MY THIRD BOOK CHALLENGE: WHAT WOULD [INSERT RELIGIOUS LEADER] EAT?

In the Choose Yourself Publishing Group, I post a new book challenge approximately once a month. [Get access to the Group here.]

The idea of each challenge is:

• The book can be done in a month
• The book doesn’t have to be big (30-50 pages is fine for a self-published book. More of course is fine. And so is less.)
• Many opportunities for sequels and ancillary income potential
• Even if the idea is not GREAT, it gets you going and can create an interesting book (at least for me)
• Easy to market

Here’s the latest. Knock yourself out:

Book Challenge #3:

WHAT WOULD JESUS EAT?

(And Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna, Mother Teresa, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, and Moses (and more)).

The book should be both inspirational and diet/nutritional. Science and history-based.

Each chapter, based on historical texts, archaeology, religious texts, DNA tests: What was the diet of each religious leader?

This book could come in under 50 pages and be done in just a few weeks.

Feel free to add religious or inspirational leaders that I am missing.

Sequels could be “Diets of the Saints” or “Diets of Today’s Top Religious Leaders”.

The fact that this is in the Diet, Nutrition, Religous, Motivational, and Inspirational categories gives many opportunities to create a #1 Amazon bestseller.

THE POINT:

• Each of these leaders was successful.

Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, clearly each of the above has had an impact on the world. 7 billion people know who each of the above are.

Their diets had to be good enough to keep their brains and bodies functioning at a high level to accomplish all that they have done.

• Interspersed within each chapter will be inspirational quotes, stories, etc. about the religious leader that chapter is focusing on.

The idea is that each of these people, regardless of your opinion of them, had much to say and did much that inspired millions or billions.

Muhammad for instance, didn’t achieve his greatest successes until he was well into his 50s. That by itself is inspirational (and also suggests: what kind of diet gave him that energy then?).

So the book is an inspirational book as well as a diet book. Two categories that independently can create great success.

• The cultural history of that time.

What was the Mediterranean diet of the year 0? What was the Chinese diet in 500 BC, etc.?

What was the historical context that created the political climate of these leaders? For instance, we still don’t know if Lao Tzu was a spiritual leader or a political one.

What is the science behind kosher and Shariah and Hindu eating laws?

• The science: What are the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet that Jesus presumably ate?

Or the Chinese diets of Lao Tzu and Confucius? Or the Hindu diet of the mythical Krishna? (We don’t know if Krishna existed but we can put together a probable diet of that time.)

Do we have any DNA or archaeological results that shed some new light on their diets?

In other words, why are each of these diets healthy, even today? Or particularly because of today?

• Recipes.

MARKETING:

• While writing the book, start to participate in religious Facebook groups and build credibility and even an audience.
• Write smaller articles for related websites. Maybe even take a chapter, simplify it, and publish on various sites ranging from open sites (Medium) to niche-specific sites.
• Cheap Amazon ads or Facebook ads.
• Even create a Kickstarter. (For each level, get another religious leader’s recipes. Or even a t-shirt with a recipe of a meal Jesus would eat. This is an alternative way to get an “advance” plus a built-in customer base.)

FUTURE INCOME POTENTIAL:

• Put an email list signup in the book to get additional recipes and down the road there could be an upsell to a monthly newsletter. For instance, a “What Would Jesus Eat?” newsletter.
• Speaking gigs: Churches, synagogues, mosques, other religious centers, schools, colleges, etc.
• Monthly crate box: Ingredients for a month’s worth of recipes delivered on the first of each month.

 

You can post your finished books in the comments section or by emailing me here.

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10 Lessons I’ve Learned From Shark Tank

I just pitched a business reality show. I went to LA, pitched to nine networks. It went well.

The first business reality TV show I watched in my life was Shark Tank. I’ve watched every episode. I force my kids to watch it. I’ve studied every aspect of the show.

I’ve had many of the Sharks on my podcast: Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary, Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, Robert Herjavec, and Kevin Harrington (a first season Shark).

I’ve also coached several entrepreneurs who have gone on Shark Tank, were terrified beforehand, I coached them, and they got their deals.

One time I was up all night with an entrepreneur, throwing potential difficult questions at her and working her through her responses. Mark Cuban ended up writing the check.

—

On Shark Tank: five investors sit on a stage, keeping them slightly higher than the supplicants who come in asking for money.

Then, one by one, aspiring entrepreneurs are led into the “Shark Tank” where they pitch their products. And the Sharks, right then and there, decide whether or not to give them money.

The entrepreneurs are often humiliated, laughed at, insulted, ask the stupidest questions I’ve ever heard, but occasionally get some good advice and even better, walk away with a check if one or more of the “Sharks” think their business is a good idea.

“The Sharks” as the show describes them, “are filthy rich” and invest their own money.

It’s not always the same sharks each show. Mark Cuban is often a shark. (See also, “How I Helped Mark Cuban Make a Billion Dollars“)

And the rest of the often rotating cast includes Barbara Corcoran of real estate fame, Kevin O’Leary who started and sold “The Learning Company” for $3.2 billion to Mattel, Robert Herjavec, who has sold “companies worth $350 million”, Daymond John who started Fubu and “has sold $6 billion worth of products”.

I’m never jealous of any of these people. Money doesn’t buy happiness but it certainly solves your money problems. It’s up to you after that to be happy or not. To not self sabotage at every opportunity.

I can tell you this: I am very good at making money but have often had a talent for self sabotage. A talent I have been hoping these past few years to suppress.

So I think highly of the people who have learned through experience not to sabotage their successes. I think very highly of all of the Sharks.

So what have I learned from the show? Some items are good for investors, some for entrepreneurs, some for me, and some for my kids.

1. Math

The first thing that happens when an entrepreneur enters is they say: “Hi, my name is ABC and I’m asking for $100,000 for a 10% stake in my company.”

At this point we would pause the show and I’d ask my kids how much the company is worth.

Any trader, investor, entrepreneur, does this math instantly and I wanted my kids to get good at it.

And they did. At first the answers (from either kid) would be a nervous, “I don’t know”. Then they’d start to figure it out but still be nervous “One… million?” And then finally, by the last episode, they were doing it in their head and blurting it out before I even hit pause.

But sometimes the entrepreneurs would present confusing numbers like, “I’m asking for $85,000 for 15% of my company.” And then they’d launch straight into their story.

To be honest, I can’t even do this accurately and quickly in my head. I always wondered if these entrepreneurs did this on purpose so that the sharks would focus more on the product than the specific valuation.

2. Not Everything is as it Appears 

This is a TV show. Not a venture capital firm (where, also, by the way, not everything is as it appears. In fact, in all of life, nothing is as it appears but this is never more true than a “reality” TV show).

When you see a three minute conversation on Shark Tank, that might have actually been a three hour conversation.

They edit it to create the greatest drama. That’s what they should do. It’s a TV show.

But you will lose in business if you think this is representative of negotiations and presentations.

My guidance for people who are going on the show, or for anyone who pitches any investor, is to carefully study every aspect of the background of the people you are pitching.

Heck, even do it before first dates! Ten years ago I was going on a date and I saw that the woman was interested in Kabbalah.

I didn’t know anything. But I spent the day reading everything I could. I was pitching myself. Did I marry her? No. But I still do this whenever I am pitching something.

3. Sell the Dream, not the Sales

Many of the entrepreneurs go in there and say, “I sold $11,000 of this product last year from my garage.”

These are the people that get either the worst deals or no deal at all.

Nobody cares about $11,000 in sales. Sometimes the Sharks didn’t even care about $1 million in sales over the last year. (A great example was games2u.com which I thought was an excellent company but walked away with no deal.)

And yet some companies with no sales walked away with a great deal.

Here’s what the Sharks, or any investor, want to really understand:

Do you have a great product? Do you know what the size of your market is? Do you have some sense of a business model?

The DREAM is what people buy. Perception is reality.

How do they know if you have a great product? They can tell by your background, they can tell by the technical expertise you needed to make the product, they can tell if you have a patent, and they can tell if you say, “I have three distributors about to send me purchase orders for the product.”

You might not have a dime of sales but if you show that people are interested and that your product is special, you’ll get an offer. If you also say, “And for the last three years I’ve had a total of $53,000 in sales even though I’ve had a full time job” then you will definitely not get a deal.

Sell the dream. Better not to have sales unless you are going to blow them away with your sales numbers.

4. Don’t Nickel and Dime

It’s not so bad to “nickel plus dime” and I’ll explain that in a moment.

But if you went in there and said, “I’d like $100 for 25% of my company” and you have no sales and one of the Sharks says, “I’ll give you $100 for 40% of your company” then just say yes.

What do you care about the percentage? As Cuban said in one of the episodes, “Better to have 20% of a $100 million company than 100% of nothing.”

With one successful company I sold I wanted my partner to take 10%. Instead they asked for 50%. I gave it to them and sold the company four months later. To them! Because with 50% they had to care. With 10% maybe they would not have cared.

However, you should nickel plus dime. If Mark Cuban offers you $100,000 for 30% of your company push forward and ask for a few more nickels.

In any negotiation, whoever has the bigger list WINS. Because then you can give up the nickels for the dimes.

Price is often the least important part of a negotiation. Ask him: Can you introduce me to Netflix, can you get me a promotional deal with the Dallas Mavericks, are there any distributors you can help me license my product to?

Get value out of every deal aside from the money.

Money won’t save or help your business for more than a short time. But the right deal and connections will make or break you.

So while they are playing around with the dimes, make sure you collect as many nickels that they may have left lying on the floor.

If you want a deal, then take a deal. Unless…

5. Don’t Take the ‘Hail Mary’ Deal

Kevin O’Leary is famous for this deal.

He waits for the other Sharks to say, “I’m Out” and then he knows he’s the only possibility left for the entrepreneur. So then it suddenly doesn’t matter at all what they are asking for. Let’s say the entrepreneur is growing, they have profits, they have $1 million in sales, etc. Kevin O’Leary doesn’t care at all.

Instead, he makes the Hail Mary offer. Let’s say they were asking for $500,000 for 10% of their company, valuing their company at $5 million. Even if the company could be reasonably valued at that, he doesn’t care.

He’ll say, “I’ll take 51% of your company for $500,000.”

It doesn’t matter to him if they say “yes” or “no”.

If they say “yes”, then it’s a great deal for him. He just bought control of a company he knows is worth a lot more. If they say “no” then no problem. One out of 10 will say “yes” and he just has to wait it out.

It’s the same concept as the story of the guy who wants to have sex so he stands on a street corner and asks every woman who passes him to have sex with him. Obviously every girl will say “no” to him. Except for maybe one out of 200. He’s just standing there waiting for that one. And he’ll get it. Unless it’s me. Then its one out of 3,000.

BUT here’s an important thing to note: If you are on his side of the table, with non-stop deals being shown you, then ALWAYS wait for a “Hail Mary” deal before you invest.

ALWAYS!

6. Be the Source

Kevin O’Leary has two other techniques as a Shark that I have to admire.

One technique Kevin does is he sits there while one or two of the Sharks make their offer.

Then he asks the entrepreneur to leave the room. Then he turns to the Sharks who made the offer and says, “Lets join forces and do this one together.”

Then the entrepreneur comes back and whereas before they had two or three competing offers (an auction environment is always what you want), now they have only one combined offer.

They have a minute to decide, and the offer is worse than the lowest offer they had before. Kevin takes charge of the auction, makes it an “all or nothing” deal and again places himself in a can’t-lose situation.

He REDUCES THE SUPPLY of offers. Then, simple supply and demand economics, the value goes in his favor. BOOM!

The other technique he uses is to be the Source for the entrepreneur.

ABS: Always Be the Source.

Three or four of the Sharks might make an offer and are competing. Kevin will then say, “Ok, to summarize, here are your four offers.”

So he’s being a source of information. He’s “the bank” all of a sudden, seemingly in control of all four offers, and he can spin them in any way he pleases and quiet the Sharks who protest because he behaves as if it’s a legitimate part of the show.

When you are the Bank, it gives you a slight edge over your competitors because the customer wants to do business with the Bank.

7. The Deal Doesn’t Close Until The Money Hits

Many times the entrepreneur will strike a great deal. He comes in asking for $100,000 for 10% of his company and he might get $300,000 for 5% of his company. At the end, the Shark who made the deal and the entrepreneur will smile and shake hands.

It’s all good. Then, in typical Mark Burnett reality show-style, there’s the post-session interview where the entrepreneur is whooping it up and saying, “Yeah! I just made a deal with the Shark Tank! Yeah!”

My guess is most of these deals don’t close. I only have anecdotal evidence.

But I looked up several of the companies afterwards and there’s no mention of their new co-investor. There’s only mention of, “See us on ABC’s Shark Tank this Tuesday!”

Any deal in life goes through several stages: sales, initial questions, the auction (if there is one), the accepted offer, the honeymoon period, due diligence, legal contracts, potential buyer/seller remorse, and then cash getting wired.

The TV show only takes us through “the accepted offer” but at any point there’s the chance the deal can fail. This is important to remember in any deal at all, including personal relationships.

8. Know What You Are Good At

When an entrepreneur first steps through the door, we would try to figure out which investor/Shark was good for the entrepreneur and we were usually right. If it was a clothing idea then if the FUBU guy didn’t like it, it was all over.

If a product looked like it would be ideal for an infomercial (a pushup machine that makes pushups easier) and the informercial expert didn’t like it then no deal. If it was an Internet play and Mark Cuban didn’t like it, then no deal.

This is useful to me as an investor. I am invested in over 30 companies. I’ve had many successful exits (“Buddy Media”’s $800 million sale to Salesforce and TicketFly’s $450 million sale to Pandora are two examples).

I don’t like to think very hard when I invest in private companies.

I like to know that expert investors who are experts in the space of the company are co-investing alongside of me.

In fact, another Kevin O’Leary trick: he would stay silent, but if he saw that the informercial king was investing, he’d try to get in on the action and partner with him because he knows the infomercial king would make an infomercial, get it on TV, and do all the hard work.

It’s also useful to entrepreneurs.

Pitch to the right guy. Don’t just throw it out there to Barbara Corcoran, the real estate queen, if you have a product that you are going to sell to fire stations.

Which leads me to…

9. Get Advice When You Can

Some of the pitching entrepreneurs simply had bad ideas.

If you’re selling a pair of jeans, for instance, and the FUBU guy doesn’t want to buy it, then that tells you right there that you probably have a bad idea.

But I only once on the show heard anyone ask, “What did I do wrong in this pitch?” asking for advice. And even then, when they gave him advice, he was defensive and insulting to them.

If you don’t get the deal, learn what you did wrong, and either modify your product, your approach, or just start a new business. This is not the end of your life if you don’t get some crappy deal on Shark Tank.

Always ask for advice. Keep “beginner’s mind”. Always be curious.

Finally…

10. Who Cares?

You just presented your product for 15 minutes on a nationally broadcasted TV show that will be re-aired at least two or three times and sell a ton of shows on iTunes. That sort of advertising would cost about a million dollars or more.

So who cares if you get a deal?

Don’t start the blame game. Don’t make excuses. Make opportunities.

Make sure your website is ready for publicity, for the onslaught of traffic and orders no matter how good or bad the product is, and be thankful for the free publicity. Some of these people were crying when they couldn’t get a deal.

An entrepreneur takes advantage of every situation and opportunity.

Setbacks are always opportunities. But the path might be different.

A million dollars worth of free advertising plus great advice from a bunch of billionaires is a great experience for you and your business. Make the most of it.

---

These 10 lessons are for my daughters because I told them at the end of our marathon Shark Tank session that if they don’t have an idea by next week that they can build into a business, then “No Christmas this year and no summer vacation!” Which would make my life infinitely easier.

That’s the way I roll. Take it or leave it.

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“Living” Is The Only Purpose Of Life

I’m a sociopath. Or a narcissist. Or a fraud. A scam. A con. A criminal. A bad son. Asperger’s. Money is my “religion”. “Crazy!”

It’s a good thing everyone else is so perfect. 

That way after I upset them they can tell me very clearly what I am.

My friend recently was broken up with by her boyfriend. “He was a narcissist,” she said.

And yes, he sounded like it when she described all the things he did. “He didn’t even want a dog! Who is like that?”

“He wasn’t like that when I fell in love,” she said, “But maybe that’s what sociopaths do.”

Sounds like it!

Lots of narcissists and sociopaths. All my friends went out with one, or five.

The Bible used to say, “Thou shall not kill”. Or “Turn the other cheek” or “Cast not the first stone” as a way of saying, “do not judge lest you be judged.”

It also says God was angry at Onan. What?

Self-help says, “Be positive.” This sounds stupid.

Life is pretty hard. You can’t pretend to be positive. Some days just suck.

It’s OK to be sad sometimes. Happiness is just one emotion among thousands.

“It must have been so freeing,” people said to me wistfully when I told them I threw out all of my belongings.

No! Sometimes I missed things. Sometimes I was melancholy. And I love that feeling.

Diversify your emotions so you aren’t dependent on just one.

Now the Bible is the DSM-6. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

You and I. We’re crazy.

The “Spectrum” is the new “Genius”. Goodbye “Introvert”.

—

I wrote some software to diagnose my friends.

It was on something brand new called “The World Wide Web”. This was 1992.

They arrive at a web site (maybe there were 100 websites in the world then) and fill out a questionnaire.

It was like a tree of questions navigating through the DSM-III (or IV, I forget). And at the end, it would tell them what they were.

I’m proud to say I was “Schizoid Affective Disorder”. A brand new disease!

Then, I threw a party. I put up everyone’s diagnosis so everyone could see what mental illness all of our friends were.

One of my friends wrote the software for what became a $2 billion search engine.

Another wrote software for something I don’t understand that he sold for $40 million. Another wrote another search engine that Yahoo bought for billions.

My friends just loved making search engines!

I only wrote software to make people laugh.

That’s so crazy!

—

I’ve seen actual crazy. It’s not like the movies. And it’s not your friend’s boyfriend who cheated.

Crazy is when the person you knew “checks out” and a monster “checks in”.

The doctor told me even on medication “it could be six months” before the person you know “returns”.

The depth of sadness when that person who is close to you dies to you. I died.

I don’t know how to describe it.

“The person you knew checks out and a monster checks in.” I’ll let the professionals do the work here.

In Hollywood movies, “Manic Depressive” usually means some days they are sad and some days they are REALLY, REALLY happy. This is “Hollywood Bipolar.”

Real bipolar, real mental illness, is progressive and gets worse and worse.

They stop medication and become worse because mania feels larger than life. They don’t want to stop being GOD.

Real bipolar people lose all of their friends. Nobody can take care of them.

Real bipolar people end up homeless (60% of homeless are bipolar).

Real bipolar people often kill themselves because they refuse to take medication until its too late.

It’s a disease.

I don’t know what I can do to help someone who is bipolar. They usually don’t want help.

But cleaning my own room is the first step to clean the world.

The only purpose in life is to live. I just want to live the best life I can today.

Yesterday was a wisp of memory, a puff of personality. And tomorrow is the ghost of distant future.

My insecurities are not so important. My fears. The people offended by me. The people I am offended by. But they try to pull me down into the water.

We’re all boats on a foggy night. Where is home? I want to go home.

“Living life” is trying as much as possible to be the Beacon of Light that clears the fog on a drizzly night. Come home safely, ships!

You can’t drag the ships home if they crash. You can’t control the ships. You can’t talk to the ships.

Just be the light.

—

Sorry for being corny.

How do I try to be the light? That sounds pretentious.

Don’t do anything.

Thats what I tell myself. Living is the only purpose of life. Ask, “Am I ‘LIVING’?” Then you are a beacon.

What can I do today to break out of the routine fog?

It takes focus. I have to tell myself, “Don’t get bogged down in the agendas of friends, family, teachers, jobs, government, culture.”

Be aware of the agendas. Slow down the fear of not subscribing to those agendas. Even for a little brief nano-second.

For a moment, be the beacon. Then try again. And again.

So many people dead at 25 and buried at 75.

I am still alive.

“Destroy the idea that you have to be constantly working or grinding in order to be successful. Embrace the concept that rest, recovery, reflection are essential parts of the progress towards a successful and happy life.”

-Zach Galifianakis

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29 Quotes To Help Inspire You

A big thanks to “Wealthy Gorilla” for collecting these 29 quotes that inspired him from my writing.

It was nice to be reminded of some of the things I’ve written over the years. So I’m sharing them below.

—

1.) “Always say to yourself, I’d rather be healthy than right. Because the infection of someone so wounded will spread to you if you engage.”

2.) “Being grateful is the bridge between the world of nightmares and the world where we are free to say no. It’s the bridge between the world of delusions and the world of creativity.”

3.) “But business is just a vehicle for transforming the ideas in your head into something real, something tangible, that actually improves the lives of others.”

4.) “Excuses are easy lies we tell ourselves to cover up our failures.”

5.) “Excuses are leaks in a boat. When you cover one, another pops up, and it’s even bigger. It’s hard to keep the boat repaired and get safely to shore if you have an excuse mind-set.”

6.) “Forget purpose. It’s okay to be happy without one. The quest for a single purpose has ruined many lives.”

7.) “He took a survey of personal finance authors who recommend that people keep budgets, and he found that none of them actually kept budgets themselves.”

8.) “I have lots of ideas. How do I pick the right one? Execute on as many as possible. The right idea will pick you.”

9.) “If coming up with ten ideas sounds too hard, then come up with twenty.”

10.) “If we truly want to learn, we never learn when we are talking. We only learn when we are listening.”

11.) “Luck is created by the prepared.”

12.) “No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter who your audience is: 30 percent will love it, 30 percent will hate it, and 30 percent won’t care.”

13.) “Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I can’t wait to clean out some shit today.”

14.) “Only free time, imagination, creativity, and an ability to disappear will help you deliver value that nobody ever delivered before in the history of humankind.”

15.) “Only think about the people you enjoy, and only read the books you enjoy, that make you happy to be human. Only go to the events that actually make you laugh or fall in love.”

16.) “Only worry about your own happiness, which doesn’t have to be limited by anyone else’s stupidity unless you allow it to be.”

17.) “Perfectionism is the enemy of the idea muscle. Perfectionism is your brain trying to protect you from harm—from coming up with an idea that is embarrassing and stupid and could cause you to suffer pain.”

18.) “Someone who is reinventing always has spare time. Part of reinvention is collecting little bits and pieces of time and carving them the way you want them to be.”

19.) “Stick with the people who love you and don’t spend a single second on the rest. Life will be better that way.”

20.) “The best way I have ever found to fill that hole is not to seek external motivations to fill the emptiness, but to ignite the internal fire that will never go out. To light up my own inner sky.”

21.) “The only things that really matter in this world are the relationships you have with the people you love, and the meaningful things that you do.”

22.) “The only truly safe thing you can do is to try over and over again. To go for it, to get rejected, to repeat, to strive, to wish. Without rejection there is no frontier, there is no passion, and there is no magic.”

23.) “There is nobody you need to impress. There is nobody who is judging you. And there will be nobody who can stop you.”

24.) “This is about a new phase in history where art, science, business, and spirit will join together, both externally and internally, in the pursuit of true wealth. It’s a phase where ideas are more important than people.”

25.) “We all want to de-clutter. To throw things out. But a minimalist lifestyle is bullshit unless you can do it across every sheath in the daily practice: not just physical, but also emotional, mental, and spiritual.”

26.) “What you need to do is build the house you will live in. You build that house by laying a solid foundation: by building physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.”

27.) “When you get in the mud with a pig, you get dirty and the pig gets happy.”

28.) “When you give up searching for frontiers, inevitably you end up stuck in a swamp, sinking deeper into the mud the more you struggle to get out.”

29.) “When you rush to get to a mythical there, one day you will arrive and realize you missed all of the pleasures and mysteries along the way.”

—

(Thanks again Dan Western. Here’s the article that he wrote.)

 

 

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I Didn’t Want Her To Be Born. And Then…

I didn’t want her.

I thought to myself, how can I love anyone as much as I love Josie (her older sister)? And then Mollie was born.

When a baby is born this is what happens:

A new one foot tall US citizen moves into your house, can’t speak English, shits on the floor, cries all the time, and then sucks on your wife’s breasts.

A horrible roommate that you are stuck with because she has an 18 year lease.

I loved her three-year-old sister so much, how could I love her? It would be unfair.

But I did. But I do. But I will.

—

At night I was performing. I called her from the stage at 11:17 PM and put the speaker on and put the mic by the phone.

The audience shouted, “Happy Birthday!” and clapped.

Then, the joke of course. I said, “Ok, Mollie, F*** you” and I hung up.

We had planned that in advance. I have a new 17-year-old that I can plan things like that in advance and she will think its funny.

The audience was shocked and then I said, “I’m still trying to figure out this ‘father’ thing” and they laughed. Because it’s true.

Who am I to give advice?

She will figure out her own mistakes and problems and solutions (hopefully).

But I can say two things to her:

• Don’t be a perfectionist.
• Don’t get angry quickly. Anger is fear clothed.

And also, laugh a lot.

The greatest video in the history of mankind is this one of her laughing. She is laughing at a video her sister made for her. (Click here to watch it.)

Perhaps the greatest pleasure for me is helping to create these two beautiful women who love each other so much.

Happy Birthday, Mollie Altucher. Keep laughing.

 

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Everyone Should Hear This Advice

The Real Cost of the College Admissions Scandal

The real cost of the college admissions scandal is the death of the nation.

I’m not a doom and gloom guy. In fact, I’m so optimistic that because of “pessimism bias” many people think I’m stupid.

I always think the economy is going to go up in the long run, for instance. I think any climate issues will go away or be solved. I eat GMOs like they are popcorn.

I can’t wait for the Alzheimer’s vaccine I’m going to take right after my first space tourism adventure.

I read books like “Factfulness” by Hans Rosling and “Enlightenment Now” by Steven Pinker just to keep getting confirmation that all my optimism is SMART. I’m SMART, damnit.

But… the beginning of the end:

Successful famous people are using money to buy their kids into college.

When second or third tier kids (i.e. less qualified) get high SAT scores and get into tier one colleges, what happens?

It’s not just about, “Get those rich people!” There’s a deeper societal impact that is scary.

The real first tier students (i.e. qualified but honest) have too much pressure on them to get high SAT scores and they can no longer get into the first tier colleges.

The first tier kids get into second or third tier colleges, and so on.

Because demand becomes artificially high and (with the best of intentions) student loans are backed by the government, tuitions go up. Why wouldn’t they? That’s Economics 101.

Unqualified but dishonest kids will marry other kids at their college and have rich, famous kids, passing on their mediocre genes.

And the real first tier kids will go to sub-par schools and get into higher debt.

Their potential will be funneled into debt payments rather than creating innovation.

Their kids will be held down by that debt and will end up in third tier or fourth tier schools as this trend continues.

This will reduce their networking opportunities.

What is the result?

Income inequality spreads. Dumb, rich people get richer. Smart, poor (or smart, honest, rich) people get poorer.

This is not a rich vs poor thing. I want the first tier kids to get RICH beyond belief. I want them to cure cancer and make $100 for every person they cure.

I want them to create stem cell meats and get $1 for every hydroponic steak sold.

But they won’t. They will be HR manager at Procter & Gamble and their kids will be janitors with community college degrees.

Nothing wrong with that.

But when there is income inequality like this, people get angry without understanding the reason.

This is what creates the extremes at each side of a relatively centrist country.

With one side insisting on income redistribution (a form of fascism) and the other side leaning towards fascism.

But, you might say, only 50 parents were caught.

Obviously that was just the tip of the iceberg. My guess is there are thousands of parents or more sweating it out this morning.

We will never find all of them.

And the system will create more quiet techniques for cheating and the brave, rich, and deceitful among us will find more clever ways to get their kids advantages.

The real first tier future entrepreneurs will struggle for the scraps of success they would have been due in an honest system.

Income inequality ends in two ways historically: war and plague.

Think of every great empire from Rome to the United Kingdom that ultimately disintegrated into its excesses after massive income inequality.

Now… I couldn’t call myself an optimist if I didn’t have a solution:

Solution: 

• Make online universities accredited.
• Give incentives for companies to reward skill acquisition over college degree.
• Stop backing student loans when the students can’t even get relief from debt in a bankruptcy.
• Provide student loan relief to 20 million Americans. How do you pay for it? Just print the money. 2009 showed you can print $1 trillion and the resulting increase in productivity will offset inflation. This will be an even greater increase in productivity. And if there is inflation, so be it.
• Punish severely guilty parents of the current crime, reducing the incentives for future parents to do this.
• Take away the degrees of any kids that got their admissions illegally.

Some of these sound harsh.

But I see kids staying up until 2 in the morning studying for rigged SATs to compete with kids who have these illegal advantages.

I don’t care if their competitors are smarter than them or come from rich families. I care that they cheat.

And cheating makes anxiety levels of all other teenagers go up, causing mental and physical health challenges later in life, not to mention the income inequality mentioned above.

I’m a pessimist. But this is how we save the world.

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I Am Always Scared

As I’m writing this, I’m about to interview Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The first time a Supreme Court Justice has ever been on a podcast.

The first, first time.

As usual, I am very nervous. I’m terrified.

I’ve done 500 episodes of “The James Altucher Show” and maybe 1,000 other podcasts but I still get nervous before each one.

EACH one. I always want to cancel about one minute before it starts.

What if the guest doesn’t like me? What if the guest thinks I’m stupid?

What if my listeners think I asked stupid questions? What if I’m too shy? What if I’m not prepared enough?

I was thinking this for the past week about this podcast. Read three books about her. Watched commencement addresses, interviews, etc.

And then I forget everything about 30 seconds before the podcast begins. And the terror begins.

I’m honored she agreed to come on. I’m not sure why she agreed to my podcast but I’m grateful.

Before coming here, I did a little survey of my friends: If you have a parking ticket, can you appeal it all the way up to the Supreme Court?

Nobody had a clue: yes or no.

So… I’m afraid I have to ask this naive question. Because I don’t know either.

But then I’m going to focus on the incredible challenges she went through on her way to becoming a Justice.

Not talking politics or issues or cases. I have no interest.

I want to know how to persist. How to be good. How to be knowledgable. How to really build up a strong network of connections and mentors.

Some of her challenges: diabetes, born impoverished in the South Bronx, broken family in various ways, other challenges.

Here current challenge: one of the nine people tasked with interpreting the Constitution for the country.

How does one develop the “First Principles” required to do that? How does one develop the unique view on the world?

How does one speak and write well enough to express that vision, so it can be interpreted by future laws and future judges?

How does one become a voice for all others with challenges who think they don’t have permission to succeed?

I hope she doesn’t think I’m stupid. I hear her down the hall.

Have to go. Scared.

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The Worst Text I Got Since Posting My Number Online

Let me tell you about the worst text I got since publishing my phone number online (and eight other questions from this interview)…

1. With such a varied career, how do you primarily see yourself? As a writer, an entrepreneur, something else…?

Entrepreneurship is too painful. I’ve started over 18 businesses, failed at 16 of them.

Too many employees having sex, too many clients calling at 5pm Friday and saying, “We have to talk” and then disappearing until Monday while I worry all weekend whether or not I’m going out of business. I hate it. I hated the clients.

Writing is great except for all the typing.

70,000 years ago humans did not develop the brains or the fingers to type so much. I’ve typed a million words in the past 10 years. I have carpal tunnel syndrome.

And voice recognition software doesn’t work. When I say, “MC 900 ft. Jesus” it thinks I mean, “MC 900 FEATURING Jesus”.

I’ve written 21 books. Half of them traditionally published, half of them self-published. (One or two books were published both ways. “Publisher-fluid”.)

I love to entertain people while educating them.

Entertainment comes first. If you try to educate first then you are pretentious and nobody reads it anyway. If you entertain first then at least people can enjoy some of the time.

I’m an idiot and I regret things and then I write about it. Regret makes great copy.

2. You’ve famously published your personal phone number to receive questions directly from readers — why do you prefer to engage with your fans this way?

Every day I try to get out of my comfort zone a little bit.

I don’t like to publish something unless I’m afraid of what people will think of me.

If you publish something and you know nobody will be afraid, it probably means someone has written or thought it before.

When I published my number I was afraid. My wife said, “If you publish that, I might have to kill you.” So I published it.

We did get divorced. But I’ve had many great phone conversations and texts with my readers, some of whom have become my best friends, and at least one of them became my wife.

3. I’m curious: What’s the most interesting text you’ve ever received?

“You are a psychopathic Zionist Jew who has implanted electronic chips in my head and has access to new technologies (along with the Rothschilds and the Bilderburgs) to control people remotely. WHY AREN’T YOU WRITING ABOUT THIS????”

Or,

“I”m going to stick you through a wheat thresher.”

That text I tracked down to a student from an elite Ivy League University.

I called the campus police and the guy there told me, “Oh yeah, he said something similar to the librarian. But, look, it’s his last semester, do you really want to do anything to hurt his chances in life?”

4. You’ve published many of your books on your own; what effect has that had on your writing?

It freed me up to focus directly on my readers instead of worry about what an editorial assistant will think, an editor, a marketing department, an agent, a buyer for bookstores, etc. I like to be in direct contact with the people who enjoy my writing.

5. What do you think generally about the self-publishing landscape today?

Self publishing allows people who don’t have access to the parties that editors go to the ability to take the book that’s in their minds and publish.

On Amazon (and even bookstores) you cannot tell the difference between self-published books and traditionally published books.

And, on average, according to authorcentral.com, the average self-published book sells more copies than the average traditionally published book and has higher star reviews on Amazon.

That doesn’t mean there are many poorly written self-published books.

But, percentage-wise, there are less poorly written self-published books than poorly written traditionallly published books.

Traditional publishers are stuck in the, “this worked last year so it will probably work this year” model of selecting books from their heavens to publish to the masses. This technique never works in the long run and is a technique designed only to protect jobs so they can keep going to their boring parties where they stand around talking about bad books.

6. What is the main thing you hope readers take away from your books?

That it’s OK.

It’s OK to fail and try to learn from it and become stronger.

It’s OK to be afraid and know that fear is the only way to expand your comfort zone.It’s important to take charge of your own health, your own relationships, your own creativity, your own spirituality, and create the unique footprint you can then leave on this world.

It’s OK to go around the traditional gatekeepers to express yourself.

The gatekeepers appointed themselves to stop you from being creative.

Now it’s up to us to create, perform, express, impress without their permission. Self-publishing is one way to do this.

And it’s OK to practice your creativity every day. Write down 10 ideas a day to exercise the creativity muscle.

After six months your mind will be rewired. It will be an idea machine that will help you get through any situation.

7. I’ve read that you also wrote stories and fiction in the past, but your releases are mostly categorized as self-help. What ultimately led you to this genre?

One time I lost $15 million in a summer. Another time I lost $9 million in a day.

Both times I went broke and lost my homes and, in part, lost my family. I wish I could have had the money to help my dad when he had his stroke.

I wish I could’ve been at more ballet performances of my children. I wish I could’ve loved the people around me more instead of constantly being scared and anxious about money.

I wish. I wish. I wish.

I know now that you can’t ever mortgage the present for hopes of a better future. Now is all we have.

I don’t think of myself as self-help. I NEED help. I’ve needed help. I only write the stories of what I did to get help.

I try to write as well as possible. I’ve been writing every day for 25 years. I really want to improve and be better every day.

Sometimes people call it self-help because I describe what I did and maybe they can relate. Other times people want to stick me in a wheat thresher.

8. Do you have any desire to try something different in the future?

Yes, I perform stand-up comedy up to five times a week. I do two podcasts a week.

I run several businesses (or pretend to run, I think many people find it debatable if I actually run anything).

But I always want to write. I love writing more than anything except my family.

 

9. What can we look forward to next? (A new book, company, presidential run?)

If I were President I would forgive all student loans.

I’d also force congresspeople to only vote from their districts (this way lobbyists could never get to them).

Then I’d get rid of the Presidency. The only constitutional responsibility of the Presidency is to do a veto (which they rarely do), run the army (and only one of them was actually qualified to do that), make “suggestions” to Congress about laws, and sign treaties, which they rarely do.

Oh, and they can also throw parties for ambassadors.

And yet we spend so much time letting this small tiny office fuel our anger and hatred on both sides of the supposed “aisle”.

So yeah, I want to run for President but I need at least $5 billion now. That’s the cost of entry.

I’m planning a TV show. I’m also planning many more books.

And I like to get on stage and tell stories to 27 people in an audience on a Tuesday night. That was my dream when I was a kid and I’m living it now.

Maybe a novel is next. Or taking my podcast on tour. Or a TV show. Or just watching TV all day.

I love TV.

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4 Rules to Achieving Happiness

This morning I was very unhappy.

I couldn’t get things done. My mind was bouncing like in a pinball machine. And I hated people in my head.

Hated them!

First, I was thinking of at least two people who had wronged me in the past few months. I kept thinking, “But I did X, Y, and Z for them!”

How dare they!

And yet… they treated me horribly and I put up with it.

I kept thinking in my head of the scoreboard. I did this, they did that, I did this, but then they did THAT. And the scoreboard added up to me winning.

1st RULE OF HAPPINESS: No scoreboard.

Catch yourself thinking of the scoreboard and then try to think of other ways to look at it.

Person #1: We moved in different directions. Everything happened for the best.

Person #2: I don’t really understand what happened but he is not the friend I thought he was so it’s all for the best.

The “scoreboard” is the enemy to happiness.

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Then I was unhappy about something else. I wasn’t getting invited to speak at an event I’m usually invited to.

Why not? Why the hell not!?

I could ask. I could try to get invited. But I don’t really want to go anyway.

So it’s a status thing. I want people to like me. I want people to think I have enough status that they invite me to their events.

2nd RULE OF HAPPINESS: Figure out if your unhappiness is due to status.

If yes, then focus on building skills and improving than trying to change someone’s opinion of you.

So I write. I have ideas. I read. I make calls that improve my opportunities.

I try to improve myself instead of improving someone’s image of me.

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For the third time this morning I was unhappy.

I wanted to write but instead I got sidetracked. I tracked down a third cousin of mine via 23andMe. And then we both had fun linking up family trees to find out how we were fully related.

I had never done that before. I had always assumed all the genealogy stuff was BS and I still think it is.

And yet… it was fun to hear this woman’s stories about my great-grandfather from 1940.

Why should I care? I don’t know. But it made me happy.

3rd RULE OF HAPPINESS: If procrastinating, find out the reason. If it makes you happy, indulge.

Indulging in what you love = material for writing. Writing later about this will make me happy.

Procrastination is a basic human need. We didn’t have “to-do” lists 70,000 years ago. We did what our heart was pointing us towards.

If we were hungry, we ate. If we needed to hunt, we hunted. If we needed to run, we ran!

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At one point when everything was whirring around in my head, I was most unhappy.

Sometimes things are going wrong in our mind and bodies FIRST, and then our minds build stories to fill that unhappiness in.

For me, last night I didn’t sleep as much as I used to. And my brain is a bit fried from non-stop work over the past few months.

So my brain started over-reacting to all of these slight insults and pains.

4th RULE OF HAPPINESS: It’s a cliche but it’s really true. Nothing matters.

If you are unhappy and stressed then you certainly won’t be of use to the people around you who you love.

So I took a deep breath and I pictured that I was an alien from another dimension.

I close my eyes and then open them. Who is this body and this mind? Why is he thinking these meaningless thoughts that seem to be causing him some pain?

I have a mission. To calm this body down and do some good today. And then I am gone tomorrow. On another, intergalactic, interdimensional mission.

I am a multi-dimensional, multi-verse superhero, on missions for billions of years and this is just one of them.

Happiness is a bag of chemicals. Some serotonin, some endorphin, some dopamine, reduced cortisol, some oxytocin.

You don’t need to be happy every second. That’s just the meat computer in your head. Don’t be a software program. Be the programmer.

You’re on a mission. Get it done.

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