Tag: james altucher

Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, on why systems trump goals and passion is pointless

Scott Adams at work
Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert and a guy who has failed at many things in life and still won big.

He first came to my attention with this WSJ article which says to ignore passion and instead focus on building “systems” (which I interpret as creating good habits and applying them over time).

Then he was a guest on James Altucher’s podcast where he elaborated on the same themes. Scott is a funny, honest, successful and very quotable guy. Here are my notes from that podcast.

NOTES

  • on Dilbert
    • Dilbert started as a doodle during his day job at PacBell
    • he reached out to a famous cartoonist, who told him: “don’t give up”
    • he received endless rejections for Dilbert, including one that suggested he hire an artist to draw the cartoons!
    • he usually does 2 comics in the morning (in rough form), and spends the afternoon/evening on less taxing work (e.g., filling in the cartoons)
    • “a writer should have element of danger in their writing”
    • Dilbert provides employees a voice, making it harder for management to get away with ridiculous stuff
    • “the funnier something is, the more you can get away with”
  • goals are bullshit, live by systems/themes
    • why? 100 years ago, goals were simpler to set and execute (eg, a farmer’s goal to clear land by day’s end), but today goals are too complex, if you pick a goal and say “5 years from now, I want to achieve X”, what are the odds the world will be the same in 5 years? instead, improve odds in a general way, through the right systems
    • one part of his system is try lots of stuff; he has failed at many, many projects (including investing a minor fortune in Webvan in the late 90s)
    • another part is to maximize personal energy through diet and fitness
    • another part is combining skills (he isn’t the world’s best at anything, but he has decent drawing skills, decent writing skills, and a corporate insider’s stories/experience, together they make Dilbert unique)
    • on why after all the success, he still works hard: “don’t think there’s anything worse than getting rich and quitting”
    • have lots of ideas
      • “people can’t tell a good idea”
      • * “bad ideas have value” — they help you think of better ones, your ideas can cross-pollinate, “get to good ideas through bad ideas”
  • passion is pointless
    • you enjoy the things you succeed at, you get better with success (for example, when he got his first cartooning contract, his drawing skills went from abysmal to “not terrible”)

      • <-- I agree!!

    • “people are not great at knowing what they’re good at”
    • “passion comes from things that work”

August Quotes: “It’s worth noting that you can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck. You can spend your life on Wall Street and be a hero” – David Brooks

Homer Simpson the vegetarianSee all previous ones here. Tucker Max writes a monthly quotes post which is great.

Love the way this sounds:

Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. – Joyce Kilmer

From a favorite Brooks article:

I saw young people with deep moral yearnings. But they tended to convert moral questions into resource allocation questions; questions about how to be into questions about what to do…It’s worth noting that you can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck. You can spend your life on Wall Street and be a hero. – David Brooks

Even other cultures, millenia ago, were thinking about habits:

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. – Lao Tzu

Reminds me of the rage to master:

The dirty little secret of every creative workshop or motivational seminar is simply this: The person who is going to change is going to change anyway. She has no choice. She is impelled by inner necessity. – Steven Pressfield

I don’t like when people say that something is “strictly business” or that they’re “being logical”. Your emotions are to thinking like bread is to a sandwich, without which it cannot exist.

Reason is and ought to be only a slave to the passions, and can never pretend to be any other office than to serve and obey them. – David Hume

Certainly feels true, no?

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket – Eric Hoffer

Meditation is helping me with this:

Infinite patience gets you immediate results – James Altucher

I suck at this:

Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults – Ben Franklin

I agree with the below. Sometimes overly so?

The only path to amazing runs directly through not-so-amazing – Seth Godin

Like the old saw, “a fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing”…

Fanaticism is the only way to put an end to the doubts that constantly trouble the human soul – Paulo Coehlo

Haha:

If most of your courtship attempts have succeeded, you must be a very attractive and charming person who has been aiming too low – Geoffrey Miller

Why I stay away from email and social media in the evening:

Arguing with people is like reading your email at 4am in the morning. There is absolutely no good that can come of it. It’s just scratching an itch – James Altucher

This Hemingway guy, really something:

This too to remember. If a man writes clearly enough any one can see if he fakes. If he mystifies to avoid a straight statement, which is very different from breaking so-called rules of syntax or grammar to make an effect which can be obtained in no other way, the writer takes a longer time to be known as a fake and other writers who are afflicted by the same necessity will praise him in their own defense. True mysticism should not be confused with incompetence in writing which seeks to mystify where there is no mystery but is really only the necessity to fake to cover lack of knowledge or the inability to state clearly. Mysticism implies a mystery and there are many mysteries; but incompetence is not one of them; nor is overwritten journalism made literature by the injection of a false epic quality. Remember this too: all bad writers are in love with the epic.
-Ernest Hemingway

Publishing 3.0: James Altucher and what we can learn from his self-publishing success

James AltucherI read How to Self-Publish a Bestseller: Publishing 3.0 and LOVED it. So much so, that I took notes, and am sharing with y’all.

I admire James for letting it all hang out. He does this day after day. It’s what made him a successful blogger, author, and entrepreneur.

Here are my notes in note-form (that is to say, disorganized and unedited)

The distinction today is not between traditional and self-publishing, it’s between professional and unprofessional publishing

Benefits of professional self-publishing (ie, do it yourself, and do it well):
1. More money – you own rights, can do special packages, higher royalty
2. Control over design
3. Faster process – up to a year
4. Control over content (say what you want)
5. Avoid “bad things in life”

Here’s how you do it

1. BUILD A PLATFORM
MUSTS: significant Twitter, Facebook, and blog following

2. HOW TO BUILD IT
“if it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead”
“sincere voices will always rise to the top”

3. WRITE
Write 500-2000 words every day
High quality foreword – Dick Costolo (Twitter) wrote his

4. KNOW WHAT YOU WANT
you can do it the easy way – Amazon Createspace
OR, you can put out best possible product, follow “Publishing 3.0”. this is more expensive and requires more effort

Publishing 1.0 – traditional publishers like Random House, Simon & Schuster
Publishing 2.0 – self-publishing like Amazon CreateSpace (15mm books published last year, vs 300K 10 years ago…not a typo)
Publishing 3.0 – “self-publish better, more successfully, better edited, better designed, better marketed, and make more money than if you go any other route”; much of the best publishing talent (editors, designers, marketers) do lots of freelance

5. EDITING
hired 2 copy editors
hired Command Z Editing for content/structure editing. worked with Nils Parker who previously edited Tucker Max, Naval Ravikant, Ryan Holliday; together they did 15 rewrites

6. DESIGN
Erin Tyler Design – found a great cover designer, managed interior design process

7. AUDIOBOOK
a. helps credibility for your print and ebook
b. for his topic (self-help-ish), people love listening while driving to work
Tucker Max recommended John Marshall Media – James improvised quite a bit, made a fresh product
reading highlights writing that isn’t working, rewrote 20% of the book after the experience

8. TITLE
chose a bunch that he liked, ran FB ad campaigns, “Choose Yourself!” was clearly #1 based on click-thrus

9. MARKETING
used Ryan Holliday’s Brasscheck
scheduled 60 podcasts, radio interviews, speaking engagements, guest blog posts
Reddit AMA – 3K comments, 1mm views
Ryan’s co created slideshare preso – 300K views
First ever bitcoin-only pre-release
Video trailer scripted and edited by Simplifilm
“the offer” – if you proved that you bought and read it, James would refund your money

10. FOREIGN RIGHTS
2 Seas Agency – In June, the first month the book was out, Marleen Seegers from 2 Seas sold rights to: Brazil (USD 2500), China (USD 4300), Korea (USD 5000)

11. OTHER MERCHANDISE
I also made a poster that is designed like the cover of the book when you look from afar but when you get close to it you see clearly all 67,000 words of the book

12. THE NUMBERS
Here are my advances on my first mainstream-published five books in order: $5,000, $7500, $30,000, $100,000, and $30,000

In the first week “Choose Yourself!” was out I got onto the WSJ Bestsellers List with about 10,000 copies sold

Altogether in the first month I sold 44,294 copies between my paperback, audio, ebook, and even hardcover versions

at $4.99 per copy, with ~60% royalties (averaged), he cleared 6-figures in the first month, not including foreign rights and special offers. not bad! :)