ERIC ADAMS IS THE ONLY PERSON FIT TO BE MAYOR OF NYC. HERE’S WHY:

(THE ONLY TIME I HAVE EVER WRITTEN A POLITICAL ENDORSEMENT.)

When Brooklyn Borough President and current candidate for Mayor, Eric Adams, was a young teenager he and his brother were victims of severe police brutality. Eric came through this resolving not to be bitter about the past but to create change in the future.

While he was a police officer he created the organization “100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care”, and spoke out against police brutality and he helped create many police reforms. As Brooklyn Borough President he was in favor of stricter gun laws, and continued his work against excessive police force. 

But at the same time, he knows that a community needs safety. Homicides in NYC were at the highest level in nine years in 2020. How can that be? We were all in quarantine! And crime is up even further in 2021 as there is no leadership from Mayor DeBlasio on the important issue of public safety. 

Cities with increased crime end up with fewer residents, less money made from the tax base, fewer jobs for residents, and lower budgets. 

NYC experienced this before and almost went bankrupt in the 70s because of that, when Eric was growing up in the Fort Greene area of Brooklyn. It took NYC 20 years to recover from that horrendous time. 

My goal here is not to tout all of Eric’s accomplishments. He clearly thinks out of the box, which is why Brooklyn re-elected him as Borough President with 83% of the vote in 2017. 

The first time I met Eric he told me about his experience when he was diagnosed with diabetes and took his health into his own hands, went vegan, and was told he was free of diabetes just six months later. He makes his own decisions.

He was a police officer for 24 years. Then he was trusted so much by his community they elected him as a state senator, and then elected him to be the President of the Borough of Brooklyn. He was reelected in 2017 with an overwhelming 83% of the vote. 

If all the Boroughs were cities, Brooklyn would be the third largest city in the United States, behind Los Angeles and Chicago. Eric runs it. 

Only one person is the right choice to lead NYC out of its current problems. As a tax paying resident and business owner in NYC, I feel it’s more important than ever that we pick the right leader and decision maker. 

This is the most important election NYC has ever had. I have spent the past year doing nothing but studying the city’s problems, its history, and speaking to officials all over the country, as well as speaking to other candidates in NYC, about what the best solutions might be. I’ve put my heart into this. 

This is the only endorsement for a political candidate I’ve ever written. 

I’m doing so because I think it’s that important right now for New York City, the city I’ve been in love with all of my life, to have the right decision-maker lead us through these times. 

Eric Adams was in the police force for 24 years, and has led Brooklyn for eight years. Adams was a state senator before that. He has been in the executive branch, the legislative branch, and has enforced the laws while helping to root out corruption and brutality. Who has more experience? 

When you lose your tax base you have less money and lower budgets. When you have lower budgets a city will not be able to hire teachers, EMT workers, sanitation workers, fire fighters, police, etc.

In other words, the city will need more money and offer fewer services and there will be fewer jobs because of fewer businesses. Which means it will need better solutions and someone who knows how to execute. 

Fewer services will lead to fewer people wanting to move here, fewer businesses staying here, more people moving out, which equals less taxes, more taxes raised (sales tax, property tax, income tax), far fewer jobs and opportunities, and the cycle will continue. This is called a death spiral. 

Death spirals have happened in cities before. NYC took 20 years to recover from the almost-bankruptcy that happened in the 1970s. 

Everything starts with safety. Nobody wants to move to a city where teenage girls are shot on the subways. Where racial violence is rampant and random. Where crime is the highest it’s been since 2011.

Where the number of shootings is up about 100% this past year versus 2019. Where the streets are filled with garbage and EMT workers, the frontline workers of a health crisis, or at risk of losing their jobs.

Meanwhile, cities around the country are starting to boom because of the exodus of over 300,000 people who have left NYC (source: change-of-address requests at the post office). The largest exodus ever out of NYC. 

Two of Eric’s opponents: Kathryn Garcia, Scott Stringer, were working for Mayor DeBlasio while everything was falling apart even before the pandemic. 

Garcia ran the Department of Sanitation and Stringer was the Comptroller, in charge of our financial situation. We all know this: they were not good at their jobs. Trash fills the streets and NYC, even without the pandemic, is in danger of going broke. 

Other than Eric, which candidate has been an actual executive running a local government?

Which one has 24 years experience helping NYC reach record lows in crime and then another eight years running Brooklyn, putting in place education programs, health initiatives, housing initiatives, and constantly fighting bureaucracy to create a safer city..

I’ve gotten to know Eric Adams during this race. I’ve heard him speak to both supporters and detractors – not as a politician but as someone who is interested in providing solutions. 

He will not be defined by labels. He won’t cater to the audience-of-the-hour just for votes. I’ve had 100s of conversations with him and I’ve seen him think out of the box. A skill very much needed. 

We need NYC-ers to return to the city. We need businesses to return. They pay for our services and hire our residents. We need tourists to return. They pay for our budgets. We need public safety, we need our trash collected, we need our budgets balanced, and we need NYC small businesses to thrive so our residents can have more jobs and higher wages.

People who worked for DeBlasio, or people who have never run a government before, cannot solve our problems or make good decisions in a city as important or complex as NYC. Get practice maybe in a smaller city. Don’t use the greatest city on the planet for practice.

I’m proud to call Eric a friend but I’ll be even more proud to call Eric Adams the Mayor of New York.

 

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The Road to $1 Trillion and Beyond

 

Inflation would be the greatest thing to happen to me.

I selfishly want the government to spend as much money as possible. “You can’t print money forever!” everyone is shouting.

Yes you can. And they will.

They’ve been printing money for decades, and only now it’s making the headlines.

The reason I am selfishly supportive of inflation is that there is a well-known maxim in poker that “money flows clockwise.” If you sit to the left of the weakest player at the poker table, then eventually you will have all of their money.

Every time they bet, you raise them, scaring out all of the other players. So you are now “heads-up” with the weaker player. It’s just the two of you. Luck will give him some hands, but luck/skill will give you most of the money.

In inflation, the same thing happens. Print up a trillion dollars and give it to everyone… and where does it end up?

Eventually it’s all put in the stock market or in real estate. To be fair, some of it is now showing up in crypto.

Inflation of a currency occurs when goods that are priced in that currency go higher (IN THAT CURRENCY) year-over-year or month-over-month. For instance, gas — which you buy with dollars — is over $3 a gallon for the first time since 2008.

This is VERY important to understand. Gas itself is not different. Gas is not even worth more UNLESS it is priced in US dollars.

Everything you own goes up in value, but ONLY IF it is priced in US dollars.

What do I mean?

Here are things you might own that will go up if inflation goes higher:

• Stocks
• Real Estate
• Cryptocurrencies
• Collectables
• Services you offer

The more you own of the above, the less inflation hurts you.

And if you own “Good” stocks or “Good” real estate, then you will make a lot of money during inflationary periods.

But what’s a good stock or good real estate?

Without inflation, it is very hard to predict the stock market. When there is no inflation, the stock market will stay the same except for stocks that are growing. And it’s very hard to know which companies will grow.

Remember this: Almost all of the growth in the stock market over the past 100 years has occurred because of inflation. I don’t give a shit about “candlesticks” or P/E ratios or what The Wall Street Journal says.

So, ok, if you own a basket of stocks — and that is the bulk of your net worth — then you will survive inflation.

But how can you BEAT inflation?

It’s simple. Just own stocks in an industry that is growing faster than inflation.

Some industries are fully mature, and I would not bet on them. Sure, Exxon and Chevron will go up when gas prices are going up. But they are not interesting, and eventually their stocks settle down.

The oil industry might even be in trouble as renewable energy gets more realistic.

But just look in your life. Do you drive more? Do you use the computer more? Do you read more? Ask yourself which activities you do are “inflating.”

Is medical care rising? Are people eating more?

I don’t know the answers. These are difficult questions. I don’t even know if people are using computers more.

However, I do know this: I am using more data. And more industries are using my data.

I asked a marketer the other day how narrow they can target the people they are advertising to.

“We know how many strawberries you ate last month,” she told me.

There is so much data about all of us that they can predict almost everything about you.

A friend of mine sells software to car dealerships. The software tells the car dealership which people in their area are going to buy a car in the next three months, and what car they are going to buy.

“We use AI and data,” he told me.

“What data?”

“We know when you bought every car you’ve ever bought. We know what cars. We know what dealers. We know what features you asked for. So if you bought a Toyota three years ago from XYZ dealership… and we know you buy a car every two or three years… we sell that information to the dealership next door, and they simply call you (we have your phone number also) three months before we predict you will buy your next car. And we tell you we have the next Toyota in stock, and we’ll give you a deal.”

Simple. “But where do you get the data?”

He looked at me with pity. “The data is everywhere. And if you know where to look, you can find it. We scrape data off of thousands of different websites that are now storing all sorts of data about each person.”

This is the business of the future. This is the technology described by the movie Minority Report, where they use data to predict if you are going to commit a crime. This is the technology of the Isaac Asimov classic science fiction series, “The Foundation Trilogy” where they use data to basically predict… everything.

This is what Starbucks now uses to predict when YOU will show up at Starbucks and what you will order, and they have it in the oven five minutes before you arrive. This happens right now.

The data storage / Big Data / AI industry is growing faster than inflation.

But what stocks should you buy to take advantage? It almost doesn’t matter. You could buy all of them. (But read to the end for a hint at what’s coming tomorrow.)

You can buy storage companies per vertical (medical / vehicle / media, etc). You can buy data storage companies by function (if they make storage hardware, storage software, Big Data AI companies, Software-as-a-Service companies, etc).

Is it really that simple? Yeah, it totally is.

What’s the fastest growing industry in the past 30 years? The Internet. Who are the richest people now? Internet billionaires: Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, etc etc.

In the 1950s, the fastest-growing industry was oil. The billionaires were J. Paul Getty, the Rockefellers, and the Ewing family from “Dallas.” All oil money.

Quietly, the latest billionaires are coming from the cloud storage industry. Snowflake, a cloud storage company that had a huge IPO last year, is now worth $60 billion with $600 million in revenue.

Companies typically aren’t worth 100 times revenue. That’s ridiculous. UNLESS there is inflation. In which case, it’s normal. The industry will grow, the dollar will be worth less, and the stocks will go higher and higher.

The CEO of Snowflake is probably worth over $2 billion now. All since last year.

Right now everyone is throwing a shit fit over inflation. Don’t be a complainer. Look around you, be aware of the situation, and then benefit from it.

Inflation is good for you and me. Let them talk all they want on CNBC and the WSJ.

I will sit to their left…

In fact, I’ve just finished research on a few stocks that are bound to cash in on the momentum in cloud computing.

And everything I’ve shared with you these last three days comes to a head tomorrow. That’s because tomorrow is the world premiere of my show “To $1 Trillion And Beyond.”

As you’re about to see, I’ve gone behind all four of today’s $1 trillion companies… Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google… and what I’ve found is truly shocking.

It’s a secret tech revolution only 1 in 10 Americans knows is happening… and I’m convinced THIS is where we’ll find tech’s next $1 trillion winners.

Want to see how to get in on the stocks I’m betting will hit $1 trillion next? It’s all happening tomorrow during the show.

And so much more!

All you have to do is watch your inbox at 2pm EST tomorrow for an email from me when the world premiere of my event “To $1 Trillion And Beyond” airs for the first time.

Stay tuned!

 

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The Perfect Investment Strategy

I wanted to learn a perfect investment strategy.

And when I say “perfect,” I mean: I want to buy stocks, and in the long run make a lot of money. There! Honest.

For some people, a perfect investing strategy means: Make money every day.

For other people it might mean: BUY CRYPTO!!!!!!

For other people, it might mean: Every stock I buy goes up.

That’s not what I mean. I am ultimately a very simple person. I don’t really enjoy investing. I enjoy learning and I enjoy games and I enjoy watching TV, writing, podcasting, etc. Oh, and my family. And sleeping. I really enjoy sleeping a lot.

But everyone needs to understand the basics of, not all, but many investing strategies.

So I have a simple strategy that is perfect in my view — and I can describe it 100% in this article.

ONE: The basics you will understand immediately. Identify an area of life that is growing every year at an exponential growth rate.

TWO: BUY ALL STOCKS IN THAT INDUSTRY.

And that’s it. There’s an optional third step…

THREE: RESEARCH and BUY most of the stocks in that industry to get better returns.

Simple. But let me give you an extreme example to show how well it works.

In 1965, a young Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel (which was valued at about $3 million at that time), stated a rule that became “Moore’s Law.”

He stated (and I am going to paraphrase for a more understandable version) that computer power would basically double about every two years.

Remarkably, 56 years later, he’s been dead-on correct EVERY SINGLE YEAR. What a remarkable prediction. Look at the image below:

So how can we make money from this?

Let’s take an extreme example.

Let’s say, from 1970  to 1990 you put JUST $1,000 into each of the next 100 computer companies to go public. And then you ignored them until today.

Which means you would invest $100,000 in total ($1,000 into 100 companies).

Many computer companies went bankrupt during this time. Do you remember Eagle Computer. Or Commodore?

Or the ElectroData Corporation? How could you forget the one-time third-largest computer manufacturer? The maker of the DataTron 203 that shipped for a price as cheap as $125,000. It weighed 3,175 pounds and had about 4k of memory.

Many companies went bankrupt. But how could that be if the computer industry was growing exponentially??

Let’s say that out of the 100 companies you invested in and forgot until this moment, 98 went bankrupt. Let’s say only Microsoft and Intel survived. The real facts are that many more than 2 of the 100 survived, but this is an extreme example.

So out of your $100,000 invested, $98,000 went down the drain. Only 2 companies, or $2,000 of your investment survived. That sucks, right?

Wrong! If you had done this strategy, you would have $3,500,000 today. In fact, you would have a lot more because many more than just two companies survived. But again, I use this as an extreme.

If you invest now in an exponentially growing industry, even if you invest small amounts, you will make an ENORMOUS amount of money. This is no joke.

But, you might say, “An industry like computers only happens once every 50 years.”

WRONG!

Because of the rise of the computer industry, computers now create exponential industries. There are many exponentially growing industries.

But let’s pick the absolute most obvious: storage.

Look at the graphic below to see the rise in storage from 2010 to 2019. One decade. The amount of data being stored doubled almost five times during that period. That’s exponential growth.

And without even being a genius on this, it’s easy to see that the growth could happen even faster with the rise of virtual reality, increased usage around the world of platforms like YouTube, the growth of remote work adding to the storage requirements of companies around the world, etc.

Should you buy every company in the storage sector? What does this even mean? How can we break down the storage industry to look at the fastest rising companies?

More tomorrow.

——-

Also, check out my podcasts this week with:

Robert Cialdini, the author of “INFLUENCE” and the world’s expert on persuasion.

The “millionaire’s magician” Steve Cohen, author of “How to Win the Room!” Oddly, the techniques are somewhat similar that master persuaders and magicians use.

 

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Why Arguing With My Wife Led Me to Buy Cloud Stocks

[Editor’s Note: This is the first part in a special series we are doing on innovations in cloud computing. It will all culminate on day 4… when James plans to reveal his latest research on investing in this trend — including his favorite stocks in the sector!]

Here’s my idea: I want a device that will listen to all of my conversations every day and track my every movement.

Then it feeds all the data into GPT-3, which is an amazing tech recognition software that uses AI to build an “avatar” of me. An AI version of me.

Then I will feed this new “James” all of my books, articles, and podcasts. Now AvatarJames will be a better version of me. And every day it will improve as I feed in more conversations, etc.

Then I want it to track how I move, how I make micro-expressions depending on my mood, etc. This way it can be a visual avatar of me as well.

In every way it will be a better James.

Then I want to just sit at home and let it do everything for me. People will call me later and say, “You were so friendly and charismatic. Everyone loved you!” And I would smile and say, “What did you expect?” and they wouldn’t know that they were just dealing with AvatarJames and not the real me.

By the way, this is already possible. One of the people I am working with on my “I Will Make you a Millionaire” mentorship program fed my recent book, Skip the Line into GPT-3.

He then gave GPT-3 prompts to this mini-avatar version of me.

Here’s what it came up with:

[The line in bold is what it was fed. The paragraph after is the MiniJames response… generated completely by AI. These paragraphs were NOT in Skip the Line. And yet… they feel a little like my style].

“Nobody wants to be alone…”

Nobody wants to be alone. People want to feel that they are connected to people. When you feel isolated, you feel that loneliness. You become stressed. You become less creative. I don’t know that you will succeed at being the best at something if you are lonely. But if you are the only person who feels that loneliness, then you will get better at that something than anyone else. You will be the only person who has that experience. And if you are the only person who has that experience, then you will probably know more than anyone else because you have had that experience. You will have the same perspective on the same things. You will be the only person who has that.

“The next technique you can use to skip the line in life is to …”

The next technique you can use to skip the line in life is to learn to live in the moment. I was in a bad car crash. The doctor said, “Son, you have to get out of the car. The ambulance is coming.” I said, “What? Why? I can still walk.” He said, “That’s good. Now get out of the car.” I was in a coma for six months. I was scared to death. I couldn’t even walk for two months. I was afraid everyone would think I was crazy. I remember one time I was at a party with three other guys. One of the other guys was throwing a house party. The DJ was playing loud music. The music was so loud it was killing me. It was like the DJ was controlling the house. I remember one guy sitting next to me and he started to cry. I said to him, “Don’t cry. You made me cry.” And I felt his pain. And I shared it with him. That’s how I felt. You can be the first to laugh, or the last to laugh. You can be the smartest person in the room, or you’ll be the dumb person in the room. You can be the best at something and be terrible at sharing it, or you can share and be the best.

“The best idea I’ve had in my life…”

The best idea I’ve had in my life is working on a project with one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies. They were working on a drug that could treat a deadly virus. The company was the biggest, but there were many competitors. I had a lot of experience developing vaccines. But they said, “We don’t do vaccines. We don’t have a competitor yet.” I said, “Why not?” “Because we have this other drug that works much better. And it’s only been a year since we first tried it. It’s very, very, very, very little.” I had a huge idea that could revolutionize the way we treat people with mental illness. But the drug they were developing was only supposed to work for about a year. I said to them, “I’m willing to do this for free.” They said, “Okay.” And I did. The next day I sent them a prototype. They bought it. Then they came up with a great idea. They realized that in some countries, like the United States, the diagnosis of mental illness can be quite complicated. They’d like to develop this drug that could help people who are diagnosed with depression but aren’t taking their medication. They asked if I could test it. I said sure. They sent me the prototype. I took a sample. It worked. They ran a clinical trial. It was very successful. The company raised billions of dollars.

—-

Imagine if I now was able to feed it every conversation I ever had.

Imagine if you can do this also. Imagine if we all did it.

If I was going to have an argument with my wife, I could just send AvatarJames to argue with AvatarRobyn, and then — sitting on our couches while eating popcorn and watching YouTube videos of cats — we can get the final result of the argument from our Avatars. Argument over.

Anyway, good idea? Bad idea? Doesn’t matter. If you don’t use your creativity muscle, you lose it.

But… what IF everyone did this?

To make AvatarJames, I guesstimate that I am sending about 24 gigabytes of data per day into the cloud. If everyone did this….

How can we all make money from this?

——–

The minute it takes you to read this article, 31 million messages will be read on Facebook. 2.7 million videos will be watched. 300 gigabytes of data will be uploaded to YouTube.

Just this minute!

This doesn’t count all of the data being sent through the “Internet of Things.” Electric vehicles sending messages back and forth to the cloud. Pacemakers sending data from hearts to hospitals. Every cash register sending data of shopping patterns to American Express.

This doesn’t count what will happen in the future. What video is to photos, virtual reality will be to video. 100x bigger file sizes. 1,000x bigger file sizes.

This doesn’t count when every device is hooked up to the Internet and sending data back and forth.

This doesn’t count when YouTube is not just being used by 1 in 20 people around the world… but 1 in 2.

This doesn’t count thousands of things.

Apollo 11, the rocket that landed on the moon in 1969, had 2,048 bits of data to take it to the moon and back.

Above I said 300 gigabytes of video are uploaded to YouTube EVERY MINUTE.

Compare 2,048 bits to 300,000,000,000 bits a minute. Then multiply that by about a trillion.

That represents our data needs right now. And it’s tripling or quadrupling every year.

You know why I don’t care about inflation? Because I know that data storage is growing much much faster than any possible inflation.

So if I buy stocks of the companies that store that data, then I will avoid any “wealth deterioration” that results from any inflation.

We have moved from a society of “In God We Trust” to “In Humans We Trust” to finally, “In Data We Trust.”

Money has gone to data. Medicine is fueled by data. War is fueled by data. All of business is fueled by data. And the one sure thing we can bet on is that it will increase.

My initial interest was in outsourcing arguments with my wife to AvatarJames.

I was thinking about AvatarJames, and then I was thinking about data and the stock market. Those ideas had sex. This is the way ideas work. They meet other ideas in your brain and have idea sex an then have idea babies.

The idea babies are the stocks I should buy. I look at everything from Amazon (its cloud service: Amazon Web Services, is the only profitable part of the company), to CrowdStrike (which provides cybersecurity for data), to DataDog, to ZStrike and others.

When you see an industry growing exponentially — like Cloud Storage, like AI, like Big Data, etc. — there is ONE surefire technique to investing in the category.

Tomorrow I’ll dig in a bit more about that technique, along with my latest ideas.

But for the rest of today, I’m figuring out how to record all my conversations, get transcripts of them, feed them into GPT-3, and then outsource my arguments with Robyn to AvatarJames.

Ummm, do you think she will go for it?

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How to Be Undefeatable

Phil has an incurable disease. His esophagus doesn’t work. It gets worse and worse and eventually he might not be able to talk or eat.

But he seems fine. “I am fine,” he told me. “Because of the same method I use to elect Presidents.”

—

“Is this the most important election ever?” I asked Phil Stutts. I asked him because he is one of the few people that has actually helped elect a President of the United States.

For the past 12 months, Phil has been collecting data on hundreds of millions of people. He told me a year ago, “People think they are going to die of COVID. They think everyone is going to die. They want to know they are safer than the media says.”

And because Phil told me that, I upped my podcast from two days a week to five in order to have more epidemiologists, virologists, etc. in order to properly analyze the data and assure people they were safer than they thought.

Throughout the past year I called Phil to ask, “What are people concerned about? I want to help.” And he would tell me. Just like he would tell candidates or corporations.

When everyone was insisting, “This is the most important election ever,” I wanted to know.

I went to newspapers.com, which has an archive of every newspaper article in the past 250 years. I searched for “most important election ever”.

Guess what?

Every election since 1800 was “the most important election ever.”

In 1844, for instance, “The Democratic Party of Perry County…assembled at the commencement of a political campaign which will terminate in one of the most important elections ever held in our country…”

In 1868, “Freemen of Vermont! You are called to attend the polls on Tuesday at the most important election ever held in this country…”

In 1892, “As all of the speakers have told you, this is surely the most important election ever…”

In 1944, “This is the most important election since 1860. It is more than that — it is probably the most important election ever.”

Were all of these headlines wrong? No. They really were the most important elections ever. Just like 2020 was.

Without realizing it, we were also thinking whatever the campaigns wanted us to think. They were spending billions of dollars to spread a message. They use data to figure out what scares us.

Presidents do it. Corporations do it. Media does it. We have to fight it.

For 18 years, Phil Stutts has been on the front lines of using a unique new technique for spreading a message that has impacted tens of millions of people. This technique never existed before. In 1940 it didn’t exist. In 1852 it didn’t exist. Even in 2000 it didn’t exist.

Phil Stutts started working for political campaigns in the 2004 presidential campaign. He spearheaded this new unique technique and it’s gotten more and more sophisticated ever since. Which is why he is among the very first and most experienced to use this technique to help businesses. To even help  people like me.

Phil knows more information about you than you think. Not because he spies on you. But because you give your data to many different companies and services. If you read the fine print, you’ll see that this data is shared with other companies. And political campaigns, led by people like Phil Stutts, get this data, understand it, and then use it to spread a message.

What information? They know when you will buy your next car, they know how many strawberries you ate this month, how much exercise you get, what issues your closest family members most care about. Where you are even thinking of vacationing this year.

With that data, they can send one message to you, and another message to your cousin, and another message completely to a voter who lives on the other side of the country.

If this feels manipulated, it is. And it isn’t. This is now what every candidate does. This is the way politics works. And why not hear about the issues that are important to me?

During this pandemic and the economic lockdowns, I called Phil on a regular basis.

“What’s new?”

Every week he was polling thousands of people and getting data on millions more. Phil is perhaps the first to take the techniques from political campaigns and use them for marketing of…anything. Businesses, political campaigns, even my own personal social media accounts. What do my readers like? What are they looking for?

Businesses listen, I listen, because we want to address concerns that people have. Help people where they need the most help.

Every week, Phil had his finger on the pulse. Sometimes (often) people are worried about their economic situations. But sometimes they were scared of all the misinformation in the media.

Or they wanted to know that their local communities were safe. Sometimes people, as a whole, didn’t care about material goods. They just wanted to know this virus wasn’t going to destroy the world. Other times they wanted to know if their jobs would come back.

Every week it was different. Every week I called Phil. Because he knew the answers.

Phil has been on my podcast close to 10 times. Alongside people like Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, Peter Thiel, Tyra Banks, Danica Patrick, and even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Phil is my go-to guest when I want to really learn what is going on in the world.

Phil has represented Republicans, Democrats, and now businesses from every industry. What I like is that he is not blindly ideological. He works with data to see what the concerns of the world are and how businesses and political candidates can best meet the needs of the people.

I asked him, “Do people lie in order to fit the data? Do they say what the people want instead of what they believe?”

“No,” he told me. But candidates (or corporations, or writers) believe many things. And they want their message to be heard. So they talk about the issue they believe in that is most important to people at that moment.”

And the data doesn’t have to be expensive. We can test and experiment and observe all the information around us.

Is a business idea good? Figure out an experiment that can get you data.

Want to start a restaurant? Make all the food and invite people over to try it. Is a book cover good? Do what I did and post it on Facebook with a $20 ad budget and see which cover people click on.

He has helped businesses make hundreds of millions of dollars. He has helped candidates become Presidents of the United States. He has helped me and others write good articles for their readers.

His book just came out. The Undefeated Marketing System, by Phil Stutts. And he was also just on my podcast to lay it all out.

• Get data
• Come up with a plan.
• Figure out how to communicate about that plan.
• Test your plan.
• Launch.

“I used it to find my amazing wife. I used it when I had an incurable disease and I needed help. I use it to help candidates get elected. And I use it with my customers.”

“And you helped me use it with my podcast!” I said.

And now I don’t have to call him anymore. He told me on the podcast and in the book how he does it.

This election was harsh and dirty and surprising. But let’s not forget that many elections in American history have been like that. Let’s not forget that in the 1850s one Senator almost beat another Senator to death in the halls of Congress.

Or that John Adams was jailing journalists in 1800 thanks to the “Alien and Sedition Act” that he passed — and that Thomas Jefferson, in the “most important election ever” swore to overturn.

If elections are going to determine the true representatives of the people, and businesses are going to serve the needs of their customers, we need to determine what those customers and voters want. What are their concerns?

This can only be done with data. Not opinions. This can only be done if you know how to interpret that data. Not just guessing. There are no shortcuts.

It’s hard to find someone you trust. It’s also hard to find someone who isn’t a sucker for all the scripted thoughts inside the echo chambers of social media.

Instead, it’s good to find someone to trust who is unbiased. Someone who has mastered using data to make life-changing decisions for elections and businesses. Someone who is willing to share those techniques with us. Someone who is a friend. Phil.

“Was this the most important election ever?” I asked Phil.

“No,” Phil said, “But the next one might be.”

 

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Don’t Be Better… Be “The Only”

A few months ago, we gave my daughter race car driving lessons… She got into a Formula 2 car with an instructor and after many lessons she now has a race car driving license.

In her first race, she came in second. I’m proud of her.

I hope she stays interested in it. And I also hope she doesn’t die from it. She really loved it but we’ll see. Love needs follow up, as my wife often reminds me if I play chess online all day.

Here’s the thing: She got into every college she applied to.

Now… I told her NOT to apply. I told her all the reasons I think college is a waste of time and a waste of money and a general waste of life energy.

“But you went to college,” she said, “why is it good enough for you but not me?” — says everyone who asks me about this.

It’s because I went to college that I am against it. I try not to have a cognitive bias just because I did something.

But this isn’t about the merits of college.

Here’s why I wanted her to take race car lessons before she applied:

How many kids from the NY-PA-CT-NJ states apply to college? How many of those kids have sufficient grades, sufficient SATs, after-school activities, some sports, and decent essay writing schools?

All of them. 

Nobody can tell the difference. All of their applications look the same. They are photocopies of each other. They are clones begging to be selected by the casino of college admissions.

“But,” one might say, “what if one has an A average and the other has a B+? What if one has 1400 on her SATs and the other has 1300?”

BIG DEAL. Nobody can tell the difference. Even if it’s right there in the numbers. Because when you throw in random after-school activities (this one played basketball, this one worked at a charity, this one wrote a decent essay about her trip to Iraq), NOBODY CARES.

—-

Andy Warhol was a great artist. I’m not talking about his Campbell’s Soup Cans or Marilyn Diptych. Before that. When he actually drew pictures.

He was the best illustrator in his day. There were other good illustrators but none as good as him.

Guess what? Nobody cared.

He was a low-level “drawer” in the advertising industry. People he worked with probably hated him and talked behind his back.

The average person can’t tell if one person draws 20 or even 50 percent better than another drawer. I know I can’t.

Bob Ross paintings look as good to me as Normal Rockwell or Hopper or any other realists. In fact, please tell me who you think is better. Normal Rockwell or Bob Ross. I honestly can’t tell.

Andy Warhol needed to be “the only” to be a famous artist. Not just better. My daughter, Lily, needed to be “the only” to get into college.

I had bad grades. I had OK SATs. And I had no after-school activities. Why stay “after school”? I never understood that concept.

But I was “the only.” I played chess. But a lot of kids did. I was my state’s high school chess champion. When I showed up for my interview, we spent the entire time with me teaching him some nuances in the Taimanov-Fischer match of 1971, which, by coincidence, my interviewer had been studying.

Here’s an image taken from the July 30 edition of “The Home News” about the upcoming US Open and my participation in it.

 

When I applied for a job as a computer programmer at HBO I failed the interview. I had no idea how to program for the Macintosh or how to do network programming. I knew nothing.

But I was “the only.” Turns out the group I was applying for was very competitive with another group in chess every afternoon. I got the job.

—-

I suggested to Lily five different things she could do to be “the only.” I wanted her to be aware of the choices so she would do something she loved.

If you don’t do something you love — but just to get into school or be famous or make money — then you screwed up.

Anything worth getting good at is very hard and very unpleasant.

Learning is hard. When you first start learning something you screw up a lot and that’s unpleasant. You lose car races or tennis games or people think your art is crap or your standup comedy is not funny or you lose chess games.

When I was 18 if i even lost one chess game I would cry. One time I was losing a game and rather than hold out my hand and congratulate the winner gracefully, I swept my arm over the board, knocking all the pieces onto the ground.

I’m not saying this is a good thing. Being a sore loser will ruin improvement. But you have to love something if you are going to return to it after being constantly shot down.

Every time I tell people, “Oh, I’m taking my kid tomorrow to race car driving lessons,” they always respond, “Really? That’s the coolest thing! I wish I had done that as a kid.”

So she was “the only.” There were no other people in her class her age.

When admissions officers got her application, I know for a fact it went into a different pile. It went into “the only” pile instead of the pile that a committee would have to decide who is better than who.

When Andy Warhol wanted to be “the only” his first plan was to make paintings of sugary romance comics. But then Roy Lichtenstein started doing it. Andy Warhol thought to himself, “I can do it better.” But he knew that “better” is BS and “only” is what creates a new genre of art.

It wasn’t even his idea. A friend of his, Muriel Latow, suggested almost half-jokingly that he paint Campbell’s Soup Cans. She wasn’t an artist. She was an interior designer. And she liked soup.

Warhol loved the idea. He asked her if he could pay her for the idea so that it would be officially his. He gave her $50. Which in today’s money would be about $300.

One of his original soup can paintings recently sold for $32,000,000. He was “the only.”

—-

Was the iPhone a better phone? Some say yes, some say no. But it was the only phone that had every song ever written on it.

Was McDonald’s the best restaurant? Almost definitely not. But it was the only restaurant chain in the 1950s where, no matter which one you went to and no matter where it was, the food tasted the same and the restaurant was clean. It was the only chain that had those features at that time.

Was Betamax better than VHS as a videotape? Yes it was. But VHS destroyed Betamax and became the dominant brand. Betamax was better, but nobody cared and that’s all it had going for it.

Is my daughter the best student? I have no clue. But she’s definitely in the category of “only.” Particularly if she keeps pursuing race car driving. That’s where the love part comes in.

Think about where you can be “the only.” I promise it will change your life, save your life, ruin your life, and transcend your life.

—-

When I was 16 I was really into break dancing. I know… cliche. But I was obsessed with it. I wanted to be a professional break dancer. My dad asked me how I was going to get into college with that. I said I didn’t care. Ok, he said.

But then I was asked to play on my school’s chess team. I barely knew how to play. I took a book with me on the way to a match our school was playing. I was the fifth board, the bottom board, because I barely knew the rules.

I remember the book, How to Think Ahead in Chess by Fred Reinfeld, and it recommended playing the Stonewall Attack. I memorized it on the way over there, played the Stonewall. And won. My teammates were happy and I was happy people liked me. I was hooked.

Marcel Duchamp was one of the most original artists of the early 1900s. But when he was 31 years old he quit art, left NY and moved to Buenos Aires and basically spent the rest of his life playing chess. It’s addictive and he was an addict.

He couldn’t stop. People begged him to get back to his art. But he said, “I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art — and much more.”

Did he make the right choice? I don’t know. I’m an addict. I still play every day and maybe a bit more than I should.

But for a long time, it helped me. I hope, in my own way, I’m still “the only.” But now I think I’m just an addict.

 

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A Review of My New Book, “Skip the Line”

I pitched a TV show, “I Will Make You a Millionaire.” I pitched it to NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS, Netflix, and more. 

The idea was: I would take 10 random people and, using the techniques that later went into my book, “Skip the Line,” I would make them a millionaire in six months. I was sure everyone would run with it and it would be a huge hit. 

“But what if you can’t do it?” every network asked, despite me showing them a ton of examples where I had helped people and did it. 

So they rejected the idea. Which means they rejected me. I thought maybe they felt I was too ugly for TV. Maybe. 

Instead, I put all of my ideas in my recent book, “Skip the Line.” How to be in the top 1% of whatever passion interests you. And how to monetize that passion. It works. I use the ideas in this book every day. 

This is the book I wish I had read when I was a kid and every year after that. I’m fine admitting when a book sucks. Books 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, and 15 were horrible. Don’t buy them. 

And I don’t want to be caught bragging about this book but the below review sums up what people are thinking of it. 

The reviewer is James Quandahl. Check out his site and below is the review: 

---

 

Skip the Line: A Review Including 10 Ideas for James Altucher to Sell 100,000 More Books

By James Quandahl

Read James Altucher’s book Skip The Line to learn how to break out of your routine. You don’t need to spend 10,000 hours learning a new skill to become proficient and be able to make a living. You needn’t abide by our culture’s rules for success and the path to reach the top.You can find your purpose and break out of the box. 

But to succeed you must walk a path that very few of your peers are willing to take. The path is lonely, full of self doubt, and difficult to find and traverse.  But don’t let anyone stop you from achieving your goals. 

To skip the line you must do the unthinkable. Run towards fear. Dig deep and find the real answers to important questions. And grow your creativity muscle. 

I encourage you to read James’s book if you want to lead your business and family to new heights. 

Update: After posting this review I was selected by James Altucher for one-on-one mentorship. For the next year James will work with me to build a business worth one million dollars. Get updates on what we are working on each week inside the Wise Men Wednesday newsletter.

How to skip the 10,000 hour “rule” and achieve mastery quickly

It doesn’t actually take 10,000 hours to achieve mastery. The author Malcolm Gladwell and Anders Ericsson, the psychologist that inspired his book, have it all wrong. You can become proficient in a new field much faster than this and James’s book will teach you how.

“It takes 1,000 hours to be world-class at an intersection. It takes 100 hours to become world-class at the intersection of three or more things. And if you use experiments to quickly try out these combinations of ideas, determining which directions will be successful and which ones won’t can go even faster.”

So where do you begin?

“List all the ways you can spend more and more of your day involved in that purpose. Find a community of people who love that purpose just like you do. Compare notes. Learn. Help people. Find mentors. Read as much as you can about that purpose. Read the history. Read the biographies of the greats. Read all of the current thinking. You need to do this to discover your unique voice. Have purpose sex. See here. DO. Start doing things that make a name for yourself in that purpose. When I got fascinated with investing in 2002, I read every book. Then I wrote software modeling the markets. Then I started sharing my results with others and they started investing with me. Then I started writing about investing (purpose sex). Then I built a website devoted to investors. Then I built businesses around investing. And, of course, I learned every strategy of investing and started investing more and more successfully.”

Ask yourself every day:

1. What did I do to nourish the relationships of those closest to me?
2. What did I improve at today? What new things did I learn? What new curiosities were created by my activities today?
3. What percentage of decisions did I make today that were completely my own and not just the thinking of a boss, a parent, a teacher, a peer, etc.?

Break down your purpose into micro skills and master those skills:

1. Storytelling: language play, understanding the different genres, character development, editing, dealing with writer’s block, learning how to sell and market your work, etc. 
2. Chess: Knowing openings, middle games, end games, open positions, closed positions, tactics, positional play, etc.
3. Business: sales, negotiation, idea creation, execution, leadership, management, marketing, selling the business, project management, follow-ups, networking, delegating

“Before” is the comfort zone. The comfort zone, of course, is comfortable. Who would choose to leave it? But the path to mastery is in the room least crowded. “Be the only.” You don’t get many opportunities to get out of the comfort zone. Nor would you want to. Who wants to be uncomfortable all the time? An experiment is always outside the comfort zone. You become an explorer of the places nobody else wants to go. “Before” is the 10,000-Hour Rule. But I don’t have 10,000 hours. “After” is the 10,000 Experiments Rule. It’s in the discomfort zone, and the experiment you do might explode.

Don’t let anyone else define who you are

In 2006 and again in 2007 I dropped out of college. In 2015 I signed up to run my first marathon, I quit my career to start a business in 2016, and in 2019 I started writing on this site. And do you know what? Every single one of these times I was told I was making a mistake by my friends and family. 

Where would I be today if I had listened to them instead of my heart?

I spent years trying to help others understand my truth and the life I was trying to create. But it never worked. So I’ve stopped trying.

“It only matters that you realize this: understand that when someone tells you that you can’t do something, they are trying to imprint their own goals for you onto you. It is their agenda, their truth. Not yours. You don’t have to follow their goals. You don’t have to give the goals they have for you any of your energy. You don’t even have to convince them, because they can’t be convinced. They live inside their own piece of this giant simulation. Of all the possibilities in the world that are open to them, the one where you specifically “can’t” is incredibly important to these people.”

Get comfortable on the edges. Within the unknown.

Do you remember the classic game The Oregon Trail? How cool was it that we got to play this game in school? 

When you are skipping the line you are exploring the Oregon Trail. You are setting off on an adventure into the unknown. You are a modern day frontiersman. You will feel lonely, depressed, anxious, and afraid, and often a combination of all of these emotions at the same time. 

But where few are willing to go the brave will find success. 

When you skip the line you walk uncharted territory. It will be lonely when you try to break out of the box your friends and family have put you into.

“The key to skipping the line is to constantly live in the world of “not knowing.” To constantly be curious but not threatened by what’s next. To live in the world where everyone else is scared but you are so comfortable with the land of not knowing that you can still navigate the rough waters. Not only do you navigate these waters, but you become a beacon. It’s foggy outside. Many people—some old friends, some new friends—are trying to find their way to shore on this foggy and windy and rainy night. You are the beacon and the lights are on. You help them to shore.”

“While everyone else is trying to cling to something they can call “normal,” you will lean in to the uncertainty that truly defines what life is, and what a successful life is. You’ll be able to move forward with curiosity, finding new things to become obsessed about learning.”

Under promise and over deliver is a lie

I’ve talked about the concept of over promising and over delivering before sharing, “Over promising and over delivering with all your work will make you stand out. You will never wonder where your next job will be coming from. You will always have more work than you can handle. You’ll have to learn to say no to the distractions and opportunities that come across your desk because you can’t take on too much and still continue to commit to your current level of service.”

Are you over delivering?

This isn’t a trick. You have to be the best and provide the most value for this to work. The tired cliche under promise and over deliver is a scam. It is a lie. You are basically telling a customer one thing, knowing full well that you intend to do another. “I can have this computer repaired in five days, sir.” If you plan on returning the computer in three days you are lying. My suggestion is to tell the customer you will finish his computer in three days and make it happen.

“I have a correction for you. I think you meant ‘underpromise.’” No, underpromising is lying. Don’t lie to your customers. Don’t lie to anyone. If I say I can get the job done in twenty days but I know I can do it in five, then I say five and deliver it in four. First off, everyone else is lying and saying twenty. You win the job by saying the truth (five). And you push yourself and challenge yourself to do it in four. You become a better person. The client is with you for life. And you exercise the muscle that pushes you to exceed your own expectations. Otherwise you’re mediocre like everyone else. Don’t be mediocre.

To skip the line do the unthinkable. Run towards fear.

It is easy to be afraid and to avoid stretching yourself by working on something new because of that fear. I’m afraid twice per week when I hit publish on my new articles and I’m scared while writing and ask myself what you will think of me, if you will make fun of me, and if you’ll think I’m not a smart businessman anymore. It’s pretty bad. Sometimes I can’t even finish an article. 

I am afraid every time one of my clients sends me an email, “James, can we have a meeting this coming week?” 

Am I going to be fired? Do they not like me anymore? Did I do a poor job?

James says to lean into the fear. If there is no fear there is no growth. 

“Every time I’m scared, I ask myself: Is this the opportunity I’ve been waiting for? Is this the chance to do something nobody has done before? I don’t start a business unless I’m afraid it will fail. If it were so easy, then how come someone hasn’t done it already? I know I’m not that smart. I don’t give a talk or go on a stage unless I’m afraid I’m going to say something that’s going to challenge people a bit too much. Because that’s the only way they’ll remember the talk. Because if I don’t challenge the way they think, then they will never think about my talk. I don’t hit Publish on an article unless I’m afraid of what people will think of me. Then I know I am saying something new, something that is pushing a boundary both for the readers and for me. Lean in to the fear to create growth. Fear is the catalyst. And growth is the reason you hit Publish. The reason you speak up. The reason you try something new. The reason you step out of line.”

What is the real reason?

When I quit my job in 2016 and moved to South Carolina to start my own business I had a very good reason. I didn’t want to be working in retail for the rest of my life and if I couldn’t see myself retiring from retail in 30 years, why keep the job? This reason was good enough, but the real reason was that I had just been passed up for a promotion. I was bitter, working for a new leader I felt was under qualified, and I felt stuck and that I wasn’t learning or growing anymore. There is always a good reason and a real reason. Finding the real reason takes more questions and more effort to discover, but when you find it you can truly grow.

“There’s always a good reason and a real reason. I remember when you once told me you had to go study in the library. I asked why. You said that all the books you needed were there and you couldn’t do the research online. That was a good reason. I couldn’t argue with it. But you forgot to mention that there would be boys at the library and you wanted to see them. That was a real reason. When someone gives you a good reason, a reason that is impossible to argue with, it might be true and important. But always ask what the real reason is. There is always a real reason.”

Come up with ten new ideas every day

James loves to share this method for working out his creative muscle. He suggests writing ten ideas per day, everyday. And yes, that will give you 3,650 ideas per year. Some of them are bound to be good, right? But the goal isn’t to actually come up with good ideas. The goal is to get better at coming up with ideas and to strengthen your creativity. That way when your back is against the wall you will have the idea for a way out.

In the book he teaches about idea addition, idea subtraction, idea multiplication, idea division, idea sex, and idea subsets. 

To inspire you, here are ten of my favorite idea lists that James has generated:

1. 10 old ideas I can make new again (The Wizard of Oz, Wall Street, etc.)—similar to idea sex
2. 10 ridiculous things I would invent (the smart toilet, etc.)
3. 10 books I can write (The Choose Yourself Guide to an Alternative Education, etc.)
4. 10 business ideas for Google/Amazon/Twitter/you
5. 10 things I disagree with that everyone else assumes are religion (college, home ownership, voting, doctors); or, for any one of those ideas, 10 ideas why I disagree!
6. 10 ways I can surprise my wife, Robyn (Actually, more like 100 ways. That’s hard work!)
7. 10 people I want to be friends with and what the next steps are for contacting them (Dave Chappelle, I’m coming after you! Larry Page better watch out also.)
8. 10 things I can do differently today—write down my entire routine, from beginning to end, as detailed as possible, changing one thing and making it better
9. “10 ways I can save time. For instance: don’t watch TV, drink, have stupid business calls, play chess during the day, have dinner (I definitely will not starve), go into the city to meet one person for coffee, waste time being angry at that person who did X, Y, and Z to me, and so on.
10. 10 things I was interested in as a kid that might be fun to explore now (Like, maybe I can write that “Son of Dr. Strange” comic I’ve always been planning. And now I need 10 plot ideas.)”

A gift for author James Altucher: 10 ideas to sell 100,000 additional copies of his book Skip The Line

1. Send an email to your entire email list: Ask if they will review the book on Amazon (and give them this direct link). The incentive for them to review is to share the 12-month, 12 person mentorship program. You should have more than 1,000 reviews already. Copy for the email:
   1. “Want my one on one help making one million dollars? buy my book and review it on Amazon
   2. Reply to this email with a screenshot of your review on Amazon and include why you want me to mentor you and what your best idea is for mentorship
2. Podcasts…Podcasts… Podcasts:
   1. Time to reach out to your network. Pick top 10 that have a big podcast: Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss, Jim Kwik, Curious Podcast with Josh Peck, John Lee Dumas, How I Built This (NPR), Jocko, and GaryVee.
3. Reddit AMA: Schedule one reddit AMA, don’t talk about the book per-say, but let folks ask skip the line/entrepreneurial questions
4. Twitter Q&A: Similar to Reddit AMA, but do 30 days of Q&A on Twitter like you used to– you even mentioned these in your book! So the perfect reason to bring these back. 30 days of questions for Skip The Line
5. Raise $4k for president: $3,798.56 is the record right now for the 2024 presidential election, by candidate HAWKINS, HOWIE [OTH]… Media isn’t covering your run, which is a great publicity idea for the book, but if you are not only running AND you are the #1 fundraised candidate? Now that should be newsworthy. 
6. Jerry Seinfeld: This was your most explosive publicity in 2020, and I know it caused a lot of drama, but there are ways you can lean into this and piggy back on the story to get more press for your book
7. Book parties: Texas is back open, you have lots of friends in Austin, record some podcasts in Texas and perform live comedy in Austin. Sell copies of the book and autograph them. Have a videographer/photographer come to the parties for lots of candid promotional material that can be dripped out on social media
8. Announce your run for president while in Texas: What better time to announce your presidency than at a *press* conference? Seriously. Do this once you have the most money raised of any contenders… Just have to beat out Hawkins.
9. GoodReads/BookBub/NetGalley: Run promotion on these sites, answer questions, give away free copies, and ask for reviews.
10. Ad roll during the podcast for next month: Put an ad about Skip the Line during mid-roll. One quick call to action about your book. Need a landing page for this to send them to… Head to SkipTheLineBook.com to learn more. Talk about the mentorship contest here… This is a HUGE deal, people will do anything to be a part of this mentorship. Asking for them to buy the book and leave a review is a small and easy ask.

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You Should Run for President

I am officially a candidate for President of the United States in 2024 and you should do it also.

I went to the website for the Federal Elections Commission.

I filled out all the paperwork. It took me 10 minutes. It cost me zero money. Now I am an official candidate in the eyes of the government. You can search for me there.

You should do this also. God speed!

First off, this is an experiment.

In my book, “Skip the Line,” I discuss how the “10,000 Experiments Rule” is one of the quickest ways to “skip the line” and be in the top 1% (and monetize) whatever field you love.

The 10,000 hour “rule” is BS.

At any given point, I usually have five or six experiments going. You should too. It’s not hard and it’s fun. And there’s no pressure because most experiments fail.

That’s the nature of having a theory and testing it. Most theories are wrong but that’s how we learn.

The characteristics of a good experiment: 

• It’s quick and easy to set up 
• It’s free or super cheap
• There is little downside 
• There is enormous upside in the rare case that your experiment “works” (I could be President!!) 

And that’s it. 

Most experiments fail but this is why they are valuable:

– By definition you are doing something that is unique to you and perhaps the world. Hence the need for an experiment. 

– Because of the above, you will always learn something new. Have a theory, test it out, and if it works you will learn and if it doesn’t work you will learn. 

Thomas Edison famously tried 10,000 different filaments before getting a light bulb to work. Then he created the lightbulb and started a tiny company called General Electric.

General Electric is the only company that was part of the original Dow Jones index in the 1890s that still exists today. 

Sadly the company, Distilled and Cattle Feeding Company is no longer part of the Dow. They got acquired.

When asked by a reporter, “How does it feel to fail 10,000 times?” Thomas Edison said, “Sir, I did not fail 10,000 times; I learned 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb.” 

Many people say they don’t like the two-party system. People feel obligated to vote for the lesser of two evils else they believe a non-vote is really a vote for the other side. 

Don’t be ridiculous.

150,000,000 people vote. Your one vote will not help. And when I ask people about the issues I usually find that most people, including myself, don’t know the issues.

They just know what the party they vote for vaguely believes. But not even really that. 

People will say, “If you don’t vote for one of the two parties then you should have no right to have a voice in our society.” 

This is BS. 

Run for president. 

Here’s why: 

– It’s easy. It took me 10 minutes to set up. 

– If anyone says, “You have no right to have a voice,” you can reply, “I’m running for President of the United States.” 

– When you DO something, it starts to form cognitive biases in your brain. For instance, I feel I have more of an obligation to have a stance on the issues or at least a stance on how to govern and lead. 

Plus: 

– Just by doing the process, I learned new things about how our government works. It’s interesting to see how many people are running for which office and other factors involved in running. 

– It’s a fun story to tell. People laugh. 

We should have many choices for President. It doesn’t make sense that there are two groups where everyone in one group magically believes in 80 of the same things and everyone in another group magically believes the exact opposite about those 80 things. 

That’s statistically impossible and yet it happens because the way our system is set up leads to cognitive biases that polarize people. 

I searched on newspaper-dot-com (an archive of every newspaper dating back 250 years or so) for the phrase “most important election ever.”

Turns out 1800 was the “most important election” ever (Adams vs Jefferson) but so was 1804, 1808, 1812, 1816, and every election up to, of course, 2020.

If I like a candidate it would be impossible to agree with him or her on everything. I should listen to how the candidate thinks about issues and then decide if I like his methodology for having an opinion, pivoting if things change, etc. 

If you run, I set up a Facebook page, “President 2.0” where you can announce you are running (perhaps you signed up at the FEC) and you can start to present your issues. 

Issues can be nuanced. You don’t have to just say “Bad climate change” or “No war.” You can have your own opinions. 

Nobody can stop you. You are running for president! 

Have a cool name for your political party. Maybe your party is “The Bachelor Party” or “The Pre-game Party.” 

I’m going to call my party the “Skip the Line Party.” Because I don’t believe there should be gatekeepers to expressing your opinion and having a voice in society.

If you experiment in life enough, you will learn a lot, have fun, and eventually find yourself Skipping the Line in fantastic ways you never would have thought. 

I have examples I will share over the next few days and weeks. 

But for now, spend 10 minutes at fec dot gov. Run for President of the United States (it doesn’t cost any money) and then announce it at the President 2.0 Facebook page. 

Then you can announce your issues if you want. Or announce how you would govern. And participate fully in our great democracy (yes, I know, I know, people will say, “It’s a republic!” Shut up with that stuff. )

In 1980 I was obsessed with the Federal Elections Commission.

I tried to interview every random person who was running. My interview skills consisted of “Why are you running?” and “What did you eat for breakfast today?”

As the great Jim Boren told me when he was running for Vice-President in 1980: “When in doubt, mumble.” 

That might be another fun experiment to try. 

(Me on the campaign trail…)

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You Can’t Do That!

“Altucher’s new book, Skip the Line, is his best book EVER. It’s his first book filled with practical advice that has worked for him and others. I wish I read it when I was a young comedian.” – Jerry Seinfeld.

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“You can’t skip the line, James.”

I wanted to be a hedge fund manager but I was broke. I lost $15 million of my money because I’d invested poorly. So of course I became obsessed and wanted to do it for a career.

Only problem was, I was a computer programmer and writer. And our world loves labels.

“You lost all your money investing and now you want to be a professional investor?”

He worked for JP Morgan. He was a professional investor.

I was feeling shy asking him. I wanted JP Morgan to give me money so I could start a hedge fund.

I had already stopped paying my mortgage. I had two children. I was suicidally depressed. I had no friends. My friends were with me on the way up but I had no friends on the way down. It’s a cliché but true.

“Yes, I know I went broke. But then I wrote software to model the markets. I look for trades that have historically have had a high probability of success. It works.”

“Can’t your parents give you some money?”

“They don’t have money. And they don’t talk to me anymore.”

Steve had that look. Not a frown like he was trying to figure out how to get me money. More like a look that he was sorry for me.

“You can’t do that. Listen, I have to tell you. You probably need an MBA. Then you need to work at a big bank for a few years. Like Goldman Sachs. Then maybe you work for a big fund or two. Get experience. And THEN maybe you can break out and start your own hedge fund.”

How was I going to support my kids? I had taken on too much in expenses. I had worked so hard building a company and then selling it and now it was all for nothing and nobody respected me. And nobody cared.”

“Good luck,” he said.

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“You can’t do that,” Cindy told me.

It was 1995. I was on the way to the CEO’s office. Companies didn’t have websites back then. HBO didn’t even own HBO.com.

I wanted to tell Jeff Bewkes, the CEO of HBO at the time (and later of all Time Warner), that he needed to create a website for HBO and that he should do original web shows on the website just like they did original TV shows.

My title at the time was junior analyst programmer in the IT department. I can’t even remember what I was working on all day. Nothing probably.

Cindy wanted to stop me from going directly to the CEO. “He’s your boss’s boss;s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. You can’t skip the line over all of those people.

The only people who ever tell you “you can’t” do something you want to do, something you love to do, are people who can’t do it themselves.

They don’t want you to change. They like the version of you that “doesn’t.”

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I started my hedge fund in a year (see chapter on the 10,000-experiment rule in Skip the Line) and did it for the next 10 years.

It led to books, writing for the Financial Times, starting new businesses, and every adventure I’ve had since. (See, the “Spoke and Wheel” chapter.)

Creating HBO’s website led to me starting my own business creating websites for Fortune 500 companies.

Richard Branson was a 27-year-old music magazine publisher when he wanted to start an entire airline to be the only competitor to British Airways. “You can’t do that!” everyone told him. “It’s not only impossible, but you know nothing about how to run an airline.”

(See the chapter on frame control).

Sara Blakely was selling fax machines door to door when she came up with the idea of Spanx. “You can’t skip the line like that!” everyone told her. “You don’t know how to design clothes, manufacture them, make a clothing line. You’re just a fax machine saleswoman.”

In my 40s I became obsessed with doing standup comedy. I had changed careers so many times everyone thought I was ridiculous. The other comedians kind of hated me.

“You can’t skip the line, James,” Dante (an excellent comedian) said.

“We’ve all been doing it 20 years. You have to do open mics, then hang out at clubs, then do the check spot, then MC, then maybe you get a Tuesday night. You can’t just skip the line.”

He said this to me five seconds before I was to go up to do my first hour-long show. I don’t know why he chose that moment to tell me that I was going to fail if I tried to skip the line.

Since then I’ve toured all over the country and the world.

I skipped the line.

I don’t hate the people who told me I couldn’t do something. They didn’t want me to leave their sandbox.

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WHY NOW?

This past year, 55 million people had to file unemployment insurance. Almost half of the nation’s workers.

There is no loyalty in Corporate America. Corporations, the government, your peers, your professors, your family all want to stop you from doing the things you love.

They tell you, “How will you make money? How will you get good enough to compete with the people who have been doing it all their lives?”

What they are really saying is, “Don’t leave me.”

They want you to swear undying loyalty to their tribe. Else you will be cast out into the woods and eaten by the lions.

Shame on them!

People thought they were taking the safe route. “Safe” is not 55 million people unemployed.

They took the scared route. They thought they had to be “serious” rather than having “fun” mastering and monetizing what they love.

This is sad. It’s sad because I regret the many times I chose to do something “safe” without realizing I was really really scared.

The times I didn’t skip the line I always ended up in the back of the line.

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I wrote a book.

I hate self-help books. “This research study says if you mirror someone’s actions then they will agree with you.” Etc.

B.S.

“This study says if you feel grateful every morning then your dreams will come true because you’ll notice them when they occur in life.”

B.S.

I’ve switched entire careers six times. EVERY SINGLE TIME people told me, “You can’t do that,” and, “YOU CAN’T SKIP THE LINE!”

I’ve spoken to 1,000 podcast guests about how they skipped the line.

In fact, everyone successful has been told, “You can’t do that.” Because what they wanted to do was unique to them, to their DNA, to their unique love for what they wanted to do.

And it’s hard. It’s hard to go against the crowd. Particularly when the crowd includes parents, friends, etc. Anything worth doing is difficult.

Malcolm Gladwell says it takes “10,000 hours” to master something. This is bullshit. Total, utter bullshit.

I should know. The original studies on the 10,000-hour rule occurred in the ’90s. I was a part of them. They studied areas like chess, violin, memory, etc., and concluded 10,000 hours of deliberate practice are required to master something.

I’m a chess master and was included in those studies.

10,000 hours turns into 10–20 years. I don’t want to take that long to get good at something. To make money from it. To live the dream that I might have had for years.

From my own experience and hundreds I’ve interviewed, it takes about one year, maybe less, to be in the top 1% of the field that you love and good enough to make money at it.

Julia Cameron, author of the classic book The Artist’s Way, even said to me, “You poor baby. You are trapped in the prison of this 10,000-hour rule.”

And I was. But then it was like solving a puzzle that was so difficult but then once you see the answer it was like, “How could I have missed that for so long? What an idiot I must be!”

(See the chapter on the “10,000-experiment” rule.)

My book Skip the Line comes out today. I’m so proud of it.

Which is rare for me.

I’M AFRAID.

The past few times I’ve written something, it’s caused a lot of people to be angry. This is no different.

Someone told me, “First they laugh at you, then they hate you, then they claim the idea was theirs.”

I get it. I’ve been torn apart.

So many people are in despair right now. So many people haven’t dug out of the hole 2020 caused.

This book is for them. Some of my chapters/techniques include:

• • The 10,000-Experiment Rule (although really 100 experiments are enough when you use “idea sex”)
  • The 50/1 Rule (think the 80/20 rule but cubed)
  • Frame Control (real, practical persuasion techniques and not theoretical “Influence” techniques)
  • Microskills
  • The Two Steps Back Rule
  • The Power of Wobbling
  • The Incerto Technique (I hope Nassim Taleb doesn’t sue me)
  • Idea Calculus (every trick I use for generating ideas)
  • The Spoke and Wheel Technique (to maximize how you monetize what you love)
  • And a chapter of what I tell my kids since they don’t read what I write (!).

 

 

 

 

 

There’s more. But my main goal was to write a book that WORKS.

I don’t care how many copies I sell. I just want this book to end up in the hands of people who read it and use it.

I want to make an offer.

I WILL PROVE IT TO YOU.

Buy the book this week. Prove to me you bought it and you will read it. I don’t know how you do that. Write me a letter. Show me you used the book. Write a review. Whatever.

I wanted to make a TV show, I Will Make You a Millionaire, where I select random people and make them a millionaire in a year.

Instead, I want to do this with you.

I will select the top 12 who write me (message me on Twitter or send me an email at feedback@threefounderspublishing.com) and I will consult with each one so that within a year you are all on a path that you love with the potential to make $1 million.

We will document everything so that I can prove that these techniques work. I don’t write things for the joy of it. This will work.

By the end of the year you will be clearly on the path to have $1 million in the bank.

And for everyone else who is able to write me in the next week or so with proof that they read the book, I will sign them up for my newsletter, where I will be constantly writing about the Skip the Line techniques as well as additional ideas for making money and how to get on the path you’ve always wanted to be on.

I have to admit something: In August I wrote an article that got a lot of people upset at me. A lot of people loved the article but a lot of people hated it.

They all let me know. Even five months later people were still trashing me. I felt the writing goddess had punished me and I was afraid to write.

I always thought I didn’t care what people thought but I guess I do. It hit a level where I almost was afraid to write anymore.

And I’m still afraid. This book will get people upset. But I want to do it. I hope you read it and like it but most importantly, I hope you use the ideas in it and tell me about it.

Don’t do this for me. Do this for all the people who have ever told you, “You can’t.”

Ugh. That’s a corny way to end this.

Do this so you can cut the line at Starbucks and when people say, “Hey!” you can say, “Sorry…” and just show them this book. They will laugh and say, “OK.” I tried that technique as well and it works.

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