James Altucher

×

James in his words:

I’m an entrepreneur and angel investor. I’ve achieved the rank of chess master. And I’m the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book “Choose Yourself.”

I’ve started 20 companies, 17 of which have failed. But I’ve learned a lot along the way.

If you’ve ever been stuck—in a job you hate, in a house you can’t afford, in a life you don’t want, in your own depressed mind, anything—I want to help you.

Why? Because I get it. I’ve been there. And I wantto tell you how I freed myself so maybe you can start to free yourself, too.

Four or five years ago, a reader of some of my columns bought the domain name jamesaltucher.com and gave it to me as a birthday gift. It was a total surprise to me. I didn’t even know the reader. I hope one day we meet.

Two years ago a friend of mine, Tim Sykes, insisted I had to have a blog. He set it up for me. He even wrote the “About Me”. I didn’t want a blog. I had nothing to say. But about six or seven months ago I decided I wanted to take this blog seriously.

I kept putting off changing the “About Me” which was no longer really about me and maybe never was.

A few weeks ago I did a chapter in one of the books in Seth Godin’s “The Domino Project”. Mohit Pawar organized it (here’s Mohit’s blog) and sent me a bunch of questions recently. It’s intended to be an interview on his blog but I hope Mohit forgives me because I want to use it as my new “About Me” also.

You are a trader, investor, writer, and entrepreneur. Which of these roles do you enjoy the most and why?

When I first moved to New York City in 1994 I wanted to be everything to everyone. I had spent the six years prior to that writing a bunch of unpublished novels and unpublished short stories. I must’ve sent out hundreds of stories to literary journals. I got form rejections from every publisher, journal, and agent I sent my novels and stories to.

Now, in 1994, everything was possible. The money was in NYC. Media was here. I lived in my 10×10 room and pulled suits out of a garbage bag every morning but it didn’t matter… the internet was revving up and I knew how to build a website. One of the few in the city. My sister warned me though: nobody here is your friend. Everybody wants something.

And I wanted something. I wanted the fleeting feelings of success, for the first time ever, in order to feel better about myself. I wanted a girl next to me. I wanted to build and sell companies and finally prove to everyone I was the smartest. I wanted to do a TV show. I wanted to write books.

But everything involved having a master. Clients. Employers. Investors. Publishers. The market (the deadliest master of all). Employees. I was a slave to everyone for so many years. And the more shackles I had on, the lonelier I got.

Much of the time, even when I had those moments of success, I didn’t know how to turn it into a better life. I felt ugly and then later I felt stupid when I would let the success dribble away down the sink.

I love writing because every now and then that ugliness turns into honesty. When I write, I’m only a slave to myself. When I do all of those other things you ask about, I’m a slave to everyone else.