2024: Harness the Chaos! A Revolutionary Approach to Redefining Success and Conquering the Unpredictable

0:00Look, as a manager of people, as an employer, as an entrepreneur, and as even an investor in startups, I can tell you the most important thing for your business is the quality of quality of people. you hire. The best part is that great candidates are already on LinkedIn. Employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. And I will tell you that the great thing about LinkedIn is that you're not just looking at random people. You're able to see the people who your friends and trusted peers and colleagues who they trust and who they've hired in the past and who they recommend.

0:42And hiring doesn't have to be complicated. Realistically, when you have a business to run, you don't want to spend hours on hiring. You want to hire the right person as quickly as possible. That's why LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant suggests immediately 25 great big candidates daily so you can invite them to apply and keep things moving. Hire right the first time. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash altature. then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find the top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash Altucher. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

1:19This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show.

1:36So 2023 was kind of a sucky year. And I mean that in the most personal sense, but also in a broad sense. Like, okay, COVID, 2020, 2021, maybe 2022, we were just getting out of COVID. So what was 2023 all about? And I'm gonna talk about this in the context of how you can think about 2024 to improve your life. and I feel like 2023, the world, this is gonna sound a little weird, but the world was a little bit on pause. Like we didn't really know which direction or what direction the world was going in. Like on the one hand, geopolitically, it's just a train wreck out there. Like every scenario, like if you watch a movie about, oh my gosh, World War III is coming.

2:28It might be a movie about 2023. Like everything that's going on in 2023 seems like a precursor. like people were talking about the Bible and like, this might be the end times. Like, that's pretty scary because there's all this conflict in the Middle East and it's horrible conflict. There's these proxy wars in Russia, Ukraine. There's the entire world is looking at what's going on and these sort of proxy wars that are happening around the world. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve was first, they were panicking about inflation. And now it seems like everybody's panicking that there might be a recession.

3:02I'll talk about that in a second. You know, which is it? Is it inflation or a recession or both, which is called stagflation. Then we have everybody's nervous next year about politics and the presidential election. I'm gonna make one prediction about the presidential election. Hear me out. Everything you could possibly predict right now is not going to happen. So I think 2024 is gonna be totally unpredictable in a lot of ways. And right now everyone's going on TV, telling their predictions for the year. But here's the only thing I can predict is that it's unpredictable. So what'd you say, Jay?

3:38I'm just curious. What if it's the Asian president? Asian became a president of the United States. Who Asian is running? I don't know. It's unpredictable, right? So maybe the running, Asian running mate or candidates is not running yet. Yeah, that could be. So, okay. Tip number one for after you listen to this podcast, Google Ronnie Chang C-H-I-E-N-G and he has this one clip about why Asians should rule the world and was that the clip, Jay? He talks about... I don't know if it's the clip but we saw it in person which is why Asians would be the best presidential candidate for United States. Yeah, so Google that.

4:22Ronnie Chang, funny guy. You've seen him in movies. But okay, that's tip number one. We'll give various tips throughout this. Meanwhile, my prediction about unpredictability is that Biden will not be the nominee for the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, and Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee. So these are the things that seem like no-brainers. Like if I go to predicted.org, let's go to our favorite gambling site. I love gambling on politics. But right now, Donald Trump, they're giving him an 80 % chance of winning the Republican nomination and Nikki Haley is second with a 14 % chance.

4:58Ron DeSantis is amazingly with six cents, Vivek Ramaswamy, five cents. And for the Democrat nomination, by the way, Donald Trump is, and predicted.org, Donald Trump is more likely to win the Republican nomination than Joe Biden is to win the Democratic one. So they give Joe Biden a 73 % chance and Gavin Newsom, 18%. Kamala Harris, 7%. Hillary Clinton, 3%. and Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation, 1%. Is he running? No, he's not running. They're just, you know, just like Kamala Harris is not running, but they're giving her, the reason they're giving her a 7 % chance is because they're saying there's a slight chance Joe Biden could die, Kamala Harris will be the new president, and then she would be the presidential nominee for the Democrats.

5:43So, but I would vote no, or I would bet no on both of those. So you're getting a bargain, I think, on both of those, and I think you'll make money. because even if one of them doesn't get the nomination, you're going to make a huge amount of money. Now, when I say huge amount of money, the maximum you could bet on predicted.org is$1 ,000 per bet. So knock your socks off. But so what were you about to say, Jay? I just want to say this is not a gambling advice for anyone that's out. No, it is gambling advice. I am giving gambling advice. I would gamble. I would bet no on both of those people. and I'd bet no on Kamala Harris too, but I certainly, but you know, that's not worth it.

6:27You only want to make gambles that are worth it where the risk reward is there. So I think if you just get bet no on one of those, it's not a good risk versus reward bet. But if you bet no on both of those, I think it's extremely likely that at least one of them will not be, I think both of them won't be the nominees, but I think it's extremely likely that it won't be the case that both of them are the nominees. so you can make a lot of money if you bet no on both. That is official gambling advice, but you can't hold me to it. So it's not a normal period right now. So what does a normal period mean?

7:04Like from 2010 to 2019, that was sort of normal. We were in between the financial crisis and COVID and just, it was business as usual. Yes, we had weird elections and so on, but whatever. But now everything's a little bit weird. Like what's going on with remote work? What's going on with cities? What's going on with the economy? What's going on with the Fed? What's going on with all these wars? What's going to go on with the election next year? What's going on with crypto? What's going on with AI? All of these things are very confusing. And to be honest, it's a little bit stressful. I feel like I personally, I'm just going to be honest.

7:38I don't think I really had a great year this past year. There's nothing specific. It's not like I experienced any real loss in my life. and everything went, you know, everything, you know, continues to do the podcast. We had great guests, continued other business activities. But like, for instance, on, you know, over the past 15 years, I make my living, you know, investing in private companies. Then eventually, you know, they get bought or hopefully IPO or whatever. But because of kind of this post COVID lag and the Federal Reserve raising rates, nothing really happened. And nothing, no companies were acquired, nothing was bought.

8:20So that was like a slow year for me. And I'm still getting used to, you know, living in a, you know, I lived in New York City my whole adult life. And now I'm living a little north of Atlanta, Georgia. I'm still getting used to that. I don't really have a lot of friends here, although I'd like to, and I'd like to have more friends in general. So I've been starting to speak at a few more conferences just to meet people and get out there. and I really like my podcast guests, but I feel like I used to do them more in person and then you can get, build more of a relationship with them. And now I do them remotely, like everything's remote now.

8:57So, and I thought I would enjoy that and I do, but I miss kind of the bonding that happens. So, and then, you know, like I've been on this journey where I thought, back in 2022, when I started, early 2022, I started playing in tournaments or late 2021. I started playing at these chess swords. I thought it'd be right away. I'm going to get back to my old level. Like no, nothing's going to stop me. And I did all my techniques for learning and I've learned an enormous amount. I've had amazing adventures. And we'll talk about the concept a little more in a second, but I still didn't achieve the level I wanted to achieve.

9:35And that was somewhat frustrating. Like I go to a tournament and I lose a bunch of games. It doesn't really feel great. And then I start thinking what's wrong. And on the one hand, I feel like I know more than I've ever had before. And that's been very, very pleasurable. Like learning is always pleasurable. But I just didn't achieve the goals I set out to achieve for 2023. Can I ask you something? Like when you set out, when you went out and set out a goal, like you said, you're frustrated and you're still disappointed you haven't reached a goal yet. How long were your initial thought that you didn't achieve?

10:09Honestly, I thought it would be six months tops. six months yeah i thought like uh you know for a variety of reasons i thought six months and now it's been like two years and again i think i am actually better than i ever was but my variance is so big as i've talked about in prior episodes like my best moments are really are much better than my best moments were 25 years ago but my worst moments are so much worse that they average out to me seeming like I haven't improved at all. And so it's hard to demonstrate that I've achieved any goal. And so, you know, and Robert Greene, remember on the podcast, I don't know if it was before we started the podcast or during, Robert Greene disagreed with me.

10:54Arthur Brooks disagreed with me. Like all these people I really admire disagreed with me. Amy Moore disagreed with me. You know, she's the author of 13 Things When These Trails People Don't Do. When did she agree with you, disagree with you? When you go on her podcast? Yeah. Oh, wow. So, because she thinks that what I've achieved has been meaningful and worthwhile. And worthwhile enough, for instance, to write a book, which is what I've been planning on doing. And that's the other thing. In 2023, I didn't really write at all. I mean, I wrote a little bit, but not like, I mean, I used to write for 20 years.

11:29I wrote every single day. And I didn't really do that. instead I've been pursuing this other thing, you know, and is it as meaningful? Is it as worthwhile? So I was just, I don't even know. It's not like I'm depressed or down, although I've had moments, but I've really been reflective lately. Like, how can I make next year a little bit different? And so I want to talk about, you know, everybody's sitting around now thinking, well, what's your new year's resolution and i've always hated the idea of new year's resolutions because it sort of feels artificial like why january 1st is the day everyone's gonna okay it's january 1st we the entire planet has to change their lives now today because it's january i marked it in the calendar change your life on january 1st and like 7.8 billion people have to change their lives on january 1st so i sort of don't believe in new year's resolutions i think i have a theory why january first i think i'm going through this as well it's because there's this thing called wind winter depressions you know like you know you're depressed during the winter because of yeah like seasonal affective disorder yeah so so when the new year comes around it's supposed to be this grand thing like we're going to be happy on the first of generally we have to be happy so so it's like okay now i gotta be happy so i have to change my whole thinking for the past couple of months because of the seasonal depressions.

12:58I think that's the reason why the whole New Year's resolution comes around. Yeah. And, but, but I, I sort of agree with that. Like, but, you know, also why is January 1st, the beginning of the year? Like, I sort of feel like every year, September 1st, like Labor Day really is the beginning of the year. And the reason I think that is because summer's over and everybody goes back to school. Now I realize this is only true for the Northern hemisphere, not the Southern hemisphere, but it always seems to me like the beginning of a year starts in September because that's when for the first 18 or sorry, for the first like 25 years of my life, that's what would happen is that my life would change in September of every year.

13:43And even when I took my first few jobs in my twenties, they always seem to start on around September 1st. So it's like our life sort of naturally follows that cycle. But anyway, that's another thing completely.

14:09Look, as a manager of people, as an employer, as an entrepreneur, and as even an investor in startups, I can tell you the most important thing for your business is the quality of the people you hire. The best part is that great candidates are already on LinkedIn. Employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. And I will tell you that the great thing about LinkedIn is that you're not just looking at random people. You're able to see the people who your friends and trusted peers and colleagues, who they trust and who they've hired in the past and who they recommend.

14:51And hiring doesn't have to be complicated. Realistically, when you have a business to run, you don't want to spend hours on hiring. You want to hire the right person as quickly as possible. That's why LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant suggests immediately 25 great fit candidates daily so you can invite them to apply and keep things moving. Hire right the first time. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Altature, then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find the top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash Altature. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

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16:12Strategies rooted in strength and backed by experience. Ask a financial professional how Pacific Life can help you today. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona. with all these new year's resolutions coming up, I want to talk about the types of things people think about when they think about resolutions. And so specifically, all of these concepts are important. What's the difference between finding meaning in your life? Like as, as in Viktor Frankl's great book, man's search for meaning, or what, or what is it? Is that different from finding purpose in your life?

16:53Is that different from having goals in your life? Is that different from what I've been talking about recently, having quests in your life? Is that different from what I talk about in my book, Skip the Line, having experiments in your life? And then how is that different from things like, you know, what I call the daily practice and choose yourself or what Hal Elrod calls the miracle morning, like these daily rituals and habits to improve your life. And all of these things are related and I feel are important when thinking about New Year's resolutions. So with that said, I will begin with meaning.

17:28What does it mean? And I do think this is all important. Like if you're listening to this, this is what I plan to do. I plan to quote unquote, write a manifesto for myself, which means I ask myself, what is the meaning I feel I have in life? What is a purpose for myself? What are goals that I have for this next year? what are quests that i'm on and what and what does it mean quest which i've talked about before here but i'll briefly talk about again and then what sort of experiments um do i plan on trying and and of course i need to i feel i've drifted a little bit from my daily practice which is a concept i write about in several of my books but started writing about it in choose yourself uh which this was the 10th year anniversary of that and thank you to everybody who still sends me very nice emails like it's it's it's been very encouraging book to many people and which encourages me like i was telling someone the other day i have to reread my own book because you know it's sort of i i remember one time i was gonna pitch this tv show called gurus gone wild like i know all these like self-help people like famous self-help people and i don't consider myself a self-help person but i can i know all these self-help people whose lives are just like a wreck and uh so i wanted to make a funny tv show called gurus gurus gone wild and i pitched it to steven spielberg but his his group said no they wanted me to do something else which they didn't end up doing but there's this idea that oh you write this self-help book and then now you're the living example of all your advice and life is great after that and it couldn't be further from the truth.

19:10You know, the reason someone writes a self-help book really, and forget about all the gurus who then sell like courses about manifesting, you know, miracles in their lives and so on. Like the reason you have to write a self-help book is A, you're a writer and B, you went through something incredibly difficult in your life. Like you, you suffered at some point and out of that suffering, you came up with a solution that worked for you. And it might be the case that it just worked for you and nobody else, but you then write about it. And sometimes that's considered a self help book. The reason I don't like to consider that self help is because just because someone, something works for me, might not, A, I might've been lucky and B, it might not work for anybody else.

19:57So when I talk about self help, I'm talking about helping myself and I love writing. So I I like telling the story of it. And other people could choose whether or not they are inspired by that and wish to try similar things or their own thing or whatever. But let's talk about meaning for a second. So Viktor Frankl wrote this book, beautiful book. Well, I should say half of it is beautiful. Half of it is garbage. And people say it's the most beautiful book ever, but literally only read the first half, which is the story part, not the theoretical part. and here's a guy who went to Auschwitz his family his entire family was killed and the only way he would survive every day the only way he would avoid killing himself was by or wishing he was dead was by finding meaning in his life and the meaning he had two things that he focused on one is that he wanted to live his he had meaning in that he really wanted to see his wife again and sadly he didn't.

21:02And just thinking about it makes me sad for him. But the other meaning he found in his life is that he felt if he survives this concentration camp and this period of his life, he was gonna write about his search for meaning and that gave him meaning in life. Enough meaning that it gave him, meaning gives you energy and it gave him the energy to survive the worst, most horrific conditions. Like he was, everybody was scared. Everybody was starving. People were dying every day. The Germans were randomly killing people in Auschwitz. And every day he could have been his last day. But what gave him the energy and bravery and courage to continue is he had meaning in his life that he knew he could live for a reason.

21:52Now, is this different than purpose? Maybe a little bit. Like purpose might be him saying my purpose. He would never say my purpose is to see my wife alive again. Like that was what gave him meaning there was he loved his wife. And if he held on to the thought that if he could see her again, it would all be worth it. And he would be happier than he was obviously in Auschwitz. So that gave him meaning in life to continue. Purpose might be something a little bit more specific. Like instead of just saying, I want to spread this message I have about finding meaning and value in your life. Purpose might be a little bit more specific.

22:38It might be, well, how am I going to do that? I'm going to write a book and I'm going to write a book telling this story. Not just that he was going to be a professor and teach classes or give lectures or talk to other people about it, but specifically that he was going to write this book, which he did, Man's Search for Meaning. I highly encourage it. so so so so meaning could be the idea and purpose is the actions that act to uh to the idea of the meaning right like you might think oh my you know i have meaning in life and that i'm gonna seek to increase world peace and then you might have a purpose where it's like okay well i'm gonna join um amnesty international and create you know and help them and raise money for them or or or help them in world situations where I can create more peace.

23:27And so it's a little bit more specific. It's like, how do you execute on what you feel is the meaning in your life? And so, so the first part of a manifesto is thinking about it, like what meaning, what larger vision can you, it's a so meaning can be thought of as a very large, broad vision. Why is your life significant? What, what will you do in the years ahead to make your life significant and to give you a sense of fulfillment? And obviously it should be something that brings you happiness and satisfaction. And, and look, it might be, you're going to be a great parent or grandparent, and that's your meaning.

24:08Like you're going to raise a new generation of amazing human beings who will help the world. It might be that you're meaning. And by the way, meaning can change, but it might Maybe your meaning in life is you're going to try to be as charitable as possible or usually involve doing some action that helps people spread some message. Or it could be your meaning is you're going to pursue your passions and be the best in the world at something and show other people how to pursue their passions. Or maybe your meaning is you're going to find meaningful relationships and you're going to impact, have impact on all the people you interact with, positive impact on all the the people you interact with.

24:48Because often I think, you know, there's a saying the grass is greener on, the grass is always greener on the other side. But really the true saying is the grass is greener where you water it. And so if a lot of times we have these relationships that we just kind of take for granted, or we don't really find as much satisfaction in them as we would like, we just sort of take it for granted. and maybe watering those relationships and doing it in this impactful way so you improve the lives of the people around you. That's enough to say you have meaning in your life. And again, finding purpose might be a specific mission that you're on that will allow you to accomplish your meaning.

25:37It might be the tactics that you use. So for instance, if I wanna have more friendships, maybe I need to go to more meetups. And so my purpose is I'm going to go to a meetup every week and try to make as many friendships as possible to have meaningful impact on them. So again, thinking about there's probably not much difference between meaning and purpose. Maybe I'm stretching this a little bit. But think about this in terms of like you're not just a New Year's resolution for 2024, but make a manifesto for 2024. and this is going to be about the things you value, but start with what's the meaning, the significance, value that your life is going to deliver in 2024?

26:19What's going to give you fulfillment? So when you look back on 2024, you say you accomplished this. This meaning was enough to give you energy all throughout 2024 and then you accomplished it. So - Can I add something on the meaning as well? When I read the book, you know, message for meaning only the first part by the way only the first half of the second part is crap it's kind of as i can't get to the second part but the first part i think he also talked about having having meaning also gives you hope uh you know to to to keep going in your in the life yeah like as well like look if you're a nihilist and you think that there's just no purpose in life and nothing that could be very depressing and in fact that philosophy is often associated with with depression and, but having some kind of higher sense of that your life can have an impact on others, I think does give you, you energy.

27:14And so, so then, then I want to talk specifically new year's resolutions seems to fall under the category of goals. Like here's some typical new year's resolutions. I'm going to lose 30 pounds, or I'm going to work hard at my job and get a promotion and make some dollar amount. That's been my goal. Or I'm going to run a marathon this year. So that's, so my goal is I'm going to be healthier and I'm going to prove it by running a marathon, or I'm going to stop dating around and I'm going to meet a significant other who's becomes my life partner. These are like new types of New Year's resolutions.

27:56These are goals. and a lot of people start with these. I'm saying start with meaning. So if your meaning and purpose in life is to have impact on your kids or family members, this will really motivate the kind of goals you have. Like maybe if my impact, if my meaning in life is to write a book that inspires people, then okay, then I have to turn into a person who's inspiring And if I'm a little bit depressed or down, I might not be so inspiring. So what can I do to not be depressed or down? Well, exercise is proven to lift up mood and community and friendships are proven to lift up mood. and having a sense of freedom is part of this feeling of well-being where you feel satisfied in your life.

28:50So you have to become, before you can accomplish your meaning in life, you have to aim towards being the sort of person who can provide that impact and value to the world. So that could lead to what your goals are. And this is what the manifesto is for. Well, okay, let's say I want to be more impactful in my relationships with people, well, maybe I need to live a healthier life. Or for me personally, maybe I need to be, I feel like this year I wasn't as optimistic as I could be. I need to have better self-talk. Like I had kind of negative self-talk. And there's a lot of evidence that positive self-talk is really important.