In 'Skip the Line', James Altucher shares his personal journey from struggling and depressed to achieving his personal, financial, and creative dreams. The book challenges the 10,000-hour rule of achieving mastery and instead advocates for the '10,000 Experiments Rule'. Altucher provides tools and strategies to help readers execute ideas, become expert negotiators, attract attention, scale promising ideas, and improve leadership. He emphasizes the importance of curiosity, embracing fear, and constant growth, encouraging readers to navigate uncertainty and find success by doing what comes naturally and loving what they do.
In 'Outliers: The Story of Success', Malcolm Gladwell examines the often-overlooked factors that contribute to high levels of success. He argues that success is not solely the result of individual talent or hard work, but rather is influenced by a complex web of advantages and inheritances, including cultural background, family, generation, and luck. The book delves into various examples, such as the success of Bill Gates, the Beatles, and Canadian ice hockey players, to illustrate how these factors play a crucial role. Gladwell also discusses the '10,000-hour rule' and the impact of cultural legacies on behavior and success. The book is divided into two parts: 'Opportunity' and 'Legacy', each exploring different aspects of how success is achieved and maintained.
In 'Choose Yourself,' James Altucher argues that the traditional paths to security such as college, employment, and retirement are no longer viable. He advocates for individuals to take control of their own lives, focusing on building physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. The book provides actionable steps for personal growth and creating a fulfilling career and life on one's own terms. Altucher emphasizes the importance of doing what you enjoy, surrounding yourself with positive people, and continually expanding your horizons to achieve success and happiness[1][3][5].
Finding Ultra recounts Rich Roll’s remarkable journey from an out-of-shape, mid-life couch potato to one of the world’s top ultrarunners. The book chronicles his battle with alcoholism, his transformation into an elite endurance athlete, and his adoption of a plant-based lifestyle. It includes his experiences in the elite Ultraman competition and the EPIC5, five Ironman-distance triathlons completed in less than a week on different Hawaiian islands. The revised and updated edition provides practical tools, practices, and strategies for optimal performance, longevity, and wellness, making it a guide for anyone seeking to transform their life through self-discovery and a healthier lifestyle.
The dystopia is here.
Chaos, confusion, fear and anger. Horrific racism. Generations of pain fueling rioting and violence. Death and illness. Faltering systems and leadership failures. Market crashes and jobs lost.
Communities are divided. Home lives are disrupted. Meanwhile, cities all across America are literally on fire.
How we can right the ship? Deal with these cataclysmic shifts? And move forward productively?
We can crash and burn. Or we can adapt -- a remaking of society that begins with personal reinvention.
James Altucher is a virtuoso of this process.
A prodigious intellect and abundantly talented polymath, James is a comic, chess master, entrepreneur, investor and prolific writer with over twenty books to his name, including the Wall Street Journal bestseller Choose Yourself. He's also a fellow podcaster and an unconventional thinker with an idiosyncratic lens on pretty much everything from creativity to finances.
James and his writing have appeared in major media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New York Observer, Techcrunch, and The Financial Times. His blog, JamesAltucher.com, has attracted more than 20 million readers since its launch in 2010. And The James Altucher Show regularly appears in the top 100 podcasts on iTunes.
On the subject of self-experimentation, James' latest unconventional move was releasing his latest self-published book, Think Like a Billionaire, on Scribd.
Most compelling is James' relentless devotion to constant reinvention. Making his fourth appearance on the podcast, today we explore the importance of this trait and the habits that enable you to adapt and thrive in rapidly changing times — more critical now than ever.
Recorded pre-pandemic in mid-February, this conversation is the last in my stash of episodes banked before quarantine.
Nonetheless, I suspect you will find our discourse highly applicable to our current moment -- packed with tactics and strategies you can deploy to better acclimate to the rapidly changing circumstances that face us all.
It's about how to make better decisions. And ultimately, how to create opportunity out of calamity.
The visually inclined can watch it all go down on YouTube. And as always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
James is one of my most favorite people. He’s a natural and gifted conversationalist, his ideas are easily deciphered, and packed with the perfect amount of humor and data-backed insight.
To some degree, we are all being called to reinvent ourselves right now. May this conversation help serve that process.
Peace + Plants,
Rich
The Rich Roll Podcast 
