2901: What It Feels Like To Be Rich by James Altucher on Scarcity & Isolation

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: This complex financing talk is very challenging. Do I get my depot ever?

[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But you already have a depot.

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_01]: No.

[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, you have the Vodafone Gigadepot.

[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right! And I have myself in the hand how big my depot is.

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Now with the Vodafone Gigadepot and the data volume of the next month. Go on in the 5G network of Vodafone. Vodafone. Together we can.

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever noticed how a calm mind can really set the stage for a good night's sleep?

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the idea behind our new podcast, Good Sleep.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Greg, our host from Optimal Relationships Daily, is here to help ease you into a peaceful night's rest with some positive affirmations.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And these affirmations aren't just comforting. They can help ease anxiety and nurture positive thoughts, setting you up for true good sleep.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So press play on Good Sleep Tonight, because a good tomorrow starts with a good night's sleep.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Just search for Good Sleep in your podcast app and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Optimal Finance Daily, What It Feels Like to Be Rich by James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm your host and personal finance enthusiast, Diana Merriam.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much for joining me once again on Optimal Finance Daily.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_00]: This is the show where I read articles about personal finance with the author's permission.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I like to say that the bloggers wrote the songs and I get to perform the covers.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So without further ado, let's get right to today's post and start optimizing your life.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_00]: What it feels like to be rich by James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_00]: After losing over $1 million a week, cash for the entire summer of 2000, I was forced to sell my apartment.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So one day in 2002, all the boxes were packed.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_00]: The apartment was empty.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_00]: We had two moving trucks waiting downstairs to move us an hour north of the city.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It was like an exile.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_00]: My self-esteem was gone.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_00]: My apartment was gone.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't slept a full night in almost three years.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And other things I can't even talk about.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_00]: My ex-wife, my two toddler girls, and Lynn, a close family friend who was helping us move,

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_00]: were taking one last look around.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God, Lynn said.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: This is really it.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: It's been a while and a lot has happened.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Good and bad.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Mostly good.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Someone on Quora yesterday asked the question,

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_00]: what does it feel like to be rich?

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I figured I'd answer based on my pre-2000 experiences.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people started answering the Quora question with,

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I was able to buy this or that or this and that.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Money was never about that for me, then or now.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: There's never been anything I wanted to buy.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I have minimal material possessions.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_00]: If you know me, you'd see I dress like crp and the edges of all my pants are frayed.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't own a suit.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have a driver's license, so fancy cars are out.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I like comic books more than paintings.

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't like to fly or sail.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't drink wine or eat out a lot.

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So what did it mean for me back then?

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Number one, DNA.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I finally felt good enough about myself to pass on my genes and have children.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I never wanted to have children before that.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_00]: There's apparently some evolutionary reason that we feel a strong urge to pass on our genes.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I had never felt that before.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_00]: But somehow, having a significant amount of money gave me permission to want to have kids.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Number two, safety.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_00]: For the briefest of moments, I felt, quote unquote, safe.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Like nothing could harm me and I could live forever.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_00]: In 1999, I visited the chairman of a company I was a shareholder of.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I was in LA and he picked me up at the hotel in his latest Porsche.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_00]: We drove to his enormous house and he gave me a tour.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_00]: When we sat down, he told me,

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't even have to do this anymore.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I have so much money now that nothing can touch me.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I know it sounds unbelievable and a cliche,

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00]: but a year later, he came down with cancer.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: After battling with cancer for years,

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: he was given worse and worse news about the outlook until he took his own life.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I heard about the news when his wife called everyone in his address book.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: This is not meant to be a lesson.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Money has its benefits, but immortality is not one of them.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Another example.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: A friend of mine was running a prominent gaming site and wanted to maybe sell it or do something with it.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It was 1999, so why not?

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I introduced him to a successful guy I knew on Wall Street.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't even find the guy's office.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I had never been down as south as Wall Street.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_00]: My friend and I sat there while Shlomo, not his real name, but you get the drift, said,

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Look at me.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Ten years ago, I was a schlub.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Now I have $100 million.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Only in America, right?

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: About two years later, Shlomo was in the center of a massive FBI sting involving a currency brokerage

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: he had started that had been simply pocketing investors' money since the 70s.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_00]: He went to jail.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Even my orthodox friends turn away and refuse to talk about him whenever I ask if they knew him.

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Number three.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Scarcity.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_00]: My feelings of safety and immortality quickly gave way to scarcity.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: After all, I thought if I could make $10 million, then it must be too easy.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I honestly thought everyone else had probably already made $11 million.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So then I felt poor again.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I now needed $100 million to be happy.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I drove in a car with a friend of mine and his wife.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I said, everyone has $10 million now.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_00]: She quickly said, not everyone.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And number four.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Friends.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I lost some friends.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Then I made some new friends.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_00]: By the time I was going down in the elevator from my apartment that one last time,

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: 100% of those new friends were destined to never speak to me again.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_00]: My new friends said things like,

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Mark Cuban is a stud.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Or, f*** him, take away all his shares.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Or, good luck, have a nice life.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Or, of course it's legal.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: The value of money.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I realized, too late then but I learned,

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_00]: that I never knew the value of money.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I had never even been aware of money before.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: My prior goals had been playing games,

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_00]: making fun websites, or writing novels.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, my only goal was money, money, money, and more money.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I told my therapist at the time, in 2001,

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: it's like losing a loved one.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And she said, sweetie, sounds like you've never really lost a loved one before.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Money's a great thing.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It's the payoff on hard work.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Great luck, which is often earned luck.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And you could do amazing things with it.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Build new businesses, create jobs, buy your independence, and freedom from corporate America.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: But first, you have to climb many hurdles,

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_00]: of which earning the money is only the first.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Very few things are better than earning a lot of money.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_00]: But money finds a home only in places where it's appreciated.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't appreciate the money, so it left me.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00]: When we were in the car, driving to our new home back in 2002,

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_00]: it was in the middle of a snowstorm.

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to cry.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I felt so bad about what was happening.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: But it was too much to think about.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So for a brief moment, I watched the snow

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: and remembered what it was like to be a kid.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Tasting the first snow of the year on the tip of my tongue.

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_00]: You just listened to the post titled,

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_00]: What It Feels Like to Be Rich.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00]: By James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Buy low, sell high.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to say, hard to do.

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_00]: For example, high interest rates are crushing the real estate market right now.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Demand is dropping and prices are falling,

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_00]: even for many of the best assets.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It's no wonder the Fundrise flagship fund plans to go on a buying spree,

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: expanding its billion-dollar real estate portfolio over the next few months.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_00]: You can add the Fundrise flagship fund to your portfolio in just minutes,

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and with as little as $10,

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_00]: by visiting fundrise.com slash OFD.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_00]: That's F-U-N-D-R-I-S-E dot com slash OFD.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Carefully consider the investment objectives,

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_00]: risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise flagship fund before investing.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_00]: This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_00]: at fundrise.com slash flagship.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a paid advertisement.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I think having money and feeling rich are two very different things.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Having money is objective, and it's an external circumstance.

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_00]: One can clearly see if they have enough money to pay for the things they need and want.

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_00]: When you have an emergency fund or adequate cash position,

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and savings in your retirement or other investment accounts that are growing steadily,

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_00]: you can say you're financially secure.

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_00]: But feeling rich is a whole other ballgame.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_00]: That's an internal state of mind that has little to do with how much money you have.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I see it as a feeling of abundance and freedom,

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_00]: where you believe you have the resources to do whatever you want.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I have friends who have a $5 million net worth, for example,

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_00]: which is much more than I have, and yet they don't feel rich.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And as much as I talk about feeling abundant,

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I still go through moments where I'm lost in the scarcity that I've been conditioned to feel.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_00]: We all assume that more money will make us feel better.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_00]: But you'd be surprised at how little an external circumstance tends to affect your internal state

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_00]: of being.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Feeling rich or abundant is a state of mind.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_00]: It's cultivated by how much fulfillment you get out of the way you spend your time,

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_00]: how much gratitude you express,

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_00]: the influence of the people you surround yourself with,

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and where you focus your attention.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: But that should do it for today.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much for listening all the way through,

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'll catch you tomorrow with another post,

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: where your optimal life awaits.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's...

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's...

[00:10:59] Let's...