1255: How to Find Your Passion, Your Unfair Advantage, and Make Money by James Altucher on Financial Success & Personal Fulfillment

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily, Episode 1255. How to find your passion, your unfair advantage,

[00:00:07] and make money by James Altature of JamesAltature.com.

[00:00:12] And I am Dan, I'm your host here and welcome back to Optimal Work Daily if you're one

[00:00:16] of our regular listeners and if you're just discovering us, welcome to you too.

[00:00:20] And this is the podcast where I read to you from these great blogs that cover all sorts

[00:00:24] of topics related to work like productivity and procrastination and work life balance.

[00:00:30] And today's post is from Popular Writer James Altature, and I'll share a little bit

[00:00:34] more about him after I read the article so for now let's get right to it and optimize

[00:00:39] your life.

[00:00:44] How to find passion, your unfair advantage, and make money by James Altature of JamesAltature.com

[00:00:52] Jean had severe dyslexia and couldn't read, grew up in a trailer park, got forgotten

[00:00:57] in school. People said he wouldn't amount to anything. He didn't go to college.

[00:01:02] I didn't have any money, he said, but I loved fixing things, building things. I wanted

[00:01:08] to follow my passion. Now he's worth $50 million and he told me how he did it.

[00:01:13] First, I want to say I spent 12 years of my life with no other goal than to make money.

[00:01:19] This was the worst years of my life. I had fake friends, I was miserable. Every time

[00:01:24] I made money, I lost it. I just hated my life. If I have any regret, it's that I didn't

[00:01:30] stick to what I loved. We only have one life. I honestly feel like I wasted 12 years of

[00:01:36] mine. I kind of hate Dean right now also because he seemed to skip those 12 years. He

[00:01:42] says, I knocked on a million doors, got a lot of rejections. I guess I learned how

[00:01:47] to handle rejection at an early age. Dean said, why were you knocking on doors? What

[00:01:51] are you asking for? I was trying to find someone who'd sell me a house with no money

[00:01:55] down. It was ridiculous to most people until I found Mary low-pressedy. Mary sold Dean

[00:02:01] his first house and he paid $0 for it. She was a great old Italian lady. I befriended

[00:02:07] her and after a month of pasta dinners on Sunday at her house, I found out what she wanted

[00:02:12] and we made a deal. What did she want? She wanted a little bit more money for the house

[00:02:17] than anyone was willing to pay because before her husband passed, he said, this is the price,

[00:02:22] don't sell it for a dollar cheaper. She wanted $125,000. Everyone was offering her $90,000.

[00:02:28] Dean says, when I found out her price, I could structure a deal around it. He paid her $2,000

[00:02:34] a month. She moved to Florida. Dean redid the place, got a mortgage on it and paid her

[00:02:38] in full. He said, I was supposed to pay her off in five years. I paid her in a year

[00:02:43] and a half. She sent me a Christmas card every year since and that was my first deal. All

[00:02:48] of the smart people passed on Mary low-pressedy's house. She wanted too much so they moved on.

[00:02:54] I was young and dumb. Dean said, but we all need to go back to that sometimes. Then I

[00:02:59] bought the next house and the next house. Now I have over a hundred buildings. But he

[00:03:04] said to me, I get it that you don't want to buy a home. Most home buyers make a mistake.

[00:03:08] They put all their money in one investment without having an unfair advantage. To buy

[00:03:12] a house, find out the houses and probate, the ones where someone died and the kids live

[00:03:16] far away and will take any offer. Or if a couple is going through a divorce or tax trouble,

[00:03:22] all of this is public info. It's amazing to me how people don't try to get an unfair advantage.

[00:03:27] They buy at top dollar at the top of the market. You can only make money if you have an unfair

[00:03:32] advantage. Else, everyone would be doing it. So what is an unfair advantage? You are passionate

[00:03:39] about something. You put in the extra work to find where the opportunities are. Without

[00:03:43] obsession, you won't be able to do this. You figure out how to scale the method of finding

[00:03:48] your unfair advantage. This is the key to monetizing your passion. You go meta on

[00:03:52] your passion. You repeat and repeat and repeat with as many passions as you want. So Dean

[00:03:58] made money from real estate. Now he just taught me how to do it and he's taught many others.

[00:04:04] But I want to do it. I'm not passionate about real estate. And just because Dean sort of

[00:04:08] changed my mind about buying real estate, that's not the reason I hate him. Dean told me something

[00:04:13] interesting. I know people in almost every industry who get this unfair advantage no matter

[00:04:18] what they're interested in. I know a woman who has XM up and runs an online course on how

[00:04:23] to cure it. She makes $200,000 a year. I know someone who collects toys from the 1800s.

[00:04:29] I know someone who is into sports and monetizes it using an unfair advantage. I know someone

[00:04:34] who designed their own t-shirts and made a killing on and on. So now I want to help others

[00:04:39] do it like I did it like so many people I know have done it. It reminds me of Matt Berry

[00:04:44] an early podcast guest. He was a Hollywood screenwriter and hated it when he was told

[00:04:49] to rewrite crocodile Dundee part three. So he quit. Got divorced, lost everything.

[00:04:54] He loved sports but wasn't an athlete. He started blogging for $100 to post about fantasy

[00:04:59] sports and then he started an online community around fantasy sports. And now he's the only

[00:05:04] anchor in the world on fantasy sports for ESPN. When I walk with him in the street, many

[00:05:10] people stop him to say thanks. I'm jealous. I created a link for your listeners to check

[00:05:15] it out on the podcast. He told me tell them to go to JamesKBB.com by February 26th. He

[00:05:20] said, I'm forcing my daughters to do this. Message to my daughters. Go to JamesKBB.com

[00:05:27] or listen to my podcast. One, figure out your passion. Two, find an unfair advantage

[00:05:33] to make money. Three, scale it by teaching other people how to do it. Four, then scale

[00:05:39] that by sharing all your knowledge. And five, make $100 million a year like Dean, who

[00:05:45] mine no longer hate. If you haven't found your unfair advantage in your passion, you're

[00:05:49] competing against someone else who has. You just listen to the post titled How to find

[00:05:58] your passion, your unfair advantage and make money by James Altature of JamesAltature.com.

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[00:08:23] who is an entrepreneur writer investor trader and podcaster. And on his podcast he has interviews

[00:08:30] with a bunch of talented people names like Nancy Cartwright, Sarah Blakely, Tony Robbins,

[00:08:36] Ariana Huffington and many more. And that podcast is called the James Altature Show and you

[00:08:41] can always find it in the top charts in the business category of Apple podcasts for good

[00:08:45] reason. He's published 20 books and founded or co founded over 20 companies. So come on

[00:08:51] by James Altature.com, that's AL, T U C H E R to learn and read a whole lot more. You

[00:08:58] can always count on James to have a unique take on things. So that is going to do it

[00:09:02] for our episode today. I do hope you enjoyed it and that you're having a great day. And

[00:09:06] I'll be back here again reading to you tomorrow. And that's where your optimal life awaits.