Ask Altucher

James credits at least some of his success to his guest's new company, Product Hunt.   Erik Torenberg a founding team-member at Product Hunt, co-founder of Rapt.fm, and associate at Queensbridge Venture Partners joins James today.   Product Hunt seems like such an easy idea and an overnight success on the surface... but really it was years in the making.   But since its launch, it has been on a true rocket-ship ride.   It all started with a relatively small e-mail list... and the brilliant strategy of allowing product makers to talk to product users.   They went through Y Combinator and then got funding from Andreessen Horowitz. That was all the street cred they needed to explode.   Listen here as Erik tells James what's next for Product Hunt.

Do you need a vacation? How about a place that has such a lingering bad reputation that it's the perfect place to get away to? Interested? Today, James and Claudia call our good friend and the original co-host of Ask Altucher, Aaron Brabham, to find out why he's now living there and what else he has been up to. I can't tell you where he is – you'll have to listen to find out. But once you hear his story, you'll know why he has no plans to come back stateside. And what's he doing there? He's living the life of an entrepreneur. To learn more about his new company, just click here. He's involved with a new and exciting health and fitness company and explains to James and Claudia why he got involved and what his plans are to grow it. Listen here as James and Claudia catch up with Aaron.

James spent an hour interviewing his wife and business partner, Claudia Azula Altucher. They went back to 1999, when Claudia first started to learn about yoga. She knew very little about it, but wanted a discipline that would be physical and get her into a "zone." They went all the way back to Claudia's early childhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was raised by a very loving mother, who unfortunately committed suicide when Claudia was only 17. You'll hear the pain in Claudia's voice as she talks about this tragic time in her life. Claudia eventually saved $2,000, just enough money to come to the United States. She had to leave Argentina. Life as an immigrant can be tough, yet Claudia never gave up. But she still hadn't found peace. She needed to make new choices and take control of her life. She found it in yoga. If you're interested in learning more about yoga, you have to listen to Claudia's podcast. You can listen on her website: ClaudiaYoga.com. Follow her on Facebook and YouTube.

James gives his friend Mitch Joel a call today to talk about a subject that scares the heck out of him — public speaking. James asks Mitch about his philosophy on public speaking. Mitch breaks down public speakers and presenting into three styles of music: The first is the "classical music approach," the second he calls the "jazz improve” approach," and the third he calls the "rock and roll approach." Mitch tells a great story about President Bill Clinton, the type of speaker he is, and also what his own personal speaking approach is. He helps James understand that he doesn't always have to create a brand new speech every time he presents. It's OK to re-use a lot of the same material. Don't keep the entire audience from hearing your best speech if only 20% may have heard it already.

James gives his good friend Chris Brogan a call today to talk about the real value of doing a podcast. James asks Chris... Is podcasting worth the time and effort? Chris says "no... and yes." There's no real money in it, but the other benefits are worth every second you put into it. Podcasting helps you with all your other media by broadening your "umbrella." You can take your podcast and create a blog post or a newsletter article and you can tweet about it and post it on Facebook. Plus, as both James and Chris say, their biggest benefit is getting to talk to people they would never get a chance to without the podcast Listen to Chris and James talk about the real value of starting a podcast.