Anthony Pompliano — How to Live an Extraordinary Life (EP.242)
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I am g mosy, and welcome to infinite loops. Sometimes we get caught up and what feel like infinite loops when trying to figure things out. Markets go up and down. Research is presented and then refuted. And we find ourselves right back where we started.

The goal of this podcast is to learn how we can reset our thinking on issues that hopefully leaves us with a Better understanding as to why we think the way we think and how we might be able to change that to avoid going in infinite loops of that. We hope to offer our listeners of fresh perspective on a variety of issues and look at them through a multifaceted ens, including history, philosophy, art, science, linguistics, and yes, also through quantitative analysis. And through these discussions, help you not only become a Better investor, but also become a more nuance thinker.

With each episode, we hope to bring you along with us as we learn together. Thanks for joining us. now.

Please enjoy this episode of infinite loops. Well, I know everyone to gym want to see with yet another infinite looks. My guest today, i've known for a long time I met him. He very kindly extended me an invite to his podcast of the time, called off the chain in two thousand and eighteen.

My guest is empty polian o is demand the mid the legend, as I was saying to you, man, before he started to record, I don't know how you have packed so much into thirty five years. You Better C E O, professional capital management. You bad infesting hundreds of companies.

You got one of the biggest financial media platforms of anyone I know. But again, I met you back in two eighteen, and you were kite enough to put an old like me on your podcast and try to get me understand ripped up. And as I recall, anthy, I failed pretty miserably than that.

You'd thought me a very important lesson that day, which was you are going to first three people on the podcast. And I think fifty percent of the questions I ask you, you responded with, I don't know. And I just remember saying to myself, well, if chemosh tsi can publicly admit he doesn't know fifty percent of the time on the topic that I think you are interested in trying to figure out.

But you know you are very clear. Look, i'm not an expert on this. It's less for the rest of us that it's okay to you know say, hey, I don't know and not i'm trying to figure out all that everybody else. So IT was very helpful to me and and I think people really enjoyed the other fifty percent of your answers, which we're not I don't know, and were quite intelligent and helpful.

Yeah, I have a lot of fun doing that. And like I don't know is one of the most powerful things in my opinion, you can tell to somebody because everybody always wants to have like the answer, right? There's a great book by Peter druck er called adventure of a bay center and he does little bin yachts of people that he met out out his life.

And one of them is this guy who was a merchant banker and landed and IT was like, this is in the ninety thirty. So like, a hundred years ago, anyway, this guy was this really excentric colorful character named earn this freeze bird by remembering correctly, anyway, there was a scheme that everyone in the city of london wanted to get in on. And he had these two Young guys running his marchin back, right? And so they brought the guy, and they were so sight that they got this guy into their office because he was the host thing in london at the time.

And so gives the spill the old freed birds. It's not not as some bunch questions. The guy leaves, and then free bird looks at his two Young partners and he goes, that man is a fraud. We're not putting a time in his skin.

Of course, the Young guys are like, what the fuck this is? Like, do you realize how lucky we even are to have him come? And they went, why? Why are you saying that? And he said he had an answer to every question I could take up.

An honest person doesn't. And will I admit that he doesn't know? And that really struck me when I was reading IT.

So i'd been in the habit of saying, I don't know, but i've really leaned into IT after that pictures IT really is kind of true. Everybody that has like an a pat answered everything. My radar goes up and like maybe i'll reconsider.

He reminds me, jim, of Young people want to boast about their wings to present that they're Better than they are, and then successful. Older people want to downplay and only talk about their losses or the times where they messed up to try to humanize and zero pretend they're not as successful as they are. And so a kind of you can tell where somebody is in their career based on the way that they present information as well because everyone is trying to be somebody that they are not to degree.

And so if you watching, i'd love gone on youtube watching many of the great investors and you listen to their interviews, and everyone knows that there are good investors like a look, your track workers out for thirty years, and those are talking about, you know, well, and we are trying you like that is part of IT, though, is the intellectual humility of saying, just because the the last thirty years were good doesn't mean the next five I were going to be good. But I do find that funny that the Younger people try to pretend to be the older people. The older people pretend to be Younger people.

You know, I talk with a lot of Young people in the various articles that we have, the osb. And the thing that I try to impress them with the kind of two things. The first is failure, is a lab.

So many of these people are really terrified of, like fAiling publicly. And I like that's the only way that you're gonna make any progress, right? Because mistakes are portals les of opportunity.

And if you look at them that way, you're going to learn so much more. And to try to go into something thinking that you're never gonna fail is just crazy. It's absolutely insane.

And the second thing is a new guard in your book that we're gona talk about quite a bit today. Yes, that is watching you with an eagle eye, bright and like old. He made a mistake.

Er SHE made. Oh, she's wrong. He is wrong. stop. That is not the way the world works.

And yet the idea of youth doing that, I was that way, like, you know what? I was Young. I was like a specialized. And this is the only way to invest. And let me tell you why. I will tell you the and then after the other thing that we look forward and we're looking at founders and things is we want people been kicked in the face a couple of because just to make IT about the market, if you are successful long term in the stock market, you've been punched in the face so many times by the market that you Better be humble because like that's the only way you're gna get ahead and IT just works so much Better.

In my opinion, I will talk to about your new book, which I love, how to live in extraordinary life, which you wrote for your kids now, your wife, who is glamorous and also successful, pollen, in a piece about the letters that I wrote to my kids. Completely different reason. And I kind of wish that i'd taken your course with like, guidance and things like that.

I hope that kind of a mertie millet's signed up. But what I did was I wrote a bunch of letters for each of my children, and they all got, you know, the same letters. But under twenty first birthday, what was the motivation here? I know that you said that you kind of worried that you are gonna die Young and stay pretty, and you didn't even think you'd make IT to the incredibly Young age, to someone like me of thirty five Younger than my two older kids. But was that the cattle this year? Yeah.

there was a combination, right? So I don't know why I always just hand the back of my head that, you know, time is fine, that you get here on earth and everyone always ask, even if they come to maybe the real ization, that time is finite, that you have eighty, ninety, a hundred years. So I like if you look at the number of people who think they're going to live to a one hundred and versus the number people who actually do, there is a big gap.

And IT isn't in favor of people who think they are going to live to one hundred, right? So it's just much shorter than people kind of expect. And especially if you look at things like, you know health issues or whatever, even if you say, okay, the other, you know life expectancy, amErica for a male and seventy two years old or whatever, I like people who die at fifty five or sixty or sixty five.

And so IT doesn't sound like that of a difference between sixty five and seventy two. But it's still seven years and it's seven years where you're really starting to think about, hey, what did what did I do in my life and who do I want to spend time with in those things? And so for me, you know, I open the book with what I think kind of puts you in the perspective of when I started, right, these letters, which was every single time somebody asked me, like what you wanted do when you get older, I would say what I got, look before the thirty five and the be onest IT was kind of like half a joke, half like I did feel that way.

And then when I went in the military, I think that's when I really hit home so I deploy was twenty years old to iraq and that's when I realized ed like, hey, one life is definite finite and you we're increasingly odd s here that you don't make IT to one hundred um but also too was I would had the fortunate opportunity to deploy with guys were older than me. So twenty years old, I got a point from college. Later my junior pulled a coach go.

I worried about what parties on friday night, you know what's the foobar game or or whatever. These guys have kids and mortgage, and you are working two jobs. And just like the real life stop, and so IT opened my eyes to hate there, or like real life consequences and stresses and and things like that after here. So because I am Young and I don't have those responsible I T I E S, I may be able to do some things now that won't be able to do later.

And so when I showed up, you know, a negative way is, I remember when I came back and I I talk on the book, you know, I drive my motors like a little too fast as kind of like, you know, you feel like your superman, right? You know, if alka can't kill you, this eighteen, we know that happens to be going pretty fast on the highway as well. Probably stay at was.

So thankfully, I made IT through that period and a mature a little bit. But then the good places where shows up is, you know what? I went back to school to finish, which was really important in my parents.

I took IT much more seriously, right? I always said, now you can like tie okay, what i'm learning in school actually can help me later verses before maybe you're just doing IT because somebody told you, you know, hey, get a good grade or or whatever. So I I think that was a huge peace.

And then the second part is not really, I think he pushed me when our first shows born like, right, your child, a letter. And so the first one I rote isn't in the book and IT was more of just like, you're here. Great to meet you.

You know, this is awesome. I'm a dad. Like, almost like, a little was ready to like, you know, oh, newbold like, not very possible. But what I got me thinking about was like, okay, god, something does happen at me.

Like, what would I want to put down? And so for years i'd kept a note, person is on paper, and eventually I start to do on my iphone of, just like any time I would learn something that was kind of like a pathy, you know, one sentence, you know, can take away, I would write IT down. And so when I decided to write the letters, I said to myself, like, let's just start with like whatever I think I should know, you know, this is to do a letter.

And so the very first one I wrote, um I believe, is the first letter in the book, which is how you do one thing, is how you do everything, right? And I Frankly IT was like, therefore uc. IT was almost like I was writing the letter yeah I was writing IT to them but I was writing IT IT was reminding me like this is who you aspire to be as well, right? And so, you know, one turned into two pretty quick.

I think planner was surprised that I went a second one. SHE was like, usually again, like you, I got ta like told ty to get you to do something by the time I got a somewhere between five and ten, I was like, oh, this is like a good thing that I want my kids to have. It's actually helpful to me.

And if I put a goal out there, then I will actually go and finish this. I may take a while, but I will finish IT. And so that's what I said, you know what if I just turn this into a book? And so the the dirty secret is I signed the book deal already, but IT was for a different book, which maybe one day I will write.

But I had momentum here and I enjoying IT and so is like, let's not, you know, china force something that that doesn't feel natural. Let just go right. The book that you know, I want to right right now and inside the book that you get your hand.

So personally, as you know, I I I think the power of writing both for yourself and for others, your kids is is such an amazing tool. And I am so delighted to see your book doing so well because if you can get just like, let's say, let's say, sell a million copies, and if you get even just ten thousand people writing letters to their kids or loved ones or whatever, man, I think that's gonna just a huge addition to people's tool kits because it's something i've done since I was a teenager creating sym gym in our on bram A I and like I going through all of my old journals, like it's really cool to see what I thought about the world.

What I was twenty right and and so and I also, as I mentioned, did letters, my kids that we gave on the twenty first birthday. But I I want to focus on some of the lessons because I think so many of them I just resonate so much with and and the first or the second one you are, imagine the first is day's practice for tomorrow. And I love the way you trace IT because that's right. IT is practice.

And guess what, when you're practicing something, you are always gonna do IT right? No, you're going to a screw IT up a lot of time. I I always use, I have a lot of grandkids and very, very lucky.

And watching a child learn how to walk is such a great medical. Can you imagine if we took the mentality of, no, you can do that. It's too dangerous.

It's too, you know, you might pursue itself at a and apply IT to a child learning how to walk. No one would ever walk. Yes, I mean that I would never happen and and so when people read that, are they taking that from from the the chapter and the letter?

Yeah you know what interesting is I didn't know this until I had the benefit IT of hindsight, which was every time I was doing something, this is the most important thing in the warm and do for the rest of my life, you know, like this is in whatever. And then I one day just kind of pop my head up and I said, you know, the thing that I just accomplish her or just done, was actually the combination of no A B N C things that had fed into IT.

And so I was uniquely positioned to do IT. So, you know, a great example is a lot of people exactly will look and say, like, how did he build all of these media properties? What they don't know is I have tried multiple times in different variations.

There's a medium blog that's out somewhere. There was a interview show and really CarOlina like, you know, all these different things that had kind of been almost practice or what ended up, you know, really working in kind of taking off. And so I started to get pretty fascinated with this and and it's timely that we're talking today because over the weekend, I read a book called the art of learning.

And IT is josh wasik, I think, say products. He was like the next Bobby Fisher as he was growing up. He was this this great chess player.

And in IT, he talks about of two types of learning. He he describes one which is like an entity based intelligence and another which is an iteration based intelligence. And so the best way that described IT is entity based intelligence, somebody who is the say playing chess.

And they keep winning. They keep getting taught. It's because you're smart. You're a winner because you win you you're winning because you're smart.

And so when they lose will do anything they know, is that the opposite of winning? And so now i'm not smart, right? And i'm a loser.

And so that's obviously destructive to A A child because they are going to lose something. Instead, the idea of iteration based kind of intelligence is you're winning because you're working hard. You are winning because you've put the time and effort.

You are winning because and in is the kind of process is really what? And so when that child loses, the natural reaction is not on stupid or on a loser. The reaction is, why need to work hard where I need to go back and and keep, you know, kind iterating to get this figured out.

And so I do think that, you know, that's like a very unique way of looking at the world as we we want more iterate kind of intelligent people. And so the idea that today is practice for tomorrow fit right into that because every single thing you are doing today, whether IT works or doesn't, it's a lesson, you know. And I always like the old kind.

There's no winning and losing writer. Like right, wrong is just like either I wonder, I learned very similar, I think, in life. But if you were to go and you were to ask, you know, go back to investing the best investors, I think they learn more from their losses than their winds.

And so you need that right? Is is kind of like as an input if you don't have the losses I love, I think Jerry gifts got this great framework, great talks about before and after the fall. IT is like when you meet somebody.

The army equivalent is if you've ever watched the movie twelve strong, they have a general, dotson, who is overseeing one of the afghan military units, and the U. S. Forces go and meet up with them, and he refuses to talk to the U.

S. leader. And instead that he scans the room and he find somebody standing in the back, and he says that the guy I wants to talk to and the U.

S. Leader, you know, Young guy, right? That kind of training a super post is like ARM the leader, and he says, you don't have killer eyes. That guy has killer, right? So he got a thousand yards there.

He sees some, should you have in and so before and after the fall, very similar of, you know, once I heard that I started to see IT in the world. I said, oh, there is a humility that comes with, you know, post fall. But also there is a difference in the risk mitigation or the risk analysis. There is a difference in kind of how you like capital and all these things that just goes back to, you know, the t ball player in literally baseball should not be as prepared for the game as the high school who should not be as prepared as a mainly baseball play. And so you need practice to to be able to do this stuff and I think that just remind yourself of that .

important yeah and again, I agree with you completely and I like the way you put IT, the notion that you're gonna everything figured out wherever you are in your life, right? The people are attracted to our people who basically admit, wow, I have so many wrong ideas and and I gotta try to root them. My out.

I've got try to replace them. I've got ta try to upgrade my skills set X, A that that ties into the person after the four. right? Like when H I had the great misfortune, when I wanted to be in the stock market, right?

I was a kid, and so I had some money. And I had developed this very technical options trading program. And you know, I was programing the computer.

I had tax instruments. I got that one because I had sixteen, eight, oh um so i'm really dating myself anyway. On my first trade, I doubled my money and of course, I was twenty, whatever.

And I thought, oh my god, I am the king there. I am the smart. I am the smartish man in the world. And then, of course, the world disappears me of that notion for the next several years. But as you say, IT was the next several years where I learned that right.

And and so being open to that, I just think makes you A A much more ani gradual person, because he shows you, you got to p IT, you've got iterate, you've got to just keep doing until you get to that group, and then you gotto figure that out, out too, right? In my opinion, life is growth, right? Death in stacks and and the ability to have, like, high agency is super important. But if I am not thinking, the book that I also agree with, which is a carve ethics in stone, but your opinions in sand, I love that words. Talk of them about that.

This this came to mind because I was watching politicians footfall p all the time. And what was so funny about IT was they get attacked for IT. Oh, you're flip proper.

Oh, you you know, whatever in business, you actually are rewarded and encourage to change your mind when you get new information is the sign of intelligence. And so I started thinking about, how do you teach your kids? When do you change your man? When is the appropriate version? When is IT not in? no.

Really what I said to itself was ethical decisions or kind of the the red line, right? It's look in ethical decision. You should make the same decision every single time in your life, regardless of how you were represented with different options. Everything else really just your opinion on things right can be changed based on what information you receive.

And so trying to think through, you know, am I facing an ethical kind of dma or am I facing a opinion or kind of business decision or whatever? And if you can always just make sure OK, it's an ethical thing, I know exactly what to do is do the right thing. Everything else is open for interpretation based on whatever the latest information I have is.

And so you know, if you start to kind of look for this in the world, you will find that actually, when people change our ethical situations, that usually leads to really poor outcomes. And when my favorite books is clicking, Christians, in a couple years ago, wrote a book called how will you measure your life? And he had been diagnosed with the A A terminal illness, illness.

And he, I think you, hey, you know, I don't have as long as maybe I want to have of my life. So we started thinking about some other topics. And in the book he talks about ethics, and he says, look, I went to a business school and harper business school, and all these great people, and something goes in.

Some of my classmates went to jail later on in their careers. And he says, you know, was IT worth IT. And he talks about, I don't think these were bad people.

I knew them, but through a series of iterations and and developments in their career, they made little tiny decisions that compounded in the next, you know, and I think he actually went to, I think IT was in business schools, one of the iron executives, right? And he says to themselves is like, look, nobody sets out to create everyone in the form that they ended up. But let's change the you know accounting for one quarter or one week or you know and the next, you know, you end up with this massive issue. And so I I do think that by having kind of the again, ethics and stone, you just always know I always gona make the same decision. They are give you the confidence then to change your mind on you know non ethical things, which are you know of opening based decision you may fix .

yeah the road to hell being paved with good intentions is a great, proper right. And i've seen that so many times in my career. And and like you advise your kids and others in the book, I have a real bright line around ethic first.

You know, situation, things, opinion. thanks. So one of the things that I decided really, really in my life words, I will always honor my word IT doesn't have to be in writing if it's a handshake.

It's the same as if I got a contract. And I got to tell you, man, there have been times when that were really backfired on me, shocker. But but the way you build a reputation is blocked by block.

And IT takes time. And what is buffet say? You know, IT takes a lifetime to create a reputation, and I can be destroyed.

And like a day or a few minutes or one bad decision. And the and on example is a great example. A lot of those guys, I do, some of those guys too.

A lot of those guys did not go in with their master plan to come every one of the world, right? Yes, they have went in with good intentions. And then IT also illustrates the power of negative compounding.

Like everybody understands our most people understand positive compounding things can compound negatively to. And the minute you make that tiny little concession, right, you know what? Nobody y's going to notice. Let's let's just accelerate this earnings and that IT becomes, oh, we said the thirty year contract. Let's take all of the profits were anticipating over that thirty year and book up this port like that leads to bed that .

also chain perish did a podcast episode a while ago on the podcast called stray reflections. And I don't know how popular that pod cases, but somehow I I found IT and I found this episode, and I was listening to IT recently. And he talks about the importance of positioning.

Everyone looks at the decision, but so many people don't realize that is the positioning that either empowers or kind of create good or bad decision making. And so the example that he uses is he's got a kid who's got a test and they don't do well the test. So as well, did you get a good night to sleep the night before? No, because you were crammed.

Did you study? No, that's why you had a cram. Did you eat a good breakfast at this morning? No, that's because you you slept in, right?

I do. You went into the test and bad position. I was obviously was going to decrease your performance. If you take IT to the and ron situation, there's a whole idea of like if you keep creating bigger and bigger expectations and you keep fill them, then you start to get desperate. But how many businesses that are being fraud over, you know, generations now, actually good businesses, if they just hatten tried to take that one extra ten percent leave in, you know, whether it's a public market, you are early reporter or whatever.

And so you can definitely, I told founders, sometimes they always like going, why are you telling me this? And I said, you know, ambition can kill companies just as much as, you know, mistakes and errors and and everything else and so you gotta know when is the time to be ambitious and when is the time to, you know, mitigate ambition suffocating your business because you're so focused on, yeah how much revenue, how many employees or whatever? Or maybe right now actually is time for you to come gather everyone around and become resilient and then kind of create a new foundation so then you can go be ambitious again. Again, it's art, not a science. But I do think that positioning is a really interesting way to kind of think about, you know, why do people make some of bad decisions?

Yeah, I agree, my friend. Any took calls are looking at just the result. Result like, oh, bad test. You are bad study, right? Bad that resulting. If you don't do that and look at the other things that contributed to why on that one snapshot of a test you didn't do well, you're going na get a much Better understanding of base rates, for example, right? Like people ignore base rates for the most part.

And yet they, in my opinion, I like the most valuable information you can have access to because like I was used the example when I try to take IT out of like investing in and that will because for whatever reason, people's brain seem to shut off when you trying to talk to him in that way about the best thing. But then I say, okay, hey pop, would you go to a doctor if you add up wrong with you? We looked at you didn't do an exam and luck and said, yeah, you know what these little yellow pills are farm rap just given to me.

I think that they gonna fix you, your problem, and process them over to you a little run like hell out the door from that doctor. He does show me, or he doesn't me. Long term double blind tests understand what my condition is. All of those think insurance, another great example.

Can you imagine if the life insurance industry Operate from just a gut level? He like, hey, even though all of your test, all of your male or bears died at age alone, fifty of a heart attack, your obese, you have diabetes, you have all of these problem, but we like you so much. We're going to give you fifty million doll life insurance policy.

They're going out of business, right? The actual table, the base rate, all of that is vital information in so many areas of life, and people just orderly ignore IT. And and that has always perplexed me.

And especially on the theme of of people like that, one time like that becomes, and I love the bright when you put here, that's an ethical issue, right? And if you fuck that one up, IT doesn't really matter. IT doesn't really matter how great that business could have been, how great that project could have been. Like you, you're on the wrong slope, in my opinion.

What's also which one did you afford to be wrong on? Right is a another way to think about this. And so you can afford to be wrong in your decision making a lot.

When is not ethical things? But what I have seen in kind of, you know various news stories, current events, people who end up you know kind of doing bad that things once they begin to make an error on an ethical decision, it's snowballs, right? It's like some weird thing where they have been reached.

I don't know an activity that they previously wouldn't have done. Now it's like ever done that before. I just do to get right.

And the next year of years, like, okay, wall like that took IT to the extreme. So I don't know. I tried not to pretend like I have all the answers or or or preach to people about that.

Know that's why the chAllenges is. Writing a book like this is first you have to make him very clear to people that, like every single person's extraordinary life is different. You know, mine may be sitting inside reading on a weekend.

Yours may be like, I know, being in mongo party or a bizer, whatever. And like both of those can be extraordinary ized for the the different people. But also I call out the beginning, some of the letters compliment each other, some of them contradict each other, right? And it's because there are different points in your life.

And so sometimes things apply, but other times they don't in you know, part of my hope and people in this book is you gotta smart enough to know what to apply, win. But nobody else can do that for you. You just want to have A, A tool kit that you can kind of reach on to and grab what you need when you need IT.

But really, you you're the person grab in the tools, right? So if if you are working on a car and you need a screw around, you grab a hammer. Good luck. exactly.

And the idea is very apparent to me, but it's good to bring that up in our conversation for people listening and watching because what you're doing is saying, hey, right now, I find this to be really good suggestions that will get you at kids. But you know what's subject to change as I learn new things at the curiosity, as you read the book, the actual physical book, right? What do you look at that and saying, you know what, I don't know that I believe that piece of advice.

Well, when I first look the book, i'll tell you a good story, which is a classic entrepreneurs kind of journey, which was. The book cover that you're looking at is very close to what I originally set out to want to do, which was some people like them. I happened to not like the book jackets that are put on books.

I take them off to read the book in all stuff. And so I had another book called rules of for a night. I think IT is by eat and hawk.

And so I read that. And I have a very nice kind of in boss cover like that. And that was kind of felt timeless.

So I want something like that and the publisher said, that's a horrible d we let's do something else. You here's all these data and studies and both and IT. They're right on having the quotes and you, the testimonies and the book jacket.

Every single thing they said is correct, but I really just came down to like, but I want this other thing and my god is telling me that, you know, it's kind of a power law. If you do something different, you Better be right, because most of you to do something different are just wrong and stupid. And so you know, i'll i'll take my chances, but but let's see.

But what was interesting is when they brought the book to the bookmakers outside the united states, the immediate in many asian countries specifically, but other places got feedback. You can have a black books cover that is, that color is the color of death that will I do well here. And so the book is actually read outside the united states.

And so is this, you know, kind of a belief of, I have really passionate feeling about the book cover. But let me actually listen to the experts, right? Like these people know Better than I do.

And so does the first thing is, like the book cover the last states, I really like the one internationally is read because they were like to be stupid. And I said, he, you know, child monger said, don't be stupid. I wanna try my best to to listen for words.

So that's one in terms of things in the book. I don't think there's anything that like I don't believe. I think that maybe there's like a severity dial that usually happens. And so you know, one of the a friend of mine asked me, he said, hey, you wrote a book that very quickly could be seen as being almost too simplistic.

Read a chAllenge and reading a book like this is you want things that are very memorable and very simple, but you also need to be profound enough where there something that people will try to implement themselves. And so I have a chapter in the book where I write a letter to my kids and I say, hey, you should go for a walk outside. When things are on your mind, just go for a walk outside.

And that is almost so simple that IT is dumb to go for a walk outside. But at the same time, i've never gone for a walk outside when something on my mind and come back around like, man, I shouldn't done that rain so important, but it's very simple. And so as I was talking a couple of fancy, read the book immediately, of course, are you your good friends latch on to all the stupid stuff and start giving your hard time.

And one of them, and we're going to go for a walk outside, right, like, you know, immediately, just give me hard time. And I was joking with him and I said with a walk outside, everyone. And so I do think that you those things of like the severity of how much do you believe something also depends on like, well, we talk behind closed doors could actually believe IT, right? Or like, do I want to see cool to my friends know, and kind of people change their opinion so that severity dial, I think, is important.

The the other thing too, is you one of the chapters is about if everyone throws their problems on the table, you grab back row fast. You know, in my, you know, we actually your problems are not as bad as other people's problems IT depends on you trust their problems on the table, right? So if you know, I always laugh at you, talk to somebody who's really, really wealthy and things they're worried about, like, you know, oh, I can't find someone to cut the grass in my fourth home. You know what?

I what, by the way, for the average .

american, getting to cut grass is foreign a forget the fourth home, right? Just like like they're the ones you, they have a one, right? They is like living in apartment or something. And so kind of the comparison ends up being an important.

And so from my perspective, I actually think I may believe these things more more the longer that I sit with them, rather than less, which hopefully means that they are more timeless, because that was my big goal with the book. Like, how do you write a book that is just as relevant a hundred years or now, fifty years, or now that IT is today? I will probably be here to find out if IT is. But yeah, if IT maybe if it's relevant ten years from now, then that's good enough and I should be happy with IT.

And then also you make a good point that there is a huge difference between simplicity c and simple, right? I I often say a good investing is simple, but it's really hard. Like a lot of things take walk outside everyday, you know, touch grass, all that kind of stuff sounds very simple, but a lot of people think, you know, i'm too busy, I can do that.

And then again, we get back to negative compounding, right? Because those kinds of things are really good to get your mind in the right frame for what you try to deal with. Actor, also love your your point about during your troubles on the table, you're gonna grab your own back really, really fast.

And and the thing you talk about a the concentrates of the smartest people you've been, i've been super lucky to me stem of literally the smartest people in the world. And I was really struck by the similarities that I took away and you took away. So so run through several s too, because they again, some of them are simple, straight forward. But like as a package, they are probably something really good for readers to kind of a fire to, hey, I want to find those people.

yes. So in the book, I have seven then I put together and they're all around growth and kind of not, you know, being subject to the stasis, your stasis. Legals death is one hundred percent of how I think about IT and what I think is interesting.

Or there are intentional ways to grow. And then there's the unintentional way, an intentional ways. Or you they read a lot of books.

Books is kind of a one form, but they may listen a lot of podcast or read a lot of book post. But there is constantly consuming new information that other people have put time and effort into creating. And sometimes they are looking for a more nuts or detail around something that thinking about.

Sometimes are looking for new ideas. But also, you know, I read a lot of books. I'm looking to discover another new ideas with new people, right?

I'll read about somebody you know really biography and mention google. Never know this person. exit. How stupid of my.

I like nobody knows that I didn't know about this person who did this thing, right? So I think that's a kind of intentionally. But then the other thing that they will do is they'll put themselves again in the right position. And so the last two points that I put in this list, or they surround themselves with intelligence and they seek to understand perspective on the topic.

And so what they are doing is they are saying, look, you know me, i'm just going to hang out with my smart friends and they'll throw something out that i'd never contemplated before or they will present, you know, a topic that they are interested IT you one of the thing, the people obviously have not be publicly for us all the bitcoin stuff. And if you go back and you talk to a lot of the early people, the way they discovered bitcoin was they were at dinner or they were with a friend, or what I was over a month, right? There's no more of directors is no marketing team, there's no CEO of some desensitize computer network.

And so that organic spreading of an idea really dependent on whether you are open minded or not. And so I heard about the coin, I think, and you know, two thousand and twelve, probably pretty early. I was real dumb.

And I then doing anything about IT, right? And so I took me a number of years, like three or four years, until I was like, maybe this thing you, I should like to learning about IT. That three or four year difference, i'd like to think, was my education on not being open minded.

And IT probably cost me hundreds of millions, if not, maybe a billion dollars. Now again, if you live your entire life looking at what could have been, you never gonna happy, right? So you gotta a just shock IT up to, okay, fine, but I learned the lesson.

But IT had been nice to make, you know, couple hundred million dollars because, you know, I listen to a buddy rather than think I was too smart. And so I just think that in my experience, when you meet these people, you're always surprised how similar they are. And if you ever have the opportunity to see them interact with each other, it's like I was no pod cash years ago.

I was driving the car planted with me. And I don't want to see a podcast is because we will start trying to figure out who was who. But I said this like, listen to a for I talk to a handcart like, like there was just one persons who just super intelligence I mean, just on IT and the interviewer, we just like that more.

I like game, just a complete mismatch of intellectual horsepower. And so very in a hto accord. Well, what happens when you put a flooring in a fLorry together? right? I mean, you just like, h my god, this is like, you know, watching some magic, you know, kind of like art form, these just two hyper intelligent people going at IT. And so I do think that smart people seek those opportunities out the same way.

That may be a really good best ball player wants to play with other really good best ball players, right? And so the more than you start to pick up on these habits for these kind of common attributes, then when you meet people, if you start to put them buckets, right, you say, okay, ay, this person is in a really high inlets. Ual, horse power has really unique ideas that may actually be different than somebody who's really high intellectual horsepower on a very specific topic without original ideas. And so depending on what you want to learn or be around, you start to know, kind of pick and choose, uh, those people, which is, you know, really help to make.

Yeah and I believe very much in cognitive diversity as opposed to as what many are trying to sell in kind of a pack inform. Cognitive diversity is really important, right? Because I have a lot of blind spots and won't be great if I had somebody on my team who didn't have those particular blind spots but was also like really switched on.

And I love the thing about the odd I have been in more than one negotiation where there were multiple parties where we were negotiating with them. And I am thinking of one in particular where my lawyer called me on the pound and this will date me because I was back in the early part of the century um and equal many goes all we all we talk to today you know mr. X or mr.

Y and I went, why? And he goes, well, because mr. X is run in double pentium, and the other guy is, can even build up D, O, S.

But it's true, right, there's a deal actually right now that a font of White is working through and he's trying to buy a business. And my friend is very intelligent, very intelligent. He doesn't for a living.

He can talk to the terms of this deal in twenty minutes on a phone call. The seller has never done a deal before. And so i've been looking at a number deals with him, and we've gotten closing different forms in factors or whatever. And what I came to realize was people think that doing a deal with somebody who's ever done one before gives you advantage. IT actually may be a disadventure ge.

And if you look at silk valley, you know the best things is that there are some like market norms and there's common documentation like the you know y combinator safe and things like that where it's kind of just like everyone focuses on the important part, which is are you going to do the deal or you not? And then there's most an autopilot of what is standard and not standard that really helps our deals get done, right? And so IT evens the playing field between the florists and the honda courts.

Whether you know maybe like the more kind of private equity world, if somebody never saw the business before, is the single most important transaction of their life. So our life, you work and and they're ready to sell on all the stuff. They are really gonna pay attention to every single world of the document and the way they got four attorneys that all are going to look at every single word and use good this whole thing you're like, okay, having some degree of kind of commonality of understanding of documentation at such A I mean, how how powerful and important is the Y. C. Safe to the success of solar valley? Pretty good, right?

Yep, yep, I agree. And it's actually a really good point about the person doing the first deal that they're going to pay much, much closer attention to everything, particularly if it's a 比赛 they're selling their life's work。 Another part of the book, I think, might end up being controversial is your idea that luck is not real.

So a while back, our mutual friend Morgan housel road, a thing on luck. And so I, you know, took to twitter and did a thread on on how I do luck, right? And i'm the first person to say, hey, man, i'm one of the lucky people in the entire world, right? Kind of corn on third base and or as you know, maybe even sliding in the home.

But the idea that you can increase your luck is one that appealed to me and when I believe in, and i've got a Young friend, George mac, who says you can increase the surface area of your luck through almost every decision you make, right? Like if you present up with two opportunities, what is, uh, i'm tired, my girlfriend coming over. Let's just, you know, netflix in shell or, hey, I got invited to this really cool party.

Lots of people I don't know are gonna be there. If you pick that one, what are you doing? Well, corning, to George, and I agree with them, you are increasing the surface area of your lock, right? Because you're going into something unfamiliar with people you dolt know, giving you lots of opportunities. But what's your review on that? And the very forceful luck is not .

real yeah obviously, I know that I will cause for conversation maybe the best. But the more somebody believes in luck, the lower agency, they probably right. And the less somebody believes in luck, the higher agency, they are now usually what people are describing when they talk about luck is probability, to your point, increasing the surface lock.

Really what you're trying to do is you're trying to increase the service of the probability. Something positive happens first. Negative happens.

And so, you know, i've always like the kind of warm buffet, hey, I won the ovarian lottery. You know, like he, I just born the right place, right time, you know, to the right situation. And that was obviously much Better than if you'd been born somewhere else.

Now if you get very technical about IT, technically just a math probability, but if you think about what is really the value in the perspective of the ovarian lottery IT, is that you have an optimistic and a positive spin on, imagine just being able to be born here at this time in the way that I was. And so really, the point is in what I describing a book, is that two people can go to the exact same situation, have the exact same physical injury, and you go talk to one of them will say, wow, is so unlucky to be in that situation. And look, I lost my leg or I lost my art, but you go talk to the person in the hospital bit next to, and it'll tell you i'm so lucky to be alive.

And that was very much a psychological count, not a mathematical one. Now, the beauty of that is research shows that you can become lucky, or by simply thinking you're lucky, you know, even actually have to increase the service area. Lucky, just say, I am a lucky person.

And you start to realize, wow, I was walking across the street. I didn't get hit by that car. I'm so lucky, right? You know, I was walking in today and my key work, or you know what, whatever thing like you you start almost think like you're like a hot streak, right? And IT becomes this thing when you start to see the positives verses.

Everyone has been in a world where is like nothing can go right right now. You become very down in kind of depressing things like that. And so really, the point of the letter is that you have an agency and you can do things to improve your situation.

And sometimes they are based on probability. What is the probability that you and I go to a bar at a certain time and we meet each other, you know, and there happened to be a third person that also has a unique interest that similar or whatever, we have a great conversation. Probably pretty low if you were delayed by ten minutes or I was, you know, there's all these things that head into IT.

But if you start to think to yourself, i'm so lucky everywhere I go I meet cool people. Maybe IT has more to you. Just being, you know, energetic, outgoing, willing to talk of people is seta than IT is everywhere you go to school people, right? And so I do think that there's this kind of agency component of IT.

Now I will say that there's an instagram account that I recently saw. I D. M.

This guy, and he's got like a thousand followers, I said to my size, do not stop. You're doing this can be a very, very big account. Like, this is cool.

He walks to the streets of new york, and he films himself giving really positive compliments of people. So he may be walking past you on the street and said that, excuse me, sir, that sweater looks amazing on you. I just like, IT just fits you perfectly.

Like, you look awesome. Zed, I hope you have a great day. And you can imagine new york city people immediate, like.

what do you want?

Why are you being so nice? The reader goes off, right? And he just turns, he just teeth walking and he does this a couple times and got once he said, people like your tattoo s or there's a guy and bryant park that's kind of like moving some of the construction materials and tell the guys kind of down and and he said, hey, me and we just really appreciate you you doing the work you're doing here.

So many people who shop to work everyday work hard and you know, kind of put their body through what you're doing. I just keep at that, but through our people I hear who appreciate you, you can tell you guys like what's going on, right? But but what he does is IT starts to show that, like, that guy is probably so happy everyday.

This is working great, saying complex is doing all this stuff that there is no, like, i'm so lucky, I get to meet cool people every day. He goes out, he meets cool people where he goes and he finds them. And so IT is controversial to say luck is not real, because actually what you find is that people who have good things happen to them feel uncomfortable taking credit for IT.

So they will constantly downplay their investment or their action or you the the time and energy that they put toward something hello to say, hey, I got lucky and you see, is all the investors. Or like classic, you're talking to somebody there are multibillionaires there erly had you do in the guys got lucky? You know, good, good time, good place.

You like, did you work ninety to one hundred and twenty hour weeks? You know, you are obsessive about this thing. You put all time, energy, whatever into IT and your smart and you made a lot of good decisions.

Uh, but yes, you you got lucky. You're right. Okay, like some degree is a cop out because it's like an intellectual pulling the latter up behind you, right? You're OK you were successful.

Rather than tell people how you did IT, you just pull the letter up and you like that just if you're lucky, you can do IT. If you're not you, you can. And so by putting IT in there, hopefully that will cause people to think a little bit more about agency and of paying IT forward. Tell people how you did IT so that you're not point the intellectual latter up and kind of leaving the next generation behind.

Man, there's so much to contact there because I agree with you. Whole hardly. I used to when I was fucked around on twitter, whenever, when anyone said, like, uh, that's just dirty lucky and I would I had this gift right, of this guy with a rain cloud following him around. And my quote was, everything is luck.

Said the most unlucky man in the world, because I completely agree with the promise that you can make your own luck, right? So they are in, in, in response to morning. I was like, eight.

There is dumb lock, right? You you win the lottery or just whatever. Just totally a random probability that just landed on you.

And then there is informed luck. In other words, you keep your capture wide open. You keep your viewpoint wide open. And IT gives you the opportunity to see and sense unusual things occurring. And then to your point about agency, right, you have to take action.

You have to say, wow, I bet this isn't the last i'm going to go jump on, not like right now. And so the the idea of the agency also is something I think of what about because like IT alone can truck like agency and persistence can truck I Q can truck like like most things. And again, back to George.

He really great at coming up with these clever ways of looking at. And he's like, you want to know who the highs agency person, you know, is. Answer this question, if you were put in jail in the third world emerging country.

And you had one phone call, who would you call to get you up? And that is your that is your most agents friend. And one of the words that I have, like i'm doing a lot with agency dancers because I just think that there so many people rooting against things, right, I hate that.

That's bad, that's awful. And I just think we would like your guy walking around giving people compliments. Are so many things that are so cool right now happening that there is so much to report, right?

And the energy that you get back when you're rooting for as opposed to a guess like you really don't have to be terribly smart to be a business right? Well, that never were. That's top down, right? And and so this idea of optimistic s realistic, realistic. You know i'm not talking pan glossy and I an sky, but like literally an optimistic framework out of merit high agency like what a formula. I heard .

fifty seven the rubber say this once and it's stuck with me, which upsets people. But I think the general point that he makes is applicable. He said, growing up, nobody was depressed as a luxury.

We're worried about where we're going to eat. We are worry about how to be safe. We are worried about A, B, C, you know, d things. Welcome from depression is a luxury. And when I took a away from IT was our country and our civilization is so advanced we can sit around criticizing IT yeah .

you know if .

you go back, there's this great book I think it's called the rise and fall of american growth uh by robbert gordon maybe and in IT, basically he talks about the period between like eighteen, seventy and one thousand forty and how much technological progress we made and he says in the begin of that period there's a house and it's basically isolated. There has no connectivity via roads. The electricity via water, be a sewage.

And yes, but by the end of that period is fully hooked up to, you know, the system and and ready to go. And he talks about the invention of the elevator, how important IT was to be able to go up, not out, which used to be the thing is you have to just keep expanding further, further out, but the fact we can build up and how much density could not go into a city or urban area in all stop. And so during those times, there were not people criticize and they were building, they were looking for a growth.

And so I do think pessimism is a luxury, which sounds really kind of weird, but IT just comes back to this idea of your life is probably pretty good if you can walk around being pessimistic all day. And so, baby, the number of pessimist is a sign of, like economic development and civilization, you know, kind of progress that we are. We finally reached the point where we will can sit on twitter all day and just complain about things like we made .

IT Louis case cut this great bit, where he's talking about the first time he experienced wifi in an airplane. And he's like, you're like, I can't to leave IT and thirty thousand feet about the air I can serve, winter and the internet, everything else that goes. Then the minute goes out, you go, what the .

fuck is true? IT really is.

And, you know, I am a huge believer in travel. I think IT broads, your mind, like more than many other activities because you see how other people live, how other cultures work. I have ever been in boot on if you've never been a highly recommend going, it's like an amazing, amazing plates, but like that, a developing nation.

And my wife and I were taking a walk in a village there, and they had no electricity. Like, not. And yet this group of kids who runs up to us, huge smiles on their fitness and like all they want to do.

And so we start talking with them, the ones who spoke english, they came up to us because obviously americans and they want you to practice their english, right? And so the the older kid who was pretty good with this english, I like, so, you know, I tell me your story in everything and ethical, everything he said to me was like the most positive outlook on life. And I, when we were back at our toe, I look at my wife and i'm like, man, wouldn't be great if we could import that into the united states.

That kind of attitude like this kid, no electricity in his village, not much go on on and yet thing i'm so excited about this, this is this and i'm learning this, this is this. I was just so take and buy IT. So I think that you you're right when when you when you create like such an advanced economy is much easier to be pessimistic.

Doctor john sano highlighted the idea of these mind body issues. You know where authors are bad bag or stiff next? Guess what? They only happen in super advanced economies like elsewhere. They don't exist. And so I think that, yeah.

where does the idiots who sit in chairs all day while the rest world .

is up in right exactly time to live? Your life is a verb, not a known as good advice. The other thing that you you talk about that I also believe in is paris are like everywhere. One thing, and I want your opinion on this, I have you, that the power laws are actually going to be more available to more people now because the details have got much longer in the distribution. And by that, I mean, like in the old days, if you want to to be A P, B star, well, you had lulucf ball to content with, right? Nowadays, there so much media that you can be on, you can go into a nitch part of T, V, and and your power lock and take over same thing in podcasting and sub stacks and all of those types of think there are all these new smaller hills but hills no less that you can talker do do you agree?

I think that just objectively that's true um content is a great way to look at IT. You know IT used to be that there is only a couple of T V stations. So if you wanted to be cold famous on T V, then you had to be one of twenty people or fifty people.

Now there has been fragmentation was usually loose that negatively. But now you can be famous to a thousand people or ten thousand people. You don't have to be famous to the entire country.

You don't have to be on the five T. V stations. now. You can be on the millions or hundreds of millions of T V.

Stations in terms of social media accounts and and things like that. And so I think that technologies is obviously change IT for the Better. But I also think the severity of the power law is moving in a direction that will you will benefit people.

And so you know, maybe the best way to describe IT is like the power law of, let's say, writing a book used to be, do you get on the new york times by solar list or not? I know many friends, not even like wonder too. Like at this point, a lot of friends who have sought a hell of a lot of books could have been based on the numbers on the chance by solar list, but they weren't.

Its editors realized that itself published. They did always come stuff, whatever. And so there's a lot of people who would say, oh, based on song, you know, antiquated caterina, you know, you ouldn't make the power law that, you know, is that criteria, friends, you made a million dollar selling books.

I will get about the list, right? Like, just put me on the the cellars list, right? I need to be on the new york of best seller list, so just put beyond the revenue list. And so I think that, that stuff happens. They don't think about power is you know eighty twenty is kind of the the parao principal that I I see the book that I actually get like ninety five five, it's not twenty percent of your decisions. It's like less than fight may be even like one in ninety nine, you know I mean that is you know yes, that is a good guiding principle to do eighty twenty, but IT is much, much more kind of magnified than that.

And so we've done this in some of our businesses at end of the year, we look back and we say, if we only got to make two or three decisions, what were the two, three decision that we made that LED to most the outcome? And one year, I mean, this sounds insane. One year we looked at, we had a very good year.

We made one decision with the baLance, he to invest some capital of the baLance. And that drove like ninety nine percent of the return for that year. And so we said there, we said we could have made that one decision and all just not worked the whole year and moved on a merely same outcome that makes us gum feel like like why? What do we spell this time? Energy, they go.

And so then going into the next year, we said to ourselves like you can't say that every year it's gna repeat and you not always going to make good decisions, but maybe we should actually change the way that we think about decision making and what's important and how you learn right can go from there. And so I do think that understanding parallels is less about like trying to replicate them all the time. And I may be about avoiding the you know big amount of decisions or actions that aren't going to have an outcome. So it's like less than being a creative and like let's go find you twenty more new parallels instead maybe is about like let just reduced the twenty things we're doing down the two because we think one of these two is the parallel in the traction thing, not an addition that can be an outcome when you started seeing .

the power laws everywhere. yeah. And IT also helps you focus the mind, like one is really going to over the needle.

And what could we be down a path? Back to luck. I always loved core mac macthis vote.

You'll never know what your, what worse luck? Your bad luck has saved you from and so the kind of focus on, you know never multiply by zero, right? Multiple by zero always gets to zero.

And so I agree completely there. Well, we are closing in on time and I could not made this like everyone's back on a eight long form pod cats. I couldn't done four hours with .

you hear my friend that many and more than two hours based on the data on our platforms, that the concept that does well, people either want to quick IT or they're onna, sit down and let's go on a journey together so long form on a big fan of you should do more, more of IT.

And as I do, I will invite you back on because I recommend the book to everyone. I love reading IT and it's all about right now about is there.

I did not know that you could sell out on amazon. That is a new, new idea to me. I did that they refreshed. But then now we're hearing in some other countries like I got an email today, the U. K. And I had three copies in the woman's like I don't want to buy IT because then nobody just can get a good like and that's okay. If you buy three cops, I be so we're working on IT, but I think we should be in pretty good shape and we'll see when all the sales .

da comes out of delighted to see you having so much success with that. You have definite deserve IT, as you know, because you have been on the podcast before, we do have that final question. So you get another chance we're going to make you the answer.

You can kill anyone. You can put anyone in a concentration gap or reeducation gap. But what you can do is we're going to give you a magic microphone.

And you can say two things into IT that is going to accept the entire population of the earth whenever there tomorrow is they're onna, wake up and the two things you've said, they're going to think we're their own ideas. They're gonna look and say, you know, unlike all those other times, I actually take action against both of these things right now and continue to do so. What you can know.

And so one of my favorite letters in the book is all about car friends, just for no reason, just called and just say, hey, let's go on and I explicit say it's not for emits for you, right? You will make you feel Better and IT all you learn. But you have be genuinely interested if you do IT like, if you are the idiot who calls and then you're like, uh, and you little care are not listening and you're like, you know, watching T V IT doesn't work.

But I think that's one of just like like interact with people, especially Young people today who kind of hide behind computer screens I think is probably big ones, like maybe love is the answer, you know, type process. And the other one maybe an investing one, which is I think the next I D A twenty years, thirty years, but at some long period of time, is just going to be defined by the devaluation of whatever we are, currency, your local currency. And so yeah, there kind of a simple just investors are going to be winners and savors are going to be losers.

And so IT runs counter to so much of personal finance of like save, save, save. So that doesn't mean like to buy some risky, you know, whatever out coin or stocker mean coin whenever you can do just fine, as many people have for very long time, just buying, you know, the S M P five hundred or whatever. But just don't sit with one hundred percent of your network in cash and think that, like, you're gonna save your way to that house sore, save your way to, you know, whatever you want.

And so you know, everyone's different. I was that kind of different profiles and responsibility, lies or whatever. But I think that's probably in the investing. So I just A D value that I promise they may do IT faster, slow or different times. But they y're onna devalue IT.

Great, great advice, both of them. And you know there's empty evidence behind your second one. H so for what works on wall street, we looked at varying investments, but we took in place, we stripped inflation away. If you put money a dollar in us.

Treasury y bills, which many perceive as the safest investment in the world, back in nineteen, whatever, twenty seven right now, what would be worth about a dollar? eighty? The same investment just invested in the S N P would be worth like well over four hundred box.

And and like is just that what appears safest in the short term is often risky is in the long term and vice versa. So I think both of those exceptions are going to help. A lot of people will pop this has been super fund. Really, really love the book and wish you all the best with that and hope to see you against.

Thanks so much. I appreciated.