The James Altucher Show

Fifteen percent of you won't like this interview. "I like that," he says, "I like being doubted." But I don't doubt Gary Vaynerchuk. And that's why I'm giving away 100 copies of his brand new book, #AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness. The details are on my podcast. Gary will be the first to admit that he doesn't know everything. But he knows everything about everything he knows. "I talk emphatically and with enormous bravado about the things I know and understand," he says, "and I hedge and punt things I don't understand." Gary is transparent. Authentic. Self-aware. And successful. So successful that I dont even like introing him. He wants you to win. And I do, too. "When you understand yourself, you're able to navigate the world," he says. But navigating is hard. I have more misunderstandings than understandings. That's ok. Because it allows me to be curious everyday, do this podcast, write and read three, four or five books a week. "Self-awareness is the sing

I never thought about sex with Barbara Corcoran. I still don't. But she brought it up. We were talking about entrepreneurship. And she said how old she was when she lost her virginity. Twenty-three. I wanted to know how she turned a thousand dollars into a five billion dollar company. Then: $1,000. Now: $5,000,000,000. I wanted to know how she founded The Corcoran Group, the largest company in real estate. And how you become the type of entrepreneur Barbara Corcoran chooses on Shark Tank. I'm going to tell you how to get Barbara's investment. If that's what you want. But not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur. According to Barbara. "I found a real difference between the superstars and everyone else," she says.   And I agree. That's why I wrote The Rich Employee. Entrepreneurship isn't everything. But it can be. Barbara reviews thousands of investment opportunities. And most hear "no."  She says you have to have "a nose for entrepreneurship." That's how you get a "yes," from Barbara Corcoran. But before y

I'd rather be an alien. I'd rather be myself. Than be liked. It makes sense... why you'd want to be liked. Think about it. From an evolutionary standpoint, when you're liked, you're safe. You're in the tribe. People protect you. But now, I'd rather be an alien. I don't want stress. I don't want to worry, "Do I fit in?" There are consequences to being liked. You start compromising. You stop taking risks. You follow the herd. You get stuck in a crappy job at a fluorescently lit cubicle. Where they can watch you. You stop taking risks. You wonder, "Is this ok?" Ok to who? Not you. Not the only person who matters. I'd rather be an alien. If I'm an alien, I can act like I just landed here. And I'm not supposed to know if I fit in. I'm forced to be myself. No trying. Just forced. I can surrender. My guest today, used to be in a tribe. I won't say it's the worst one. But it's bad. Turney Duff is the New York Times bestselling author of, The Buy Side: A Wall Street Trader's Tale of Spectacular Excess, where he tells

I don't want to be afraid. But I am. I'll explain why. But first, I want to introduce you to Adam Grant. He has the solution to my problem... And maybe your problem, too. Adam is the youngest tenured and highest-ranking professor at the famed business university The Wharton School, a writer for The New York Times, and the New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. In researching his new book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam met with today's most successful and innovative entrepreneurs.  Why? To get answers. "We have a ton of guidance on how to generate ideas," he says. But what about after? What do you do? Originals teaches you how to bring new ideas into the world. And really, there's no grand theory on how to be "original." But there are tricks... And Adam discovered some patterns among today's most successful entrepreneurs. He spoke to Google's co-founder, Larry Page, Warby Parker's founders and CEOs, and thought leaders like the renowned wr

Ask the world this question, and you'll drown in failure. You'll lose. Anything you take, anything you earn, will be foul. I bet you've asked this question before. Maybe everyday. Maybe all your life. "How can I get?" How can I get rich? How can I get happy? How can I get more? There's no return on getting. It leave you with nothing. Or worse than nothingness. Emptiness. But there's another way. It's simple. And it works for me I'm going to tell you how to earn your worth. It works for me. And it works for my podcast guest, Russell Simmons, "the third richest figure in hip-hop with an estimated net worth of $340 million." He gets. He told me a story. "That was my first realization that hard work turned into something," he says. "I had never been on a plane. I had certainly never been out of the country, and landing in Amsterdam they're like, 'Mr. Simmons what would you like?' I'm like, 'Oh shit Mr. Simmons.' That was a revelation. I was a grown man I could get things I wanted." But not all his life. He grew u

I don't diet. It's a distraction. My rule is simple. Don't eat when you're not hungry. But that's not always easy. Nothing is always easy. With diet, you have an internal argument. Willpower versus cravings. So what do you do when the voice in your head won't stop? You struggle. Your mind plays ping pong. Eat it. Don't it. One bite. No. Yes. Ok. Damn it. Only one side wins. Willpower or cravings. I'm going to tell you how to make willpower win. How to make that voice go away. And this will do a lot more for you than just help you lose weight. It will give you better brain function. Make you pay attention better. Give you more energy. You'll feel better. I'll tell you my secret. But before I do, I want to introduce you to a Silicon Valley investor and tech entrepreneur, Dave Asprey, who spent two decades and more than $300,000 hacking biology. When hunger stops interrupting you, "then you have more capacity to make better decisions somewhere else in your life," Dave says. He hacked hunger. And now he's sharing

He self-medicated. He covered stories in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. He went to Iraq six or seven times. When he got back, he was depressed. He was 32 years old and had never touched hard drugs before. But it became the thing that made him feel better. Millions of people were watching. The red light was on. And right there, in the middle of his live segment, he had a panic attack. I'm going to tell you how to deal with stress. I'll tell you what works for me. But first, I want to tell you about my guest, Dan Harris. Dan is an anchor on "Good Morning America" and "Nightline."  He's also the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works - A True Story. After the book came out people had questions. So he also created an app called "10% Happier." It teaches users easy "judo moves" to have more creativity, feel less stress, and be happier.  It helps you surrender. B

"I remember it like it was yesterday. It was Good Friday, 1989, at 3:30 in the afternoon. It was 37 degrees outside. I stood outside the Colosseum Mall, a mall in Jamaica, Queens. It's pretty popular. Just shivering with a bag of hats. I sold $800 worth of hats in an hour," Daymond John tells me. $800 an hour. That's "the power of broke." Before FUBU (a $6 billion global apparel company), before Shark Tank, and before Obama chose him as the Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship, Daymond John worked 18-hour days driving a delivery van. And he wasn't making money. His paychecks covered overhead - the cost of his van, gas, and maintenance. He worked to make money, and he made money to work. "When I took that to FUBU, I started saying, 'If we're not making money, it's not worth doing anything,'" he says. It's not failure. It's experience. "Other people call it failure. I won't call it failure. It's part of the process," he says. You need to take every single "failure" and bring it forward. You're on

I was always good at making money. I was also good at losing it instantly. I always went broke... Now I know why. What was I was doing wrong? I'll tell you. Because I bet you're making the same mistake. But first, I'll tell you how to make money. More money than you thought was possible. Listen to this episode. You'll hear tested and proven strategies to get rich from Ramit Sethi, the NewYork Times bestselling author and founder of iwillteachyoutoberich.com. He grew his business from a dorm-room blog into a multi-million dollar online business. And now he started a new company, GrowthLab, to teach you how to do the same thing-start and grow an online business. Ramit is a trainer. He'll make you hustle. "It's like looking up at a skyscraper and saying 'How am I going to build one of those?' Well you're not. You're going to start by walking in the lobby," Ramit says, "That's what you're going to do on day one." You can't get rich without putting in the work. I've set goals. None of them came true. But five or s

For billionaires, every exchange has a winner and a loser. That's what producers David Levien and Brian Koppelman tell me. They've made some of my favorite movies: Rounders, Ocean's Thirteen, Solitary Man. Now, they're coming out with 2016's most talked about show: Billions on Showtime. You can learn a lot from them. David and Brian are producers, creators and risk takers. If you want to create, listen to today's episode. You'll see how important it is to follow your curiosity. That's what David and Brian did. Sometimes starting something is that simple. Since they were kids, David and Brian were fascinated by two things: power and wealth. They wondered, "What makes a billionaire unique?" They had a question, an idea, and conviction. "We were all the f*ck in," Brian says. They had dinner with a bunch of billionaires. It sounds like it would be a lot of fun, but it wasn't. David and Brian were manipulated, belittled, and snubbed. But they were mesmerized. I'll give you one story. It's to tempt you to download

You can't make everyone happy. Really, you can't make anyone happy. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you can let go of control, shame, or whatever your parents did to you, and start having sex. Or happiness. Whatever you're searching for. I'll explain. My guest today, a seven-time New York Times best-selling author, Neil Strauss, has written books on Motley Crue, Marilyn Manson, and pornstar Jenna Jameson, before exploring the pickup artist scene. Sex was all around him. He was immersed in the seduction community, but Neil couldn't find love himself. No woman would kiss him. He grew up a loser, and couldn't get a girlfriend for most of his life. Now he's happily married. But between marriage and being a loser, he had a lot of "pleasure fantasy experiences." Meaning, he learned how to pick up women and started having crazy sex orgies. One after another. And then he just stopped, and the sex parties ended. I wanted to know why. What made him decide he couldn't handle it anymore? But I'll get back to this.

You know why I wrote Choose Yourself. But you don't know how you got here. How did you get here, on my email list, my website, Facebook page, Twitter? Do you want to know why you're following me? I'm going to tell you. I'll tell you my secrets to building an email list, a customer base, an audience. I'm going to tell you how I got you here. There are specific tactics I use. And you can use them, too, for your business or blog or anything. But I'll get back to that. First you need an idea. And there needs to be a demand for that idea. Next, you should be wondering, "Is my idea any good?" Probably not. Or maybe it is. You could be much smarter than me. Most of my ideas don't lead to anything. But a few have. Like StockPickr, the company I built and sold for millions before almost destroying myself and wanting to die. If you're an idea machine, you already know how to come up with ideas. Scaling an idea is more challenging. Results don't just appear. You need traction. You need to grow and acquire new customers.

I know a miracle worker. He's an entrepreneur, marketing man, and film producer who gets companies like HP to say, "yes" to him. You can learn a lot from him. I did. One thing I learned is there's more to choosing yourself. There's a part two. Part one is when you see things in your life that are absurd, decide you're not going to stand for it anymore and quit. You decide to become physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually healthy. That's choosing yourself. Part two is when you see what's wrong with the world and say, "That's absurd. Let's change that. Let's hack that. Let's modify that so it's affordable." That's what Mick Ebeling does-- founder of the Not Impossible Labs and the Not Impossible Foundation. Through these two entities, Mick figured out how build whatever he wants, and solve impossible problems. Mick sees the world through his own lens. It's the reason he's successful. He creates technology that solves absurd problems like having your arms blown off. No prosthetics, no solution. Or bein

You can have power, but it comes with a lot of bullshit. When Spider-Man's Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility," he was trying to say that power comes with a lot of BS. It's a good warning. We want all of the power and none of the bullshit. And then you hear everyone complaining. It's hard to be a good guy. My guest today, Jane Swift, is the youngest female governor in U.S. history turned CEO of Middlebury Interactive Languages. She's a superhero. During her campaign, she was pregnant with twins. She also already had a daughter. But that didn't stop her. She gives and expects nothing in return. That's what I do. Think about your obstacles. Now imagine doing more and complaining less. Sometimes, you might feel like you either have energy and no resources, or resources and no energy. Jane created both. And in today's podcast, she'll teach you how. I asked her what inspired her. "It's really around the passionate belief that I could make things better," she tells me. Her superpowers are

It won't be the idea that causes you to quit... it's fear. It's the big idea that stops us-the idea of being a Google or a Facebook, a New York Times best-selling author, a guru, a YouTube sensation, a Mark Cuban or Kevin O'Leary. Sometimes, it seems easier to forget you even had the idea to begin with. The idea of success. But if you give in, you'll end up quitting before you start. It's a trap. Think about how many people are on Earth. There are millions of attractive people I have never met because I didn't give myself the chance. I always thought, "She'd never have sex with me."I didn't even look. So I quit before I could start. But staring at a girl is easy. And who knows what that leads to? If you want to achieve something, you need to make moves. In today's podcast, you'll learn the steps you need to take to achieve anything. My guest, Mary Karr, is an award-winning poet and best-selling memoirist with praise from Stephen King, among many other highly-esteemed writers. In the interview, Mary shares som

Everyone I've ever dated (before my second marriage) was just practice. Telling my second grade crush I was in love with her and getting laughed at - practice. Posing as a psychic on Craigslist to meet women - practice. I could have chosen not to do those things. I could have been too embarrassed or said I don't want to be "that guy." But then I would have been holding myself back. Don't waste time and energy contemplating if you'll be successful. I get it. You're afraid. You don't want to get stuck or let go of a good thing. Recognize, though, that your fear won't generate wealth and freedom. So how do you know what's right financially? My guest today, Kevin O'Leary says, "There's no guarantee. You have to try things." Before becoming a successful entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and millionaire shark, Kevin tried and tested different jobs. He picked up garbage. This wasn't for him. He wasn't invested. Sometimes the key to success is to say no. Not to invest. If you aren't invested, you can keep trying new

If she told me to jump off a bridge, I just might do it. She was the only friend who would tell me anything, and I would do anything for her. I think I love her. Growing up, I wanted to know everything-sex, bullying, whether I was normal or not. I was curious-confused really. Kids were mean and girls were pretty. Judy Blume was the only one who would answer my questions. I was asking, "What is it all for?" And she told me. I thought, maybe this is what finding God feels like. She's a No. 1 New York Times best-selling author with more than 85 million books sold. Successful? Yes. But it's more than that. "I represent childhood," she says, "I think when somebody represents your childhood, that's special. I'm lucky people tell me that." Her book, "Forever," taught me about sex. "Blubber" explained bullying. I read Judy Blume's books because I had questions and she had answers. So where did she come from? At age 25, a man took her on a date. He stayed the night and never left. They got married, had two little babi

This is for the writers.  Write something that doesn't suck.  It's a simple goal.  With low stakes, Amy Koppelman wrote "I Smile Back," which was rejected at least 80 times. It was rejected because it resembled the truth too much. One publisher said, "This is the reason we got into publishing, but I can't sell this." Now, Sara Silverman is starring in the movie. She's the main character, Laney.  I was scared for the Laney. The book bleeds.  Sometimes you have to feel sorry for someone else to stop feeling sorry for yourself.  Good fiction can do that. It's how you can escape.  They say you can't run away from yourself. But they lie all the time. Amy wrote letters. She was depressed. She needed an escape. When she recognized sadness in someone else, she wrote him letters. Years later, with a pair of scissors, she cut and pasted a story together. That's how she got her book. She wrote with scissors. In today's interview, Amy reveals how you write great fiction. I wanted to know about the sadness inside her. Doe

Do you have a favorite book you return to over and over again? James does, and today the author of that book joins him on The James Altucher Show. Many of you know James does a Twitter Q&A every Thursday. But what you probably didn't know is that before he jumps online he rereads one book... He turns to Sugar for inspiration. Sugar is the fictional character in Cheryl Strayed's book, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. Cheryl Strayed has had a rough life: sexual abuse, divorce, past drug abuse, and her mother's death. All this pushed her to do something radical with her life. She decided to take a hike. Not your everyday hike; she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Coast Trail from the Mojave Desert through California, Oregon, and Washington - and she did it alone. The hike finally healed her, and she turned it into her NY Times bestselling memoir, Wild. The book was then turned into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon. Oprah loved the book so much she restarte

Lewis Howes is great. He has achieved Olympic level successful in many areas of his life and today with the launch of his brand new book, The School of Greatness, he adds Bestselling Author to the list. On this episode, I ask Lewis what it takes to be great. Without hesitation, Lewis says that it all starts with a vision. You have to visualize what it is you really want. You have to dream it. Lewis says that before you can achieve greatness and success you have to understand what greatness and success looks like for you. Take a notepad and a pen, go out into nature, lay there in silence and write down what your perfect day would look like. Lewis says that everyone faces some type adversity in their life, but the ones who achieve greatness figure out a way to use the adversity to their advantage. We discuss some amazing examples of people who have achieved greatness after adversity, like Kyle Maynard. I hope you enjoy today's episode as much as I did. I know you can be great. Links and resources: The School o