Don’t Forget About Satchel Paige

Nobody would ever pick me for the baseball team. And when I played, I batted last and played left field.

The worst.

So I hated baseball. But Jackie Robinson, whose 100th birthday would be today, is a hero to me. The first person to go into the Major Leagues after a career in the American Negro League.

But for me, Satchel Paige, the next (but older and possibly better) player to make into the Major Leagues, is my hero.

Robinson had to put up with that first initial pain and harassment. Not being able to stay in the same hotels as his teammates.

Being kicked out of restaurants. Booed constantly.

His greatest achievement is that he played great baseball despite all of the extra suffering he was going through compared with his teammates.

He helped his team win the World Series. He was the National League MVP. He was rookie of the year. In 1949 he led the League in hits. In 1952 he was the stolen base champion.

Nobody could deny that he was one of the greatest.

Except Satchel Paige maybe should have been first. At age 42 he became the oldest person EVER to be inducted into the Major Leagues. At age 60 HE STILL was pitching in the Major Leagues.

Joe DiMaggio, perhaps the greatest hitter ever, said Satchel Paige was the most difficult pitcher he ever faced.

I won’t get into all of the awards. All of the politics behind who became the first African American who played in the majors. Who got pulled out of the American Negro League first and why.

Both are heroes. Both left the world expected of them and joined a horrible but amazing world letting them play the game they loved at the highest levels.

To be truly great, you have to leave your comfortable world and step into a world filled with chaos and terror and opportunity.

Both dominated the game. Both became universally respected.

But… I love Satchel Paige’s wisdom. He went through it all and came out the other side.

Any one of these quotes can define the way one lives life:

• “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.”
• “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”

I’m 51. Sometimes I think, “I’m too late for X”. And X can be anything. But Paige was pitching until he was 60 years old. WTF!

• “Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
• “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
• “Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.”

The only way to improve at anything is to focus on process and not outcome.

Outcome is where average people focus. Process is where the greats live.

—

I know today is Jackie Robinson’s 100th birthday.

And I can’t stand baseball.

But Satchel Paige is one of my heroes.

“Love like you’ve never been hurt”.

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8 Ways to be Constantly Improving

One day I decided to do stand-up comedy in the Subway.

I was scared. We got on the subway. I told the person videotaping it to forget it. No way!

“But,” I said, “Turn on the camera anyway”.

She did and I started doing the worst standup. And everyone hated me. Except a few. (“Is this the 6 and a half train to Hogwarts?” and some little children laughed. Or when I tried to do pull-ups on the bar.)

Every day I try to do a “dare of the day”.

Every day go a little further outside your comfort zone.

Get scared.

Say the opinion that is your truth. Don’t care if people will hate it.

Say “yes” to a talk if you are afraid of public speaking. Contact the person you lost touch with.

Ask out your secret crush.

One exercise: next time you buy a coffee ask for 10% off. Don’t give a reason.

What are some other small ways to push the boundaries of comfort? Tell me.

Give us some “dares of the day”.

This, plus what’s said in this image below, is how I improve myself every day. This cleans the plate for opportunity to be served.

I know this because I feel very blessed. It’s hard work to get opportunity. It’s painful. It’s suffering. But it’s worth it. It’s worth it.

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My Second Book Challenge: “20 for 2020: The Race for President”

The fastest book I ever wrote took me two days.

It was a 30-page novel (maybe I’m exaggerating), titled:

“The Autobiography of Prince George Alexander Louis Windsor” by George Alexander Louis Windsor, with help from John Kenneth Rowling.

It’s the “autobiography” of the three day old child of Prince William and Kate Middleton shortly after they had their kid.

He somehow used Morse code to explain his important role in the world to his friend and co-conspirator, John Kenneth Rowling (get it?).

I wrote it in two days. Made the cover, uploaded it to Amazon.

Even though I wrote it with a pseudonym and did no marketing, it hit (briefly) #1 in the category of royal biographies.

It covers the somewhat notorious history of being a prince of Wales. Plus issues dealing with the responsibility of modern royalty on even a baby.

In other words, it was my magnum opus.

Altogether it goes eight reviews (I expected 0) and the average review was three stars (it got some five star reviews but more one star reviews).

The most popular review started off: “This is perhaps not the most insightful autobiography ever written but it’s not bad considering it was written by a baby who was only 3 days old! ”

Here’s a one star review: “Suggestions in this book are crude and ludicrous, I would not recommend it to anyone.”

—

A book publisher then wanted me to do a 10-book deal: 10 autobiographies from famous three day olds. (“North By North West” was going to be my autobiography of Kanye and Kim’s child, North).

But I lost interest.

All of this is to say: Don’t be afraid to write a book. Come up with a good idea, and have a beginning, middle, and end.

Last month I proposed a technique for writing a book about habits. The technique was broad enough that anyone who followed the skeleton I outlined would end up with a completely different book than anyone else. [Check out my first book challenge here.]

I am happy so many people actually wrote their first book. If you wrote a book, list it in the comments here and I will write about each one of them.

My plan for each book challenge is this:

• It has to be easy to write
• It has to have a theme interesting to most people
• Although the book ideas are the same, they are broad enough that everyone’s book will be completely different.

BOOK CHALLENGE #2:

Here’s the book I’d love to read in the next few months, so I will read anyone’s book who writes about this.

IDEA (which can also be the title):

“20 for 2020: The Twenty People Who May Be President”.

Pick your favorite 20 candidates (or not so favorite).

Pick your top 10 issues.

Describe both sides of each issue and where Trump falls and (if you want) where Hillary fell, what’s happened since that election, what the history of the issue is. (For instance, “immigration”. What was the Dem stance in the prior 20 years, what was the Repub stance, what major votes have occurred, what were the actual quotes from Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.?)

Describe your 20 picks (people you like OR people who you think might win).

What’s their background, why might they win, what’s their stance on issues, what’s their baggage (e.g. Kamala Harris and Willie Brown, Howard Schultz billionaire status, etc.)?

Strategically, what do experts think they have to do to win? (There are many blog posts now on each candidate.)

What is Socialism? (Bernie Sanders-socialism vs AOC-socialism.)

What is Capitalism and it’s role in these elections?

What’s the difference between Nationalism and Globalism and how is it playing around the world?

Do people vote for their pocketbooks? If so, how are those pocketbooks doing now?

The role of social media in the next election. The role of media.

What is the Constitutional role of the President and how has it changed through the years?

What would you do as President?

Shane Snow (in “SmartCuts”) makes the interesting point that we all think a President must go the traditional route: Congress, Senator/Governor, VP (perhaps), President.

But very few have gone that route (Eisenhower, Reagan, even Obama, and certainly Trump, haven’t gone the traditional route).

Do we need tradition or the opposite of tradition?

And finally, who do you think will win and why? (Be the first to make the right prediction and you become famous.)

—

Here’s the challenge: every book (fiction or non-fiction) has a beginning, middle, end.

Even a book like this, which seems like just a list of facts or information or essays has to have a beginning, a call to action, a set of problems, and a payoff at the end.

This is the challenge. This is what makes the book go from interesting to great. This turns a bathroom book into a page turner.

As an aside, never buy a used book. You don’t know how many bathrooms it’s been read in. Disgusting!

OK, ready, set, go!

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ride the Trend

“I was very sick for a while. I would get piercing headaches all the time. But when the headaches finally stopped I realized I was psychic and could tell the future. I don’t want this ability. It’s too much of a burden and I can’t shut it down.”

I posted that to Craigslist over a decade ago. I was lonely and just wanted to email with people. I liked helping people.

I would tell people I’m not actually psychic. But they still wanted to ask me their questions. Ask me, “What should I do?” And, this is what surprises me, I’m still friends with many of the people I emailed with.

Nobody has psychic powers. But I’ve spent the past two decades making money on my own. And the only way to do that is to be ahead of what others are doing. To understand the problems and innovations happening in the world before everyone else does.

But predicting the future is risky business.

So how can you make accurate predictions?

After all, even the financial “experts” on the news get the future totally wrong.

CXO Advisory Group analyzed the predictions of hundreds of pundits to answer a simple question: Are the talking heads on TV right or wrong?

You know, the ones who say Ebola will end the world, or the ones who said Enron was just having accounting problems.

It turns out the pundits’ predictions are right only 47% of the time. I think they’re being nice. I would say pundits are right about 12% of the time.

But I pulled that number out of a hat. And CXO did a study. So who knows?

What I do know is that I’ve seen dozens of examples of people making millions following newsletters, message boards, and independent sources of information…

But I’ve never heard of someone getting rich watching CNN Money or Fox Business.

Let me give you a $1 million piece of advice…

Don’t expect the mainstream media to show you how to make a fortune from new ideas or innovations. They’re always late to the party.

Here’s a quick example from my personal experience:

May 6, 2010. The Dow dropped 1,000 points in 36 minutes. People were panicking.

The New York Times reported that investors pulled $33 billion from the stock market. CNN Money called it the “year of uncertainty and volatility.” Standard & Poor’s chief investment strategist even suggested that we could go into a bear market back in 2010.

But I staked my reputation when I put down, in print, “the S&P 500 should go back to all-time highs in the next few years.” I wrote that on July 6, 2010.

Anyone who bought an ETF that tracked the S&P back when I wrote that would have been able to turn every $1 they invested into $3.

It was the same story back on June 1st, 2011. The Dow had just had its worst day of the year, dropping 280 points to 12,249. The S&P fell 31 points to 1,313.

Everyone started to panic and once again all the newspapers started spewing their “the world is over” headlines. One economic forecaster, whose name I’ll politely refrain from saying, called Dow 3,300 by the end of that year.

But I turned around and called Dow 20,000 and S&P 2,000 on June 2, 2011 — the DAY after the crash.

Last time I checked, the S&P 500 was just about 2,700. And the Dow was nearing 25,000… which, after doing a quick back of the envelope calculation, is a bigger number than 3,300.

To quote Dr. Ian Malcolm from the film “Jurassic Park”: “Boy, do I hate being right all the time.”

So, what do you think? Lucky calls? Crystal balls? Psychic powers?

No.

The Secret Way to Seeing the Future… Is to Listen to the Past

As Mark Twain supposedly said (he didn’t, but let’s go with it), “History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.”

What does “rhyming” mean here?

I’m talking about trends. That’s the big secret. That’s my psychic power.

Trends = the past + STATISTICS + standing next to the smartest person in the room (and having access to that room).

It so happens we can use statistics like a crystal ball to predict the future. By doing so, we can see how trends will play out and pay off.

For about 30 years, I’ve watched and studied trends. Social trends. Demographic trends. Technological, cultural, economic, and political trends.

And then I’ve used my connections to make money from those trends.

Here are just a few of the predictions I’ve made that have come true, based on the trends I was looking at:

A) 1990-92. Artificial Intelligence.

Almost nobody knows this about me, but I’ve been working on AI since 1986. I even presented a research paper at one of the largest conferences on artificial intelligence back in 1990.

I worked with people like Kai Fu Lee who invented the tech behind Siri and Alexa. I worked on “Deep Blue,” the first chess computer to beat the world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. (IBM even offered me a job to work full-time on it but I didn’t take it because of a relationship that lasted only two more months. Oh well…)

B) 1995. The Internet.

In 1994, the morning show NBC’s Today had a segment where one of the anchors asked, “What is the internet, anyway?”

In June 1998, mainstream economist Paul Krugman predicted the internet’s impact on the economy would be no greater than the fax machine.

What was I doing back then? Running my web-development company, Reset.

In the late ’90s, everyone wanted a website. That was the trend. I knew that eventually every single company would need a website. I didn’t just write that down. I started an entire company based on that prediction. So I built websites for some of the biggest companies in America.

Our clients included American Express, Con Edison, various divisions within Time Warner, BMG, Universal, and HBO.

I ended up selling that company for over $15 million.

(I lost all that money later. I should’ve paid more attention to the trends… stupid stupid me. After 2002, I got into Wall Street and worked with Victor Niederhoffer. I made my money back by spending years doing nothing BUT looking at trends and statistics.)

C) 2007. Social media.

I went on CNBC and I called Facebook a $100 billion company back when Yahoo offered to buy it for $1 billion. People laughed at me on TV.

I saw the huge potential in social media, though.

I invested in a company called Buddy Media. That made me 6,000% on my money. I also invested in Ticketfly for a 3,600% gain.

I even started a business called Stockpickr from my kitchen table laptop, because I wanted to make a social media site for finance.

TheStreet.com partnered with me on it. I eventually sold my stake to them 7 months after starting that company, when they valued it at $8.1 million.

D) 2007, again. The subprime mortgage crisis.

I’m going to say I was half-right on this one.

What happened was: I went on CNBC’s Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge on March 23, 2007.

I was looking at specific stocks and I saw that the big trend, there, had pushed certain stocks to double or triple. I didn’t see any more upside, so I called that play “over.”

Good for me. Good for anyone who saved themselves from calamity.

E) 2011. The big stock bull market.

I did an interview with Maclean’s back in 2011. Remember, this was back when the market crashed. I called Dow 20,000 and everyone thought I was an idiot.

The Maclean’s interviewer asked me if I had any forecasts for the market in the future.

This is what I said:

“There’s going to be an enormous boom, and the reason is there’s a lot of cash lying around looking for something to do. The banks have almost $3 trillion, the non-banks have another $2 trillion, pension funds have another trillion or so in savings. There’s $5 trillion in this economy that’s all potential customers and investors, so I think this money’s eventually going to filter through and benefit all of us.”

Again, the trends were there, plain as day for anyone to see. Tons of cash building up, ready to deploy into the economy.

Since then, the stock market exploded upward, wages are on the rise, unemployment is super low.

I guess that cash found something to do.

F) 2013. Cryptocurrencies.

When I first heard about bitcoin, I hated it. I even tweeted out in 2013 that “bitcoin is a fad, or a scam, or a Ponzi scheme, or worse.”

Then I dug into the data. I looked into the code. I read the white papers. I talked to the smartest investors and tech entrepreneurs I know. And I realized something…

Bitcoin was going to stick around. And it was going to be huge.

So I learned. And I reinvented myself. (Another $1 million tip: always be learning.)

In fact, I became so confident in the crypto trend that I BUILT a store for my book, “Choose Yourself,” that ONLY accepted bitcoin.

This was back when bitcoin was little more than a laughing stock.

I even went on CNBC to talk about it, and the interviewer asked if it was a marketing stunt.

I also did an interview with Business Insider back then, around May 2013, about my bitcoin store and the reasons for setting it up.

If you’d bought a bitcoin back when I went on CNBC to talk about it, you’d have spent about $100 and ended up with over $3,600 — even with the big pullback in 2018.

I even bought into zcash with a group of investors early on. We made about 7,100% on that.

G) 2016. Virtual Reality.

I did an interview where I talked about the early trend I was seeing in virtual reality back in 2016.

Here’s what I said:

“So [virtual reality] is an important trend. In the ’90s the internet was sort of the first trillion-dollar opportunity. It created trillions of dollars in wealth for investors. And then in the past 10 years mobile was another trillion-dollar opportunity unleashed by smart phones and tablets. Trillions of dollars of value were created.

“Virtual reality is even bigger than the Internet. Name an industry and I’ll tell you how virtual reality is going to disrupt it. That’s how huge it is, and I’m already seeing it. I’m seeing it in private companies, I’m seeing it in public companies.”

One of the public companies I talked about in that interview was Nvidia.

That stock returned about 560% between my interview and 2018.

And this is a trend that hasn’t fully played out yet.

H) 2017. Cryptocurrency part 2, the Bubble.

I saw the potential of cryptos back in 2013. But in 2017, everyone was on the train.

The trend was there, and it started to look negative. The writing was on the wall.

So in August 2017, I wrote: “99% of cryptocurrencies are total scams. And, yes, cryptocurrencies are in a bubble.”

That post is still on my blog, and it turned out to be true. (Thankfully, I haven’t recommended a single crypto to my readers that turned out to be a scam!)

I still think cryptocurrencies are a huge opportunity for generational wealth… this trend ain’t over.

I) 2018. Marijuana.

I knew marijuana was going to be big, back in the summer of 2018.

This is before Canadian legalization, and before pot stocks exploded back in October.

I even flew to Denver and did a “potcast”! [That post in still on my blog too.]

Since then, I’ve been covering this trend as it continues to play out… Giving people business ideas, stock ideas, options ideas…

Some folks listened to me and made some serious money.

People ask, why give out ideas for free?

What else is life for? I like to help people. Life and ideas are abundant, but our time here is limited. Living a full life means being part of a wider community that you contribute to.

Why am I telling you this?

Because when you notice a trend, you immediately have a handful of choices:

• It will tell you what stocks to buy.

• It will tell you what businesses to start.

• If it’s a negative trend, it will tell you how you can position your family to survive.

• It gives you something to talk about with your friends at cocktail parties. (This is probably the best use of a crystal ball, if you have one in your Halloween storage.)

• It gives your ideas that may morph into revenue streams that nobody has ever thought of before.

So when you’re looking for the biggest trends of tomorrow, you have to ask questions like:

1. “What are the biggest problems in society? What are the tidal wave-like trends taking shape around the world that I can surf on top of?”
2. “What are the opportunities and companies in each trend that we focus on?”

This will help you so much more than a crystal ball. [At least I think so!]

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Optimism Vs. Pessimism

My mom is the most pessimistic person I ever met. My dad was the most optimistic person I ever met.

My mother had polio when she was two. When she was four years old she had to have a “birthday party” at the hospital where she was alone behind a glass wall and the other kids were on the other side of the wall.

She walked with a limp for the rest of her life. Kids would ask me at the school bus stop, why does your mom walk so funny? I’d be ashamed and just say I don’t know.

She was a pioneer. In the early 1960s she worked for the very first “independent software company.” A software company that wrote programs for any computer.

Other companies wrote software for just the Univac or the IBM 366 or the whatever else existed then.

She was the first female programmer in history that wrote software for every type of computer. She is my hero.

And at that company, she met my father.

They were private people (unlike me!). I had to read about their meeting in a book, the classic tome: “Your Career in Computer Programming” by IJ Seligsohn.

Seligsohn asked them if they were ever competitive with each other, because they were both programmers. He then was “ready to duck” just in case he hit a “raw nerve.”

“Not at all,” S. Altucher said, “We each have different programming strengths. She is more consistent. She can always be counted on to solve a problem more efficiently.”

“And he’s a more imaginative programmer,” Rita Altucher said, “He’s better at designing big decisions.”

IJ Seligsohn’s conclusion: “Vive la difference!”

Perhaps because of her polio, my mother never thought things were going to work out well.

When I told her I was going to sell my first company she said, “Maybe just get someone to offer you a job.” And when I lost all of my money she never thought I would make it back.

My dad was the exact opposite. He would have crazy ideas that made no sense and was always sure they were going to make millions.

When his own software company, which he built up for 20 years, went public, he thought he would be a billionaire. He ended up dead broke and the company went bankrupt.

He was too optimistic. He bought all his employees cars. Built a new building. Then went broke.

When we played chess, he’d throw everything at me. Over and over. A massive attack.

Finally, I learned how to defend against him. I started winning every game. “What happened?” he would ask. I’d shrug my shoulders and set up the pieces again.

Both of them knew computers were the future. Both of them bet their entire careers, their entire lives on it.

But one was too optimistic and built a failed company. The other was too pessimistic and would take programming jobs well beneath her skills.

When my dad died, whatever hope my mom had about life was buried with him.

I grew up seeing the dangers of excess optimism and pessimism.

Not everything’s going to go wrong (mom), but some things will go wrong.

And I can’t ask for a million-dollar salary when I’m 23 (dad), but I can always look for new opportunities.

The economy might be bad now (mom), but there’s a thousand ways it could get better (dad).

Ultimately, I give my dad the edge. There are always opportunities to make money. There are always upward trends that one could take advantage of.

He quit working in the post office in 1960 when he saw computers were the future. And she decided not to be a math teacher when she figured computers were the future.

It was hard for me. I took after my dad too much. I was optimistic. I’d make a lot of money. I’d go broke.

But I became more and more of a realist. Write down 10 ideas a day. Read every day. Build your network. Access your network. Find the future trends.

There’s always opportunity. And with each opportunity there are ways to make money. My dad thought he was brilliant at everything. That was his downfall.

I try to know my weaknesses. To delegate where I’m not strong. To ask questions to people who are smarter than me. To learn learn learn every day. To never rest and say, “all is GOOD!”

To be careful (mom) and test and look both ways and make sure nothing can get in the way of taking advantage of the opportunities that are now in front of all of us (dad).

I’m a realist. And I’m practical. Which means I’m ultimately an optimist.

But not stupid.

My father is dead. But I am still alive.

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How To Become A Millionaire

How To Fail Through Optimism

MY PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, PART ONE

“James Altucher is running for president. I had only about 45 seconds to look at this platform, but it was enough. I’m voting for James.” – Mark Ford

When I was a kid I wanted to be President.

I read every biography of every President. I read the stories of every presidential campaign.

I went to the Democratic National Convention. I visited the White House. I even visited Mississippi (my first time on a plane) to visit Governor Cliff Finch, who was running in the primaries agains the incumbent President, Jimmy Carter.

I was 12.

Now, anyone can be President. I see the people announcing they’ll run. They have no clue about some basic issues.

It’s not bad they are running. There should be competition. But to DO things, you need to KNOW things.

I have some issues that I feel strongly about. So I want to run.

About once a week (maybe more), I’ll present an idea. I welcome any feedback or suggestions on the idea.

These are all topics I’ve written about before.

For instance, a few weeks ago I wrote how student loan debt is causing the eventual collapse of the US economybecause of statistics on what happens to countries with massive income inequality.

Being against student loan debt is not the same as being against college. But student loan debt directly increases income inequality (students with debt rising faster than inflation perpetuate a declining middle class, further deepening the divide between the rich and poor).

Income inequality ends historically in two ways: war or disease.

This is not a good thing.

At the age of 18, a young woman can’t have a glass of beer, but can take on $250,000 in student loans. At the exact age that teenagers are most likely to take on financial risks.

It’s not fair. The government and colleges take advantage. Colleges have raised tuitions faster than inflation every year since 1977. Why?

Because student loan debt is the one debt the government will NOT let you get rid of in a bankruptcy. NOT FAIR.

Let’s bring innovation and entrepreneurship back to America. China is crushing us on the increase in entrepreneurship. THEY WILL WIN if we don’t respond.

Don’t force the 20 million student loan debt holders in the US to take on bad jobs just to make interest payments.

Let’s help out our kids.

STUDENT LOAN RELIEF

It’s not fair. it’s not fair at all. But anyone with student loan debt should get debt some debt relief.

It’s not fair for:

• The parents of students who did not get loans. They had to pay the full amount. BUT… students without debt will eventually make more money.
• The colleges. They are getting a free ride. But student loan debt should stop and colleges will suffer.
• Future students who no longer have access to loans. But if they don’t get loans, demand for college will go down and get cheaper and less companies will require degrees (joining Google, Ernst & Young, and many other major companies no longer requiring degrees).

The reality now is: skills rank higher than degrees. And skills can be acquired in many ways other than college.

Who pays for the student loan relief? It’s $1.5 trillion. That’s a lot. Even if there is only PARTIAL relief it’s quite a bit.

That said, if the relief is just on the interest payments plus principal payments, it will be about $50 billion a year. Still a lot.

BUT, I don’t want an irresponsible platform. Any proposal has to be met with a way to pay for it.

Here’s some ways to pay for it without increasing taxes:

A) MILITARY

We need a strong military. But we also all know that the military is notorious for wasting money.

And the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are in their 17th year and we’ve spent trillions. If we had never entered that war, there would be no student debt.

But we can’t cry over spillt milk.

I am not an expert on military budgets. But if we cut it by 10%, we save $50 billion a year.

This year’s budget includes $69 billion to purchase a fighter jet: The F-35. We already have 2,300, much more than any other country. We have, by far, the largest Air Force.

Let’s start with this. A one year moratorium to see how it goes. I am sure part of our purchase must be politically motivated. We don’t need another 2,600.

Start with this.

B) SELL COLLEGES

LOPE (Grand Canyon College) is an example of a for-profit college. They have 90,000 students and a market cap of $5 billion.

Berkeley, a part of the public California school system, has 42,000 students. But could have many more students if students were allowed to sign up and get degrees through online courses.

Force states to sell all the public schools (why our states in that business anyway?) to for-profit companies that can probably produce better results by opening up online courses.

The taxes on this alone will generate enough to provide student loan debt relief and will probably create much more accessible schools.

C) BORROW

Everyone hates the idea of increasing debt.

But they are wrong. When interest rates are low, it’s good for the US to borrow.

Interest rates are near a 40-year low when compared with GDP (Interest rates divided by GDP).

The national debt is $15 trillion. Just borrow 2% more ($300 billion) and you can provide massive student loan debt relief at relatively little cost to the country (basically no cost).

US government revenues are close to $4 trillion. An extra $5 billion in interest rate payments is 1/10 of 1% of this and would help 20 million people in debt.

Plus, with less debt, those 20 million Americans will have more choices of jobs and will potentially earn more money and pay more taxes, increasing US revenues to pay back any additional borrowings.

This is not a naive way to look at it, it’s backed by history. As people have more choices and freedoms they become more innovative.

We’ve known this since 1800 (compare the US industrial revolution with the economies of other economic systems like the Soviet Union or pre-1990 China).

D) SIMPLE DEBT-RELIEF

It doesn’t have to happen all at once.

• Allow debt holders to write off student loan debt against taxes.
• Put off forcing debt holders to pay back for 15 years after graduation.
• Make online universities accredited (Khan, Coursera, Lynda). Anything where there is significant evidence of skill acquisition. Increase supply, and prices will go down and debt will go down.
• Allow debt holders to exchange debt for equity. The government (or investors) can buy the debt from a borrower in exchange for pro-rata distribution of 10% of future income.
• Combined with pushing back the year that debt holders have to begin payments (without instrument being accrued), also allow debt holders to replace debt payments with charity payments. 

E) REAL ESTATE

If debt holders settle in areas that are already labeled Opportunity Zones (basically, poor areas where they get tax benefits for buying real estate) then the debt is pushed back while they live there.

I’m open to all ideas.

When I was a kid, I graduated with $47,000 in debt. I had much less debt than someone else in my position now.

I graduated in three years so I took on less debt.

And tuitions were simply smaller back then. I paid back my debt nine years after I graduated.

Is college even worth it? I’ve written about this many times before. I don’t think it is.

But more kids than ever are going to college that is more useless than ever because the government says, “Go for it! here’s the money!” to the exact people least likely to say no because of their brain’s higher capacity for risk-taking.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair to parents, to students, to future America.

And debt relief won’t be fair either.

But it will create a better world.

===

Send suggestions, ideas, or issues you want to hear me discuss to feedback@chooseyourselffinancial.com.

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17 THINGS I WISH I KNEW AT 17

I regret. I regret a lot. I wish I could have been different.

I wish I could be 17 again and know these rules.

There’s nothing wrong with regret. There’s nothing wrong with wondering how your life would have been different and better.

This is what I wish I knew.

A) DON’T DEPEND ON OTHERS FOR YOUR HAPPINESS

If you outsource your self-esteem, you’ll never be happy.

I outsourced my self-esteem to girlfriends. It was hard enough for them to handle their own self-esteem, let alone mine

I outsourced my self-esteem to professors, thinking a good grade would make my life better. It didn’t.

Later I outsourced my self-esteem to bosses, thinking a promotion would make my life better. It didn’t.

I outsourced my self-esteem to anyone who had the power to “choose me” – publishers, TV, investors, customers.

I could’ve spent that energy developing the skills to choose myself. There is ALWAYS a back door to dreams.

When I depended on others for my own happiness I ended up trying too hard to make OTHER people happy. If they are happy, I thought, they will make me happy.

A waste of time and effort. People only cared when it was their own self-interest. I am fine with that now.

B) DON’T READ NEWS

I can’t even remember the news from when I was 17 but I always read three newspapers a day and every magazine.

Read books instead. The news when I was 17 was that Reagan was trading drugs for hostages and that Michael Jackson was going to release another album.

Knowing this has had zero effect on my life. I should have read another book about history, or a biography, or a good piece of fiction.

When you read a book, you absorb some of the 10,000 hours of expertise the author poured into the creation of that book.

When you read a news article, you are fooled into caring about something that will have zero consequence on your life.

News is about shock. Not about knowledge.

C) WAKE UP ASKING…”WHAT IF…?”

For instance, “What if I didn’t go to college and instead I wrote a book or learned how to program and started making money instead of borrowing it?”

Or, if you want to go to Harvard but were rejected: “What if I just showed up for classes there and nobody realized I wasn’t an actual student?”

“What if I took a job and started learning skills instead of arguing with my college girlfriend?”

“What if I stopped waiting to begin my life and started pursuing the things I love?”

When you start with “What if?” you start with Questions instead of Answers.

17 year olds don’t have Answers but I always thought I did. Start with Questions instead.

“What if?” let’s you build a bridge between reality now and the desires you want.

“What if?” let’s you step outside the path that parents, teachers, friends, society have planned for you and allows you find your own path.

“What if..?” let’s you admit you are stupid but open-minded enough to be curious and explore the entire Universe.

(Exercise: ask 30 “what if” questions about your life. Like: What if I could make my own TV show and put it on YouTube. Or…What if I could be a professional sports anchor…what 100 steps would build that bridge? Or…”What if I could invent my own cryptocurrency? What would make it unique?” and so on.)

D) DON’T ARGUE

I would argue with my dad about Nicaraguan politics.

Who the heck cares now? And what change did I create by arguing. I thought I knew everything and so did he. So we wasted mindless hours arguing about something stupid and now he’s dead.

I would argue in classes about poetry or philosophy instead of learning for myself what life was like in the real world.

I would argue about the economics of poverty with other people who knew nothing about either.

Poetry is found by doing what you love, by scraping a knee when you fall, by lifting yourself up even when you’re dirty and bloody and tired and you have to start all over.

Philosophy is found when you find the edges of the comfort zone of life and make your first attempts to step outside of it.

Poverty is found when you do everything you can to succeed and you fail and you take ownership of your mistakes and you start again.

Opportunity is found not in the middle of an argument that has no outcome on life, but in the places that are least crowded, where you are exploring and finding out who you uniquely are.

E) EXERCISE THE CREATIVE MUSCLE

Nobody wants you to be creative:

“Ideas are a dime a dozen.”

“Ideas are not a business.”

“Execution is everything.”

Creativity is a muscle. You can’t have good ideas if you don’t exercise that muscle.

Every day I write down ten ideas. Not because they are good. But because they are bad and I want to be better every day than the day before.

This morning I wrote down ten ideas for books I could write.

Good books? No. (“The History of The World in Tweets from 2010–2018” is an example).

It’s probably the 1,000th time I’ve written down book ideas. Another 2,000 times I’ve written down business ideas. Another 3,000 times I’ve written down ideas for others.

It doesn’t matter.

If I’m better at idea generation than everyone else then I will find the places that are least crowded.

F) THE BEST INVESTMENT IS IN YOURSELF….BUT DIVERSIFY

When I was 17 I had no skills. I was the high school chess champ in my state but that’s it.

When I was 23 I still had no skills and that was after college and graduate school.

When I was 26 I still had no skills and that was after a few jobs.

I finally found something.

I found “awe”.

I thought the Internet was awesome. I was in awe of it’s potential. I wrote down all the things the Internet could do.

So I learned skills: I learned how to program a computer (even though when I was 21 I had majored in Computer Science and then I went to graduate school in Computer Science, it was all theoretical and I never did anything that required a real skill).

But diversify your skills. Diversify the things that give you awe.

1. read a lot to find the things that fascinate you.
2. write down ideas every day.
3. develop a skill that makes money NOW (like computer programming). develop more than one of these if you can.
4. develop skills for the future (like writing, communicating, speaking, entertaining).

I’m 50 now. I’ve invested in myself. I have skills.

But still every day I have to learn. I have to maintain. I have to keep up. I have to practice. I have to exercise.

(Exercise: Start with these books. Read them:

1. “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankl
2. “Antifragile” by Nassim Taleb (and “The Black Swan” and “Fooled by Randomness” by him)
3. “Tiny Beautiful Things” by Cheryl Strayed
4. “Master of Love” by Don Miguel Ruiz
5. “Anything You Want” by Derek Sivers
6. “Mindset” by Carol Dweck
7. “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
8. “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari
9. “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz
10. “Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway
11. “Jesus’ Son” by Denis Johnson (a collection of short stories, not a religious book)
12. “The Rational Optimist” by Matt Ridley (and the Evolution of Everything by him)
13. “Bold” by Peter D. and Steven Kotler
14. “Outliers” and “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point is another good one by this prestigious author)
15. “Peak” by Anders Ericsson
16. “The Surrender Experiment” by Michael Singer (along with The Untethered Soul by him)
17. “Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist” by Stephen Batchelor
18. “Mastery” by Robert Greene
19. “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel
20. “War of Art” by Stephen Pressfield (and “Turning Pro“)
21. “Post Office” by Charles Bukowski
22. “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin
23. “Maus” by Art Spiegelman
24. “On Writing” by Stephen King
25. “How We Got to Now” by Stephen Johnson (and his book on ideas)
26. “Creativity, Inc” by Ed Catmull
27. “Sick in the Head” by Judd Apatow
28. “Born Standing Up” by Steve Martin
29. “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle (and “Practicing the Power of Now” by him)
30. “5 Love Languages” by Gary Chapman
31. “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World” by Harry Browne
32. “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut
33. “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey
34. “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
35. “What We Talk About When We talk about Running” by Haruki Murakami
36. “The Stranger” by Albert Camus
37. “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coehlo
38. “The Blue Zones” by Dan Buettner
39. “The New Evolution Diet” by Art Devany
40. “Poking the Dead Frog” by Mike Sacks
41. “Socrates” by Paul Johnson
42. “Small Victories” by Anne Lamott
43. “Meet Your Happy Chemicals” by Lorette Breuning)

G) LEARN WHAT MONEY IS

Money is not about having a higher income. Or about pleasing others. Or about the economy.

The economy is for everyone else. And it’s almost impossible to get rich on income.

Money is not about investing or spending or luxury or even freedom.

Money is about arbitrage. Seeing value where other people don’t. This takes practice.

You can practice by learning a money game like poker.

Get really good at poker and you learn about people, probability, statistics, selling, arbitrage, decision making, money management, emotional control, entertainment, creativity.

Games are a safe way to practice hunting. Games are a safe way to learn about money.

I wish I had learned poker at 17 instead of at 30. Then I wouldn’t have lost all my money at 30. Much safer to lose all your money at 17 before you have two kids and a mortgage.

Most important: money is not about “how much time did I work?” Money BUYS time.

Nor does money buy things. Because you are just converting your money into things (and you won’t be able to do the reverse when you need your money back).

Money buys you more opportunities.

Making money is about working smart rather than working hard.

H) PLUS, MINUS, EQUAL

To learn anything you need a:

PLUS: a mentor (real or virtual or books) to study and emulate and learn from.

EQUALS: people who are striving with you that you can compare notes with.

MINUS: You can’t learn something unless you can explain it to a three year old. Always try to explain what you are learning.

I) THE GOOGLE RULE

Google knows nothing.

If I go to Google and want to learn about “computer programming”, Google will say, “I know nothing but here are the ten best places you can go based on my extensive research.”

Then, when I want to learn about “motorcycles” the first place I will go is Google.

Google is worth almost a trillion dollars.

Because:

1. They are the source of information but not the actual information. They tell you where to go.
2. They give credit to everyone else. They don’t say “We know”, they say “These people know and they are GREAT.”

If you use the Google Rule you’ll have more value every day.

(the first Google home page)

J) THE 1% RULE

Whatever gives you AWE, improve 1% per day at.

1% per day, compounded, equals 3800% per year.

3800% per year will make you the best in the world at everything you are interested in.

Lose 1% per day (by relying on others, by depending on institutions to help, by arguing and trying to convince people, by following society’s rules instead of your own), will mean in a year you are 3% the person you were at the beginning of the year.

(the most important rule in this post).

K) LOVE EVERYONE AS IF THEY WERE YOUR DAUGHTER

Everyone is going through a world of s*8t. All the time.

Treat everyone the way you would treat a daughter.

Love their faults and flaws. Don’t try and change them. Be sensitive to their sadness. Listen to them. Hold them if they need it. Don’t control them.

They want to be happy. Just like you.

You don’t need to love God or society or even yourself.

Just love everyone as if they were your daughter.

L. PERFECTIONISM IS WHERE CREATIVITY GOES TO DIE

When you find something you’re going to love, you’re going to suck at it.

After a year, you still suck. But you are a year ahead of everyone else.

After two years, you might suck even more, because now you know enough to know what you don’t know.

And so on. Everything worth learning and doing is a huge curve with perfection so high in the sky it’s never possible to see.

But getting there is where the love can be found.

M. 5×5 RULE:

you’re the average of the 5 people around you, the 5 things you think about the most, the 5 things you are reading, the 5 ideas you have, the 5 foods you eat.

N. BE THE STUPIDEST PERSON IN THE ROOM

I used to think I was smart. I’d make investments thinking, “This is the future!” And 100% of the time I’d lost on that investment.

Now my strategy is great: I assume I am the least intelligent person. I find the intelligent people in whatever I am doing.

I stand next to them if I can. I watch what they are doing. I mimic.

It doesn’t mean I am not being myself. I mimic the smartest and greatest in every area of life that I love.

I learn from that. I then develop my own beliefs which are influenced by the intersections of all of these great people.

This has helped me in investing, entrepreneurship, and learning just about everything I love.

0. DIGNITY

What does “dignity” mean?

It means, be the kind of person that people know they can trust and rely on.

It means, be clean, thoughtful, don’t gossip, take care of yourself, keep calm when everyone else is panicking.

Then you become the beacon on the foggy day, leading all the ships to home.

Dignity can never be bought. It is earned.

P) CONNECTION

Learn to connect to people. Learn to be vulnerable with people. Vulnerability builds connections.

Learn to discover other people’s agendas. They will never care about your agenda until you study theirs.

One quality of “blue zones” (areas around the world where people live to be 100) is that people of all ages (and higher than 100) spend time on their friendships, on their connections to community and co-workers and family.

This reduces inflammation in the body. This keeps us alive and happy.

And it increases your chances of having great influence and impact. Study people and think every day how to improve the tiny connections we have with the people around us.

Q) CLEAN YOUR HOUSE BEFORE YOU SAVE THE WORLD

The world has survived for a long time.

And every generation, angry people, frustrated people, caring people, scared people, try to change it.

Try to save it.

It’s ok to have good intentions. To want to have impact.

But your inner world is vastly more complex. You can’t save 7 billion people if you aren’t working every day on your inner world.

——

That’s enough advice for myself at 17.

I regret a lot of things.

It’s ok to regret.

I’m fine with where I am in life. Doesn’t mean I can’t wish I had been a little more wise when I was younger.

Is my advice good?

I don’t know. I’m not going to argue with my 17 year old self if he disagrees with me.

He was pretty stupid. He was pretty gross. He was pretty insecure and selfish and lonely.

If I had just followed a tiny bit of this advice, maybe I wouldn’t have been so lonely for so long.

What if…?

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Stop Calling Louis C.K. “OLD”

Last week, someone recorded a set Louis C.K. did, leaked it, and now everyone is upset.

Louis C.K. brings up various issues including the Parkland students, transgender, etc.

Articles say, “he’s punching down”, “he’s insensitive”, “he’s lazy”, “he’s a hack”, “why is he even performing?”, “he’s lost his edge”, etc.

I listened to the bootleg tape. I’ve also seen him perform recently.

Some of the tape was refined material from an older set I’ve seen him do in October.

Some points about this particular set, the outrage, and comedy in general:

—

A) IT’S A BOOTLEG. It’s UNFINISHED material.

If you were a painter and someone saw an unfinished painting they wouldn’t say, “Hey, it would be better if you finished off this corner!”.

You would say, “DUH! I KNOW! IT’S NOT FINISHED!”

—-

B) TOO OLD?

People are bringing out the “old white man” thing.

HE’S 51! Stop with the “old man”shit.

I’m about to be 51. I’m offended on behalf of all 51 year olds.

—

C) RACISM

The media keeps bringing up the “recently surfaced tape” where he uses the “n-word”.

IT’S NOT a “recently surfaced tape”!

EVERYBODY: it was a documentary on HBO called “Talking Funny” that featured Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Louis C.K., and Ricky Gervais talking about comedy.

There are over 1,000 reviews, articles, and commentary about this documentary. Most saying how great it is.

CHRIS ROCK used the “n word” to describe Louis C.K.! Again, it’s not a recently surfaced tape.

Also, Louis C.K. has a specific joke about this.

He says, he hates the phrase “the n word”, because when the media says it (exactly as written) they PUT the word in your head.

Louis C.K.’s point is that it’s hypocritical for these beautiful white anchors to sidestep racism by using a phrase that means the exact same thing.

And this video is a well-known documentary about comedy on HBO. Again, it’s not a hidden secret that just recently surfaced.

—

D) JORDAN PETERSON AND TRANSGENDER

People say Louis C.K. was insensitive to transgender people in this tape because he doesn’t want to use “they/them”.

First, this is the Jordan Peterson issue. The more you screw with language, the closer you get to authoritarianism.

Watch 1,000 Jordan Peterson videos about the history of fascist regimes to learn why this is the case.

So Louis C.K., who has been doing this style of joke for THIRTY YEARS, suggests that he wants to be called “there”.

Because he doesn’t identify with a gender. He identifies with a location (i.e. specifically, he says, “your mother’s…”).

It’s an absurdist way to make a point about the dangers of manipulating language.

He did a similar joke (in substance, not in topic) in his very famous joke (YouTube it) called “Maybe”, where he suggests kids “maybe” should die from peanut allergies (“but not really”), and that was just the beginning of a joke that could be the best joke told in a special ever. But potentially his most offensive joke.

The way he pulls “Maybe” off is amazing (watch it).

But I am sure he WORKED that joke over, in private, at clubs just like last week’s, a million times.

UNFINISHED jokes eventually get finished or die.

Or his joke on abortion in “Louis 2017” where he says “it’s totally killing a whole baby AND women should be allowed to kill babies”.

This is much edgier than saying he wants to be referred to as “there” but I was in the audience for “Louis 2017” and I can guarantee everyone was laughing.

Or it’s like Dave Chappelle saying, “Why didn’t anyone make a fuss over Caitlyn Jenner changing her name but everyone hated Mohammed Ali for it?”

That’s not even a joke. But the crowd laughed. It’s simply a point that is interesting.

And there’s Jerrod Carmichael’s joke from “8” about global warming and why should we care about our grandkids? (“F them,” he says).

This is what comedians do.

—

E) PARKLAND SHOOTING

Louis C.K. points out that 7,500 people die every day.

“Why are we listening to a kid” testifying in the Senate who “threw a fat kid in the way to avoid getting shot at.”

Why not the guy who “electrocuted his parents”? (The absurdity of both images gets people laughing.)

First off, it’s a joke-in-progress.

I have watched Louis C.K. several times since he has started coming back.

He is WORKING on material.

He brings a notebook on stage and writes down when people laugh and when they don’t. I have seen some jokes bomb and some kill (it might take him a year to finish a joke).

That’s why they don’t record every set for public viewing.

The outrage stems in part on a) whether or not it’s funny (which doesn’t matter) and b) whether it’s insensitive to the parents of the kids who were shot at or the kids whose voices have been listened to.

It is insensitive. If I were one of the parents, I might be upset.

(Just to point out: when I saw him in Madison Square Garden with 20,000 people he started off asking all Jews to leave. Everyone laughed.)

But he’s also making the point that maybe we are ignoring less media-approved voices who might be facing deeper societal troubles.

For example, the tens of thousands of Americans dealing every year with the death of their Alzheimer relatives they spent years caring for. While drugs linger in FDA hell waiting to be approved.

He is saying we can be insensitive to everyone or maybe we should try to figure out who else we should be sensitive toward instead of simply having a media show.

Is he right? Is he mean? It doesn’t matter. It’s UNFINISHED material.

But it’s an interesting point. Why aren’t we addressing in the media the 22 veterans who kill themselves every day?

—

F) A ONE-TWEET LESSON IN COMEDY

Judd Apatow tweeted that the joke was lazy.

Judd Apatow is my all-time favorite comedy producer, director, writer and he is also a stand-up comedian.

Check out: Freaks & Geeks (TV), Knocked Up, Funny People, The 40 Year Old Virign, Superbad (he was producer), Crashing (TV), Love (TV), The Larry Sanders Show (he was a writer. I’d recommend this first but he had a more minor role), Anchorman, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Trainwreck, The Cable Guy, and I’m still just scratching the surface…

He also wrote my favorite book on comedy, “Sick in the Head” (a reference to the fact that comedians are often ‘sick in the head’ in order to do what they do at the highest levels).

Judd Apatow tweeted a fascinating tweet that Louis C.K.’s Parkland joke was lazy and that it showed a deep anger on C.K.’s part and that he should explore that anger in the humor.

When he tweets I have to pay attention.

Forget for a second that the joke is unfinished material. (Although worth noting that, on the tape, it seems like the entire club is laughing.)

Apatow’s tweet should be separately viewed as a lesson on comedy.

Maybe there is a way that Louis C.K. could explore his anger a bit deeper.

He does this very well in his famous “WiFi on a plane” joke from 10 years ago. He also does this in his joke about hatred for neighbors when he moves into a nice building (coincidence: the building I live in).

But I don’t know. I’m not Louis C.K. He will know if he can make it funnier.

He is known to be an extremely deep comedian so perhaps, if he thinks it’s funny, he will explore that angle when making a finished product.

Apatow’s tweet is a great lesson in that it is always important to see how deep you can go with humor. This is the key to great success for comedians.

But it’s important to keep noting this was a bootleg tape and the material was not meant to be heard by everyone.

Maybe Louis C.K. sometimes tries this joke out in different ways and is assessing the best way to go.

Or maybe he thinks this is the best way to tell the joke. We just don’t know. Maybe he’s right. Maybe he couldn’t find a deeper angle.

Or maybe Louis C.K. is working through other issues now. We have no clue. We have no clue how his material will evolve into finished material. I can’t wait to see the journey.

100% of his jokes are offensive. People, in general, are stupid and offensive and absurd and he makes fun of that, often by taking on that role himself.

It still doesn’t seem like a lazy joke.

It’s an interesting point about who the media picks to be its “stars” and what groups it ignores (and hence disempowers). Why is Chris Brown still making records? Why aren’t veterans heard from more?

And, we’re all talking about it. I’ve seen about 20 articles on this joke.

I own a comedy club (Seinfeld performed there on Sunday).

I see 7+ comedians every night. I see 100+ “lazy” jokes every day.

Not from bad comedians. From professional comedians with TV shows and Netflix specials, etc. And the audiences love these jokes.

The typical set is a comedian doing premise/punchline for 15 minutes.

Most of the jokes are not about anything topical. They are designed to just get laughs and then move on.

These comedians talk about current relationships whether or not they are in one. They talk about experiences they never had. They twist words and make it funny.

Example: “The girl next to me on the plane was really, really into me… shutting up.”

They are getting the laughs but maybe they would even admit they are playing it safe. Sticking to what works every time. It works!

Perhaps they can be called “lazy”. Their jokes are very funny but maybe not as memorable or thought-provoking.

I have great admiration for that skill of non-stop premise/punchline. It’s very difficult to write those jokes.

But it’s not what Louis C.K. does. Or Dave Chappelle (also recently criticized for insensitive material) or Chris Rock or Ellen Degeneres (her amazing special “Relatable” about how to be relatable from your mega-mansion (and also getting some criticism)).

It’s not what Jerrod Carmichael does (e.g. let your grandchildren die from global warming, he points out in the Bo Burnham-directed, HBO special, “8”, which I HIGHLY recommend).

They talk about things that will maybe get people very, very angry (Louis 2017 makes fun of pro-life, pro-choice, Muslims, Jews, and on and on). And the joke works if it’s also funny and makes people think.

But it takes a lot of work. As Seinfeld points out in “Talking Funny”, maybe it takes five years to craft a single joke.

—–

The booker at my club said she would not book Louis C.K. and she gave her reasons.

This is what makes a great society. People can agree and disagree and discuss and hopefully we all learn from each other’s perspectives.

I like to learn. The most impactful thing for me in this argument is Judd Apatow’s tweets on the topic. It got me thinking.

I went to a Louis C.K. set a few weeks ago. Everyone was laughing. Chris Rock was cheering him on. I was laughing. I think he offended everyone.

The next day, the NY Post said people were booing and walking out.

I’m not sure why they lied. I was there! Nobody was booing or walking out.

Is this recent tape “too edgy”? Too lazy? Is he punching down? Is he punching up? (I’ve seen both arguments in the media).

All I know is: unlike 99.9999% of comedians, he has everyone talking about his material.

The joke’s on all of us.

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How To Deal With Crappy, Toxic People

Sometimes I sit around having imaginary arguments with people I love/hate.

They did this! And this! WHY??

I loved them. How could they do this!?

I did THIS for them. WHY?

I could do this fun activity for hours. Days even!

I imagine what they say. And what I say back. And what they say. And what I say back.

Ugh. What a waste.

—–

DON’T KEEP A SCOREBOARD

One friend of mine asked me, “Do you ever keep a scoreboard about your friendships?”

What do you mean?

“Like, I did this so he/she should now do this. Or… I did X, Y, and Z so they shouldn’t do A, B, or C!”

Yeah, I do that all the time.

Once you find yourself keeping a scoreboard, that’s a sign that the friendship or business relationship or any relationship is already over.

—-

AND NEVER ASK “WHY?”

The most important thing I learned last year about people: never ask “why?”

Some people are toxic. Some are “narcissistic” (an over-used word, but still).

Some people will wrong you. Some friends will stop talking to you for no reason.

I have never ever once found out why. In a hundred different situations over the past many decades.

They just do what they do.

And I have to do what I can do.

—-

The crappy people in my life are never the neighbors down the street who I don’t know.

They are always people who were once close to me.

They are always people who I would once trust with anything, with my life, with my loyalty and faith.

And then… poof.

WHY? W. H. Y.

I’ll never know. And I am going to try really hard this year to never ask.

Again.

 

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5 WAYS TO SELF IMPROVE

5 Secrets To Warren Buffett’s Success

Some Of The Best Nonfiction Books

11 Reasons You HAVE to Quit Your Job in 2019

I did a bad thing.

I was in the middle of a meeting. It was my second week at a new job. I had set up the meeting with some people I thought we could do business with.

Suddenly I couldn’t bare the thought of spending another second at that job. For all the reasons I list below and maybe some more.

I hated it. I couldn’t stand the sound of my voice. I hated the people around me. I was dying.

I had my coat hanging on my chair and another coat in my office. My office already had my name on the door. This was my first attempt at a real job in about 15 years.

I said, “I have to go to the bathroom”.

I got up. I left my coats behind.

I limped toward the lobby because I had fallen the day before for reasons I still don’t understand. I was going in the opposite direction of the bathroom.

I said goodbye to the receptionist. I hit the “L” on the elevator. I rode all the way down the Trump Building on 40 Wall Street.

I took the 1 train to Grand Central, got on a train, went 60 miles north of NYC, and went home.

I never went back to that job. I never spoke to anyone there again. The main guy called, emailed, begged, asked what happened, offered to negotiate more salary, offered anything I wanted.

I never responded. Never spoke to him again. I feel bad about that. I’m a pretty non-confrontational person and I’ve had to work on that.

I had no job, I was starting to once again run low on money, I had no prospects.

But I’m so glad I quit!

That year, all of life opened up to me. So many opportunities. So many ideas that I started to explore. Some worked. Some didn’t. But I learned from all of them.

And, since then, each year has been more successful than the last.

11 REASONS WHY 2019 IS THE YEAR YOU SHOULD QUIT YOUR JOB

1) YOU DON’T NEED A JOB

People used to get a job for the stability. My grandfather started his job in 1946 and retired with a gold watch in the 1970s.

But as Nassim Taleb suggests, “the three biggest addictions are heroin, carbs, and a stable paycheck”.

Companies are not loyal. They don’t care about you or me.

But that’s OK.

We live in “The Access Economy”. Every access economy company has three components but many ways to benefit:

• EXCESS: Some people have excess of X. E.g. excess empty car seats, excess apartment space, excess time to do tasks, excess knowledge, etc.
• DESIRE: Some people have great desire for that excess. E.g. some people want access to empty car seats when they can’t find a cab. Some people want access to empty apartments rather than a hotel.
• PLATFORM: To connect “A” and “B”, to provide search, to provide secure transactions, to mediate difficulties, to provide reviews and standards.

Uber, Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Seamless, Freelancer, Fiverr, etc. are all examples of Access Economy companies.

You can make money by owning the platform. Or by providing the excess. Or by providing services to the excess (e.g. an “Airbnb manager” who helps multiple hosts manage their Airbnb listings and services).

You can also provide excess knowledge about a topic (e.g. dieting) to people who would like that excess knowledge and are willing to pay for it. You can use platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, or even Kickstarter or Etsy (depending on the knowledge or the product) as your distribution platform.

This is just one way of looking at the “Gig Economy” but there are others.

The gig economy is growing every year. Can you replace your income from it?

I did it. Although I did it when it was almost impossible. In 1995 I had a full-time job. But I started making websites for companies on the side.

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

TAKE BABY STEPS. Always take the temperature of what side hustles are out there, what your value is in the job market, what gigs you enjoy, how much money you can make, how you can grow.

By 1997 I was doing well enough with my side hustle that I left my corporate job and started doing it full time.

Then I scaled it into a business and eventually sold the business.

SJ Scott writes books about habits and self-publishes them on Amazon. When he started he was depressed, doing nothing, and sleeping on a couch.

Now he makes up to $60,000 a month.

Hannah Dixon makes a full income as a virtual assistant while she travels around the world and writes about her experiences.

One friend of mine quit his job, wrote a diet newsletter called “What Would Jesus Eat” (essentially… a Mediterranean diet) and now lives in a three-story penthouse in Medellin.

The list of people I’ve spoken to who have left their jobs forever for “gig economy” jobs is enormous. And there are more every year.

Here’s a chart I put together on “how to make $2,000 in a weekend”.

If you are an “animator” by training, please don’t be offended. I’m not suggesting someone can make “Toy Story IV” in their spare time.

But there are courses on Khan Academy, CodeAcademy, Lynda, and elsewhere that give cheap or free courses for almost any skill that can be used to make $2,000 in a weekend.

Start small. Start easy. Don’t get stressed about “building a business”. Learn the skills, get one client, scale, repeat.

2) THE AVERAGE MILLIONAIRE HAS SEVEN SOURCES OF INCOME

Nobody can get rich from a job. You can’t build real abundance.

According to the IRS, the average millionaire has seven sources of income.

This is important for two reasons:

• A job is only ONE source of income. But if it’s taking fifty hours a week (40 hours plus commuting, etc.) you won’t have time for other sources.
• Even more interesting: BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR is only one source of income.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, go for it.

You have a vision, you have a client, you have business sense, you have profits (so you don’t need welfare from vulture capital firms), and you have a sense of how you can sell your company.

But you can be a “lifestyle entrepreneur” as well. Focus on skill acquisition and providing services (or finding a good side hustle) that you can decide to either scale or move onto the next stream of income.

Another side hustle I like: find stuff cheap on Ali Baba. Sell expensive on Amazon.

But this isn’t an article on being an entrepreneur.

I’m so glad I quit my job when I did. I’ve done it twice in my life. Both times changed my life.

3) YOUR BOSS HATES YOU

At least… my very first boss hated me. The only way I could keep doing what I wanted when I had a job was to keep giving him credit for everything I did.

Else he’d call me into his office and yell at me. I don’t think any adult should be yelled at by another adult.

If you hate your job, so does your boss.

Why?

Because he’s in the same spot you are. He’s got a boss, who has a boss, who has a boss, who has a boss.

Unless you are working for an entrepreneurial company where you are learning huge skills and maybe its even paying you in proportion to the value you bring, then you are often at the narcissistic whims of your boss.

79% of people who leave their jobs cite “lack of appreciation” a.k.a. their boss hates them.

And he or she is struggling to hold onto their job as well, while all the young people are learning new skills, working longer hours, and have less responsibilities at home.

They are afraid of you. They will block you from success and happiness.

And will throw you under the bus if they need to in order to save their own temporary status in the middle class.

4) THE MIDDLE CLASS IS DISAPPEARING SO JUMP SHIP BEFORE THE SHIP SINKS

Here’s average income since 1990 for people ages 25–34:

Note it hasn’t changed. This sucks.

How come? Because student loan debt for that age group has gone from near $0 to over a trillion dollars.

Because health care costs have gone up 8x faster than inflation.

Because job turnover is greater than ever so there is more uncertainty.

Salary is the same BUT health care is up HUGE and loans are up HUGE = DISAPPEARING MIDDLE CLASS.

1991 is when “the web” began it’s non-stop rise into the mainstream, increasing productivity, costing jobs, reducing the need for middle management and other middle class jobs.

What’s next? AI, robots, blockchain, and the access economy described above will further reduce the need for middle class positions.

What’s next? 20 million young Americans with student loan debt will be forced to take jobs they hate because they can’t get rid of this debt in bankruptcy.

Because they are forced to starting paying down these loans, corporations will know they have a serf-like audience of potential employees and will pay less and less money.

These 20 million people who might have once been innovators or started companies or took more risks are now forced to be salesmen in eyeglass stores just to make interest payments and pay rent.

Nothing wrong with that job. But they can never leave that job. Dooming them to leave the middle class their parents enjoyed in the ’70s through the ’90s and forcing them to cut every corner.

The middle class is dying and nobody cares.

5) A JOB IS THE OPPOSITE OF WELL-BEING

Here’s how I like to make a “YES” decision:

• Will the “YES” improve my relationships with others?
• Will the “YES” improve my mastery of something I love?
• Will the “YES” increase my freedom – my ability to make more decisions for myself each day?

At a job, you are forced to be friends with people simply if they are in the cubicle next to you.

At a job, skill acquisition is limited to the particular micro-niche your company has assigned you to.

At a job, you have rules about what to wear, how to speak to the opposite sex, what time to come into work, what activity you have to do for 50 weeks of each year, and even what you are allowed to take home. (Don’t steal the paperclips!)

A job will hardly meet the qualifications above. And those qualifications are the three components of what positive psychologists call “well-being”.

In other words, a job equals unwell-being.

6) THE OTHER PERKS OF A JOB ARE GOING AWAY

When I worked for a big company there was great healthcare, four weeks vacation, and you basically could get away with hanging out doing nothing most of the day.

Right now, according to a study by Glassdoor, the average employee sacrificed over 50% of their vacation last year. And 10% of employees took none of their vacation time.

How come? Because they won’t want to be replaced by the other people who are taking no vacation time.

40 years of that and you are dead and what was it all for?

Well, what about the benefits of stability that jobs supposedly had?

7) HEALTH

Two out of five employees in America blame gaining weight on their jobs.

They are sitting around all day, snacking, and too busy to take advantage of the wellness programs offered by their employers (63% say they don’t use any of the wellness programs of their employers).

Spending on healthcare by employees WHO ARE COVERED by health insurance increased 44% between 2006 and now according to the Healthcare Cost Institute.

Why?

I have no idea. All I know is the end result. A job is costing people more money on their medical spending.

A job is costing people less health.

8) DIVERSIFY STATUS HIERARCHIES

I was jealous when my friend got promoted to “Senior Programmer Analyst”.

I was a “Junior Programmer Analyst” and I thought I was better than him. But he had been there longer.

And then after that was “assistant project manager”, “project manager”, “director”, “vice president”, “senior vice president”, and then a bunch of other titles.

Everyone had a rank. Like in the military.

And everyone had to pay respect to people higher in the ranking system.

This sucks. We’re not monkeys. But we are.

Every species of primate fires off neurochemicals depending on whether they are moving up or down the hierarchy of the tribe.

The main benefit of being human is that we can be in more than one tribe. We can diversify our status hierarchies.

Money might be one hierarchy.

Many people think net worth leads to more self-worth. I know for me I was dead broke when I finally realized that self-worth leads to more net worth.

But also golf score can be another status hierarchy. Or “likes” on Instagram. Or reviews on a creative project. Or skills acquired at an online learning site.

At a job, there is one hierarchy. Just like in a tribe of monkeys. But when you leave the job, you can pick and choose hierarchies.

Whenever I am feeling down about one area of my life, I focus on the areas of my life where I can improve, feel better about my status, and re-energize accordingly.

“Happy brain chemicals” like serotonin, dopamine (the leading causes of depression when they are lacking), and oxytocin are all related to where you fit into your hierarchy.

The way to not be a monkey and have more opportunities to increase your happy chemicals is to be in more than one tribe.

I used to daytrade. Day trading often is horrible.

You can lose money and every neurochemical is going the wrong way. But because I wasn’t working 40 hours a week, I had time to exercise (increasing endorphins, improving my stamina, etc.).

I had time for creative projects (another status hierarchy) or I could simply play chess more (improving my ranking in that world).

Diversification is not an “invest in stocks” strategy. It’s an “invest in happiness” strategy. One that is harder when you have a full time job.

9) HAVING A PRODUCTIVE LIFE

Most eight hour jobs mean you work two hours a day TOPS and then sit around in meetings, chatting with co-workers you don’t like, taking coffee breaks, commuting, doing nothing.

This is what a typical work day is like:

Wake up at 6am, eat, commute, work by 9am. Then there’s smoking breaks, eating breaks, coffee breaks, commute.

Actual work involves meetings. How many hours per day? I don’t know.

When I was at a corporate job I suspect the average person actually was working about 10 of the 40 hour work week and mostly wasting time the other 30 hours.

30 hours a week for 50 weeks is 1,500 hours.

I wanted those 1,500 hours.

Build a business, write a book, learn new skills, be with family, play games, whatever you want.

Being productive is not about sitting behind a desk so you get a promotion.

Being productive is about using time to make a better you.

10) GO TO THE BATHROOM WHERE YOU WANT

There was ZERO chance I was going to go to the bathroom in the stall next to my boss.

I don’t know why. I just refused to go to the bathroom at work.

When you go to the bathroom at work, if there are no walls on the stalls, you’re just about two inches from your boss exploding the bathroom right alongside of you.

So I would run to the elevator, run across the street, down the block, go into the New York Public Library, run down four flights of stairs into the stacks, and use the one bathroom I knew was always available and empty.

But if you don’t have a job… knock yourself out. Destroy ALL the bathrooms. Who cares?

11) FINDING YOUR PASSION

If you love your job, stick with it. If you are working at your passion job, that’s great. I’m envious of you.

But many people don’t feel that way. Many people. And I was one of them, wanting to jump ship and figure out their lives.

Many people, and I was one of them, are on the treadmill of school, college, job, job, job, retirement, death.

I often did it very wrong. Sometimes I focused on money more than freedom. Sometimes I was envious and was in the wrong status hierarchy.

Here is Danica Patrick’s (best female professional race car driver in history) advice to me on how to find your passion. Plus I will add one more:

• Ask yourself, How would you structure the ideal day?
• What photos are on your phone? The thing you take the most photos of might contain a clue.
• What makes you most energized? List everything you did this past month and then rank them by how happy you were when you were doing that activity.

These all lead to clues as to your purpose.

Let me add one more.

• What were you most interested in at ages 12–15? How have they aged?

When I was 12 I kept a notebook on “who liked who and why” about every boy and girl in my class.

Decades later I’m a writer.

——

Don’t believe me. Stay with a boss that hates you.

A job that is keeping you locked on a chain around your neck, tantalizing you with incremental increases in pay and job title.

Stay in a culture that is quietly replacing the entire middle class. This is not anyone’s fault. This is the tectonic plates of economics destroying an entire suburban culture that has lasted for almost 100 years.

Until you choose yourself for success, and all that choice entails, you will be locked into the prison.

You will stare into your lover’s eyes looking for a sign that he or she loves you back. But slowly the lights will fade, the warmth of another body will grow cold, and you will go to sleep dreamless in the dark once again.

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