Ep. 195: Josh Foer – The Explorer’s Code

The Explorer’s Code: 

I wanted to wake each morning, not anxious about my day anymore. Not worried about what so-and-so would say, or where my career was going, or what was I going to write today.

My only job each day is to explore something new.

So I called up Josh and asked him how I could be an explorer. He told me.

– Have a Mission

Every day, whether it’s “be creative today.” Or “go some place you’ve never been” or “talk to ten random strangers”, make a mission.

Learn something new.

Missions are for people who DO. Mission statements are for people who DON’T.

– Uncomfortable Situation

Try to put yourself in as many uncomfortable situations as possible.

“For instance,” he said, “you should apply for a temp job. See what it’s like.”

Or maybe one day you and a friend can make a bet: who can get the furthest out of town with just $100.

The uncomfortable zone is where you find out who you are, the comfort zone is where you sleep.

Task: make a list of uncomfortable situations. Stretch the idea muscle.

– Partners/Team

Josh has 100s of people who submit items to Atlas Obscura and atlasobscura.com. “There’s over 10,000 weird and obscure places on there now.”

He also started it with two partners.

Even superheroes need a team. Superman still needed the Justice League. Luke Skywalker still needed Han Solo and Princess Leia. Luke Cage needs Iron Fist and Jessica Jones.

Who are on your team? Are they good people? Do you each have your super power?

I am constantly looking for my team of fellow explorers.

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“Try to experience wonder every day,” Josh told me.

A few months ago, my mission was to throw out everything I owned.

What would it be like after 40 years of collecting things, to own absolutely nothing.

And a few months before that, my mission was to track down someone who had disappeared from my life.

I failed at that mission. But I experienced wonder along the way.

And today, I’m going to change my life forever. I will text you about it.

Links and Resources:

• Read The New York Times bestseller “Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders” by Josh Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton
• Read The New York Times bestseller “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything” by Josh Foer
• Visit Josh’s website AtlasObscura.com “Curious and Wondrous Travel Destinations”
• Follow Josh on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

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What Is Important In Life?

What is important in life?

I thought I would be happy if she loved me. Her name was Amy. She has no chance of reading this. She’s a doctor in Philadelphia. She saves lives. She never once thinks about me ever.

We dated for six months in 1991. Maybe I should remember this: when someone wants to “take a break” it really means: “I want to break up.”

I would think to myself, if I didn’t know her and I saw her randomly walking down the street, would I still feel the same way about her? Yes.

And yet, I was so afraid she didn’t like me that I also tried to move into a homeless shelter.

I wanted to move into a homeless shelter because there were a lot of women living there and…just in case…I needed an exit plan.

But the homeless shelter director thought I was crazy. He even called my boss and my boss confirmed it.

Life knifed me. The girl broke up with me and she never picked up her phone again when I tried to call. I tried to call thirty times in a day. And then the next day. And then I woke her parents repeatedly in the middle of the night by calling their house and hanging up.

And the boss who told the homeless shelter guy that I was crazy, fired me. I don’t know why. I did a good job. I worked hard. I loved it.

And my roommates kicked me out. I had to move. And the landlady refused to give me the deposit back because my room was disgusting.

So I was unemployed, no girlfriend, and I found a cheap room in an attic to live by myself.

[ RELATED: Live Like You Just Escaped ]

I gave chess lessons for $10 a day. Somehow I survived on that for awhile.

One time some friends came over to cheer me up. I was a mess. I opened the door and they were quiet for a second as they looked at me, and then they said, “Oh,” and they just sort of walked off after I mumbled something.

My dad told me he would come and pick me up and take me home but I said, “no”.

My sister told me, “just do one thing a day” and that was good advice because I still try to do that. I love you Bonnie, even though you no longer talk to me. You are always my best friend.

I found a job. But I was no good at it and I would leave early and hitchhike home every day.

And that was wonderful. To go on the road and have no idea where I would end up. And somehow make my way home.

I know not everyone can do this. I was lucky. But to just surrender to your thumb and whatever car would stop and whatever direction you would go in and make it an adventure.

Worst case someone would kill me but I didn’t care.

That felt exciting to me. And my friends would want to hear stories. So I would tell them.

One time I finished a big project for that job. Very important. I was writing all the documentation so they could ship their product.

It was horrible. The boss called me in his office and yelled at me. Don’t you have any pride in your work.

And I guess I did but the proof was that I didn’t. I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t know what pride was. So they fired me.

[ RELATED: How To Quit Your Job The Right Way ]

I was lost, adrift, lonely, and broken. I was sad. I’d go home and read comic books and that was my main pleasure.

I’d meet my friends sometimes and we’d get drunk. I’d meet random strangers while I was hitchhiking and if they were women I’d ask them out and nobody ended up liking me.

I was pretty down and every direction seemed like up.

When every direction seems like up, this could be important.

But it could also be sad and lonely.

In the fog of everything I remembered my grandmother lifting me out of my crib and kissing me and telling me she loved me.

Maybe this is my first memory.

If I had to guess, and that’s all this really is, I’d say that was important to me. My first memory. It’s nice for the first memory to be a kiss.

All of the sadnesses along the way are just progress until the end.

And when the end comes, maybe what is important is that I, too, gave someone a kiss along the way.

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Related reading: How to be THE LUCKIEST GUY ON THE PLANET in 4 Easy Steps

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Jobs: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

The reality is: I took a job so I could have an excuse to move cities and slowly disintegrate the relationship with my girlfriend.

I figured living 300 miles away would allow me to disengage from contact with her and eventually end it.

It ended the way these things typically end. She was unhappy with my lack of communication and affection and started seeing someone else. Then I got upset even though it was of my own doing.

This is not right or wrong. Or ethical or unethical. This is what people do.

Now I had a job and a new life in a new city.

[ RELATED: Why Today Is The Day You Have To Reinvent Yourself ]

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I made friends at the job and some of them I liked and some of them I tolerated because we had to work together.

A job is a pretty easy thing. You come into work between 9 and 10 am. You take a cigarette break (or, in my case, a licorice break) at 11am, and then you go for lunch at noon.

Depending on your work situation, you can stay at lunch an hour. Sometimes two. Sometimes my friends and I would go to the park and play chess.

And sometimes we’d sit outside the NY Public Library and watch people pass by. Tasso told me, “You moved here at the right time.”

It was August and both the woman and men looked so stunningly beautiful and interesting I wondered if I could ever possibly fit in no matter how much I pretended to be like everyone else.

I had a steady paycheck. But it was only enough for me to afford a one room apartment with a chess hustler from Washington Square Park named Elias and often his girlfriend.

They took the couch and I took the futon and lived out of my garbage bag. The shower was constantly running and we were staying there illegally so couldn’t get anyone to fix it.

My boss was always unhappy. He would say to me, “Things are changing and not for the better.” I didn’t know what “things” were.

But the job was an amazing, wonderful experience for me.

Because my bosses were so disenchanted and possibly depressed I was able to carve my own way.

I built a business on the side. I started pitching TV shows, and even shooting a pilot or two. And I barely worked.

This is when my title was “Junior Programmer Analyst” and nobody really knew what I was supposed to do.

But because of my outside activities I was getting job offers on an almost daily basis, my business was building, and although I sat in a cubicle and played online chess most of the day in between breaks with my friends, I had no fears of losing my job.

And then I quit.

[ RELATED: How To Quit Your Job The Right Way ]

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The bad is almost as obvious as the good. Maybe this is inappropriate to say but pretty much everyone would agree with me: I was attracted to every woman who worked at my place of work.

They were the only people of the opposite sex I knew. I was in love with all of them. Like deep feelings of love.

Eventually one situation worked and I married her and had two kids with her.

If this sounds somehow morally degenerate I can guarantee there is a lot worse in the world.

I still love the mother of my children and she will be a part of my life forever. This is just the way I did it.

Another bad thing is that sometimes my boss would yell at me.

If I didn’t give him full credit for everything I did, then he would get upset. I’d be sent to some random city in the middle of the country for two or three weeks on a worthless project that never amounted to anything.

This was disaster for me because of the business I was building on the side. I had to be there as we were building up employees.

We had 3 employees and then ten, I had to keep employees motivated and customers motivated so that the employees would get paid.

And finally, the reality is that I didn’t really like the people I was working with.

When people say, “you’re the average of the five people you are most around” chances are the cliche is not referring to the “five people in the closest cubicles.”

Eventually I had to quit. My full-time job had discovered that I was running a company on the side. The news went all the way up to the CEO. Pressure was on me.

And at my business, we were supposedly getting a big client that would be worth an enormous amount of money.

I had dreams at night that I would have so much money I would be able to give almost all of it to my mom and she would be proud.

So I told my boss that I was quitting on the day before he was going to take a four week vacation.

He said, “Can you wait until I get back before you officially quit”.

I went straight to my desk and sent an email to his boss that I was giving two weeks notice.

My boss then came up to me and said, “I thought you would wait.”

But he was no longer my boss.

He said two things:

“I never hire anyone back so when your business fails don’t expect to be rehired by me. Loyalty is the most important thing.”

and he said,

“Once you leave here, nobody will return your phone calls again.”

He was right on both counts.

And the first day I left, my company that I was now CEO of lost its biggest client.

For the next 15 years I was scared every day and nobody ever returned my calls again.

Welcome to the real world.

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The ugly is this:

Jobs are going away.

Kevin Kelly has a great quote: “Productivity is for robots”.

The key is not to be productive. The key is to ask good questions.

There is a worldwide conversation happening right now: what can make life better. And we are all attempting solutions.

Questions provide meaning in life. Solutions are attempts at answering the questions.

As the world gets better, more of the solutions get outsourced or automated.

The main skill then, is to turn your brain into an idea machine. To every day wake up and come up with ten ideas to make life better. To make another person’s life better. To have impact and meaning in your life.

If you have an atrophied idea muscle, don’t worry. Three to six months of exercising the idea muscle will make you an idea machine. (I have a whole post about it here.)

This is why jobs are going away. This is why more people are opting out of the workforce. This is why almost half of all jobs held by college graduates don’t require a college degree.

This is why income has fallen for 18-35 year olds for 25 straight years.

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People often say, “If I could tell my 30 year old one piece of advice I’d say nothing because I needed to learn all of those mistakes.”

That’s fine. It’s beautiful and true.

But if I had to tell my daughter advice, I don’t want her to make the same mistakes I did. I tell her:

• Come up with ten ideas a day.
• Stand next to the smartest person in the room and if it’s you, then you are in the wrong room.
• Give credit to everyone, never take credit for yourself
• Over promise and over deliver.
• Be pretty good at two things so you can be the best at the combination.
• Read from good books every day.
• Have a good sense humor because people remember how you make them feel more than anything you actually say.
• Always have an exit plan, on everything you do – particularly a full time job.
• Remember that anger is fear clothed, so when you feel anger always ask what you are afraid of – and if someone is angry at you, feel compassion because it only means they are afraid of something.
• Learn to appreciate art. Because art teaches you that visible life is only the tip of an iceberg that runs infinitely deep.
• Experiences > Money

Some of these are cliches. That’s OK. Cliches are there for a reason. You can’t be new and unique all the time. Survival trumps uniqueness.

Now, if I were 60 years old and I had to give advice to myself right now, I hope this is what I would say:

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you.

I hope I’ll listen if you ever get that chance James Altucher.

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Would it be hard to move your work life up a rung on the hierarchy of needs? Don’t die on the bottom rung.

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Ep. 194: Seth Godin – Change Your Mind, Choose Your World & More Genius Advice From Seth Godin

What does it sound like when you change your mind?

That’s the name of Seth Godin’s next book. He only printed 5,500 copies. And he’s not printing anymore.

He doesn’t view a book as just pages surrounded by two covers. He makes a 3-dimensional object that’s beautiful to look at and read.

“It’s not new,” he said on my podcast. “It’s the best of the last four years of my work. And it’s illustrated with hundreds of photos by Thomas Hawk, who’s the most prolific and talented internet photographer.”

The book weighs 18 pounds. And it’s 800 pages long.

I asked him about art and marketing… and he told me about life.

A) START FROM THE BEGINNING

“No business, no project, no novel ever started big,” Seth said.

It started with fear, uncertainty, excitement, possibility. Tons of “what if’s” that lead to real action. And real action halts the what if’s. The what if’s turn to what is.

Seth said, “Instead of saying, ‘I need to leap to the middle,’ say, ‘I’m going to start with people who want to engage with me.'”

All successes start with one person. That’s it. One person, then two, then three.

Success is a curve. We all know it. Don’t try to cheat the curve.

B) KNOW YOUR WORLD

I asked Seth, “How do you know what the world wants to hear?”

“Well, first of all, never the whole world,” he said. “You pick your world.”

Where do you hurt? Where you do you feel a knot? Can you loosen it up and ease the pressure?

Can you create something for the people (or person) who want to love what you want to love?

C) WHAT DO YOU CARE ENOUGH TO SAY?

We talked about Facebook. And the Lays Potato Chip guy who re-designed the bag. His job was to make it sound crunchier.

Kids had slamming competitions. Who could slam a soda the fastest? So Coke-A-Cola created a bottle with a mouthpiece meant to maximize chugging efficiency.

They sold product. But it’s the message that matters.

I always say: message over money.

Invention happens at the edges. Between heart and lungs, breath and vocal chords is the message. It’s the thing you want to say. The thing you’re afraid to say.

“What really matters isn’t what time you posted on Facebook,” Seth said. “What matters is, what did you care enough to say?

D) ANYONE CAN LEAD…

“’Purple Cow‘ says, ‘How do I sit in my office and make a thing that people talk about?'”

“What ‘Tribes‘ says is ‘Now that anyone can stand up and lead (because anyone can have a media channel… because anyone can make connection) will you choose to lead? And if you’re going to lead, who will you lead? How will you connect the people you’re leading? That is marketing, but it’s also life.”

E) CULTURE BEATS EVERYTHING

“No one has a Suzuki tattoo,” Seth said.

“What’s a Suzuki tattoo?” I asked.

Then I got it. Harley Davidson makes half their revenue licensing their brand. T-shirts, jackets, etc.

“If you’re in the Harley tribe, you can’t show up on a Suzuki,” he said.

“Tribes aren’t about the alpha to the omega. Leaders always go away. The alpha person dies or moves on. But the tribe doesn’t. The tribe persists. Because culture beats everything. Scenes have a culture. Tribes have a culture. It’s culture that determines how an organization make its choices, how a nation will evolve.”

I’ve said this before. It doesn’t matter who the president is. What matters is who you surround yourself with. Who’s in your tribe? Who’s in your heart?

And if they’re toxic to your creativity or well-being, detox now.

“The Beatles didn’t invent teenagers. I’m not saying we invent our tribe. We just show up to lead them.”

I didn’t invent the choose yourself community. The cubicle job did.

I’ll never say what other people should do. I just say what I like to do. I say what gets me past just getting by.

F) SHOW UP

“Half my blog posts are below average,” Seth said.

I asked if he feels bad.

Intellectually, I understand failure. But it still hurts. It can turn your life upside down. I lost everything more than once. And maybe you’re reading this because you have to… or you’re afraid of losing everything.

“I’m talking about [creating] generous work with good intent… that didn’t work.” That’s the failure we need to show up for.

“I show up,” Seth said.

G) DON’T WRESTLE WITH INFINITY

I didn’t know what that meant.

“I am almost done wrestling with infinity,” he said.

We had half an hour left in the interview. I didn’t interrupt.

I couldn’t.

I was captivated. My mind expands when I’m seconds away from hearing someone’s genius. My vision slows and the inside of my ears soften. It’s like my body is creating room.

“I made the book I wanted.”

“I only printed 5,500 copies of the book. And there’s not going to be a second printing. That’s all there is.”

He doesn’t have to chase. He already broke even and the best part is he chose himself.

“Now there’s not an infinity of upside.”

He didn’t need approval from publishers, his boss, a network… He didn’t write for a bestseller list. He was compelled. And he created.

He made what he wanted to make.  

“Here’s my definition of art,” he said. “Art is when a human being does something that might not work…”

And my whole body nodded.

He went on… changing my mind.

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Photo credit: Pamela Sisson

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Links and Resources:

• Seth’s upcoming book “What Does It Sound Like When You Change Your Mind?”
• Read Seth’s books:

  • The New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Wall Street Journal bestseller, “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us“

  • A New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller, “The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)“

  • A New York Times bestseller, “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?“

  • “Purple Cow, Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable“

  • “All Marketers are Liars: The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works–and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All“

  • “Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers“

  • Join Seth’s newsletter and get his latest blog posts at SethGodin.com
  • Seth’s “alt MBA” course 
  • Follow Seth on Facebook + Twitter

Also by Seth Godin:

• The Icarus Deception“
• “Poke the Box“
• “We Are All Weird“
• “Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?“
• “V Is for Vulnerable“
• “Meatball Sundae“
• “Free Prize Inside“
• “Unleashing The Ideavirus“
• “Small Is The New Big“
• “Survival Is Not Enough“
• “The Big Red Fez“

Also Mentioned:

• Thomas Hawk Photography 

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The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Doing What You Love

I was doing what I hated. Working a job. Listening to a boss yell at me when he had a bad day with his wife.

Working with people that I wouldn’t be friends with unless I had to sit next to them in a cubicle.

Doing things that were the opposite of everything I dreamed about as a boy.

But I didn’t think anything else was possible. School shed that crazy notion for me. My parents doubled down on that. My bosses forced it home. Having a family scared me.

I assumed that being doomed was a normal part of life and only some people were lucky enough to get away with doing what they loved.

I was ready to live a life of misery only for the sake of my kids. I guess so they could then grow up and live a life of misery.

I was wrong.

When I was seven years old I wanted to be an astronaut.

When I was eight, I was really into comic books.

When I was nine, I wrote a play (actually I plagiarized it but my teachers loved it and I kept writing).

When I was ten I wanted to be President of the United States. I read every book about politics.

My 4th grade teacher thought it was strange I was obsessed with reading the transcripts of Nixon’s secret tapes.

When I was 11 I wanted to be a writer just like Judy Blume. I knew every scene in her books by page. All the sex scenes in “Forever” and “Wifey”.

When I was 12 I wanted to be a reporter so I called up everyone I could think of who was famous and tried to interview them.

I ended up getting my political interviews published in a local paper. I even visited the White House and interviewed the Chief Usher.

When I was 13 I was obsessed with computers. I learned to program and every weekend my friends and I would steal computer games from the local game store.

When I was 14 I spent almost all my free time meditating.

For some reason I thought I could learn to astral project and secretly watch girls undressing. But I ended up learning how to meditate and reading about all the different spiritual sources of meditation.

When I was 16, I played chess constantly. I would skip school, sneak to the bus, take it to Princeton and meet up with John Nash (not the mathematician but his son, who was a strong chess master) and we’d play all day. I skipped school constantly to play games.

And when I was 18 I started my first business, a debit card for college students. And local businesses would offer our users discounts.

I programmed all the card machines. I sold all the local restaurants on using our card.

Which led to when I was 19 becoming obsessed to computer programming.

And when I went to graduate school at 21 I realized I hated programming so started writing every day. 3000 words a day. I haven’t yet stopped.

Ever since then I’ve taken the interests above and combined them.

I made websites for entertainment companies. I helped build a chess server on the Internet. I’ve written 18 books.

I’ve studied stocks the way I used to study a game. And right now I’m trying to get press credentials to cover the inauguration.

I tried to make a TV show. I do podcasts where I call up my heroes (including astronauts, writers, artists, game players, and even Judy Blume(!) etc) and interview them.

And I keep writing every day about all the people around me. Like a spy.

DO THIS: (I still do it)

– LIST EVERYTHING you were passionate about from ages 7–20. These aren’t your “true passions”.

That’s a made up phrase. These were simply the things you loved doing as a kid.

– COMBINE THEM. If you loved computers and movies, maybe you will write stories for virtual reality experiences.

If you loved art and being a reporter, call up all of your favorite artists and do a podcast.

– AGE THEM. If you loved games, what do adults who are into games do for money (they make them, they blog about them, they review them, they invest in stocks, they advise investors on startups for games, they use games to improve brain health, and yes, they have fun still playing games).

– FUTURE THEM. If you loved electrical engineering and fast cars, I just saw a help-wanted ad for a “self driving car engineer”.

How can you see the future? You can’t. But that’s what writing down ten ideas a day helps.

If I write down ten ideas a day about how my interest in comics and business might look in the future, then I will fertilize future success.

Which means a lot of bad c***p along the way but that’s how ideas get started and turn into things you try, which turn into things you do, which turn into things you love and are successful at.

There is no one true passion. There are just these basic guidelines:

• Look to your past to discover your future.
• You will do MANY things in your life. There is no “one” thing.
• Combine combine combine.

Do I do what I love now? Yeah, I’m writing an article on a futuristic computer network.

As for tomorrow…I don’t know. I’m going to write my list right now. Every day I write that list or I get stuck and lose myself. I want to live.

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Related Reading: How To Quit Your Job the Right Way

 

 

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Are You Making An Impact On One Person?

(or…”I Am Seth Godin…and Other Strange Things I Learned in Los Angeles”)

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This guy comes up to me outside of the Skylark bookstore in LA and says, “Seth Godin?”

“You’re Seth Godin, right?”

And I say “No” and show him a photo of Seth and me talking together just a few days earlier.

And he says, “He’s always so great about breaking things down.” And I say yes he is.

And he says, “Wait. You’re Al. Al something. You guys have a similar tone.”

And I say thanks.

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Which brings me to two things I learned from Seth in the past week.

He was early for the podcast. Which I’m ashamed of since I was staying right next to the studio.

When I got there he offered to get me water. No guest has ever done that before. I felt bad.

He told me many things that were fascinating.

But one thing stood out.

What is art? And how can you measure if you are doing something “artistic” or valuable in life?

He said, “Ask yourself these two things:”

1) Did you impact AT LEAST ONE person?

Doesn’t have to be more than that. Too many people are chasing likes and validation when all you need to do is contribute to the life of one person.

and

2) Did you learn something from what you did?

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Because not all attempts at art, or attempts at doing something that has impact, that makes a contribution to society, works.

But you can’t feel bad about it. You can’t beat yourself up over it. How will you get better then? What’s the point?

“You have to learn from all attempts at art,” he said

I will add, he also said, “Everything is art”. Not just a painting or a post. Everything you do today.

So: with everything you do today: are you making an impact? Or are you learning?

GO!

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I wrote Seth about the guy who thought I was Seth. I sent the photo and described the conversation.

Seth wrote back a second later:

Love it!

Love it.

Have a great time.

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Related reading: 8 Excuses Why My Excuses Are Awesome

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FINANCIAL FRIDAYS: What’s The Worst Mistakes You Can Make In A Salary Negotiation

I’ve been an employer. And I’ve been an employee. And I’ve been on the board of a staffing agency and advised dozens of other companies on hires. I’ve seen every salary negotiation possible.

99.9% of hires make mistakes in the salary negotiations.

That’s perfectly fine. They have a bigger vision for their careers and they are excited about the job so the tendency is to just agree and get to work. I get it.

But nobody is offended by a good negotiation. If a company is motivated to hire you and you are motivated to work at a company, then a good discussion about the job makes everyone happier.

VERY IMPORTANT: A good salary negotiation is win-win. Both sides get more motivated. The pie gets larger.

MISTAKE #1: Having a smaller list.

It’s not just about the money. The side with the bigger list of terms wins. Because then you can give up the nickels in exchange for the dimes.

Things to be negotiated: vacation time, medical leaves, bonuses, what requirements are in place for promotions, what’s the non-compete, employee ownership (in some cases), potential profit participation, moving expenses, etc.

Again, the bigger list wins.

MISTAKE #2: Negotiating at the wrong time of day.

This is a secret weapon nobody uses.

Carl Icahn, one of the greatest negotiators in business history, has a trick. Let’s borrow his trick from him.

He schedules negotiations late in the day. Then he sleeps all day.

Every human experiences “willpower depletion”. They have the willpower to avoid cake in the morning, but they run out by evening.

If you are offered a job in the morning, say, “This is great. Let me go over it and figure out logistics and family issues and call you back later.” Then SLEEP. Then call back as late in the day as possible to negotiate.

MISTAKE #3: Thinking too short-term.

You’re not going to be there for two weeks and then quit. Ask about the long-term.

What is the potential for the company? What is the potential for someone in your division to rise up in the company? Is the company doing well?

Have a vision for your career path. This directly motivates how much money and other things you might need up front.

MISTAKE #4: Saying Yes too fast

The best negotiation I ever had was when I said, “let me think about it”. And then waiting.

And really thinking about it. Making my list. Doing due diligence. Really thinking if there are other offers. Or potential offers.

Your value on the job market works like value on every other market: supply and demand. Really determine what the supply is for your services and if you can potentially be in demand.

When you first get interest in being made an offer, you have to determine immediately what the supply is. If supply is zero, you put yourself in a bad position.

But regardless, you can act like supply is great by being patient and saying first, “Let me go over all of this. It’s a lot to take in. I’m really grateful for the offer. How about we talk in a day or so.”

Trust me: this is a scary thing to say but it has worked for me at least three different times and I was scared to death each time.

[ RELATED: Using the 5/25 Rule to Learn to Say “No” ]

MISTAKE #5: Bad Math

What are people with comparable skills making in the industry?

What monetary value do you bring to the company (really your salary should be a function of that).

If you were a freelancer or a company doing the work, what would you charge? Your salary + perks should be in the ballpark.

Prepare by doing all the math.

MISTAKE #6: Pretending to be smart

Know-it-alls lose.

Always ask for advice first. “If you were me being offered this job, what would you ask for?”

Or, “You guys are the experts on how one can grow and flourish and bring the most value to your company. What should I ask for and how do you see me growing in the company? Can we outline that out?”

You can say, “Because I like this company a lot and want to accept this, I trust that you will help me figure out the right things to ask for here. Is there anything I’m missing?”

This gives them the chance to negotiate against themselves.

MISTAKE #7: People don’t ask “How”?

If they offer too little or no moving expenses or no vacation or no path to promotion, simply ask: “How?”

For instance: Other people in the industry are making $X. I know that I offer $Y in value. Can you walk me through how I can accept $Z that you are offering?”

They will keep talking and the numbers will change. Trust me on this.

MISTAKE #8: Don’t take advantage if they show weakness

Many people are powerless. But they don’t want to be. Particularly when you tell them.

If you ask for something and they say, “We can’t. This is HR guidelines”. Say, “Hmmm, are you guys powerless to do anything about this?”

Nobody wants to feel powerless [this is a good trick picked up from my Chris Voss podcast]. They will make changes or work this through HR.

MISTAKE #9: Many people don’t mirror.

If they say, “We will offer $100,000 but can’t go a penny higher” repeat back to them, “you can’t go a penny higher.”

They will continue talking. If they don’t then…..

MISTAKE #10: Too much talking.

Be silent until they talk. Nobody likes an uncomfortable silence. Be silent for as long as it takes for them to talk again. Let it be uncomfortable. DO NOT TALK.

MISTAKE #11: Using round numbers.

Assuming you’ve done your homework on what industry standards are and what value you bring and how much you think you should be making, it’s ok to start with a salary number.

But don’t say $100,000.

Say, $103,500.

Something specific. This shows you’ve done the work. Make sure you can back it up to get to that number. Round numbers are negotiated. Specific numbers, backed up by evidence, are not negotiated.

AND DO THIS:

This one was told to me by Chris Voss, the former chief hostage negotiator of the FBI. [In fact, many of these ideas can be found in my podcast with Chris].

Use Your Late Night FM DJ Voice.

Practice it right now. Pretend you’re a late night FM DJ. “And now we’re going to listen to some slooowww jazz.”

“Listen. I’d like to talk about the salary of $103,500 but also we need to talk about the path to bonuses and my potential promotion path within the company.” Late night FM DJ voice.

Do the preparation, have the bigger list, be patient, be silent, think long-term, get them to negotiate against themselves in the various ways described here, and use your late night FM DJ voice.

I promise you the pie will get larger for everyone.

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Finally, and most important: getting fired is a negotiation also. If you are ever terminated, say “No”. The negotiations begin there.

 

Read some of my other Financial Friday posts:

Financial Fridays: Why Today Is The Day You Have To Reinvent Yourself

and…

Financial Fridays: The Stock Market is Bullshit

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Habits Can Make You Stupid And Then Kill You

I’ve written 18 books. I’ve started 20 businesses. I’ve failed at about 17 of them but some have done OK.

I’ve helped raise two beautiful kids. I have a podcast that I love doing.

Sometimes I’m really lazy. Sometimes I do nothing. I go play arcade games or watch TV or sit in a store and drink coffee and play on my iPad.

But to do all of the above I had to work a lot.

Everyone is into habit porn these days. “Do these habits for success.”

I’m guilty of this also. I am a habit pornographer. BUT…be very careful. Don’t blindly do habits. Habits kill. Here’s why:

A) Life goes by too quick.

I like this salmon dish across the street. So a month ago I said, I’m going to just eat this every day and make decision-making easier.

Within a week I was sick of it. I thought I was going to die if I ate another bite of salmon.

If you do the same thing every day, your brain gets used to it. Then the tenth time you do it (the hundredth time) your brain doesn’t even realize it’s doing it.

That’s why people who work the same 9–5 job for 40 years feel like “the years went by so quick!”

Because if you do the same thing every day, the brain shuts down during those activities and it feels like just seconds have gone by when you think about it later.

People write: do these 100 habits every day. Do them at the same time (a morning ritual, an evening ritual, etc).

If you do that, and you blink, you’re going to be 90 years old.

B) You either grow or get worse.

You can’t step in the same river twice. It’s always changing.

One time I said, “I’m going to do 20 pushups a day.” That works for about a week. Then you have to do 21 pushups. Then 25, then 50.

Then pushups are no good. You’ve only worked one set of muscles. You have to change your exercise. You have to change your habits. So then it’s no longer a habit.

You can say, “Exercise every day.” Fine. But don’t do it at the same time each day (see “A”).

C) PLAY versus HABITS

I like to play. But if I play the same game every day, I’ll get bored.

In the past week: air hockey, ping pong, pool, golf, mini-golf, some kind of small car race, skeet bowl, chess, etc.

Every game uses different parts of my brain and body. And I don’t do it at the same time. I do it when I’m not busy with other things. But I do try to spend time every day playing.

We’re not so different from when we were kids. If anything we’re more stupid.

I certainly didn’t call playing baseball a habit when I was a kid.

It was fun and it made me a better person and I play every day.

[ RELATED: All I Want To Do Is Play ]

D) Habits make you stupid.

I used to live in the beautiful country. I would drive and notice the trees and the architecture and the leaves changing.

But then on the 50th time on the same route, I stopped noticing everything. In fact, I’d get to my destination and not even remember anything. “How did I get here?”

If you take a different route each day, you keep noticing things. You keep learning about your surroundings.

The more new things that hit your brain (the less habits), the smarter you get.

Being present in every new moment forces the universe to deliver up a new experience on your plate of life. Devour it, digest it, and you’ll get more.

E) Habits are for insects.

Bees have habits. They do stuff with honey and flowers. They do the same thing each time.

Ants have habits. They build ant farms.

Humans don’t have habits. We have the exact same genes as 40,000 years ago. And, if you take out violent death and infant mortality, humans probably lived longer then.

Why?

Because they had a wider variety of things to eat. They had healthier exercise to get their food.

And they didn’t eat at the same time each day. They ate when they could find food.

Nor did they exercise at the same time. “Exercise” was “let’s get food” which only occurred when they were hungry.

Habits started when we were domesticated by wheat and turned from nomads into farmers to grow the wheat.

Prior to that, variety was the spice of life.

And now, to live long, to be smart, to live healthy, to have fun – variety also should be the spice of life.

So what do we do with all of the habits?

I try to contribute every day. To have impact. To learn and then share.

But that’s not a habit. That’s called being a decent citizen. I’m trying.

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Related: How to be THE LUCKIEST GUY ON THE PLANET in 4 Easy Steps

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Why Can’t Trump and Obama Do This…?

I haven’t watched the news in about six years. But when Trump met Obama I really wanted to see what would happen.

Here’s what I imagined would happen:

I imagined that when they first met they would have a conversation that would go something like this…

Donald: Listen, we’ve never met before and there’s a lot of expectations on this meeting so I think we should do something…monumental…spectacular.

Obama: I hear you, Donald. That’s what I was thinking.

And then they plan it out. The whole time they are supposed to be talking about policy and transitions and other nonsense but really they are like two giggling kids while they plan the most EPIC Presidential photo-op ever.

They let the photographers and reporters in.

Everyone’s expecting the usual BS. “We had a great meeting. We have a lot of respect for each other. Let’s put America first.” etc And then the cameras go off when they shake hands.

That’s what everyone expects. That’s the NATIONAL SCRIPT.

But art happens when you BREAK THE SCRIPT. Speak the truth.

When you show people that the world is bigger than they ever thought. More exciting. More surprising.

Art happens when you do something that turns the brain off and communicates directly with our hearts and our imaginations.

This is what I wanted to see…

What if they reached for each other and just started making out. Passionately kissing and groping each other.

At first the cameras would go and the news anchors would be shocked. At first…

But then, they just keep going. Two minutes, three minutes, five minutes…. Nobody can stop them because it’s the President. They can’t touch him.

Barak puts his hands around Trump’s pants and starts to pull them down. We see tongue, everything.

And finally they stop. Get up. Nod at each other. And Trump says, “I can now safely say…Obama is truly made in America.”

[ RELATED: How To Deal With A Bad News Event ]

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Why can’t people just go off script more. What is life for? Is it for all this make-believe we always do. Because everyone is afraid?

If we took our most high-stakes moments, and had a little fun with them, I bet life would be a lot better for everyone.

I’m sad sometimes. And sometimes I want to be shocked and laugh a bit more.

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Related reading: Is Donald Trump A Socialist?

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Ep. 193: Brian Koppelman – The Way To Start Again Is…

Brian Koppelman and his wife Amy Koppelman saved my life. Many years after he ruined my life.

First off: when he wrote the movie “Rounders” I became obsessed with poker. I went to the same club he played at and played for 365 nights, including the night my first daughter was born (I was there for the birth though!) .

I was an addict. But eventually I stopped in order to start another company. I wish I had never stopped because that other company cost me all of my money at the time.

Then he wrote several of my favorite movies after that. I didn’t even know it was the same director until the first time I interviewed him here.

Now he is writing and producing my favorite TV show, “Billions” on Showtime. About an aggressive hedge fund billionaire going after an equally aggressive US Attorney played by Paul Giamatti.

Brian has been on the podcast several times but there’s always so much more to talk about in terms of creativity and inspiration and how to succeed as an artist / entrepreneur.

Ditto for his wife Amy who has also been on this podcast and written three of my favorite novels. One of which was turned into a movie (“I Smile Back”) starring Sarah Silverman.

But here is how they saved my life.

Awhile back I had a personal emergency. Things were going haywire.

Amy called me and said, “What’s going on?” I told her.

She had me take a photo of every meal I was eating (“I want to make sure you are eating”) and a photo of everyone I was eating with (“I want to make sure you are around people”) and had me write to her every day what was going on in my head (“write!”)

That was one time.

Another time: I lost millions of dollars in a half hour while I was on the set of “Billions” watching it be filmed.

I was called into an emergency board meeting by phone and found out the company was going to be shut down. It was a disaster.

But 90% of how we feel about a situation is determined by our choice of how we will react. Only 10% is based on the situation itself.

And since I was on the set of my favorite TV show being filmed, I decided to enjoy myself. Brian later said to me, “You lost what!? We couldn’t tell at all. You were making jokes, asking questions, and you were the last one to leave.”

I used being on the set of “Billions” to change my reaction to an otherwise horrible event. This allowed me to easily change my 90% reaction into a positive one.

So not only is Brian a creative genius, but he’s a good friend.

I went up to his offices where they are writing season 2 of “Billions” and I had maybe 1,000 more questions about creativity, writing, the arc of his career, and of course, billions of dollars.

But one thing stands out for me.

Everyone always says, as if it were advice that has come down from heaven to all writers: “Write what you know”.

Brian doesn’t agree with this. And this is the secret to his success. And the secret to all the great writers in history.

Stephen King didn’t know what it was like to be a bullied teenage girl with psychic powers when he wrote “Carrie”.

Ernest Hemingway didn’t know what it was like to be an old Cuban man who spent his life fishing.

JK Rowling didn’t know what it would be like to be a boy attending Hogwarts Wizardry School.

Brian Koppelman told me:

“Don’t write what you know, write what fascinates you.” 

This is the key to all good art.

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In this podcast, we also talk about what it feels like to hit a dead-end. To be unsure how to move forward. To be scared that maybe the best was behind us.

How do you move past that. Recreate yourself. Start the work again. Flourish.

I ask. Brian delivers.

 

Links and Resources:

• Listen to Brian Koppelman’s podcast, “The Moment”
• Showtime’s Billions
• My favorite movies produced by Brian Koppelman: Rounders, Ocean’s Thirteen, Solitary Man and The Girlfriend Experience
• Listen to my last interview with Brian and his co-writer/producer David Levien here.
• Follow Brian on Facebook + Twitter + Vine (you have to watch Brian’s vine compilation with 60 million views)

Also mentioned:

• Brian’s interview with his wife, Amy Koppelman
• Listen to my interview with Amy Koppelman, “Write Something That Doesn’t Suck”
• Try Brian’s morning writing routine, “Morning pages”
• Watch Tony Robbin’s Netflix documentary (executively produced by Brian) “I Am Not Your Guru”
• “Awaken The Giant Within” by Tony Robbins
• A Date With Destiny by Tony Robbins
• “My Struggle” by Karl Ove Knausgaard

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My Daddy Owns All Of Outer Space – A True Story

Part One – The Richest Man In The World

Several years ago I was with a group of people and they told me a story about a secretive guy who was maybe the richest man in the world.

Many decades ago, when various South American countries were going bankrupt, he went to each country and bought their gold at huge huge discounts. They needed the American dollars more than the gold.

He then rented out an entire casino in Las Vegas and filled it up with the gold. Many billions of dollars worth of gold.

One of my sources: the man who counted the gold. “There’s a lot more going on in this world than people see,” he said.

They said to me, “Never tell this story.”

“OK,” I said. “I promise.”

Then it hit me.

“Wait a second, I know his daughter!” An amazing coincidence. I texted with his daughter on a weekly basis.

“He doesn’t have a daughter,” one of them said and the rest agreed.

“Yes,” I said, “Yes he does.”

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Part Two: The Girl

A few years after that a disaster happened to me and I desperately needed help. To some extent, I felt like my life was falling apart.

I called a friend of mine and told her what happened. She started crying on the phone.

She was in China on vacation. She dropped everything and flew around the world and moved in with me for a month. She helped me straighten out my life.

This is the benefits of always having good people in your life. Removing the toxic.

I then told her a story.

I told her the true story about her father.

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Part Three: Turn a Dream Into Reality

There’s no way to really write a true story. There’s a cliche for a reason: the truth is stranger than fiction.

This is true for the entire world. The world itself is a gigantic costume ball. Masks within masks.

Just looking at the surface, we never see the beautiful and amazing truths that lie beneath. We see the worries, the fears, the “facts” that the news and teachers try to tell us.

But we don’t see the world of possibility and creativity that is behind the scenes of this immense theater production.

So I decided to write a children’s book. I wrote it and called it, “My Daddy Owns All of Outer Space.”

It’s about my friend. But also about the beauty that is wrapped in secret that the entire world carries around.

That the entire universe is privy to and if we only let that beauty in, our lives can also be ones of magic and possibility.

Now I needed the best illustrator in the world.

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Part Four: The Artist

Molly Hahn has been through trauma after trauma. She takes the horrors of her past and crushes it like coal into diamond to make her beautiful series of illustrations: Buddha Doodles.

I get her drawings every day in email. I love them. I love the creativity that is constantly pouring out of her.

So I called her and sent her the script and asked her if she would be my co-author.

She said yes. She said, “I’d love to!” I flew to Ojai to meet her in person and we went hiking. The first and only time I will ever do that.

We looked out over the beautiful terrain and talked for three hours about ideas for the book.

She created the book I could only dream about. It was as if she picked through my dreams, pulled them out, and made them better.

Then she called her brother. She hadn’t spoken to him in 13 years. They made a video trailer for the book.

He made the soundtrack for the trailer. “We rebuilt our relationship because of this book,” she told me. “Working on this book changed my life.”

Here is the trailer. Please watch it because it made me cry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMlf_rR4LL4

I just read the book with brand new eyes. Because the pre-order page is up and the book is officially out tomorrow.

It’s a book where everything is possible. Where everyone could have a secret magic power, an endless path of possibility.

We only understand one percent of the world around us, of the possibility around us. It’s only my ego that makes me think I understand more.

Surrendering to mystery, makes possibility turn to reality in my life.

Surrendering to creativity turned an incredible and true story into a beautiful and magical book co-authored with an amazing artist.

I feel now like I own all of outer space. If I meet you out there, may I have this dance?

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I hope you order because it’s my current favorite book.

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Why You Absolutely Must Do A Podcast

Before I tell you why should ABSOLUTELY do a podcast, you should first know: DO NOT do a podcast.

Ryan Holiday wrote an excellent post in Thought Catalog, “Why you shouldn’t do a podcast.”

He was dead on. There’s 400,000 podcasts. The world doesn’t need another interview podcast. Don’t do a podcast if you have nothing to say.

I agree with all of that.

In fact, every day when I wake up I ask myself, “Should I continue to do my podcast?”

If you can’t create impact on yourself (which will lead to impact on others), then give up. NOW.

It’s easy for me to smoke my own crack. I always want to think I have something interesting to say. Something new.

Am I reinventing along with the audience. Am I improving. Could I get better at asking questions. Is the production quality high. Am I solving a problem.

Am I improving? Does it still interest me?

As Brian Koppelman told me on a recent podcast (not aired yet) – “Don’t write what you know. Write what fascinates you.”

My podcast guests are my mentors. There is no one industry they come from. I want to learn the essence of peak performance, regardless of industry or artistic endeavor.

There’s something spiritual about getting better at something that fascinates you. You reach inside yourself and figure out what strings need tuning in order for you to hit closer to that perfect pitch.

My guests are the way I learn. That is why I do a podcast.

Here is why you should do a podcast:

A) You get to talk to your heroes.

When you have a podcast, you can pick up the phone, call anyone you want and say, “I’d love to talk to you for my podcast.”

Most of the people you call will say, “ No.” Most of the people I call say “no.”

Here are some of the people who have said “No” to me this past month: Louis CK, Anthony Bourdain, Alanis Morrissette, and about 50 more (Bernie Sanders just said “No” a few minutes ago).

Do I blame them for saying no? Of course not. They are busy people. I’m lucky they even responded.

B) It’s easy

If I want to do a TV show, then that’s hard. If I want to do a radio show even, that’s difficult. Not as hard as a TV show but difficult.

A basic podcast is easy. There’s a recorder on your iPhone. Record a conversation. Upload it to iTunes.

Now you have a podcast. BOOM!

Will it sound as great as “Freakonomics Radio”. Absolutely not. But it’s a start. It’s how I started.

C) You can do a podcast about whatever you want.

It doesn’t have to be an interview show.

I have a “mini-series” planned to start the next month where my very special guest and I will challenge each other to a different experiment to try.

One of my favorite podcasts has been: “Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor Ever. Period.”

Each episode was a couple of people analyzing a different Denzel Washington movie. This would never have been a TV show, a radio show, a blog post, a series of articles, or a book.

It’s perfect as a podcast.

I love ideas like that. The podcast medium is just in inning one of how fertile it could be to really explore fun creative ideas and bring alive the talents of the hosts and guests.

And, by the way, you don’t need audience to judge the quality of a podcast. Do a podcast about “This is my family” and simply interview all of your family members. One member per show.

Will this get a wide audience? No, not at all. But you’ll really get to know the members of your family and might bring you closer to them. And, again, all you need is something to record conversations.

D) You read a lot

I do an interview podcast. So when I interview someone like Tim Ferriss, I’m reading and re-reading four of his books.

When I interview Cheryl Strayed, I’m reading her three excellent books.

Today I’m interviewing both Seth Godin and Dan Ariely. I think I read about seven books and listened to two podcasts and watched a documentary to prepare for these.

Since starting my podcast I’ve read about five times as many books per year as I usually do.

And reading allows me to absorb their lives. They throw their life into a book. They had to live a life to come up with a single book. I get to absorb that life in just a few days.

And then, miracle of miracles, I get to ask them whatever questions I have! And hopefully ask the questions that are on the listeners minds as well.

RELATED: The 40 Books That Saved My Life

and

I Made A Mistake (and bought too many books)

E) Skills

Here’s some of the skills I’ve learned as a podcaster. These are good skills I can carry into every area of my life.

– How to persuade guests to come on the show.

This is DIFFICULT. It’s scary. You have to be sensitive to their time, sensitive to what they are trying to promote in their lives, persuade them that put in the work and are worth talking to.

You learn “permission persistence” this way. Not so much it annoys. Not so little they forget you.

– How to interview.

I thought I knew how to do an interview. I had done thousands of them. But I had to learn a new level of interview.

I would have to memorize a life’s work and then, in a one hour period, take them off their canned messages and get them to really open up and share in ways they have never done before and in ways that can benefit me and the listeners.

– How to listen.

You can’t boil down a life’s work into an hour. Every word spoken contains 100s of stories.

You have to listen carefully and not just wait for the answer to finish for your next canned question.

Find the word that has a secret clue and open up that clue (yes…interrupt as politely as you can) and ask the question.

You will NEVER again get the opportunity to ask that question so you might as well do it. But this involves listening at a higher level than I have ever done before.

– How to put on a production.

Between the time I first ask on a guest and the time you listen to it, here’s what happens:

1.  An average of 17 emails gets sent back and forth to get the guest to agree and then schedule.
2. A podcast studio is scheduled. Another 5 emails back and forth. Why a podcast studio? Why not just always skype? Because in-person is better than not in-person. Period.
3. An average of 2-5 books are read. 3 podcasts are listened to. Interviews and articles are read. Friends of friends are called. Preparation is important to make your podcast special and unique.
4. The podcast happens. I am sweating to death before each one. I’m almost hoping each one is cancelled right beforehand because I am so nervous.
5. The audio file is edited.
6. I write a post on what I learned (more on this in a second)
7. The post is sent to my email subscribers and to various websites depending on topic.
8. Ads are read. Why ads? Because I have a producer, a podcast studio, an SEO expert, and an audio engineer that get salaries.
9. Ads are sourced. I have to find advertisers.
10. When the podcast comes out, reach out to the guest to see if they want to share it as well. Not always easy and requires diplomacy.
11. Follow up six months, a year later, to see how the guest’s career is going and if they want to come on again. Once a “Friend of the James Altucher Show”, always a friend. I am a loyal podcaster.

F) Plus, minus, equal.

Ironically, I got this phrase from Ryan Holiday’s book, “Ego is the Enemy” when he came on my podcast to talk about his book.

I love this phrase so much I use it constantly now. It refers to the idea that to learn anything new in life you need a:

PLUS: someone to teach you (either real or virtual)
EQUALS: someone to challenge you
MINUS: someone to teach, because that helps you solidify what you learn. Not to mention, paying it forward.

When I do a podcast it’s ONLY with someone I want to learn from. So…

PLUS: the guest and all the preparation
EQUALS: Other podcasters that I listen to. Plus the listeners who give me constant feedback I am grateful for.
MINUS: As soon as a podcast is over I write down, “10 things I learned” and often share that with readers. Otherwise I’ll forget what I learned.

Almost 200 guests later I am so grateful for this Plus, Minus, Equal technique. It’s changed my life. This is one of the main reasons you should do a podcast, regardless of the size of your audience.

G) It’s growing.

Ryan mentioned in his article how there are 400,000 podcasts but only 60,000 active.

That’s because many people give up. Or a podcast doesn’t satisfy whatever it is the podcaster thought it would satisfy.

But the people who give up, leave the area wide open for the podcasters who improve and stick with it.

The growth of all podcasters I know is about 4x in the past two years.

I said to someone the other day: my downloads are now the equivalent of viewers of a shitty HBO show.

And it will keep growing. It doesn’t matter that you started now. There is no “too late”. We are still in inning one.

Do a good podcast, have a unique voice or concept, and you will grow with the industry.

H) No gatekeepers.

I don’t need to work with a TV network to develop a 13 episode series. I don’t need to buy radio time. I don’t need to get a book deal.

I can do three episodes of a podcast and then give up. No harm, no foul. I can see if this is for me. If it satisfies a creative outlet of mine.

Why not? Why wouldn’t someone want to try a podcast for this reason alone.

RELATED: Who Are Your Gatekeepers?

I) Network.

Once someone is on my podcast, they’re in my network. I’ve since worked with many of my guests on various projects, both creative or financial.

At the very least, I just made a new friend. The other day I had dinner with two of my former podcast guests. The only time I had met them previously was in my podcast studio.

Why not make new friends that you admire?

J) One Takeaway.

A year later, I’ll still remember a few takeaways from each podcast. And since I focus on every area of peak performance, I often learn things about nutrition, art, music, writing, perseverance, entrepreneurship, creativity, comedy, and so many other things.

Like from Jesse Itzler: “Whenever your body thinks it can’t work out a second more, it’s going to collapse, remember at that point you can push yourself 40% more.”

From Coolio: “It took me 17 years of writing every day before I had my first hit on the radio.”

From Tony Robbins: “If you want to learn something, bring the target closer, master it, then move it further away.”

From Jewel: “What what your hands are doing during the day to learn who you are.”

From Wayne Dyer: “Do work you love so much you’d be willing to go to jail for it.”

From Judy Blume, “The most important thing in life is friendship. More important than anything else.”

And on an on.

The podcast has changed my life. Has made me a better person. A better father. A better friend. A better artist.

Sometimes I hate doing it. So much rejection. And I get so nervous before one starts. And I want the guests to like me (Coolio said, “I thought you were obnoxious when we first started”).

But I’ve made friends. I’ve learned things. And I have plans to be even more creative with it over the coming year.

I hope you do a podcast. It’s worth trying. It might change your life. And, if you do that, then you will change the life of everyone who listens.

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Listen to my recent podcast here: What I Can Learn In One Minute That Will Change My Life Forever

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How To Deal With a Bad News Event

It doesn’t matter who is President:

• If I’m sick in bed. So stay healthy.
• If I’m around toxic people who bring me down. So be around people you love and who love you. Avoid the toxicity so you can be the light people turn to.
• If I don’t write down ten ideas a day. I am the most important mover of my chances in life. So I need to exercise that creativity muscle to move forward every day if I want to have impact.
• If I’m not grateful for the beautiful things around me. Life is too short not to be grateful today.

Everything else will be sometimes good and sometimes bad. Like all life.

But the above four things I can do my best to make true every single day. This is how I have impact on myself. This is how you become the beacon for change.

And that impact will ripple through the people I know. And so on. That’s the only way a society grows and changes for the better.

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How to get Warren Buffett to work for you for free

Imagine being able to peek over the shoulder of a great investor like Warren Buffett. Just imagine what you’d see…

Better yet, imagine having the entire Buffett organization “working for you” to help you make smart investment decisions.

How much would that type of support cost?

You might be surprised, actually.

Because there’s a little known way to get knowledge like this, the financial secrets of some of the smartest investment minds ever, for nothing.

That’s not a typo.

In my new video, I explain how to do it. It’s actually the first of his 10 most important rules you need to know about investing.

With a little bit of study, you can actually transform Warren Buffett into your “free employee.”

I explain how, plus the other nine rules on page 232 of my new book, The Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth. It’s a contrarian, politically incorrect approach to making it in 2015 and beyond.

You can actually get a copy of this book at no cost to you. I don’t know how long this will be available, so make sure you take a look at it now.

Get the details here.

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Ep. 192: Stephen Dubner – What I Can Learn In One Minute That Will Change My Life Forever

Stephen Dubner (Freakonomics) has a new podcast and it just hit #1 in the iTunes charts.

“Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” is the name of it and it’s about to change my life.

He came over to play backgammon and I asked him about it. He told me he became a journalist because it was an easy way to start talking to people.

He said, “If I ask people to tell me something I don’t know,” then I often learn new things and it keeps the conversation going.

My mind blew open. I’m tired of freezing up. Feeling too paralyzed to talk. I’m a shy introvert. This will help unfreeze me.

For everyone I meet, I will try to learn something I don’t know. I’ll simply ask them.

This will be my new habit.

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I listened to Dubner’s first podcast of the new show. I learned something new from one member of the audience.

First off, it’s a hard podcast to create. Listen to it. There are three panelists. There’s a fact-checker. And there’s 100 people in the audience.

I’ve never heard of a podcast like that. It’s crazy to put that much work into a podcast!

To be creative, go beyond what everyone else says is crazy. And to be crazy, go beyond what everyone else says is creative.

Creativity is a lose-lose proposition. You’re crazy and you’re lost in the woods. But if you aren’t creative, you’re stuck in traffic with everyone else.

Someone on the show said something I didn’t know: when you sleep, the nerve cells in your brain constrict, allowing spinal fluids to wash right through and clean up the proteins that often attach to nerve cells in the brain to cause Alzheimers.

I learned about five new things on that very first episode.

I went to sleep that night in anticipation. Spinal fluids washing through my brain, giving my cells a much needed bath.

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If I can ask everyone, “Tell me something I don’t know,” I’m going to learn from everyone.

It adds up. It compounds. It will give me more knowledge and help me be less shy. I hope.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

 

Links and Resources:

• Stephen’s new podcast “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know“
• Read his best selling books:
  • New York Times best seller “Freakonomics” by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
  • New York Times best seller “Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain” by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
  • “Super Freakonomics” by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
  • “When To Rob A Bank” by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
• Visit his website: freakonomics.com
• Follow Stephen on Facebook + Twitter

Also mentioned:

• “The Lyrics: 1961-2012” by Bob Dylan
• “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen

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I Was Ugly As A Kid And Then This Is What Happened…

When I was 13 we had a class on square dancing and for the first time in my life I had to touch girls.

As we spun from partner to partner I heard each girl say to whoever was unlucky enough to dance with me, “You don’t have to touch him. Just hold your hand an inch or two from his.”

A few years later, I heard two girls talking about me. Do you see it? Do you see what’s on his face?

I had bad acne. But also bad cysts. From my eye, down my nose, across my cheek. Big purple blotches.

I had glasses. Braces – the kind with the rubber bands, the metal all over. Like train tracks.

I had tangled curly hair that couldn’t be combed and buck teeth and I was very unathletic. I was the last picked for every team. I was the one kid who played chess all the time.

The first day of junior high school, the first day of high school, I was an easy target for the bigger kids.

They were so big they were real adults. They had beards and flannel shirts and packs of cigarettes and got girls pregnant and threw desks in the classroom. And would also beat me up.

Nobody said…there shouldn’t be bullying. The teachers didn’t care. My parents had no clue and I wouldn’t tell them because there was nothing they could do anyway. And they were busy with work.

I would skip school as much as possible. Sneak across the farm in my backyard and take a bus into New York City and hang out in bookstores or chess clubs (like a tough guy should).

And I never went to the bathroom during school. That would be death sentence. No matter how badly I had to go I would hold it in. I only peed in my pants once during this time.

I’d go to the library instead of going to lunch. I became more and more shy.

And by the time youth spit me out into the outside world, I was desperate for any attention and any person who can help me inflate my tiny self-esteem.

I’d latch onto the first woman who kissed me. Then, the second and third. I’d be afraid to lose anyone. I’d be afraid they’d see the pimply, braces, tangly, unathletic, shy kid that was still buried deep inside me.

My therapist said to me the other day. You’re 48 now. We are all secretly still that 13 year old. You carry those insecurities with you throughout life.

You have to realize that you aren’t that 13 year old anymore.

OK, doctor, see you next Tuesday.

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Related Reading:

20 Habits of Eventual Millionaires [INFOGRAPHIC]

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