I wanted to make my brain better so I took drugsI took Klonopin, Amytriptyline, Adderal, Percocet. Alcohol. Often at the same timeI took Adderall to be smarter. The Klonopin to handle the anxiety that comes with Adderall. The Amatryptiline to sleep because I canu2019t sleep on Adderall. The Percocet to feel happy when everything else wears off.When I started to withdraw from the Klonopin Iu2019d have nightmarish hallucinations for three or four hours while just sitting on my couch.I tried Adderall because of my drug dealer: My daughter.My life is messed up. Iu2019m doing too many things and I need help or Iu2019m going to explode.I NEEDED MY BRAIN TO BE A SUPER POWER.I run a business with $60mm+ in revenues.I do standup comedy 3u20135 times a week.I write books and articles and, of course, answers for Quora. Iu2019m going to write three books this month. They are already almost finished.I am invested in about 30 different businesses and often I have to help the CEOs with critical life/death decisions often with just a few minute update to prepare.One of my companies makes a gun that shoots out a steel cable at the speed of sound and wraps around the criminal.This is an alternative to killing people.I play chess all day long while Iu2019m on the phone with other people and I have to pretend that I am not playing chess.If you are on the phone with me, I am playing chess.The other day I called a friend of mine. He wanted to talk. He was suicidal.I hope I helped him.I won two games and lost three while we were on the phone.I do a podcast 3u20134 times a week.A podcast means eight hours of prep, 2 hours of doing the podcast. One hour of u201cpost-game analysisu201d.Four podcasts a week is a full 40 hour work week.For me, thatu2019s when my week first starts. I have another 40 hours to go.(Tyra Banks on my podcast)I used to go to sleep early. But thatu2019s been ruined by standup comedy.On nights I do standup I start being scared the second I wake up.What jokes will I tell? What will I do if the audience doesnu2019t laugh?Most comedians tell the same jokes over and over for years. That would bore me. I donu2019t understand why they let themselves get bored like that.I think of new things each time. Life is funny. Life is absurd.Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the basketball player (heck, most people donu2019t know), told me a funny story.He and Wilt Chamberlain are in an elevator. They are both 7u20322u2033.A guy gets in the elevator. A guy about my size.He looks up at them and says, u201cHowu2019s the weather up there?u201dWilt Chamberlain spits on him and then says, u201cItu2019s raining.u201dThat joke last night on stage got more laughs than all of my other jokes.EXCEPT for the one where I was on my hands and knees in front of a doctor in the audience begging him to transfer some to me.Iu2019m engaged to a sex columnist.I hate that I do so much. I need to reduce. But I donu2019t know how. In my entire life Iu2019ve only added to the things I do.Last year I reduced a lot of my activities. But then I added being an advisor on u201cBillionsu201d (TV show), which was about 30 hours a week. And I added doing standup.And, Iu2019m also paid for my ideas. I make a living on my ideas. If I had no ideas, Iu2019d be a broke drug addict.So I need to every day sharpen my brain, exercise it, maximize it, make it better than everyone elseu2019s.Sometimes friends tell me, u201cWhatever you need, Iu2019ll help you.u201dThis is what I say:If you ever see me in the street with a needle out of my arm, please just pull me out of the gutter and onto the sidewalk.They always laugh.When they laugh I know they wonu2019t help me.(my first TV credit)The brain is just a tool. Life is hard. Life needs health, love, money to survive.You can say, u201cit doesnu2019t need moneyu201d and youu2019d be right.Money doesnu2019t solve all of your problems but it does solve your money problems.And assuming your body is healthy, then you need your brain to be a highly honed killing machine.Nature doesnu2019t care if you live or die. Six billion people are competing for the worldu2019s resources.Your brain is a tool. But you need to sharpen it on steel.You need it to process the past, over deliver in the present, and predict the future.This is my brain routine. Itu2019s been a miracle for me. A thousand miracles.READ EVERY DAY. I know people have said this (u201creadingu201d is a cliche) but I have a specific reading routine every day:Read non-fiction that challenges my brain (example: Antifragile by Nasseem Taleb).Read a book about a hard game (chess, poker, backgammon, Go, scrabble, would suffice). Games are safe ways to practice the death match of life.Read QUALITY literary fiction. Usually autobiographical (Raymond Carver, Charles Bukowski, Amy Hempel, some others). This teaches you how to communicate better than anyone else.The books Iu2019m reading from this morning:u201cUltraluminousu201d by Katherine Faw (fiction)u201cWhy Buddhism is Trueu201d by Robert Wrightu201cNo Time to Spareu201d by Ursula Le Guin (essays)u201cSpringfield Confidentialu201d by Mike Reiss (memoir)WRITE 10 ideas a day.Iu2019ve written about this before but, just to summarize, the basic idea is:The IDEA MUSCLE is like any other muscle. It atrophies quickly and then you canu2019t use it without developing it.To develop it, you have to exercise it every day, no excuse.The 10 ideas are not supposed to be good ideas. They are just exercise. You WILL NOT come up with 3,650 good ideas a year. You might come up with 3 good ideas a year.Within 3u20136 months your brain will be an IDEA MACHINE, where ideas will simply flow out of you. This is helped me in so many sales and negotiating situations I canu2019t even count. Itu2019s also helped me when Iu2019ve been stopped by police speeding the wrong way down a one way street with a suspended driveru2019s license. And so on.Within a year, you will be a SUPER IDEA MACHINE and, trust me, you will start making money off of your ideas.NEVER STOP. I write down ten ideas a day. I often use the ideas. Sometimes I write: u201c10 ways Google can be betteru201d and send them to Google. Iu2019ve now visited Google, LinkedIn, Amazon, and MANY other companies because of this approach.Since I started doing this Iu2019ve generated about 40 million dollars for u201cJames, Incu201d and another billion or so for the people Iu2019ve helped.(checking my list of ideas I wrote on a waiteru2019s pad before going on stage).GAMESIntelligence is competitive. You have to learn to be a great competitor. A killer (in games).We are moving towards a u201cyou eat what you killu201d global economy. Meaning a global meritocracy.This is not a political opinion but just reality.Games teach you how to be competitive:how to find secret resources and tricks when you are losinghow to handle loss and failure as ways to learnhow to learn from mentorshow to seek out ways to continue improvinghow to find your own unique voice.how to always look for the unexpected.People say there are no new ideas. There are. The u201cunexpectedu201d is all over but we seldom see it.Every day I play chess and backgammon. Every day I read books or watch videos on chess to learn.Iu2019ve been doing this for 33 years.I donu2019t do it to be a great chessplayer. Games are the steel I use to sharpen this blunt tool that sits above my eyes.(White to move and checkmate in 2 moves. Solve 10 problems like this every day and youu2019ll sharpen your brain very fast).COMEDYI watch an hour or so of comedy every day. Not to get better at comedy. I started doing this ten years before I hit the stage to do standup comedy.Comedians are the modern philosophers. Itu2019s the hardest skill on the planet. Yes, itu2019s harder than heart surgery. Itu2019s more difficult than making a rocket ship to fly to Mars (which is a stupid thing anyway).Comedians see the world differently. They look for the things that are weird, or make them angry, or make them annoyed, or the things nobody else sees.This is also what entrepreneurs do. But comedians do it all day long and entrepreneurs do it once or twice.Then comedians have to figure out how to change that angry-looking thing they saw into words that will make other people laugh.Do you know how hard that is?The average child laughs 300 times a day. But the average adult laughs justu2026five times a day.A comedian doing a five minute set makes the average adult laugh 20 times in just those five minutes.Thatu2019s so hard itu2019s almost impossible.When I study comedy I see all of the sub skills the comedian has to master to accomplish that task of 20 laughs in five minutes.overwhelming confidence on stage (u201cthe party is where I AM AT. Youu2019re just invited.u201d)Charisma. You wonu2019t laugh at a comedian you donu2019t like. And you have to get total strangers to like you in the first ten seconds.Control of the crowd. If the audience takes control, the comedian is doomed.Crowd work. Talking to individual members of the crowd and making their boring commentary filled with fun and laughter.Improv. Comedians have their set of jokes. But as Mike Tyson says, u201cEveryone has a plan until they are punched in the face.u201d Comedians often have to make up stuff on the fly within micro-seconds (if there is silence or heckling, etc) or they lose the crowd.Timing. Itu2019s not what you say, itu2019s how you say it. Watch a Dave Chappelle video. If he just said his jokes, maybe 1/10 of the people would laugh. Itu2019s HOW he says it.Expressions. Half the humor is in how the comedian performs it. Different than timing.Reading people. You have about one second to look at the audience and size up every single individual sitting in the club. This helps in negotiating, sales, relationships, everything.The UNEXPECTED. People laugh when they expect you to say one thing and you say something totally different, and totally truthful, that they didnu2019t expect.The u201cUnexpectedu201d are the seeds you must plant in the brain and water every day.I was heckled two weeks ago.I had a joke about Hitler. And it followed an extreme joke about abortion which followed a joke about making fun of my daughter.So perhaps people didnu2019t like me anymore.My joke was, u201cNot everyone needs to pursue their dreams. This is BS advice.u201cFor instance, Hitler was fine as a mediocre art student and then someone told him, u2018Adolph, why donu2019t you pursue your dreams?u201dAt that point, a German woman in the audience raised her hands as if to shield herself and she shouted, u201cEnough already. ITu2019S TOO MUCH!!u201dI said, u201cWeu2019re in a comedy club. NOTHING is too much.u201dBut I shouldu2019ve said, u201cIu2019m Jewish, and youu2019re German and youu2019re telling me what I canu2019t sayu2026.just like Hitler.u201dAnd she never let me get to my punchline.u201cHitler did pursue his dreams. And thatu2019s why he grew that stupid f**king mustache.u201d(worst mustache ever)Itu2019s war on that stage. Iu2019ve been on stage 100s of times now doing comedy. Itu2019s war every single time.I take video of every set. I study every second. I analyze my timing on every line. I see where I should have waited a quarter second more.I see where I missed opportunities for the unexpected.But I went home that night and cried. I need to handle the psychology better.In 2024 I went on a date. I watched comedy for an hour beforehand.During the date I kissed the girl within the first ten minutes. I had never done that before. We ended up having a relationship.The unexpected.PROCESS VS OUTCOMEIf you write a book, youu2019re going to get rejected.If you come up with a business idea, some investors will say u201cnou201d. Some customers will hate it.If you have a joke, some people wonu2019t laugh.I was addicted to OUTCOMES forever. I needed the of u201cLikesu201d, u201cmoneyu201d, approval, validation.Process is watching that video after you mess up on stage. Studying the game after you lose. Resubmitting to a new publisher after being rejected 15 times and insulted repeatedly.Process is outlining the improvements to your product and then executing those improvements.Process is having the difficult conversation.Process is falling in love again.Process is being kind when nobody expects you to be.Outcomes are echoes of the past.Process is your brain actually being used.Use it or lose it.SAYING NO. SAYING YES.I wrote a best-selling book, u201cThe Power of Nou201d.The key to u201cyesu201d versus u201cnou201d.Either do things for free, or charge an amount ridiculously expensive.Otherwise you are saying u201cyesu201d to too much.In advance: make very specific rules for when you should do something for free.Most things you wonu2019t do for free. And most people wonu2019t pay you a ridiculously expensive amount for the things they ask you to do.This gives you time for all of the above things to sharpen your brain.Then you can outsource u201cyesu201d and u201cnou201d to your superpower brain.I do comedy for free.I said u201cnou201d to give a talk in Qatar for $60,000. Who the hell wants to go to Qatar?For a million dollars Iu2019d go to Qatar.(Qatar)I have more. I can write u201cBrain 2.0. u201cBut this is a good start. Just do the above.Iu2019m not saying Iu2019m the expert about improving your brain. Iu2019m just trying to survive. Iu2019m eager for validation so I use my brain to get it.I invest in my self. But I diversify that investment.Maybe thatu2019s the most important rule of all.But actually, the most important rule of all:ABSAlways Be Stupid.Then every day youu2019re a clean and untouched sponge ready to soak in the world around you.TL,DRDo one thing today that is totally unexpected.P.S. Why make the brain smarter?For your legacy. Legacy is not a book, or a tweet, or followers, or a title, or money, or even charitable works.This is my only legacy:
