The Dead Simple Strategy That Will Make Your Great Grandchildren Rich

what matters is not necessarily what are the best returns that you can earn this year that's what everyone chases but that's not what matters what matters is what are the best returns that you can sustain for the longest period of [Music] time um let's just get right into it Morgan what's going on man I'm happy you're here I'm happy to be here thanks for having me guys I read the book uh your your first big hit psychology of money a while ago was that four years ago about yep yeah and then this new one just came out was it called same as ever that's right yeah man uh and people I the good reads reviews are higher on the re most recent one I think than the first one so congratulations no thanks it's always it's always I think with all books and all articles this probably true for podcast too you really never know what's going to work and what's not and even I I've been a writer for 17 years and I still really don't know when I publish something a blog or a book how it's going to be received and maybe you get a little a little bit better around the edges but it's always like you just have to birth into the world and then and then just step back and watch it's going to do whatever it's going to do well you told me that the first version of psychology of money you said that you the first print run was I think 5,000 copies is that right so you guys you thought you know 5,000 copies is is the right amount you sold over four million now so uh I think that that proves your point of you don't really know till you know uh but that is that number is kind of amazing dude like over four million books sold you are I don't know in the top 0.01% or something of of authors you know that I don't know how much you make per book but I think that means you've made like over $10 million as an author on a successful book that's so hard to do that's so rare and um you know congrats to you for doing that thanks Sean yeah I mean I was telling someone the other day I think the closest analogy to the book industry is probably professional sports where 99.9% of high school basketball players will never make the NBA I don't 99.999 whatever it is um but but then you have a couple of of LeBron James and Michael Jordans who go on to make a billion dollars doing it and I I don't know this to be 100% sure but adding it up in my head I'm pretty sure there are more billionaire authors than there are billionaire athletes even in a world in which 99.9% of books will sell you know a couple thousand copies or or less if that but then you have JK rling and Dave plinky and James Patterson who who have made over a billion dollars writing books so it's just like extremely taal driven in the success I want to ask you about um one of your philosophies because you're very interested to me you have a philosophy it's very easy to sell a philosophy of more right people do that all the time and in fact even our podcast I would say falls into the bucket of the philosophy of more many times when we say no small boy stuff right we're saying think big play Big go for it don't sit around and wait don't don't be fearful right so more more action more ambition more whatever that's that's one philosophy a lot of people fall into and some people go even crazy right David gogins is like work harder Gary ve Alex OSI these guys are like just grind harder so people often have the philosophy of more and some people Marie condo and others have the philosophy of way less you need less minimalism um you know escapism just become a a sort of a a Zen person go uh whatever get those vans and just like travel around the world right so it's like um there's the philosophy of less and you're in the middle which usually is the dead zone for content uh you're in the Middle where you're like no just have enough right like moderation and I can't believe you've got moderation to sell I'm going to read you a quote and then I want you to talk about this so he said more than I want big returns I want to be financially unbreakable if I'm unbreakable I think I'll actually get the biggest returns because I'll be able to stick around long enough for the compounding to work wonders I loved that quote and I in general I find this moderation thing interesting tell me about that this is where like moderation in finance is actually going to lead to the biggest return returns because what matters is not necessarily what are the best returns that you can earn this year that's what everyone chases but that's not what matters what matters is what are the best returns that you can sustain for the longest period of time and so this is why like on an annual basis I am I strive for average returns in my index funds by Design why do I do it because that's going to give me the endurance to hold them for 50 years and if you can earn average returns for 50 years you're going to end up in the top 1% of all investors and you do it with zero effort what's average uh in the in the US Stock Market 6% reel six and a half percent reel after inflation is what's been if you can earn six and a half percent returns after inflation for 50 years it's it I mean you can run the calculations of it it it is it's going to achieve every it's it's dynastic wealth it'll make your great grandchildren wealthy and so that's there and you can do that with zero effort now look past past performance not indicative there's a nuclear war Etc you can come up with all these scenarios in which it's not going to work out you can come up with scenarios in which the economic conditions of the last 100 years are not going to replicate for the next hundred years okay all those aside earning average returns for an above average period of time is way more lucrative than trying to earn Superior returns for a shorter period of time like as always and I think it's so counterintuitive the intuition for everyone including educated professional investors is how do I earn the highest returns this year and like it's like of course it's like how could that be wrong it's like no if you're just average for a long period of time you that's the winner Pimco the big fun they had this phrase that I love they called it strategic mediocrity where in any given year they were never going to be in the top half against their peers but in every decade they'd always be in the top Des aisle because the peers that beat them in any given year get washed out and I think that I think it applies to a lot of things it applies to a lot of businesses it applies to relationships and marriages of like you don't need to be a superhero if you're just good for a long period of time that's how compounding Works its magic our software is the worst have have you heard of HubSpot see most crms are a cobble together mess but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous I think I love our new CRM our software is the best HubSpot grow better that that thing you just said was excellent I love that so you said I want average returns for an above average number of years rather than Superior returns for a short period of time um or you know I you know I in any given year I'm not trying to be in the top uh I'm trying to be you know sort of 50% but if I do that for 30 years I'll be in the top 10 per. it's so true in the kind of like slow and steady he wins the race I think you had a stat that like if Warren Buffett has I don't know what it is like let's say $85 billion dollars net worth like 81 billion of those 85 came after his 65th birthday right and I think you said something like if if Warren had just retired when he was 60 nobody would even talk about him because the compound like obviously he is a great investor of of course but the whole secret what's literally 99% of his wealth is that he's been a great investor for 80 years that's why he started investing when he was 11 and he's 93 today still going as as as as hard as ever and that's where all the money comes from and yes like so his average returns are are 20% per year which which is phenomenal of course but if you earn 20% per year for 20 years it's it's really good if you're in 20% a year for 40 years it's great if you're ear in 20% a year for 80 years you're worth $100 billion dollars like that that that's where all the Returns come from did you hear this Sam they're giving that shirt away at Buffett's give it away this year at the burar conference just hard as ever still going hard as ever Is that real are you being serious oh be hilarious dude but we joke about war Buffett where he talks about uh you know like uh well I forget the how he phrases it but he talks about like the the you know it's all about the future it's all about the future and we were like dude you're 93 like there is no future like Bale and enjoy life and you could argue like well he's he likes what he does so you know it's cool he's enjoying life but I've always like when I think about long-term stuff I'll like map out my life and I'm like man like if I only live to be 80 I only have you know uh 40 or something Summers left like I don't I don't know if I want to be I'm not willing to pay the price of if that's what's considered great is doing 30 or 20 20% returns for 80 years I'm not willing to pay that price because Life's too short and and when I think about like what it requires to be one of one to be one of the greats that's what freaks me out is I don't want to be that old and not have enjoyed it you know that's why it's like the converse to all this is Bill Perkins book die with zero of like spend it while you're here enjoy it while you're here because when you're gone it's it's pointless you know what I mean yeah yeah now I think I think there's a couple I think I I agree with every word you said particularly for Ordinary People Like Us I do think Buffett's DNA is just he gets more pleasure from anything in life the most pleasure he gets is from compounding there's nothing that makes him happier the other thing is even though he's worth a hundred billion dollars today he's given away a hundred billion already and and with with with the rest of his net worth effect you know go into the bill Ming The Gates Foundation I I imagine I don't know this to be true but I imagine when he when he lays in bed pondering his life he's like I'm I I did I I I put my skill to use and I'm going to give away a quarter of a trillion dollars for the better of society I was just in Omaha a couple months ago where he's lived his entire life and in Downtown Omaha one of the tallest buildings says the Buffett Center for Cancer Research or something like that I imagine when he drives past that and this is the building that he drove past when he was five years old it gives him a ridiculous amount of pride and pleasure and so I actually think if if he were on his deathbed tomorrow Charlie Monger just died last month I think he would look back and say like I I I live the best life that I could have it wasn't Perfect by any means but I I I think there is a difference between the Bill Perkins philosophy which is true for 99% of people and then there's 1% of people who actually get so much pleasure out of compounding and thinking about what that money is going to do to society after they die dude there's this crazy story about Buffett where his daughter had just had a baby and she's living in a [ __ ] apartment and she and uh a mutual friend of Warren and the daughter went it was actually the CEO of Washington Post went to the house and was like Warren her kitchen sucks man and so the daughter eventually goes to Warren and goes hey can I get like a $1,000 Loan in order to redo my kitchen and he was like H just go to the bank and uh so she eventually goes to the bank and then a few months later uh the the CEO of Washington Post goes back to her house and the daughter's sitting in bed but she has a really small TV where she would sit and nurse her child in front of and Washington Post lady goes to Warren she goes Warren give her 500 bucks for a new TV man she could barely see this TV and she's in bed like eight hours a day can you just give her a new TV and waren was like no compounding is more important for that $500 TV I can't I'm not going to to take the money out and so Katherine uh the CEO of Washington Post ended up buying her a $500 TV but that's how like tight this guy was about following his code which I guess I appreciate that someone has a code but that a that ain't my code wait so Warren Buffett's just an [ __ ] is that the store is this a real story because I hate War well yeah so War Buffett gets he gets a pass for having this all Shucks attitude but he's definitely an [ __ ] he's definitely an [ __ ] depending on how you Define [ __ ] I would Define him as a Wonder a what do I say great men are also bad men the way he handled his his family I think was was not wonderful the way he handled business associates was wonderful so you know like it's there's trade-offs to being great I think I think as someone like I have so much respect and admiration and reverence for him but I would also put him in the campus someone who was like I'm so glad he exists but I don't think I would want that for my own life which is not a criticism against his life it's just like to each their own and let's not pretend that everyone should want the life of the five standard deviation success it's like there's a cost to all of that I was just trying to imagine like his daughter just like you know at the bus stop trying to get a bus ride to wherever she's going she looking up at the Buffett cancer research center and just being like God damn it there's there's some other parts of the story Buffett's uh first wife Susie you know had uh billions of dollars of her own and she was much more freeing with with money so I think the the buffet children and they did just fine but yeah there's there's plenty of stories about Warren he always described he was like capital is my tool not going to give like these are the tools of my business this is how I make money I'm not going to be willy-nilly with it and even when Buffett was in his 20s when he was a kid this is back in the 50s he was already worth tens of millions of dollars in the when that was real money in the 50s and you could easily imagine a world in which he's worth the equivalent of a hundred million when he's 30 years old or whatever it was and everyone be like dude you need to give all this away you're never going to be able to spend this and his philosophy was like his philosophy has always been people in the future will be just as needy as people are today day so if I have an above aage ability to compound it it actually makes sense for me to hold on to this money for as long as I can before I give it away which I think is actually pretty rational you you said a few things that I thought were um contradictory in in different interviews that I watched the and I think in the book I forget I'm mixing up the book and interviews that I watch but you talk about financial goals and you're like I don't look at I don't look at my portfolio um I I think you said I don't set goals or at least that's the vibe that I got in an interview but then I've also read a little bit where you do have some type of goals um so for for financial goals do you like have a number in your oh sorry I remember what it was you said whenever you hit your goal you're always going to double it therefore I don't have goals I think that's what you said H it's such a the the the reason it's hard for me to answer that is I'm sure I've said things that are contradictory because I like everyone else it's like it depends depends I'm not trying to call you out no no no depends on I'm probably the the mood that I'm in that day do I if I'm sitting here today and I think do my wife and I have financial goals not really it's not like oh we're trying to hit X and once we hit X we're going to go by y like not really but I like everyone else think about like oh if my income stays the same we'll have this much money what kind of life could we live with that much money and one thing too like we have two young kids and we are pretty hellbent on not spoiling them they live an amazing life and we live in a great house they'll have a great education they'll live the top 0 one% of lives but we don't want to raise spoiled little pricks and because of that we off we often we have goals it's not like oh how can we buy a a bigger house another house nicer cars it's kind of like we want to live a good but not extravagant life because we don't want to spoil our kids but like even that sometimes like I can talk to other people who are like no actually you can live the big high life without spoiling your kids here's how to do it so I I I feel like I say like I think a lot of the contradictions come from humility of just like I I I haven't really figured it out yet for myself I tend to not have goals for years I had a goal of once my net worth is X I'm not going to work much anymore because I could easily live for the rest of my life off of that net worth and I've exceeded that number and I'm working I'm working harder than ever but I don't I don't regret that at all maybe that is some version of moving the goalpost but I think more of it is after I hit some level of financial Independence after I wrote books it was like okay I'm only going to do the work that I enjoy now and it's not really work it's just like I really enjoy writing these books I only speak at conferences that in cities that I want to go to it doesn't feel like work and I I don't think I really understood that 10 years ago 10 years ago work was by and large a means to an ends I need to do this to feed my family and now that I've reached kind of the artistic level I'm like oh I want to keep doing this forever and in that world goals kind of go out the window well we've like interviewed a bunch of I mean we've had we have a bunch of wealthy friends we've had a bunch of people on here um you're like a financial historian so you've like read about all these people you also know a lot of them and you've written about them and you probably run in even a more Elite Circle than we do but a question that I've always wondered is is there a threshold where I'm not going to worry anymore so far I've not found that threshold and we had Scott Galloway on here recently and he was like I'm worth like over 100 million liquid and I still freak out have you found any type of thresholds to where the average person changes where they feel more relief I don't know I don't know if the average person I can tell you myself though that number that I was talking about before where for years it was like once I hit this number I'm not going to work anymore once I hit that number I still can you say that number I I don't know I don't know if I want to get too too into DET maybe I'll tell you off camera it's not it's not it's not a ridiculous at it CU some people don't know how what how should I think about what that number is for me for example I was like oh if my life annual burn rate was X and I wanted a certain amount of money where you know 4% or 5% withdrawals of that uh would mean I'm sort of setting neutral let's assume I'm getting 6% real returns in the market if I was to withdraw 4% out to pay for lifestyle uh you know that that number of the bank account is never going to go down it's only going to go up uh that's how exactly how I calculated years ago Sean you said yours was six million but if I had to guess that has changed as you've had a family uh yeah no to be honest can I say the honest answer is kind of ridiculous sounding but like it's not that oh I had kids and oh man I really underes these diapers are expensive that's not actually what happened I literally I remember one day I was like okay so I've done this I was like I kind of feel like a guy who should have $100 million and with I was like I think I'm I think I'm worth that I think I should be like you know I don't have to have it but like if I didn't have it something would feel a miss something would feel a little wrong and uh then I was like okay cool I think I should do that it didn't become my like North Star of like I'm gonna do this but what I did do was I made sure that I would only um I would only work on things that either I was doing purely for the joy of it it it didn't have to bring in any dollars or if I was doing it because I thought it was going to be financially rewarding the financial reward had to be big enough enough to make it to be like on that path not a path not a smaller path yeah do like I I came up with my number exactly as you did Sean it was like if I have a 4% withdrawal rate what is the annual income that I know is going to be like easily comfortably all that we're ever going to want to spend and like I just backed into the number and Sam to answer your question of like once I hit that level a I I kept working as I am now and I don't think I was any happier but I had a I have less Financial stress less career stress because happiness dude that's happiness such a cop out I hate when people say money doesn't make you happier but it just gets rid of mddy problems and I'm like yeah when I worried about rent I was unhappy now I don't I'm more happy I'm not necessarily happy but I'm happier I I think like I think we we probably agree this is like arguing over the definition of words but I would say there's a big difference between happiness and a reduction of anxiety I think those are very different things happiness is is like you wake up grinning ear to ear or it's like if you're watching the funniest comedy you've ever seen and you're just like laughing on the floor that's a happy moment but it's always fleeing but to me the reduction of anxiety or contentment that is something that money can buy and that is worth chasing it's great so like when people say money can't buy happiness what they're implicitly saying is it's not worth chasing I think it absolutely is worth chasing but it's not going to give you happiness per se it's going to give you contentment and reduction of anxiety which is wonderful it's a massive increase in the quality of your life but in my definition it's not necessarily happiness but I I I I feel like I hit that I feel like I'm my my wife and I were talking about this last night I feel like I'm in a better mental state of like less anxiety than I've had relative to you know five or 10 years ago which is great you know you wrote the psychology of money um you've studied this a lot I want to ask you what what are the most what are the biggest or maybe the most common leak instead of uh most common I would say the most impactful uh psychological leak meaning a way a TR a psychological trap or mistake people make around money and I want you to answer it for somebody who is kind of on the come up so somebody who isn't totally financially independent yet and then for rich people who still have a bunch of weird psychology and Rel weird relationship with money I want you to tell me what you've seen or what you believe is kind of maybe the biggest M psychological mistake people have around money in each of those buckets I think there's there's two I'll start with one that's probably the biggest which is social comparison which is always Sean just mentioned you know you want to be a guy you should be a guy with $100 million I'm willing to bet if you told 17-year-old sea that figure you would faint but it doesn't seem that ridiculous to you now because I bet you know people who are worth $100 million and so who you compared yourself to when you were 17 or 25 is different now and I think there's no end to that if and I hope you are worth a hundred million doll someday I guarantee you you're going to start comparing yourself to people who are worth 200 500 a billion and that never ends never ever ends the point I always make is like the the minimum wage in um in the MLB is like 500,000 a year whatever it is 400 what what whatever it is a shitload of money by any definition if you're making half a million dollars a year and I guarantee you there's not a single minimum wage professional baseball player who thinks they're doing well because they're comparing themselves to their teammates who are making 10 million a year and so there's no end to that but you always think there is which is why I for myself had this idea once my net worth is X I'm never going to work ever again but once now that I'm here maybe it is because I'm comparing myself to other people other authors maybe that's at least part of it so I think even if I can write these philosophies and made a Liv in talking about these like I'm still susceptible to that as as anyone else I think everybody is so I think it's such a natural thing I mean in all of evolution what matters is not how much success you have it matters that you have more success than the other person because in a competition for resources that's all that matters doesn't matter if you're worth a billion dollars if somebody else is worth a billion in one they have more resources in you and from an evolutionary perspective they're going to win and you're going to lose so that like always chasing no matter how much you have is is a big psychological underpinning to people's anxiety the second that I would mention that's that's probably equally as important is realizing that there is not one right answer for everybody and everyone in finance is always sing is seeking the right answer like quote unquote the right it doesn't exist I think it's much closer to like your taste in music of like there's no such thing as the best music you like this I like that to each their own and a lot of times when you have a financial debate of people are like I can't believe manage your money like that why don't you do it like me you're not actually debating it's people with a different risk tolerance different social aspirations different family Dynamics who are talking over each other and I think it's like it's hard for people to come to terms of like look that works for you this works for me to each our own people don't want to settle on that because it's easier to think that there should be a right answer like there is in math you uh you had this quote I think it was from the book but it could have been from the a blog post that he wrote where he said the biggest risk and important news story of the next 10 years will be something nobody is talking about today and but you're in this weird position where you work at a VC where you actually do have to predict the future a bit or at least you're around people who are trying to predict the future what do you think are there any Trends or topics today that you think in 10 years are going to be a lot more common and popular well the good the good news for me is that since I'm not involved in the the deal side of the VC that it doesn't really rest on my shoulders to make those predictions of the risk that we know of which is like obviously very distinct from the surprises that are going to be more important but of the risk that we know of i' I've been saying for years that the biggest um by far in the global economy is is demographics the terrible demographics that almost the entire industrialized world has outside of India and Africa almost the entire world is shrinking population wise and the based economies China Japan all of Europe are are shrinking very very fast China's working age population age 16 to 64 will decline by 200 million people between now and 2050 it's just like there's no precedent outside of like the black death plague there's no precedent for that in all of human history it's always been the case that economic growth was driven by the fact that there was massive population uh growth and we just don't have it anymore and in the United States we have about the best demographics relative to our peers but it's still way less than we've had for the last years and all economic growth is either population growth or productivity growth all economic growth comes from those two things and so when you take half the equation of economic growth and for the last 100 years it's been really good and now it's at best poor if not a headwind it's a very different world totally different world and maybe like the takeaway from that is it used to be that 4% economic growth was like oh good you're running at full capacity now maybe it's 2% just because we've taken away so much of that so of the of the things that we know are going to be a risk that's probably the most prominent can you explain that one a little more I've heard Elon talk about this too that like uh you know the big risk is that we're not having enough babies and at first I thought he was just saying it to cover his ass because he was like you know knocking everyone up but then I no no he's serious about this he actually believes this to be true uh but I don't fully get it uh I'm maybe just kind of dumb about this so maybe just explain like I'm a I'm a 5-year-old so uh if economic growth goes down but the population shrinks is it kind of like isn't there kind of like a per capita type of thing where it's like yes what's the big deal like why why is that disastrous if uh if economic productivity slows down if there's also less less people to Shar you the pie shrinks but there's less people eating pie um does that matter or is that the wrong way to think about it why is it I think it's it's not the wrong way to think about it because you could look at Japan for the last 30 years which Japan for the last 30 years has had abysmal demographics but I think it's safe to say that by and large it's been a fairly Pleasant place to live it does not led to economic collapse but their their their their version of an index has been [ __ ] yeah from a money perspective yes that's a slightly different topic because the reason it's been [ __ ] is because it was so preposterously overvalued in 1990 got it um so that's like the two two separate different stories but by and large it has not led to economic collapse the one thing I would say though is like what it does lead to is when you don't have a growing economy you have much less investment you're not investing in new businesses new homes new factories because you don't need them you're fine with what you have whenever you have less investment you have less Innovation and so in those situations like when was the last incredible tech company to come out of Japan I I I'm sure I'm sure one or two exist but I can't name it off the top of my head versus if you if if you and I were talking in 1990 and we said what was the last tech company we'd be like oh my gosh Sony Toshiba going like mitsub going down the list they're everywhere because when Japan had a booming population it was investment up the yinyang of like new technologies and so when you once you remove that from the equation you can still have a pleasant Society that's in some form of stasis but you're not going to have growth not just economic growth but techn technology growth Medical Technology growth like all the things that we associate with like a better life kind of grows out the window so maybe is the case that for a lot of the developed world over the next 50 years it's still a pleasant place to live but the idea of like every generation is going to live 30% better than their parents like that idea might kind of go out the window uh Sam just asked you about like Trends or prediction like what what what is going to come in the future but actually your your new book is actually about the opposite it's about what's not going to change same as ever right so y can you explain the premise of the book I like the buffet story that you kind of lead with maybe start with that one but uh give us the the teaser of like what are some of the the like I buy the premise that some things don't change um what are some of the big Sil whats that come out of that but start with the Buffett story yeah so I had lunch last summer maybe two summers ago with a guy who is very close friends with Warren Buffett and uh this guy was driving around with Buffett in 2009 in Buffett's car in Omaha they're just driving around town together in 2009 the economy was a wreck and there's like businesses boarded up and it was like the economic apocalypse and this guy says Warren like how do we ever recover from this like how how's the world ever going to be the same and Warren said do you know what the best selling candy bar was in 1962 gu said no Warren Buffett Warren says Snickers and Buffett says you know what the best selling candy bar is today guy says no he says Snickers and that's that's the end of the story the premise being like don't worry about like how are we going to change like find something that does not change and bet on that and I've often thought I've been a a financial writer for 17 years and it's always bothered me how bad the whole industry is at predicting the next bar Market the next recession the next pandemic the next technology nobody's any good at it that's like a little bit too harsh but that's that's directionally true nobody's any good at it and so there's two things you can do with that one you could become more of a cynic and just say nobody knows anything don't even try or kind of the buffet approach of like find something that is never going to change and put your weight on that and so that was one observation the other was as a student of History realizing when you're reading about the economy from a hundred years ago or 500 years ago or a thousand years ago there's some things that you read about and you're like oh things were very different back then but there are even more things that you can read that make you stop and think that's exactly how it is today the way that people responded to Greed and fear and risk and uncertainty is the exact same today as it was a 100 years ago and so putting those two things together if you can find things of human behavior that are never going to change then you know something that is going to be part of your future so stop pretending that you know when the next recession is going to happen but study how people respond to recessions when they do happen because that's never changeed so it's going to be part of our future and so that's kind of the premise of the book it's just a bunch of little stories of things that facets of human behavior that have always been with us and I think always will be and you like regardless of what is going to happen in our future you know that these little bits of behavior are going to be a part of it and so what's something where when you studied how people let's say respond to Greed or fear or change or whatever and you looked at these patterns of human behavior what's something that you like the best research or books or insights that I get I'm like oh I feel like I have a superpower like you know almost like I could read people's minds now right so it sounds like by studying what doesn't change or how how human behavior Works did you come out with anything that you're like did you change anything that you do or did you have a new strategy or a new plan or any new like um could you action that uh cuz I you know I guess my my skeptical view would be I feel like I could understand how people behaved in the past but attaching that to what the hell am I supposed to do today is is not so easy of a leap what's one that you made yourself doing this I know this is an answer that people will find inadequate but to me it's it's incredibly powerful and important and I think the main plea in the book is for humility it's not even about the the examples that of things that are never going to change that's obviously the core of the book but the reason we're doing that is because we have humility and not fooling ourselves to thinking that we know what's going to change what are the three biggest economic stories of our adult lives by far by an order of magnitude it's September 11th Leeman Brothers collapsing and covid like by an order of magnitude Nothing Else Matters more than those three things and the common denominator is nobody saw them coming they're not in any economic Outlook no analyst forecast unless you were had inside information you were part of those things nobody saw them coming and it's always been like that because you can go back another generation and it was Pearl Harbor collapse of the Soviet Union all these things that even if in hindsight you're like oh you you should have seen those coming Great Depression of course the fact is that very few people did if anybody and something like Pearl Harbor you could not have seen it coming but think about how that changed the entire fabric of society not just the economy but everything and going forward it will be like that too you can state with so much certainty that the biggest economic story of our lifetimes in the future or or even the next 12 months is something that you and I are not talking about today I mean what what's the biggest global news story of 2023 this is this is subjective but I would say it's Israel Hamas which is something that even if you were an expert in Middle East politics you did not see coming on October 6 to let alone people like us so that's and I think it's it's always been like that it'll be like that next year and the reason that we that view like we we tend to ignore that is because I think coming to terms with it is too painful coming to terms with the AA and admitting to yourself that we don't know what's going to happen next is a really uncomfortable level of uncertainty it's much easier and more comfortable to just say to pretend that we do which is why the market for punditry is always going to exist no matter how poor the results are and so I think that's the biggest actionable takeaway for me is I I I don't forecast I I think I think it's much healthier to read more history and fewer forecasts and when you read history you start focusing on the indelible behaviors that never change and you become more humble in your ability to fool yourself into thinking that we do know is what is going to change Morgan I know you got to leave you got have a hard stop in two minutes so let me I want to ask a a very takeaway or in actionable question which is what two or three or four however many want history books can I go and read over the next month that do the best job of me not not a book like yours that Aggregates a bunch of them but literally a specific era or a specific book that I can go and read that does a good job of of showing this where I'll read it and I'll be like oh this is exactly what I'm experiencing now or things won't change I think one of the best World War II books because it's not only a book about the military operations but also the human element on the ground is Eric larsson's book The Splendid in the vial which is a pretty recent book I think it came out four years ago and it's about the London Blitz bombing in World War II Eric Larsson I think is the greatest living Storyteller period and he's so good his book on the Lucitania is wonderful it's absolutely epic so so that book is is is incredible Doris Kern's Goodwin's book no ordinary time which is about how FDR managed World War II it's not about the war itself it's about how he managed the politics and the emotions of it is absolutely stunning I also use that book as an example of I think the book is 700 pages and every single word needs to be there there's not a single wasted word in the 700 Pages it's she's just like such an extraordinary writer those are two that really stick out as like some of the best and you're doing an excellent job of giving Into The Stereotype of 30 or 40 something year old white guys obsessing over World War II what we're supposed to do yeah everyone talks about the Roman Empire [ __ ] the Roman Empire World War II that's where it's at man it's it's so true I I Can't Get Enough it I will say the last thing I say because I do have to jump I I I think the reason World War II is so interesting is because it was the most documented major event and therefore like the emotion the emotions on either end of the spectrum from despair to Elation are there's more documented examples of that during that six-year period than have ever existed in all of human history so it's not just understanding the military and the politics it's like if you want to understand human emotions there's no better Spotlight or magnifying glass than studying World War II well we appreciate you coming on man this is awesome um we're big fans of your first book I I know I'm in the middle of reading the second one same as ever and uh you're badass we appreciate you doing this thanks guys this has been fun thanks Morgan all right that's the pod [Music]

Channel: My First Million

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Keywords: my first million, my first million podcast, my first million podcast episodes, the hustle, the hustle daily, the hustle trends, shaan puri, sam parr, sam parr the hustle, the hustle podcast, the hustle podcast my first million, startup podcast, entrepreneurship podcast, business entrepreneurship podcast, business, podcast, entrepreneurship

Id: azC80HIbQWc

Length: 35min 47sec (2147 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2023