How To Quit Your Job the Right Way

When I was at a corporate IT job, I kept wondering: What are all these people doing?

Many people were on the phone. Or were already outdated by new software systems. The corporation wouldn’t fire them until much later. When layoffs were mandated.

But they were mandated. And they lost their jobs. And now I don’t know where they are.

I ran into one of these useless people at a minor league baseball game about seven years ago.

I said, George, what are you doing these days?

He said, I follow this one team. I go around to all of their games. He pointed to a woman in the first row of seats.

See that woman? She’s married to one of the players. I sat next to her at dinner last night.

I walked back to my seat. I thought to myself, good ol’ George. Like I used to say to myself when we sat next to each at work 14 years prior to that. Things change — and then they don’t.

As for me, 14 years later, I have my masks also. I am trying.

Automation is eating the world

Here’s the problem: Industrialism consumes itself. As an example: Every time a line of software is written, a job is lost.

Software increases automation, which removes the need for a worker.

Think of all the innovations happening and what they replace:

• Artificial intelligence removes the need for thinkers of basic jobs (and later…more advanced jobs).
• 3D printing removes the need for construction and many manufacturing jobs.
• Virtual reality is going to be a trillion-dollar industry that removes the ultimate middleman…air and distance.
• Robotics removes the need for much manual labor. Walmart shelves are already being stocked by robots and not humans.

And on and on. Autonomous cars remove the need for drivers and will eventually replace public transportation.

Robin Chase, the founder of Zipcar, told me that automated cars will eliminate 90 percent of the auto industry.

Biochemistry and personalized medicine will turn insurance and the drug industry upside down.

If the ultimate innovation happens — “the cure” — then doctors will be needed less.

All innovation consumes the innovation of the generation earlier.

Corporatism, which is different from capitalism, wants to appease shareholders, not employees.

Employees are paid salaries that allow the shareholders to extract as much profit as possible.

And innovation forces the gap wider between the needs of the shareholders at the top and the employees who are moving closer to the bottom.

This is not a bad or a good thing. It’s reality.

Corporations want to ultimately fire you, whether you like your job or not. Their entire purpose is to create and squeeze the efficiencies out of you until you drop dead or are no longer needed.

OK.

You can love your job so you don’t want to quit. But the company that hires you eventually will quit you.

Eventually they will squeeze every bit of profit out of you. Eventually you will join the class of workers who have become outdated. Eventually they will fire you.

Quitting at the right time

View your life as a business. A business has many product lines and shifts many times during the course of its life.

Let’s call your life, Me, Inc.

When you have a single job, your life has a problem. Me, Inc. has only one product (you) and you are charging, by definition, less than what Me, Inc. should charge.

Why? Because, a corporation is really the distributor of Me, Inc. It buys you and then rents you out for a higher amount to its customers. Customers that you may never even meet or see.

And you have no other product. Because the corporation fills up all your time or you get “warned.”

The corporation (in partnership with the mortgage industry and your bank) tethers you to a location to make it harder for you to seek alternatives.

The corporation often only hires people who paid $100,000 or more for a piece of paper (a degree) when they were aged 18-22. This tethers you even more because you have to pay back that money or the government comes after you.

It’s a partnership of corporation and government and college to enslave you.

Our goal is to break out of the slavery.

And the corporation even dictates your social behavior of how you can interact with your new “friends” at the workplace.

The manual of rules is bigger than you can read to make it as easy as possible for them to discipline you or get rid of you once Me, Inc. has exhausted its own resources.

You have become an asexual, friendless, low self-esteem person handcuffed to a file cabinet that contains your mortgage and your student loan debt.

But even though it’s only one line of income for Me, Inc., it pays the bills. Until it won’t anymore.

Let’s say you have a great idea. You will want to leave your job as quickly as possible and start your own business. But have patience.

Steve Wozniak stayed at Hewlett-Packard before he finally jumped to Apple. Larry Page and Sergey Brin stayed in graduate school until Google started to become viable as a business.

I never started a great company like those guys mentioned above. Many of the companies I started were consumed by innovation so fast I either failed or was lucky to sell before that innovation hit.

But for my first business, I stayed at my full-time job for 18 months until I finally jumped.

I loved my job. And it paid well. And I liked my friends there; my boss was even a good boss.

So I left when my side business was finally able to replace my salary and a little more (a “little more” because you have to be compensated for the risk).

My side business then was able to flourish until it was sold a year later. But I never would have been able to do that if I jumped too early and was scared and anxious all the time.

Finding “the one”

The 80/20 rule refers originally to the fact that 20 percent of the seeds planted in a garden will result in at least 80 percent of the flowers that eventually bloom in the garden.

It’s applied to every area of life. Twenty percent of employees do 80 percent of the work. Twenty percent of your customers will result in 80 percent of your profits. Twenty percent of your studying will result in 80 percent of what you remember.

And so on.

But what if you square it? So 20 percent of 20 percent of what you do will result in 80 percent of 80 percent of what you value. So 4 percent of your work will result in 64 percent of the value. Square it again. One percent of your work will result in 48 percent of the value.

This is the rule I like. One percent of the seeds planted in the garden will result in almost 50 percent of the flowers that will bloom. For entrepreneurs, those seeds are business ideas. You need to constantly be coming up with ideas, knowing that most of them won’t work out.

And then you experiment.

Everything is an experiment. Me writing this post is an experiment.

Maybe it will be just a post. Maybe it will turn into a book. Maybe it will help one person. Maybe it will help me to get more motivated when I am most down.

I don’t know. I’m just experimenting. When you take that view, you can risk failure and know that you can learn from it.

What if I’m not a natural entrepreneur?

Stop telling yourself a corporatist myth. Corporatism has only existed for 200 years, give or take.

Before that, everyone was an entrepreneur.

Not everyone is Mark Zuckerberg. But everyone had to know the basics of negotiation, sales, coming up with ideas, apprenticeship, etc.

I called Matt Barrie at Freelancer.com, which is a half-billion-dollar company that sees 10,000,000 freelance jobs posted every month.

I asked him, “What jobs can people with just three months of online training find on your site where they can make $2,000 a month?”

Here is what he wrote me: “Every single project is tailor-made based on the needs and requirements of each employer. Nevertheless, please find a list of projects below where freelancers can easily make $2,000 or more in just a couple of days:

1. Video Animation: Video projects for KickStarter/Indiegogo or an animation explainer videos for a new product/service launch are an easy and quick job to do online.
2. Programming for e-commerce stores (Shopify, Magento): We have seen a huge increase in e-commerce, as well as social media commerce.
3. Website testing or Web Scraping: Last minute changes on the site before the big launch, companies want to make sure the site would work as intended so they simply hire someone to test it throughout.
4. Website Development and Design: WordPress fits in this category. It can be templated but it’s quick and efficient and it looks good.
5. Children’s Book Illustration: Incredibly popular job on the site that pays quite well. Self-publishing is a big thing these days and illustrators on the site can provide for a huge range of different design styles that fit any requirements.
6. Writing: We have seen numerous requests from people needing help with their business plans or book editing hiring experts in the field on com. It’s especially popular among non-native speakers when they need something done in English or another language and they want to do it right.
7. 3D Rendering and Architecture Design: Huge skill on the site, studios are willing to pay a lot of money to get last minute support and help with their projects or contests.
8. Software Architecture
9. App development: Full-time staff or freelance temp workers may not always be available to help out, especially during the weekends, while our developers on the site can easily fix any issue or help to finalize projects when deadlines are tough.
10. Photoshop or any other design work: Companies would pay substantial money to have their PowerPoint, Infographics, Brochures or Keynote presentations designed by a professional designer on the site.”

Where can you learn these skills?

There are lots of online education sites, like lynda.com, Khan Academy, Coursera, Udemy, Codecademy, Udacity and Skillshare.

For instance, my 14-year-old takes classes at Codecademy. One of her classmates makes a few thousand a month doing basic website development for local businesses.

Making the move

It’s too easy to slip into melancholy and gloom. Where we seek meaningless stimulus to plug the holes in our lives.

Where we focus on something from our past that latched on and never let go and now we can’t escape it. We are enslaved by it.

Every day I want to be healthy. Every day I want to be creative. Every day I want to improve my relationships. Every day I want to be grateful in difficult situations.

Then I improve. Then my evil plans work.

I can quit my job. I can quit whatever I want.

I won’t be a slave anymore.

The Death of the Salaried Employee

(And my great new solution that will change my life and yours)

I’ll Tell You Everything – Click Here

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Ep. 164 – Steve Case: The Third Wave is coming…

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 million dollars to tens of billions to then over 150, 160 billion.”

But he didn’t stop there…

The Third Wave is coming. Steve talks about it in his New York Times bestselling book, The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future.

These are the opportunities you haven’t missed yet.

We’re offering you the future.

In my interview with Steve Case, you’ll learn about the first wave (building the internet), the second wave (social media, community, Facebook, Snapchat… all the billion dollar companies you wish you thought of or invested in…)

And finally, the third wave. The future.

Listen now to learn how to master your future. Before it’s too late.

Here’s what I learned from Steve Case:

A) Collaborate with the “other”

The best way to build your network is to have sex.

You have to attract people from outside your network and have a lot of idea sex.

Entrepreneurs are going to have sex with big corporations.

Not how they did it before… not how they did it in the second wave where Instagram destroyed Kodak and Airbnb screwed the hotel industry.

This time they’re going to partner. “The smart large companies will recognize that if they don’t lean in the future, if they don’t take some changes, they’re going to lose their way,” Steve says.

Big corporations will fail on their own. They need the help of entrepreneurs. They need innovative thinkers. People with ideas. That’s why the most valuable currency of the future is ideas.

And entrepreneurs will advance with the resources of big corporations.

They’ll have sex.

“You can’t go alone. You need to partner,” Steve says.

B) The internet is changing…

This next phase of the internet, isn’t just connecting people. It’s connecting everything.

“It’s not going to just be in a few places like we saw in the first wave and the second wave,” Steve says. “It’s going to impact every aspect of our lives.”

Education, healthcare, agriculture, retail. Everything is changing. Which means opportunities for innovation are everywhere.

It’s “the internet of things.” And there’s a tipping point.

You won’t be too late, if you catch it now.

“Innovative things have been happening around the edges, but most aspects of our lives haven’t changed that much in the first wave or the second wave,” Steve says, “But they are going to change in this third wave and the entrepreneurs are going to lead the way, as they always do.”

C) Entrepreneurship is changing…

In the past you could be dumb.

Well, not dumb. But you didn’t have to know anything.

You didn’t have to know anything about photography to invent Instagram. You didn’t have to know anything about hotels to create AirBnB.

And you could become a billionaire. But that was the second wave.

“In the third wave, ignorance is not going to be as successful as a strategy or naivety is not going to be as successful as strategy,” Steve says.

“Part of it is figuring out what part of this you’re most passionate about, you’re most interested in and then diving into it.”

Teachers have the opportunity to transform education. Doctors and nurses will influence the direction of healthcare. And so on.

In the third wave, today’s experts will join forces with tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. Who will you be?

An expert or an entrepreneur?

Listen now to my interview with Steve Case.

It’s time to see the future.

Resources and Links:

• Read  The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future by Steve Case
• Follow Steve Case and The Third Wave on Twitter
• Check out Steve’s current venture as founder of Revolution

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Are You a Wanderer?

It started when I lost millions of dollars in a day. It ended when my marriage ended.

This year. What an f-ed up year.

I was lost. I was gone. I was destroyed. It was the best year of my life.

First, in February, I lost an enormous amount of money and then got sued. Then my marriage ended. And all in between bad stuff happened.

In a lot of ways, I had to start all over. Just like in 1994. In 2000. In 2004. In 2008. 2010. And 2012. I wasn’t broke. But starting over is not about money.

It’s about finally saying, once again, “Ok, I have to make sure I’m doing my X, Y, and Z.” It’s about following my own advice.

I was ready. I had been through it before. I know the stages I go through every time.

I had to wander again.

Restlesness

Something is off. Something cracked.

The first time I left a job I loved, I was so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed.

So I knew I had to quit. Something was broken inside of me. I quit, I went to start a business, my life changed forever.

I think it’s important to recognize that restlessness. To give permission for it. To even welcome it.

The Search

What the hell do I do now?

The search begins. It’s scary and confusing.

If a relationship ends…will anyone love me again? When I lose a job…will I ever make money again. When I lose all my money…will I go broke and kill myself?
‘
I kept cutting out all the “extra” in my life.

Bad friends, bad people (who are contagious and viral), bad jobs, bad investments. All my belongings and addresses and homes. I cleaned up.

Was ready for the search. Was ready to wander.

Disappointment

Some things won’t work.

Last February, when a company I was on the board of told me they were falling apart I tried everything I could do to save them.

But it didn’t work. Thousands lost jobs. Many lost a lot of money. There was nothing I could do.

I started a novel in early November. But life got in the way. My life turned upside down. I had to stop.

No matter what your routine: a daily practice, a miracle morning, a lot of money, love, family, fun – life happens.

90% of happiness comes from choice, only 10% comes from circumstance.

The wanderer surrenders to the 90%, not the 10%.

Time

People say, “time is money.”

What a pitiful way to look at time.

I took advantage of a friend of mine recently. I’m sorry. She was going to charge me to do some illustrations.

I said, “Ok, tell me what you will charge.”

She sent me a number. I could see what she did. She came up with an hourly rate and figured out how many hours it would take and added it together.

She didn’t have enough confidence in herself.

I agreed and I wired her the money.

Then I told her the truth. I told her she forgot to charge me for the fact that I had chosen her because of her skill. Her creativity. Her brilliance.

I can get “hours” from anyone. I can only get her creativity from her.

She should have charged me a premium for the 13 years of effort she had put into becoming the best in her industry.

She looked down and said, “damn, I didn’t think of that.” I wasn’t going to adjust it either. Next project.

Not that I was such a great teacher here.

I was happy to pay less than I thought she deserved. But I am happy knowing there will be more projects. And I trust who I am. I know things will work out.

Anxiety

When I first lean in to kiss the girl, I’m terrified. 99% of the time I’ve been rejected.

When I start a job, I know it’s going to end in blood. When I start a book, only a 10% chance it will get finished.

Is it the correct decision? It’s so hard to know.

When I started my first company, I gave up all hopes of doing a TV show. Something I had put 100 hours a week into.

When I first got married, I bought the engagement ring and I went to a bar.

I thought to myself, looking at the ring over a drink, I can give this ring to anyone. But I’m about to give it to my soon-to-be wife. Would it be a mistake?

Two daughters and one divorce later, I am so very happy I gave the ring to her. But I think I had a panic attack and died that night.

Every decision is packaged with anxiety. Else your ancestors would have been eaten by lions. Complacency killed the cavemen who had no children.

The key is to make today’s anxiety work for you. And then say goodbye.

Surrender

Eventually it’s all over. It didn’t work. I got divorced. I lost the job. I lost my money. I make it back.

Every year, no matter what is going on in your life, no matter how “great” you are, bad things will happen. These things don’t make you a wanderer. How you deal with them makes you a wanderer.

Most recently, I gave away everything I owned. When the bank asks for address now I have to give a fake address because I have none.

I’m in California right now. For the next few days, I live here. Then I will live somewhere else.

I’m not starting from scratch. But in my mind every day starts at zero. I’m doing an experiment. I’m surrendering to the moment.

Mentors

In the latest catastrophe that happened to me, the first thing I did was call five people.

One person gave me a place to live. I didn’t need it. I could’ve gotten my own place.

Don’t worry about it. Here are the keys. Stay as long as you want. You need to be around people.

The second person I called checked in with me every hour on the hour to make sure I was ok. She invited me to be with her friends. To spend time with me. To cheer me up.

The third person I called kept checking in to make sure I was following my daily practice. “Tell me,” and he would count one finger at a time: “Physical. Emotional. Mental. Spiritual.”

The fourth person I called told me he would make sure all my business stuff would keep going as exactly as planned.

And so on.

You don’t seek out mentors. You spend decades building good will with people. Then there is pent up demand of people who want to do good will towards you.

How do you do good will towards people? Start being kind to them. Start coming up with ideas for them. Ten ideas a day.

Start introducing them to others. Start giving constructive advice on their projects.

Offer them a place to live. Offer them a place to rest their hat emotionally, or creatively.

Do it for a year. Do it for 10 years. 20 years. And see what happens.

These become your most valuable mentors. Just like you were for them.

Unique

Eventually reinvention kicks in.

You’ve done the search. You’ve had the restlessness. You’ve had the teachers. You’ve had the feedback of what’s wrong or right.

You’ve put in your practice. You’ve rebuilt your energy. You are healthy again. You’ve dealt with the anxiety.

You look out one day and the light is coming through your room and you suddenly have an idea you want to try.

Nobody has ever done it before.

You wrote 10 ideas a day for 20 years to finally come up with something nobody has done before.

I’m excited right now about three or four projects I have. A few months ago I had lost that excitement. Now I’m ready.

The Source

Eventually, you connect with the source again. You are physically healthy, emotionally connecting with people, creative every day, grateful every day for the the magic around you.

You have chosen yourself. You are working on your ideas. They are helping people. They are giving and others are receiving.

You are a still just a drop in the ocean. But it doesn’t matter.

The single drop that is you begins to ripple.

The ripples go out to every shore.

Your search has led you to help the entire world, even in a microcosmic way.

Every day the search begins anew.

But every day I want to be that drop of water. To drift. To float. To bathe in the sun.

Knowing that once again, a storm will come. I will know how to survive it.

A friend told me, “don’t live life like you are going to die tomorrow, live life like you are going to die in a year.”

Ok then. This is the year I’m going to wander.

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How to Tell a B- Story

I scratched my back until it bled. And I never stopped. My back right now is a bloody Jackson Pollack painting.

A bathtub of blood. Doctors don’t even touch it.

Very attractive. My best feature maybe. Shows every stress etched into my body over the past ten years.

But whatever. My point is this: I started with the back and ended with the two million. 

Meaning: two days ago, I couldn’t figure out what to write about. I write every day. But every day I probably start with writer’s block.

I don’t know what to say. And two days ago was particularly bad. I tried a couple of things to start:

• I watched some standup comedy. I watched Louis CK. I watched Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, Gary Gulman. I watched the last ten minutes of “what” by Bo Burnham.
• I re-read parts of Slaughterhouse Five. In part inspired by an essay in The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders about Slaughterhouse Five.

• I read part of “The Happiness Equation” by Neal Pasricha.

I procrastinated and played a lot of backgammon on my iPad.

Sometimes I’d be reading a book and it’s like I blacked out and the next thing I knew I was playing a game of backgammon.

And finally, the blank screen was still there.

So I started typing. “My back itches. I scratched it until it bled. I never stopped. ”

“It started because I was stressed about a company I started in 2006.”

And for 1000 words I described every splotch. Every blood mark. My bloody shirts that I have to throw out every few weeks.

I know, I’m really setting myself up here to be loved.

My point is this: about 1000 words in I wrote, “And then my friend told me how he made two million dollars this morning.”

I wrote another 1000 or so words after that. I didn’t know yet that I’d go back and completely eliminate the first 1000 words and then totally rewrite the second 1000 words.

But that’s what happened. And that’s how I wrote my article from two days ago.

I can’t tell you if the article is good or bad. I know it was better than just writing about my back.

I also got my two goals out of it. I feel it was entertaining and educational (at least to me I learned something).

So to write a simple story I had to get through a few hurdles.

• Read fiction, read non-fiction, watch comedy, to kickstart some sort of creative ignition
• Procrastinate
• Stare at blank screen until it hurt my eyes
• Start writing junk. “The Bloody Back Diaries.” I knew it was junk and I wrote 1000 words. At the very least, I thought, this will be my 1000 words for the day and I will exercise my writing muscle. Mission accomplished.
• Recognize when I finally write a real sentence
• Finish writing without looking back
• Rewrite. Rewriting meant eliminating the first 1000 words and rewriting from scratch the second 1000 words.
• Rewrite again. And again. And again. One 1000 word article I rewrote about ten times.

Check the box on four things:

1. Entertaining
2. Educational
3. Am I embarrassed to hit publish
4. Am I taking any chances.

I was embarrassed because I was showing why I have often failed at money, versus other people. And yet here I am, writing so much about money. Who the hell am I?

To be honest, maybe I didn’t take enough chances and that’s why the article is, at best, a B- instead of an A.

For instance, instead of saying what I learned, I wrote about how I lectured my friend.

That was a cop-out. The reality is, I was jealous of my friend who made $2 million in a single morning and was able to joke about it.

And the reality is: I’m also jealous of my friend with the deadline on the novel. I should have said that.

It’s pretty cool to have a deadline on a novel. I want to be so lucky but I can tell you my friend worked really hard.

So…ok. B-.

But at least I wrote my article for the day. Mission accomplished. If I write 365 articles a year, some will be good. Even an A or an A+.

Tomorrow I go to LA to interview Tony Hawk. I bet his back doesn’t look as bloody as mine.

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How to Find Two Million Dollars in the Morning

“Oh! I forgot to tell you. I accidentally made two million dollars this morning,” Dave told me.

We were standing in his kitchen. We had been hanging out for awhile when he suddenly realized he had this story to tell me.

“How could you accidentally make $2mm?”

“James, its really funny. This friend of mine who runs a hedge fund called me and told me he was closing down the fund.”

“So I was like, ‘Ok, well…good luck on whatever you do next.’ I had no idea why he called to tell me he was shutting his fund.

“Then he said, ‘Well…where do I wire your money?’

“And I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ”

“And he said, ‘Dave, since 1998 you were the only investor who held on and stayed all the way through to the end no matter what was happening.’

“I tell you, James, I didn’t even remember putting money in in 1998. I didn’t have any money. I must have put in just a small amount.

“That was 18 years ago. I had totally forgotten it.”

I was sitting there listening. I was thinking about 1998. I wish I had secretly put some money somewhere and then had completely forgotten about it.

Like leaving a $20 in an old coat pocket. But then finding that coat at the bottom of a closet and now it has 100,000 20 dollar bills in it.

“So I said to him, ‘How much are you wiring?’ ”

“And he said, ‘Two million dollars.’ ”

My friend let that sink in. Imagine waking up tomorrow and … well, just imagine.

Dave laughed, “I totally had no clue. So I said to him, ‘Here’s my bank information. And he wired the money. I made two million dollars today.”

---

I was telling this story to another friend of mine later that day. Call him Ron.

Ron said, “Man, how do you get into the flow like that. How can I make two million like that?”

“Ron,” I said, “Think about it a second. He’s talking about an investment he made in 1998. We can deduce several things.”

Ron and I were having a coffee at 3 in the afternoon and, against my sworn beliefs, we were sitting at a table outdoors, enjoying the first truly warm day. I normally hate sitting outdoors.

“We can deduce:

1. In 1998 he already had enough money to invest in a hedge fund. Which means by that point he must have been worth a million at least to legally invest in a hedge fund.
2. He was connected enough to know an investor that was good enough to return $2 million on a forgettable size investment 18 years later.

“Ron, what were you doing in 1998? I was trying to do a TV show. Then I was writing novels. Then I was busy losing all of my money. Then I was going through a divorce and relationships and raising kids.

“This guy, who is the same age as us, has been doing nothing but putting himself in the flow of money. He’s worked really hard at this.

“You and I have been much more volatile. Sometimes in the flow, sometimes working against the flow. No judgment on it. We just made different choices.”

“I guess that’s right,” Ron said. But still, we were quiet for a few moments.

Because one thing that is kind of cool about the 2 million was the surprise of it for my friend.

Money doesn’t solve all of your problems. But it solves your money problems.

---

I was visiting Dave in his apartment when he was telling me this story.

After he told the story he had to rush to his room and change his clothes into a suit.

“Woah, where are you off to in a suit?”

“This family I know [he names a famous wealthy real estate family in New York] is opening up a new building in South Street Seaport. You know the [he names a building that I had never heard of.]”

“No,” I said, still wondering why he would have to be in a suit since I know he has nothing to do with real estate. Wondering why he is even mentioning this.

“I told them I would show up at the building opening. I’ve got to go.” And he rushes out the door. I said I would close the door behind me.

Then I went from that coffee at Dave’s place to coffee with Ron.

Outdoors, watching the people go by. One person was very kind and stopped walking and said, “James Altucher! I love your podcast.”

Dave went from making $2 million in the morning, to making sure he wasn’t late for the opening of a building by one of the richest families in New York. He spent the rest of the day at the opening.

Maybe one day, that family would be involved in one of Dave’s deals. Maybe they were already in Dave’s deals.

Every day we make the choice of who we are. And the choices today turn into your biography tomorrow.

Ron and I watched the people walking back and forth. The sun was helping keep our coffee warm.

After a little bit, we got up to go and I paid the bill and he left the tip.

He went home to write. He has a deadline on a novel and he’s a bit nervous about it.

I walked over to Union Square and played chess with the hustlers there until it was dark and cold and everyone was shivering.

But we were all bantering and laughing and dropping the pieces while the day closed it’s curtain and turned into night.

If I must say, it was a really great day.

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Ep. 163 Jesse Itzler: 6 Simple Steps to Becoming Self-made

“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 needed to get out of it.

So he did something crazy, which you’ll hear on today’s episode.

And you’ll learn his tricks to becoming self-made.

Then you can enjoy your life. I hope. And forget your resume too.

Listen to my podcast with Jesse Itzler.

Or read my notes here: 6 simple steps to becoming self-made:

---

A) Start before fear stops you.

Before he was a rapper, Jesse cold called record labels saying he was Billy Joel’s agent. Then he waited for them to call back and hear him rapping on his answering machine.

It didn’t work.

He had other crazy ideas. He tried them all until one finally worked.

“I’m just not scared of being embarrassed. I don’t like it, but I’m not scared of it,” Jesse says, “Once you give yourself that gift, you’re liberated.”

---

B) If you can’t control, confuse.
Jesse called Delicious Vinyl, “this really hot, independent label,” as Dana Dane, a huge rapper in the 90’s.
“They got really confused and I played on that confusion until the secretary came back on and said, ‘Dana, Mike will see you at 2 PM today if you want to come in.’ I buzzed myself in as Dana Dane and that was it.”

Jesse asked to play his music while they waited for Dana.

Dana wasn’t coming.

They said yes. And Jesse became a rapper.

---

C) Invite disruption
Anytime he wanted something, he raised the stakes. Or “Seal” did.

Seal is the specially trained Navy Seal Jesse invited to disrupt his routine.

He wrote a book about it, Living With a Seal: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet.

You might say he’s not self-made because someone trained him to be tough, form habits, and break down mental walls.

But you’d be wrong.

It takes mental toughness, grit, and courage to invite someone into your life and ask for help when you need it.

Which is the next lesson I learned from Jesse…

---

D) Ask for help.
Your life is talking to you.

Maybe knowing if you need help is the strongest starting point of all.

---

E) Build your mental toughness
Motivation doesn’t last. It’s a slutty, insatiable feeling.

“It comes down to mental toughness,” Jesse says. “Not motivation. Mental toughness.”

Listening to this interview will motivate you.

It will tease you.

And make you feel capable of 1. changing your routine 2. attacking your best idea 3. and becoming someone new.

I hope you do.

And you will… if you build your mental toughness.

Find out how on the podcast. (Skip to 37 minutes now to hear Jesse’s strategy.)

---

F) You can do better
I try to improve 1% a day.

It means I showed up. I invested in myself. And at the end of the day, I’ll sleep soundly.

But we can do more. Even at our best.

“When your brain says you’re done, you’re only 40 percent done,” Jesse says.

Jesse challenges himself everyday. He has a “f-ck it list.”

Those are things that are challenging. Those are things that require preparation,training, planning, maybe failure, but those are the things that make me feel most alive,” he says. “Those are the things that really teach me about me”

Then “when the tough road comes, you’re not scared of it,” he says.

---

I do dares. I get lost. I wander.

I’m wandering right now. Each day is new.

Each day, I come home to myself and I recognize someone else. Someone new.

Someone self-made.

Resources and Links:

• Read Living With a Seal: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet by Jesse Itzler
• Follow Jesse on Twitter & Instagram
• Read his blog and full bio at the100mileman.com

Also mentioned:

• The book Jesse’s read 9 times: Fit for Life by Harvey Diamond and Marilyn Diamond
• SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient–Powered by the Science of Games by Jane McGonigal
• My friend Lewis Howes’ interview with Jesse: Jesse Itzler on Pushing Your Limits & Taking Back Your Time

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The One Thing I Will Always Regret

I regret passing the crying woman on the staircase inside the Chelsea Hotel.

For three floors, as I was walking up, I kept thinking of things to say to her but then I just walked right by her and heard her weeping.

I used to regret starting Vaultus, my wireless software company. I lost everything there.

I regretted say “no” to all the investments that would have made a lot of money (Google, for instance).

I used to regret buying a house, or going to college because they were huge wastes of money and time and life. I was so anxious over them for so long.

I used to regret not going to IBM when they offered me a job to work on the chess computer, Deep Blue. It would have been a fun experience.

I regretted peeing in my pants at school when I was seven. I tried to run to the bathroom but, as I said to Matthew, the boy standing at the urinal next to mine, “too late.”

That’s also the last time I ever used a urinal instead of a stall. Maybe I regretted that also.

I used to regret starting a business instead of pursuing something more creative.

Business is really hard and there is a special floor in mental institutions for people who start businesses and it’s not pleasant what they inject into the poor patients there.

But I don’t regret these things anymore. None of them.

Instead, I regret the time I didn’t spend with my children when they were younger.

I think about it every day. They had a fun laugh then that is now drowned out by the more mature, skeptical laughs that they have been given, in part, by me.

I regret not spending more time with my dad even when he was in a coma or only capable of staring at a ceiling.

And that crying girl in the Chelsea Hotel? I regret at least not opening an umbrella over her head. Even as a joke to try and cheer her up.

I regret losing touch with various family members and friends through the years, for no real reason. I tend to do that and I don’t know why.

I stop calling them and then I feel bad about it and I don’t want confrontation so I never call them again.

I regret not curling up in a ball and letting my grandmother hug me one more time before I was too old to be a little boy anymore.

Everything I no longer regret is about something I didn’t get.

Everything I really regret to this day is about the people I didn’t touch just one more time. Didn’t reach out to. Didn’t care for. Didn’t spend time with. Didn’t help. I’m sorry.

Objects and experiences are never worth regret. Lack of kindness and connection are the only wasted moments.

If I could take anything back, I’d unravel all of time just to be nicer to you for one more second.

You never knew me, but I regret not licking the horrific scar right off of your face.

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I Just Spoke To Bill Gates For a Half Hour

I just wasted the last half hour talking to Bill Gates.

He was talking all about his philanthropy. He flattered me. He said “Billions of children are dying in Africa.”

Suffice to say, at the end of it, he encouraged me to make a donation to a charity that doesn’t really exist. “Maybe donate 80% of your assets.”

Fake Bill Gates! Shame!

I then informed everyone who I knew who was his “friend” that it was a fake Facebook account.

But it doesn’t stop me from being the idiot who wasted a half hour. What an idiot.

I am really a sucker all the time. I think it’s because I am overly optimistic. “Oh! if he’s talking about charity he probably is Bill Gates.” And…”I can’t believe I’m talking to Bill Gates!” Optimism and egoism.

You don’t need to donate 80% of anything. The way to be charitable is to start today: what can you do to make one person’s life better?

If you can ask, “Who did I help today?” at the end of every day, then you are in the top 1% of philanthropists in the world.

You can give all of your assets away. But assets are not money.

Assets can also be your kindness, your time, your ability to protect, a moment of thought for others. A phone call that encourages.

Just once a day. It compounds.

I never worry now about anything – because of 20 years of compounding kindness. I have created a net of good will. That is my asset.

The best way to avoid being discouraged is to encourage others.

Ugh. I’m so easy to scam.

---

Meanwhile, onto more important topics:

What do you like better: “I am the Walrus?” or “Imagine?”

A reporter asked John Lennon: which music is better, the songs you did before you left the Beatles? Or the songs you made after you left the Beatles?

He said, “Are you asking is ‘I am the Walrus’ better than ‘Imagine?’ I never think about that. I just DO.”

Everyone wants to be a critic or a judge. Everyone wants to make the choices for you. The artist just does.

Artists do. Entrepreneurs do. Creatives do. Philanthropists Do.

Does this mean you have to get up every morning and work on your future famous painting or novel or business?

Not at all.

But Victor Frankl survived the concentration camp of the Holocaust by every day waking up and finding meaning in his life.

It’s the ENTIRE reason he survived when so many others died, including all of his family.

In other words: he lived longer. And he was happier.

The two meanings he found? One day, ‘I will see my wife again.” And one day, “I will write about this experience and help others.”

He had a reason to wake up in the morning, to survive until night. He did.

When the Andy Warhol museum opened up in the early 90s I went to the opening. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I entered.

Nine floors filled with art work. How could one person create so much in a lifetime, even though I knew he had many helpers.

Nine floors of art! Some art so small it could fit in your hand. Some were murals that filled up 50 foot walls.

All day, every day, he must have had a camera in his hand. Or at least a notebook to fill with ideas. Or a sketchpad to draw. Or….something! I don’t know.

He did.

Would I ever do that? I found myself in compare-despair, since I knew the answer was probably no.

People say, “It doesn’t matter. A billion years from now we’ll all be buried dust.”

Ok. But I will tell you when it does matter. Today it matters. And it matters to me. Don’t tell me about a billion years from now. Who cares?

If I waste today, I can’t help myself – I will feel it tonight.

I will feel like the cage in the zoo was open and I didn’t leave it. I didn’t seek out the freedom I deserve.

When I am doing something I love, I feel like nothing else in the world matters. I feel free.

And I feel connected to other people who are doing.

And I feel like I am improving my competence in something, It feels good.

If I wake up and say, “I’m going to do X” and I go to sleep and think “I did X”, then it doesn’t matter about a billion years from now.

It could be something creative. It could be a list of ten ideas. It could be an act of kindness. Something, anything – a small thumbprint I press down on society.

We are communal creatures. We are communal creators. The invisible connection of community is where energy is, life is.

It doesn’t even matter about yesterday. Or tomorrow.

I did. I do.

And I don’t care what people say – “I am the Walrus” is better.

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Is Donald Trump a Socialist?

The last time I called the President of the United States was in 1980. I needed to speak to him about something important. My birthday was coming up.

Jimmy Carter was President then. I wanted to visit with him and interview him.

I had been calling up every politician for months and trying to interview them. Some responded and some didn’t.

I kept calling the White House.

By the way, a weird thing happened to me the other day. I was trying to call my first wife to arrange schedules with my children.

I forgot her phone number. I had to actually email her and ask for her phone number.

But now, sitting here as I type this, as if it were yesterday I can remember the White House’s number from 1980. 202-456-1212. And no, I did not Google that.

I got ahold of someone, a secretary, and asked if I could meet the President on my birthday. I didn’t live anywhere near the White House. But I knew if they said, “Yes”, I could convince my dad to take me there. I was going to turn 12 years old.

They were kind enough to not say “No” directly but they gave me reasons. “The hostages in Iran” and “the coal miner’s’ strike”. The President was very busy dealing with those situations.

I asked for Rex Scouten, the Chief Usher of the White House. He took my call. Eventually, on my birthday, he gave my dad and me a private tour of the entire White House.

Afterwards my dad said, “That’s it, ok? No more long distance calls. Focus on schoolwork.”

I never listened to him. Only a year later I joined a cult and started sneaking into NYC almost every day instead of going to school.

But that’s another story.

This race for President is a joke. But so is every race. What maniac would ever want to be President?

But the media reporting the story is just as bad. As one producer once told me, “We are just trying to fill up the space between advertisements”.

At least he was honest with me. As opposed to saying something like, “We need to report the news.”

A few months ago I wrote about Donald Trump. I said he was a scam and that he was saying outrageous things not to win votes but to actually weed out the people who would never like him so he would be left with the lowest common denominator who would be loyal to him.

I said he would cap out at 12% of the polls. I was dead wrong. I don’t know where he’s at now because I don’t read the news but I guess he is somewhere around 30 or 40% of Republicans.

I don’t know what this means. I have no interpretation.

But the other day I looked at the comments to this post on my blog. There were TWENTY TIMES as many comments on this post as compared to all of my other posts.

And the comments were mostly disgusting. People calling each other right wing republicans or left-wing liberals. People accusing me of associating with whores and drug dealers.

Just complete insanity. I wrote to one person and asked why he thought his method of cursing and accusing would win him any supporters in his argument.

He wrote back, “Only a whore would hang out with someone like you and your left-wing friends.”

I am not left wing. I don’t even have a right wing. I just fall to the ground without wings.

The only issue I actually care about, selfishly, is war. Since I have a 17 year old daughter, I do not believe any war at all through history can be justified.

I would rather go to war myself than have someone recruit my 17 year old. Other than that, there’s no real issue I care about.

But the media gets everything wrong. Trump is not a Republican any more than Bernie Sanders is. Anymore than Hilary Clinton is.

But the media needs labels to take short cuts. “He’s a radical fascist Republican” as an example. Now we think we know all we need to know.

I have no opinion on anyone running. As I wrote in another article, I think we need to do a big favor and just eliminate the Presidency. But then, unfortunately, People magazine would go out of business.

According to the standard definitions of these labels, I sort of realized he’s the exact opposite of the label the media gives him. He’s probably just as Socialist as Bernie Sanders.

I also don’t care about that. Sanders, Clinton, Trump. Whatever. None of these people are more important to me than my neighbor, or lover, or friends.

Happiness and well-being is found on the simple invisible connection between two people who love each other.

Not on the winner of a popularity contest.

But I get disgusted by the media who wants to pigeon hole and rise up the anger of everyone just so they can sell ads. It’s the only way they can compete against the rising (and better) news that can be found online.

Let’s look at some Trump socialist quotes:

– WEALTH TAX

On November 9, 1999, Trump said,

” I would impose a one-time 14.25% net worth tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth of over $10 million.”

This is not a Republican position at all. In fact, on September 6, 2014, Bernie Sanders was at the AFL-CIO convention and called for a national wealth tax.

– NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE

On health care, Trump is more to the left of Barak Obama.

Here are some quotes:

“We must have universal healthcare”

From January 2000, he wrote: “The goal of health care reform should be a system that looks a lot like Canada. ”

I’m not sure any Republican would ever say that.

– CLOSING THE HEDGE FUND TAX LOOPHOLE

I won’t go into the details of this tax loophole or the arguments for or against. Maybe I am for it, maybe I’m against. I have no clue.

Suffice to say, Trump wants to close the loophole.

Here are the people who have directly praised Trump for this:

Elizabeth Warren, Warren Buffett, and Paul Krugman.

Nobody would accuse any of the above of being a right wing Republican. If anything, they are left-wing liberals.

Again, I am not saying any of these people are right or wrong. I’m just distressed at how quick the media is to make a label a target and then start firing bullets.

If we really want to be informed enough to avoid making decisions that could make or break us, the media has to get out of the sandbox and treat voters with respect.

The media in their grandiosity calls themselves “The 4th Branch of Government”. What a joke.

– TARIFFS

Trump has called for up to a 45% tariff on China. Bernie Sanders has consistently voted against any free trade agreement that will reduce or remove tariffs.

I get it. If you keep all trade in the US, then that theoretically means greater employment and profits opportunities in the United States.

This theory is dead wrong.

Just research the Smoot-Hawley tariffs which eventually led to the Great Depression.

But that’s not the point. All I’m saying is: Media – the organizations that have pledged to keep us informed – please get it right.

That said, I know you won’t. That’s why I prefer to read a good book than get “information”. And yes, information is in quotes because it’s ironic.

– RETIREMENT AGE

Both Trump and Bernie Sanders are opposed to raising the retirement age.

Fine. Again, I have no opinion. The retirement age is a fiction anyway once most jobs are transformed to freelancers over the next 10-20 years.

– ISOLATIONISM

Trump has been a bit confusing on this issue. But two things that are not confusing: he wants to reduce funding for NATIO. And withdrawing American bases from around the world.

Basically, leave America out of it, world. We don’t need to protect the world is what he is inadvertently saying.

I agree with this actually.

But who else agrees with this? Bernie Sanders has consistently been isolationist in his voting record and his infrequent public statements on foreign policy (“Let’s nation build at home”).

—-

If I paid attention any more to this race, I would be disgusted.

But I honestly don’t care. What I do care about is how many people with super strong opinions are consistently wrong.

When you are fed horse-sh*t, you sh*t horse-s**t.

And that’s what is happening. People open their mouthes and s**t pours out.

Where do they get it? From BS media or websites with no information or corrupt ads paid for by anonymous PACs. The entire system is corrupt.

And to vote is to acknowledge that the system is honest. Which it isn’t.

The people sitting on top are invisible. The names we hear (Clinton, Trump, Sanders) have been puppets for decades.

This is not conspiracy theory. It’s reality.

They have no new issues. They basically agree on everything. And nothing will ever change.

Which is why the average person needs to look inward and change for themselves rather than depend on a government that makes promises they can’t possibly implement and don’t even have the authority to.

Sanders and Trump probably agree on more economic and political issues than disagree.

Wealth tax, closing hedge fund loopholes, pro tariffs, anti-free trade, centralized government, nationalized health care, isolationism, and on and on. I left out several other issues because I got tired of writing this.

Trump = Sanders = socialism on all of these issues. I am not a socialist or a republican or a democrat. But who cares. Get it right before slinging mud or making up false labels.

Meanwhile, I do love Ivanka Trump. I think she’s smart and funny. I wish I had met her and married her ten years ago.

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How to Be the Luckiest Person Alive, Again

I am mentally ill. And I’m in a mid-life crisis. I’m dishonest. And I’m a horrible father. And I think with my dick.

Thanks to all the kind strangers these past few days who wrote me these insightful facts about myself.

Here is the evidence: I don’t spend all my money on useless things.
I don’t believe in college, or voting. I have never had credit card.

A lot of people didn’t like my article the other day about minimalism.

About the fact that I have two bags of ALL of my possessions in the world and I have no steady address. [see attached photo]

Comments ranged from what I said above to, “This douchebag should get a haircut” to “He is probably screwing crack whores”.

I hope none of these things are true. But if I am mentally ill I probably can’t tell. That’s the sad problem with mental illness.

I am not sleeping in the street, by the way, I just don’t feel like ever signing a lease or buying a home again. And yes, getting a haircut today.

America has a negative savings rate.

That means the average American spends more than they earn so they have to borrow money to buy the rest of the things they spend on.

Which means if you do the reverse of spending (throwing 99.9% of your things away), you are practically the opposite of average.

And what happens when you go the other way while everyone is running to catch the train leaving the station behind you?

People think you are crazy. People think you are missing the train. The train they rushed to get to.

People think you are having a crisis or you are depressed. People think you are less than them because you are not living their lifestyle.

If you stretch beyond what is normal, then you find out who you are.

I have never owned a credit card. So when I had to find an apartment recently and potentially sign a lease, I had a problem. I had no credit history.

My accountant had to write a letter. My lawyer had to write a letter. I had to show my bank statements. And I had to meet every other resident of the building.

I still had to explain why it was that unlike everyone else in America, I have never gotten into credit card debt.

By the way, debt is not a bad thing. Debt is what fuels almost all small businesses. And small businesses are responsible for more than 50% of all job creation in the United States.

For me, though, I have mental problems when it comes to debt. I really am mentally ill.

When I saw my parents lose all of their money and then get severely depressed because of debt I decided never to have any debt.

It’s ok to have money in the bank and not spend it. I value my freedom more than anything. I value being able to create things. Being able to spend time with people I love.

People with debt can do those things as well. No judgment. But I can’t do it. I get anxious.

For me, this helps with freedom. If I lose all my money, as I have many times before (and written about in detail), I go back to what I always do.

I wrote several years ago about something called “The Daily Practice” that I do to bounce off bottom.

One time, I had lost all of my money for maybe the third time in a row. I asked myself, “What am I doing wrong ALL of the time? And what am I doing right when things are going well??”

And then I cried and pretended to be a psychic on Craigslist to meet women.

Bad idea.

But the then I figured out what I was doing on the way up. And I started doing it. Every day. Every single day.

It’s worked for me. I don’t know if it works for others. But I do it.

I wrote about it in great detail in my book, “Choose Yourself!” but in the past few years I’ve modified it a little.

I called the chapter, “How to be the Luckiest Person Alive.” And I really feel that way. Just like people in a mental institution think they are Jesus, I think I am the luckiest person alive.

My New Daily Practice

For context here is the old daily practice:

Every day, work on physical health, emotional health (strengthening your relationships), mental health (creativity), spiritual health (solving “difficult gratitude problems” and cultivating compassion).

If I just do this every day, I know I will bounce back very fast from any hardship.

It used to take me years to bounce back from a hardship. Like losing all my money. Or a ruined relationship.

Now I bounce back so fast people almost think I’m a sociopath about it. I guess better that than being depressed all the time.

When I’m depressed I end up face down in the gutter with cars heading in my direction.

But I have new things that I do that have helped me to bounce back and thrive even faster.

And the new daily practice:

The 1% Rule 

In each of the areas above try to improve 1% a day.

It turns out if you don’t improve, you decline. This is based on research in almost every area of life where there are peak performers: sports, music, chess, art, etc. I like to apply it to life in general.

My podcast with Anders Ericsson, who is the worlds greatest expert on peak performance (discoverer of the famous “10,000 hour rule” of world class performance), discusses this.

I want to be world class at life. But I’ll settle with better than yesterday.

Don’t Ask “Why?”

Every year, people will do things that seem irrationally bad. They will do those things TO us.

You can’t ask “Why?” If someone fires you from a job and you ask “Why?” They are not going to give you a good answer.

If someone lies to you or cheats on you or leaves you and you ask “Why? they will not give you an honest answer. Often there is no answer.

If a lion chases you, humans for four million years never asked “Why?” Actually, that’s totally not true. YOUR ANCESTORS never asked why.

Losers who died asked “Why?” But they don’t have living descendants.

Only in the past 100 years we have the luxury of “Why?” It’s a luxury we abuse.

Only ask “WHY?” when you can gain. Never ask it when you know there is no answer.

ABR

Always Be Reinventing. Reinvention never ends. Once we fall into a routine, we fall in a rut.

I appreciate articles like, “routines of successful people.” But life is too big to be stuck in a cage at the zoo.

A lion in the zoo has the same routine every day. But he is no longer king of the jungle.

It’s ok to experiment with your routine to see what works better.

I don’t mean have sex with crack whores. I mean, miss a bus because you performed an act of kindness.

Do it every day.

Its ok to say, I want to wander. I’m not a young person but I still want to wander in life. To experiment. To enjoy things. This is how I stay young.

I write these types of posts every day. I need to do other things also. I am trying to reinvent myself.

---

I don’t know. Shit in your pants once in awhile and learn what it’s like to be alone.

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Ep. 162 – 7 Secrets of Mastery

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 you can master anything with 10,000 hours of “dedicated practice.” But what we’ve been lead to believe is false. And it’s finally being corrected in Anders’ brilliant new book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise.

It uses thirty years of research to reveal what we never knew before.

I started this podcast two years ago. And I just realized what it’s actually about.

Everyone I interviewed has one thing in common: mastery.

Now, Anders reveals the science behind being the best at anything.

Here’s 7 things I learned about how to become a PEAK performer:

A) Train to do things that you can’t do   

Laszlo Polgar raised three prodigies. But the prodigy is a myth.

He had three daughters. The Polgar sisters.

They were world class chess players. Two became world champions.

It’s almost unbelievable.

But they actually weren’t born with talent. Talent is a dangerous myth with the power to decrease motivation.

The Polgar sisters trained.

“That’s pretty compelling in retrospect,” Anders says.

Don’t let the myth of talent trap you.

Become compelling instead.

---

B) There is no can’t

“People have been convinced that as an adult you’re pretty much fixed,” Anders says, “that there’s a limit on what you can do.”

They’re wrong.

Whenever you start something you start at zero.

Because you can’t do it… yet.

---

C) Predict today. Just today

I don’t want to know my future. Predictions are dreams that become worries.

How do you change your life? I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what works for me.

Do things you love. Everyday.

And practice.

Improve 1% a day.

Practicing something you love takes away the pain.

And time passes.

Your future slips in. And you’re there with new skills. New opportunities. And a new future.

No predictions. Just presence.

---

D) Follow your motivating source

Writing helps me sort things out. And allows me to help people.

Maybe you.

I hope.

That’s my motivating source.

I asked Anders, “How would you guide someone to find their area?”

He says look at the joy.
There’s a fountain inside. You have one. And if you follow it, you’ll always have something that flows.

You can use it to reach new levels, Anders says, “but that is ultimately not the reward itself.”

“For example, if you’re a musician and able to play in front of an audience, and actually feel how that audience is moved by your music, those are your driving forces.”

They’re “key to reaching exceptional levels,” he says.

---

E) Get a teacher…

F) …the right teacher

All the greats had great teachers.

“You need a specialized teacher with accumulated knowledge,” Anders says.

First you learn the basics. Then practice. Get feedback. And advance.

Socrates, The Polgar Sisters, Michelangelo. They all reached mastery. And made unique contributions.

But you don’t need a teacher to do that. To make a difference.

---

G) Learn by doing

You can’t really be capable of anything until you do it.

So you have to try.

Anders says, “Willingness to fail is at the heart.”

Find joy in the process.

---

I was in one of studies mentioned in Anders’ book. It was on chess masters.

I’m proud of that. But there is one downside to mastery.

You can’t master it all.

Resources and Links:

• Read Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Dr. K Anders Ericsson

The post Ep. 162 – 7 Secrets of Mastery appeared first on Altucher Confidential.

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How Minimalism Brought Me Freedom and Joy

I have one bag of clothes, one backpack with a computer, iPad, and phone. I have zero other possessions.

Today I have no address. At this exact moment I am sitting in a restaurant and there’s no place for me to go to lie down.

By tonight I will find a place to lie down. Will that be my address? Probably not.

Am I minimalist? I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t like that word. I live the way I like to live no matter what label it has.

At any moment, you are exactly where you want to be, for better or worse.

A lot of people get minimalism confused.

It’s not necessarily a good way to live. Or a free way to live for many people. It’s just the way I like to live.

I like to be a wanderer. Without knowing where I am going to end up. To explore with no goal. To love without expectation.

For now. Maybe not for later. Maybe not yesterday.

---

“Does minimalism mean not having a lot of possessions?”

No, not at all. I think minimalism means having as little as you require. That means different things to everyone.

For me, having little means I don’t have to think about things that I own.

My brain is not so big. So now I can think about other things. I can explore other ways of living more easily.

Some people don’t like that. I know many people who love roots. Who love being sentimental towards items. This is fine. Who am I to judge?

The other day I threw out my college diploma that was in storage. I threw out everything I had in storage. The last objects left in my life.

At 48 years old I have nothing and nowhere. Other than the people I love and the experiences I love.

A friend asked me, “You worked hard for that diploma. Are you sure you want to throw it out?”

Yes. I’ve worked harder for other things since then. I don’t keep all of these things around either. They are gone.

Society tells us a diploma is a special life achievement. It isn’t. It’s yesterday. I don’t hold onto all the things society tells me to hold onto

---

“How do you deal with kids if you are a minimalist?”

Like 50% of Americans or more, I’m divorced. I have two beautiful children with my first wife. I love my children very much.

I miss them almost constantly. I’m not minimalist if minimalism means having zero attachments. I’m attached to my kids.

I see them as much as I can. Sometimes they visit me (wherever I am) and sometimes I visit them. And some times they stay with me for an extended period of time.

I hope to talk to them every day for the rest of my life. If they lived with me I probably wouldn’t be able to live the way I do and I probably wouldn’t want to.

But life has delivered me to this shore. So I pick myself up and explore the jungle on this new island.

---

“Do you have to get off the internet to be a minimalist?”

Sometimes. For four million years we were “disconnected.” For 20 years we have been “connected.”

I have 238,795 unread emails in my inbox. Emails are a suggestion but not an obligation.

Love and spirituality and gratitude are found in personal connection. Not in an email response.

Sometimes I might return an email ten years later. Those are fun. I pretend like I just got the email a second ago and I return it, “Sure I’ll meet you for coffee tomorrow!” I get fun responses.

I never answer the phone. I have no voicemail. My phone number is 203-512-2161. Try it and see.

I go on Twitter one hour a week to do a Q&A every Thursday from 3:30 – 4:30 EST. I’ve been doing that for six years.. I post articles on Facebook but don’t really use it for anything else.

I have a kindle app on my iPad mini and read all of my books there.

I understand real books are beautiful. So I go to bookstores for hours and read them. But I won’t own them because they won’t fit in my one bag.

I never read random articles on the Internet unless they are by people I know. Mostly I read books I love.

A friend asked me, when he heard all of this, “But aren’t you afraid you’re going to miss some information?”

I asked him, “What information?”

99% of information we read, we forget anyway. The best way to remember is to “DO.”

Otherwise, I look at nothing online.

Experiences happen when you disconnect. And I choose experiences over goods or information.

---

“Does minimalism mean having few emotional attachments?”

I love my friends. I love my children. I love talking to people at a party or a dinner or an event and learning from them.

Love is minimalism. Desire, possession, and control are not minimalism.

Minimalism of things? No. Minimalism of fear, anxiety, stress, mourning.

I don’t like any intrigue. I don’t like to gossip about people.

When I do that, I feel like I am carrying those people in my backpack. So the more I gossip, the heavier my baggage is.

I don’t like feeling bad if someone doesn’t like me. That’s also baggage. I try to leave that behind.

And we’re all different. You never really know why someone is doing the things they are doing.

Sometimes its for deeply sad reasons. Sometimes they are projecting. Sometimes they had a bad day, or a bad life. Sometimes It’s for reasons we’ll never understand.

“Why did they do this?” or “Why is this happening to me?” won’t fit in my one bag.

Did I check the box on physical health, emotional health, creativity, and compassion today?

Those items don’t need to fit in my bag. They are gone by end of day. I’ll find them again tomorrow.

How do you get rid of an attachment that is in your baggage? I don’t really know.

I certainly carry around extra baggage. So I just get back to the four items I said above starting with physical health.

Then I always find my baggage is a little lighter.

---

“Does minimalism mean having no accomplishments?”

No. If anything, the more you accomplish, the more you can afford to get rid of the things society uses to hold you down.

Or, the reverse. Either way.

---

“Is minimalism healthy?”

Yes. Sometimes. For instance, I don’t like to eat more than I need. Although going extreme on that becomes an obligation to carry around.

I don’t like to have experiences that are unhealthy.

For me, experiences are always more important than material goods. A story is more important than a gift.

A material good might not fit in my bag. But a joyful experience is lighter than an atom.

I get to look forward to it beforehand. I get to have it. I get to remember it forever afterwards and learn from it and love it. And it weighs nothing.

What if an experience is not so joyful.

One thing I know: joy is a choice inside and not an emotion given to you.

Sometimes I make the wrong choice. I can’t help it. But sometimes I make the right one. I hope today I will.

---

“What are minimalist emotions?”

Love, joy, wonder, curiosity, friendship connection. These are things you give away. Not take from others.

Emotions that can’t fit in my bag: possession, control, anxiety, fear.

I don’t include anger. Anger is just fear clothed. When I’m angry I try to find the underlying fear. Get naked with it.

Am I good at this? Not really. I try to get better.

If I judge myself for something I did wrong then I just did two things I don’t like to do: the wrong thing, and the judging.

Minimalism is about not judging yourself or others.

---

“You have to have goals to succeed! How can you be a minimalist with goals?”

Goals are ways the mind tries to control you. “I need X to be happy.”

When I feel like I need something outside of me to be happy, I have to make room in my bag for it.

I don’t have enough room. I have some shirts and pants and toothpaste and a few other things. Goals don’t fit.

I have interests and things that I love to do. If I get better at those things each day (or try to) I feel good.

When I have less things in my bag, I feel more free. Did I get 1% more “free” today, whatever free means?

When I spend time with friends, I find joy in the connection. Sometimes the only thing we need in life is not a goal achieved but a hand to hold.

These three above items catapult me to achieve every goal I never had.

It’s magic.

---

“Should I sell my house and get a smaller house?”

No. Or…I don’t know. Don’t do it for a label. If you like your house, keep it. If you like your job, keep it.

Figure out the 10-15 things you want in your bag before you die tomorrow.

---

“What’s the first step I should take? Should I throw things out?”

I have no clue.

This is the problem with self-help books. They seem to be written by someone on a pedestal giving advice without having any blemishes.

I have too many blemishes to give advice. I am a homeless man with no address, with some failures and some successes and no possessions.

Today I can start over. Or today I can ask too many times: “Why?”

But there’s one thing I can do: I can always help someone else. That makes my day and life lighter.

Anyone can have miracles in their life.

Miracles don’t happen. Miracles are given.

---

“If you are a minimalist how come sometimes you have really long articles?”

Because I don’t care what you think about me.

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Ep. 161 – Charles Duhigg: Be Smarter, Better, Faster… And Most of All Be Free

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 you.

If you learn one thing today, I hope it’s this: experiment everyday.

The steps are:

1. Experiment
2. Pay Attention
3. Experiment

And if it doesn’t work out how you imagined, then you’ll have a better story.

I got evicted last week.

The same day, I did this interview with Charles Duhigg. You’ll hear it in the podcast.

Charles is a Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of two New York Times bestselling books, The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

Renting doesn’t work for me. But I tried it. It was a successful experiment with a failed result.

I’m finding what works for me everyday. Charles says that’s what the most productive people do. They cycle through systems.

Charles cycled. He wasn’t always smarter, better, faster.

“I would come home every night and tell my wife, ‘If this is what success feels like, sign me up for failure.’ It was killing me,” he says.

“It’s very easy to lose sight of the ‘why,’” he says. “[We] lose track of why we’re doing something, how it links up to our deepest values or our biggest aspirations… what we actually want to do with our life.”

This interview might teach you something about experimenting, or focussing, or motivation.

Or it might teach you nothing.
But, nothing is a lesson, too.

 

Resources and Links:

• Read Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
• Read The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
• Follow Charles on Facebook & Twitter
• Read his New York Times articles including his Pulitzer Prize winning work on The iEconomy
• Visit charlesduhhig.com to read his blog and find out about his book tour

Also mentioned:

• Malcom Gladwell’s writing style
• Freakenomics writing style

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Brunch and Pirates

I ordered pancakes and he told me about the last time he was shot in the head.

The bullet went through the top of my head, he said.

Then he leaned down and showed me the entry point.

Then, he said, it went out through the back of my ear.

He twisted around, pointed to the back of his ear.

Afterwards, he said, I lost my speech, I was partially paralyzed, I was in the hospital for two years. When I was in the hospital, the diamond dealer I had been protecting when I was shot visited me with a huge bag of money and –

---

Hold on.

That’s not the story I want to tell.

---

Earlier that day. 

I met Ursa because her boss hired me to protect his ship from pirates, he told me.

Wait – why would pirates be after Vikram’s ship?

Every ship that passes through that zone is watched by Somalian pirates. There are four types of ships there: huge shipping boats, military vessels, luxury boats, or bad guys.

And if you are someone’s play yacht, the bad guys will definitely get you, he said.

So how could you protect a boat? Why would anyone hire you.

Because of my training, he said.

You have to understand what happens, he said. The Somalians are paying off the line handlers at the Suez Canal to see what boats might have ransom potential or money on board. To even get through the Suez Canal costs about $55,000 so already they know there is money involved.

What’s a line handler, I asked, and he explained. Then he continued.

The line handlers will tell the pirates – here’s a 145 foot long yacht with X on board and no protection and it’s leaving on this date and will be in your area in five days.

The Somalian pirates get info on every boat leaving the Suez Canal and they attack anyone who is easy.

So our job is to simply stand all over the boat as the ship is pulling past the line handlers and display all of our weapons. Then they can see that the ship is protected.

The Somalians are hungry. There’s no food in Northern Somalia. They don’t want to waste time on someone who is going to shoot back. Usually. So if they hear the boat is protected then most of the time our job is done.

Have you ever come into conflict with any of the pirates?

Yeah, he said, here’s what they do.

They have a mother ship that stays about 20 miles ahead of you once you get into their area.

The mother ship will send two small boats that will move quickly around you, one on each side, and tie-up your props underneath the boat so you can’t move, and then they board from the back. They will usually kill everyone.

How can you do anything about that?

Ha. We have very sophisticated equipment. We can see every body on the ship 20 miles away via infrared.

Believe me, we know they are there. But we continue on course because we don’t want them to know we know.

Then when they send out their boats, once the boats are five miles away, we take out an Ashby, shoot a few rounds of titanium bullets with phosphorus tracers mixed in. They can see the tracers and know we have serious weaponry on board.

Does that dissuade them?

I’ve taken hundreds of boats out of the Suez Canal. 98% of the time the pirates go away. Twice the boats kept coming.

Wait a second. I’m confused. Why would the pirates keep coming when you’ve clearly demonstrated you can destroy them.

These guys are hungry. This is all they have. They have no food and they are high on a drug called cat leaf. I have no idea why the two boats that have made an attempt on us actually did it but they did.

So what happened?

I had six guys working with me. We had thousands of rounds of ammunition . We let the boats get close. Then we fire everything we have on them.

Did anyone get killed?

The last time this happened, we killed all nine pirates on the boats. We were only able to recover three of the bodies because this is the sort of ammo that will rip people apart.

But by maritime law we have to recover what we can and drop off the bodies at the nearest port.

We also have to wear video cameras, GoPro, so that we can show that we followed the law every step of the way.

For instance, sometimes the pirates fake a fire on their boat so they can radio “Mayday”.

By maritime law, if you get a MayDay you are required to assist. So how we act in those situations to determine someone is a bad guy is critical.

Were you ever scared?

Listen. If anyone ever tells you they were not scared when they were under attack by pirates is lying to you.

If someone is trying to kill you, you’re going to get scared, no matter what your training is.

Were you ever shot during any of these?

No

Wait, Ursa said, tell him about that time you were shot because of the diamonds!

---

It’s funny, I said to him, the entire situation is thick with incredible violence, fear, and tension.

But success for both you OR the pirates is entirely about how many risks you take care of in advance. It’s all about risk control.

I said, nobody wants to shoot. Risk avoidance starts for you, and them, hundreds of miles away when you are standing on deck with your weapons and they are bribing the line handlers.

Then you use technology to discover if anything bad is in your way. And they avoid putting their main ship in jeopardy by using smaller ships.

They also try to incapacitate you before a single shot is fired. And you try to scare them when they are too far to be hit but close enough to know what type of weapons you have.

That’s right, he said, it’s all about avoiding risks. Nobody wants trouble.

I’m trying to apply this to my own life. We all do things that are scary or risky or out of our comfort zone.

But it seems like 80% of success is devoted to avoiding the risks even when you know you are going to be doing something scary and uncomfortable. And then the payoffs are huge.

That is correct, he said. He started digging into his pancakes. I had been making him talk too much.

---

It’s like chess, Ursa said.

Yes, he said, Think about it. Chess is a game developed so kings could simulate war.

There’s a saying in chess, I said, that the threat is stronger than the execution.

That’s exactly it, he said.

But wait, said his wife, what about the saying, ‘Good at chess, but bad at life’, have you ever heard that saying?

---

Yes…,

I said.

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