Writer James Altucher is an entrepreneur, podcaster, and wall street investor.
This life hack is so easy it’s trivial. I am almost embarrassed to share it because it’s so obvious.
And yet so few people do it and this one technique has made me millions of dollars.
That almost sounds scammy: “It’s made me millions of dollars”. What can I say about that? I was dead broke 18 months later. A life hack is not a way to figure out life.
I’ll get to that in a moment.
One time I started a company. I had millions of users and I was profitable. But I wanted to sell the company.
I had a meeting with a guy who was a new CFO of a company I was partnered with.
LISTEN: Gretchen Rubin’s life admin hacks on The Well. (Post continues…)
LIFE HACK:
I researched him on Google, in advance. I saw that he went to Grinnell College.
I Googled Grinnell College.
I saw that Warren Buffett was on the board of trustees of Grinnell and, because of that, this college I had never heard of before that day, had the best investment return of any college endowment in the country. In the world.
So I sat down with the new CFO and his boss, the CEO. My business was a website related to investing. So investing was part of the topic. The CEO wanted me to meet the CFO so later he could get the CFO’s opinion of me and what to do with my business.
First thing I said, “it’s a pleasure to meet someone from Grinnell.”
Top Comments
I have a feeling and have experienced that when people who have 10million dollars say they are 'broke', it has a completely different meaning when someone who is ACTUALLY broke. This man probably means that whilst he still had his mercedes/porsche, apartment, rolex, cocaine; that his credit cards were maxed at that moment and he was in a transition period of rolling over into this next company.... These people are never really 'broke', it's just something they say while they are slugging down their chivas, whilst their cleaner is finishing cleaning their third bathroom as they wait on the balcony overlooking the harbour. It's completely disingenuous and misleading for these people to use the word 'broke'.
Agreed. True financial destitution is never described as 'broke'. Saying you're 'broke' is a glib toss-off used by the shiny slithery people who consider themselves deprived because they have to fly business instead of first. When you actually have nothing, the last thing you do is talk about it.
EX-EFFING-zactly
BROKE is;. Cutting open tubes of toothpaste to clean your teeth.
Broke is adding 50c noodles to 100grams of mince to try and make it a (relatively healthy) meal for your kids.
Broke is; finding the most expensive thing you purchased in your shopping as a little luxury (decent quality toilet paper or actual shampoo for your hair because u are using a cake of shitty soap to wash your hair) and taking it back to the place you purchased it, to get your money back to give your kids their book money for school.
Broke is;. Going to a servo and putting $5 worth of petrol in your car and pretending you have the money on your banking ATM card when you don't, then suffering the embarrassment of filling out forms to say you'll come back and pay it on your pay day. JUST so you can get the kids to school.
Broke is;. Grating that cake of shitty soap into your bra bag so you can somehow wash the kids uniform.
BROKE is so much more of this kind of thing. Not because we want to but because we totally have to.
I do Google people I am soon to meet. However I have always felt uncertain whether to mention the details I find - is it admitting to a bit of online stalking, or does it look clever and interested?