043. Skip The Line In Any Industry, Debunking the 10,000 Rule, The Plus/Minus/Equal Technique - James Altucher

This week’s guest is none other than James Altucher. James Altucher is an entrepreneur, active angel investor, writer, podcaster, stand-up comedian, and chess master. He’s also started and run more than 20 companies and invested in over 30. He is the author of 18 books, including the bestsellers The Power of No and Choose Yourself! 

It’s true, most know James for being an author and investor. I stumbled upon James almost five years ago listening to him being interviewed on other podcasts. James also has his own amazing podcast which is extremely popular. What always amazed me about James is he thought so different to the mainstream pundits. James was a guy who has lost all his money numerous times, but has found ways to reinvent himself on every occasion, and rebuild his wealth 10x. Whereas most people tell you, “buy a house,” or “put your money in a 401k.” James was actually saying the opposite. Instead of buying a house, James argued you should save that money and build a business. I always valued James’ opinions, because it forced me to stretch my normal way of thinking and to think outside of the way I was raised and brought up. He helped me questions some of my beliefs and ask myself, “Are these even true?” 

Fast forward to today, where I got the opportunity to sit down with James and talk about his new book, Skip The Line. Skip The Line is probably James’ best book where he discusses how to get ahead in life without, be in the top 1% of any field, and do it without having to waste your life devoting deliberate practice to obtain these skills and be successful in life. Imagine now in this “New Normal,” where you find yourself losing your job to AI robots. Now, you need to reinvent yourself and figure out a new way to pivot so that you can make money for your family. The skills in Skip The Line is the blueprint or roadmap for this journey. James weaves his own stories of failure and how he later triumphed by using these skills. 

James learned early on one of the key skills was ignoring people who said, “You can’t do that…” When a co-worker said to him, “You can’t walk into the office of the CEO of HBO and pitch a show, you don’t have any experience.” But he did, and the CEO agreed to launching the show. James also debunked a lot from the famous 10,000 rule popularized by Malcom Gladwell. Instead, James teaches the reader how to run experiments to yield similar types of results and levels of mastery to that of someone who spent their whole life doing it. 

In this podcast, we talk about a lof the tactics and tools he used to get him to where he was today. The interview was amazing, but only scratched the surface in terms of the level detail found in the book. Be sure to listen and subscribe and get a copy of the book!s

Timeline

9:05 - How Skip The Line is different from the book Choose Yourself?

26:16 - Why do 10,000 experiments instead of try to learn something for 10,000 hours?

35:40 - How to use the Plus/Minus/Equal technique to skip the line the fastest

39:15 - The value of micro skills 

49:50 - Did doing too many experiments hurt James from reaching true mastery?

55:58 - The idea muscle and why people never exercise it

57:30 - Why you need to learn Frame Control to get ahead in life

1:03:16 - Joel explains the power of the doctor frame

1:06:20 - The 50/1 Rule 

1:13:00 - Lightning Round of Questions