James Altucher: The wall between comfort and success

Talk about a jack-of-all-trades. This week on “Aim Higher,” I sat down with James Altucher. James is a stock trader, investor, writer, and entrepreneur. He’s worked for Showtime and HBO and newspapers. He owns a comedy club and he’s been a stand-up comedian himself. He’s a chess master. What’s the one thing that ties it all together? James says, “I focus on what I love doing, and make sure the idea is sustainable.” That’s it. And to do that, he told me that he takes many small, survivable risks. He describes risks as “the wall between the comfort zone and success.” Risk feels uncomfortable, he told me, because we can sense that there are failures on the other side of that wall. But that’s why success is there, too—because it’s not a crowded place. I’m grateful for having had such a wide-ranging conversation with James. In fact, we discussed gratitude and how we need to set ourselves “difficult gratitude problems” in order to build a capacity for more gratitude. James has a unique, powerful and always helpful view on leadership and life. Listen in. You won’t be disappointed.