4148: What Disguises Do You Wear? by James Altucher on Self-Acceptance

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_04] Queen Carvana stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word.

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_05] My champions! I have sold my chariot on Carvana! T'was a lovely SUV, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it! Tonight we feast!

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_06] An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

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[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_00] This is Optimal Living Daily. What Disguises Do You Wear? By James Altucher of JamesAltucher.com And I'm Justin Malik, your personal narrator. And we're going to jump right into today's post as we optimize your life. What Disguises Do You Wear? By James Altucher of JamesAltucher.com The guy dressed as a construction worker was begging me for money.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00] It was 5am and I was on the corner of Wall Street and Broad. To my left was the New York Stock Exchange and in front of me were the steps where George Washington took his oath of office. Police men with dogs were patrolling. The guy had a hard hat on, looked dirty as if he had been working day and night in the holes and underground ecosystem that powers New York City with its wires, its sewage, its steam, its electricity. Come on, guy, he said.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_00] My buddy's left and now I just need $10 to get back to Staten Island because my wife is sick and I have to skip my shift this morning. Not only did he have his hard hat on, he had that orange vest with the yellow stripe so that people could see him in the dark. He had every appearance of a construction worker. I started reaching into my pocket. Thanks a lot, dude, he said. But then I saw one of the cops with the dogs shake his head no. I said, I don't have anything, sorry.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_00] And the construction worker said, come on, man, my wife is sick. I just need $10 to get to the ferry. But I walked on. I went up to the cop that shook his head no. That guy is here every day, he said. He's not a construction worker. The sun started to come up. This was in March 2009. The stock market was still crashing. The unemployment rate was skyrocketing. I was about to get fired from something. Well, from many things.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00] I was making money from about four different sources, some of them competing. All of them would fire me within a month. I was scared. I looked back behind me. The construction worker was talking to someone else. An older guy in a suit and a hat. I didn't want to be an older guy in a suit and a hat. The guy was reaching into his pocket for money. The cop was nowhere to be seen. The sun was up. Everybody is in disguise. Who will you be in disguise as today?

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_00] A good father? A good husband? A maniac? A good neighbor? A bored friend? An ambitious partner? An up-and-coming employee? What suit will you put on? How will you beg the world for your piece of it? What cops will circle around and try to prevent you from getting what you want? If only I could want nothing, beg for nothing. Then nobody would stop me. A year later, I moved away from Wall Street. Recently, TEDxWallStreet asked me to speak.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_00] I looked down the list of speakers. Do I really want to be around these people? Do I really want to go back to that exact spot, the New York Stock Exchange? We're trying to give a good impression of Wall Street, the sponsor said to me. So think of something to say along those lines. Did I really want to do that? I said yes. Then a week before the event, I said no. I said I honestly had nothing to say.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_00] That same day, TEDxHuntsville in Huntsville, Alabama asked me to speak on September 9th. I've never been to Alabama, but I'm an honorary lieutenant colonel in Alabama, the way Colonel Sanders is just an honorary colonel in Kentucky. How did I get to be an honorary lieutenant colonel in Alabama, even though I've never set foot in that state? When I was 12, I wrote to the governor and lied and said I was about to move there.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_00] I lived in suburban New Jersey and both my parents commuted to New York City. And that I loved the state of Alabama, and nothing would make me happier than being an honorary lieutenant colonel there. I'd done my research on every honorarium every state offered. I'm an honorary colonel in Mississippi, an honorary citizen of Texas, and honorary whatever in many states. So I went into disguise, and I begged and got what I wanted. The construction guy didn't.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00] TEDxWallStreet didn't get what they wanted, but I said yes to TEDxHuntsville, even though it's 1,000 miles away. I don't want to wear disguises anymore. If I don't have anything to say, I won't say it. I'm not going to sell anything anymore but the truth. I'm not going to spend money on things that were disguised as things they aren't. Is Coke the real thing, for instance? I'm not going to be friends with people wearing disguises.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_00] I'm not going to live in a place that's just a disguise to hide some insecurity. I'm not going to be angry at people struggling with their own disguises. And what are my disguises today? Angry thoughts from events that took place years ago? Thoughts of, I could have done X, Y, or Z in the distant past? Worries of the future? Reactions to what people say about me? Feelings like I have to respond to just this one comment.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_00] I think back to all the disguises I've worn. I've been a master of disguise. Hiding big lies, small lies, white lies, black lies. All of our misery comes from wanting, at all costs, to remain Tom, Dick, and Jane normal. Our molecules, our atoms, want to burst out, but we squeeze them tight inside with our mental constipation. The real me must never be seen, or I'll be laughed at, sneered at, abandoned,

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_00] and poverty will wipe itself with the last microbes that are left of me. I get scared. Most of Peter Parker's stress was that he had to hide his Spider-Man identity. This body of ours, this disguise, is in constant revolt against the abominable scam of having to endure. We don't need to do that anymore. When you take the disguises off, the superficial feelings of failure, of anger, of sadness that society has programmed into us,

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_00] when you just peel the past off and refuse to worry about the future, you become the superhero you were meant to be. The first person you then save is yourself. Then the world down below will see you swinging free from rooftop to rooftop. TEDx Huntsville told me I could speak about whatever I wanted. I'm going to go to a place I've never gone before and speak about something I've never spoken about before. And if every day I keep shedding my disguises,

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_00] a practice my mind will try and refuse to give me the courage to do, maybe I can say something I'll be proud of. You just listened to the post titled, What Disguises Do You Wear? by James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_04] Evening. Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car? I'll be moving in. Let's get started.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_03] Uh, sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_04] You what?

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_04] So there's no...

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_03] No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyer's rejoice.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_04] Ugh, I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_06] I mean it. Buyer's rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com.

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[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_00] Thank you to James. We might not feel exactly the same that we're wearing these elaborate disguises with big lies and deceit, but he mentioned the other side of it, that maybe our disguises today could even be things like thoughts of what could have been, what we could have done, even worries of the future, random feelings and reactions. So it might not just be the deeper stuff, but we can apply this to other areas of our lives as well.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_00] It reminds me a bit of the idea that we're all wearing lenses. This isn't exactly where he was going with this, but nevertheless, we have these filters on that take what we see and then make sense of it based on our own experience and interpretation. Maybe you and I happen to align really well, so we have, I don't know, let's say yellow lenses on. It wouldn't be the exact same shade of yellow since no human experience is even close to being the same,

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_00] but maybe our circumstances were similar and what we think and feel is pretty close. Well, then there's going to be someone else who has completely different colored lenses, maybe blue or pink, all sorts of colors. And in order to understand others better and then be more compassionate, I think, we can work to not necessarily change our lenses because that might be impossible, but maybe temporarily add some on or as best as we can try to remove our own, again, temporarily.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_00] We all have these disguises or masks, but if we can even just simply recognize this, then as James said, maybe we can do something we're proud of. So try to see that mask or lens today. Have a great rest of your day and night and I'll be back tomorrow. Wear your optimal life. Oh, wait.