Posts by James Altucher
The Only Three Things You Really Need to Do Today
You ask a kid in a third world country, “What is the one thing you want more than anything in the world?” and he replies, “A pencil”. That one event began a path for Adam Braun that led him to quit his cushy consulting job at Bain and start an organization, “Pencils of Promise” that…
Read MoreHow to Persuade Anyone in 10 Seconds
You’re on the most important elevator ride of your life. You have ten seconds to make the classic “elevator pitch”. There are books about this. But don’t waste your time. They are all garbage. I’ve been on both sides of this equation. I’ve had people pitching me. But mostly, I’ve been scared and desperate and…
Read MoreThe New 80/20 Rule
I’ve had lots of ups and downs. The bad times in my life have come when I’ve gone against the rules and as a result, I lost everything.A rule is a fact. It works whether you believe it or not. For example, pi will always equal 3.1415…. That’s a rule.And you must have your own…
Read MoreThe Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine
If you’re broke and close to death, you have to start coming up with ideas. If you destroy your life, you need to come up with ideas to rebuild it. The only time I’ve been forced to have good ideas is when I was up against the wall. My life insurance policy was like a gun to my…
Read MoreThe Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Become a Great Negotiator (Part 1)
A bad negotiation leads to these things automatically: anger, resentment, crying, slavery, and poverty. So it’s very important to constantly study yourself, study the negotiations you’ve done, and try to improve so you don’t experience the above, which can easily be avoided. Every day for the past 20 years I’ve learned something new about negotiation.…
Read MoreHow to Deal with Excuses
I didn’t have any money so I couldn’t start a business. And even if I started one, I didn’t have an office, or clients, and I was too shy to cold-call clients. I didn’t have connections or rich parents or anything for that matter. I didn’t have talent. I couldn’t write a book because I…
Read More5 Ways To Do Nothing
I got an email at five in the morning that made me angry. It pressed every button. It accused. It threatened. It copied other people. It attempted to make me feel guilt. It attempted to make me feel fear. I can go on. I started to type a response and then I stopped. I’m not…
Read MoreThe Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Selling Anything
I’ve never read a book on sales. They seemed corny. Like many people, I always looked down on the concept of “selling.” It seemed like something lower than me. To some extent, selling appears manipulative. You have a product where you give the perception it has more value than it has in reality. So you…
Read MoreThe Ultimate “Cheat sheet” to Mastery
With mastery, the one thing in common is that there are ALWAYS big failures. Take my friend for example, poker champ Ylon Schwartz. The day before he left for Las Vegas in 2008 where he won over $3 million in the World Series of Poker, he was dead broke, in debt, and using a court-appointed…
Read MoreDo You Control Your Life?
A lot of angry people out there are trying to control you and even kill you. I bet you can list at least a dozen people trying to control you right now. I wrote an article the other day saying how I was paid up on my taxes for the first time ever but that…
Read MoreHonesty is the Only Way to Make Real Money
Honesty is the only way to make money in today’s world. Nobody believes me on this. People laugh at me. “Don’t you know anything? Of course dishonest people step on the honest people and have more success.” People want to justify their own failures and use their pretend-goodness to explain why they didn’t start Google,…
Read MoreHow to Get Unstuck in Your Life
How do I know a lot of people want to die? Because Google tells me. The search phrase that is most likely to take people to my blog is, “I want to die.” The number-two search phrase is “I hope to die.” Number three is “How can I disappear,” which is a little more hopeful…
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