James Altucher

Bruce Lee once said, “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” And Michael Jordan also said, “Sometimes, things may not go your way, but the effort should be there every single night.”

Are you stuck in overthinking and unable to make progress in moving forward and getting things done? Sometimes, the real problem is not the obstacle we are facing, but overthinking about the problem. Just take the advice of the famous brand message of Nike, “Just Do It,” and make the effort every single night, regardless of the outcome. You will soon overcome the problem and get things done.

My special guest today is James Altucher, an author, podcaster, and hedge-fund manager who founded several companies. He went from having about $15 million in earnings to losing it all in a few months, leaving him with only $143 left in his bank account. But he was able to build his empire back and realize that success for some people comes with a lot of conditions, and the best way to become successful is to choose yourself.

In this episode, he will talk about getting to the top 1% in the world of what you like, how to overcome embarrassment, and how to skip the line and bust the 10,000-hour rule for achieving mastery. It’s an exciting session about success and getting to your dreams, so let’s get started.

Who Is James Altucher?

James Altucher is an angel investor and entrepreneur who started twenty companies. Seventeen of the companies he founded or co-founded failed. But for him, they were not failures but opportunities to learn. He learned the hard way and at a great price the seventeen ineffective things to avoid when managing companies. 

He hosts a successful podcast, The James Altucher Show, which has more than 30 million downloads. He interviews several leading peak performers, innovators, and creators. James Altucher is also an author of eighteen books. Two of his books, The Power of No and Choose Yourself!, are Wall Street Journal bestsellers, while Choose Yourself is also a New York Times bestseller. One of his latest books, Reinvent Yourself, quickly became number one in the Amazon store right after its release.

Many of his writings were featured or published on various media platforms, including Yahoo Finance, TechCrunch, The New York Observer, and The Financial Times, among others. James Altucher also shares more of his wisdom through his blog, which has gained more than 20 million views since its inception in 2010. 

He will share in this episode more about his book, Skip the Line as well as talks about the 10,000-hour rule, why it’s no longer practical in today’s world, and what he believes you should do instead.

The Principles Behind the 10,000-Hour Rule 

Have you already achieved the level of greatness on something that you love doing by the age of 20?

If you keep on doing what you love doing for years, you should already be an expert by the time you reach a total of 10,000 hours of doing the same things. A study found out that top-performing students had put in a total of 10,000 hours by the time they turned 20. 

They also estimated that Bill Gates spent at least 10,000 programming hours before he founded Microsoft. Likewise, the Beatles spent 10,000 hours of practice in the early sixties before reaching fame. Based on these findings, the 10,000-hour rule was born and created by Malcolm Gladwell. You will eventually become an expert in any field if you put in 10,000 hours of practice.

“I actually was part of the experiments in the early nineties on the 10,000-hour rule. And how can we do this with comedy? …  Is it laughs per minute? Is it money? What is it? And I’m like, I don’t know. There’s no real straightforward metric. … That’s the problem with the 10,000-hour rule.” – James Altucher

While there’s some truth behind the 10,000-hour rule, there are some loopholes in the principle. It is similar to the common idiom that states “practice makes perfect.” It is true that if you keep on practicing, you will get closer to perfection. However, the level of perfection will greatly differ among each individual. The same idea applies to players on a football team. Everyone puts in the same amount of practice hours with their coaches, but every player has a unique level of playing the game, and not everyone starts on equal footing.

However, this doesn’t mean that the 10,000-hour rule is not effective — it is. You will surely improve your skills if you put in the effort and time in anything you do. But the main problem with this rule is it focuses on quantity instead of quality. Practice is not equal, and the results will vary. Some may achieve advanced skills. Others will become experts, while a few will become masters in the field.

Being a part of the experiment back in the eighties, James Altucher knew that the 10,000-hour rule still had more room for improvements. So, he searched for ways to make it better and came up with a hack to skip the line and achieve mastery level, even without putting in 10,000 hours of practice.

How to Skip the Line Using the 10,000-Experiment Rule

Do you still have enough time to spend 10,000 hours towards mastery?

In a fast-evolving environment of a highly competitive world, time is crucial. By the time you’ve done 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill, the landscape may have already changed, and you’re left behind in the competition. 

Let’s say you will put in 4 hours every day on a task you want to master. This is equivalent to 20 hours per week working from Mondays to Fridays.  It will take ten years for you to reach the 10,000-hour milestone and become the best at what you do. But there’s a big question mark — will your mastered skills still be relevant by that time?

“And I came up with something I call the 10,000-experiment rule. … If I avoided repetition, which is more about the 10,000-hour rule, … every time I do [a stand-up] comedy, or every time I play chess, or every time I start a business, or make an investment, I’m going to do at least one experiment in what I’m doing.” – James Altucher

Instead of repeatedly doing the same tasks every single day, why not do something different and experiment every day. James Altucher made a simple twist to the 10,000-hour rule and changed it into a 10,000-experiment rule.

“By experimenting, you learn so much more quickly because the nature of an experiment is that you’re trying something that nobody’s ever tried before, or at least you’ve never tried before. So not only are you doing this activity that you love and want to get better at, but part of what you’re doing, you’ve never done before. So, your worst-case scenario is when the experiment fails. But that you [also] learned something.” – James Altucher

Every experiment has failures. It’s the main reason why many people are afraid to experiment — they are afraid of failure. But failure is just a mental state of mind of those who look at it in a negative way. For others, failure is an experience with some valuable and priceless lessons.

“Thomas Edison famously did try 10,000 different filaments to make a light bulb. A reporter asked him, ‘How does it feel to fail 10,000 times?’ And he said, ‘Sir, I did not fail 10,000 times. I learned 10,000 different ways to not make a light bulb.’” – James Altucher

Experimenting allows you to skip the line and do away with the 10,000 hours of work. You will achieve the mastery skills level quickly and stay on top of the game. It’s one of the secrets of the highly successful people — those who belong to the top 1% in the world in any field.