Today on the James Altiger show.

In order to become the best writer in the world, you have to spend many years as a horrible writer

believing you're the best writer in the world because to write a book, as you know, is really hard.

I usually tell them, only do it if you'll regret it for the rest of your life because that's

the regrets of the dying, so to speak.

I'm going to have a quest. I'm going to figure out what happened at the beginning of time. So now, okay, what are the steps?

I'm going to build this. This quest fills me with joy and progress on this quest fills me with joy, and I'm going to make progress and feel joy every step of the way.

There are so few books about non-nonsense nowadays,

like not about string theory or not about like multiple universes. Most of the science books

are about those things because they can't be proven. So the author will never be proven

wrong in his lifetime. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host.

This is the James Altasier Show.

So, James, there's a famous statement by Talmudic scholars that really echo what I think it takes to be a great scientist is to have both humility and be humble, but also a lot of chutzpah and courage.

Because if you're only, like, humble, you won't feel that you can accomplish and take on the greatest warrior of all time, which is Mother Nature. Like, Mother Nature does not give up her secret. It's very hard to win a Nobel Prize to discover something new, to prove a new law, theorem, or whatever. But on the other hand, you know, if you're only humble, you won't have that, you know, that kind of swagger, let's just say, swagger, not arrogance, because arrogance gets a bad name. So there's a famous passage in the Talmud, and it says, a man should have two pockets. On one pocket, he should have the statement from the Bible that the whole world was created for me, just for me. And the other pocket should say, I'm nothing but dust and ashes. Because if you don't have that, you will not be humble and you will be arrogant and then you're prone to the fall that pride always goes before. So it's very interesting to know that you are also acqueting that. In some ways, you are the best writer in the world, right? I mean, let's not be falsely humble, but you're not only the, you're not the best writer in all categories in the world, right? You wouldn't say that.

Right. So, but what's interesting there is, is that, you know, and then this kind of goes side by side or the Dunning Kruger effect. Like, think about writing. In order to become forever, I'm not even saying about me or anyway, in order to become the best writer in the world, you have to spend many years as a horrible writer believing you're the best writer in the world.

Because to write a book writer believing you're the best

writer in the world. Because to write a book, as you know, is really hard. You have to sit down

and write like a thousand words a day for, let's say, hundreds of days. And then, of course,

that's before the 18 rewrites to have a finished copy and combined with the humility

to do the editing and the format and everything that's required to make to put together a book.

And then, by the way, your first effort is going to suck.

Totally.

...