Today I’m going to talk about what an idiot I am.

Getting started with investing, it was one thing to make some random trades in the Internet boom.

But then to make the leap to professional investing!

It starts with making money with my own money. Which is hard enough. Painful. But then to make money investing for others. UGLY! I’ve been doing it now for over 20 years. I really hate it. But I love it. Hate it. Love it.

Hate it.

Why do I do this? Sometimes I wish I would take on simple hobbies and passions.

Ralph Maccio in the show, Cobra Kai, is a car dealer and has a hobby of pruning Bonsai trees.

He needs the hobby because he is horribly mediocre at his other passion, which is karate. And God forbid he developed a passion for acting because he would not be good at that.

Bonsai trees. Stamp collecting. Stamps don’t really disappoint you.

I started writing books in 1990. I wrote novels and short stories. It’s hard to sit down and write. Even this article, 32 years later.

From 1990-1995 I wrote about 50 short stories. And 4 novels.

For each short story, I was very aggressive (and overly confident) about publishing them. All of them. I was the greatest writer! I had so much delusion.

I sent each story out to an average of 40 literary journals and magazines. I sent out each novel to about a dozen publishers and 30 agents.

Every single short story and novel I wrote during this period was rejected by everyone. And I’m not exaggerating the numbers. It was a full time job sending out these wastes of paper to magazines, publishers, agents. A full time job after the writing.

I was thrown out of graduate school because I was writing too much. Lost jobs, relationships, so much. And for what.

Over 2,000 rejection letters.

Since then I’ve written and published 25 books. And most of them have made me zero money. And most of them are no good. Please do not ever buy my book, SuperCash, written in 2006.

But, I am proud of one book I wrote under a pseudonym, and given the events of the past week it is appropriate to post it here:

The Autobiography of Prince George Alexander Louis Windsor

I gave myself the challenge to write AND PUBLISH a novel in a weekend. So I did it the week Prince George was born. He was three days old when I had him write his autobiography with the help of his sturdy butler, John Kenneth Rowling (get it?).

It’s a classic masterpiece by me.

35% of the reviews are 1 star reviews. People just don’t get me!

What pain. All the time. Every single day someone gets up the energy to send me a note about how much they dislike something I did.

So what did I do? I started playing poker as a hobby. No problem, let’s play a game where I lose money the first six months of playing every night. Coming home at 4am through Madison Park with all the rats out and down another $500.

So, of course, take on a more pleasant hobby and then profession. Professional investing and trading.

And later, standup comedy, chess, more writing, more businesses. You would think playing a game would be fun.

As Bruce Springsteen says, “it’s called ‘playing’ for a reason.”

In a chess tournament, you sit there for four hours, twice in one day. Eight hours where you can’t speak to anyone else and you are just alone with your thoughts, inches from your opponent.

Imagine losing twice in one day. The eight hours of self-talk. The bitterness, the anger, the five stages of grief. The feelings of being a loser and “this is like that time when I sucked at that other thing” over and over.

You have to really like yourself in order to play chess. Unfortunately, I realized I have to work on that part of my game.

You have to really like yourself to invest.

Best,

James Altucher
Contributing Editor, Investor’s Daily

P.S. I’ve failed at more things than I can count—writing, poker, trading, chess. But the one lesson that stuck is this: you only need to get it right once to change your life. That’s why I believe this Wealth Window matters. It’s a rare chance to be early, to take a shot most people won’t, and maybe get it right when it counts. Click here to see why this moment could be your turning point.