Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 117: James Altucher, Master of Reinvention

Episode Date: January 10, 2018

James Altucher, an entrepreneur, writer and host of "The James Altucher Show" podcast, is a master of reinvention, so much in fact that the title of one of his 18 books is "Reinvent Yourself." Altucher has built and sold numerous companies (and made and lost a few fortunes in the process), once gave up all of his possessions and was homeless for a time, dabbles in stand-up comedy, and all the while has maintained his long history with meditation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad. Where did memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Why Anderson Cooper, former guest on this podcast, was kind enough to volunteer to host an event at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan with me and also with Jeff Warren with whom I wrote a new book called Meditation for Figuity Skeptics. Initially the event was going to be a small thing just like 300 people but a lot of people bought tickets and they just announced that they're putting in at a bigger hall with 600 more seats. So we got a bunch of tickets at this point. So if you're into it, go to 92y.org. 92y.org, and you can get tickets there. And it's at 5 o'clock on Sunday, January 14th.

Me, Jeff Warren, Anderson Cooper, should be cool. All right, enough vlogging of that event. I want to tell you about my guest this week, who is awesome. Really awesome. I'm gonna read you the first paragraph of his Wikipedia entry. I Wikipedia sometimes is wrong, but I think this is generally right.

James Altature is an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, best selling author, venture capitalist and podcaster. He has founded or co-founded more than 20 companies, including Reset Inc. and Stock Picker, and says he failed at 17 of them. He has published 11 books and he's a frequent contributor to publications, including The Financial Times, The Street.com, and TechCrunch. Basically, James's story is amazing.

He has made and lost several fortunes. I mean, big fortunes. He's really, as you'll hear him say, is really good at making a bunch of money, not great at keeping it. But through this, and then after having all these ups and downs in his business career, he's become sort of an unlikely self-help guy who writes all these books and has this great podcast.

And in fact, we're doing a little bit of a swap here, so I'll be on his podcast around the time that we're posting this. I mean, you should check it out, because he had lots of great guests anyway. And he's just a quirky, incredibly smart guy, who has a long history of meditation. But I was actually, I've known him for a couple of years,

I've been on his podcast many times and during that whole time, he never actually mentioned to me that he had a pretty deep history with meditation. His little story about how he discovered as an adolescent is hilarious. You'll hear that pretty quickly when the interview gets started. So I didn't know that he's not only has been practicing for a while, but he actually has taught meditation. So there are a lot of reasons to check out James Alcature, but the meditation thing is a big one, and a surprise to me. Also, what comes out in the course of this interview

is that he's got a new stand-up comedy thing, which comes out of nowhere, but is also awesome. So without any further ado, here is James Altiger. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Nice to see you again. Dan, such a pleasure being on your podcast. You put on my podcast twice now. My first visit to your excellent podcast. Well, then we've got to make you a regular. I know. I have to have parity. I have to be back. So I have so many things I want to talk to you about.

But let me just start with the perennial question, which is how and when and why did you start meditating. Ah, well, you want me to tell you the answer, the real answer? Yes. Of course, you'll be there, you're either. So I was 12 years old, and I've ever told you this story. No.

So I was 12 years old, and I hope your audience is not offended, but I wanted to see what may I was 13. I wanted to see girls naked. And so I figured if I learned how to astral project out of my body, I could travel around my town invisibly and find, you know, whatever. So I've had more, I just wanna say quickly, I've had more than 100 guests on this podcast

and I always ask this question, this is the, you haven't even finished yet, this is the best answer I've had yet. So carry on. Well, you know, there was all these like pop psychic sort of books like, you know, in the bookstore, Walden Books or whatever, and I would buy these books and not show my parents

what I was buying. And there would be like, how to ask to project out of your body or how to do this and that. And I started doing all the techniques that they would recommend. And it was over time, I realized, oh, all of these techniques are actually meditation techniques. They're just pretending, you know, as all of these were all BS sort of books, they were all pretending, oh, you could if you do these techniques You're gonna ask to protect out of your body your your spiritual body is gonna leave your physical body and you could do whatever you want with it and But as I started reading more about let's say Buddhism and Taoism and Zen and and so on

I was thinking I was like, oh these are the exact, they're just borrowing from these techniques that are like 2,000, 3,000 years old. And on a regular basis then, I would meditate, and I started doing it for decades. I mean, I've even given meditation retreats and so on. I mean, I've never really stopped doing it. Given like lead meditation retreats, or actually attended them.

Lead. Really? So yeah, I was at Cropalo, you know, some of these other places. doing it. Given like lead meditation reviews or actually attended them. Lead. Really? So yeah, I was at Cropalo, some of these other places. So just because I've done so many different forms of meditation at this point, I've given up on the astral projection goal. I gave up on that by age of 14 or 15, but I just got really into meditation and its benefits.

So you know, we've talked twice at length, and I don't think I actually, this is shame on me. I actually don't think I understood the depth of your practice. Yeah, and I think, in general, I mean, we have, it's not, it's not like a gender driven, but you've done a great benefit to the world by explaining how with through 10% happier and your app and your podcast and so on, how meditation's benefited you and how it could benefit others. For me, it's been always something I haven't really shared. There was no reason for me to really share it other than give classes or retreats on occasion.

And I've also always explored or experiment with different varieties and to see what I could learn from different types of meditation and up to it including prayer, which I consider a form of meditation. And then also I've played around with at different times, not meditating, but seeing how the benefits of meditation I can kind of pour over the entire day instead of the one hour. Meditation is, of course, people call it a practice, but practice for what? It's practice for the other 23 hours of the day. So, I have different periods where I wouldn't meditate because I wanted to see if that practice took. And if I could get the benefits during the day without necessarily

spending the hour. So I've tried every way you can slice it. What what so starting at age 13 is setting aside the fact that the astral projection didn't work. What kind of benefits did accrue? You know, there are so many types of benefits people attribute to meditation, but I would say the most important for me was an emotional one, which is to realize that, to realize when my intentions and when my brain were going in different directions. So, if my intention during the day was to be a good and kind and present person, but my brain was like going down some rabbit hole of either anxiety or some discussion I had that made me upset or whatever, to being able to catch that as quickly as possible and say, okay, I caught that. I was going down that angry rabbit hole and I'm just going to bring myself back to the present and realize that, you know, everything is

off for the good. And, you know, being able to catch yourself, which is what you do non-stop in a period of meditation, being able to do that all day long has for me been the overriding benefit. But then there are different types of meditation depending on what you need. Like sometimes you want to practice loving kindness, sort of meditation just to bring that into your life, or you want to practice more visualization for various reasons. So you can target to some extent, but the kind I like the most is always being able to catch my thoughts and be more present and realize realizing at a deeper level how separate I am from my thoughts and how the real me is different from that kind of non-stop stream of thoughts

that happen. But I think there's some confusion and meditation where people think, oh, on an extreme, they can get enlightenment or like I was when I was 13, you can get some kind of power or some sort of weird benefit from it. And I think that's, I call that mad attention instead of meditation, where you're just like kind of going, I'm not in your head without realizing

what's really happening in meditation. So most of what, when you start talking about catching your thoughts, I'm just imagining some, most of what your meditation practice looks like now, is you try to focus on one thing at a time, maybe your breath or a visualization. And then when you get distracted, you notice, oh, these are just thoughts or urges or emotions. Yeah, so there's, I think in yoga style meditation, there's very much to focus on like

one thing, the single-minded focal point. And I would say more types of Zen or Vipassana or more breath and body focus. And I tend to do more of that. But I think for me, that's the best, because then you could say, okay, I'm no longer thinking about the breathing. I'm thinking about something else back to the breathing. Which interesting to me about you, and there's a lot that's interesting to me about you.

Well, thank you very much. We have a vice versa. You would, one could maybe assume that somebody who starts meditating at 13 or 14 would have a very placid life, but your biography is, there are lots of ups and downs in the life that you went on to lead post age 14. Let's just talk a little bit about that and then get to how meditation did or did not help. But you've kind of made and lost fortunes at least twice, right?

Yeah, twice is the low point. It's depending on where the bar is, but maybe it's more like four or five times. So I haven't been very good with money and not very good with money. Yeah. Let's tell me about the first one. So the first one was you had a .com company in the industry. Yeah. So I had a company that made websites for other companies. So I would make websites for almost every entertainment company out there. And but we should say this is in the 90s before websites where like anybody can make a website. Oh yeah, part of the challenge for me was at that time convincing American Express, they needed

it in American Express.com. Convincing HBO, they needed an HBO.com. That was part of the nobody knew what this internet thing was. So but I made um... you probably tell by the way i look i made the websites for almost every gangster rap record label uh... you know it gets to you so now i'm gonna have to describe you you to let's just fight to say you don't look like a gangster rapper right so at all but bad what records lot records the source magazine um... inter interscope, all of their websites. And I sold that company when I realized, oh, kids in junior high school are learning how to make websites, so this business

is going to fundamentally change, made all the right decisions, and then I just, I didn't know, I didn't know how to have money, and I just blew it all, like every dime of it. Like I bought the biggest place, I could buy, I started playing a lot of poker, I got obsessed with poker.

I read in a, there's a great article about you in the New York Times about a year or so ago, it said you used to take helicopters down to Atlantic City. Yeah, yeah, so Friday, I finished work at five by six o'clock, I'd be in the casino and I wouldn't leave the casino for 48 hours and then I would take a helicopter back. You were married at the time, right? I was married at the time.

And your wife put up with this? She thought, she did put up with it to her credit. She thought at least she knew where I was. She could always find me. I was in the casino or on 25th Street, there was the Mayfair Club in New York City. So she always knew where i was i just wasn't home so uh...

and you blew all the money this way i i i didn't blow it all playing poker i i i'm a i enjoyed playing games and i'm always try to get better at them uh... but i did blow it all by uh... making poor investments at the time i really did not i thought you kind of think when you make money, that, oh, that must mean I'm a genius somehow. And so I just started investing in everything.

And I would invest in the stupidest businesses. I didn't know anything about real estate. I bought a huge place and re-did the whole thing. And then I just simply, I literally went to about $143 in my bank account after having millions. And then it was horrible because I lost the apartment and I did get very depressed around this time. My father got sick, he had a stroke.

And I felt like if I had had had this money, I would have been able to help find medical, better medical help for him instead of just wherever he ended up. And I'm not just about really bad for a long time. And I built up another company, sold that, bought a big house again, and lost all the money making stupid investments again, and then there were just a couple of times like that. So, okay, so many questions.

The, when you got depressed, or when you were manic on the upside and when you were depressed on the downside, did the meditation not help with any of this in any way? I mean, clearly you were resilient enough during the periods of depression to start a new business and come back. Yes. So, first, I want to address the first sentence you said there, which is the combination

of depression and mannequin one line sort of implies bipolar. I definitely was not bipolar in any sense because I've had close family members who have been and is a very serious illness. When someone's bipolar, you see it, it is horrible. But I certainly was aggrandizing myself when I had money and depressed when I lost it. And I think what meditation did for me then, and again, there's no real, you don't want

to attribute any real benefit to meditation. It's sort of done, and we don't really know how we would be if we don't do it. But I would say the resilience was really important for me. I'd never allowed myself to completely, even when I was depressed, I could say to myself, okay, I'm depressed, but I have to do two or three things today to move my life forward. I had, at the worst case, I had to do one thing a day to move my life forward and to recognize that okay I'm so depressed I don't feel like getting out of bed but I have to get out of bed to do one thing forward.

I had two children I wanted to make sure my life was better than it was at the time and although I think the depression and feeling of failure probably did suck a lot of energy out of me. I still wanted to make sure I moved forward every single day. And how do you move forward? Well, you make sure you move around like literally, like you walk around and make sure your body moves. You make sure you're around as good as people as you can because that's one way.

That's the easiest way to fail is to be around the wrong people. You want to make sure you're a little bit creative each day because then you're creating something new in the world and you're practicing that creativity. And then there's a spiritual component, which is, could be meditation for some people, could be prayer for others, could be affirmations for others,

could be AA for others, and so on. Did the marriage survive the ups and downs? No, the marriage did not. So not because you would say, oh, you're a loser or anything, although I don't know, maybe you should thought that. But I think we just, my volatility of my financial volatility and my stress through these situations or anxiety were enough to kind of distance ourselves that eventually we didn't survive that.

But you know, and then you ask like, well, what are we or I could ask? Well, could meditation help that? I think I also had very different type of spiritual discipline than she did. And in the beginning, it didn't matter as much. And later on, it probably did a little bit more. But again, meditation did help is that in those areas is that even going through a divorce you're going there's no easy divorce. There's always something that happens that's tumultuous, but I was able to kind of at least every day say okay I can't be obsessing on this. I'm catching myself, being

obsessed on this, I'm going to pull back to again, what can I do to move forward in these different areas of my life that are actually value maybe at that point more than the marriage. So you talked about two cycles of boom and bust. The first was the website business and then you, a second business that you built in the ashes of that and then you lost that again. Yeah, I mean, there were a couple of businesses, there were many businesses I built in that failed, but there was another business that I built and sold but then lost that money. How many times did you go through this? Maybe from top to bottom, like fully, like three, four times, and then maybe medium up to pretty

low a couple times after that. No, are you off that hamster, we'll know, or have you... I think I'm off that hamster, we all know until it's all over, but I think there's three skills to money. There's making it, there's keeping it, there's growing it. And I did happen to be pretty good at making it, but keeping it and growing it, I was horrible at. And I think now I'm better at keeping and growing it. And I've demonstrated that to myself over the past few years. How did you end up becoming, I guess, for lack of a better term, a self-help

writer? I think I, so I don't like the phrase self-help writer because... You either do I. Yeah, right, because I don't feel you're, I think you and I are similar in the sense that we wrote a book telling our story and then what we did to solve the problems that happened and people could make use of that story however they want. So I've written a couple of books telling my stories, my ups and downs and it's just my I love writing and I love writing this story and my story and people I always say this is not advice for anyone.

This is just what I did. So take from it what you will. And so what so you say it's not advice, but what are the lessons that you impart generally speaking to people? Yeah, so, so I mean, there's, it's over a couple of different books, but so each book has something kind of different.

By the way, this is a plug for Enle's own. So just go ahead and name the books. People don't want to know. Well, I would say choose yourself and reinvent yourself are my two main books out of 18 that I remember. 18? Yeah. And those, I would say the first six were really bad, ignore all of those.

And then it's kind of spotty after that, but choose yourself and reinvent yourself were pretty good. And I'm being just honest about it. No, I love it. And I would say, I learned very much the importance of no matter what's happening in your life. At the end of the day, just run down the checklist. Did you do something to improve ever so slightly your physical health, your emotional health,

your mental slash creative health, and your spiritual health? So if you can do that, even if it was just one percent improvement, however you quantify that, you had a good successful day. And the best predictor of a successful tomorrow is a successful today. The other book that I'm proud of, reinvent yourself because we all have different periods, including you, when we go through reinvention. A lot of that is based on people I've interviewed and stories I've learned through my podcast and so on, but I found commonalities in how one reinvents yourself.

And the most important being you kind of find a plus equal minus, a plus is someone who is either a mentor or a virtual mentor like books you read and people you study. The equals are people who are aspiring to reinvent themselves alongside of you and you learn from each other. And then the minus is you can't fully reinvent yourself unless you can easily explain to others what you're doing. And it's important to always teach what you learn. So then that really informs yourself concisely. What is it that I'm learning? And you handle kind of of you get back to beginner's mind of what sorts of questions I used to ask that now people are asking me so that plus minus e or our key to to reinventing yourself

So what is your sort of I get we can both agree We don't like the term self-help but let's just just let's use it just because people understand it But what is your self-help empire look like these days? You have a website, I know you have a podcast, you've got books, what else is going on in this rate? You have other things you do that are completely undisconnected, but in this area, what do you have? Yeah, so I have a website that has links

to all my blog posts. I've probably written like 3000 articles in the past seven years and lots of lots of books and I have a podcast that I'm very proud of. And the podcast is focused on peak performance. So I've had you on the podcast. I've had many other very successful people on the podcast and I always asked them how did you do it and we explore all the different ways.

One reaches or achieves better performance in their lives. I have various newsletters that, so it's kind of a side business, but I have various newsletters that I have a free newsletter that contains the up my articles every day, and that's how I have the most subscribers and the podcast, of course, is free. But then I have some for-pay newsletters where I have a team of people helping me, you know, here's how to be a better entrepreneur, here's how to be a better investor, and we do research and interviews and so on

to give high value for those. So it's basically another company that you've worked for yourself? Yeah, and that company does very well. And this time you're not spending all the money. No, that's very interesting. I'm trying to, but I probably won't. Actually, I'm not trying to. There's actually nothing that, like, think about it. People always think they want money so they could buy things. What would you actually buy if you

had a lot of money? I mean, I'm assuming you have a good amount, but if you had like a hundred million dollars, what would you buy? Well, how would your lifestyle change? I don't, you know, I guess I would not work as hard. I think I'd probably still work pretty hard. Yeah, it would still work very hard. And I think probably I get some houses in some beautiful places,

and then I would get really involved in philanthropy. Okay, so the philanthropy is, you know, that doesn't change your lifestyle, except of all it does. It makes you feel charitable, you do charitable events, and so on. There's lots of ways to do charity, of course, with or without money.

The house is just stay at Airbnb's. You could stay in the best places in the world for a fraction of the cost it is to buy them. And literally you could stay in castles all around the world without having to buy them and And literally you could stay in castles all around the world without having to buy them and just move around in them. So you don't really need to buy the houses. You're actual lifestyle.

And like you said, you would probably work just as hard or almost as hard. So your actual lifestyle wouldn't change that much. I think the society's relationship with money has changed. Now that we live in an economy where you kind of have access to most things that you could possibly want. Although I think I think I sometimes fantasize about what my ideal daily life would be. And it would be in control of my schedule, sleep as late as I want, I would exercise for as long as I want and meditate for a while, a good long while,

and then have lunch with somebody I really like, and then maybe work for a few hours in the afternoon, and then hang out with my wife and kid at night. So I can't do that now because I'm not really in charge of my own schedule. I'm gonna question this just a little bit. Yeah, you have a voice that's very relevant in our society, you know, between all the different programs

and podcasts and everything you do. Do you think you would miss the relevance of your voice if you're only working up 40, you know, you may be even judged a tiny bit yourself worth depending on how much people listen to you and pay attention to you. So that's unrelated to money and I think you would still value that in your life. I would. I think my bank ego is too strong to walk away from the platforms. And ego self-deprecating, you also, I'm sure you have valuable things to say, it's 10% happier. Yeah, you're sitting in a room where we plastered my logo all over the place.

It's a logo, but it's also a mission statement. Yes, that's true. So I think I would do a lot of work, but I would have more control over like the pace of my life and I would Yeah, I that's what I think it and maybe I would live in a place where if I had a hundred million dollars where I would have my own Jim in the building or something and my own really awesome meditation room. I think there are some things I would I my grandfather used to say rich or poor. It's nice to have money So for me, I mean, I think if I had that amount of money, I'd probably do some things that were nice for me with it But so it doesn't make me unhappy not to have it though Right, and I'm absolutely certain you could you could live in New York City every building has a gym in it So you could yeah, we're either live in a gym or live across the street from one.

So yeah, so you need a, basically you need to have an extra, one extra tiny room that's a meditation room, or a big closet, a slightly bigger closet that's your meditation room. Look, don't mistake this for complaining. I consider myself to be one of the luckiest homo sapiens was ever walked this planet.

So you asked me to fantasize about $100 million. That's why we went down this rabbit hole. But you see how hard it is to actually find something that requires $100 million, all you really needed to is a bigger closet. Yes, so. And for people listening who struggle with money, the point is not that you should denigrate a living wage. We all deserve a living wage.

We all need to have enough to have the basics. But studies show that past a certain point in income, I believe it's like $70,000. Actually, happiness does not increase in any proportional way. And I think, again, even in our society now, let's call it for, they refer to Uber and Airbnb and so on as the shared economy. It's really more of an access economy. And if you think about it, particularly in New York City and many other major cities, you can order on Grubhub or seamless a meal created by a world class chef.

It's delivered to you. It's delivered to your home. You could watch on your big screen TV, which almost cost, you know, next to nothing now. You could watch a $200 million production created by HBO called Game of Thrones or whatever you want to call it. And you can have it and you could do this on your couch. You can have this amazing experience that is worth $300 million or whatever, just delivered right to you for almost nothing. So you actually dove into this, you took this thesis to a pretty far extant when you basically went homeless for a little while?

Yeah, and it's funny. So I'll tell the story in a second, but it was in the, I wrote about it, it was also in the New York Times. And then the next day, my daughter, all her friends were coming up to her, like, on the school playground and saying, Josie, is your daddy homeless? And she had to come into the city to make sure I was okay. But at one point, I decided, you

know what? I don't really want to own anything other than what fits in a carry on bag. Why? I think I just wanted to try it But of course there's something once you try you can't really go back completely because what I did was I had a friend of mine go to The house I was renting but I was staying in an Airbnb in in the city at the time I had to go to the house and throw out everything. So I said to her I'm never going in this house again and Because the lease was up and I said I just I never want to see any of the objects in this house again

But this is this gonna this sounds like just with with all due respect is a little Cookie. Yes a little cookie. Maybe more than a little maybe I don't know I have never I Haven't like analyze why I've done it, but this is a good place to do it. Yes, we'll do it here So so so my friend her name is Lisa. She she and her family literally took like an 18-molar truck up to this house and and I had she had a mission which is either Give everything away keep anything you want, sell anything, or throw anything out that you can't do the above three. How'd you convince her to do this?

But I guess there was something in it for her. Well, and yeah, the keeping it or selling it, I think they did keep the bed. It was a very nice mattress. Maybe some dishes or whatever, and there was some artwork in there where we're selling. I said, don't call me throughout this entire process,

but she called. Where were you? I was here in the city, and I was living my house, I was renting, was about 60 miles north. And. So where were you staying during this period of time? During an Airbnb. Okay.

And you say there was no big dramatic moment that led to this decision, was there's kind of like an experiment? Yeah. The lease was up and I was trying to figure out what do I do? Do I extend the lease? Do I keep renting? But I'm in Airbnb a lot in the city. And so I figured I'm going to just make my decision making permanently easier.

And there's some theory that as you throw things out or get rid of the possessions, you might feel free. I didn't know whether this would be true or not, but I wanted to try it. But the only time it took, I thought it would take one day because no, I think for everybody underestimate how many possessions they have, it took her seven days of back and forth every single day to fully get rid of, because you don't realize, oh, you have six pairs of sheets. You have all these dishes and books and TV screens and computer screens and stuff in your closet that's been buried there for 10 years or maybe 30 years because you've been carrying around

Stuff with you from place to place. So I said to her don't call me up once during this process because I don't want to make any decision and One point she did call me and she said, you know, are you sure you want your your diploma is nicely framed? You know, are you sure you want your diploma is nicely framed? You know, you worked so hard for it. She was assuming are you sure you want me to throw it out? And I said I am never I have not even thought about my diplomas as a day I graduated college I certainly will never need to begin for the rest of my life. You could just throw it right in the fireplace And then a little bit harder where where you know I had photo albums for when I was a kid of pictures of me as a kid

and my parents and family and so on. And even harder than that, or am I- Would you do that to do that? So everything was, I kept nothing. Like the short, and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What is happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal?

These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is Short, with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you, but I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others, and that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists,

scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs, and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats

between friends about the important stuff. Like if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering Out. Did you digitize any of the pictures? No, nothing, zero.

Wow. And maybe even a little harder than that was I had several star-track dolls that I had kept around since I was a little kid. I had some nice artwork and I had an original, I had this great sketch. You remember the TV show underdog? The cartoon? Yeah. So I had the original sketch that I think the creator's name is Joe Harris. I forget his name now. So I had the original sketch that I think the creator's name is Joe Harris. I forget his name now. But I had his original sketch when he pitched the show to network TV. And so I had the original sketch of that, which was I had right behind my desk at the time because I

thought it symbolized my own under dog feeling. So I don't know what happened to that. So she sold all this stuff presumably. I actually don't know what happened to that. So she sold all this stuff presumably. I actually don't know what she sold, what she gave away, what she kind of asked her. But by the end of it, I had no possessions left except what was in my bag. So I had essentially like one outfit, a pair of pair of shoes, maybe another outfit, toothbrush, and kind of that's about it.

I had a Kindle and a laptop and a phone. Okay. But I got rid of the Kindle. And you still don't have a sense of like, why you were really doing this? Well, I know a little bit was to make decision-making easier because now I didn't have to figure out what to do with seven days worth of 18-wereller trucks

going back and forth. At all those possessions, I didn't have to ever think about it. But wasn't it easier to have a house with all that stuff in it and figure out day to day where you're going to be staying? Well, the other thing was I love staying in different places. For a long time, I had been staying in Airbnb's anyway. I was traveling and I was staying in different areas of New York City and most of my business was in activities

were in New York City. When I do a podcast, just like you, I did it in person. I was having lots of podcasts, interviews, and so it was all the time in the city anyway. So I was staying in Airbnb's and I didn't really need the house. So if I didn't really need the house, I didn't really need anything in the house. I hadn't seen any of these things in a while and I figured I never really need to see these things again. It wasn't really going to change my life that much if I never saw these things again. And I decided I would just stay in Airbnb's because when you stay in an Airbnb, it comes

fully furnished. Everything you could possibly need, including towels, I always think of hitchhikers' guides to the galaxy. Like you have the one thing they need when they're hitchhiking around the galaxies of towel. I didn't need a towel because in the Airbnb's there were always towels. So I just had with me, I would try to be very disciplined, no more than like, let's say, 15 items. So let's say two outfits, a laptop and a phone and toothbrush. And that was about it. And did it make you feel lighter?

I actually don't think so. So I think because it's hard work to move around from Airbnb to Airbnb. And I always had to be looking what's the latest listings. And where would I be staying next? And there was a lot of thought involved in that. And so sometimes I would arrange to stay in places for longer and longer periods of time. So I didn't have to think about the Airbnb stuff.

It did make my decision making lighter in terms of what I'm buying. So if I bought a shirt, I would buying so if I bought shirt I would Hate to say this but I would get rid of the shirt. I was wearing and I would buy a new shirt I didn't do that too much, but if I bought a coat and then it was suddenly summer I would leave the coat in whatever Airbnb I was moving from so because I wouldn't I knew I wouldn't need another coat for a few more months So would you write this off as a failed experiment? another coat for a few more months. So would you write this off as a failed experiment? No, I don't know what's a failed experiment.

Like what's a failed experiment for you? How would you define that? What's an example failed experiment? Well, I guess I see what you're going with this that it may not have been the way you want to live permanently, but you learn things in the process. Yeah, I mean, I learned a lot. Here's one thing I learned.

People always ask, people always say to me afterwards, oh, this must have been so freeing, and I didn't really feel more free in any way. And it turns out that, you know, not having things is almost as much a possession as having things. What became part of your, like a heavy part of your identity? It became part of my identity and also gave me, you know,

sometimes you need things, you know, that you want to have. You want more than two T-shirts in your bag. Yeah. I had to do laundry a lot. Yeah. So, you know, I think there, and you know, some other people asked me, you know, I think they're, and you know, some other people asked me, you know, did you ever feel sad? And I said sure, I felt sad a lot.

I gave up all these photographs, you know, of my childhood, I gave up even photographs of my own, children, although some of those I had, because so many photographs now are, you take with a digital camera? So they just are in your camera all the time and I missed that underdog sketch I mean there were many things that I missed I missed all my books. I had thousands of books I had thousands of comic books. I had loved I clicked the comic books as a kid so I kept that with me for decades

so and But the whole thing there was, I was sad, and people would say, why don't you meditate so as not to be sad. And I'm like, no, I want to be sad that I miss these things. Like it's okay to be sad. That's not for me. That's not the point of meditation is to completely avoid sadness is just to recognize it and acknowledge it. Okay, yeah, I'm sad about this. If I possess something I really value later on, I probably won't be so quick and easy to get rid of it, but I do feel melancholy over missing some of these things.

And then I would say more recently, just in the past, this is gears. More recently, just in the past, this is gears, more recently just in the past month, I had found a building I liked and I decided to rent and I furnished it. And everything was much more minimalist than I would have ever furnished before. Like I only have the bare minimum of what I could use, but I feel much more stable. I felt like this wave of stabilization, like sweep over me once I was in a home

that was furnished, that was mine. And it was really the first time I'd ever furnished, got and furnished an apartment by myself. And I'm 49 years old, so most people do it when you're much younger, but I don't always just I would always like move in with a girlfriend or move in with a wife or live in a hotel or live in Airbnb and I come from a very regular background, but even when I first moved to the city I lived in a very run-down hotel That was cheaper than any apartment and so on.

So this is the first time I ever had it in my own apartment. So you use the term minimalist and we've had, I've had the minimalists, the guys who have the popular podcast and the Netflix documentary on this show and I've actually I'm doing a story on them on nightline. So I spent some time with those guys and why I guess the lesson that you're, at least what I'm taking away from your story and this doesn't run counter to what their argument is either, is that it's not that extreme minimalism is automatically the recipe for imperturbable bliss.

It's that more minimalism may actually, you know, a certain amount of unburdening based on your own temperament may actually be really good for you. But if you take it too far, it can backfire. Any, any ism, if you take it too far, can backfire. And I think the key is, is that it's always good to try things that you think would be useful to yourself and experiment a little bit and and then change when you're ready to change and being comfortable with that and not tying identity to any one particular particular philosophy. certain discipline that I didn't have before. It, it, it, it gave me a certain philosophy about how I want to live my life now, which is not quite minimalist, but somewhere in between. And, and I would say overall, I'm happier as a result, because now I appreciate

at a much deeper level, having my own place. I'm very careful about the things I let into that space. And, and oddly, here's the oddest thing that I've noticed. I make my bed now. So I was always a messy person, because I think I didn't value objects. And now I really value the objects in my life. And so now in the morning, I make my bed. And I've always been a messy person all my life.

And I think I'm like cleaner for some reason and I have no idea Why it makes sense to me? I'm not sure I can articulate why but it makes sense to me I don't know I've only noticed this in the past couple days like huh This apartment is cleaner than any other apartment I've ever lived in because of me. Yeah, so So your new thing which I? Don't think any of the listeners will see coming and I didn't see coming so your new thing is Stand-up comedy. Yeah, I love I love I've been I first did it maybe About two and a half years ago and I've been obsessively doing it for about a year three to six times a week

And all around the city and even outside the city. What provoked you to start? I was on a... That's been a fruitless question for me this whole interview. Because there are all these crazy things you do and then I ask you why you start and you don't really have... You have... Anyway, go ahead. Why did you start?

Well, I was on a podcast that the owner of a club was listening to and he thought I was very funny. I mean, you were funny. Yeah, thank you very much. But you're not like a shackie guy named Shackie from the Borscht belt, kind of like always looking to get in a one liner type of funny. No, no, because what I realized too about stand up and that I'm skipping around, what I realized too about stand up is that funny and humor is not the most important skill when you're starting in stand up is that funny and humor is not the most important skill when you're starting in

stand up comedy. And we could get to that a second, but so this guy asked me why don't I go on for five minutes at the club he owned. And this was at stand up New York on the Upper West Side and I went up, I did okay in part because I had friends in the audience and they were always going to laugh at what you do. And then I went up again, I went up again just to make sure it wasn't like a fluke, turned out it was a fluke. Anybody laughing at me at all was, it was totally, and like that's the just,

CUMER in almost every other part of life doesn't translate to successful stand-up comedy at all. And so I wanted to suddenly I realized, oh, this is really hard, and I'm really unhappy doing this. And I want to get better at it because I love it. So much, I love watching stand-up comedy and I love getting better at things. I think one source of happiness is always feel like you're improving at something and so

And I was out of my comfort zone so much that I felt like each time I did it I was I was learning new things about where my comfort zone was which was an amazing experience and also there was an Ancillary benefit which didn't go the other way so public speaking being a good public speaker won't make won't do anything for your I mean, it's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, of stand-up comedy, but I felt like I needed to get better at. And it's been an amazing experience over the past year doing it. And you've actually gone so far as to invest in a club? Well, that club that actually, so I've performed all around town, but that club that actually

I first went up on, I bought a good chunk of that club. And you're doing this three to six nights a week? Yeah, that's an enormous investment of time. Yeah, I think last week I did maybe four or five. I always try to find one of the most difficult days and times to do because I want to, I'm in it to, I'm not in it to win it, I'm in it to learn. And so I want to have experiences outside of my comfort zone. So I always pick the hardest, the most difficult times to go on.

Which you're not in it to win it, meaning you don't want to be. I don't want to be, I don't want to have a sitcom, I don't want to go on the road, I don't want to be, I don't want to be a professional at it, I just really want to get good at it. And then once you feel you're good, will you just stop? I don't think, I think this is one skill you can never fully get as good as you would like at. I don't think there's any comedian out there who thinks, oh, now I'm good. I think there are comedians who think,

I've put in my time and I'm good enough that I could start doing other things, but I, there's so many skills in it that it's just extremely complicated. I've gotten good at many different skills, somewhat painfully, like losing all my money and then having to make it back. I had to get good at a certain skill, but making money.

But this is by far the hardest skill I've ever had to learn. And there's something kind of not kind of very buddhisty about your approach to this. You don't have, you know, you don't want to special on Netflix. You don't want a comedy record just from what I can tell. You're just enjoying the process of learning. I'm just enjoying the process of learning. I mean, and, uh, and applying my own strategies, like I

mentioned before, the plus, minus equal seeing if I want, I want to, I'm not going to spend 10,000 hours learning this. I'm going to skip the 10 doubt. I'm already skipping the 10,000 hours and I'm using that meaning you know there's a 10,000 hour rule where to achieve your best possible performance. It's something you need to put in at least 10,000 hours. Sounds like you are putting in 10,000 hours. I am but I'm going to I'm also hacking it as much as possible so that I will achieve very quick performance in a much sooner time than 10,000 hours. Well, what if you do get...

I actually kind of assume you are really good already, but just say you achieve a level of notoriety that Netflix comes in and says, we do want to do it special with you. Oh, then I will do it. Okay, but you're having this doesn't depend upon achieving that. No, I have zero agenda whatsoever. But you know, it's funny though, now owning part of a club, which by the way is a horrible investment in general.

Like there's better investments if you're a Silicon Valley kind of investor and so on. Not that the club is bad, the club will make money. It's just that it's not the sort of investing I'm used to doing. But now I have a stage, I have comedians, I have access to, I have an audience and a bar.

I'm able to say, okay, I also have business experience. We've been, I also set up a many production company and I'm shooting my own specials using this stage that I know partly own. So I'm building up a library of content of my own that maybe I could do something with. So I'm able to always connect the dots with my prior experiences and apply this to this new experience. So when I say I'm a genderless, I'm a genderless as far as my stand-up comedy like I want to just I just love this skill so much I want to I want to just learn every day But I also think to myself. Okay, well it would be interesting to do these other things around this experience that I'm having

Well, you said something before but Funny versus humor. I can't remember you said we will get back to this and I want to make sure we get back to it Well, just that with stand-up comedy people will will say to themselves, well, I'm not funny enough or you have to be really funny. That's actually not the most important skill in, let's call it short form stand-up comedy. Like if you're going to go up for 15, 20 minutes or even 10 minutes, humor is maybe the second or third most important skill. And I can say what the other skills higher than it are, but also say for humor, it's not just being funny

with your friends or telling one-liners, like telling a stand-up comedy joke, a structured, well-thought-out, intelligence stand-up comedy bit is very different than telling a joke to your friends. So there's it's much more complicated writing, it's much more complicated persona building and acting out and you know dealing with different types of crowds. And I would say the most important skill for stand-up comedy is probably likeability because let's say you go up on a stage at a conference, you Dan Harris, people are at the conference for one of three reasons. They're there to see you, so they already like you.

They like the title of your talk, so they already like the title, and so they're going to probably like the talk, or they've paid for a ticket to go to this conference, so they're because they've paid, they're going to like, you know, they believe in this conference, they want to learn things, and they're gonna like, you know, they believe in this conference, they want to learn things and they're gonna like you from that. When you go up on the stage at a stand-up comedy club, nobody knows who you are. They paid because they need people who are gonna make them laugh and they don't know if you're gonna make them laugh or not. And they're partially drunk. So you have to become, and the important thing

to remember is no one is going to laugh at someone they don't like, but they don't even know you. So you have to get them to somehow like you, or in some way control the situation as quickly as possible before you can even begin to think about humor. Now, humor could be wrapped up in that, but likeability is more important than the humor part. Is your meditation in any way useful in this context or are they completely disconnected? Absolutely, it's useful. Because let's say you're in the middle of your set,

a 15-minute set called. So in New York City, everybody goes up and does 15-minute sets. Let's say in the middle, you realize, oh my gosh, everybody's silent, or they don't like me or the waitress is getting drink order. So there's noise that's overriding my jokes.

So you can start to feel scared or panicky or anxious and catching yourself within microseconds because the audience is an X-ray machine. They know within a microsecond, it's just a physiological thing. They know that you're not having fun. So they're not gonna have fun either. And so your experience is gonna go from bad to worse.

And so you have to... I really think this is true anchoring the news too, by the way. Really? Not necessarily having fun, because a lot of the news is not fun or funny, but if you are nervous, you make the audience nervous. I think that's very true. So the audience can see it, which I think, by the way, is the second most important skill and comedy is kind of commitment to where you are and what you're doing, regardless of what the audience is doing. So your goal has to be not to make the audience laugh,

to make yourself laugh. And the news is probably an equivalent, which is to give a message in a meaningful way that you think is informative and has value to the audience regardless of what they think. And so that there has to be a commitment to it because the audience can see if you're committed to what you're doing. And again, where the meditation comes in, you have to know within like a tenth of a second

if you're failing at likability, commitment, humor, you have to know really fast or if this side of the audience is laughing and this side isn't, you have to make sure and now I'm starting to panic for some reason and you don't know why, you have to recognize it really quickly and take a and it's like in meditation the equivalent will be getting back to the breathing and it's's almost the same thing. You have to get back to breathing. You have to get back to recognizing the one on the stage.

I'm in control over here. I have the microphone and the stage and whatever I'm going to do is going to be worthwhile to the audience. So have you bombed a bunch? Oh yeah, a lot. I have a lot. Everybody does.

Yeah. Particularly like in my first year, I've saved my act as switched over 500% since I've started. Five times completely from beginning to end. In terms of the content. In terms of the content, because I'm constantly testing out new stuff, what works, what doesn't.

But I, one time, one time, I bomb so badly, this is like the second or third time I did it, out of now, like maybe I don't know, 500 times, but I was heckled really brutally, like the guy hated me, the some guy in the audience hated me, and he was, no matter how loud I was talking, he was speaking louder,

and I didn't have any sense at all what was happening, like was this the crowd, was this just people talking to each other, but he hated me and the rest of the crowd was silent because he was so loud and the MC had to come on afterwards and say, you know, are you okay, sir? Like, when we get you free drinks for the rest of the night and the peckler or to you?

To the heckler. Because you have to keep taking it out. I say it got you got you. Yeah, and or else those remaining comedians, I might have ruined it for them. I see. So that. So I actually stayed in the audience to see how she would handle the heckler and how the next comedian would handle this potential heckler. And so I wanted to learn. And then I talked to a lot of comedians like how do you handle hecklers? I watched on YouTube. There's YouTube compilations of all these great comedians handling Hecklers.

So that's a micro skill you have to learn is how you handle different types of Hecklers. Male, female, drunk, not drunk, different religions, different races. This is also a big audience, small audience. Hecklers mean different things. There's a lot of micro skills even in dealing with hecklers. Wow. So, last, well, second to last question. I know that was all the way off the tangent of 10% hecklers. No, it's so awesome actually.

It's a great tangent. I just want to come back to meditation. I asked this question. I don't even know why exactly. I'm asking this question, but on your meditation practice, given that it's so long standing, do you have, this is a loaded term, but you have a goal, I'm very trying to, I hope to get enlightened,

I mean, given the intensity and sort of forensic nature with which you approach so many of the skills that you built up in your life business, that you mentioned before we started rolling that you did a lot of chess as a kid, a stand-up comedy, writing. Is there somewhere you're hoping to go with meditation? I know they often say don't have a goal, but what's your mindset around it? I think, you know, so what you just said, as you kind of mentioned is almost cliche, there is no goal, there should be no goal for meditation, but it is just worth repeating for a second because I think

many people do think about things that they don't necessarily know what it looks like, but they have a word for it, like enlightenment or some sort of extra focus or concentration or whatever, some sort of benefits from it. And there might be benefits from it. But I mean, there are certainly certain benefits from meditation that's been kind of scientifically shown, you've shown in your book, many benefits to meditation. But I think for myself, it's really important for me to be, again, goal less because I think just as primates were conditioned to find some tribe where we could measure ourselves from alpha to omega.

We can't help it. It's in our biology. So a lot of times people will particularly see this in New York City, but of course, all over the place, people will judge their self-worth by their net worth. Or you mentioned chess, but this could happen in any endeavor where there's a ranking system like tennis or sports or any people will rank themselves. And they wanna, they feel depressed, they lose dopamine

when their ranking goes down and they add dopamine when their ranking goes up. Because we're created in order to measure ourselves in our particular tribe. And with meditation, there really is no way to rank yourself. So people find these artificial ways to maybe rank themselves like enlightenment or not enlightenment. But I think the goal is really to just do it and see what happens and see how it affects

your life. And for me, the way it affects my life the most is that I'm able to catch myself when again, my brain or anxiety or anger or depression or whatever, veers from what I would like it to be. Like, I don't wanna be anxious about anything. And if I think to myself, oh, I was so, I lost this money,

I'm gonna get really anxious, I'm never gonna make money again. I start to go down that rabbit hole to be able to catch yourself as quickly as possible and be like, no, this is where I am, perfectly fine right now, this second. And now I'm gonna move forward in life instead of, you know, anxiety takes energy away. I'm gonna do things that give me energy. And I think meditation helps me to more quickly get back to that point where I'm energy increasing

instead of energy reducing. Now, different types of meditation, like let's say a loving, kindness, compassion type of meditation that has a different sort of thing. Then I might have a goal, which is I want to be more loving and kind and compassionate because you train your brain to revert to that experience when you're not that during the day. I think that's a little more goal or intention-filled. It just depends on the kind of meditation I'm doing that day, or month, or whatever. I'll vary it up. Is there anything I should have asked you but didn't?

I mean I feel like we could probably, I feel like should ask you how last time we saw each other was about a year ago after meditation app started. Are you, you know, by the way your book is called 10% happier, percentage is compound. So, have you felt compounding happiness? Yes, for sure. I often say the 10% compound annually. You just get, you are building these skills, but you mention a few of them, kindness and compassion, but also focus and mindfulness.

You're building these skills, and I think you just get better and better at them over time. It doesn't mean that the vicissitudes of life don't reassert themselves I'm actually just writing a little thing right now about how I reacted with my kid jumped off a couch and and landed head First on a coffee table and had to take him to the ER. I mean like stop. Okay. He's fine. He's got a big scar in his head But and I hope you didn't use the word vicissitudes in that article. Well, it may be for the New York Times, and I think they'll be okay with vicissitudes, but I don't know if I, I might put it in there now just on

our view, but, but, but, but, you know, things like that are still going to happen and much worse. And so it's not to say that you build these skills and, um, nothing bad happens, and you're just on this glide path toward some bubble of bliss. It's more just that you learn how to handle life's ups and downs better. I feel pretty confident that I'm on that trajectory. Yeah, and the resiliency build, like I'm able to, like for instance, if I put it this way, the last time I lost all of my money,

I was able to much more quickly within hours instead of years, get to a point where, okay, I'm not anxious about this at all at the moment. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to move forward like I always do and apply my own advice and do what I always say I'm gonna do. So I think you're right, it does compound. And people underestimate the power of that compounding. Like if you improve, let's say, one percent a day at something, that's 38, 100% a year.

It's 38 times better or 39 times better in a year. And that's incredible. Yeah, I mean, something really, my meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein talks about the dangers of having what he calls practice assessment tapes, like running these tapes in your head of like, how good is my practice right now? Am I getting enough out of it? He talks about how when he was a kid, his parents taught him out of garden, but he kept ripping up the carrots to see how they were doing, you know, ripping them out of the ground, which of course is

totally counterproductive. I think there's a certain amount of faith for lack of a better term. He's got to keep doing the practice, even if you don't see a benefit on a day-to-day basis, and just trust the time and nature will kind of do its thing. People have been doing this for millennia, and there's a reason why they've been doing it from millennia and I think just continuing to do it, I found makes sense for me and over time every once in a while the benefits will kind of reassert themselves powerfully in my face. And other times I'm just doing the practice and I don't know if it's working. And you know, one way is you find that there's use meditation in some ways to expand your comfort zone because I think it could be used for that as well. Sometimes you're in an uncomfortable situation like

after your son heard his head meditating then is going to take you out of your comfort zone. Your brain wants to react to an emergency and you're telling your brain, hey, a lion's not chasing us, my son's being taken care of, it's good. It's a way to kind of, you're outside of your comfort zone, but it's a way to train yourself in this difficult situation to not be as excitable or anxious as we would have been 40,000 years ago. Yep, that's exactly right. And, you know, do you find,

well, I had another question for you, but now I completely forgot what it is. But my power is a focus. I've been eliminated. Before we close here, we talked about some of your books. We talked about your podcast, but let's just go through it again. If people want to get more information about you, connect to the things you're doing, can you just give us everything? Yeah. JamesOutleture.com. And what else? Where else? Obviously the podcast.

Yeah, it's just the podcast of the James Outleture show. And my phone number is 203-512-2161. If you want to call me, although I never pick it up, but you could text me. Are you kidding? No. You just, you regularly release your phone number like this? No, I just did it right here. All right. Well, that was awesome. You are awesome. Thank you dad. Thanks so much for having me on. It's been a pleasure and I'll look I can't wait to you come back on to my podcast. We'll just just keep ping-ponging, man. Excellent. Thanks.

Okay, that does it for another edition of the 10% happier podcast. If you liked it, please take a minute to subscribe, rate us. Also if you want to suggest topics, you think we should cover or guests that we should bring in, hit me up on Twitter at Dan B. Harris. Importantly, I want to thank the people who produced this podcast, Lauren Efron, Josh Cohen, and the rest of the folks here at ABC who helped make this thing possible. We have tons of other podcasts. You can check them out at ABCnewspodcasts.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and add free with 1-3-plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey.