Into the Impossible With Brian Keating - Brian Keating on the Israel-Gaza Conflict, Campus Politics & Podcasting w/ James Altucher

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of chatting with James Altucher. James is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, bestselling author, and host of The James Altucher Show. In the first part of our interview, James wanted to learn more about black holes, wormholes, and the origin of the universe, so we explored these topics in detail.  In this second part, we moved away from physics and talked about the complexities of the Israel-Gaza conflict, campus politics, podcasting, and more! Enjoy.  Key Takeaways:  00:00 Intro 00:48 Reflecting on a year of achievements and challenges 08:02 Debating the complexities of the Israel-Gaza conflict 12:47 Navigating the challenges of campus politics 17:22 Reflecting on career progress and future projects 20:04 Podcasting and advertising  28:03 The struggle to improve and the concept of age  33:18 The importance of numbers and the balance of fun 36:07 Future plans and the art of writing 41:27 Outro  Additional resources:  ➡️ Connect with James Altucher: 🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheJamesAltucherShow  💻 Website: https://jamesaltucher.com/  ➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms: ✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating  🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1  📝 Join my mailing list: https://briankeating.com/list  ✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/  🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast  — Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known. Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Rogan didn't just start off being a podcast. You have this whole backstory, this whole life story, before podcasting was even a word. And that's what makes people interesting. Like to just say, well, I'm good at asking questions or, you know, I'm going to be, you know, a raconteur. People don't really care. Maybe you are the, you know, Charlie Rose or, you know, whoever, Larry King. And that's something natural for somebody to do. But mostly it should be like you're a guru in your own field.

And then you see these connections, these tendrils that stretch out to other fields. fields. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So, yeah, we haven't really caught up. What's new? What is going on with you? What's the latest stuff? Well, you know, things are, things are kind of interesting for me. I've finally gotten to a point where, you know, I don't really have, I would say I am, I've accomplished a lot of stuff in the last few years. I've had last year is my best year, you know, that I've ever had in my whole life. I had just incredible trips and fun family time and great stuff at work.

And I was on your podcast a couple times. The highlight of the year. And you helped me prepare for my Joe Rogan podcast. That was the last time we talked back in August, I think. And then I went on Joe Rogan, and I was on Jordan Peterson's podcast. And I did some teaching for Jordan Peterson's online university. university. And, you know, it was just a great year except for the, you know, really horrific terrorist attack in Israel, which happened about a week after I was there celebrating my bar mitzvah with my family

in Israel, you know, basically a week or two later, we got back and all hell broke loose. And that was really, I mean, kind of compensated for all the joy in some sense in the year and really just left it as, as you know a very a very negative year overall because of you know my connections to israel how's how's u sd university california sandy or how's it reacting to all this is it similar to like what we saw with harvard mit pen or is i mean nothing is as bad as those uh i mean those were i mean truly just horrendous public relations disasters i still can't believe the you know the woman at mit is still in her job. That's really pathetic. At least, you...

I don't feel like they've even questioned her. And she's the one who's kind of started off with, like, genocide. The word genocide depends on the context. Yeah, that's right. Just crazy. Yeah, I've just never seen such incredible, you know, cowardice and just unwillingness to call, you know, something horrific

by its real name. And it wasn't, it was just... If you told me, you know, there'd be the worst terrorist attack you know, the equivalent of, you know, 10, 9-11s for this country the size of Israel. And then the next day at my campus, there'd be, there'd be, you know, kind of vigils to commemorate the martyrs of Palestine. And then eventually there was an ISIS flag flown in front of the student government voting to declare anti-Semitism, condemn anti-Semitism, which failed. So there was a student government, and these are not Jewish.

These are mostly Asian and, you know, Caucasians or almost none of them are Jewish on the student Senate. And there were like the students for Palestine were putting up ISIS flags in front of the student center building and telling them they're complicit in genocide. And, you know, this happened within weeks of the worst massacre in, you know, modern history since the Holocaust. And it was just, you know. What I don't understand, like, first off, there's so many, like, whenever someone argues about this, whatever side, it always comes up, okay, the killing, there's this kind of straw man argument. Israel's bombing Gaza, the killing of children is, we all can agree it's an evil thing.

And yes, that's like a true statement. Killing children is an evil thing. It just so happens now. Israel's bombing Gaza, children are being killed. But how come to say, so there's this straw man kind of argument to kind of fit it into that. model. But meanwhile, if like someone robs a bank, they go to jail unless they return the money and they still go to jail. They committed a crime, but maybe a crime is lessened if they

try to undo the damage of the crime, which can't be done when there's murders and rape and all that kind of stuff. So how come the same people say, okay, well, we can stop the killing of children, we can prevent it if all the hostages are returned and the leaders of Hamas who are criminals are turned over. So how come? That's what I don't understand is why does it, like, AOC, you know, all these people, and AOC is very talented politician, whatever, but they're all saying ceasefire immediately. There was hostages taken. There's even American hostages taken.

Why weren't they calling for that? Yeah, I mean, there's just no, there's no consistency. I think, you know, Israel's, you know, Douglas Murray said something, you know, like, Israel's the only country that can't win a war, but it also can't lose a war. Like, their only country where you could tell another country. how they should react to the slaughter of their civilians, you know? And so there's been, I think that there's a narrative that Israel's the, you know, colonializers and they're white and they're successful, which is all lie.

I mean, I was there in September and the high holidays. And so ordinary Jews don't work during the high holidays, but there's a ton of Arab and Muslim and Bedouin and Druze and all sorts of other Israeli citizens. I mean, there's 20% of the Israeli population are not Jews. And the Arab Israeli citizens, okay, so these are in Israel itself, not in Gaza, West Bank. So they're from all Middle Eastern countries, they're Arab Muslims and they're Israeli citizens. They have full equal rights in Israel. Yeah, they have a political party.

They're on the Supreme Court. They serve in the military. So one of the guys I was with, it was a very interesting guy. His father, they're Bedouins, and his father was retiring after 26 years in the IDF as a colonel. And, you know, they're devout Muslims. And this guy was really wild. Muhammad, you know, I met every single guy was Muhammad or Ahmed or Ahmed Mohammed Mohammed. And, you know, we talked to all the things.

You know, he doesn't like Trump, but he hates Biden. You know, everyone feels like they have to talk to you about politics whenever you're with them. This is in their version of Uber, you know, driving our. around to go see my relatives on Russia Shana or whatever. And to a person, they were like, you know, there's, you know, they have full rights. They own restaurants. I mean, Israel is even more liberal a democracy than America. I mean, there's a gay party in the Knesset.

I mean, there's, you know, forget about Arab Party and there's ultra-Orthodox and there's- How does the gay party, what's their stance on taxes? Yeah, I think they're, they're very sound money efficient. They're very Austrian economics. Really? I don't know. But they, you know, so it's a very vibrant culture. And all the, you know, it's interesting.

The highest educated Arabs in the world live in the Palestinian territories. You know, they attend schools in Israel. They are taught by Jews and Arabs. There are, you know, incredible social programs for them. They serve in the military. I mean, to call them, you know, just the world is, there's a special hatred of Jews. And it's always been that way. And Jews have faced this. I thought that anti-Semitism was kind of overblown. I can say, well, you know, you have all these, you know, kind of crazy people. And yeah,

of course, you're always going to have, you know, there's 10% of the population thinks that aliens are visiting us right now or, you know, Elvis Presley is still alive. And, you know, 10% of the population are alcoholic felons. And, you know, so of course you're going to have some nutcha. I didn't think there were no anti-Semites. But just a degree in the virulence in the history and the hatred of, you know, tearing down posters, you know, there's a one-year-old baby, you know, turned one-year-old today, and there's a hostage. I mean, this has never happened in modern warfare. And then, you know, they have plenty of rockets. You know, I remember they said, like, Gaza's going to be out of fuel and the hospitals are going to be out of fuel and food.

And I just don't know, you know, when I was there, I actually thought for a very first time my life that there was a possibility of a two-state solution, just talking to the Arabs. But I realized I only met Arabs from the West Bank. And those are the ones that are most closely in contact with Jews because, you know, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. And there was, it's a Jew-free zone for the last, you know, 17, 18 years. But in the West Bank, you know, Jews and Christians and I was there with one of my wife's friends and, you know, our whole family.

And she went to Bethlehem and, you know, she's a Christian. And, you know, it was wonderful. But, you know, now I think there's absolutely. zero chain. I don't see there's any possibility of, you know, there's even more support now in the West Bank for Hamas than there isn't Gaza. Like, Gaza's totally destroyed and reeling

from it. And, you know, I'd been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but I mean, there's just no way you can envision making peace with people that will come, like, it wasn't just the military wing of Hamas. It was civilians. There was like a thousand civilians that

came into the kibbutz's and those were people that had worked in the, you know, done, you know, in the restaurants and in the kibbutzs, and they, you know, they had work permits like we have people from Tijuana that come to San Diego every day. I mean, if they were launching rockets and cutting off the heads of babies and burning whole families alive and videotaping it on Goproses and then sending the video to the parent, you know, we would, I mean, Tijuana would probably have, you know, like zero popular. There wouldn't be a building there. It would be completely

leveled and we would be have the you know first marine armor division would just be sitting there forever so i i am completely pessimistic i've changed 180 you know and 80 degrees i don't think there's any hope of peace you know right now i think that there's you know there's calls for it but um so it's been you know you ask me how am i doing so it's it's been pretty rough on campus as well i mean you have people um you know that my students that i teach i have a student um i won't say his name but he's a devout, you know, Muslim. And, you know, and he's super, he's just like so sweet. He's the only one of my students.

And I have Jewish students. You know, he's like, how are you doing? How have things been? I've had many Muslim students. I've never once thought I should boycott and protest Palestinians. They shouldn't even be allowed to come to campus. And this is like common now, that they don't want my Israeli colleagues to visit campus. They don't want us investing in companies that do business.

and I'm just thinking like I'm teaching these students and and you can't teach someone that you don't like you cannot teach someone that you don't trust and similarly you can't learn from someone who you don't like so if these students are with me and I'm and I'm very vocal and I've been quoted in newspapers and and in the chronicle of higher education and you know they know how I am so I it's just like an untenable situation how campus became the focal point. for both Israel-Palestine relations and for anti-Semitism and the greatest display of anti-Semitism

since the Holocaust, it's just, it's completely blown me away. And it's something I feel unsafe, you know, being in a place that, you know, this campus, it's the leadership is just so equivocal and not just taking a stance. Look, we're not supporting any, anything.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. So when you say you want to have a vigil for the martyrs, you're saying that what they did is martyrdom, and that's legitimate, and the killing of innocent civilians and rape and hostage taking and beheading is okay. And so to have this on the place where, you know, there should be the most revered intellectual scholarship undertaken, it's truly ridiculous. And I'm a professor. I have students that are like terrible. They had to call the police. They had to be evacuated from this meeting where they had the ISIS flag on display outside.

You know, like some young girl, you know, Jewish girl, she can't take, you know, defendants are screaming in her face and holding up an ISIS flag. And this is at UCSD. It's not a political, it's not Berkeley. It's not Columbia. And so I think, you know, we've let in a lot of people into our campuses that don't share American values

and don't see the virtue of the only democracy in the Middle East. It's kind of been a real eye-opener for me. Yeah, and it's an eye-opener in the sense that, like you said, I didn't realize it was so big, the eagerness to which they wanted to cling to a cause that was anti-Semitic. Yeah. Like, I didn't realize how big that was in terms of the population, percentage of the population of the U.S.

They would never say it. I mean, I got email after email. Look, I got emails from the chancellor, from the, the Board of Regents, from the president of the whole UC system, you know, when Roe versus Wade was repealed. You know, there's psychological services available to you, and there's this and then, and you may have a safe space, and if you want to have counseling. And then, you know, for days after this, it was like, you know, we are troubled by the events in the Middle East, you know. And only after, you know, hundreds of professors and students and, you know, huge uproar. And we asked

our chancellor to confirm that, you know, whether or not genocide is context-dependent, and he never responded about it. Really? Yeah, so, you know. So should he be fired? It's peak pollination season, and my business is scaling fast.

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GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Well, I think when you become a university bureaucrat, your number one job is to keep your job. And I actually said, you know, it's a good thing that UCSD isn't as prestigious as Harvard or something. Like, if you're the president of Hart, like, what is she going to do with her life? Like there's no, there's no place for her to go or McGill. You don't think there's some, like, think tank funded in part? I mean, who would, like, there are, no, no, you're right. There are people in government, I'm sure, you know, like,

like, there's money. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of money out there that comes from, like, Qatar and. But that is the most prestigious. Yes, that's right. But that is the most prestigious. In other words, she achieved the apex of my profession, which is president of the world's most prestigious university, right?

There's nowhere to go in that contextual domain, but down. But she is making, she's still a professor there making a million a year. But think about it. She's been out of the career of being a professor. She hasn't taught a class in 20 years. She hasn't done research in probably 30 years. She's not going to be going to conferences talking about how to be a best practice as a president because she's not a president.

All of her skills are perished, you know, perished. And yes, of course she's still getting paid. of course they didn't fire her. Neither did they fire the woman at Penn. And from her professorship. So, you know, and they also didn't fire the president of Stanford, who either plagiarized or committed academic malfeasance himself, this guy, something Levine last year.

And he just went back to being a professor. So I'm like, wait, you can still be an academia. Like, academia is the only position where you can get fired and still keep your job. I mean, it's unbelievable. I don't know of another. I mean, imagine Tim Cook, you know, is embezzling money. And they're like, okay, well, we're going to demote you from being CEO, but you're going to be chief engineer of the Siri team.

It's insane. But academia, it's totally normal. Hello, students of the impossible. It's Professor Brian Keating here with just a tiny little homework assignment to interrupt your podcast. And that's to make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast or following us. on your podcast app of choice, did some research, and actually only about 50% of you are actually following

or subscribing to The Into the Impossible podcast. And really mean a lot if you could subscribe and keep up to date with me with all the greatest content. I'm putting out tremendous amounts. Podcast has grown in popularity, but it can be better and bigger with your help. Do that, please do it now.

Don't wait, you'll forget. If you're looking to really boost your position on the grade curve for some extra credit, make sure to leave a rating or review of the podcast really helps. Thanks a lot. Now back to the show. So, so like you said, this totally transformed the year for you and making it a net negative, your best year ever. Do this year, what's going on? Like obviously, it's the same thing is happening, but do you have any, how's the podcast going? Do you have any projects on the horizon? Yeah, the podcast has been going really well.

It hit like right after I was on your show and Rogan show, I hit number 71 podcast in the world. Wow. That was pretty cool on Spotify. That was cool. And yeah, it's really... Last time I was number one was like 2016 maybe. Yeah. You know, because it's a function also of how many new signups you get.

That's right. You must have gotten a lot of new signups after Rogan. Yeah. So that was great. And, you know, we kind of kept in touch a little bit, and I'm supposed to maybe see him in April for this eclipse that's going through Texas. And really, I'm kind of in this interesting phase right now where, I'm just really trying to tune in, you know, be with the family,

concentrating on my research. The Simon's Observatory is going to hopefully start taking data in April. Do you think you're depressed a little bit? I mean, it's impossible not to be depressed from everything that's happened, you know, in Israel. I mean, and just feeling like I chose this profession, the life of the mind, and this is all I've ever wanted to do and all I could do. and really found this podcast to kind of be almost like a salvation, a respite, you know, a different career. It is a different career for me in that, you know, kind of the David Brooks, you know, Second Mountain kind of scenario where now it's, I've kind of garnered as much as I think I can in my profession, you know, like I don't need more attention, you know, thank goodness, I'm funded well.

I've got great students, you know, fully tenured. And so in terms of my mountain number one, I feel super content. And so now it's about, well, like, how do I give back? How do I, you know, scale and do teaching? And the podcast has been, you know, this incredible outlet for me. Like tomorrow I'm supposed to talk to Sam Harris, you know, for the first time. Or you haven't had Sam Harris on? No, no.

I mean, you know, it was for a while. it was, you know, kind of like, well, do I want to talk to him? Is it going to be, you know, beneficial? Is it, you know, my... Because, you know, he got very political in one hand, and he kind of withdrew from, you know, social media on another hand. And I don't want to talk to him about, you know, the same old stuff of, you know, well, what did you think of the Biden laptop? And so, you know, I really want to do. So I've kind of pivoted, like this way that I want to do podcasting now is,

I used to feel a lot of pressure. And it's thanks to you, you know, or blaming you in some ways, because you prepare so well. And you always kind of conveyed that, one of your superpowers was like how well you know how much you invested in research and reading you know books and stuff and i just kind of got a little burned out from that like uh do i have to read the entire book of you know every single thing that sam harris has ever read you know before i written before i go and interview him no i mean i've read quite a bit of sam harris books in in

back in the day i he sometimes actually i avoid some guess because there's too much to read yeah i know you know, for him it certainly is. And, you know, so now I'm like, well, why don't I lean into what's unique about me? For example, do you know Morgan Housel, this guy who wrote the psychology of money? Like, he's supposed to come on in a couple weeks. He has a good new book out. I just ordered it. Same as ever. Oh, yeah, yeah. It sounds really good. It is really good. But he's done so many interviews. Like, he's really good at doing interviews and he's got his own podcast. And so I was like, I want to have you on, but I don't want to spend a single second talking about it. your book. In fact, I've picked up, like, where these people are interested in science or

consciousness or thing. And, like, sometimes he'll just talk about, like, Al Einstein said this about compound interest. And so I'm like, well, let's go into that. Let's not talk about, well, you know, we should invest in stocks, you know, in Pepsi. And, you know, that's boring. He's talked about that ad nauseum. So I agree with that approach. I think all these podcasts are better as conversations. Yeah. And I think to some extent, you know, I watch a lot of podcasts, I see a lot of podcasts. I kind of learned that not only from experience doing podcasts, but from watching Joe

Rogan, who I think is obviously exceptionally good. And he reads zero. He has, I don't think he's read a book. Yeah, and I sent him my books before I went, you didn't open them up. I don't even think they were there. But he likes to design kind of the vibe and make sure that the conversation is in the state the flow and you know he's just you're with him and you just feel like you're extremely important and there's something about being in person i know that you know you've done mostly and i've done mostly

remote interviews and no i've done mostly in person until covid yeah so the first no i know yeah of my history was all in person and now the second half since march 20 20 has been mostly remote there's been there's pros and cons to both because i can do more podcasts remote yeah and it opens me up to a larger number, they don't have to be in New York City, for instance, for me to do a podcast with them. But, you know, it's different. I asked Sam Harris, you know, because he lives in Los Angeles. And I was like, you know, I could come up there very easily. And, you know, my friend Eric Weinstein and, you know, kind of introduced me to him.

And he's like, no, I'd rather do it remote. So, you know, it just made him feel more. And I can understand that. Like, he doesn't know who I am. I mean, he could look it up. But, like, how much research is, it's lower stakes when you're remote because you just show up on a video. screen. I do feel like there's something to be said about doing stuff in person. I did one with Brian Green when I was in Manhattan in November and that was really cool to be in his office.

And, you know, there's a different vibe set when you're in person. But yeah, I don't know if it's like, you know, if I should kind of lean in in that sense and, you know, try to figure out. I've kind of try to stop doing any kind of advertising or any kind of, you know, I just do the automatic advertising on YouTube and I do the automatic advertising on, you know, a megaphone or, you know, Spotify. And not having, because I was like, what, do I need, like, do I even need to get money from the podcast? I mean, doesn't that make my life? I mean, I know it's your job and that's great, and you should get paid for it. But, you know, dealing with sponsors and then deadlines and then, oh, they didn't like the way you read this link, and you said dot com, but it's really dot or.

I'm just like, damn, now I have a boss. Like, I don't need that anymore. So I'm trying to withdraw from, you know, any, you know, saying no in the power of no and trying to, you know, just do what I enjoy about it. So, no, I wouldn't say, you know, depression. I would say the question of, like, what is, is there a goal with podcasting? Is it an infinite game? Do you just want to keep doing it forever?

You know, if it's not my job, I get, you know, I get rewarded for it. You know, I have a big team now doing my YouTube videos, which has really exploded. You know, I've got over 200,000. Yeah, you do really good on YouTube. I never really caught that wave. Yeah, it's the only way to get discovery, right? I mean, there's no podcast advertising that really works. And now with Google, I don't know if you know this, but, you know, Google podcast is going away.

So I think they're driving everybody to YouTube podcast. So it'll be interesting to see what happens. happens with your, you know, kind of YouTube following and downloads. Well, you know, I think if you have subscribers, they stay. Yeah. So I haven't really, I haven't really, I grow subscribers, but not as much as like you did after you were on Joe Rogan. Like, growing subscribers is difficult, but maintaining subscribers is not so difficult. Yeah.

And I'm very happy. I've maintained, you know, I started off with a nice audience and I've maintained it. Yeah, I mean, you've been doing it, you know, almost as long as anybody. and I just, I've really enjoyed, like, meeting, you know, the people I've met, like Jordan Harbinger. I met him in person finally. He came down to San Diego. He's such a good guy. Yeah, I actually met him like the day before October, you know, 7th. He came to my house for, it was a holiday.

So we had, you know, and he's Jewish. So we had a meal together. I didn't know he was Jewish. Yeah, he's trying to get Israeli citizenship. Really? Yeah, he's always, he's always trying to, you know, make sure he's got a parachute, you know, to get out of town if he needs to. But, um. You would have a fun, by the way, it's not in your category at all,

but you would have, you would have a fun time talking to Noah Kagan, who was just on my podcast. I know, yeah, Noah is a good friend. He's been to my house many times for Shabbat. Yeah, no, he's got his new book out. Yeah, no, he's a character. He's been really hustling for many years. Yeah, I've met him three or four years ago.

I forget how I just followed him on his podcast. And yeah, I've been watching him. I have a copy of his book somewhere here because he was, he's going to come on my podcast, but I'm like, it's just a bunch of stem, you know, nerds. I don't think you're going to sell any books. And he was cool. I got to read it. And yeah, he's a great guy. The other guys, yeah, I mean, I've gotten close with Jordan Peterson. He's, he's super, super interesting guy. He's always under attack. That guy is, you know,

he's got more kind of people attacking him than any person should ever have. But he's a soulful, he's a very sweet guy. I mean, for someone who's as bombastic, as a great, He doesn't take any crap. And he's just incredibly courageous. And I don't know. He's got the weight of the world on his shoulders. It's incredible. So yeah, that was good.

He's been on my podcast before. And I kind of used it like, I took his, the fact that he's a therapist more than the fact that he's like this modern day philosopher. And I basically had like a therapy session during the podcast. You should know the day I recorded his podcast back in March of 2023, I was listening to your podcast. with him. Because I, there are, most of his interviews are just like so abstract. Like, and by the way, when I was on his podcast, I didn't talk about like transgender and it was only about black hole. It was just like the first part of this pot. It was only about cosmology, the Big Bank, philosophy, religion. And he's, he's just an incredibly deep individual. So yeah, I mean,

I guess, well, what's, what do you have on the horizon? Is it just like, are you, you know, kind of because your kids are gone, right? They're out of the house. right? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I was, I had this, or I still have this theory that as we get older, the thing that drives us forward is this concept of going on a quest. So finding some impossible, improbable thing to seek out. And whether or not you get there, you'll have it, if it's impossible enough and hard enough, you'll have adventures along the way. You just have to have adventures along the way. So whether it's, you know, what you're doing with your experiments, trying to find the beginnings of the universe or becoming like the best podcaster that ever existed,

or, you know, I went on a six or seven year journey in stand-up comedy. I went on and for the past couple years, I've been trying to, you know, I was competitive chess master when I was younger and I've been trying to, my listeners have heard this, but there's a new twist as of this week. I've been trying to get back to my old rank. Oh, yeah. My old rating in chess. And so I've been playing in tournaments and, you know, you keep the title master forever,

but your rating goes up and down. Yeah. And I just, after a 25-year break, it looks like I just can't do it. I'm almost at the point of giving up on this particular quest. And, you know, King Arthur never found the Holy Grail in the literature. But they had lots of adventures. I've had amazing adventures, whether it was comedy or chess or before that, running a hedge fund

or whatever. I've had amazing adventures in the past two years that I could not have believed. But I just don't know if I could do it. And so I have to figure out what to do next. Hey there, fellow Voyagers into the Impossible Tiz Eye, your fearful host. Professor Brian Keating here with a tiny little homework assignment before we get back to the episode. And that's to make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast. either following it or subscribing to it depending on your podcast catcher of choice.

I did some research of my own and found out that only about half of you are actually following or subscribing to the podcast. So please do that. And for some extra credit, if you're looking to boost your position on the grading curve, please leave a rating or review. It really helps us out tremendously. Do it. Do it now. Before you forget, let's go back to the episode. Imagine you say, like, I want to be the next Joe Rogan or, you know, some young guy or, you know, but they don't have any, like Joe Rogan didn't just start off being a podcast. You didn't start off being a podcaster. You have this whole, you know, backstory, this whole life story before, you know, podcasting was even a word. And, and, you know, that's what makes people interesting. Like to just say, well, I'm good at asking questions or, you know, I'm going to be, you know, a raconteur. People don't really care. You know, you, you can. You could be, maybe you are the, you know, Charlie Rose or, you know, whoever, a Larry King, and that's something natural for somebody to do. But mostly it should be like, you're a guru in your own field. And then you see these connections, these tendrils that stretch out to other

fields. Like, I can talk to a finance guy like Morgan Housel, but talk to him about, you know, physics and, you know, and happiness or religion or, you know, what have you, or being a parent. Those are things you get outside of the podcast. Like, you can't. become an interesting podcaster just being a podcaster, right? You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save?

Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected.

When you want savings, not surprising. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Right. So, like, this was something, though, I was, like, this quest on, that might be more related to, like, my quest on comedy, where I was starting from scratch. Yeah. Although I'd been a public speaker, I hadn't been a comedian.

It was very different. Yeah. But this, though, it was just, it was like an age-related thing. Like, can I get back to where my youth was? And it's looking like, whether I can or I can't, it's looking at least. least much more difficult than I thought it was, which is surprising to me. How important is like achieving that number versus like being, you know, winning tournaments in your age group now?

I feel like I want to demonstrate that I could still improve at the rate I was able to improve when I was younger. Well, when I was younger, I studied, I improved. I studied, I improved. Now, I study my knowledge increases, but my results have not increased at all. in two years. And I just, and it's frustrating. Yeah. And so maybe I might write about the experience because lots of, like I said, lots of adventures, lots of life-changing adventures have happened along the way. And it's been fascinating. Are you doing other stuff like, you know, neutropics or,

you know, sleeping, psychedelics or, you know. I've spoken to a nutritionist, you know, nootropic people, neurologists, sports coaches. I took memory lessons from the world, memory champion. I've had, I flew to Norway to have dinner with Magnus Carlson. It's the best chess player in history. So I've had like amazing. I've learned so much about the mind, the brain, the body, competitiveness, sports, games, you know, and again, what's the difference in the brain between a young person and an older person? How can I use that to my advantage, what those differences are? Do you think that there are things like that? I'm just making analogy in physics or in math, you know, it's very difficult for a 55-year-old mathematician to do.

In fact, it's probably impossible. But in experimental physics, you only accumulate in its cumulative endeavor. Like, is chess more like math or is it more like experimental physics? It seems to me it's hard to. It's more like math and less like, I'll take an extreme, okay, because I don't know experimental physics. It's much more like math and it's less like history, where the average peak age of a historian is 69 years old. Because as you get older, your ability to just raw, calculate, and be creative and see things in your head that don't yet exist is better when you're younger.

Like your calculation speed, the speed of your thoughts is faster and your memory is better and your originality is better. But as you get older, your ability to say, oh, I've seen this situation before, or you could synthesize ideas better. This creates your creativity. But, you know, like a historian can say, oh, this situation in Israel right now,

we have to look at the Balfour mandate in 1929, and we have to look at what's happening right now in Azerbaijan or mean. Like, they could synthesize all these different situations and have a deeper understanding of what's happening. Deepness is important in chess, but it doesn't make up for what you lose. What you gain does not replace what you've lost.

But maybe it's also, like, the skills that you've been building up over the last 20 years or 30 years are very inapplicable. You know, like you built up rapport, collaboration, curiosity, supporting underprivileged, you know, perspectives, helping people, teaching, guiding. Like, that has no place in chess. So maybe you've been, like, maybe you're playing the wrong game. I mean, in a sense. No, it's true. And I think, you know, and I was, originally I was thinking I'd write a book on this,

having succeeded at my quest. Yeah. But now I'm sort of realizing, and I don't want to be cliché. I hate when people say it's the journey, not the destination. But I've learned so much. And I've even, I would say,

what's really interesting, my appreciation of a beautiful chest game has gone way higher because I understand much more about the game and about games and competition in general, because I've studied just the meta aspects of learning and competition and all this stuff. So this is, you know, I've learned a lot and I'm tired, though, of every single tournament not doing as well as I would have hoped.

How do you detach, you know, for me, it's been like, oh, I want to see, like, my number of subscribers, you know, like, I want to get to, like, originally it was, if I ever get to 100,000 subscribers, you know, I'd be incredibly happy, and I told one of my friend, you know, punch me in the face if I ever talk about a million subscribers. And now I'm like, well, you know, maybe I could get, yeah, I'm 20% of the way there and just three years, you know. And if I just like devoted, you know, all these resources to it, you know, and it wouldn't even be at the exclusion of my research because research takes years to write a single, I've been working on a single paper with collaborators around the world for eight months now. And it's been

ready to submit, you know, for four months. And it's just like, oh, my God, are we ever going to finish this thing? And it's going to be a great result. It'll be really fun. But so it's, it's almost like irrelevant how much time you spend in science because, you know, so many other people have to have to be a part of it. Whereas the podcast, I can just put in twice as much money or effort and it will grow. So my question is, yeah, I mean, how much of the hedonic, you know, treadmill should I be, you know, fix it on? Should I really care about some arbitrary number or, or, you know, Or, you know, or should I really just say like, well, what's, is it just a journey? Because if it's the destination, you're right.

Like, then I should just only prioritize getting to a million subscribers. I mean, it's both, right? So everything's a number. So in chess, I was trying to get to a number of particular rating. In comedy, you judge yourself by how many people, how many seats can you fill? Can you fill a club? Can you fill an arena? Can you fill a stadium?

Can you fill a theater? In hedge fund management, it's your returns plus how many assets under management you have. And writers, it's social media followers and so on. So there's always some number that people aspire to. But yeah, I think you stop aspiring to it when it's not fun for you anymore. Or you have to change it so it becomes fun. It's hard to make losing fun. I mean, on the one hand, you can say every,

It is true. You only do learn from the losses because if there's something fundamental that you missed that you need to learn, there's a blind spot. Now, you could, a game you win, you didn't have as many blind spots, you know, theoretically. So there's not as much to learn. But when you lose, or in anything, and when you make a mistake in anything, what was the, not only what was the mistake so you don't repeat it, but what was the style of thinking

that you had that led to that mistake or what concept did you not understand? understand. I'm not talking about chess. I'm talking about investing or physics or anything. But, you know, so, but when it stops to become fun, even acknowledging that losses are and suffering is a learning experience, that's when you really have to start questioning it. And I don't know if I'm giving up too early, if I was too impatient, but it's never been hard for me before to improve at this domain. And now it seems to be extra. I've never spent like two straight years studying chess in my life. I had a one year period one time, another year period, another time.

And I was a hit the master level and then I stopped. And now it's like, oh, I'm beating myself up every day about this. And then I go to a tournament and I'll lose games that I felt I shouldn't have lost. I mean, if you're not having fun, it just, it doesn't seem, you know, it doesn't seem to be worth it. You know, if you're, I mean, there's only so much time. I guess the question is, what is, What is the opportunity cost?

Like, what would you be doing? Let's say you say, I did this experiment, you know, in the 10,000 experiments rule. I did it and, you know, most experiments fail, right? I mean, I don't have to tell you. And I wouldn't say this is a failure. Like, I learned a huge amount because I was able to learn with a goal in mind. So I think that helps learning.

And that actually probably unlocked different opportunities and experiences. And so, no, there was no way, in no sense that you lose. You can't lose. but what else would you be doing right now? I mean, what other things like light you up and make you interested? I mean, obviously writing books. But, you know, I've kind of felt like writing books. I am writing another book, but it's another version of my Think Like a Nobel Prize series.

You know, I've interviewed another nine Nobel Prize winners, and I'm going to just take those learnings and put them in a book. I've not written as much. And I've been writing since 1990. I love writing. I love the art of writing. So that's something I could, you know, I could write about this experience and all the adventures I went through.

And it was a big roller coaster in a lot of ways, not just about chess. And so I'm thinking about how to write about it. But, you know, now I just have a different conclusion than I thought I would have. Which is always more interesting. I mean, I always feel like, you know, if you want to bore somebody, tell them about your great vacation to Paris, you know, whereas if you tell them like, oh, I almost got, you know, kidnapped and, you know, and brought to me. Like if Brad Pitt wrote a book on how to pick up girls, it wouldn't be that interesting for me.

So if I wrote that book, everybody should read it, by the way. All right, James. Well, this has been fun. Let's do it every more often. Yeah, I should go on your podcast at some point. We should do a round trip to the sun. Let's do it. I want to come back.

I want to come visit you out there. and obviously you're back here. Maybe we should do a, you know, 10-year reunion of TEDx San Diego. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank.