Perfect Is Boring: Tyra Banks and Carolyn London [From the Archive]

21:40So I have to look at all of my projects and everything that I'm doing in the past and in the future and get back to creative and brand and voice and community and less accounting and finance, all that type of stuff.

21:53James Altucher:So when you were starting America's Next Top Model, what did you say to yourself? Well, what does, if I do this, what does success look like? And what does failure look like? Do you work through decision-making like that? Yeah, except I thought that success back then was something else. I thought success for a TV show with me being very new, I thought two seasons was like, whoa, that's amazing. 24 seasons later. Hello. Exactly. So I thought, ooh, it'll last two seasons and that'll be good. That'll get me in the door and then I'll create another show and another show. And so when we were at season eight and the ratings were so high and crazy, my lawyer sat me down, my entertainment lawyer.

22:25He's like, I want you to understand this is not normal. Like this show being all over the world already and all these ratings and all this and kind of penetrating pop culture. This is not normal. This is your first one, but I just want you to understand this doesn't just happen. And the reason why he set me down during season eight, because that was the season I was going to turn it over to somebody else. I was so tired. I was doing two top models a year. I was doing my talk show. Would you retain ownership of the format? Yes. I would still have retained ownership, but I wouldn't have been on camera.

23:00And he was like, this is a juggernaut. Do not leave. I had brought another model into the network. I'd introduce this model to the network. My mom, remember, she's a supermodel. Y 'all know who she is. I was worried about her. Not going to say her name. She was working. I'm not going to say, but the way that she was working, it was insane. She was up before sunrise and didn't get home until midnight.

23:21James Altucher:And yeah, so that means it's really important that it's got to be, have heart and be funny, you know, because how do you, on your busiest moments, on your busiest years, what would be your daily day? Like, how would you recharge your energy? I didn't. That's why I was worried. Back then, I didn't. She didn't. I mean, we all have periods where it's like super busy, and I hate it. If you can't recharge, it becomes miserable. And what's the point, right? What is success? And my mom even was like, when is enough enough? Like, you know, yes, you're very successful, but you're not happy. And I'll never forget when I was in my business courses, our leadership professors said, write down the time when you were the most successful.

24:05What were you doing? What was the impact? Was there a social impact, a political impact, a pop culture impact, a business impact? How much money were you bringing in for yourself, for your company? All of that. Write that down. So everybody wrote it down. And then he goes in this next column, write down how you felt. And I almost started crying in class because I'll never forget. I was on the cover of every single magazine. New York Times Magazine had a cover on me and said, Oprah, Martha, Tyra. It was my cover and me on the cover. retire. Is she the next female brand itself? Time Magazine had me as one of the most influential people in the world two years in a row.

24:40I was at the top of my game and at the bottom of my spirit.

24:44James Altucher:Why do you think? Working too hard and not understanding balance, not understanding delegation, not understanding if you're unhappy with something, find another person to do that job. Don't do their job. And so there were a lot of things that I was unhappy with in terms of quality. And so I would come into work two hours early to fix it as opposed to going, wait, let me just get another person to do this that has the style that I want them to do it. It was just me doing so much stuff. And so now, literally just now, someone emailed me about a new business that I'm launching in 2019. And they were like, I have this guy.

25:18He'd be an amazing CEO for you. Can I send him the deck? And can you meet him? And blah, blah, blah. And I was like, go to my team. Have my team do the first interview with him. Leave me out of this until they have screened him. And then I will screen three people at a time, which could be seven months from now. Like I'm learning. Before I would have been like, oh yeah, I'm doing a podcast. And then after that, come to my house. You know, like it's just, I'm a whole different person now.

25:39James Altucher:So once you started to realize this about productivity and delegation, did you find downtime for yourself? Like where you could re-energize? Yes. So now - And were you happier? Yes, I'm happier now. Now I have this wonderful time. And also my son being in the world, now I'm able to be present with my son. Like every now and then when I'm super busy and I'm on my phone and playing with him, he takes my phone and throws it. He's two years old and he knows that's something in there that's just not supposed to be happening right now. And he'll throw that phone. So it feels so good to now be able to go to the spa or like my friend and I in May, we're going glamping.

26:14We're going to like go and like stay. What's glamping? Glamorous camping.

26:19James Altucher:Maybe I need to start doing this. Yes. So you have a cabin. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You have a tent and you do s'mores, but you know, there's like a nice bed in there and there's plumbing. It's called glamping. And where do you do it? How do you find out how to do it? In the middle of the country. Like you could go to like Wyoming and places like that to do it. Yeah. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It means so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed.

26:51James Altucher:Thanks.

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31:10James Altucher:So when you were beginning modeling career, not even the beginning, you start off as this amazing success. And then it's like a series of obstacles that started hitting you. One is the weight. And so many models end up with anorexia or other eating issues because they're constantly told by the clients, she needs to weigh less. And then you pivoted a little bit and said, okay, well, actually, I won't even go back further than that. Before you left for Paris, I like what your mom was telling you, which is do this research like you're preparing for the SAT. Because when I was reading the book and you're like, oh, you're watching all the videos and this is what this company likes.

31:55James Altucher:This is what this company likes. This is what this client likes. That's very, everybody should do that in every industry and they don't. I think that's a key thing for success. So you would know when you went in the door, as opposed to every other girl going in the door, you were better prepared than everyone in terms of like what look you should have, how you should act, how your hair should be, how your face should look, how you should, I don't know, pout or not pout or walk on the runway. That kind of preparation is so critical for everything. And do you find that that applies to everything that you've done since?

32:25It does. It really does. I am like the prepared, like crazy, crazy prepared, like the Boy Scout be prepared. That is me. And it does come from my mom, like forcing me to do that as a model. So when I went to Paris, like, you know, studying at the fashion library before I left in the fashion library in LA, I learned what Chanel liked. I learned what Yves Saint Laurent liked. I learned what Dior like, totally different. So I had a little arsenal inside of my backpack. I took my high school backpack that I used to carry in my textbooks. I took it and had my portfolio in that high school backpack.

32:55And I'd stand outside kind of in the alley sometimes. And I'd be like, okay, this is Yves Saint Laurent. And this is an audition for that. So let me slick my hair back in a bun. Let me throw on some red lipstick and go in there and just ready to be like a stone cold diva. Okay. And then my appointment would be like, okay, five blocks from here, it's Chanel. And Chanel likes kind of loose hair. and they want you to be kind of twirly pearls and kind of smiling down the runway. So I'd take my hair down, take the lipstick off, put like some lip gloss on, go in there and walk for Karl Lagerfeld. And I ended up making history and being the first model to ever book 25 fashion shows her first year of being an unknown.

33:30Nobody knew who the hell I was. She was 17.

33:33James Altucher:Yeah, and that level of preparation immediately puts you ahead of all. I mean, I'm sure all of your quote unquote competitors, the other girls there were beautiful and had everything going for them. You even mentioned in the book, any model who thinks she's got a one-way ticket to the top just because of her natural beauty has another thing coming. Natural beauty may get you about two steps up the stairway to success, but then you got to work. And I think that's true, again, in every industry. Like no matter how talented you are, that's the first 2 % and then there's 98 % is work. So much. Like if you think about the supermodels, like of the past and of today, if you think about like Cindy Crawford and Heidi Klum and myself, the reason why we're supermodels is not because we look better than somebody else.

34:14There was a girl in Paris, I'm not gonna say her name, but I would look at her on ghosties and auditions and she blew my mind. I couldn't stop staring at her, how beautiful she was. But she got nowhere because she didn't have strategy and a plan and a personality. And so the reason why Cindy Crawford's famous or I'm famous or Heidi Klum, it's because we're business women. Like we are strategists. Like there's the fine girl over there, the better body over there, but we know that, okay, I need to study this. I need to do this. I need to accomplish this. And it's a strategy. And it's a strategy that I now teach very known models how to get to the next level and how to be sustainable and how to not be a has-been.

34:51We sit at restaurants and I have this kind of thing that I call the sun and the moon that I learned from Harvard. And I take them through this course. And success for me is when I, now I can track them and see on social media that they're doing it and that they're winning.

35:04James Altucher:What's the sun and the moon? The sun is you in the middle. And then the moons are all of these different opportunities that you have. And then there's like kind of lines that you can draw through them to take you through the strategy. But you're always the sun. And then the moons are all of the different things. And you've really done that in terms of like, you know, your modeling career. Nobody could tell you no. You would figure out, okay, if this group said no, I'm gonna, and it's part of that research that you taught her. Like when they told you, oh, you need to lose some weight, you made a list of the models who were a little bit bigger, a little more voluptuous and looked at who their clients were and then started pitching their clients so smart instead of just saying, oh, I got to lose weight or I'm going to fail or being crushed.

35:48James Altucher:I mean, I'm sure you felt disappointment because it's horrible for people to say, oh, you've got to lose a few pounds. It was crushing. Yeah. So an Italian agent, when I was in Italy and my mom was there with me, he called her to his office and he was like, you know, Carolina, we have to talk about Tyra. Tyra, she's getting so fat, grosso. and here's a list of eight designers, Otto designers, no one to hire her. You have to tell your baby she needs to lose the weight. So then my mom took this list and... I came to... Our hotel. Our hotel. And I remember her lying on the bed because she was tired.

36:26And I put her head on my lap. And you showed me the list. Showed her the list and told her exactly what he said. And I started crying and I'm like... She started crying like, Like, Mama, what am I going to do? I don't know. Okay, maybe I'll lose weight. I'll lose weight. I'll work out twice a day. I'll work out. Maybe I should get a personal trainer and really work out. Or maybe I can just cut everything, like a huge amount of food. Maybe I can just eat, like, lettuce. She started this madness. And she said, what am I going to do? Mama, what am I going to do? And I said, you're going to go eat pizza with me.

37:04We're going to go get pizza. and we're going to figure this out. Well, that's really great advice because food is medicine. Food is medicine. So over this pizza in this pizzeria on a street called Corso Magento in Milano, they had butcher paper on the counter, I mean, on the table. And she put a pin in my hand and a pizza slice in the other hand. And she says, you write down all the clients that you know like ass. Your ass. because I'd be damned if my baby starves for this industry. And she'd be like, take a bite and write down a designer. Write down a campaign. Write down a client. And so I was like crying and eating pizza.

37:46And I was like, Victoria's Secret? And she's like, write it down. And I was like, Sports Illustrated? She's like, write it down. And then she's like, now who has an ass? And I'm like, Cindy Crawford, write it down. So then I had a list of models who had asses and clients that liked ass. And then my mom looked at it and said, those are the careers that you need to emulate and those are your future clients. And from there, that butcher paper, I took it back to my agents and showed them. And that was the beginning of me changing my career from high fashion to more of a girl next door, Americana girl.

38:20James Altucher:I think though, when you're in an industry and you're in the high fashion industry and so successful, it probably was a hard mindset change to say, okay, I'm not going to be the top of this hierarchy. I'm going to switch hierarchies. Yes. How did you get through that mindset change? Well, it was scary because I wasn't proven in the other world. This was us just trying something, and it could have failed miserably. And then I would have had to figure out something else. But I had a wonderful fallback, which I wouldn't even call it a fallback, but a passion in film and television. So I would have definitely been able to go back to college.

38:53But it was hard to say no to this world that had accepted me, this high fashion couture world. Where you were the it girl. It was the it girl. And then even when I transitioned, and this is before it was cool to transition from high fashion to commercial. When I transitioned, the high fashion world was like, oh, now she's like, she's a cover girl and she sells, you know, makeup. I remember one of the designers said that another model is... Claudia Schiffer, we could say Claudia Schiffer went to go sell Fanta soda. And a very popular designer like turned his nose up at her because she like went commercial.

39:30So not only did I later go commercial, then I created this reality show. What the hell about modeling? And this is before designers were hiring models from reality shows. So then they were like, oh my gosh, she's even more gauche. Now she's a television show producer. You know, it just became like, what?

39:47James Altucher:And I want to get to that. But then there was the next obstacle when you were going to Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated, which is almost a more historical obstacle, but they didn't want to hire an African-American. woman at first. Yes. Well, not Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated, but just my agencies. When I first started trying to model, I would go into agencies. I was 15 years old and I'd walk in there and I'd see 200 models on the walls, you know, their photos on the walls. And then the person would say, oh, we're so sorry. We already have a black girl. I'm like, there's 200 models on the wall and I see one black girl.

40:23Like what? So I would hear things like that. And then of course, the kind of break down your body and say all of these things that, you know, you didn't even know was an insecurity. And now it is because they're saying, oh, your hips are not in proportion to your calves or you have flat feet or, you know, your lips are too round or you're, you know, just all these things. But the interesting thing is the agency that finally did sign me did say that they loved my big forehead or what I call my five head. Yeah. So it gave me self-esteem for something like like love for my forehead because they said if I had a normal size forehead, I probably would have been a little too commercial, a little bit too safe.

41:00But that big forehead helped me to be high fashion.

41:03James Altucher:And so when you finally started pitching Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated, did you find obstacles then? I didn't have a black girl obstacle with Victoria's Secret. Actually, they gave me a chance. And so my black girl obstacle was a little bit different. So my first day on set, I sit in the makeup chair, get my makeup done. Then I sit in the hair chair, Oh, they didn't know what to do. They didn't know what the hell to do with my hair. My hair is like yours times 10 more curly points. And that hairdresser just did everything wrong to my African-American black girl hair. And I get on the set and I know I'm looking crazy.

41:39No one is giving me eye contact. The photographer's kind of half going, ooh, looking at me. He takes a couple of shots and then they send me home. Pretty much fire me and say, go home. And I was devastated because I was like, this is Victoria's Secret. This was on the butcher paper at the pizza joint in Italy. I'm here. And the dream was gone. And it took me a whole year to finally call my agent again and say, you know what? That wasn't my fault. It was the hairdresser's fault. He didn't know how to do my hair. Get me another look. And after me begging and begging and begging my agent, they finally called Victoria's Secret again.

42:12And I was smart this time. I called my hairdresser friend, Oscar James. And I was like, I booked Victoria's Secret again, but I need you to come to my house the night before. I need you to wash, condition, blow dry, and flat iron my hair. He came to my house. He did my hair. I wrapped it up in a scarf. I even got in the cab with the scarf on the next morning. I slept in that scarf, got in the cab with the scarf on. Right before I opened the door to the studio for Victoria's Secret, I whipped that scarf off. Hair went whoosh. And I sat in the makeup chair, let them do my makeup, told the hairdresser, look, I'm done.

42:48You don't have to touch me. Then I went into the bathroom, redid my makeup, put a little extra lip gloss on, a little more contour, a little more concealer, went on that set and then cut to, I was a Victoria's Secret angel for 10 years. I was the first black model on the cover of the Victoria's Secret catalog, the first black model to be an angel, the first black model to wear the fantasy bra. I wore it twice, like so many firsts with Victoria's Secret. And I take it back to taking control of my destiny, calling that agent. Yeah, tell them what you did. Okay, because there's one part that she missed, and that part is when she got fired from Victoria's Secret that time.

43:28She came to me, and she was crying, and she was saying, Mama, can you call my agency and ask them to give me another chance? A year after I had been fired. Yes, this is a year later. And she's begging me, and Mom, just call them and tell them this and tell them that and tell them this. But I need another chance. I need another chance.

43:48James Altucher:and... What were you doing during that year? Modeling and doing stuff, but not at the level that I wanted to do. Like people knew my name, kind of, but not so much. I was trying to do this transition from high fashion to more commercial and it was going okay, but I could tell that I was going down a slippery slope. Back in two years, I would have been done. So then you called. So I dialed the agency. The agency answered. I threw the phone in her lap and walked out the door and shut the door because it was time for her to take charge. And she did it. Through tears and a shaking voice, can you call Victoria's Secret again?

44:32And my agent was like, no, it's done, give it up. And finally, my agent was like, fine, I'll do it. And Victoria's Secret said, we do like her and we'd like to give her another chance. Cut to just amazingness.

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46:25James Altucher:There's nothing like my American Express Platinum card. I love that I can earn hotel credits when I travel. I can also earn resi credits, so you know I'm hitting the restaurants everyone's talking about. Plus, with the digital entertainment credit, I'm even more excited to catch my favorite shows. All in all, I can access over$3 ,500 in annual value with benefits and eligible purchases across travel, entertainment, and more. Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash Explore-Platinum. Enrollment requirements, monthly, and other limits in terms apply. And so then you had, obviously, this amazing career as a model.

46:59James Altucher:I think many people get so focused on one industry. And then when it ends and you see this in sports, you see this in modeling, you see this in dance, that's it. They're done. And you made this amazing, magnificent transition to television. I mean, who has a show that goes on for 24 seasons of top ratings? And then of course you did the Tyra Banks show. You won two daytime Emmys. How did you make the transition from modeling to television? So the television transition was always in me. So modeling happened to me. Like I was discovered on the first day of high school and then later discovered again to go to Paris.

47:35But I like to say I happened to TV. Like that was my passion. That was going to happen no matter what. That was her major in college. She was going to film and television production. Yeah, that was my major in college. So this was just me coming back to myself, saying I skipped college, but I'm not going to forget this passion. So one day I was in my kitchen in Los Angeles and I'd woken up and I'm having my underwear, like granny panties. Don't think of the glamorous Victoria's Secret panties. Like it's not hot underwear. But I go in my kitchen and I'm making some tea. And then I look out the window and in my head popped, wow, there's that show called American Idol and some girl named Kelly Clarkson just won.

48:14And that's a really cool show. But then there's also that show, The Real World on MTV. And you get to see people living together and their struggles day in and day out. what if I combine the competition part of American Idol with the seeing how they live of the real world and set it in the modeling industry? It came to me like that. And I tell my agent, my agent at the time was kind of like an agent that booked me for commercials, not a modeling agent, but like a theatrical agent. And I told him my idea and he was like, models are unsympathetic characters and vapid. Nobody wants to watch that.

48:48James Altucher:Well, why are people so wrong sometimes? Oh, right? I mean, every girl in the world was watching this show and their father. And she told me when she was making that tea, she called me and she goes, I got this idea. And I was like, wow, that's pretty amazing. But then when she told me what he said, it was like, what? Why do you think people are so wrong sometimes? Middlemen. I think a lot of it is their own preconceived notions. A lot of it is they want to keep a lot of us in our place. You know, oh, you're just a model. You stay over there. Or going into stereotypes and not looking deeper. Cutting an idea off before you can actually even hear the idea.

49:32James Altucher:So then how did you avoid giving him, like outsourcing too much of your self-esteem on this idea to him? Like you basically knew that this was a good idea. How did you go around his opinion? It was my third time that I pitched a show to him. This was the third one that he said was not a good idea. And I was tired of it. And so I called my best friend at the time and still very super, duper close friend, Kenya Barris. Kenya created Black-ish, very successful writer. At the time he was a staff writer, successful, but not like the juggernaut that he is today. They went to elementary school together.

50:03Yeah, we've known each other since we were six years old. And so I was like, Kenya, I'm so tired of my agent. I had this idea. I told him the idea. He's like, Ty, that's the third good idea. He goes, I'm tired of this. And I was like, what can we do? So he took it to his agency and connected me to his agency. and his agency connected me to a man by the name of Ken Mock, who was like the godfather of very early competition reality shows. And I had like a little dinner with Ken Mock in LA. I told him my idea and he's like, that's a great idea. And a couple of weeks later, we're pitching it. Kenya helped develop it.

50:35Ken helped me develop it and we sold the idea. Now, Ken, he confesses that Ken thought I was going to be a vanity producer and that's where you put your name on something and you don't do any work. So he was shocked that I had so much natural knowledge about how to produce television and that I lived in the editing bay. After we had finished shooting, I would order barbecued ribs and camp out with the lead editor, Michael Policow, and we would just chow down on ribs and edit, edit, edit all day and all night. And we hit that first season, and it was super successful.

51:04James Altucher:Well, I think also this behind-the-scenes aspect of what makes a good model, which comes out in the show, it was so interesting because then it made clear to all these little girls that it's not just about looks. It's about how you present yourself and personality and all of these other things. Like, I don't know, what makes a good model? And it's also not just about cookie cutter beauty. My mom really at a young age instilled in me that there's so many different types of beauty. And so I'm super attracted to things that are not the cookie cutter. And that's one of the major messages of Top Model 2 is you don't have to be, you know, this kind of hair and this look and this eye and this booty and this boob.

51:41There's so many different types of quirks that are amazingly beautiful. And she learned a lot of that because I was a medical photographer. So I took photographs for medical textbooks. And then I had a friend in the fashion industry who hooked me up to start doing fashion shoots. And Tyra used to come with me and work kind of like as my assistant. So she would hold the light meter and the reflectors and whatnot. And there's a little hitch to that, but I'll come back around. Why don't you talk about, because before her like having a side hustle and doing like lookbooks for fashion, she had a side business at the house in our living room.

52:18That's the part. And yeah, and she would photograph women and do their hair, do their makeup. Like glamour portraits. Yeah, but like really beautiful, black and white. It wasn't like the ones at the mall, but like really beautiful. And I was her assistant, so I'd hold her makeup brushes, I'd hold her light meter. And I heard women like every day that they would come to have my mom photograph them and they'd be like, oh, I hate my eyes, I hate my eyebrows. I don't photograph well. I don't photograph well. I'm not beautiful. My teeth, my this, my that. And my mom would always find the beauty in them and always tell them that it doesn't have to look like everybody else.

52:48So here I am, this 7, 8, 9, 10-year-old little girl hearing this constantly, seeing my mom photograph, understanding how to use light, understanding all of this stuff. And then seeing the women look at the final product and burst into tears because they can't believe that they could look like that.

53:04James Altucher:So it's interesting how then all these combinations of experiences, your experience as a photographer, bringing out the beauty in these women and bringing out the beauty in their flaws, your experience in modeling. And it really comes across when you're doing the show. I found my own daughters were rooting for the girls who had a lot of flaws and you were rooting for those girls too. And it would come across in what you were saying to them. And then there was this extra personality aspect that they had to kind of have that heart and that fierceness to them. And I don't know if it was ever, you mentioned a little bit in the beginning with some negative experience in the show, but it seems like it was a very positive experience for you overall and still is.

53:43James Altucher:I mean, 24 seasons later. Yeah, I love my top model. I left a year ago because I thought that I needed to bring like a younger generation to host it and to keep it sustainable and going. And it actually, that decision was not the best decision. And so I ended up coming back to the show and now our ratings are back up and we're doing so good. And America's next top model is in 150 countries, the American version. So like dubbed all across the world. and then we have 25 international versions. Yeah, you have like Mexican's top model. We have Mexico's next top model. Vietnamese top model. Yes, we have, it's so popular in India.

54:14We have two versions. We have one that's shot in English and a totally different one, different host, different model shot in Hindi. Yeah, and it's so popular in Asia. So we have South Korea's next top model. We have China's next top model. We have Indonesia's next top model. Vietnam, the list goes on and on, but it's so popular in Asia. We actually have the continent of Asia is the next top model also.

54:36James Altucher:Yeah. And then you started the Tyra Banks show. You kind of moved it one step further, which is you had this ability to communicate with people. And, you know, you did it for five seasons. Yes. Why'd you stop in five seasons? I don't really know the full. Well, it was really hard. It was like - It's a lot of work. It was a lot, a lot of work doing the talk show. You know, I was just talking to Dr. Oz a couple of hours ago. And, you know, you have to do 175 shows a day. And I wasn't just - I'm sorry. 175 shows a year. Sorry. And I wasn't just talent. I was also producing it. And of course, micromanaging and doing a whole bunch of stuff that I shouldn't have done.

55:13So it just really wore on me, like in a big, big way. And then I remember the, what you call it, hit the, you know what I'm saying? In 2008, the crash. Yeah, the financial crisis hit, not the depression, but damn near in 2008. And we had lost so many advertisers and they were like, you know, should we continue this? And, you know, it's going to be an uphill battle and we've lost all of our car sponsors and stuff. I'm like, I'm good. Let's just call this a day.

55:36James Altucher:So what's right now a typical day like for you? I don't have typical days, but I can give you a day. A day. A day. Okay, so I wake up to mama, mama. I wake up to my son between 5 a.m. and 7.30 a.m. And so then I put him in my bed, but lately he's been in my bed all night. And so then we'll wake up, his final wake up is between 6.30 and 8. and we'll play. Then his nanny comes and when we play with the nanny and then we'll all have breakfast together. He's now big enough to eat at the table. So he loves some bacon. So he eats the bacon and I do some yogurt and some granola. Gotta have my coffee, Lord.

56:20Love my coffee. And then I'll start working on my computer. I try to not start before 10 a.m. but sometimes I can't help it. And I'll start doing emails. And then there's just like meeting upon meeting upon meeting. then I have to leave. Mommy's going to work. And then he's like, I don't want mommy work. I don't want mommy work. I'm like, mommy's got to work so that you can live. If mommy doesn't go to work, we don't have a house. And he doesn't know what the hell I'm talking about, but I'm trying to instill in him that work is important. And then I'll have meetings. I'll have meetings about my future huge project that I'm doing in 2019.

56:50Or like people are constantly pitching me television shows and I'm listening to those pitches and seeing, you know, if I like them. So are you a producer now

56:57James Altucher:on other shows? Yes, I'm starting my production company up again. So you will definitely see a lot of content coming from us. And yeah, interviewing people. Yesterday I was interviewing for support staff by Skype. I might have to hire somebody that is going to be my right hand and I will never have even laid eyes on them in person. So I was just doing that yesterday. What else? Oh, talking to York school that he's going to be going to and making sure I have the files for that. Calling the pediatrician because he has to make sure that he's had certain shots to go to this school. So it's now this like mommy slash businesswoman.

57:31in life. Yeah.

57:32James Altucher:Are you happy with how she's living her life now? Absolutely. Not that you weren't happy before, but you were worried when she was working too hard. She was working so hard. I have to tell you, she worked so hard that sometimes she would get in the car with her driver and you couldn't remember where you were going. Yeah. I'd be like, where are we going? But what does success look like to you now in the sense that you've achieved the financial success, obviously dreamed by tens of millions of people. You don't really need to go to the day job to pay for the house. What does success look like to you over the next 10 years, say?

58:09Success now looks like legacy. So like, what am I doing to leave behind? And I don't mean like money or I'm talking about the legacy of expanding the definition of beauty and making people feel more beautiful than they ever thought possible. And what does that mean? and how does that sustain past me? What are the businesses that I've created that my son will either run or at least just be knowledgeable of that his mom did, that the world will go, wow, Tyra Banks created that. And I'm talking about my generation and a little bit younger than my generation will know that I created that, but that their kids and their kids' kids will have no idea and care less.

58:47So it's like Disneyland. Like my mom knew that there was a Walt Disney and she would tell me, you know, a man created this. And I'd be like, whatever, we're Space Mountain. I just want to get on the ride. You know, and that's what I'm looking to do is to create things that outlive me, that after a while, people don't know that there was a person and they don't care, but they still know that when they experience that brand, it makes them feel more beautiful than they ever thought possible.

59:09James Altucher:Well, Tyra and Carolyn, this is such a great book that you guys wrote together. And it was so heartening to see mother and daughter, you know, write and work so seamlessly through this. I hope one day I get a chance to do something like that with my children. Everybody should have to be so lucky. Perfect is Boring is a great title. I think that in itself is such an inspirational message among many that are in the book. I'm going to read the subtitle, 10 Things My Crazy, Fierce Mama Taught Me About Beauty, Booty, and Being a Boss. Great subtitle. And I just highly recommend the book. And it was such a pleasure to have you on the show.

59:41James Altucher:Thank you so much. Thank you. Are you going to grow the hair out now? I am going to take your advice. I want to be America's top podcaster. Exactly. Love it. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

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