The James Altucher Show

Ramit Sethi is a bestselling author, personal finance advisor, entrepreneur and author of "New York Times" bestselling book, "I Will Teach You to be Rich". He's taught thousands to manage their personal finances and how to become rich on his website, iwillteachyoutoberich.com. He's been featured in ABC News, CNN and the WSJ. ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/...

Mark Manson is a writer, blogger and author of the "New York Times" bestseller, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F-ck". Visit his blog, markmanson.net, to read some of his best articles on self improvement, dating and relationships, culture and life choices.   2 mins - I tell Mark why I didn't initially want him in the show... and why I changed my mind 4 mins - Mark and I first met at a friend's po...

DO SOMETHING YOU LOVE, TO BUILD A LIFE WORTH LOVING "I was shot twice by the time I was 13," Wally told me. "I owned six guns. Everyone I grew up with then is dead," he said. He then walked back to his side of the ping pong table. He took out his iPhone. Using his iPhone as the racket, he served the ball. He beat me 11-0. "Ok," he said, "everything you are doing is wrong." ------ The way I held th...

Shawn Stevenson, host of The Model Health podcast said, "In the lab, they found anti-depressants in the New York City water system." Anti-depressants! Ok, no problem. I'll drink tap water. Save on therapy costs. In NYC everyone has to go to therapy. It's a requirement. "This week my therapist said..." "There's also these other chemicals in water.." and he was about to list them for me. "No no no,"...

Shane Snow is a well known journalist, entrepreneur, co-founder of the content technology company, Contently, and bestselling author of "Smartcuts: The Breakthrough of Lateral Thinking". You can find his writing in "Wired", "The New Yorker", and "Fast Company" and a dozen more top publications. ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short...

Jason Calacanis is an angel investor, serial entrepreneur, writer and blogger. He is the founder and CEO of inside.com. Listen to Jason's podcast, "This Week In Startups", interesting stories from the world of entrepreneurship. ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!...

When Patton Oswalt, one of the top comedians over the past several decades, was going through the worst experiences of his life this past year, he wrote an entire post about one joke Gary Gulman made. ONE JOKE. Oswalt starts off: "This is...so perfect." I like the pause in there. LIke there are no words so he had to notch himself down even though it doesn't express exactly what he wants to say: .....

Alex Berenson had the dream job. But he was unhappy. And perhaps it even scarred him in some ways.   He switched it up. To his true dreams. To the dreams he had for himself since he was a child.   I want to do this.   First off, Alex has written 11 bestselling thriller novels. Alex knows how to get the reader to turn the page and ask, "What happens next?!"   This is an unbelievably hard skill.   B...

Ryan Holiday, stop writing books that are just for me! With "Perennial Seller" you just answered an obsessive question I've had for years: What makes something, someone, some product, some art, withstand the test of time? What is the magic sauce? The secret formula? What makes something sell a million copies a year (music, art, books, products, etc)... forever? I want to know. I'll try my best to...

Scot Cohen is the best networker on the planet. I have never seen anything like it. And he used that skill to make tens of millions of dollars, not only for himself but for many others.   I wanted him to explain, in detail, how.   But first:   I'm sorry, Scot. I am really, truly sorry. I am horrified at my behavior. A year of bad behavior.   Imagine: you owe someone a phone call and you say to you...

She was my partner in crime. Farnoosh recently hosted her own show on CNBC. She also has a super popular podcast. And she's a successful book author and all around writer. But to me she's more than that. From 2006 to 2008 we did videos together every day. We would meet on Wall Street, a video guy would tape us talking about whatever we wanted to talk about, and then we'd send that video out onto t...

"Have a spirit of adventure, the desire to learn something new, be an explorer and never get too comfortable."   -------   "Imagine this room is filling up with poisonous gas," Tim said. He's looking straight at me. "There's two doors behind me, one window and one to either side." He points exactly where everything is, even though he's still looking straight at me.   "We have several choices," he...

In my podcast Charlie and I talked half the time about getting past anxiety. And half the time about this: [14:00] - Charlie's time working for Tim Ferriss, doing a virtual internship with Seth Godin, and marketing Ramit Sethi's New York Times bestseller. He told me how he pitched his heroes (and how he suggests you can too) [23:00] - We talked about getting paid to do what you love (and how the f...

You have five minutes to kill. That's it. Those five minutes can make or break a career. I don't think I would be able to handle the pressure. I've done a lot of public speaking. And now I've tried standup. For the past three months I've been going up once or twice a week. It's difficult. I thought 20 years of public speaking would help me. It doesn't. It's the Hunger Games on that stage. So Fred...

I was afraid before interviewing Jocko. I think it was instinctual. His body is seven times the size of mine. I pointed at the cover of his new book, "The Way of The Warrior Kid. "See this kid," I said. "That's me right now." I like to overlap somewhere with my guest. Like a story we both can share and laugh about. With Jim Norton, for instance, we grew up together. With Garry Kasparov we were bot...

Jim Norton is the reason why I do podcasts. First, he's a world-famous comedian, recently released a one hour special on Netflix, has been on shows like "Louie" and "Inside Amy Schumer" has written two New York Times bestselling books and has appeared on countless radio shows and podcasts. But just as interesting to me...we grew up together. The first day Jim moved  into town we were in fourth gra...

HOW TO DISCOVER THE SECRETS IN LIFE The best things in life are born from coincidence. I am a firm believer in this. A year ago I was flying back from California. I started talking to the guy sitting next to me. Turns out he had  worked in almost every branch of government related to intelligence and diplomacy. Now he runs his own private intelligence company. He has information about every govern...

His platoon was counting on him. He couldn't come back a failure. Brandon had been deployed to the Middle East four times. He'd seen the ugliness and destruction war had caused. And now he was being sent straight to sniper school. This is one of the most stressful jobs as a Navy SEAL. He would have to learn how to make quick decisions. Hard decisions. "The only easy day was yesterday," he said. "T...

I almost changed forever the entire way people define relationships. The word "commitment" would have a new meaning. More babies would be born. I'm thinking BIG. Sometimes you want to try an idea and you don't let yourself think about money. If an idea is good, money is a side effect. Ideas are the real currency. I met a brand new couple for breakfast. J and K. They told me they just had the "goin...

Shortcuts -  [5:40] - I asked Garry, "What separated you from people just as talented?" He interrupted. Finally! I found my match! "Wait, wait wait, slow down," he said. "'As talented' is a stretch." He said he was lucky. His upbringing made him a champion. "I was born in a family where chess was part of the culture. My father and mother usually spent their winter nights looking at the newspaper c...

Jon is paralyzed from the neck down. He couldn't crawl. "My mom noticed I was dragging my legs," he said. The doctors said he'd die at age two. But he felt like he had something to contribute to the world. So he became unstoppable. He started writing for free. "I couldn't be paid," he said. If he earned a decent income, Jon would lose his Medicaid. His reputation as a writer grew. So he started co...

I remember sitting at my cubicle job looking at people wondering, "Why? Why are you here? Why are you doing this?" I asked a friend once, "Don't you think this job is meaningless?"   He said no.   And then I knew what I had to do. I had to quit. And I did (eventually). First I spent time building up my own business on the side.   I don't know if I've ever really believed in myself. I just knew I d...

Over the past five years, I've seen Ryan Deiss rise from a quality entrepreneur to one of the biggest names in Internet marketing. He's the founder and CEO of DigitalMarketer and anybody in the internet marketing space knows Ryan Deiss. He emailed me at 4am. He said, "I realized the promise that was made to millenials-- the same one that was made to me, and probably the same one that was made to y...

  Dave Asprey is the creator and bestselling author of "The Bulletproof Diet." He biohacks health. And discovers innovative ways to live longer, lose weight, increase brain function and evolve better. My brain isn't hacked (yet). So I needed to talk to Dave. We did a podcast and I asked him "how do you evolve better?" Shortcuts: - [14:00] - Energy is scarce. We get tired. So I asked Dave what he d...

The cocaine made his throat close. "I was about to die". He wanted to be an actor. He wanted to be creative. He had dreams. And working real-estate for his father wasn't one of them. "I didn't want to come down," he said. "Why'd you do it?" "I really wasn't happy with myself," he said. "I believe it was because I wasn't my authentic self doing what I really wanted to do in my life." "Nepotism got...