On Purpose with Jay Shetty - James Altucher ON: How To Build Relationships That’ll Elevate Your Career & Create Financial Abundance In Your Life

Episode Date: May 25, 2020

The depth and thoughtfulness of this impromptu discussion shows the brilliance of Altucher, who is a leader in entrepreneurship, a bestselling author, and a leading thinker of our time. Jay Shetty and James Altucher dive into topics like effective relationships & expectations, a healthy view of money, and finding joy during the hardest parts of life. Altucher is known for his ability to speak honestly on defining values and discovering passion, and in this episode he excels at both. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is your space to explore mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Take good care. I'm Eva Longoria.

And I'm Maite Gomes-Rachon. We're so excited to introduce you to our new podcast. Hungry for history. On every episode, we're exploring some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, beverages from our Mexican culture. We'll share personal memories and family stories, decode culinary customs, and even provide a recipe or two for you to try at home. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our 20s often sing as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, make mistakes, and figure out our lives. But what can psychology teach us about this time? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, and much more to explore the science behind our experiences. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg.

Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. That was the potential energy which I converted into money, and then I thought, okay, I don't I can stop now really building up my potential energy. But there's other what you always have to keep on building, you can't ever stop going to the gym. You always have to keep building on your health every day. If I say, okay, I'm healthy enough now, I'm just gonna eat popcorn for the rest of my life. You'll be unhealthy very fast and that's essentially what happened.

This is James Altature. I'm here with my good friend, Jay Shetty, on his show. I'm taking it over for a second. Jay, what made you finally decide you're going to stop everything and go three years? I don't know if you intended initially three years, but made you decide to go the path of the monk. What, leave it or join? Join. Do I get to introduce you first? Do we go straight into this question? We just go straight into this question.

We go straight into this question and then I introduce you. Yes. So I have to find a clever way. Yes. So what made me leave? You have to segue into introducing it. I love it.

It's a challenge. Brilliant. This is great. This is already what I thought it was going to be. So it's really crazy. I love it. Okay. So the question is, why did I leave?

Just that pinnacle moment. What was the point where you said, how damn it, I'm gonna go and be a monk in India for three years. Okay, I actually decided that when I was 18, I met a monk, blew my mind. He was the first person that I met. How did he blow your mind?

He blew my mind because he was the first person that I met that I thought was successful and happy. When I was 18, person that I met. How did he blow your mind? He blew my mind because he was the first person that I met that I thought was successful and happy. When I was 18, everyone that I met had met many successful people, I hadn't met many happy people. I definitely not met many people that I thought were both. He was someone that went from something to nothing in the sense that he went to IIT.

He'd achieved every material qualification you possibly could at his age and then he decided to trade that oil for a life of service. And that for me was what deeply inspired me because I thought, wait, that's really noble, like who gives up a life of wealth, success, fame, power for service? Like how does that even happen? And so I started spending everyone on my summer holidays, basically my first AB test, I'd spend half of it at an investment bank or a consulting company where I thought

I'd end up and I'd spend the other half living as a monk in India. And after four years of testing that from 18 to 22, while being at Cas Business School at 22, I decided it was time. So I decided in my heart at 18, kept everything in 18 year old does till 22 and then at 22 decided to actually make the actual move. So what? What sacrifices do you think you made? Did you consider in your mind that you were making and when you made when you decided to full force go and be a monk like were you giving up on a relationship? Were you getting job offers? Like, what sacrifices were you aware of that you consciously made? And were there any that were

difficult for you? If I'm completely honest, I never saw them as sacrifices. They never have ever felt like sacrifices. It never once came to my mind or occurred that I felt I was giving something up when I did, when I made the decision the decision. So, I broke off a relationship with a girl. I gave up my corporate job offers. I had two job offers that I declined. I tried to, I think I tried to actually, what do you call it? Differ, one of them for a year because I wasn't sure I was like, oh, maybe I should be safe, but then I didn't do that either.

And so I turned down two job offers. And I also obviously moved away from my family. I never went to my graduation. I graduated, but never went. So my mom never got the picture of me holding my degree, which till this day, she reminds me of that she does not have a picture of me holding my degree.

And of course, I should dress up. I should dress up. I don't look the same though. I used to have, yeah, I look different. We've aged. So, and then I gave up obviously the perception and opinions of people around me. A lot of my fellow friends just thought

I was absolutely crazy and that I'd gone nuts. My extended family were completely confused. So, because they didn't know when you were coming back either. Absolutely. So the biggest thing I sacrificed was what people thought of me. And that was a really, really awesome thing that happened at that age, that the ability to just wanting to follow my intuition and my dreams and not wondering whether anyone thought it was cool or interesting or useful. And at that time, definitely, I'd say 99.9% of people did not think anything that I was about to do was interesting or useful or cool in anyway.

I mean now you're doing you've created a lot of content you've gotten a billion views on social media. Do you ever feel that you still feel like you don't completely think about what other people think or if you integrated it back in a different way than you think other people have it. I think I think about what other people think when it comes to content because ultimately the goal or the heart or soul of my content is to serve and help people. So if it's not serving and helping them, then it doesn't matter. So I always talk about how I feel creators can either be selfish then it doesn't matter. So I always talk about how I feel creators can either be selfish or sell out.

And most creators can be either end of the spectrum. So selfish creators are creators who say, I just create for myself. I don't care whether anyone likes it or not. I'm just creating for myself. And if you're a creator like that, you've got to be okay with the fact that most people will never ever read, watch,

or consume your work. And if you're okay with that, that's amazing. That's beautiful. but you have to realize that you're basically crying just for yourself. And sell out creators are creators that only create for the public. They're like, oh, what's the next trend? Or what's the next thing I've got to do

to pander to my audience? And that again, you don't feel fulfilled because you're not creating from your heart, you're just creating from your head what makes strategic sense. So for me, it's being in the middle. For me, I've found that middle ground in my content where I am creating things that I genuinely believe in,

are meaningful to me, that connect with me, but also are aimed at serving people, helping people and connecting with people. So that's how I've kind of at least made sense of it to myself in my own head. And obviously, you've done it successfully, like billions of views, I mean, must feel good. It does, it does, and I'm really open about that.

It's when I started this journey, I actually just sent a radio clip for an interview in London where they're doing a series on, if your goal is to become Instagram famous, what will happen. And I was talking about how like when I started making videos, I never thought it would be a full-time thing. I just thought I'd be one of those people who spend their evenings and weekends making videos to share with the world. I never had any dream of it ever getting this big.

I never visioned that. I never had it on a vision board. I never wrote it down or anything. So for me, I just feel extremely humbled and blessed and grateful that my work is connected with, yeah, in the last 18 months, as you say, we've had over three and a half billion views. And for me, that's mind blowing.

I never ever thought I'd be able to have that type of impact. So it's interesting because you have the two great situations on your side. One is you have a story to tell. That's very different and unique. And the other is you have a message that can go along with it. So it's like the double helix of DNA and you need the double.

You can't have a single helix and create life. I'm glad you did say the English accent. I thought you were gonna say it was the British accent. I often hear that. The British accent. Oh, and his eyes are so wonderful. I see that on the YouTube comments. So you have that double, he looks like.

No, I appreciate it. You went far deeper. So I'm very grateful to hear that. And no, I mean, honestly, James, I'm so grateful and I'm so overwhelmed and humbled by it all. It's far beyond anything I have a plan for. And I'm continuing to operate in the same way as I did when I started. I've not changed my intention or my goals.

It's exactly the same as it was. Yeah, that's good, because then you can sort of question each piece of content. Like, does it fit, you know, or well, well, that's an interesting question. Should content always fit a checklist that you say, okay, it's got to do this, this, and this. Sometimes content takes its own form. Yeah. How do you? I'm far more spontaneous with content.

I just feel like things can be inspired from a conversation or something, random, I read on an advert on the street. It doesn't need to necessarily be something that, I've always ideas for me, I've realized that my content takes, if there was a formula to it, has three key components. So one of the first ones is all of my content is based on a piece of research or a study that I've read.

And I'm fascinated by human behavior, so I'm constantly reading about human behavior. So when I read a study and I think, oh, wow, that's interesting, let me see how that plays true in real life experience. And then I'll be speaking with a friend or speaking to a new person that I've just met or hearing from an old friend.

And then I'll be thinking about that study and how it's playing through that human behavior. And then finally, I'll try and find a solution or a piece of wisdom from what I learned as a monk. So I'll try and find some truth, some old ancient truth or timeless truth that can help put it all together. And that's kind of what my content approach has been of creation, and that's allowed me to be able

to be more systematic and strategic around content when I need to and find constant source of inspiration. But at the same time, I could literally hear one thing from you today, and I actually had that the other day when I was interviewing someone, I was interviewing Mario Gertzer, who plays for the German national football team in Germany literally five days ago. And he said something, I was like, I'm going to make a video out of that. And it was just as simple as that. So that's interesting. So you'll take you. So I see these videos of you all the time. And so you'll have a take away from an interview

maybe and that might inspire one of these great videos I see from you. Absolutely. And for me, it's meditating on that idea so that it's being realized in my own way as opposed to, well, that's a cool idea. It sounds good. It will look good. It's more, have I actually realized in my own way that phrase or that idea has it been realized as opposed to, has it been theorized?

Let me ask you this because often I see you talk about the idea and you have great stories and metaphors and things that you've picked up that you're able to say to express the idea. But often you don't say your story when expressing the idea. You don't say there was this time I was in India and this happened and that made me think of this, probably because you're in this ongoing period of learning things, but you know, do you ever think that, oh, if you're just expressing the idea, but without your story, is that is that a little tooth almost selfish to use your word where I think where you think people are going to listen to me just because I'm saying it as opposed to

establishing my own story alongside the idea. I think for me it's interesting because I think my initial content I became recognized for my ideas before people knew my story. So actually when my content first broke through a lot lot of people were like, who is this guy anyway? He's so young, what does he even know? That's what the critics were saying. And a lot of people were just like, we love how Jay thinks.

For me, it was never intentional to break through. So I never really even had time to consciously think that through. And so if I'm looking at it from a hindsight point of view, my take is, I also am careful about the medium through which you share your story. And so right now I'm working on my book. And for me, my book is a perfect medium to share the depths of my story. I think a lot of my stories are better in written form than in spoken form. In the 1680s, a feisty opera singer burned down a nunnery and stole away with her secret lover.

In 1810, a pirate queen negotiated her cruiseway to total freedom, with all their loot. During World War II, a flirtatious gambling double agent helped keep D-Day a secret from the Germans. What do these stories have in common? They're all about real women who were left out of your history books. If you're tired of missing out, check out the Womanica podcast, a daily women's history podcast highlighting women you may not have heard of, but definitely should know about. I'm your host, Jenny Kaplan, and for me, diving into these stories is the best part of my

day. I learned something new about women from around the world and leave feeling amazed, inspired, and sometimes shocked. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I am Yomla and on my podcast, the R-Spot, we're having inspirational, educational, and sometimes difficult and challenging conversations about relationships. They may not have the capacity to give you what you need and insisting means that you are abusing yourself now. You human! That means that you're crazy as hell, just like the rest of us.

When a relationship breaks down, I take copious notes and I want to share them with you. Anybody with two eyes and a brain knows that too much Alfredo sauce is just no good for you. But if you're going to eat it, they're not going to stop you. So he's going to continue to give you the Alfredo sauce and put it even on your grits if you don't stop him. Listen to the R-Spot on the iHeart Radio app Podcast, or whatever you listen to podcasts. The therapy for Black Girls podcast is the destination for all things mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions

of ourselves. Here, we have the conversations that help Black women dig a little deeper into the most impactful relationships in our lives, those with our parents, our partners, our children, our friends, and most importantly, ourselves. We chat about things like what to do with a friendship ends, how to know when it's time to break up with your therapist, and how to end the cycle of perfectionism. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist and Atlanta George up with your therapist and how to end the cycle of perfectionism. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday.

Listen to the therapy for Black Girls Podcasts on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Take good care. That's probably true. I think that's where you could play with your story and how to express it. But it's something that's taken me a while to just really reflect on all my experiences, to really go back there, live them, and I want people to live them with me. I don't just want people to hear them. And I think I have to relive them first to want the audience to relive them with me as opposed to just

tell them. And yeah, and I think I don't know how you're starting the book, but if I were you and this is please, you're just taking advice with a grain of salt. I'm just thinking how I would write it if I were you. I'm not saying you should do it. Sure, sure. I'm just thinking if I were you, I would probably find that moment in India where I was just, you know,

it's thigh deep in mud and just everything's miserable and you're missing your family. And what are you doing? And someone just yelled at you because even monks yell occasionally. Yes. And you're just filled with regret. That's probably how I would start it.

I'm visualizing the situation right now. I remember exactly where I was. Because then you leave the audience with, well, he did it and I'm reading this book for a reason because I like what he says and he's been a monk, but it's good for them to know that there's always uncertainty. There's always things that are not fit together, the way you think that they're going to be. The puzzle pieces don't always build the picture.

I'm going to have to get you to interview me before I carry on writing. I'm already thinking. I'm interviewing you right now. Yeah, I know, I know, but this is, yeah, you've got me thinking that's a beautiful piece of advice. Thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome.

And I love it. I can think of a moment that I don't even think I was going to put into books. You've definitely me thinking that's a beautiful piece of advice. Thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. And I love it. Yeah, I can think of a moment that I don't even think I was going to put in the books. So you've definitely inspired me. Yeah, no, it's it's an interesting thing because the the sacrifice you made and then coming back, what made you decide to come back? Those three things, the first thing was I came to a personal self awareness realization that I didn't fit in with being a monk. So I had an independent rebellious streak of wanting to share what I was learning in a very specific and particular way, and I wanted to dedicate my life to that. And that wasn't necessarily what an ashram or a monastery facilitates.

A monastery and an ashram is also a place of accordance, a discipline, of some form of conformity and coming together and giving up sometimes personal desires for a overall higher goal. And for me, that was just too hard to do because the calling and wanting to share the message in a particular way was so high for me and so deep in my gut that I knew that if I didn't try that, I'd live forever and regret. That was a huge one. Well, obviously, you're a blend of two cultures. You were Indian, Indian parents. When did your parents come to London? My mother moved to London when she was 16. From India. From actually Yemen. My mum grew up in Yemen and moved to England

to keep her British passport when Yemen got back its independence. And then my father moved to England from India to London when he married my mom. I think he was like 26, 28 or something like that. So your product of all these cultures, the ashram style of living just might not have been, it was there for you, but maybe not all the way at the core. And people always say, particularly people say

to people who meditate, oh, what's your practice? Is it, you know, if it's pasta, is it zen, is it Tibetan, or Vedic? What they miss out, and then they say, well, then they say something stupid, usually, which is like, oh, did you get Nirvana? Did you get Enlightened, which doesn't mean anything. But they forget the key word, was that they asked you what your practice was. What do you, they don't think, what are you practicing for? And what you were practicing for was to come back here and share these things that you've learned. And the word practice is the key part.

Nobody meditations not the goal. It's the practice for the other 22 hours of the day. Yeah, absolutely. I was, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I was practicing for two things. One was purification. I really felt that being a monk would allow me access to accelerate my growth to the virtues, values, and characteristics that I thought were so important. So when I would hear about humility,

or I would hear about integrity, or I would hear about detachment, I was fascinated by these qualities. As a 18-year-old, and I just thought, wow, well, if I go into the real world and if I get a real job, how am I ever going to have time to think about humility, integrity, and all of these values and virtues? So I was like, okay, it's going to give me time to purify myself and become self-aware that I can try at least to develop some of this. And the second one was, it's going to give me time to study, realize, and live the knowledge so that one day I can share it, so that one day I can pass it on.

So you're spot on those with the two, and that's still why I meditate. I still meditate for those same two things. I want to purify myself of all the envy, greed, illusion, all of the things that I believe are toxic and negative from my life. And then for me to have the integrity to share what I'm sharing. And you probably also were curious, like after three years being immersed in this life, what's going to be like using my new personality, my new skills and my brain to back in the quote unquote real world? I was scared. It was so scary coming back because I moved back when I was about 26 years old into my parents home again. I had no money, had my student debt to pay off, which I know

we can talk about, but I had my British student debt with debt, which is not as bad as it is in the US, but I still had it. And I had to re-figure out what I was going to do. And it was strange because I was like, oh my god, am I going to have to make money again? Am I going to have to be in a relationship again? Like, what's normality? And it took me about nine to 10 months of just reading books, studying, trying things out, self-reflection, journaling, to just be able to operate again

in a normal capacity. For your parents pushing you to like, hey, you know, Jay, get out of here like, get a job. Indian parents will happily keep their kids in their home till 40 if they have to. It's quite common that Indian kids will spend their time in their parents' homes till 25-30 or until they get married.

So my parents weren't pushy at all and they were quite happy. At first they were like, why are you back? Because we just got used to you being away and then it was kind of like, oh you're back. They were excited to have me back. My parents are very liberal and flexible. They're amazing. So, yeah. But anyway, I wanna switch it back to you now.

Because I kind of, I feel like I've just been, yeah, that was so- I've just been curious. So about curiosity, right? I know, I know, but I'm curious about you. And I feel like, but you've definitely got me thinking, that's, I feel like for everyone who's listening and watching right now, you've just been showing

the brilliance of James out to two, because not only have you hijacked the interview, which is okay, what's more interesting is that you've, you've definitely got me to reflect more deeply about a lot of things, so. Oh, good. I'm excited to be, that was a high bar. Yeah, but I'm excited to be interviewed by you at depth,

and I think it will benefit me a lot, even if it doesn't benefit anyone else. And I'll take that. I'll take that, but thank you, James. Thank you so much. I'm going to switch it back now if I may. Not too long ago, in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, this explorer stumbled upon something that would change his life.

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It sucks you in. It's like I can be the queen of wild chocolate. You're all lost. It was madness. It was a game changer. People quit their jobs. They left their lives behind, so they could search for more of this stuff. I wanted to tell their stories,

so I followed them deep into the jungle, and it wasn't always pretty. Basically, this like disgruntled guy and his family surrounded the building armed with machetes and we've heard all sorts of things And you know somebody got shot over this Sometimes I think all all this for a damn bar of chocolate Listen to obsessions wild chocolate on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. How's that New Year's Resolution coming along? You know, the one you made about paying off your pesky credit card debt and finally starting to save your retirement? Well, you're not alone if

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podcasts. Our 20s are seen as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, full in love, make mistakes, and decide what we want from our life. But what can psychology really teach us about this decade? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Each week, we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health,

heartbreak, money, friendships, and much more to explore the science and the psychology behind our experiences, incredible guests, fascinating topics, important science, and a bit of my own personal experience. Audrey, I honestly have no idea what's going on with my life. Join me as we explore what our 20s are really all about, from the good, the bad, and the ugly, and listen along as we uncover how everything is psychology, including our 20s. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg, now streaming on the iHot Radio

app, Apple podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts. You've just been watching what's meant to be an interview with one of the most successful entrepreneurs, writers, thinkers, angel investors. I am more fascinated than even all of his success, fascinated by the way he thinks. His incredible beliefs, extreme lifestyle choices, and sometimes counterintuitive and controversial thoughts. I am really, really intrigued by the way James makes decisions, the way James makes choices, and today's guest

is James Outichah, who has just introduced me and interviewed me for all of you, but I really, really want to share him, his story, his values, views, and beliefs with every single one of you. I think we're all going to learn an insane amount today. So thank you so much. Well, Jay, thank you for having me on the show. I was very flattered to be asked to be honest. I said, just Steve the podcast. Rousseau, are you sure? Jay Shetty asked me to be on his podcast. And here we are.

You're so humble and kind. It's, it's incredible. And it's, it's beautiful to see that humility is the quality I find most endearing. So when we record that for my kids, I'm going to send that to them. They don't believe that. They don't believe you, I'm, well, I don't know. I think teenagers live their own lives and they kind of peer out of one set of eyes to see what their parents are doing, but it's not necessarily the most important thing happening.

They're just, they're paying attention and observing. They're not necessarily, and they'll judge negatively. They won't necessarily judge positively. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I don't have children yet, but I've accepted the fact that my children will not think I'm cool in any way possible. What helps is when your kids, friends, think you're cool,

and then you win. Okay. So I've been able to do that to some extent. So that's think you're cool. And then you win. Okay. So I've been able to do that to some extent. So that's been you, your kids. Yeah, one time, one time, this was right after I had this period where I threw out all of my belongings and I was just living in Airbnb's. And my kids, friends, parents were reading my blog posts

about this time. And their friends were coming up to them and saying, you know, Josie, is your daddy homeless? And she was really scared. She was like, die are you homeless? And I said, no, why don't you visit me?

And I was staying in an Airbnb. And it was a pretty nice Airbnb. And she was like, okay, you're definitely not homeless. You're just, this is just strange and unusual. So she had enough comments sense to know it was a little bit off beat. Yeah, but it was a choice.

It was a choice, you mean? And I'm fascinated by some of your choices. You said that in 1994, when you moved to New York, you wanted to be everyone and everything. And I feel that's so true today for so many people, especially a lot of my community, people that asked me questions, how have you started there and then started to create

more of an identity, where you're able to define yourself? Or whether maybe even that was never the goal? Yeah, I don't know if that was ever the goal on the sense that I made a lot of, it wasn't like a very straight path. I made a lot of a huge number of mistakes along the way. So I always thought I had different goals.

When I moved to New York, I wanted to write a novel. I wanted to make a TV show. I had nothing to do with business. And then, I knew York just fascinated me. Like, oh, everything, every corner I turned on seemed like a story. And I just wanted to hear everybody's story. And I became fascinated by that. And, um, but then purely by accident, I stumbled into starting a business and selling it. And then I got like almost obsessed with money when I had

never been obsessed with money before. And of course, obsession never has a good end. And I lost all this money. And that created all sorts of problems and up and down, up and down. I made money, lost money, I made money, I lost money. And I think through that, I sort of figured out finally what was working more on the way up and what was not working on the way down. And I kind of started focusing on, hey, let's just stick to what's working and leave behind what's not working. But it took a good long time to sort of come to that realization. But I was always interested, even from the beginning, I was always interested in not consciously, but I always had a very strict, not strict, very intense opinions about what was going on.

I was very serious about executing on those opinions. So in 1994, nobody knew what really the web was, but for me, I thought, oh my gosh, this is going to be huge. But for me, I thought like oh my gosh, this is gonna be Huge and I remember I was working at HBO at the time and they were working on creating an interactive TV project And that was my job was to I knew software. I was a software guy at that time and My job was to create their interactive TV for HBO and they were doing it through cable lines And I said to my boss, why don't you try this thing called the web, here's this browser called Netscape. And maybe you could stream, you know,

there wasn't really streaming video, but you could download video and then watch it on a web browser. And then it's, you just have to hand out this software to everybody, you don't have to create from scratch all the networking, all the interfaces, the set top boxes, the whole thing. And he, I remember it specifically, he said to me, James, James, James. Whenever someone says your name three times, by the way, they're about to install you.

He said, James, James, James. I think the cable guys know a little bit more than you about what the future holds for entertainment. So why don't you let them do their job and you just code it up. And of course their project failed and the web became huge, but that's when I stumbled into, again, there was several years later, my first company was creating websites for corporations that did not have websites. I made AmericanExpress.com, TimeWarner.com. Then my company, you could maybe just tell by the way, I look, my company specialized in

websites for gangster rap music labels. We did them all. You have a picture of two pocket on the wall. That was a interscope and death row records. We did their websites. We did loud records, bad boy records, jive. We did all the record label websites. So that was my first company. But before that, I really was obsessed with that. Wanted to create a TV show for HBO. That's why I originally moved to the city and

I had strong opinions of what that should be and then strong opinions about what my business should be and then I Started to have strong opinions about how much money I should be worth and that was the beginning of the end Well, what an incredible story and what was it that in the 494 that even made you move there? What were you like before 94? Well, I had gone to graduate school for computer science at a place called Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. And I was thrown out of graduate school because I was all I would do was write.

I wrote minimum of 3,000 words a day. That was my goal. I would write 3,000 words a day. That was my goal. I would write 3,000 words a day every single day. And of course, that meant failing all of my classes and then getting thrown out of graduate school. But I was still a good programmer, so I would take jobs programming and we would use the web back in when it was invented. We were using it to solve problems. And I got really good at that style of programming, which became the universal style of programming everywhere, but this was before anybody was doing it.

And at the same time, being a programmer, I had a program like a half hour a week to do my job, and then just my job was to just maintain the software I had written. And then I would write fiction the rest of the day. But then I was watching so much HBO and I loved it. I decided I'm gonna go work at HBO. And I ranged for myself to get an interview there. I totally failed every part of the interview.

My boss, his boss, his boss, and his boss all asked me questions that I couldn't answer about computers. And here I had gone undergrad for computer science and graduate school on computer science. And then I had worked for four years as a programmer. I was a good computer worker. I failed every interview. And so I leave HBO. And I was so disappointed. I thought, okay, that's it. I'm not going to be able to move to New York City. And I'm not going to get a job here. And I went to the park and I saw a guy I've known for years at the park and we played chess. There was a bunch of chess tables. And then the guy who was potentially getting my boss, his boss, his boss, I suddenly saw he was watching the game. I happened to have, I was, he turned out he was a good chess player

and I happened to then win that game and we took a walk around the park and he offered me a job right there. So that's a, so I didn't know anything but because he liked, you know, because we took this walk and he liked it and the way I played chess, he offered me this, this job that I then leveraged into pitching

TV shows to HBO and doing their website and I leveraged that into starting a company making websites for other entertainment companies. And so on. Like often, you have an interest and you can't, as you grow in that interest, you don't, it's hard to have a goal in the beginning because you don't know what your new knowledge is going to teach you in terms of changing your goals. So what I always try to do is I have an interest. I never really think of the end goal because I assume that my new knowledge is going to change the end goal. And then I try to leverage it as far as I can. So I leveraged it in terms of TV shows, I leveraged it in terms of starting a company, and of course along the way,

you have to also find some kind of personal life balance, which I did not do, and then it took many years to do. Yeah, and leading forward from that, you mentioned that you got obsessed with money. When you started to get obsessed with money, what did you notice change about you and your choices? It was weird.

When I had no money, I thought I was rich because I have no money, but I'm making a TV show for HBO. And I have no money, but I don't know, I'm doing websites for the Wu-Tang clan. And I have no money, but, you know, I was really, I felt like, I thought I was doing things that I love. So I felt, and I never worried about money.

I was by myself and I was living in a beautiful building, a very historic building in New York. I had lots of artists and creatives. And I just felt abundant. And then as soon as I had money, that second, I literally felt impoverished. Like I felt totally poor. Like it was almost like a disease,

like a brain disorder that happened in my head. And so the first thing I thought of was, well, how can I make more money? Because I'm poor now. And even though I had millions and millions of dollars in the bank, and so once you start thinking like that, it's only a matter of time before you make a series of bad decisions that will cost you all your money. What they are, it doesn't even matter.

I spent a lot, I invested poorly, I did all sorts of things with the money that were uncalled for, and millions turned into literally zero. So we're virtually zero. Yeah. And obviously now you advise so many people, like incredible people from all different walks of life and backgrounds about money, about business, about entrepreneurship. Do you not feel you had any mentors then to go to or there's no one in your life that could advise you or what advice would you've given yourself?

Yeah, that's a good question because I was thinking about this the other day. I really didn't have anybody to talk to and nobody was really giving me, nobody was offering any advice either. So, I wish I did have someone to talk to and I also if someone did give me advice, I hope I wouldn't, I hope I would have had the humility to listen to them because I was also pretty arrogant because you think, oh my gosh, I just made $10 million on the smartest person in the world because I did this. Like, I never thought this was possible,

so I must be great. And, but then of course, if you're not, if you truly don't feel as if you're great, if you feel insecure, or you have some hole that needs to be filled, I felt like I needed more money to fill that hole, to really be great. I was just fooling people, now I need to really prove it. And that's part of this cycle where you feel like

you need more and more and more. And I think again, it took a long because I there's three skills to making money. There's making it keeping it growing it And I was really good at making it so I was sort of company. I build it up. I'd sell it Okay, then I'd go broke it'd be the worst thing ever. I would feel suicidal. I'd start from scratch I'd I'd then make it, and then fail to keep it and grow again. This happened like three, four or five times, and it took me a long time to realize how to keep it, and it's very difficult.

So if I were to give my advice now, if I were to give someone an advice now. I would say, do not, the very first thing is, do not change your lifestyle at all for at least one year. Because let it, let, let, money is not the goal. It's kind of a byproduct of living a good, positive, integrated life. And I can describe what that means, but it's just a byproduct of, of, youproduct of other things happening in your life that are more positive. And when you have it, let it just kind of marinate through you a little bit so that

your mind, your body, your soul kind of recognizes, okay, this is a new situation, but it's not okay, this is a new situation, but it's not the end game. It's just sort of happened. But instead, year one, I just started gambling and investing inappropriately, investing huge amounts that I shouldn't have been, you know, buying homes, spending like crazy. And, you know, every stupid thing you could think of, I would do. Thank you so much for the honest take on that, because I feel like it's very natural when someone comes into anything in an accelerated form to not know what to do with it. It's like when something comes quickly to us,

whether it's a skill, a partner, money in this case, we don't necessarily know how to use it. And once you can't blame yourself for that, or blame anyone, because it's such a human trait that when something comes to us quickly, not easily, but quickly in an accelerated form, it's hard to know how to honor that, keep that, grow that. Yeah, I mean, let's play with an analogy that I've never really played with. Let's do it.

So, money is like a kind of energy, say. But so is like when you work out in the gym, that also creates a kind of energy. Like you're a little bit stronger, so you could lift more, or you could, you know, you're a little healthier in some way because you've been going to the gym. But if you stop going to the gym,

your muscles will go away. They'll out- they'll out- entropy. So you can't just sort of like build up to the point where, oh, now I'm lifting 100 pounds with all these reps. And then say, okay, I don't need to do that anymore. You know, with money itself is also you build up a- you have a certain energy energy a certain potential energy that turns into

kinetic energy in the form of money like that's the the physical realization of this potential energy you build up. So I had built a company that was successful that was really helping a lot of other companies and and and teaching them how to use this new brand new medium and so on. And that was the potential energy, which I converted into money. And then I thought, okay, I don't, I can stop now really building up my potential energy. But there's other, you always have to keep on building, you can't ever stop going to the gym.

You always have to keep building on your health every day. If I say, okay, I'm healthy enough now, I'm just gonna eat popcorn for the rest of my life. You'll be unhealthy very fast. And that's essentially what happened. Absolutely. This is fascinating for me because I went through a process last year where I had to rewire my relationship with money.

I grew up believing that, you know, if you wanted to be rich, if you had that ambition to make lots of money, then you, it was a negative ambition. And it wasn't the right ambition. And where that came from, I mean, there's multiple sources, but that was definitely deriming. And then last year I had to rewire that to really understand how money was just a resource. It was just a tool. It was something that could facilitate growth, et cetera.

It was something that could facilitate change, as opposed to like you're saying, beat the goal. Right. And that's on the flip side after making money. Here's the other thing. Before making money, I realize every single time I've made money, it's because of friendship. So it's because of the friends I build up and it's the friends I choose to spend time with as opposed to the people I choose not to spend time with. And that really, you know, that's one thing among many,

but it's maybe one of the most important things that ends up helping, you know, we all help each other. And, you know, no man is truly self-made. It's all, you find your scene, you find your team. And these people who are in the trenches with you, you make money together, or they help you, and you help trenches with you, you make money together or they help you and you help them with their situations or goals and so on. And I think that's what I would make money

and then I would make the wrong friends and then I would lose it. Then I have to make the right friends again. Now I just sort of keep the right friends and build on that. Wow, that's such a bad word. Wow, that's on wood. Wow. That's a really incredible lesson. Have you ever seen money do the opposite of destroy friendships or take people away?

Oh, yeah. Of course. That's how I would lose off in the money is destroy family, destroy friendships, everything. That also comes with a territory a little bit that people who are around you who are maybe not focused on their personal growth. And I'm not saying I have personal growth. I'm saying I'm focused on it, meaning I hope to grow every day. I don't know.

There's no goal to that. I just hope to be better one day than the day before. But people who are not so focused on that, if they see you suddenly change your life circumstances, they're going to maybe not so focused on that, if they see you suddenly change your life circumstances, they're going to maybe not be happy about that. You know, not everybody's happy for your success. Even the, sometimes, you know, people always say, how can I avoid the crappy people in my life?

The crappy person in your life is never the neighbor down the street who you don't know. It's the person who's, the people who are sometimes right next to you all day long every day. And so those are sometimes the people you have to be most careful about. And it could be friends, it could be family, it could be co-workers, it could be a mentor

who you thought was in favor of your success. It could be mentees who liked where you were as a mentor and no longer want and no longer, you know, now they have to see you in a different way. So, again, it's never gonna be the strain, well, it will be sometimes the strangers that hate you, but it'll also, the most dangerous ones are the people who have been previously close to you,

but now they're upset that your life circumstances have changed. You've talked a lot about. I mean, when you came back from India, sorry to drop, when you came back from India and you called up your old friends from college and they were like, dude, what's happened to you? Literally. Yeah, I'm sure not all of them are on your speed dial right now. Oh, definitely not. So many people, I actually, I remember when I went off to become a monk,

one of my best friends, like we were like best friends throughout university. We did all of our course works together. We studied together everything. My best buddy, he literally said he's here. So you're becoming a monk. I was like, yeah, he has, so we can't talk about sex anymore. So I can't be friends with you. And I was just like, really, that's what it comes down to. And then when I came back and started to like rekindle and reconnect with a lot of these people, it definitely was tough.

Like not everyone wanted to connect, not everyone really understood. And people just think you've gone crazy and then come back. So it's very interesting. But it's also beautiful because those situations are the situations that show you who's really there for you. And it's a cliche, but it's also beautiful because those situations are the situations that show you who's really there for you. And it's a cliche, but it's cliche because it's true.

And you keep times when no one's there for you shows you who's really cares. Yeah, and you can't, you can't keep, there's no, a lot of people keep score. Like you could say to your friend, well, we did all these, I did this for you, I did this for you, I did this for you, and they're not even returning your calls.

Like you can't keep score because the reality is there's no scoreboard. There's no, it's not like, oh, Jay's got 10 points and Alfred's got 9 points, so Alfred needs to step up his game a little bit in the third quarter. It's not like that. There's no scoreboard. Alfred's just gone at that point. And you have to move on. You have to keep playing. It's a one person game and you have to keep playing it. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great, great piece of advice. Don't, don't keep scores. And I think you're so right that whenever we're doing something

good for something or something positive, even if we're subconsciously keeping score. Sometimes it's not conscious. but when that person changes or turns Our subconscious mechanism for keeping score kind of comes to the forum. We're like, oh wait a minute now I remember all the good things at it. Well, and also being aware and and this I'm sure it would be that what is natural to you from your meditation experience Being aware, uh-oh, I just kept score. I just counted the score. That thought right there means that this relationship has gone off the rails. Doesn't mean necessarily mean cut it off. It means something has happened wrong. The second you feel like

you are keeping score in a relationship, something's wrong that needs to be recalibrated. That is a brilliant piece of advice. I hope if you're listening and watching, this is like so powerful for relationships. And it's not just friendships, partners, husbands, wives, whatever it is. Business, business, partners, everything. Yes, such great advice. That is awesome. I'm gonna meditate on that one.

So everyone who's listening and watching, highly recommend you meditate on that point in your relationships wherever you're feeling, pain or wherever you're feeling in relationships or off the rails, think about what James just said. It's super powerful. I love that. And, you know, I don't necessarily know what a solution,

like sometimes the solution is, okay, I'm not gonna interact with this person anymore. I'm gonna take a break from this person. But let's say you're married and you find yourself suddenly in the middle of the night, like, I can't believe he or she did this. I've done this, this, and this. But you're married.

You can't just sort of eliminate this person in your life. I think the key then is to just sort of call it out for what it is. Like to next time you have a conversation with the person, you say, hey, I noticed I was keeping score and I really don't like feeling that way. You know, what can we do about it? And you know, there might not be an easy solution, but I think you have to kind of call out what is out there, what is in the ether. Because if you're thinking it's the energy between the two of you, it's out there, it's happening.

And can you imagine how amazing that would be for the other person to hear that? That would be incredible. If someone ever said that to you, like, sorry, I know I've been keeping score, and I know I've been keep telling you about all the amazing, if someone heard that on the other side, I'm hoping that most decent human beings would, you know, that would resonate with them,

that would connect with them, and hopefully their response would be transformed. Yeah, I think so, because I Yeah, I think so because I think, I think just, you know, information is power, right? And so, that's a saying, but it's true. And so, what is information? It's not just facts, it's everything that's going on. You just meet someone on the subway,

there's information going back and forth between the two of you. Now, that might not be an important relationship, the next subway stop they leave, but like with a friend, with a partner, with a business partner, there's constant information and energy going back and forth,

being able to identify and put words to some of this information is useful for both of you to make the unit more powerful. The, it's not about your success versus the other person's success, and it's not about what you're getting what you want versus the other person, because then the relationship becomes transactional. It's about the unit as a whole moving forward

in every situation. So again, the subway one, the best thing for the unit is you just let them get off the subway when they need to get off the subway. But in a marriage it's is different or a business partnership. Yeah, I often say to people that it's not you versus the other person, it's both of you versus the problem. Yeah.

It's looking at it that way and just taking that observer standpoint and taking out the actual issue, the actual disconnect or whatever it may be, whether it's business or personal and recognizing that you have to think like that in a relationship, because if you are looking at me versus that person, that means someone's got to lose. As soon as someone's got to win, someone's got to lose, whereas if it is both of you against the problem, then the right team is winning, right? It has an opportunity to. Yeah, like I have a business partner on my investment stuff, so I have a lot of different activities

and on my angel investing, I have a same business partner for 19 years. So that means it's a long time, but it also means I've lost him an enormous amount of money. Like I've lost him a lot of money, which he could say, you've lost me all this money. And then there have been other times for an entire year, I would just not show up for whatever I had to show up for

because I was going through a divorce, I was depressed or whatever. But I also play my role, which is I tend to find a lot of the opportunities and ideas. So I've made, you know, we've made a lot of money as well. And but sometimes it's gears of one thing and then years of another thing where if anybody, if either of us were keeping score, you know, our partnership would have ended year one. So instead of 19 years later. Absolutely. And you touched there on experiencing things like depression.

I've heard you speak before about your facing anxiety, et cetera. And what I'm fascinated by was how you described it, how you've been trying to create a life of joy versus playing chess with your demons. When have you had to really like to create that joy, actually, to face your demons, front on and actually deal with them? I mean, unfortunately, many times, but I'll take one time specifically, you know, I have

two daughters. I mean, there's so many ways. A lot of it relates to my, you know, fear of, I had this big fear that if I ran out of money, that meant I was dead. So because I equated my self-worth with my net worth, particularly after I sold my first company. And since then, I've sold three or four more, but even after the third or the fourth or whatever.

But I don't even know which story to talk. I tell a million stories. But tell which everyone comes to mind first. You know, I would say there was the final time, and I can't say final, because it's always a non-going thing, but there was one time I was day trading, and this is not so long ago,

really maybe this was like 2009, 2010, and I had a bad day in day trading, I lost is not so long ago, really maybe this was like 2009, 2010, and I had a bad day and day trading, I lost money and I was thinking, oh, is this still happening? Like am I still worried about everything? Like how am I going to take care of my kids? How am I going to live? How am I going to make money? You know, it was yet another time where nobody was returning my calls.

It was still years away from my angel investments paying off You know people don't realize about angel investing. They think oh this is the key to success But you know if you invest in a good company the good companies take the longest to pay off because they keep on being good Until they sell so the bad companies disappear quickly. The good companies grow, you know, you might have to wait nine, ten years before, you know, there's an opportunity to have. So, so I was just like the press lonely scared and I thought to myself, okay, I really do have this sense of what works on the way up and what doesn't work on the way down. I need to, I need to just surrender. I need to really have this mentality of surrender

where I can't really control how I'm feeling right now about losing money. I can't really control what's going to happen. I can't force XYZ company to be sold to another company. I can't force the economy to do well. I can't force allZ company to be sold to another company. I can't force the economy to do well. I can't force all these massive, massive things that I felt needed to go in my favor in order for me to do well.

But what I can't control is my physical health, my emotional health, like who I'm spending time with, my creative health, like am I constantly creative and coming up with ideas, because that will lead ideas morph into opportunities ultimately. like am I constantly creative and coming up with ideas because that will lead ideas more up into opportunities ultimately. You can't have opportunities if you're sick and bad. You can't have opportunities if you're constantly

yelling at your romantic partner or your friends. You can't have opportunities if you're not constantly generating ideas because no one's going to call you and say, Jay, I'm going to make you the king of Thailand now. Like, no one's going to give you that opportunity. You're going to have to make your own opportunities and opportunities come from the ideas that you have and ideas are hard to come up with good ideas. And then finally, spiritual health, no one can do that for you.

No one can teach you, hey, you can't control the economy or how stocks are going to go tomorrow or which companies are going to flame out. You could just kind of make your best do your best and surrender to the rest. And that's become some of the practice for you, right? Because then you made a list this year of things you don't want to worry about. Yeah, so basically every day, I just asked myself at the end of the day, did I do the best I can, did I try to improve with physical health? Like did I eat well, sleep well, move well?

Have I been around good people who add to my life and started trimming people who don't add to my life or maybe trimming people who are toxic? Did I, was I creative today? And the simplest way is that I write down 10 ideas a day, like it could be bad, they should be bad ideas most of the time, but I'm just exercising that idea muscle and that I do something for my spiritual health. Like let's say, doesn't have to be meditation, it could be prayer, it could be bowing down to Allah, it could be surrendering to the force, it could be anything.

And I just asked myself, did I do that today and then today was a good day and, quote, an ice cube. And then from that, other things are just byproducts. So that creates the energy in you and it builds up this potential energy. And then once you have that, it byproduct is the kinetic energy that results. The for every action has a yeah, a reaction. And you know, money is among that

or friendships or love or, you know, other things, anything. Sounds like you've had so many, at least from my perspective, from what I've read hearing you today, so many ups and downs, so many inconsistencies. Has there anything that's stayed consistent with you in your experience over all these years? Yeah, reminds me of, you know, there's Peter Teal writes in his book, zero to what.

What important truth is we're very few people agree with you on. And I always ask this to people too, like after reading, I said, this is Peter Teos question, what important truth does nobody agree with you on? And everyone thinks and thinks and thinks, but there's a really great answer, which I always give now, which is my incredible way in high IQ. Yeah. So that's such an easy answer, because I could say it's an important truth to me. Like no one else seems to agree with me on it. So maybe they do.

Maybe they do. No, most people don't. I would probably win. So, but my question's more about consistency because I get fascinated by what does stay the same in all of this change in evolution, because we talk so much about growth and evolution and transformation. So I'm fascinated by like, if anything, and it may be nothing, which is cool too,

but it's like, is there anything that has stayed consistent in the way you think or what you believe for? I would say there is nothing that has stayed consistent. And that's the problem. I think consistency is not a bad thing. It doesn't mean having the same routine every day. It means a higher level of consistency of having core values, having this daily practice of physical,

emotional, creative, spiritual. I would say that became consistent for me starting around 2010 or 2009 and it was only in bits and pieces before then and I think that's the source really of all my problems is that I wasn't consistent. And of course problems don't end, right? Like people have problems every day, but what gets better when you're consistent is you build this toolkit of solving and dealing with problems.

You know, there's the whole saying, which, you know, life happens, but how you, you can't control what's happening in life, but you can't control your reaction to it. And so that's what, that's what all of this practice is. That's what a daily practice is. A consistent daily practice gives you those tools to react better to life happening around you.

And I think that's what's more consistent for me now and it wasn't consistent for me before. So when things would go bad, I would think, okay, that's it. I'm dead. And now I don't think that. Yeah. No, I love that you're embracing that point around the importance of consistency because I think we live in a world today where we glorify and idolize extreme ideas.

Whenever I was like, no, you have to be constantly changing, because everything's always changing. But it's from my perspective, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. One of my perspectives is that actually embracing the paradox and embracing polarities is far more of a realism of life. Like, I would say I'm as monk as I am media. And I would say that my focus is as about consistency,

as it is about remaining spontaneous and inconsistent. And for me, it's in that paradox where I'm able to find myself where I'm able to operate, where I'm able to function. And I would never be able to operate without either extreme. I think that's really important because, for instance, when I started writing about,

like being honest and writing in my writing about all this stuff, everyone thought I was completely insane. Like, for instance, all these financial people I knew or all these entrepreneurs that I knew, or even creative people I knew, they're like, they all thought like, are you crazy?

How could you admit all this stuff? No one's ever gonna to work with you again. And yet I suddenly had more opportunities than ever because I think people realized it's people at their core realize, oh, that's like me. I have, I've had problems in life that I didn't know how to deal with. And hopefully I know how to deal with them a little better now. And here's someone who's similar and who's admitting it. And I think that's important.

We all have these, you know, I think society, you know, society is also filled with kind of contradictions but people are in today's day and age unwillingly. You know, everybody kind of takes a side now and you know, you could either engage in that discussion and it's usually like an angry one like, oh no, you believe in this, I believe in this, we can't be friends anymore.

Or you could say, hey, I'm still gonna be focused on my own flaws and irrational behavior and be accepting of it and focus again, it's almost like boring mantra for me, but physical, emotional, creative, and spiritual health, and hopefully a little bit of improvement each day in those areas. And that's what I love about you,

that when I've been viewing you and marring your work, you don't really claim to be anything in a good way, I'm saying, and I quite like that, because I think it allows you to be more honest and be more vulnerable in your writing. it allows you to be more honest and be more vulnerable in your writing. It allows you to be more almost without having to identify yourself as something. Right.

Like somebody commented on a post of mine recently and said, James, how could you, this is what I know post is good. It's when someone says this, James, how could you say this? Like you were such a beacon before you wrote this. And now my whole view of you has changed. And then I know I've achieved something good with my writing, because if I'm just the same thing all the time,

and that's boring. And it's on them that they liked me before, and what did they like about me before? That suddenly they don't like about me now. I can't control that. And I've always admitted that flawed, like, maybe everyone else is perfect, I don't know, but, you know, you have to kind of acknowledge

the flaws in the people, even people closest to you. Yeah, yeah, but you do it effortlessly. You're able to talk about your flaws in a, and not in a articulate way, but almost with effortlessness, like yourself awareness is so high. Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, or maybe I just write so that it seems that way.

So I always tell people, maybe I'm much less interesting in person than in my stories that I write. No, it's not true. That's not true. I don't agree. But, you know, one thing is that, I always tell people

who are writing, for instance, don't start off the first paragraph with a lecture. Start it off with, I was lying in the gutter and it was raining and I was drunk and the cars were coming towards me and I had to get pulled out of the gutter and then I threw up all over the place. Just start with something like crazy and stupid

and embarrassing and then you're off to a good start. What is about human psychology that warms towards that perspective? Because we've all been there. And we all are ashamed to admit it. And so when someone admits it, it makes us feel more comfortable. Yeah, it gives you permission. Right.

You could finally take a breath. You've been holding your breath since that moment that you can't admit, and now you could take a breath. Oh, he just admitted it. That's just like me. So maybe I could crawl out of this hole that I'm in, or maybe I could admit it also to the people around me.

And maybe it's okay that it took me slower than I thought or that I'm in the beginning or the middle of a journey that's still going on. It gives permission in a lot of different ways. But if you just say, if you just say, oh, I'm the greatest basketball player in the world, here's how, who can relate to that? Totally. Totally. But that technique is often used by a lot of, and you mentioned

your fast and issue, stand-up comedy, obviously, as well. And that techniques often used by stand-up comics that kind of self-deprecating, also, approach. But we find that often there's so much reality where people are still stuck there. It's almost like they haven't worked through that. Yeah, I mean, a key thing in stand-up comedy, maybe even more important than humor is like ability. So when you're watching, let's see you turn on the TV and Dave shi-pels on the screen, you say, okay, I'm gonna watch this.

You already know his act. You already know that you like him. Everyone in the audience has just paid $500 to see him. They like him. So you don't really see. But if you go into like just some dive comedy club, it's a bunch of strangers watching a group of seven or eight comics one and the after the other go up. Nobody likes it.

Nobody. It's a contest. Like nobody yet knows whether to like each other. And so the first thing somebody on the stage and this applies not just to comedy but to public speaking, to public speaking when it's strangers. This is a, it applies to a meeting where you're selling something, it applies to a negotiation. No one is going to negotiate with you if they don't like you first. So comedy is a negotiation.

You're saying if I say these things, you're going to laugh, but they still have to like you first. Sales, they have to like you first. Sales, they have to like you first. My first company, I realized this, that nobody was really buying my service, which was making their first websites, because there were other companies out there that were making websites. People were buying me as a friend, and they wanted me as a friend. And that felt bad at first, because I didn't select my customers. They're selecting me, but I didn't have enough confidence to select them.

And so sometimes it ended up being friends with people I didn't like. Because I thought that was the service I was providing ultimately. And then sure my employees were building their websites, but they, but their boss, the boss who hired my company was just, he just wanted to be friends. Yeah.

And the website stuff was kind of a byproduct of that. And so, again, likeability is important, and self-deprecation is part of that, and it's also part of, well, look at Harry Potter, the book Harry Potter. You don't see him as a wizard in the beginning. You see him as a bullied, little nerdy kid, scarred, whose parents hate him, and he lives in a closet. Like, that's how Harry Potter starts. Not

with wizardry and amazing things, it's literally this scarred kid in a closet, and that's how it starts. guard kid in a closet and that's how it starts. Yeah. You know, I was just talking to someone about Star Wars yesterday. It doesn't start off with Yoda like controlling the universe with the force. It starts off with a whiny little kid whose aunt and uncle won't let him fly into space and he doesn't, and he doesn't even try. It doesn't even fight back. He's like, oh, okay.

Like, he even winds in his voice. And until finally, and an uncle are killed. And he doesn't shed one tear. And he just immediately goes off into space afterwards. Yeah, absolutely. And that's all the stories, right? And that it's beautiful when that is a authentic telling of one's journey

as opposed to a manufactured approach to sharing one's story. So that's the key. And that's what happens. So that's so being self-deprecating, unfortunately, is only one half the puzzle. I wish everybody would be a great artist or a great comedian or a great salesman or a great negotiator. The second half of the puzzles, you have to be authentic and telling your personal truth. You can't go on stage, for instance, and tell a bunch of jokes about what it's like to be 300 pounds if you're 140 pounds. So the audience, they're going to be like, is he putting himself down, but he's not really 300 pounds.

Now, that's an obvious one, but there's not really 300 pounds. Now that's an obvious one, but there's a saying, in any kind of performance, the audience is an X-ray machine. So on much more subtle issues, the audience can tell if you're being truthful, if this is a personal truth about yourself, or you're just doing some sort of hack job and trying to get them to like you,

and not really being truthful or honest about it. You touched on something really powerful for me that you just said I'm going I'm rewinding back to it because you said that We all like being liked but then we have to become selective about who likes us. Yeah, and that's a fascinating like, a mind trick because we all like being liked. When someone likes our posts or likes us, then we immediately default tend to like them back because we love the process being liked. How do we switch out of that and actually become more selective? I don't think you really can. I think, well, well, first off, there's two parts to your question.

We're not really too far, but your first part was, we like being liked, you can't get rid of that. Definitely not getting that. Because that's just neurochemicals. And we shouldn't get rid of it. Yeah, that's just neurochemicals and we're tribal animals and every tribe in every primate species goes from alpha to omega.

And you always have a sense of whether you're closer to alpha or or whether you're moving closer to alpha or moving closer to omega and the more people who like you the more you're moving towards alpha and the dopamine spikes up and you feel happy um and the question is how addicted you get to overwhelming bursts of dopamine. And you know, that's an addiction. So that's an addiction that for better or for worse, Instagram, Facebook, social media feeds it. Like how, you know, I used to post an article and like, I knew exactly to the

number if the article was doing good based on if an hour later had so many likes and so many views and so on. And you have to really sort of be aware of where your addiction is being triggered and and teach yourself not to care as much. And so when it comes to then customers and friendships and so on, you just have to decide is this person have the kind of values that I have and I want to be around them and and I want to get to know them better and You don't want to be I'm willing to be friends with this customer. So yes, this will be a great partnership And then by the way, it'll make you a better salesman like if you genuinely like the person you're dealing with you're gonna come up with more ideas for them

They're gonna come up with ideas for you, and things will work out better. So that's on business and of course the same thing applies to romance or friendship or even creativity. Like if you're doing an act of creativity that people like and you start to feel that dopamine surge, you could take you, you can acknowledge it and then take a step back and say, okay, but I still have to focus on the quality of the work. Yes, I want people to like it, but I can't get carved into one area where I know everyone's going to like it because I liked it before.

I have to always be creative and break out of my comfort zone and see what people like and what people don't like and I have to be willing to not have that dopamine hit every single time You know some people get so addicted that let's take in comedy They say the same jokes every time for years or let's say in You know performance they always want to play the same type of character or let's say in sales even, they use the same techniques and tricks when it might not be appropriate all the time because they know that it's the easiest way to get that

dopamine hit. Yeah, and that's where that consistency element goes wrong. Yeah, that's where that consistency fails us eventually. Yeah, because if you think, okay, I made $10 million, now I need to make 20 million more to get the same dopamine hit. Well, you've just, you're, you're, that's the first step you're about to lose the first 10 million. Yeah, exactly. And like we were saying earlier, I was mentioning to you how apps have become smarter in making sure we get bigger dopamine hits by giving us all of our likes and

follows in one big go. So before if you had two likes on Instagram, I would show you two and then the next minute would show you eight. Now it puts 10 together. Well, it puts 100 together because that dopamine is stronger. So it makes you want to come back more often. So it's crazy how we can get wired in so deep. Yeah, and it's really hard to get out of that. Like you were sharing some of my likes. So have you been working on getting out of it? I think I think the key is to not I think it is the key is to be I Don't like the word minimalist because usually people think minimalist means Fewer objects around you, but it could also mean fewer times you check your computer and your cell phone

Like be a minimalist that way it could mean fewer decisions you have to make. That's the whole kind of famous Steve Jobs, like he wore the same clothes every day. He just had like five black, total black sweaters. And so, but it was a minimalist of decisions that he had to make, because you get decision fatigue, or you get dopamine fatigue, and then messes with your brain.

And even with friendships, you know, it's good to have a diverse group of friends, not the same kind of friends. But you don't want to have like 500 friendships because then your social calendar is going to be too busy. You know, two or three really good friends, five pretty good friends and, you know, and then some acquaintances. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. This has been one of those conversations for me that has got me thinking so much. I almost need to listen back to this and listen to a lot of the things you said because they've sparked so many different inspirations for me personally. You know, I often have to reread my own book or books to remind myself of my advice.

Or not really advice, but stories and how I got through them. And just to kind of keep track and make sure I'm still consistent, you know, because I'll forget my own advice. Yeah, but I love how when I'm listening to you, even though you're a writer, you're writing style or at least speaking style and sharing style is just so honest, it doesn't even quite cut it. I'm trying to find the right word. It's just it's so as it is and you almost haven't storified your own story, which I like. What do you mean by story? I feel like we live in a world now where we tell stories for the sake of telling stories.

It's like you have to make everything in your life into a story because that's the only way people listen. Whereas I'm listening even though I don't feel you've done that in a positive sense I'm saying. That often everything feels like a lot of what we hear today or at least what I experience feels like an ad or feels like I've been put into some sort of NLP storytelling practice and I'm just like, all right, where's this going?

Whereas when I'm listening to you, I kind of feel like, well, here's someone who's really lived, who's really experienced, who has really thought about it and it's okay with it kind of getting it wrong sometimes and getting it right sometimes. Well, that's just it. A story doesn't have to have a good ending. Some stories are tragedies. You know, some stories are comedy, some stories are dramas, so there's different types of stories.

But you know, I do think those storytelling is the best way to community. So the other day, I'll tell you a story. So the other day, after I loved everything I just said, you're talking, I'm loving the way you tell stories. The other day, I was playing poker at the Clinton Foundation was holding an ad- Yes, I should've been too. And everybody, I had never met Bill Clinton before.

And everyone always says this one thing about him, whenever I read about him or whenever I talk to people with him, they always say, oh, he's got the most amazing charisma of anybody in the world. He always makes you feel like you're the most important person in the world. And right. So you've heard that. It's like a common thing. And I kept thinking to myself, what does that mean?

Does he like stare at you and like hypnotizes you in some way? Or he like hugs you and like asks you lots of questions about yourself. So you feel really important. And so here I am meeting him and here's what it is. I've realized what is his charisma because it's amazing. He's kind of soft-spoken a little bit. Maybe that's his age. Maybe he wasn't always that way.

I don't know. And then he's leaning, you have to lean in close. And he just tells you a story. He's like, you know, he'll say, that reminds me of, you know, my buddy, he's like, blood to me, and he told me the same thing you just said. And here's what it was. And then he goes, he tells a story about his friend. And now you're part of his circle of friends. And so you really do feel like,

and I know Bill Clinton's friend, like if I, is Bill to come over for dinner tomorrow? Like you start thinking that. And that is, I think storytelling and these kind of like soft spoken ways is the secret to his charisma. Now, okay, then you have to be discerning enough to determine, is that some people are better at it than others, and is he truly, am I truly the most important person in the world? Is he really coming over for dinner tomorrow?

Or is this just his way, you know, and then there's a spectrum there. And then that's where that energy is real, where you can feel that genuineness, that authenticity, and that sincerity where you're like, yeah, okay, he's not coming over for dinner, but he meant it when he said it. Yeah. That intention, that conscious energy was sincere. I hope so.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You didn't know. I've never known, we never know. Like, some of them be so skilled at it. Like, I have a lot of, you know, like, performers and actors and so on on my podcast. And I get overwhelmed by them like oh my gosh We're getting long so great, but this is their job is to get along great with me

Yeah, and so you never really know and um, but again, I do think the best It's really sincere and it's really authentic and I do think people deep down know when you're not being authentic And sincere and so on so I think that's I think that's key. I think you have to say yes to the things. You know, I was thinking about this recently. What do you say yes to and what do you say no to? Because you can't say, you know, when you're young, you have to say yes to more things. But when you're older, you have to say no to more things. And so one way to judge whether to say yes or notice something is the same principles that help determine how much well-being and

contentment you have in life, which are what I'll say yes is something. If it improves my emotional connections with the people in my life, if it improves my sense of mastery of that I'm improving in something that I love doing, or if it improves my freedom in the world. So, will more of my decisions be decisions I make as opposed to decisions someone else makes for me? So those three criteria, if it meets those, then I'll say yes to something like, let's say a speaking engagement or going on your podcast or writing a story or, you know, creating a business or marrying someone or going out with some or being a friend, you can use those three criteria to say determine yes or no.

Those are great and I think everyone needs to create their own, like everyone needs to create their criteria. Absolutely. I love that. Awesome. James, this has been an incredible conversation. Every interview with my final five. It's the final five minutes of an interview. We do some sort of a quick fire, rapid fire round. Okay. So these are shorter answers, usually one for three words. With you, I could even, I'm gonna tempt myself.

My quick fire may not be five, it may be seven, it may be ten, I don't know. We'll see how it goes because I have so many quick questions. I have to ask you. But you just made me think of a question. Yeah, and When you said final five or remind me of a Chris Rock movie the top five, right, but I'm gonna shift his top five Question a little bit. Who are the top five people that have inspired you on your journey? Okay, I want to know top five people. Yeah, so I'd say

One of the first ones is my teacher, Rathana Tsuami, who's been among for the last 40 years. How can I figure out who he is? Like, where do I? So, oh, I can give you his book. I'll have it sent to you. Yeah, I can have his book sent to you. What's the look called?

It's called The Journey Home. Okay. And he's someone who grew up in Chicago and hitchhiked across the world at the age of 19 and searched for the truth and ended up in India. Andhiked across the world at the age of 19 in search for the truth, and ended up in India. And so his story is a truly remarkable story of a genuine seeker of truth, a genuine seeker of spirituality in the self, and he's someone who's hugely inspired my life because the amount of times I've spent with him, he's the same whether he's with you individually

or whether he's with a million people or whether it's with the president of the United States, all of which with which he's been, he just is able to maintain the same level of demeanor, qualities, abilities. So his characteristics have always been something that I've admired and looked up to. So he's one of them. Second one is someone that I feel personally mentored by even I never met him with Steve Jobs. I've tried to read everything that I could possibly could about him and unfortunately I don't know many people who knew him but simply by reading about him and hearing about him and trying to connect as deeply as I can with all of his content It's been a huge inspiration in my life in many many ways The most simple way I can put it is at one point in my life

I listen daily to his Stanford commencement speech the famous one one, and I listened to it every single day, and the amount that speech in itself has helped me switch off from the noise of other people's opinions in my life, that in itself has been an incredible, incredible inspiration. I met him once, actually, when I was college. Finally, when I was in college, and he was at next computer,

and he was delivering a bunch of next machines to where I went to school. And so he was there to give the gift of all these next machines. And he is unbelievably charismatic. Okay. You just wanna be like, it's like a tractor beam. He's calling you in.

Yeah. Amazing. So that's true. That's good to know. That's true. The third one, again, never met him, but hopefully I can because he's like calling you in. Yeah, so. Amazing. So that's true. That's good to know. That's true. The third one, again, never met him, but hopefully I can, because he's still alive, is Cristiano Ronaldo, who's the famous football player or soccer player.

The reason being that I grew up a huge football and soccer fan growing up in London, but also just because of his extreme work ethic. So I feel like there are people that are naturally gifted, and then there are people who work and build and create a life that facilitates their dreams. And he's someone who's probably gifted but definitely the latter as well. There's a famous story of him which helps explain who he is to you. I'm not sure you have any context of who he is. He was, at one point, the most expensive player on the planet.

And a player that beat him in how expensive he was came to the club and said that on his first day this other player, his name is Gareth Bale, he says on his first day of training he thought he would show up to the club early to show the manager that he was serious even though he's the most expensive player in the world. He's like I want to show the manager I'm serious. So he turned up three hours early to training. This is four years after Cristiano Ronaldo's joined that club. Cristiano Ronaldo was there four hours early that day. And that's his work ethic to me,

is just constantly inspiring me and motivating me to realize that that's really what it takes to be at that level. Do you think, no matter how gifted you are, you have to have that level of work ethic to be the best? There's no way to be gifted enough to be the best, I think. I can agree with you more. And I think we see that. I think to be the best. There's no way to be gifted enough to be the best, I think. I can agree with you more. And I think we see that.

I think we see natural talents, especially in sports, I view it more, where people are natural raw talents, and they don't reach those peaks, because they didn't take it seriously. Right. And then they fall off. So I've seen it mostly in sports, but I think it's pretty common across the board.

So yeah, he'd be my third one. Five, this is good. The fourth one would probably be, I'm trying to think of another individual that I think, the fourth one would probably be the monk who introduced me to Rajanotswami. I can tell you about him too. He's someone who is just, he's the first monk that I met

that inspired me to be a monk. He went to IIT, which is the Indian Institute of Technology, MIT of India, a gold medalist, turned down jobs at some of the best places to become a monk. He's by far one of the smartest people I've ever met, but also someone who's been able to live through service. And I've never seen someone so smart, one to dedicate their life simply to service and be constantly able to reinvent themselves. I spoke to him last year and even though he's a teacher and respected by thousands and

thousands and thousands of people, he was like, I've got so much wrong and he was telling me exactly what he'd gone wrong ten years ago that he didn't recognize and now he's trying to rectify it. So his constant ability to reinvent himself, self-develop and be reflective despite the amount of adoration and success he's had is phenomenal. And the fifth person I'd say is probably my wife. She's a good answer. No, it's true.

It's true. Probably my wife, because I met her at a time. I'm like the bad guy who has tried to become good. I've always been a rebel my whole life. I've always been on the other side of good and I've worked my way towards the good side and it's taken a lot of work. Whereas my wife's almost, I feel like

been a saint in her whole life, extremely pure hearted. How do you guys mean? The choice is, we actually met because when I left, I used to teach a meditation actually met because I when I left I used to teach her Meditation philosophy is part of a group that I used to teach In love so you meet her. Sorry. Yeah, basically basically. Yeah, well, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna own up to that but she's now a better meditated than me. So I guess I was a good teacher But yeah, she's just someone who in all of our relationships

I think exudes with the best energy. I know that whenever we're out together and I connect my friends and family or anyone to her, they're always more interested in her than they are in me. And yeah, she's someone who's a great partner, tolerates me a lot. And it's able to deal with a very extreme husband, you know, I'm a super extremist. And I'm pretty sure that's not easy to deal with. That's a solid top five. Yeah, it sounds like it's consistent too, right? Like that's consistently your top five. Yeah, I think so. Those are consistently at the top. I mean, I didn't mention Einstein and Einstein's

distance. And you mentioned Einstein a lot in your videos and... Einstein's the center of my world from an ideology point of view. I feel he's someone who is able to bring together this pro-triality and science. He has that paradox in him. He was able to be intellectually curious but then deep in data. I love that about Einstein. So Einstein without a doubt, I would say, I mean, he's in the center of my war, like 100 percent put him in the top five, but I wanted to give you people that you may not have heard of too.

So I wanted to add people to that list. But yeah, that was probably my top five. Excellent. Can I do my top five on you? Your questions? Questions, yeah. Yeah, they're not that questions. So my first question is this one, which I love. You made a list of things you didn't want to worry about in 2018.

On that list was money, politics, other people's opinions, the future, and pleasing others. My first question is, what on the list for 2019? Money, politics. I don't want to worry about people liking me and I don't worry about pleasing others. On the future. You know what I do think about the future because I think about my kids, my kids had some issues this year and I do think about them and I think about the future so with them and Yeah, and I don't want to worry about I think the pleasing

Someone who is not appreciative of it that has gone up in value for me not wanting to worry about that done up in value for me, not wanting to worry about that. You know, the rest are the same. And by the way, 2018, I'm not saying I succeeded at those things. I want to improve on them for 2019. Well, you said them again, so yeah, definitely. No, I love those. And I do a really interesting thing to have that. I think we focus so much on goals,

but we don't focus on what we don't want. And sometimes it's what we don't want that creates the space. So I think I really like that approach. So anyone who's listening and watching, make a list of things you don't want to be bothered by in 2019. I love that. A second question I have for you is, what's the best advice you ever received? Hmm. I think the best advice I've ever received, you know, when you do podcasts, right, you do so many podcasts with so many great and inspirational people that I forget. I feel bad that I don't have like an amazing memory record. Remember everything they've said.

But sometimes I guess what stands out is has a had an effect. So it's just going to sound kind of like an odd one. But I thought about it a lot. Scott Adams, who is the creator of the comic strip delbert, he said to me, my life became a lot better and I became a lot happier once I realized that 99% of people were completely irrational. And so I just think that's a good thing to think about, particularly when you're dealing with a lot of these issues, like what do people think of you? Why are, why is it, when am I keeping score in a relationship or why are we, why are we pleasing this person or, you know, the future that I can't control because of all these

factors that, you know, involving people. It helps to think, you know, that it's true. Most people, including me, are probably irrational most of the time. And that makes sense. Otherwise, if everybody was rational, like everyone always thinks they're rational. But if everyone was rational, why is the advertising agency advertising, a 300 billion a year industry. Like, they're spending that money for a reason because they know that your free will

is not as rational as you think, but they can manipulate it. So that's why all these companies exist. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, that's why every ad agency exists. So it makes sense. And I guess the other thing is, I don't know. I think in general, always keeping beginner's mind

is important. So big zen concept. Absolutely. That question, what's the worst advice you ever received? concept. Absolutely. That question. What's the worst advice you ever received? I don't think I've ever gotten bad advice. Oh, that's amazing. And I'll say it because I don't blame anyone for anything bad that I've done. Like I take of course, somebody's told me to, oh, you gotta buy this stock, man, it's gonna go up tomorrow and I bought it and I could say that's bad advice, but you know what? It wasn't like he was doing his thing or she was doing her thing and I'm, man, it's gonna go up to the ground. And I bought it and I could say that's bad advice, but you know what, it wasn't.

Like he was doing his thing or she was doing her thing and I'm the one who made the action. So I got to take ownership of my decisions. And so I can't really say anybody's giving me bad advice that I couldn't have just simply dusted off and ignored it. Nice. Question number four, what's a mantra you live by or something that you repeat to yourself often or something that's kind of stated the forefront of your mind when you're making big decisions or choices? I think it's a couple different things. You know one is I've repeated several times in this podcast how at the end of a day did I improve or work on physical health, emotional health,

creative health, spiritual health. And the other thing is am I making a decision because of it improved my connection with people, my attempts at improving it, things that I love, and my sense of autonomy or freedom. So remembering those every time I have a crucial decision, particularly regarding how I spend my time, I think that's important to me. And I think it's also useful to remember when I pass people, they're going through hardships too. And I remember, I met somebody, so I published a book with A House, which is like a self-help

publishing company. And I was having lunch with their head of book acquisitions and she told me she had just come back from this retreat with the Dalai Lama. And I said, well, what's it like to meet him? And she said, it feels like everybody he looks at, he's thinking, this is my daughter. And so I've tried this exercise,

just walking down the street, just imagining everybody, like an old man, a homeless person, this person, that person, this is my daughter. And you do feel differently, you do react differently to them. What's creepy is when it's actually a little girl you're passing and you're smiling at that person, this is my daughter, you can't do that.

That's the problem. But in general, that's been kind of a thing that I repeat to myself when I walk around in the street. And that's actually a very monk principle that we were trained to see people as either your mother or your daughter. So you were able to build that respect for women. So rather, people often think that monks

against women or see women is less, et cetera. It's actually the opposite. It's actually how can I see these women with higher forms of respect? And it's tricky too when you say the same thing about men. This is my daughter about some homeless man. Yeah, yeah. That works too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was once, once going out with somebody who just didn't believe me that I would do this. That's stupid. You do that. I don't believe you do that, but it actually really works. I ain't in court. And I don't always remember to do it, but it works when I do it.

Yeah. And I ask a lot of men to try and do it with, as I deal with women in the sense of just like, I have a younger sister who I've almost dealt with as my daughter in many cases, in the sense of how I see her and how I take care of her and how protective I am. And I've always looked to try to look at my relationships with the women in the same way as like, well, that's someone's daughter. Like, how does that impact how I treat them?

Well, how does that impact how I? Yeah, and that's a good way to do decision making. So let's say you're, so this has happened to me in relationships where, and this has been my therapist's advice to me, I would be like, oh, like, oh, this is what happened this week. So and so said this to me, what should I do?

And my therapist would say, well, imagine your daughter calls you up, and she says, daddy, my boyfriend just said this to me. What would you tell her? It's break up with him. Like, that's crazy. And so I know how to be a parent, and I know how to be like a business partner

and sometimes relationships are hard, but so my therapist was great. It was at finding the analogies where I would be able to have an instant answer, but it was really the same question. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And fifth and final question,

I often don't say this, but and I'm hoping that even though this the first time we met I'm hoping it's gonna turn into a lifelong friendship because I've There's something about you that I deeply Funding during and tomorrow. Thank you Jay as I I feel the same way But you know here's the thing though. Yeah a lot of times on the podcast People say oh next time to see we have to hang out and then I never hear weak But you know, here's the thing though, a lot of times on the podcast, people say, oh, next time we have to hang out. And then I never hear a week, I text them like, I see her in the city. And they just never was, you have to respond.

Yeah, contact me when you come to the world. Well, I was going to go step further. I was going to go step further. I was at my fifth and final question is actually like, I, I feel like as, as we get to know each other more, there may be areas in my life that I think you'd be an incredible mentor for me. And, and I'd love as my fifth final question, to ask you for any words of guidance advice that you have for me, having seen my work, connected to me today, and been so incredible to me, I'd love to ask you for any advice, anything that comes to your mind that you may believe would be useful for someone like me.

Well, I don't know, but I mean, you've done a really good job of doing what you do. And I've watched a lot of your content. And by the way, I'm amazed at how well produced your videos are, you must have a team like editing stuff and so on. So it's like everything you do seems like super high quality, super thoughtful. So I don't know, I would say maybe just don't share ideas as much as stories sometimes. Sometimes you don't have to be, you know, Jay who's share your brilliant and you have great advice. And I always, you always have unique insight that I'm like, huh, that wasn't just some sort of BS

self-help aphorism. Thank you. It actually was unique and I'm gonna follow it. But it would also be like, you know, I wanna see you dirty a little bit. And, but that's just how, again, it's like I'm saying how I would do it if I were you, but you have generated more views on your content than I have, so who am I to talk?

So that's not a joke. I love it. Yeah, I'm going to find out what debt he means. That's going to be fun to unpack, but... Go on a subway and have someone videotape you secretly and do the same things you're saying, you're well-produced videos and figure out how to say it to the subway car. And it's gonna be scary

and they're gonna look at you like, is this guy gonna ask me for money or is this guy weird? And you have to commit to doing it in the same passion and vigor you do it on those videos. Okay, awesome, I love it. Let's see what happens.

And the video table will be hilarious. Yeah, it'll be fun for everyone else, for sure. Yeah also I love it. Let's see. In the video table, be hilarious. Yeah, it'll be fun for everyone else for sure. Yeah. I love it. James, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm excited for our next. I just feel like we've literally, and I'm not just saying this now, I don't say that it's gonna be, but I literally feel like there's so many more things I can talk to you about, but I'm excited to rethink, relisten to this and then come back at you with more. So yeah, let's continue the conversation. We know you're gonna be in New York in the next few months. Come on, the podcast and then let's have dinner afterwards.

I'd love that. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Hi, I'm Brendan Francis Nuneum, I'm a journalist, a wanderer, and a bit of a bon vivant, but mostly a human just trying to figure out what it's all about. And not lost is my new podcast about all those things. It's a travel show where each week I go with a friend to a new place, and to really understand it, I try to get invited to a local's house for dinner, where kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party, it doesn't always work out. Ooh, I have to get back to you. Listen to not lost on the iHeart radio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season. And yet, we're constantly discovering new secrets. The variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share 10 incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. Listen to season 8 of Family Secrets on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever

you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon.