Everyone I know is nervous.
They just want to get it over with.
But don&rsquo;t just tune out now&mdash;this is the moment to stay sharp. Right now is the best time to pay attention.
I've been studying crypto since Bitcoin was $114. I worked on Wall Street for decades. I&rsquo;ve been studying politics for a LOT longer than that.
I've seen innovations, trends, and fads come and go. I've spotted unicorns, predicted bubbles, and watched fortunes made and lost.
(Sometimes my own.)
But what's happening right now makes those early days look like a warmup.
These three things - politics, crypto, and Wall Street - are creating an investment opportunity unlike anything we&rsquo;ve seen before.
It&rsquo;s simple:
Wall Street isn't just dipping its toes in crypto anymore - they're diving in headfirst. BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citibank: they're all rushing into a very specific corner of the crypto market.
In fact, the CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink - the guy who once called Bitcoin a tool for criminals - now says this trend will create "the next generation for markets."
Without going too deep into the weeds&hellip;
Wall Street wants to put literally everything onto the blockchain - stocks, bonds, real estate, fine art, Treasury bills, you name it.&nbsp;
We're talking about potentially $100 trillion worth of assets.
But here's what nobody's talking about:
Tomorrow's election could act as a massive accelerant for crypto.

ALC-Issue-11-05-24(1)

We&rsquo;re living in an epic period of change, danger, and opportunity. The economy is blowing up in our faces. The Fed is printing trillions of dollars. People are getting fired and replaced by computers. Every day, we&rsquo;re bombarded with fake news and fake data. Crypto is eating everything online. Every &ldquo;fix&rdquo; from the government makes things worse. Technology is moving too fast for anyone to keep up.
In short, the Old World has been demolished&hellip; the new world is just beginning. Alongside the greatest wealth shift in human history. We get it. People are desperate for answers and to cut through the noise. Everyone wants to become financially secure. Nobody knows who to trust. That&rsquo;s where we can help.
Altucher Confidential&nbsp;is your guide to surviving and thriving in the age of risk, chaos, and tremendous rewards. This is not a newsletter for the faint of heart. It&rsquo;s a guide West, to the new frontier. For those who are ready to hear, James Altucher and Chris Campbell provide an updated map of the new territory for generating wealth and freedom. Consider&nbsp;Altucher Confidential&nbsp;your daily guide to building, keeping, and investing your money and breaking free from the chains of rusted, old thinking.

mobile masthead-ALTCONF

AltucherConfidential

Altucher Confidential is your guide to surviving and thriving in the age of risk, chaos, and tremendous rewards. This is not a newsletter for the faint of heart.

Altucher Confidential

Election Eve: The $100T Bet

Everyone you grew up admiring&mdash;the authors, the speakers, the celebrities, the viral sensations&mdash;are either broke, divorced, in therapy, or quietly Googling &ldquo;how to declare bankruptcy without anyone finding out.&rdquo;
They checked all the boxes. The degrees. The experience. The speaking gigs. The bestsellers.
They were qualified.
Guess what? Didn&rsquo;t save them.
Last week at the Full Stack business conference, Peter Saddington put me on the spot: &ldquo;How do you succeed when you&rsquo;re not qualified?&rdquo;
Maybe that&rsquo;s the wrong question.
Because the most successful people? Weren&rsquo;t qualified at all. They were just too stubborn, too weird, or too unemployable to quit.
<ul>
<li>Steve Jobs dropped out of college after six months.</li>
<li>Richard Branson never finished high school.</li>
<li>James Dyson failed 5,126 times before inventing his vacuum. No engineering degree.</li>
<li>Quentin Tarantino worked in a video rental store. Never went to film school.</li>
<li>Walt Disney was told he &ldquo;lacked imagination&rdquo; and got fired from a newspaper.</li>
</ul>
Every time I was too naive to know it was supposed to be impossible, I pulled it off.
The moment I started listening to the experts &mdash; believing I needed permission, credentials, qualifications &mdash; it actually became impossible.
Here&rsquo;s what I told Peter&mdash;with the biggest secret (the one that changed my life) at the end.
<h3>Secret #1: Being Unqualified Is a Superpower</h3>
When you have zero qualifications, you&rsquo;ve got nothing to protect&mdash;no title to cling to, no reputation to uphold.
You get to ask dumb questions, try crazy things, break rules, reinvent the rules, and then eat lunch alone because everyone thinks you&rsquo;re weird.
That&rsquo;s the edge.
The people who &ldquo;know better&rdquo; are often trapped by their expertise. You? You&rsquo;re free. You&rsquo;re dangerous. And you&rsquo;re going to surprise everyone&mdash;including yourself.
Example: I started a web company in my 20s with no clue how business worked. No business plan. No suits. Just pure, dumb enthusiasm. Somehow, we landed HBO as a client and eventually sold the thing. Why? Because I didn&rsquo;t know I couldn&rsquo;t.
<h3>Secret #2: Rational Optimism Beats Everything</h3>
Not delusional optimism. Not &ldquo;The Secret&rdquo; vision-boarding-manifest-a-Lambo. Rational optimism.
I was broke, depressed, and living in Airbnbs I couldn&rsquo;t afford. But I&rsquo;d ask myself: What tiny action can I take today that makes tomorrow slightly less awful? That&rsquo;s rational optimism. You anchor your hope in reality. Then you do something about it.
Every success in my life started with one optimistic thought&mdash;and then one uncomfortable action.
<h3>Secret #3: Exercise Your Idea Muscle</h3>
Feeling unqualified often means feeling idea-less. Solution? I write down 10 ideas a day. Every day. Even when I don&rsquo;t want to. Especially then.
Most of the ideas are garbage. Doesn&rsquo;t matter. The process works. You get more creative. You build confidence.
One of those dumb little lists turned into a company I sold for $10 million. Another turned into a book that sold 100,000 copies. Most? Trash. But trash is compost. And compost grows things.
<h3>Secret #4: Choose Yourself</h3>
Stop waiting for someone to pick you. The college, the boss, the publisher, the investor. Forget them. They don&rsquo;t know what they&rsquo;re doing either.
Start a blog. Launch the podcast. Write the book. Sell the thing. The tools are free. The gatekeepers are gone. The only permission slip you need is the one you write yourself.
<h3>Secret #5: Make Yourself Useful</h3>
Hate networking? Me too. So don&rsquo;t &ldquo;network.&rdquo; Be useful. Send someone 10 ideas for their business. Introduce two cool people. Post something helpful online. Show your work, don&rsquo;t just talk about it.
When you&rsquo;re useful, people remember. And when people remember, doors open.
<h3>Qualifications Are a Lie</h3>
Everyone&rsquo;s winging it. Everyone&rsquo;s scared they&rsquo;re about to be found out. So here&rsquo;s the truth: You&rsquo;re already qualified.
Because you&rsquo;re willing to try.
That&rsquo;s rare.
So raise your hand. Start the thing. Say yes, even when your brain screams &ldquo;Who do you think you are?&rdquo;
You&rsquo;re someone who&rsquo;s doing it anyway.
And that&rsquo;s exactly how people succeed.
<a href="https://lnk.to/HTSZQ01">Listen to the full podcast here</a>.

ALC-Issue-04-29-25(1)

Why Success Gurus Die in Debt

Most never see a prison cell.
But most live in one anyway. Trapped by identity, fear, resentment, addiction to validation.
In 2009, Damon West stepped into a real Texas prison&mdash;steel bars, concrete walls&mdash;and a reputation: the Al Capone of Dallas.
They gave him 65 years. &ldquo;Six dimes and a nickel&rdquo; in prison slang.
BUT
While most of us rot away in comfort, Damon got free in hell. And in 2015, they let him out.
I had him on my podcast to talk about it&mdash;and about his new book, Six Dimes and a Nickel.
I expected a prison story. What I got was a blueprint for rebuilding a life from below zero.
Let&rsquo;s rewind.
<h3>Bad Mailman</h3>
Damon was a college quarterback from Port Arthur, Texas. He had the golden ticket: talent, charisma, a full ride to a Division I school.
But when a shoulder injury ended his career, he spiraled&mdash;fast. Then meth showed up, seductive and clingy.
Burglary was how he kept her happy.
He dressed up like a mailman to case luxury condos and used spy tools like peephole reversers.
&ldquo;When I broke into people&rsquo;s homes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t just steal their property. I stole their sense of security. I can&rsquo;t give it back to them. I can&rsquo;t change it.&rdquo;
One of his victims was a woman whose fianc&eacute; had died in Iraq. Damon stole the engagement ring&mdash;without realizing what it was.
Years later, she emailed him. Four words: &ldquo;Damon, I forgive you.&rdquo; That email changed his life.
But Damon&rsquo;s pivot didn&rsquo;t come from forgiveness. It came from a word he told the parole board when they asked what kind of man he wanted to become:
Useful.
He didn&rsquo;t say rich. Or innocent. Or even free.
Useful.
Inside prison, he taught inmates how to read. Picked up trash when no one else would. And started spreading four words they&rsquo;d never heard: &ldquo;I believe in you.&rdquo; 
Those four words became a movement. A book. And, thanks to one old inmate, a metaphor that took on a life of its own:
<h3>Be a Coffee Bean </h3>
Prison&mdash;like life&mdash;is a pot of boiling water.
You can let it make you soft like a carrot. Hard like an egg. Or&mdash;you can transform it, like a coffee bean changes the water itself.
That became Damon&rsquo;s mantra.
He fought&mdash;literally fought&mdash;to live it. When you walk into a maximum-security Texas prison refusing to join a gang, you're marked.
Damon took beating after beating. He lost most of those fights. But he kept showing up. Kept trying to be a coffee bean. And everyone&mdash;outside and in&mdash;eventually respected him for it.
But here&rsquo;s what hit me the hardest: Damon told me, &ldquo;The hardest prison to do time in, James, is the prison in your mind. I meet more people out here in the free world who are locked up than I ever did when I served time in a real prison.&rdquo; 
Most people never see a prison yard.
But they serve time anyway&mdash;in jobs they hate, lives they fake, fears they feed. Confined in roles they didn&rsquo;t choose and lives they&rsquo;re too scared to leave.
Damon got out. And now he&rsquo;s showing others how to do it.
And yeah&mdash;I needed to hear it. Maybe you do too.
Listen to his story on my latest podcast.
It&rsquo;s worth it.
It just might set you free.
<a href="https://lnk.to/DWHWSZQ01">Click here to listen</a>.

ALC-Issue-04-24-25

How to Escape Prison

The NYSE is one giant garage sale with 8,000 things to dig through.
Most are dusty old lamps.
But this one? A framed Picasso buried in the $5 bin.
It&rsquo;s quietly positioned at the crossroads of three megatrends&mdash;and no one&rsquo;s talking about it (yet).
That&rsquo;s why I put $50,000 of my own money into it.
Look, I&rsquo;ve played every role in the game&mdash;founder, investor, loser, winner. I&rsquo;ve bet it all. Lost it all. Walked away. Came back.
Lived on couches. Stayed in penthouses. (Somehow) kept my hair.&nbsp;
I also called some of the biggest stock moves of the last 20 years.
But this?
This might be the most exciting setup I&rsquo;ve seen since I published The Forever Portfolio in 2008.
Back then, the world was ending. The Dow had collapsed. Bear Stearns and Lehman were gone. People were shouting &ldquo;sell everything!&rdquo;
I laid out a blueprint for finding the next generation of multibagger stocks. A handful of those picks went up more than 10,000%.
Today? A similar setup has already happened.
The market is a mess. Inflation, interest rates, tariffs, tension, drama&hellip;
It&rsquo;s the perfect storm.
And that&rsquo;s when you strike.
<h3>So What&rsquo;s the Opportunity? </h3>
Let&rsquo;s just say this:
<ul>
<li>It&rsquo;s small (under $500 million).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>It mines Bitcoin (and holds thousands of them).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>It recently launched a new division focused on renting out its AI infrastructure to help companies build their own ChatGPT-style LLMs.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>It doubled its revenue because of that.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Its balance sheet? Stronger than most Fortune 500s.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>And its stock? Dirt cheap.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Smart money (BlackRock, Citadel, Millennium Management) is loading up.</li>
</ul>
In short, this company sits at the exact intersection of AI, crypto, and hypergrowth stocks&mdash; my three favorite megatrends for the next 5 years.
I call this the &ldquo;trifecta trade.&rdquo;
And tomorrow, Thursday April 24 at 11AM ET, I&rsquo;m giving it away. For free.
I&rsquo;m calling the event 2025&rsquo;s Ultimate Money Move.
If you tune in, you&rsquo;ll get:
A.] The name and ticker of the stock I put $50,000 of my own money into
B.] &nbsp;My full thesis on why I believe this could be a 10-bagger
C.] The opportunity to access my Forever Portfolio 2.0 &mdash; a handpicked collection of 10 elite microcaps I believe could rise 1,000% over the next 1&ndash;2 years.
And a lot more.
See you tomorrow.

ALC-Issue-04-23.25

The $50,000 Bet I Just Made

In 2008, I begged my publishers not to publish my book.
It was called The Forever Portfolio.

<div class="image-table" style="float: right; padding-left: 20px;"><img src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5lXgt6jB3OMNNyFakH1apA/7e469261b5f5677104a447f979039b9c/Forever-Portfolio.png" alt="" width="250" align="center" /></div>

The idea was simple: find the unstoppable trends and quietly buy the companies riding those waves. Not to get rich overnight. Not to beat hedge funds.
Just to never worry again.
It was optimistic and people hated me for it. No one wants to be optimistic during a full-blown meltdown.
I knew this and begged my publisher to wait to publish it. They didn&rsquo;t listen. I sold like 40 copies that year.
But now, in 2025, those 40 people who bought the book are probably pretty glad they did.
The book named 11 stocks I predicted would become the market&rsquo;s next leaders.
Google... Meta... Starbucks... Costco&hellip; and more.
The stocks in The Forever Portfolio have since seen peak gains as high as 2,314%... 3,767%... even 14,961%.
Life-changing returns. And it was all thanks to the unique position we were in in 2008.
Here&rsquo;s what else I predicted back then.
Chapter 2: &ldquo;Computer viruses will live forever.&rdquo; In 2008, bots were this weird underground threat. Today? Malware is AI-generated, decentralized, and sold as a service. Your phone is already infected. An estimated 50% of the internet is bots. BOTS!
Chapter 3: &ldquo;Inoculate your portfolio against a global pandemic.&rdquo; Yeah. That happened. Twelve years later. The world shut down, the markets cracked, and suddenly people were Googling &ldquo;how to buy Moderna stock&rdquo; from their basement office-slash-toilet.
Chapter 4: &ldquo;Diamonds, chocolate, and Botox will always sell.&rdquo; I mean, look around. We&rsquo;re on Ozempic and flexing at Barry&rsquo;s Bootcamp while impulse-buying $18 chocolate bars made with &ldquo;ancestral cacao.&rdquo; Luxury didn&rsquo;t die&mdash;it got direct-to-consumer and charged you for shipping.
Chapter 6: &ldquo;Tattoo removal will become a billion-dollar industry.&rdquo; It has. Because regret is a feature, not a bug. Also, sleeves don&rsquo;t pair well with child custody hearings.
Chapter 9: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no known cure.&rdquo; For Alzheimer&rsquo;s. For obesity. For digital addiction. I wasn&rsquo;t trying to scare anyone. I was just trying to say: the world doesn&rsquo;t usually fix things&mdash;it manages them. Investing in the management and the potential for a cure is where the asymmetrical bets are.
I could keep going.
I wrote about the long-term health effects of urbanization and the economics of crime. I even wrote an entire chapter about death.
You want a forever portfolio? You better own a company that sells caskets. I mentioned one stock, Service Corporation International (SCI), by name.
$10,000 in SCI in 2008 would be worth $219,718. If you reinvested the dividends? ~$275,000.
Either way, you would&rsquo;ve clobbered the S&amp;P 500.
But here&rsquo;s the thing I didn&rsquo;t get right.
<h2 class="subhead">Forever Portfolio 2.0</h2>
Back then, I wanted to build a portfolio that let you sleep at night. Now I want to build a portfolio that lets you wake up excited.
So I&rsquo;m doing a full update. Not a sequel. Not a new book. (Yet.)
Just a living, breathing, real-world look at what the next 15 years will actually demand&mdash;from your money, your time, and your sanity.
The trends are still there&mdash;stronger than ever. Aging. Autonomy. Digital identity. Fear. Safety. Faith. The same forces that shaped the last 20 years will shape the next 50.
But I want to show you where those trends are going.
Not as a guru. As a guy who once (or twice) lost everything and spent six months Googling, &ldquo;Can stress actually kill me?&rdquo; (It can.)
The first Forever Portfolio was a survival plan. This one is a permission slip.
To live better. Invest simpler. And finally stop checking your phone during weddings.
While things haven&rsquo;t gotten nearly as bad as they were 17 years ago&hellip;
Thanks to the recent market volatility, we&rsquo;re sitting on a rare second chance to make the same kind of gains.

alc-hero-img-04-22-25

You’ll Never Work Again If This Works (Again)

You walk in. They close the door. There&rsquo;s that weird &ldquo;we-hope-you&rsquo;re-doing-well&rdquo; smile.
Uh-oh.
You're about to get fired.
They start talking. You&rsquo;re not even listening. You&rsquo;re just thinking about how fast you can clear your browser history before IT locks you out.
I&rsquo;ve been fired from just about every job I&rsquo;ve ever had.
&rarr; HBO fired me after I sold them a show.
&rarr; The hedge fund I co-founded kicked me out.
&rarr; I even got booted from a company after I sold it for millions.
And you know what I learned? Firing someone isn&rsquo;t always about incompetence.
Sometimes it&rsquo;s about control.
And that&rsquo;s exactly what we&rsquo;re watching play out&mdash;right now&mdash;with Trump and Jerome Powell.
Trump just threatened to &ldquo;terminate&rdquo; Powell.
CNBC says &ldquo;he can&rsquo;t do that.&rdquo;
Fox says &ldquo;he absolutely should.&rdquo;
Meanwhile, everyone&rsquo;s missing what&rsquo;s really happening in the markets. Spoiler: the biggest setup for stocks in decades. 
Maybe ever.
And, yes, it has everything to do with what Trump&rsquo;s doing right now.
But not just any stocks. Many stocks&mdash;some of which you might already own&mdash;are going to get left behind.
That part is crucial.
So let me show you why I&rsquo;m ghosting everything on my calendar this week. (And setting up a livestream on Thursday to talk all about it.)
First, the question everyone&rsquo;s asking&hellip;
<h3>Can Trump Really Fire Powell?</h3>
Trump sees Powell as an obstacle.
But can he really fire him?
Legally? Not easily.
The Fed Chair serves a four-year term, and you need &ldquo;cause&rdquo; to remove him. And nobody knows what &ldquo;cause&rdquo; actually means.
Does it mean corruption? Or just bad decisions?
If Powell hikes rates into a recession, does that count?
Nobody knows. It&rsquo;s never been tested. No President has ever tried it. Not Nixon. Not LBJ. Not even Reagan.
Trump might be the first.
But even if he doesn&rsquo;t go nuclear, he still has options.
Option one: Wait until Powell&rsquo;s term ends in 2026 and appoint a replacement who&rsquo;s ready to do everything Powell won&rsquo;t.
But Trump&rsquo;s not a patient man.
Option two: He could nominate a &ldquo;shadow chair&rdquo; now. Someone the markets know will be Powell&rsquo;s successor. Someone who goes on TV and signals what Trump wants him to. Someone who says, &ldquo;When I take over, we&rsquo;re doing this.&rdquo;
Wall Street listens to signals. That&rsquo;s how the Fed works now. It&rsquo;s all about expectations.
That&rsquo;s how you move the game without touching the board.
Option three: This one&rsquo;s spicy&hellip; and a lot more speculative.
There&rsquo;s a Supreme Court case on the docket this year (Trump v. Wilcox)&mdash;one that could redefine presidential control over independent agencies.
If the court rules in Trump&rsquo;s favor, it could change everything. No more &ldquo;for cause&rdquo; clause. No more guardrails.
It would mean Trump could legally fire Powell&hellip; with the stroke of a pen.
That&rsquo;s not just a shift in monetary policy. That&rsquo;s a new era.
For the record, I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;ll happen.
Because&hellip;
<h3>Here&rsquo;s What Everyone&rsquo;s Missing </h3>
Trump doesn&rsquo;t need to fire Powell at all.
Because the pressure alone is already having an effect.
Behind the scenes, markets are twitching. And capital is starting to move. My team and I are watching it in real-time.
Here&rsquo;s the thing&hellip;
The smart money isn&rsquo;t moving out of fear.
But out of anticipation.
And they&rsquo;re shifting into the parts of the market that have been ignored.
Meaning? Right now is the BEST time to pay attention.

ALC-Issue-04-21-25(1)

Everyone’s Wrong About Trump and the Fed

Tax panic is setting in.
You&rsquo;re knee-deep in old Christmas decorations, yelling at a box labeled &ldquo;Receipts 2019.&rdquo;
Then you find it. The book. The one nobody told you existed. How did this get here? 
It&rsquo;s your great-great-grandfather&rsquo;s autobiography.
Suddenly, taxes can wait.
It&rsquo;s got gossip, tragedy, war stories, love stories, how they made soup, how they lost everything in a card game in 1894. Your bloodline suddenly makes sense.
You&rsquo;re not just reading. You&rsquo;re time traveling.
Look&hellip;
I WISH I could find something like this. Forget secret trusts. I want to read my ancestor&rsquo;s thoughts on love, failure, money, and why he left home without pants one day in 1911.
I don&rsquo;t even know my great-great-grandparent&rsquo;s names, let alone what their days were like. How they were born. How they lived. How they died.
That&rsquo;s why I just recorded the most important podcast of the year. 
Today, I&rsquo;m going to convince you&mdash;no, I&rsquo;m going to plead with you&mdash;to write your autobiography. Or at least something close.
And it&rsquo;s not because I want to make you think you&rsquo;re the next Hemingway.
It&rsquo;s because no one&mdash;and I mean no one&mdash;has lived your life but you. And in a world being swallowed by AI, algorithms, and synthetic voices&hellip;
Your story is the one thing it can never fake.
<h3>Do It Now. Here&rsquo;s Why. </h3>
Most people think autobiographies are for celebrities. Presidents. Rock stars. People with yachts named after failed marriages.
Wrong.
You could be a baker from Buffalo or an Uber driver in Tallahassee&mdash;your story matters. Not just to your great-great-grandkids, who will probably read it while drinking algae smoothies on Mars&mdash;but to you.
Writing your story forces you to look at your life as a movie worth watching.
And suddenly, you're not just surviving. You're editing. Directing. Scoring it like Hans Zimmer.
Here&rsquo;s a dirty little publishing secret: The best books? They&rsquo;re all autobiographies in disguise.
You think Atomic Habits is about habits? No. It&rsquo;s about James Clear getting smashed in the face with a baseball bat and building his brain&mdash;and his life&mdash;back one tiny step at a time.
That's an autobiography.
You think The Things They Carried is just about Vietnam? No. Tim O&rsquo;Brien bled that book. That&rsquo;s his soul on the page, camouflaged as fiction.
Even The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs&mdash;which is about crossword puzzles, sudoku, and Japanese puzzle boxes&mdash;is really about AJ's obsession. His quirks. His family. His year of unraveling the world&rsquo;s weirdest minds.
That&rsquo;s autobiography wearing a sudoku t-shirt.
And guess what? AI can&rsquo;t do that.
AI can regurgitate a summary of World War II. But it can&rsquo;t tell you what it felt like to eat soup from a tin while bombs fell 40 miles away and you were thinking about your mother.
<h3>Let Me Ask You This: Who Are You?</h3>
Seriously.
Write it down. Who are you? 
You&rsquo;re the only person on the planet who can answer it.
James Frey wrote A Million Little Pieces&mdash;a memoir so intense Oprah invited him to her show and then publicly shamed him when she found out parts were fiction.
And still&hellip; it sold millions. Because it was real. It was raw. People saw themselves in it.
Same with Annie Duke. Poker champion. Brilliant thinker.
Wrote Thinking in Bets.
I didn&rsquo;t read it because I wanted poker tips. I read it because I wanted to know how someone uses probabilistic thinking to survive life.
My bestselling book, Choose Yourself, is basically a memoir of me failing, going broke, nearly dying, and then&hellip; choosing myself.
You know what happened when I wrote about failure? People thanked me.
People still write to me and say that book saved their life. And all I did was write down what happened.
You don&rsquo;t have to be Freud or Viktor Frankl or even Freakin&rsquo; Batman. You just have to write the truth. Your truth.
<h3>Five Easy Steps </h3>
So here&rsquo;s your assignment:
<ol>
<li><a href="https://lnk.to/WYSWYA101">Listen to the podcast</a>.</li>
<li>Write down the five most important events in your life.</li>
<li>Then, the five most influential people.</li>
<li>Then, three strengths. Three weaknesses.</li>
<li>Then ask yourself: what are the themes here? Where&rsquo;s the story?</li>
</ol>
Maybe you write a full memoir. Maybe you write a &ldquo;mini memoir&rdquo; about one crazy summer.
Or maybe you write a book about puzzles, parenting, or poker&mdash;and slip your story in like a Trojan horse.
You&rsquo;re not doing this for Random House. You&rsquo;re doing it for your future readers.
And maybe that reader is your great-great-granddaughter, sitting in a spaceship, reading about how you once got dumped, lived in a van, and figured out how to turn grief into a superpower.
Or maybe that reader is you.
Five years from now.
Needing a reminder of how strong you are.
So write the damn book.
And if you don&rsquo;t know where to start, start here:
&ldquo;I was born.&rdquo;
Then tell me what happened next.
<a href="https://lnk.to/WYSWYA101">Subscribe to the show</a>. Rate it. Review it. And write your story&mdash;because no one else can.

ALC-issue-04-17-25-featured.png

Don’t Let AI Steal Your Voice

Most think life&rsquo;s a straight line:
Get a job &rarr; Pay mortgage &rarr; Save a little &rarr; Die tired.
Many walk the line.
Some carve new paths.
Chris Hutchins lit the whole thing on fire and left.
Look&hellip;
I&rsquo;ve recorded more than 1,000 episodes of The James Altucher Show.
I&rsquo;ve interviewed billionaires, chess champions, Navy SEALs, psychopaths, comedians, artists, hedge fund managers.
I&rsquo;ve heard every productivity hack, every &ldquo;if I only knew then&hellip;&rdquo; story, every &ldquo;here&rsquo;s how I made $100 million&rdquo; blueprint.
And still&hellip; this one shocked me.
Chris Hutchins didn&rsquo;t build an empire. He didn&rsquo;t invent a billion-dollar app. He didn&rsquo;t have a near-death experience and write a memoir about it.
He just figured out how to game life better than anyone I&rsquo;ve ever met.
He&rsquo;s not &ldquo;scamming the system.&rdquo; He&rsquo;s not being shady. He&rsquo;s just turning life into an arbitrage machine &mdash; and he's a genius at it. 
That&rsquo;s why I had to have him on the podcast. (Link below.)
<h3>Travel the World for Free</h3>
Chris lived out of Airbnbs for years to avoid leases, furniture, and all the traditional headaches of adulting.
He buys Costco gold bars using credit card rewards and executive membership points, then sells the gold back at near market price &mdash; sometimes profiting $500 in a single trip to Costco.
He finds gift cards for 20&ndash;30% off retail and stacks them with cashback credit cards, effectively giving himself a personal inflation hedge.
And the kicker?
He has perfect credit.
Let me repeat: The guy has opened dozens of credit cards, buys thousands of dollars of gold, loops through gift card arbitrage, books international travel using points, and he still has near-perfect credit.
But here's the thing I respect most about him: he's doing this not to get rich quick &mdash; but to live well without selling his soul.
He didn&rsquo;t want to be the guy in a cubicle, grinding for decades just to save 10% on a 401(k) match. He wanted freedom. So he optimized for it.
Chris's hacks aren&rsquo;t about deprivation. They&rsquo;re about leverage.
Some of my favorites from our conversation:
<ul>
<li>The &ldquo;5-minute rule&rdquo; to stop binge-eating cookies</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The 80/80 marriage hack to end chore arguments forever</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The Airbnb image trick to find the same rental cheaper on other platforms</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Why buying $200 gift cards at Lowe&rsquo;s with the right credit card can net you $150+ in pure cash</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>How a listener saved over $1,000 by claiming forgotten money from a state website (and how 20% of people can do the same)</li>
</ul>
That&rsquo;s not just scrappy. That&rsquo;s genius.
<h3>Reality is Plastic </h3>
This isn&rsquo;t just &ldquo;life hacks&rdquo; &mdash; it&rsquo;s a whole new way to think about money, time, and how to actually play the game.
If you're a young person trying to get ahead&hellip; if you're stuck in a job and want out&hellip; if you just want to save a few hundred bucks without being miserable&hellip;
You need to <a href="https://lnk.to/SLATHCH01">listen to this episode</a>.
I learned more from Chris in 60 minutes than I have from most business books.
Check out the podcast <a href="https://lnk.to/SLATHCH01">here</a> for all the tricks.
And yes, I&rsquo;ve already told my daughters they&rsquo;re required to listen.

ALC-issue-04-14-25-featured

Live Free or Die Paying Retail

Lint. Paint drying. Your weird cousin&rsquo;s stamp collection.
Most times, I&rsquo;d rather talk about literally anything else than tariffs. But right now, I can&rsquo;t think of anything more interesting. 
Tariffs are whipsawing the markets. They&rsquo;re making people scream at each other on TV.
They&rsquo;re lighting X on fire.
You&rsquo;ve got billionaires arguing with baristas, hedge fund managers panicking like it&rsquo;s 2008, and the Fed's &ldquo;Uncertainty Index&rdquo; just hit its highest level ever.
Higher than COVID. Higher than 2008. Higher than 9/11.
Think about that.
AND YET&hellip;
I&rsquo;d bet most people still don&rsquo;t even know how a tariff works. (But they&rsquo;re more scared than they were during a literal global shutdown? What.)
So I made a podcast episode.
In this episode (link below), I went over everything most people are actually wondering but are too embarrassed to ask:
<ul>
<li>What are tariffs?</li>
<li>Are they going to wreck the economy?</li>
<li>Are they some brilliant 4D chess move from Trump?</li>
<li>Why are people acting like this is either the apocalypse or the Renaissance?</li>
</ul>
And I want you to know: this isn&rsquo;t a political discussion.
I don&rsquo;t care who you voted for. Both parties love tariffs. Reagan, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden&mdash;tariffs are the one thing they all high-five over behind closed doors.
No team colors here.
Just facts.
<h3>The Market Fear Wasn&rsquo;t About Tariffs </h3>
Trump&rsquo;s current tariff strategy has three goals:
A.] Reshore manufacturing
B.] Raise revenue (maybe to lower income taxes)
C.] Use tariffs as leverage to negotiate other deals
And it&rsquo;s already working: 70 countries called within days of the announcement. Vietnam, India, Japan, the EU, Taiwan, Canada, and more want to talk.
But the market panic wasn&rsquo;t about tariffs. Markets don&rsquo;t crash on facts. They crash on not knowing what happens next.
The market was reacting to not knowing what&rsquo;s going to happen. And when fear takes the wheel, logic jumps out the window.
So I also talk about:
<ul>
<li>What these new tariffs actually mean for the economy (and your wallet)</li>
<li>What&rsquo;s next for the stock market</li>
<li>Why AI, crypto, and yes, Bitcoin will thrive in the coming months</li>
<li>One blue chip company that could win big, and why some micro-cap stocks look sexy right now</li>
</ul>
Here&rsquo;s the most important part.
<h3>Why I&rsquo;m Not Scared </h3>
Most people forget what a real recession looks like.
I lived through the crashes. I was at the World Trade Center on 9/11. I was on CNBC in 2008 when banks were collapsing like dominos. I watched oil go negative in 2020.
I know panic when I see it.
Right now? The volatility doesn&rsquo;t match the facts.
So, whether you&rsquo;re terrified of tariffs or think Trump just saved America&mdash;<a href="https://lnk.to/JATAF01">listen to this episode</a>.
And if you still think tariffs are boring after that? Fine. But at least you&rsquo;ll know one thing:
Innovation will win. Bet accordingly.

ALC-Issue-04-09-25(1)

Tariffs Will Fail or Succeed—But This is Guaranteed

&ldquo;He sells cars.&rdquo;
Peter Navarro, Trump&rsquo;s top trade advisor, dismissed Elon Musk on Fox News.
The message? Stay in your lane, Space Cowboy.
In case you missed it: Musk wants &ldquo;zero tariff zones&rdquo; and global flow. Navarro wants a tariff wall and a trade sword.
Yes, Navarro&rsquo;s right&mdash;Musk is protecting his own interests.
But here&rsquo;s where he&rsquo;s wrong: Elon Musk isn&rsquo;t a car salesman.
Everyone thinks Tesla sells cars. (I used to, too.)
No, Ford sells cars.
Tesla is an AI energy empire in disguise. And if you don&rsquo;t get that yet, you&rsquo;re already five years behind.
Let me explain.
<h3>No Tariffs on Mars </h3>
Elon Musk is in the business of building the future&mdash;specifically, a multi-planetary future. Earth is the MVP. Mars is the Series A. Every product is just a stepping stone to that goal.
So what looks like a car company is actually the early stages of a planetary infrastructure company.
Here&rsquo;s what everyone misses:
By 2027, Tesla will make more money from AI energy than from cars.
You read that right. The real money is in AI energy infrastructure. And they&rsquo;re already way ahead.
Let me break this down like a startup pitch from the future:
DOJO &ndash; Tesla&rsquo;s supercomputer. This isn&rsquo;t ChatGPT for Teslas. It&rsquo;s the brain. It trains itself. It powers autonomy in cars, robots, energy systems. It&rsquo;s building its own intelligence, every day.
OPTICASTER &ndash; Sounds like a Pok&eacute;mon, but it&rsquo;s smarter. It&rsquo;s Tesla&rsquo;s AI that manages energy distribution in real time. It knows when to store energy, when to use it, and when to trade it. It&rsquo;s like having a hedge fund manager for your electricity bill.
AUTOBIDDER &ndash; This one&rsquo;s nuts. Imagine AI trading electricity the way Wall Street trades stocks&mdash;except with 100% uptime and no emotion. It&rsquo;s already being used by energy companies and even Supercharger networks to buy and sell stored energy in real-time markets. (Translation: free money.)
POWERHUB &ndash; Think of it as the command center. It&rsquo;s an AI dashboard that tells you where your power is going, where it should go, and how to make your grid smarter.
But wait, here comes the robot army&hellip;
OPTIMUS &ndash; This is the twist ending. The AI-trained humanoid robot that will literally install the future.
Picture this: Optimus building solar farms in the desert. Optimus repairing wind turbines in a storm. Optimus cleaning and maintaining your entire energy infrastructure without sleep or pay raises.
And Optimus isn&rsquo;t even on the books yet. They&rsquo;re not including it in the financials. It&rsquo;s the hidden ace.
<h3>So What&rsquo;s the Bottom Line? </h3>
<ul>
<li>In 2023, Tesla&rsquo;s energy profits were 6.5% of gross.</li>
<li>In 2024? 25%.</li>
<li>Energy revenue up 67%. Auto revenue down 7%.</li>
</ul>
And at this growth rate? By 2027, Tesla will become the Amazon Web Services of energy.
Except instead of selling server time, they&rsquo;re selling electricity... AI... autonomy... robots... and maybe even the keys to Mars.
None of this includes the upside from:
<ul>
<li>Selling AI chips (the A15 chip)</li>
<li>Offering AI-as-a-service from Dojo</li>
<li>Scaling Optimus</li>
</ul>
If you&rsquo;re still thinking about Teslas as cars, you&rsquo;re using a flip phone in the iPhone era.
My guess? At today's price, $TSLA is trading at 5&ndash;10x what 2029 earnings will be. That&rsquo;s without even pricing in the robot army.
I&rsquo;ll say it again: Tesla is not a car company.
It&rsquo;s the foundation of the next civilization.
Mars is optional.
But profits aren't.

Alc-issue-04-07-25(1)

I Was Wrong About Tesla

People say Bitcoin is the rarest currency.
No.
Time is the rarest currency.
And we&rsquo;re all broke.
That&rsquo;s what hit me (again) when I sat down with Sahil Bloom on my podcast.
Years back, Sahil had everything: A great job. Private equity. Fancy title. Big salary. He was &ldquo;winning&rdquo; the game.
But he felt poor&mdash;poor in the ways that matter. Poor in time. In connection. In health. In purpose.
And he almost let it all slip away. Until a thought experiment from Tim Ferriss changed everything:
&ldquo;How often do you see your parents?&rdquo;
&nbsp;Once a year.
&ldquo;How old are they?&rdquo;
Mid-60s.
&ldquo;Then you&rsquo;ll see them&hellip; maybe 20 more times before they die. If you&rsquo;re lucky.&rdquo;
That stopped him in his tracks.
It stopped me too.
Because we never think of time like that. We think we&rsquo;re immortal. That we&rsquo;ll have the perfect moment to fix things. But the perfect moment doesn&rsquo;t come.
Only regrets do.
So Sahil quit. Sold his house. Moved 3,000 miles. And built a new scoreboard.
He calls it The Five Types of Wealth:
<ul>
<li>Time Wealth</li>
<li>Social Wealth</li>
<li>Mental Wealth</li>
<li>Physical Wealth</li>
<li>Financial Wealth</li>
</ul>
We broke down each one in the podcast. And it&rsquo;s not fluff. He&rsquo;s not selling you a course or a mastermind.
He&rsquo;s just sharing the actual questions and frameworks that helped him go from &ldquo;finance bro burning out&rdquo; to &ldquo;dad, writer, thinker, and guy who actually likes his life now.&rdquo;
Some of my favorite moments:
<ul>
<li>How to find purpose before a crisis forces you to</li>
<li>Why doing 10% more can give you 100% more opportunity</li>
<li>The surprising truth about self-help content (and why Sahil&rsquo;s version actually works)</li>
<li>Why quitting might be the richest thing you can do</li>
</ul>
And the story that stuck out?
He told me about a factory worker who hated his job. But then he connected his job to being the father he never had for his boys. Suddenly that soul-sucking 10-hour shift became sacred.
Purpose doesn&rsquo;t need to look pretty. Sometimes, it looks like a man on an assembly line making his kids proud.
And it can change everything without needing to change anything.
If you&rsquo;ve ever felt like you&rsquo;re on the wrong train, heading to a destination you didn&rsquo;t choose, this is your stop.
&nbsp;Get off.
&nbsp;Listen to this.
&rarr;<a href="https://lnk.to/SBFOW01">The Five Types of Wealth with Sahil Bloom</a>
And do me a favor&mdash;listen all the way through.
The punchline&rsquo;s not at the top. It&rsquo;s buried in the second half. Like life.