Modern Wisdom - #137 - James Altucher - How To Improve Every Day & Harness The Power Of Ideas

Episode Date: January 27, 2020

James Altucher is a chess master, writer, entrepreneur, investor, podcaster and comedian. Everyone talks about compound improvements being the key to progress, but how can you systematise that into your life so you're growing every day? And how can you harness the power of idea generation to build your mental muscles & create opportunities in your life? James explains how he experiments in his life by playing around with new ideas all the time. This is the first in a two-part episode with James, they can be enjoyed separately or together. I figured I'd try experimenting with ideas too! Extra Stuff: Buy Choose Yourself - https://amzn.to/2GlYDYd Check out James' Website - https://jamesaltucher.com/ Follow James on Twitter - https://twitter.com/jaltucher Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi humans, welcome back to Modern Wisdom. My guest today is none other than James Altature. Entrepreneur, writer, chess master, comedian, blogger, blah, blah. He's just a super interesting guy, and I absolutely loved having a conversation with him today. In the interests of today's conversation, which is all about how we can have more ideas in our lives, how we can experiment and test the waters with them, taking them from our brains to the real world. I'm going to try a little idea of my own, and today is going to be the first of a two part episode.

So today, I'm going to get part one, and then on Thursday, you're going to get part two. Kind of just worked that way. I needed a bathroom break halfway through, and we stopped it around about the right time. So enjoy this. If you're new here do not forget to hit the subscribe button. We'd make me very happy indeed. But for now please welcome the wise and wonderful, welcome back. James, hey man, welcome to the show. Chris, thanks for having me on the show. I'm so glad to be here.

Isn't, aren't intros so awkward? Like you just know, you never really know what to say and how to bring people in. I always have a hard time on podcasts with the intros. It is the single worst bit of the job. And I, you know, behind the curtain, I hate doing it. Every single time, do I do this weird like four-play phallacio thing where I'm telling them about all the accomplishments

or you know, inside scene measurement and what you were what you like to eat before you go to bed and stuff. I don't know. Well, you know, here's an, here's an idea. I'm going to try this. I'm going to do an intro and then I'm going to just start talking to people and we get into conversation and then I'm going to hit record. And this way it's like people just jump right into the conversation.

Do you know who Rory Sutherland is? Yeah, I've heard the name. I don't know who he is. Vice chairman of Ogle will be advertising in the UK. You need to get him on. Let me link you to up for your podcast, man, because you were absolutely. Excellent. But that, that guy is the exact same as trying to step onto a train that is moving at high speed. So podcasting with him, he just went. So I was like, right, Rory, I'm just going to, I'm just going to do a little bit of a sound check and then we'll do an intro and he went, right, Russia. And then just started talking about Russia. And I was like, no, Rory, I never mind, just

hit the record button. I was like, right, I'll just get cracking from the beginning. That's funny. Yeah, that's a good idea. I'm going to try that too. It's fun, man. Right. So, what do we start? I tell you what, why don't we start? We started something that would be a good story for everyone. So you've failed quite spectacularly a couple of times and then bounce back and then failed again and bounce back. Can you take us through some of those experiences and sort of what they meant to you and what you learned from them? Yeah, I mean, I think it's always hard because I've told, you know, I've written about this story

and I always try to have a new take on it, but the reality is, I've always got ahead of myself, didn't know what I was, I always got ahead of myself. Didn't know what I was doing and then failed spectacularly. So for instance, I built and sold the business in the 90s. I wasn't a businessman. I didn't want to be an entrepreneur. I had zero interest. I just kind of stumbled into it.

Sold the business, made millions. And I thought I was smart. Like you think when you're, when you're smart in one area, you kind of think you're smart in every other area. So I started just, I don't, I know I had, I had enough money for not only me to survive a lifetime, but my children's children to survive a lifetime. And two years later, I was so stupid during those two years, I had 140, I was left with $143 left in my bank account total. That was all I was worth. I was losing my house, losing everything. Didn't know what I was going to do. I had no friends left because, you know, I, this was 20 years ago, but, you know, basically

on the way up, everyone wants to be your friend and on the way down, nobody knows you. And it wasn't because they were bad or I was bad or I was good. It's just, you know, I didn't do the right things to cultivate the best possible relationships. And I kind of thought the money would always last, and the money would keep on flowing. And I just didn't realize that for the first time in my life, bad things could really happen. I was used to just starting from having nothing.

It was better when I had nothing than when I had millions, because then I just started making stupid decisions and started getting really depressed about losing everything. Then by the time I had lost everything, I was phenomenally depressed. And so then starting from scratch is hard, but I'll, we could talk in the details, but basically this happened to me several times. Like I would start something new, make a lot of money,

then lose everything, starts up new, make a lot of money, lose everything, start something new, make a lot of money, lose starts up be new make a lot of money lose everything it took me a long time to realize you know what it's me it's doing something to dominate here right the total common denominator was that I was an idiot and there's three skills to money there's making it keeping it growing it and somehow I had the skill of making it. And which by the way, I didn't know it first. Yeah, I had to learn that. But then I realized, it took, unfortunately, I learned a lot, realized too late. I had no skill of keeping it and growing it. And I had to really start from scratch learning those skills. And that was, that was difficult. You know, now it's 20 years later, knock on wood. I think I have those skills, but we'll see. Maybe I'll go broke tomorrow. We never know.

Yeah. I suppose those strategic learning experiences, right? Like there's no bigger way to deliver a hammer blow learning than by going broke a couple of times from a few million. No, I mean, but the thing is you don't, you don't say to yourself, oh, this is great. I just lost everything learning opportunity. Like, it just doesn't, this is a bit more visceral there, right? Yeah, it just doesn't, it just doesn't happen that way.

Like, like, I would lose everything. The very first time was probably the hardest because I thought to myself, you know, I just won the lottery, like basically, like I didn't know anything about business or entrepreneurship, I knew I knew how to build a website in the 90s and no one else did. So I shouldn't say no one else did, but very few people did.

And I knew how to, I was like maybe one of the best at doing it in terms of both technology and understanding of, you know and understanding of what the clients needs were. I was a good salesperson. I understood what their needs were. I built a business and I built websites for AmericanExpress.com. All a lot of record labels, a lot of entertainment companies, all sorts of big major companies. And we built it up, we sold it, and a lot of my business and experience

took place during this process. Like, I could have been a software company instead of a service company. I had software to help me build websites, but I didn't use it as software. I used it as services, which I didn't understand that software companies are bought for higher evaluations than service companies. So I was valued on a multiple of my profit. I was a profitable internet company, which was a horrible mistake during the 90s. And so I sold, but I still sold for a good amount. Like my friends were selling their companies

for like $300 million. I sold mine made $15 million. And then, and then I started, and I, and I cashed out. It wasn't like I had paper. I cashed out. I was, I thought to myself, this internet boom is not gonna last forever. I was smart.

And then, even though I thought that, and even though I cashed out, here's what I did. I invested all the money in internet companies. And I just, and then I also bought like the biggest house I could possibly buy, and I would take And I just, and then I also bought like the biggest house I could possibly buy. And I would take, you know, helicopters everywhere. If I wanted to go like down the street, I would take a helicopter like it was just no, no expense was, was too big. And I, I quite correctly lost everything. And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, this,

I had won the lottery. I'm never going to be able to do this again. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to go back to what I was doing before. What am I going to do? It would be like a junior programmer at some accounting firm. There's anything wrong with that, but I already had tasted Mount Olympus. I didn't know what to do. I was really scared and unhappy and really scared and like to the point of being suicidal. Like I had, when I was riding high,

I took out an extensive life insurance policy for my kids and my kids were still babies. I figured they're not gonna remember me. so I thought it would be better for them to have the life insurance policy than me. And that's how dark it was getting. And then I was really unhappy, I would say, for the next, I don't know, maybe 10 or 11 years, as I was constantly in the struggle

to kind of succeed again. And every time I succeeded, I would lose it again. I just, I didn't know what was going on. Disappointment suck, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it's a really crucifying emotion to have, to have something that you thought was right or good or there, you had it, and now you don't have it

And you got this sort of wistful hole of where it used to be Yeah, and and I thought okay the way I can make it back is through Business the business world, but I was never a business guy to be get with and I didn't really enjoy business And so I kept staying focused on okay, well, just do this more business, and then I'll get back to what I truly love, which is a really horrible attitude to have. Like, you know, I basically spent something like 25% of my life, you know, in this pursuit of that holy grail again, being desperately unhappy and stressed and anxious. And, you know, it was all the things that happened. I can't really remember that many pleasant memories from the whole X-rays.

Even people say, oh, how about your kids? Nope, because I would hang out with my kids and I was thinking, man, I just, I blew their future too. I not only blew my future, I blew their future. And every time I spend time with them, I'd be anxious about business. So I even, I, you know, people say, oh, I have no regrets.

Else I wouldn't be who I am today, which is true. But, but I do regret not taking a different kind of world view on what was happening to me, a different macro view. Because I bet, I bet you I could have done many things and still done well. And I was just so focused on, on business. And it was just such a stupid thing to focus on. Hindsight is 2020, isn't it? You've always got this perfect vision when you look backwards. So one of the things that I thought that was really interesting was you don't have this

like Hollywood, Joe Rogan style, like grit your teeth and no dogs gonna, I'm the dog that if you kick me, I get back up and you know, it's not that kind of like really romantic level of resilience and grit. It seems a lot more real than that. Yeah, like I don't think I had any resilience. And you know, Joe Rogan, I don't know his full story. I really admire him. I admire his podcast. I admire his interviewing I had any resilience. And you know, Joe Rogan, I don't know his full story. I really admire him. I admire his podcast.

I admire his interviewing style and his background. But he kind of went from to his credit, because I think he's a smart guy. He went from success to success. Like he was a struggling stand-up comedian, but it's not like he made it to the top and fell. And then he was on various TV shows, including Fear Factor and at least one sitcom. And then he had a lot of experience with MMA, became an MMA announcer while he was starting his podcast. So I sort of feel like he had a very natural growth in his career. And I'm sure he made

some mistakes, but my mistake was I started off doing something I didn't want to do. And then I thought I was smarter than I was. And then I made a series of incredibly bad high stakes decisions, lost everything. And then I repeated the whole process four or five times. So I wish I had gone from kind of struggle to success, to a little more struggle, to a little more success, you know, kind of the natural path of things. Instead, I, I, I, I, didn't know. I have, because of that, here's where I could say, I have learned an enormous amount. Like I have so much experience. I was able to share it in, you know, books and

podcasts and so on that I know have created some impact and I'm very proud of that. But, you know, at the same time, I'm kind of, I feel like I'm a little bit scarred on the inside. I mean, I started with absolutely nothing and thought I made something of myself, but maybe, you know, but then I just started squandering that and I remember one time, this was like the, maybe third or fourth time I went broke.

I was, I had done the usual bad things. I had, this time I didn't buy just one big house. I bought two big houses right next to each other. And I had a hammock right in between the two. And I was like lying on this hammock, just like upset at myself. And then it started raining. And it's just almost like a cliche image.

But I was just remembering myself. I cannot believe this has happened to me again. And here I am. I'm just soaking wet. I cannot believe this has happened to me again. And here I am. I'm just soaking wet. I don't want to go inside and face my kids and, and, and my now ex-wife and, and admit how much of a failure I am. But at the same time, I just had nothing to do, nowhere to go. So what's the, what's the mindset there? Because, you know, there's people who are in varying gradations of bad, bad situation at the moment. Like I say, it's not this romantic. I saw the butterfly emerge

from the chrysalis and thought, that's me. I'm a this like, it wasn't, it doesn't have that sort of that signature to it. What was the most set to not just give up? Yeah, and just just to add quickly to what you said, I think there's kind of almost a have that sort of that signature to it. What was the most said to not just give up? Yeah. And just just to add quickly to what you said, I think there's kind of almost a genre of failure porn now in Silicon Valley, like or in entrepreneurship world, where people basically say, Oh, I failed. So now I'm ready to succeed. Like it's failures of badge of honor.

Now I can succeed. Everybody will think I'm smarter because I learned from my failures. I didn't feel that way at all. I had, you know, anyway, I already described how bad it was, but I kind of said, you know, this has happened to me enough. First off, I felt like there was a gun to my head. It's not like I was just gonna give up at this point. I had to do something.

And so I had to ask myself, well, what was working for me on the way up? And what what was working for me on the way up? And what was not working for me on the way down? It's not like people sometimes asking, I want to start a business. What's the right idea? Or I want to invest something? What's the right stock? Or I need to find my passion in life? What do I do? And that's sort of like the last questions you ask. First, I had to kind of build up my inner frame or my inner presence so that I can have strength again to succeed.

And I realized that's what I had always done on the way up and I had given up this, what I'll call a daily practice on the way down. And had given up this what I'll call a daily practice on the way down. And so how do you, so I started very seriously every day focusing and it's very simple and again, it's so simple, it almost sounds like a cliche. But I very simply started focusing every single day. Am I 1% better in terms of my physical health, emotional health, creative health, and I'll call it

spiritual health, or lack of a better word. And physical health means it's very simple. Am I eating better, moving better, sleeping better? Doesn't mean I have to go to a gym and lift weights every day. Doesn't mean I have to be a vegan, but you know, am I eating a little better today than I did yesterday? Am I moving around or exercising a little bit more today than I did yesterday?

Just a tiny bit. A tiny tiny bit. Am I sleeping eight hours a day? Emotional health. Am I pruning the toxic relationships in my life and focusing on the better relationships? And there's a lot of reasons for that. First off, with the physical health, if you get sick, you're not going to come up with ideas while you're sick. So that's why that's so important. Second off, with the

emotional health, if you're constantly arguing with a spouse or bad partners or other toxic people in your life, you're not going to be creative and have the energy to build a business or to write a book or to do exciting things in your life. Creative health, people don't realize this, but creativity is a muscle. And like any muscle, it atrophies within days or weeks, if you don't use it. So I just make sure I'm creative every day. Specifically, what I try to do

is I try to write down 10 ideas a day. Like, oh, what are 10 ideas for businesses that could start? What are 10 ideas for books I could write? And by the way, it doesn't have to be about me. I can say, what are 10 ideas Jeff Bezos should do to make Amazon better? What are 10 ideas Gmail can have to be better? And it's not intended to create businesses that I could start because I'm coming up with 3,650 ideas a year.

Like you can't act on more than one or two of those, but the whole idea is again, to exercise that idea muscle. What happens when I'm coming up with 10 ideas? By idea number seven, it's like my brain is sweating. Like it's, if you're doing it right, if you're trying to come up with the best ideas for the category you list, I'm sweating. I'll keep counting. Have I hit 10 yet?

Oh no, eight. How do I come up with nine and 10? And's just it should be really hard eight nine and ten and it usually is and You know people say oh ideas are a diamond dozen execution is everything what they don't realize is that execution Is just a subset of ideas you need execution ideas in order to execute because i know people who are really bad and executing on a good idea there's a whole spectrum of bad execution to good execution so you need to be creative to have good execution ideas as well which is why this creative month creativity muscle is so important exercise now spiritual health it doesn't mean pray't mean meditate, although it could be most things. It just means a little bit more of a sense of some things in life you can't control, some things you can't,

don't be anxious or fearful or worried about the things you can't control, focus on the things you can't control and keep expectations low or else you're going to set yourself up for disappointment. And you can be in a helicopter flying next door. By the way, I'm taking a helicopter tomorrow, so I hope I won't broken out. But, and again, am I just focus on these four things each day and nothing else. Like don't, don't worry, oh, am I gonna be broke two years

from now? I'm like, how am I gonna feed my kids six months from now? Just simply get back to that practice of, did I improve myself physically, emotionally, creatively, spiritually take? Because those are the, it's right, like today, right now, those are the only things you can control. Yeah, maybe I can send two or three emails to connections

or maybe if I have a great idea for Amazon and I know somebody at Amazon, I could send an email to Amazon. Here's my 10 ideas for you. But most of the time you can't do that, you just have to focus on what you can focus on today. By the way, sending idealists to other people when I really feel the ideas are good can turn directly into dollars. One of the things that I think that's really interesting is how we try and break down the messiness of life. Life is this big, chaotic, amorphous, nebulous, ephemeral blob. And breaking it down into these more manageable chunks, it appears to be something that's quite a

quite a common tactic. Mutual friend and mutual podcast guest of ours, Kamal Ravakant, his practice about loving yourself. It's a daily practice. It's, you know, it's only a small part of your day, but it eaks into the rest of your day, right? Is the, is this a modern problem, do you think, the fact that we've got this guest, a messy chaotic life at the moment and people are really struggling to kind of make sense of what's going on. Is this a practice which is only recently become useful? Yes and no. I mean, life is much more complex now.

So if you're a surf in the 1700s in, I don't know, the Ukraine or whatever, life wasn't really that pleasant. And nobody, you wouldn't like say to yourself while you're surfing, that while you're plowing through the fields and pulling up weeds or whatever surfs did, you wouldn't be saying to yourself, I've got to love myself, I've got to love myself. You just had to do what you had to do.

But now everything's complex. Like, we sort of, we don't live in our in the village We're born in we don't we don't see every day the family we grew up with we kind of create Our environments that in itself is complex then let's say you start a business It's so easy to get caught up in ah did I Maximize revenues today that I reach out to all the clients? Did I cover all the details? Did I pay everybody?

Did I motivate everybody? Did I work on product development? I don't know. But if you just focus on these four things I said, you'll end up doing the right thing. Like if you're doing that, it's not like you'll suddenly say, okay, well, I'm done with my day. Now I can go to sleep.

No, okay, if I'm being creative, I'm healthy, if I'm not worried about my relationships, okay, now it's time to get work. I can work on an article. I can work on an email to a client, you know, but I could delegate collecting some, you know, invoices that are outstanding, whatever it is, whatever it is that we're worried about.

Life is really complex. So it helps to boil it down to simple things where if you do those simple things, you know you're going to be okay in the long run. Like I have huge faith, because now I've seen it in action for a long, long time. I have huge faith that if I do my version of this daily practice and everybody's version could be different. If I do my version of this daily practice, and everybody's version could be different, if I do my version, then things are going to be great in the long run. I never have to think about the long run if I did what I need to do today. So some people tell me, oh, they have a to-do list. And I'm like, why do you have a to-do list?

And then they say, oh, to keep track of the 50 things I have to, I have to do. And I'm like, well, how are you going to do 50 things like right now? What are you going to do and I'm like well how are you gonna do 50 things like right now? What are you gonna do right now and and they don't really know they don't really know how to answer that question at any given point during the day like let's say after this podcast I have some free time and I've already done my kind of Daily practice of the day. I wrote my 10 ideas a day down. I worked on my relationships, I took a walk, whatever. Okay, if I have some free time and I'm not yet ready to relax for the day, maybe I will write to a customer or maybe I will come up with, you know, start work on writing another

article or do something related to business or whatever. Like, at any point, you know what is the highest priority thing to do. So I don't need to keep it to do list because at any given point that I have free time, I'm just gonna do the one thing that is the highest priority. And then when I finish that, I'm gonna do the next thing. And now, how do I know what's the highest priority?

It's not high priority, I'm not gonna think about it. I'm always thinking about what's the highest priority and then I'll do it. One of the things I'm thinking about about what's the highest priority and then I'll do it. One of the things I'm thinking about as you were talking about that, the surf from Ukraine, I don't even know what a surf is, I thought you meant a surfer. One of the things that I've got in my head there is that as we've got more abundance and life has become a lot more comfortable and convenient for everybody in the 21st century, I'm thinking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? And previously, like, if you,

if you didn't have food or water or safety or you were maybe going to freeze or maybe one of your kids was going to get taken away by a mountain lion tonight, like you're probably not wondering about whether or not you're self-actualizing. Like, what you need to worry about is only a few levels thick. Right, like, you know, and Masal's hierarchy, it's interesting because we've kind of gotten through that first level, which is nobody's really worried about being thirsty later today. Like, you could just turn on the faucet and get a glass.

Even if you're homeless, you can, most countries in the world, there's places you could go and get a meal and water and even find shelter. And in fact, the big problem with homeless people is not that people can't find a home, is that many of the homeless people are mentally ill and are not being treated correctly. But that aside, I think a lot of our basic needs are taking care of. And then we fool ourselves into thinking, well, I'm only gonna be happy when I have the car I want

or the private jet I want or whatever, when all of that is stupid. Like a few years ago, I did an experiment, but I decided to, I was renting two apartments, one upstate New York, where my kids were, and one in New York City, where all the opportunities were, and both my leases were up. And I don't like to own a place. I like to rent, but I decided, you know what? I don't even want to rent anymore. So I threw out all of my belongings in both apartments. I had 40 years worth of belongings. But I, you know, just in general, you accumulate crap over time. Yeah. And you don't even realize how much you accumulate. So I was going on a trip, but I said to a friend of mine,

I said, clean out my apartments and throw, you can do this. You can either give anything, or you can either keep anything for yourself, whatever you want to keep, you can keep for yourself, or or give to charity, or throw it out. And, but what I said, when I come back, I want nothing at all. I'm not going to go back to these apartments. I'm never going to set foot in them again. I don them again. I don't want anything left in them. And I said to her, it should take you just a day. You know, just bring your car, it'll take a day. It took, she had to rent a truck, like an 18-wheeler.

And it took her, her husband and all her cousins, like an entire week to clear everything out. You don't even realize how much junk you have. And the only time she called me during the whole week, because I told her not to call me at all. And the only time she called me was she said, what about your college diploma? You must have worked so hard for that.

Like, you sure you want me to throw that out? And I'm like, yeah, burn that because I got nothing out of that. I mean, I'm a wreck. I have to call him and it'll help me at all. And so then for two and a half years after that, I lived out of a carry on bag and just lived from Airbnb to Airbnb. And I made it a discipline for myself.

If I ever bought something new, like a new t-shirt, I had to remove a t-shirt from the carry on bag. So I just had my computer, my phone, couple t-shirts, couple pairs of pants, and a button down shirt, and that's it. And so I can read books on, you know, the Kindle app on my phone, and work on my computer, and I had enough clothes to change it,

and I'd stay in Airbnb's where there was laundry. And that's, I never had to actually, I never had to actually own anything. And that's the reality. Whether you have a lot of money or a little money, there's nothing you actually need to own other than a carry on back. Now, if you live in an apartment that you rent, yes, you have to have own the basics. You have to have a bed and sheets and maybe a plate or two and a table to eat on or not. Like I've been in such issues where I didn't have those things. So, you know, it's amazing. And

then after that, I so eventually I stopped doing that, but I still have that discipline where there's nothing really I strive for in terms of material possessions. And I'm not saying like I'm some sort of monk, I do wanna, I do like to have a good amount of money, but mostly because, you know, I wanna make sure going into my older age eventually that my health is taking care of.

And as healthcare gets more and more expensive, and I want to make sure my kids are taking care of in case there's an emergency. And, but that's it really. I don't really have much more and many more needs than that. And I like to be creative. I like to have the money so I can wake up every day, relax and focus and being creative. Now, someone argue better to not have money so you're hungry to be creative, but I'm pretty hungry to be creative.

Have you watched much of the minimalist documentaries, any of those sort of YouTube's or documentaries on the movement? No, although I know those guys and they've reached out to me before and we've communicated, but I don't really consider myself a minimalist because I guess I don't really know what that is. I mean, like, again, homeless people are minimalist as well. Not my choice, but yeah.

Right, not by choice. But, and again, I do like to have money. I'm not moving into like a tiny home. You know, there's these tiny homes that are like 200 square feet and you have your entire home in there, but I Just wanted to try this one experiment. I don't know I think a lot of people have labeled it minimalist And maybe it is but for me it was just my own

Experiment for me about about what do I really need to live and I was perfectly happy I could have lived that lifestyle the rest of my life, except for the fact that, you know, I think when you wanna get, when you wanna date and you wanna get married, you know, your spouse might not like that lifestyle. It's a big buy-in, yeah. But one of the things I watched the documentary

a little while ago for anyone who hasn't seen it, it's pretty cool by the minimalist. And it made me feel so bloated. So bloated. It's like the same as seeing some like incredibly fit lean athlete on Instagram or on a documentary or something and you realize just how sort of physically inadequate to them you are. And then with that I was like, let's just look around at all these different possessions, all of this stuff that gets used once every year. Like, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. So like one trick to use, and I don't know if it's a Marie Kondo trick or not, but one trick to use is to basically put everything you own into into, you know, one room, which you don't use or storage or whatever, and then only go and retrieve things as you need or want them. And then at the end of the year, or at the end of six months, just simply throughout everything that you you didn't use And you know, I think re condo's a little different. She's like, oh lay out all of your objects on the floor

Pick up an object and put it to your heart and if you love it, you got to keep it I don't really love any of my objects like that What what at the at you know if I, so I'm a writer at heart, I've been writing every day for 30 years since I was a kid, and if I write something good that day, that I love that, and that's about it, you know, other than, you know, my family, kids, friends, but there's no object I can think of loving.

One way in which I'm not a minimalist is I like convenience. So if I'm working in a certain location, I like to live across the street from that location. That's convenient. And or if I'm flying somewhere, I don't like to take three stops to save money. I like to just spend the money on no stops. So convenience is very important to me. I think money is good for buying convenience. And by the way, convenience is related to better health, longer life and many other things.

One of the resources that you cannot buy anymore of is time, right? And when you're talking about the extra cost, whatever it is that you want to say, it's like, okay, how much would you pay for? I've been in New York, I went last year and a commute in there takes days, it's measured in days.

Yeah. How long does this commute, you're talking maybe an hour, an hour a day there an hour a day back, two hours a day, five days a week, however long you're gonna be working in this business for. All right, how much would you pay for that? Because at the end of your life, you'd give you fortune for an extra minute.

Yeah, that's right. So I think that's very important. Now, now all of that might change when there's automated driving. I think you'll see kind of these mobile offices driving around so you can live much further away from your place of work and stuff because you could work in your your mobile office. But right now, I like to, I mean, basically everything I do during the 90% of the things I do during a week happen within 250 feet of where I'm sitting right now. That's so funny. Do you think I'm sort of envisioning like a flexible workstation, like a library on wheels in an articulated vehicle with like quite nice airy windows. Do you see us getting that soon? Yeah, yeah, with the next five to ten years.

Man, I am James, I'm so ready for that. I'm so ready to take a journey someplace and just be able to have, do you think they'll have standing desks? I'd love it if they had standing desks. I don't know, but I mean, if you think about it, like right now, the equivalent is like, like if you're taking a train into work. And, but then the train, you're kind of, you know, it's a little crowded, you're sitting next to somebody,

you don't really have like a desk. But still, I've heard of people doing remarkable things on their commute to work by working on the train right in. I've heard about one friend of mine who wrote a page a day of a murder mystery and ended up now he's got three books in the series, that's one detective and he did one page a day on the train. And then another person wrote the movie,

Pitch Perfect by writing one page a day on the subway to work. And so I've heard stories like that. But I do think when, when everything's automated and convenient and quick, they'll be people will think about this in terms of lifestyle. Like, hey, how, how can I live further away from, you know, the city and get all the, get all the benefits of like being at work, which is what automated driving should, should give us. Hmm.

What do you think about people finding meaning as we get increasing automation and increasing convenience and stuff like that? You know what we've talked about today is looking after some of the basics. To go back to Joe Rogan as a good example, he thinks that one of the things that we all require in life is to overcome adversity,

to have some sort of, I don't think he would call it suffering, but some kind of challenge to, and incrementally increase that challenge over time. Is there a concern as we automate and make convenience higher and higher people have to do less and less for themselves, that there's gonna be some, everyone's just gonna be struck with this existential crisis

as you're like laden bed getting McDonald's pumped into you by like a drone. Well, that's a great question. Let me ask you, right now, do you have an existential crisis today? Not this second. I need to go shopping in a supermarket later on and it tends to strike me there.

I hate shopping in a supermarket, but no, you're right. But like you wake up and you think, okay, who am I gonna have on my podcast? You wake up and you think, okay, who am I going to have on my podcast? You wake up and think what opportunities, what are other opportunities can I explore? Who can I network with? Who can I connect? Who can I help? So, and yet the scenario you just described already exists.

Like you say you have to buy a gold or supermarket. Well, your supermarket has a website. You could order online and if you trust the people who do the packaging at the supermarket, you'll get just as high quality food as if you had gotten there yourself and it'll be delivered right to you. I sort of think the weird thing about entrepreneurship the past 10 years is that there's been this weird lack of innovation and instead everybody who's an entrepreneur has been focused on how do I make everybody's life so that they could just sit on a couch all

day long and binge watch Game of Thrones. So for instance, I can get a master chef, make me a great meal and somebody will deliver it to me. I can use grub hub or seamless or door dash or whatever. Someone will deliver it right to my home. I could then, if I wasn't home, by the way, I could take an Uber to go home. And then I could turn on Netflix and somebody, some great director and writer spent $200 million making the Irishman movie.

And I could just watch it on my home. I don't have to go to a movie there anymore. And if you need to go to the bathroom to have a toilet break, you can continue it on your phone, your mobile device, so that you don't have to stop watching a movie there anymore. And if you need to go to the bathroom to have a toilet break, you can continue it on your phone, your mobile device, so that you don't have to stop watching it while you go to the bathroom. By the way, which I do that. Like, so, so, so I think, I think almost every company in the past 10 years, and I'm exaggerating a little bit, you know, this example is otherwise,

but almost every company has been designed just to make it more easier, more easy for me to just sit on my couch all day and binge watch. So. Yeah, and then there's other companies that have come in in a way to try and antidote that problem, but still the ethos is the same like Peloton is a perfect example. Peloton is working to try and get people to go and do the workout. It's the antidote to the fact that you're sedentary, but bizarrely, it's delivered in a way which is so hyper convenient as that you don't even need to leave you. Everyone, every single person in a Peloton ad

has thought the ceiling infinity glass kitchens that overlook a beautiful park somewhere in a tower block. But they put the bike right in front of the view and their kids are eating cereal right next to them. And it's like they're in a gym and they do all the rest. I don't even have to go to the gym anymore. And I think we've already hit that existential moment.

And it has, it wasn't an issue really. Like it's not like we say, oh gosh, I could just binge watch all day or I could watch TikTok videos all day. Some days I could watch TikTok videos all day. Some days I do watch TikTok videos all day. Right. But you still, at the end of a day like that, you feel like, oh, that felt kind of bad, actually. I feel kind of nauseous almost. And so the next day, then you get up and you work.

And if you don't, if you're like lacking motivation, then you know, some people do suffer from that. And the key I always get back to is, well, okay, did you 1% improve physical health, emotional health, creative health, spiritual health? Because if you do that, it'll solve a problem. If you're writing down 10 ideas a day, you're not gonna just say to yourself, well, I was creative for the day.

Now I can watch TikTok videos for the rest of the day. You're gonna wanna do things. You're gonna get excited about some of your ideas. Yeah. Like, like, I'll tell you my idealist for today. Okay. I've, have you ever, um, this is a random one. It's not a good idea. Like most ideas are not good ideas. Yeah. So I'm just trying to say that you come with 10 ideas for the exercise. Not to come up with good ideas. The good ideas will take care of themselves. But I've ever played the game cards against humanity. I bought it for me and my mom and my dad for Christmas, yes.

So I came with this idea. I'm gonna make a card game, Trump against humanity. And so you have all the cards, all of, and then my 10 ideas were like the 10 rules. And so you have all these cards that are, each card is Trump's tweets. And then there's another deck with all of the possible world situations

that could possibly happen. And then everyone's got to throw the tweet that matches it the best. And then the judge of that round picks the best Trump tweet that matches this world crisis. And so I wrote all the words and I even wrote down some execution ideas. Well, what would be my first three steps to get this started? Anyone could steal this idea because I think it's probably a bad idea. And you know, and then that was it. I was done with my 10 ideas a day, but then it didn't stop me from working. Then I started working on other articles

that I needed to do. I made some business contacts. I made some, I'm starting an email newsletter for some other projects I'm working on. So I just kept going after that. And I'm now on this podcast, which is very valuable to me. And thank you for once again for asking me on. Well, thank you for being here.

One of the things a quote from Naval Ravakant is that all of our problems at the moment are problems of abundance, not of scarcity. And you are you mentioned earlier on, you can't action on 3,650 ideas per year. You can maybe do one or two of those if you got some good resources and maybe a team with you. How do you choose? You got these 3,650 ideas, James. I'm swimming in post it notes here. Yeah. Well, that's a great question because most things, the answer's not totally simple, but it's not hard either. You're gonna, like let's say I liked this Trump

against humanity idea. Okay, now maybe one execution idea is I can go to Fiverr, FIVER, where you can hire people at very cheap prices from all over the world to do tasks for you. And I could say to somebody, give me a spreadsheet with all of Trump's tweets. And then I could go on Fiverr and or I could list myself,

come up with 500 world crisis situations. And then I can find some of whom manufacturers cards and I can outsource to them Making the cards. Okay at any point in this process if I realize you know what this is not a very exciting idea You like your heart will tell you and by the way now your creative creativity muscle is active enough to that will tell you You'll realize halfway through this is not a good idea like Like, oh, I can't figure out 500-world crisis situations or it's too expensive to make these cards before I really know. So maybe I'll try to go fund me or something. So again, but I just gave you three or four execution ideas that in total would take me

about 15 minutes to execute on. So I can actually create an entire version of this game with maybe 15 minutes to an hour's worth of work. So would you say that this is one of the one or two great ideas of the year that I'm gonna work on? I don't know, maybe after that hour, nobody wants to play the game and whatever. So that's the end of that idea. I had another idea once. And by the

way, I have ideas all the time because I'm writing these things down. I had an idea, oh, I should buy, you know, Donald Trump tweeted that America wanted to buy Greenland. Okay. And everybody made fun of it. And Denmark, which owns Greenland, said, well, Greenland's not for sale. And so I came up with my ideas for the day that day were 10 reasons why somebody would want to buy Greenland. And turned out that we're actually very interesting reasons, not mentioned in Trump's 280 characters. There was very interesting reasons to potentially buy Greenland and very diverse reasons. So I started a Kickstarter and a GoFundMe where I explained all the reasons and I said,

help me buy Greenland. So I put this on Kickstarter and GoFundMe and believe it or not, I started raising money. People were donating $50 here or $100 there and I had all sorts of tiers where like if you gave over $100, you could be a duke in Greenland after I buy it. And so it was by the way, the whole thing again took me after I had finished the idealist, the idea of kind of doing a Kickstarter and agree, and a GoFundMe. That took me about a half hour to implement and come up with all the tiers and actually launch it. And then I tweeted about all the tears and actually launch it.

And then I tweeted about it, I Facebooked about it. I shared the GoFundMe on my email list and social media. Again, that took me three minutes. And then Kickstarter and GoFundMe both shut me down. And okay. You can allow to try and raise money to buy a nation. Is that against that? Well, well, I was trying to raise $100 million and they didn't think I would succeed.

So they would get stuck with the credit card charge back fees. So, uh, so I could, I would like to say that it was for political reasons that they shut me down, which makes the story more interesting, but it was really just a financial decision on their part. Yeah. And, and, but so, so I did all this. The entire thing took me a day, and it was a fun idea. It was a fun experiment.

I learned something about, not only did I learn something about Greenland, but I had never done a Kickstarter or go fund a project before. So I learned something, I learned valuable skill. And did I get anything out of it? Yeah, I have a story I could tell you. So now that's an entire story about it's a classic case of experimenting with an idea. By the way, if the idea succeeded, what does success mean for that idea? Well, maybe news

reporters would pick up on this and I would get some renowned and who knows? Maybe people would have this discussion about why this was happening. And it would turn into something exciting. I don't know, like there would be some excitement from it that would be generated. So that was success, but I had no downside. I had an hour of my time, and the upside that I did get for that hour was I have a great story,

which I'll probably include in my next book, which is gonna be all about, you know, part of it's gonna be about how to do experiments in your life to try to improve your life. And I have experiences like that all the time and experiments like that all the time because I'm constantly trying ideas, but I give myself a very low threshold to quit the idea.

So okay, Kickstarter and GoFundMe canceled it. I don't really need to, I'm not really gonna buy Greenland, so I don't really need to I'm not really gonna buy Greenland So I don't really need to do anything else and I got a good story out of it time to move on to the next idea ideas are abundant Which goes along with ideas or diamond doesn't ideas are abundant So I know I'm gonna have more ideas to experiment with maybe even every single day, which is true How do you allow yourself to have this optionality while still sticking to the core things that you need to work on in life because you could potentially continue to chase shiny objects for a very, very

long time, which would. I don't know what your particular opinion is, but it's sort of common held productivity. Wisdom that you should have a balance between explore and exploit right and that the explore should only be a portion and the exploit should you be increasingly doubling down on the things that you find yourself to be good at. Do you disagree with that? Yes, no, I agree with that. So, so for instance, if I'm experimenting with an idea and I'm like, oh, this feels good and I'm enjoying this, then I'll double down on it.

Like let's say, I have an, and I know you're asking also, there's like certain things you have to do, like your job, your work, make money and so on. But let's say, hypothetically, I started writing mystery novel and after a page or two, I started writing a mystery novel. And after a page or two, I'm excited and I'm enjoying it. And I don't know if it's going to be good or bad or whatever, but if I'm enjoying it, your heart is a compass and it will tell you what you should keep doing.

So if you're enjoying something and you're passing, you don't seem to be hitting those thresholds at each point of when you should quit, then you just keep doing it. And that's usually how every business I've ever started starts. Is that, oh, I have an idea for a business. Oh, I start implementing it. Oh, there's customers interested. Now I'm enjoying it.

Maybe I'm going to make money off of it. And I just keep going. The podcast, I started a it. Maybe I'm going to make money off of it. And I just keep going. You know, the podcast, I started a podcast. I did one. It was fun. I did two. It was fun. I started to get advertisers now. I was bringing in money. More people are showing up who want to be on the podcast. I hire people to help me. Oh, and I really enjoy it. I'm learning so much from it. So I just keep doing it. One thing, you know, you accelerate on the things you enjoy. But now let's say you let's say you have a nine to five job and let's say you have kids at home and you know, you have the regular Classic work day. When do you when were you have time to do this? Well first off in a nine to five job

And I've had nine to five jobs Everybody's had and everybody's many people still have The average person and this studies on this the average person works about two and a half hours a day at a nine to five jobs everybody's had and many people still have the average person and this studies on this the average person works about two and a half hours a day at a nine to five job the rest of the time they're kind of just like you know on social media or they're taking a lunch break or a cigarette break or whatever you know that's average some people work more hours some people work less you know but all the experiments I just described you took me an hour at the

most. You're incredibly productive. You're the most productive person in your workplace if you're working for five full hours. That's still plenty of time to experiment on whatever it is you're experimenting on. Can I tell you one more story? This could have been a business. It is. It is. So I had, I was at a dinner and there were two people at the dinner. A friend of mine was at the dinner and I had seen a while and he brought his new girlfriend and they were all, they were in their 40s and they were all cute and cuddly. And I said, oh, things, sounds like things are going well for you guys. You know, I was just making conversation and he said, yeah, we, they're smiling.

Yeah, we just had the conversation. We decided to go steady. And I thought that's such a weird phrase right now. Like that's a nice whole phrase. And, and so I asked him like, what does that really mean? And, and he said, well, we're not, we, we deleted our dating apps from our phones. And so I thought to myself on my idealist the next day, I was thinking of ideas for apps. And I said, Oh, maybe there should be a going steady app where if you're going to be going steady with somebody, you get the going, you each get the going steady app on your phone. You now connect with each other on the going steady app. It automatically

deletes all the dating apps out from your phone. And it takes your Facebook relationship status. Yeah, all that stuff. And it notifies the other person if they start downloading dating apps again. Oh, fucking hell. So if you start liking booty pictures, if you start randomly following a bunch of people that are from like your area from the opposite sex.

So see, like these are, I didn't put those ideas down, but those could be ideas, those could be settings. If you start randomly following a bunch of people that are from like your area from the opposite sex. So see, like these are, I didn't put those ideas down, but those could be ideas, those could be settings. Like you could decide how restrictive you want to be in this going. Is the most brutal dating app ever. Right. Here we go. We're in, we're in idea generation now.

Fuck the podcast James. Um, so, but, but, but, but wait, here, here's what I did though, is that then I, the next day, I wrote my idealist was 10 screens. I kind of sketched out 10 screens on this going study app, and then I uploaded them to freelancer.com where I wrote the whole spec of the app and put up these screens, and I said, what programmers out there can do this for me in the next two weeks. And it's a reverse auction. So programmers from all over the world, Malaysia, India, China, wherever, they all were bidding

to do it. And I had like 100 programmers from around the world bidding, like within a half hour. And I just had one simple question, which is can, and both an iPhone and an Android, can an app recognize what apps are also on the phone, because that's what the going study app would have to do. And the answer is for Android yes, for iPhone no. So that means this is not a good idea. I can't do this idea.

So the whole thing again, an hour's worth of my time for something that potentially could have been an amazing business, who knows? Yeah, because it's a very viral sort of business because it has that network effect built in. So it would have been probably a good idea. And, but you physically can't do it with the iPhone, which is 70% of the US market.

So, boom, that was the end of that experiment. And, but I generated a story, I gained knowledge. Every experiment, you gain knowledge. I learned something new about the iPhone. And, you know, and it took me, essentially, zero time. Even if I worked a nine to five job. I got you. Right, I want to do idea generation

because we've stumbled on something, probably the most important question that we've brought up so far, which is that there is not acceptable term, there's not a term that I'm happy with for what it is when it's more serious than just sleeping with somebody and less serious than being in a relationship. There is going steady, I don't think, I mean, you know, that to me, that's like courting. That's like your parents asking you if you're courting anyone or there's in the UK, there's seeing somebody would be, would be the equivalent of like going steady. I just feel like. Okay, here's, here's an idea. Here's an idea. If you're, let's say you're talking to a

heterosexual man and you're, you're trying to figure out if, uh, if their girlfriend is, is, is it just dating? Is it more serious? Is it, is it leading to marriage? Is it, uh, marriage? Uh, so what's somewhere in the middle? A good question is, and this comes from, I think, the TV show Seinfeld is she a Saturday girl?

Like on Saturday, are you expected to not make any other plans other than see her? Well, one of the problems with that is there is another sub category within the people that I'm talking about who are people that have Sunday boyfriends and that's a boyfriend that they only have on a Sunday. So you see, you've subverted, you've subverted the Saturday girl thing, not that you're supposed to be there on a Saturday. This is a mark of how highly I hold you in regard. It's, I only want you on a Sunday, this fuck all else happening. Let's get popcorn and Netflix. But, but what, what is that person doing on Saturday night? I probably try to find it probably trying to find a leveled up Sunday girlfriend. Right. So that's what I mean

So okay, the Saturday girls more serious than the Sunday boyfriend or the Sunday girlfriend That's only because they're prioritizing Saturday over Sunday. I like to be fair to be fair There's more stuff happening on a Saturday isn't there. There's more competition for your time on a Saturday Right, it's not the world prioritizes Friday and Saturday nights as date nights. Like, if so, if, if you're going out seriously with, with somebody and she says, on a Saturday night, and you just don't hear from her about Saturday night and she never communicates that, you're think, you're going to think to yourself, well, what's, and if you think you're serious, you're going to think to yourself, well, what's in it? And if you think you're serious, you're going to think to yourself, well,

what's she doing on a Saturday night? Because there's nothing else to do. If you're then, I mean, there's so many things to do, but you'll think be thinking she must be going out to meet somebody else. So I'm going to be doing something. Okay. So I did generation time. I'm in New York this weekend.

I'm not. I'm in New York this weekend. And I want to take a girl out on Saturday night. What is a slightly different eccentric sort of date idea? So, so by the way, that's a great question because, and again, that's worthy of idea generation because you don't want to just do dinner and a walk. That's like what everyone does. You kind of want to do something interesting. And there's lots, there's a spectrum of ways you can do this. So for instance, some basic ideas, you know, in New York, there's a ping pong club called Spin.

It's a little bit different for most people to go and say on a date and play ping pong, but I have found that to be a very successful technique. Because usually they've never, usually most people have never gone to play ping pong on a date. And at the ping pong place, there's dinner, there's drinks, it's a whole club, there's music, and there's ping pong. And, you know, New York City also, there's this for whatever you're interested in, there's something to do. So, you know, you could go to a bar that has disco dancing. You could go to a comedy show. You could go to a haunted house experience. You can go to an escape room. You know, so these are just a few ideas. Here's one idea I once did.

We were gonna meet and figure it out. We were gonna meet at like this yogurt place. So I, I get, I went to the yogurt place an hour early and the girl behind the counter, her name was Latisha, and she was from the Bronx and New York was just African American. And I said, okay, I'm gonna be back here in an hour and there's gonna be a woman waiting for me already.

As soon as I walk in, I want you to say, oh my God, James, what are you doing here? And we worked out a whole script where this girl who was African American clearly, you know, not related to me, we were going to be first cousins like and we had a whole script and a whole backstory. And we fooled my friend into completely thinking was she was like, no way. This is not true. And this girl, Latisha, I filled her in on my background

enough that it was very convincing and vice versa. And you know, that was a fun way to start things. Man, you nailed it. So I went the back end of last year. I went to Jeff Wayne's War of the World's virtual reality experience presented by dot, dot, dot in London. Have you heard of this? No, but no, but a VR experience is a great idea. Man, this is so much more than a VR experience. If you're over in the UK, you have to do it. It's just got extended to anyone who's listening and wants an idea for something to do in London.

I can't recommend it more highly. So it's a combination of AR augmented reality holographic projection, real life actors with actual effects, proper special effects, and the most advanced virtual reality technology that's around. So you arrive and you're met by this guy at the front. So the whole front of it's a bar that you then take a waiting room and you're not in it. And as soon as you go through into the little corridor, you're met by an actor. And from that point, it's just actors guiding you through this whole thing. And there's this massive walkway they've created.

And then you go and watch them when they land, the meteor lands, there's flames, real life flames inside of this room. Then you've got to get out, they're coming and blah, blah. And then you go in the next room, OK, right? You've got to put the headset on. Now you're walking around and doing all this stuff. And it was like a two hour, 45 minute experience of this.

The most sort of, it's sensibly stimulating, overwhelming experience I've ever had. The only bad thing I can say about it for a date is, you don't get to know fucking anything about your date, because you're just completely immersed in this crazy experience and I was just fully noting out as well that I was they were saying like who wants to help patch up this injured civilian on the side and it's like this actor who's like pretty got a pretend we're not I'll do it I'll do it like I just wanted to be

a part of it so it made me look really uncool. And we didn't, I didn't get to learn anything at all about her, but it was like just such a, like a memorable experience for sure. For me at least. Right. So look, that's an idea on the list of ideas of like what's an interesting date night. Another thing is find restaurants where there's the restaurant, but then you happen to know there's another restaurant in the restaurant behind the kitchen. And so you have to walk through the kitchen to get together. I don't think I know many of that. Is that is that quite common in New York? No, but there's like two or three I know of and it's always that's on my list of ideas like if you know if I were to ever you know, I'm married now. So I'm not planning on going on any first dates anymore

for the rest of my life. You're winged, my mate. James, this is purely for me as a young, single, very available man with his email address in the show notes below. And if there's a girl in New York that thinks, I'm fancy going into the art end of a cafe and getting taken past the chef so that I can go to the thing, then you can send me the address and we can. Yeah. So if you're ever in New York, I will tell you like the places

ago and the things to say to get into the interesting place. And those are always on the list of ideas too. But again, it's when when I was in dating mode, which was a while ago, I used the creativity muscle to come up with these ideas.