’s a matter of just
coming up with lots of different ideas
to do this so here’s
here’s an arrow trick I do yes and I do
this almost every day I did it I didn’t
do it today yet but I’ll do it I did it
yesterday I look back to 2006 2007 2008
and and I look at emails I’ve never
returned
so somebody wrote an email like hey can
you have you know some secretary or
write me and say hey I’m so-and-so wants
to have lunch do you want to have lunch
and I’ll realize oh I never responded to
that email from 2007 so I’ll respond and
I’ll say okay I’m ready now
have lunch and that’s kind of like a
quirky way to a they’ll get you out of
like your normal thinking because you
have to exert some emails from 2008 see
what’s interesting and so on and then
it’s kind of funny and B if they respond
then you actually end up having lunch
with that person it might rebuild a
connection that you lost ten years ago
eight years ago five years ago and so
doing things like that throughout the
day we’re just walking up to somebody
and saying oh that dress looks nice or
that suit looks nice or you’re talking
to people that you want to normally talk
to and I’m a shy person is a hard thing
for me doing things like that helped me
to get out of your your daily routine so
now I’m moving from choose yourself you
know international bestseller which
still selling insanely well to your new
thing of reinvent yourself what’swhat’s
the thesis of the new book how does it
build upon it well you know again
there’s kind of this spiritual
foundation which is that no it’s only
it’s kind of this myth that you have to
spend sixty years of your life doing one
thing like oh I’m agent in biology so
now I need to be a biologist or a doctor
for the next 60 years well that’s
ridiculous you know people used to only
live to like the other ages of 30 or 40
so okay your apprentice is a shoe maker
you lived in a poor serfdom and now
you’re gonna be a shoe maker until you
die at the age of 32 or whatever but now
we live we live these long lives and
technology’s given us so many
opportunities that it doesn’t make sense
to do just one thing anymore and in fact
the average amount of time it takes for
a person to switch jobs is about I think
it’s about three or four years and it’s
getting lower every year so if you
switch jobs on average on average every
three or four years that means there’s
the long timers and then there’s all the
rest of us who switch maybe every year
and it’s not even just jobs like I
probably switched careers a dozen times
in the past 15 years not just jobs but
entire careers so does this mean I never
get good at anything probably but it’s
really fun to jump from one steep
learning curve to another I like the
going having being on these steep
learning curves and and then you enjoy
the subtleties later on in the learning
curve but I think it’s become sort of
this practical necessity that as we live
longer and we were living in this world
with so many opportunities it’s just
much more fun to remake yourself and try
new things and experiment with new
things and reinvent yourself but then on
a practical level the economy is forcing
you to reinvent yourself like you can’t
just say okay well now I’m going to be a
beginner computer programmer then I’m
going to be middle management then I’m
going to be senior management then
executive management like that half no
longer happens um
for one thing middle management and even
junior management is kind of outsourced
to India or automated with robotics so
the entire economy is shifting and
squeezing out all these middle layers
between junior and executive and so
reinventing yourself becomes a practical
necessity as well so you might as well
start practicing it and the way you
practice it honestly is you figure out
the things you enjoy doing and you do
them a little bit more and until you can
figure out ways to monetize them not
with everything but with some of the
things you do more than one thing at a
time
not in a multitasking way but just you
know I might write but I also podcast
you do other things you have companies
you’re involved in and you have this
video show when is that book coming out
probably in October so I choose myself I
don’t have a traditional publisher I
could publish whatever I finish the book
and the books already finished but I’m
editing it now and designing it and it
will probably come out in October I love
it well looking forward to reading it
I you get to do that every day I know it
gets boring after a while so I have to
constantly rewrite it like keep
interested in reading it that’s an
interesting challenge um for people
watching and learning mo about you
where’s your home where do you want
people to check out the podcast website
uh well they can go to
yeah the James Altucher show podcast is
fun um the James Altucher comm actually
has links to all my writing and Oh James
Altucher comm alt u CH ER comm as links
to all my writing and podcasts and
videos and special reports and books and
everything over in like 18 books I think
I think they’re all linked to there
except for really bad ones
oh and one that I didn’t anonymously I
don’t think it’s linked to there I was
toast in the wrapping up the show mode
but people are freaking out in the chat
about they want pre-order links for the
book is that available you know somebody
asked me that yesterday too and
unfortunately I’m gonna I’ll set it up
within the next week of pre-order link
now the challenge is on I’m gonna do it
we’re ready for you guys freaking out it
with the pre-order links he’s going to
do it send it to me so I can link it up
in the description too afterwards
excellent love it well James really
appreciate the time thank you so much
for taking that time with out your day
with me thank you guys for watching love
all the comments about coming in
continue to believe and we’ll see you
soon
thanks a lot Evan great show
YouTube hangout super excited to be here
with my very special guest there’s so
much that this guy does it’s hard to
introduce him but I’ll give it my best
shot he’s an author he’s an entrepreneur
he’s an investor
he’s a podcaster he’s a chess master USA
Today named his book choose yourself as
one of the 12 greatest business books of
all time and I just found out that even
though I was released in 2013
last week was still the number one
nonfiction book on Amazon so that’s
awesome
he’s been called the Oprah of the
internet it said he owns fifteen things
to his name he likes a tip in two dollar
bills
feels like college is a waste of time he
was rich and then lost his condo and
loss of a 1 million dollar loss and said
that he’s made every mistake in the book
so that’s a lot to go over he’s got a
new book that is working on reinvent
yourself yeah tell me about yourself if
you repeatedly lose everything and have
to come back so see you become an expert
I love it man welcome aboard by the way
maybe many of these work things are
connected maybe the kind of person who
thinks college is a waste of time is
also gonna lose a lot of money
repeatedly you never know I could be
wrong about everything
so you know the audience here is
entrepreneurs mostly entrepreneurs are
want to be entrepreneurs I’m reading
through your bio I’m trying to figure
out man we got chains for half an hour
where can we pull out the most value
here uh and one of the things that I
really was intrigued by was your daily
practice so maybe we start there or how
would be found success through your
daily practice as an entrepreneur and
then what kind of feedback and advice do
you give to other people we’re trying to
struggle with their daily practice sure
yeah so I mean what a lot of what was
happening was I made money
I built a business it was a great
business in the 90s building websites
for other companies sold it cashed out
lost everything then I made it up built
another business built it up made money
lost it throws up another business built
it up so
Goldin made money uh lost it
I kept doing this over and over again
and at some point you have to ask you
know I’ve done this so many times the
common denominator is me I can’t really
blame anyone else I can only blame me
and I did it so many times it’s almost
like statistically significant if I say
to myself what am I doing wrong on the
way down and what am i doing right on
the way up so it was kind of easy then
to figure out well here’s what I’m doing
right on the way up uh you know
forgetting what I was doing wrong on the
way down because it was different things
each time but on the way up always a
hundred percent of the time in each
business and there was like maybe 20
different things that I could say this
about four things I was doing well
physically I was maintaining my health
emotionally I was hanging around with
good positive people who I loved and who
loved me creatively I was making sure I
was creative every day and so that could
mean exercising this creativity muscle I
call the idea muscle so writing down ten
ideas a day every single day because
your idea muscle will atrophy if you
don’t exercise it every single day just
like it’s like if you don’t walk for two
or three weeks you’ll actually need
physical therapy to walk again because
your leg muscles atrophy so fast the
idea muscle atrophies even faster oh I
have to pee after a day or two so you
have to really exercise it every single
day and it improves if you exercise it
like you become an idea machine and you
need to do that in today’s world where
it’s not like you can just kind of hide
in your cubicle and get promotions and
so on you have to actually really you
know do something to achieve success so
and then finally it was important to be
this sounds kind of cliche ish I almost
be saying it now but I had to learn to
be grateful instead of being anxious so
you know gratitude and anxiety and
complaining can all exist in the brain
at the same time like you know and in
particular it’s very easy to be grateful
for the easy things in life I got
grateful for my kids I’m grateful for
I’m alive whatever but it’s really
little to be grateful for what I call
difficult gratitude
so like I lose my leg how can I be
grateful for that you know thank God I
haven’t lost my leg I think I’d have a
hard time being grateful for it but that
would be an example of a difficult
gratitude problem so that’s in a
nutshell the daily practiced physical
emotional mental and let’s even call it
spiritual health trying to improve on
that every single day one percent a day
and that I don’t want to say catapults
me to success because I’m not quite sure
what that means
but I will say whatever I have a failure
my bounce back gets faster and faster
each time no matter how large the
failure is and I’ve had some enormous ly
large values even in the past two years
much bigger than any I’ve had before in
my life and and yet I bounced back
incredibly quickly now just by reminding
myself to get back to this daily
practice so my audience likes to give me
a hard time because I always play with
my ring and I have it on my thumb or
have it on different fingers I hear
something happening in the background
some clicking like I do I have poker
chips sort of playing away poker chips
it’s interesting is that is that a thing
it’s a thing Zuri is it always poker
chips or just you have to have something
uh I don’t know I just got these poker
chips actually I used to play a lot of
Poker and when you’re when you play
poker and you’re like soon they’re
thinking it’s like not unusual to like
play with the chips while you’re
thinking right so I’m sorry I apologize
I will put them over here not like it
it’s good go for whatever helps the
Credo problem anymore
not yet I was just curious because the
Gaspee water where we bring up my thumb
and I don’t I just I play with it and
just ends up on my thumb sometimes
instead of my finger it’s just I like I
like having it well I’m thinking I I you
know you know what I used to do and this
is really bad for a podcast but I used
to do this a hundred percent of the time
if I was on the phone with somebody is I
would as soon as the phone would ring
I’d be picking up the phone and I’d be
firing up the internet Chess Club and I
start playing chess as soon as I got on
the phone and I could never have a phone
conversation without playing chest at
the same time and what would happen is I
wouldn’t really be paying attention to
my phone calls and my chess ranking
would go down I’m into that chess club
because you really can’t multitasking is
a really bad
say no you can’t nobody can really
multitask I think that’s sort of a BS
thing and uh but I was just addicted to
doing that and it wasn’t really helpful
now I actually have better phone calls
and I play chess better
how about multitasking on a bigger scale
where you’re trying to be an
entrepreneur and an author and a chess
master ain’t like all these things and
entrepreneurs get their attention
divided can you do it or what advice you
have to make it happen
you can’t do it right so so what I tend
to do is um
in the morning is always devoted to
really focus or I try as hard as
possible really focused writing and
believe it or not entrepreneurship is
sort of easy compared to uh something
too creative like writing or taking
photographs or whatever so I’ll save the
afternoon for easy things like
entrepreneurship and then usually the
lessons from entrepreneurship will feed
back into the writing so all the time
then I’m engaged in like
entrepreneurship activities I’m thinking
to myself how can this feed into the
writing like I just wrote something a
little while ago about a guy I’m in a
bob with an ax in a deal and how he’s
such an excellent networker it goes
above and beyond all the BS articles I
see like ten ways to network better or
how to be charismatic or whatever like
all those articles are BS and I see
somebody who actually has made you know
tens of millions of dollars from
networking and I see exactly what he
does and it’s so different from any of
these articles so I just I wrote about
that because again I see him you know I
last saw about a month ago but I saw
what he was doing on a daily basis and I
wrote about it today and so what about
other things like when you’re when
you’re playing chess are you also
thinking back to the book are you also
thinking about entrepreneurship is it
all just like a end to you or they
separate things no they’re all they’re
all mix like chess you know so I grew up
I grew up playing chess and I knew many
and playing games of any sort is a great
way to speak a language to adults if
you’re a kid like if I’m a kid I’m not
going to talk about politics or religion
to an adult but if I’m a kid and I play
chess and you play
we’re the same level and we speak the
same language and so I get to learn I
got to learn many things uh growing up
playing and one of those things you
learn playing games is essentially how
to be a killer
without having to kill people and so
when I play you know the path to mastery
in chess or poker or back at or any game
is not that different from the path to
mastery in any other area of life and so
it’s something that I can address in
writing because I think a lot of my
writing and a lot of my podcast and so
on is about peak performance and is
about that path to mastery and I’m
fascinated by it because I’ve attempted
it not necessarily succeeded that it
attempted it so many times and so so
playing chess and trying to understand
the subtleties of it definitely feeds my
writing do you purposely make time for
chess like you do for writing no no I
not anymore
used to write in fact uh I used to yeah
we might attack my my 17 year old was
visiting me yesterday and I convinced
her her boyfriend oh let’s let’s go over
to Union Square and see what’s going on
there um but really what I wanted to do
was run into the chess players outside
and just play some games of chess like I
didn’t care if my kids had a fun time or
not the brutal truth right there yeah
good out here they’re at a museum so I
can say it out loud they don’t want
water to video
they’re never gonna listen to this video
hey hey hey come on man I’m dead maybe
they’ll go back oh why do we gotta
listen to what daddy said um so back to
the schedule how this routine that helps
you what do you do when you fall off or
when you feel like I got it taken care
of I don’t need to do that gratitude
thing today like how do you get back on
that horse when you fall off you just
get back on you can’t you can’t regret
falling off because falling off is is
this two arrows so the first arrow is
when you fall off a summer routine and
that will hurt you the first I will
always hurt you but the second arrow
which is feeling regret or guilt over
falling out of a routine
the second hours what kills you so you
can’t feel that second arrow you just
have to get back on the routine I never
feel guilty about missing it now if I
don’t write every day I actually do feel
that second Harrow a little bit but
that’s unhealthy and I try to get back
on the routine as fast as possible do
you feel the immediate gratification
Paul the tasks like the gratitude thing
is it like resonate immediately with you
that it brings you that joy to do it or
is it something you have to convince
yourself to do know it immediately you
immediately feel the effect because
again you can if I’m not doing it I
could be feeling anxious about I tended
to be an anxious type of person so if
I’m not doing gratitude and all these
other things were practicing the idea
muscle and writing and and being healthy
and and being around good people um I
tend to feel more you know worse about
myself or anxious and me all these
things have immediate effects and they
have a long-term effects that you build
up like now I almost never hang out with
people who don’t satisfy me in some way
like I I’m really good at saying no now
hmm and for someone who’s doing so many
things when you get into you know that’s
data flow how do you how do you stay
there and not you know feel like I gotta
go do my podcast we’re gonna write this
book or like I’m really in the zone on
this thing do you try to stay there you
just come back to it later what’s your
process through that yeah I mean usually
there are a lot of things to do per day
but again nothing beats for me uh
writing in the morning so and if I don’t
write in the morning that I just sit I
just figure out I go back and forth to
be reading and trying to write and I
just stay focused on that until I write
which might mean bad things I might then
not return phone calls or emails or be
involved in logistics that I need to be
involved in or companies that I need to
be involved in so I get behind a lot of
stuff but but writing is the thing that
I feel has the most impact for me both
personally and professionally and
creatively and I just try to make sure I
do it every single day would you let
that
the physical health and you know
emotional health and all all that other
garbage would would you let that bleed
into the rest of your day like just you
wake up and you’re insanely inspired and
the writing is off the charts and like
the next thing gonna write is just
you’re so proud and happy in the moment
but you have this you know interview
with this Evan Carmichael guy or you
know you got to deal with this business
or whatever like would you let that
bleed would you push that stuff off I’m
just curious where the boundary is when
you’re like when you’re really in that
zone feeling it about in the zone no I
don’t I all I need to do is check the
box so I need to say okay I wrote
something good today it might take me 15
minutes it might take me nine hours you
can’t you can’t do anything all day long
I don’t believe in you know maybe if
you’re computer programming or playing a
game like I was like a computer game you
can do it for 12 straight hours but I’ll
tell you a story
so Anatoly Karpov was the world chess
champion for like I don’t know um
something like 10 years 11 years and he
was always one of the greatest players
in the world
then he said the maximum he could study
chess per day was three hours so this is
the guy was like the peak performer in
his field and he was the best and maybe
that one of the best ever the top three
or four ever and all he could do was
maximum study three hours a day he
couldn’t do more so you can’t really do
something all day long I don’t really
believe that flow works that way if you
could if you could engage in flow for 15
minutes a day you know so flow is this
kind of um mental state where you’re
doing something you love and and you
forget everything else sort of fades
away you feel like this zone of quality
and and so on I don’t think I don’t
think it’s important to do it all day I
think it’s just important to get in that
state like let’s say one once or twice a
day you know but not stay in it all day
that’s impossible well you’ve got a lot
of fans already in the in the live
audience we got lower writing in I’d
kiss you if I had the chance to run into
you on the street James so that that’s
one of the more exciting ones my
comments are coming up um oh but I’ll
have to brush my teeth all the time then
to the topic of choosing yourself for
people who aren’t familiar what’s the
thesis of the book well think about this
Evan what are you doing right now you’re
doing kind of a TV show this is like a
little talk show you have here now it
used to be the case you had to be either
David Letterman or Jay Leno to have a
talk show uh two people out of seven
billion now you could be David Letterman
oh you can be you know a David Letterman
Jay Leno or Evan Carmichael like you
have your own talk show you got rid of
you said I don’t need CBS or NBC or ABC
to approve of Evan Carmichael I could
just call up anybody I want
and interview and interview them and put
it on the third largest search engine in
the world YouTube or the second largest
search engine in the world you created
your own talk show you don’t you didn’t
need a gatekeeper so that’s choosing
yourself but at a deeper level it’s
doing this daily practice so that you’re
healthy enough to do what you did so if
you’re like you have it you know you
have this picture this background of you
with your beautiful family if you didn’t
have like you saw your emotional
stability if you didn’t you weren’t like
physically healthy like if you were sick
in bed you know dying of something if
you weren’t like grateful for these
opportunities in your life like I can
see you take a lot of care in the show
you have these huge posters hanging up
behind you of your of your heroes and
the legends in your life like you know
obviously you’re creative you put
together the show you ask on people who
interest you do you read a lot so so you
do this daily practice I can see and
then you’re allowed to choose yourself
get rid of the gatekeepers and say oh I
don’t need youtube I don’t need a
publisher I don’t need someone to
approve of me or promote me or hire me
or I don’t need to work up and be a
sound engineer than a comedian and I
have a talk show you just went out and
did it and that’s that’s choosing
yourself in a variety of ways so it’s a
problem for people that they don’t see
that they have the opportunity to be
their own NBC or they don’t have the
courage to go and take the leap or both
both I got remember one time
talking to a guy and he and he actually
was in the business of placing ads on
YouTube shows and and I and I said why
don’t you do and but he was really into
gaming and I said why didn’t do a
youtube show about gaming those are
really popular like a youtube show about
minecraft she can’t get more popular
than that right now and he said well I
don’t have a good enough camera and I
said are you kidding me I’m give me your
phone and he had like of the latest
iPhone and I said your iPhone has a good
enough video camera for you to make
popular YouTube videos in fact and and I
told an example Michelle Phan her first
fitting shelf on has millions and
millions of YouTube views a billion view
tube views on her makeup tutorials her
company her makeup company now I think
is valued in something like 50 million
dollars but her first 55 videos but
she’s shot on her iPhone video camera
were horrible low quality whatever and
then she should put it with salt but
it’s idea-driven so she did a video
about how lady got how to makeup how to
do your makeup like Lady Gaga does huge
views through the roof regardless of the
quality of the camera and then now
suddenly from the advertising she had
enough money to buy a better camera and
she became she’s this huge star now she
chose herself completely and uh you know
there’s there’s no excuses anymore for
for stuff like this
so how do you break through the limiting
mindset like I need the camera I’m not
good enough I’m you know whatever like
that blank when you look in sales in the
mirror and they say I’m not successful
because of you know whatever that blank
is that’s the path beyond it the path
the path is these this daily practice
everyday
physical health which just it just might
mean eight hours of sleep eat well move
around emotional health be around people
who inspire you and who and who will
support you in your dreams creative
health like write down ten ideas a day
spiritual health like be be grateful
everyday just do that every single day
and you’ll you’ll get the mindset that’s
a guarantee like that I’ll give you your
money back if you don’t if you don’t get
the bikes
watching this video is their recommended
time length is it 15 minutes in each
King is it’s just checking the box
however long it takes two minutes two
box just check the box and you know what
duel was intent like you know try to get
a little bit better at it so you know
try to eat a little better every day try
to try to be like one guy one guy wrote
to me and said I’ve been following your
daily practice I’ve been sleeping well
exercising eating well I’ve been writing
ten ideas to day around and then on
Friday nights I go out with my friends
and they laugh at all my ideas what
should I do and I wrote back to him and
I said um I have a great idea for you
stay home on Friday night and again so
he easily could have improved his daily
practice by just not hanging out with
those friends who were putting him down
don’t hang out with people who put you
down all the time those articles are
good friends
yeah and is this something you recommend
starting the day with or doesn’t matter
doesn’t matter but you know it’s an all
day long thing if you catch yourself but
let’s say you drop you’re commuting into
New York City and there’s traffic on the
George Washington Bridge you could
either say oh there’s traffic on the
George Washington Bridge I hate this or
you could say wow I’m driving into the
most amazing city in the world that
everyone else wants to be into at the
same time as me this is such a great
thing I’m really grateful for it so it’s
kind of like a way of catching yourself
all day long and saying oh oh I’m bored
waiting at the dentist office I could
take out a little pad and um you know
write down ten ideas a day my ten ideas
for today so you know it’s something to
do all day long so how do you how do you
catch yourself this is our little pad
okay always available I got a pen
somewhere and my family I always steal
pens from hotels I highly recommend that
what’s better I’ve had in today’s world
to catch yourself right because you have
you might have 30 40 50 years of this
conditioning of always complaining and
your dad always complaining on the
George Washington Bridge so you always
complain it you know like it like the
people around you everything you’ve been
taught and trained and conditioned to is
to be that negative
person or just you fall back to that
automatically so how do you I think once
you have the awareness it’s like okay
I’m gonna do it now you know James had
to do it but how do you have you catched
in the moment you have a visual cue or
just something that you know if you are
frustrated try to think of something
better how do you catch it you know it’s
funny the kind of cliche answers to this
which which I’m just going to mention
but I am NOT suggesting this is
meditation so meditation is not about
like everybody’s all gonna meditate and
then it’s gonna feel great I’m gonna get
blahblah enlightened or whatever that’s
not what meditation is about meditate
the only thing meditation is about is
about catching yourself when you start
going down a bad path with your thoughts
like if you start feeling anxious or
blaming or complaining meditation
teaches you it’s not about those minutes
when you’re meditating it’s about the
rest of the day when you’re not the
meditation is like practice for catching
yourself while you’re thinking you know
these thoughts but but don’t meditate
I’m not recommending that another way to
do it is if when you’re walking around
let’s say you live in a nice big city or
whatever when you’re when you’re walking
around just just try looking at things
you don’t wouldn’t normally look at like
look at the top of if you were going to
New York say look at the tops of all the
roofs all the rooftops around you you
know architects they kind of have to
like make these boring buildings but
then at the very top date they get to
have their fun so I’d be extra gardens
or Gaga gargoyles or statues or whatever
so look at the rooftops around you and
you kind of get used to looking at
things that the average person is not
looking at look at people’s faces look
at just just try to do things throughout
the day that you wouldn’t normally do
and that will help you to learn to
disrupt your routine and to think
outside your normal thought patterns so
do you set a reminder to think outside
the box think outside your routine I
mean I think I think as entrepreneurs
it’s something that we just do naturally
right we look for the difference we look
for something new and amazing creating
art remarkable things but for people who
may not do that every day who are so
used to just as maybe been beaten out of
them that childlike wonder and curiosity
ah all right here it’s a matter of just
coming up with lots of different ideas
to do this so here’s
here’s an arrow trick I do yes and I do
this almost every day I did it I didn’t
do it today yet but I’ll do it I did it
yesterday I look back to 2006 2007 2008
and and I look at emails I’ve never
returned
so somebody wrote an email like hey can
you have you know some secretary or
write me and say hey I’m so-and-so wants
to have lunch do you want to have lunch
and I’ll realize oh I never responded to
that email from 2007 so I’ll respond and
I’ll say okay I’m ready now
have lunch and that’s kind of like a
quirky way to a they’ll get you out of
like your normal thinking because you
have to exert some emails from 2008 see
what’s interesting and so on and then
it’s kind of funny and B if they respond
then you actually end up having lunch
with that person it might rebuild a
connection that you lost ten years ago
eight years ago five years ago and so
doing things like that throughout the
day we’re just walking up to somebody
and saying oh that dress looks nice or
that suit looks nice or you’re talking
to people that you want to normally talk
to and I’m a shy person is a hard thing
for me doing things like that helped me
to get out of your your daily routine so
now I’m moving from choose yourself you
know international bestseller which
still selling insanely well to your new
thing of reinvent yourself what’swhat’s
the thesis of the new book how does it
build upon it well you know again
there’s kind of this spiritual
foundation which is that no it’s only
it’s kind of this myth that you have to
spend sixty years of your life doing one
thing like oh I’m agent in biology so
now I need to be a biologist or a doctor
for the next 60 years well that’s
ridiculous you know people used to only
live to like the other ages of 30 or 40
so okay your apprentice is a shoe maker
you lived in a poor serfdom and now
you’re gonna be a shoe maker until you
die at the age of 32 or whatever but now
we live we live these long lives and
technology’s given us so many
opportunities that it doesn’t make sense
to do just one thing anymore and in fact
the average amount of time it takes for
a person to switch jobs is about I think
it’s about three or four years and it’s
getting lower every year so if you
switch jobs on average on average every
three or four years that means there’s
the long timers and then there’s all the
rest of us who switch maybe every year
and it’s not even just jobs like I
probably switched careers a dozen times
in the past 15 years not just jobs but
entire careers so does this mean I never
get good at anything probably but it’s
really fun to jump from one steep
learning curve to another I like the
going having being on these steep
learning curves and and then you enjoy
the subtleties later on in the learning
curve but I think it’s become sort of
this practical necessity that as we live
longer and we were living in this world
with so many opportunities it’s just
much more fun to remake yourself and try
new things and experiment with new
things and reinvent yourself but then on
a practical level the economy is forcing
you to reinvent yourself like you can’t
just say okay well now I’m going to be a
beginner computer programmer then I’m
going to be middle management then I’m
going to be senior management then
executive management like that half no
longer happens um
for one thing middle management and even
junior management is kind of outsourced
to India or automated with robotics so
the entire economy is shifting and
squeezing out all these middle layers
between junior and executive and so
reinventing yourself becomes a practical
necessity as well so you might as well
start practicing it and the way you
practice it honestly is you figure out
the things you enjoy doing and you do
them a little bit more and until you can
figure out ways to monetize them not
with everything but with some of the
things you do more than one thing at a
time
not in a multitasking way but just you
know I might write but I also podcast
you do other things you have companies
you’re involved in and you have this
video show when is that book coming out
probably in October so I choose myself I
don’t have a traditional publisher I
could publish whatever I finish the book
and the books already finished but I’m
editing it now and designing it and it
will probably come out in October I love
it well looking forward to reading it
I you get to do that every day I know it
gets boring after a while so I have to
constantly rewrite it like keep
interested in reading it that’s an
interesting challenge um for people
watching and learning mo about you
where’s your home where do you want
people to check out the podcast website
uh well they can go to
yeah the James Altucher show podcast is
fun um the James Altucher comm actually
has links to all my writing and Oh James
Altucher comm alt u CH ER comm as links
to all my writing and podcasts and
videos and special reports and books and
everything over in like 18 books I think
I think they’re all linked to there
except for really bad ones
oh and one that I didn’t anonymously I
don’t think it’s linked to there I was
toast in the wrapping up the show mode
but people are freaking out in the chat
about they want pre-order links for the
book is that available you know somebody
asked me that yesterday too and
unfortunately I’m gonna I’ll set it up
within the next week of pre-order link
now the challenge is on I’m gonna do it
we’re ready for you guys freaking out it
with the pre-order links he’s going to
do it send it to me so I can link it up
in the description too afterwards
excellent love it well James really
appreciate the time thank you so much
for taking that time with out your day
with me thank you guys for watching love
all the comments about coming in
continue to believe and we’ll see you
soon
thanks a lot Evan great show
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