The Investment Strategy To Build Generational Wealth (ft. Morgan Housel)

What matters is not necessarily? What are the best returns 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 I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to

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 your first big hit psychology of money a while ago was that for?

Years ago about yep. Yeah, and then this new one just came out was it called same as ever? That's right. Yeah, man and people are on the Goodreads reviews are higher on the right 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 especially for podcast to you really never know what's going to work and what's not and even 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

A little bit better around the edges but it's always like you just have to birth it into the world and then and then just step back and watch it's going to do whatever it's going to do. All right, everyone a quick break. If you're hustling in the trenches to build a business or bootstrapping your own. I want to talk to you about an AI power tool that can lighten up your workload. It's called Hub spots campaign assistant and it's a game changer for creating marketing campaigns at scale it quickly turns your key selling points into a cohesive pitch which helped to deliver a knockout emails ads and landing pages and just a few.

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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 the right amount you sold over 4 million now, so I think that that proves your point of you don't really know till you know, but that is the numbers kind of amazing dude, like over 4 million books sold your I don't know in the top point 0 1 percent or something of authors, you know that I don't have much make per book but I think that means you've made like over ten million dollars as a

An author on a successful book, that's so hard to do. That's so rare and congrats to you for doing that. Thanks Sean. Yeah. I mean I saw some of the other day, I think the closest analogy to the book industry is probably professional sports where 99.9 percent of high school basketball players will never make the NBA. I don't 99.999 whatever it is, but then you have a couple of LeBron James Michael Jordan's who go on to make a billion dollars doing it, and I don't know this to be a

Percent sure but adding up my head. I'm pretty sure there are more billionaire authors are there are billion or athletes even in a world in which 99.9% of books will sell, you know, a couple thousand copies or less if that but then you have JK Rowling and Dave plinky and James Patterson were made over a billion dollars writing books was just like extremely tail driven in the success. I want to ask you about one of your philosophies because you're very interesting me. You have a philosophy.

Fee 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 was the saying big big play Big go for it. Don't sit around and wait. Don't don't be fearful. Right? So more action more ambition or whatever. That's that's one philosophy a lot of people fall into and some people go even crazy right David Goggins is like work harder. Garyvee Alex Mosey. These guys are like just grind harder. So people often have the philosophy of more and some people Marie.

Ando and others have the philosophy of way less you need less minimalism, you know escapism just become a sort of a Zen person go whatever get those vans and just like travel around the world, right? So it's like there's the philosophy of last and you're in the middle which usually is the dead zone for Content. You're in the Middle where you're like, no just have enough right but 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.

You 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 love that quote and I in general I find moderation thing interesting tell me about this is where like moderation in finance is actually going to lead to the biggest returns because what matters is not necessarily what are the best returns 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?

Longest period of time and so this is why I 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 in the in the US Stock Market six percent real six and a half percent real after inflation is what's been if you can earn six and a half percent returns after inflation.

And for 50 years, it's I mean you can run the calculations of it is it's going to achieve every it's dynastic. Well, that'll make your great-grandchildren wealthy. And so that's this big and you can do that with zero effort. Now look past past performance. Not a - there's a nuclear war and such that you can come up with all these scenarios in which it's not going to work out you come up with scenarios in which the economic conditions of the last hundred 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.

Herbs 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 know if you're just average for a long period of time you that's the winner Pimco the big bond fund. They had this phrase that I love they call it strategic mediocrity. We're 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 decile.

It appears that beat him in any given year again washed out and I think that and I think it applies to a lot of things and applies to a lot of businesses that 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. It's magic 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 or

You know, I in any given year I'm not trying to be in the top. 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% is so true in the kind of like slow and steady wins the race. I think you had a stat that like if Warren Buffett has out on what it is. Like let's say 85 billion dollars net worth like eighty 1 billion of those 85 came after his 65th birthday. Right? And I think he said something like if one had just retired when he was 60, nobody would even talk about him because the compound

like obviously he is a great investor, of course, but the whole secret what's literally 99 percent of his wealth is that he's been a great investor for 80 years. That's what he started investing. He was 11 and he's 93 today still going as as hard as ever and that's where all the money comes from. And yes like so his average returns are 20% per year, which is phenomenal of course, but if you earn 20% per year for 20 years, it's really good. You're in twenty percent a year for 40 years. It's great. You're in 20% of your 48.

Here's your worth a hundred billion dollars like that. That that's where all the Returns come from. Do you hear this and they're given that shirt away at buffets. Give it away this year at the Berkshire conference just hard as ever still going hard as ever Is that real? Are you being serious? Because I would be hilarious dude, but we joke about or Buffett where he talks about, you know, like what I forget that how he phrases it but he talks about like 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

The future like bail and enjoy life and you could argue. I well he's he likes what he does. So, you know, it's cool. He's enjoying life, but I've always liked when I think about long-term stuff. I like map out my life and I'm like man, like if I only lived to be 80, I only have you know, 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 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 that I think there's a couple I think I agree with every word. You said particularly for Ordinary People Like Us I do.

I think buffets 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 the rest of his net worth affect, you go into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 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 did II put my skill to use and I'm going to give away.

Quarter of a trillion dollars for the betterment of society. I was just an Omaha 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 the give someone a ridiculous amount of pride and pleasure and so I actually think if he were on his deathbed tomorrow Charlie Munger does died last month. I think he would look back and say like I live the best life that I could have. It wasn't Perfect by any means

means but I think there is a difference between the Bill Perkins philosophy which is true for 99% of people and then there's one percent 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. All right everyone really quick. So a few years ago. I hosted this event called hustle Caron and I got to hang out with one of the speakers. His name's Tom bill you and he sat down and he told me about how he built his business from zero to a multi billion dollar exit in like four or five years and it blew my mind and what was even more

It was he had some ideas on like strategy on business but also strategy on life and he just had a great attitude and it really impacted me and Tom actually has a podcast called impact Theory where he Dives deep into different entrepreneurs who have built really big businesses who have written amazing books authors that I read all the time folks like Tony Robbins Simon sinek Tim Ferriss he go super deep into their stories. He extracts wisdom and strategies have shaped their extraordinary lives. And also he gives his Intel and his opinion on what they're doing and it's a really fascinating.

Mating podcast it's called impact Theory by Tom bill. You you can find it on Apple Spotify or whatever. Get your podcast. Check it out. Dude. There's this crazy story about Buffett where his daughter had just had a baby and she's living in a shared apartment and she and mutual friend of Warren and the daughter went. It was actually the CEO of Washington Post went to the house and was like warned her kitchen sucks, man. And so the daughter of actually goes to warn and goes. Hey, can I get like a 20 thousand dollar loan in order to redo my kitchen?

I was like, I just go to the bank and so she eventually goes to the bank and then a few months later the the CEO of Washington Post goes back to her house and the daughter sitting in bed, but she has a really small TV where she would sit and nurse her child in front of and Washington Post said he goes to warn because Warren gave her 500 bucks for a new TV man. She can barely see this TV and she's in bed like eight hours a day or can you just give her a new TV and warm was like no compoundings more important for that five hundred dollar TV. I can't I'm not going to take the money out and so Catherine

CEO of Washington Post ended up buying her a 500 dollar 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 ain't that ain't my coat it. So Warren Buffett's just an asshole. Is that the store? Is this a real story? Because I hate one good. Well, yeah, so more buff it gets he gets a pass for having this aw shucks attitude, but he's definitely an asshole. He's definitely an asshole depending on how you Define asshole. I would Define him as a wonderful. What do I say all great men are also bad men the way he handled his

Only 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 he as someone who like I have so much respect and admiration and reverence for him, but I would also put them 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's looking up at the Buffett cancer research center and just being like God damn it. There's two parts of the story buffets first wife Susie, you know had billions of dollars of her own and she was much more freewheeling with with money. So I think that the Buffett children and they did just fine but yeah, there's there's plenty of stories about Warren. He always described as he was like capital is my tool. I'm not going to give like these are the tools of my business. This is how I make money.

Going to be willingly with it. And even when Buffett was in his 20s, when he was a kid this back in the 50s, he was already worth tens of millions of dollars in the one 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 dollars when he's 30 years old or whatever it was and it won't be like you you need to give all this away. You're never gonna 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. So if I have an above average 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. So I think is actually pretty rational you you said a few things. I thought were contradictory in different interviews that I watch the and I think in the book, I forget I'm mixing up the book and interviews that I watch but he talked about financial goals and you're like, I don't look at I don't look at my portfolio. 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.

So for for financial goals do 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. It's such a 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 the big time. I'm going to call you out. No, no depends on probably the mood that I'm in that day. Do I if I'm sitting here today, 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 why it's like not really but I like everyone else think about like, oh if my income stays the same will have this much money. What kind of life could be live with that much money. And one thing to like, we have two young kids and we are pretty hell-bent on not spoiling them they live in amazing life. And we live in a great house. They'll have a great education. They'll live the top point zero one percent of lives, but we don't want to raise spoiled little pricks and because of that we off that we often when we have goals. It's not like, oh, how can we buy?

Bigger house another house nicer car. 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 feel like I say, like, I think a lot of the contradictions come from humility of just like I 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. Yes. 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 goalposts. 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 don't think I really understood that 10 years ago 10 years.

Ago work was by and large a means to an end. 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. I'm year like a financial historian. So you've liked 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 what a question that I've always wondered. Is there a threshold where I'm not going to worry anymore so far. I have not found.

That threshold then we had Scott Galloway on here recently. And he was like, I'm worth like over 100 million liquid and I still freaked out have you found any type of thresholds to where the average person changes where they feel more relief and well, I don't know if the average person I can tell you myself though that number that I was talking about before where it for years. It was like once I hit this number I'm not going to work anymore. Once I hit that you can still work me say that number. I don't know if I want to get to 2 into G throws. We've I'll tell you I'll carry it's not it's not it's not a run.

You live at it because 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 and you'll burn rate was X and I wanted a certain amount of money where you know, 4% or 5% withdrawals of that would mean I'm sort of saying neutral let them assume. I'm getting six percent real returns in the market if I was to withdraw 4% out to pay for lifestyle, you know, that mutt that number the big bounce never going to go down. It's only going to go up. That's holy and yours Sean was how I calculated.

Years ago Shawn you said yours was six million, but if I had to guess that has changed as you've had a family. 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 underestimated 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 a hundred million dollars and I think I'm

I'm work that I think I should be like, you know, I don't have to have it but like I didn't have it something would feel a miss something and feel a little wrong and then I was like, okay cool. I think I should do that. I didn't become my like Northstar of like I'm gonna do this but what I did do is I made sure that I would only I would only work on things that either I was doing purely for the joy of it. It didn't have to bring in any dollars or if I was doing it because I thought it would be financially rewarding the finest reward have to be big enough to make it to be like on that path. Not a pet.

Not a smaller path. Yeah, then that's not like I came up with my number exactly as you did Shawn. 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 were ever going to want to spend in like I just backed into number and Samson answer your question of like once I hit that level a 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 that's happiness dude. That's happening.

That's such a cop-out. I hate when people say money doesn't make you happier, but it just gets rid of money problems. And I'm like, yeah when I worried about rent, I was unhappy see I always know I'm more happy. I'm not necessarily happy, but I'm happier. I think I think 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

Being the funniest comedy you've ever seen and you're just like laughing on the floor. That's a happy moment. It's always fleeting. 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 with their implicitly saying is this not worth chasing. I think it absolutely is worth chasing but it's not going to give you happiness for say 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 is not necessarily happiness, but II feel like I hit that

I feel like I'm my wife and I talked 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 ten years ago, which is great. You know, you wrote the psychology of money. 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 most common? I would say the most impactful psychological leak meaning away at raths psychological.

A poor 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 is it totally financially dependent yet. And then for rich people who still have a bunch of weird psychology and religion weird relationship with money. I want you to tell me what you've seen or what you believe is kind of maybe the biggest mistake a psychological mistake people have our own 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 shown you just mentioned, you know, you want to be a guy you should be a guy with a hundred million dollars.

Willing to bet if you told 17 year-old Shawn 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 dollars and so who you compared yourself to and you're 17 or 25 is different now and I think there's no end to that. If and I hope you are worth 100 million dollars someday. I guarantee you you're gonna start comparing yourself to people who are with 200 500 billion and that never ends never ever ends. The point I was making is like the minimum wage in in the MLB is like

A Thousand-Year whatever it is 400 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 were 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

Write these philosophies and made a live in talking about these like I'm so susceptible to that as anyone else. I think everybody is so I think it's such a natural thing 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 of somebody else's worth a billion and 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

Logical 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 think is seeking the right answer like quote-unquote the red 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 like I can't believe you 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 at 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 a math you you had this quote. I think it was from the book, but it could have been from the blog post that you wrote where he said the biggest risk an 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 of 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 deal side of the heavy see 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 are going to be more important but of the risk that we know of I've

Saying for years that the biggest 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 biggest economies China Japan. All of Europe are shrinking very very fast. China's working age population aged 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 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 we've had for the last hundred 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 of the equation of economic growth and for the last hundred 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 four percent economic growth was like, oh good, you're running at full capacity. Now, maybe it's two percent 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 so you may know this but my beginning and business was being a copyright on it just basically means figuring out what motivates someone and how to use the written word to take an action get them.

To take an action or to think a certain way and the way that I learned how to copyright with I did this thing called copy work and copy work is this famous technique that's not really popular anymore. But it used to be really really popular and you basically take writing that is great writing that you love and you write it out by hand and you copy it and you make notes of what particular thing that writers doing that makes it special. That's how I learned how to write I locked myself in a room for six months and I just did this for many hours a day. I created a program to make it easy. So you could do that. It's called copy that copy that.com. You can go there and you can check it out to 10-day exercise to make it real.

You learn how to write if you want. You can just go do this on your own you can find great writing. It is literally copy it by hand. I know it sounds crazy, but it works really effectively but I made something that makes it a little bit easier. So check it out copy that.com and back to the pod.

Can you explain that one a little more? I've heard Elon talk about this too that like, you know, the big risk is that we're not having enough babies. And I first I thought he was just saying it to cover his ass because he was like, you know knocking everyone up but then I was no no, he's serious about this. He actually believes this to be true, but I don't fully get it. I'm maybe just kind of dumb about this. So maybe just explain like I'm a five-year-old so 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?

Why did why is that disastrous if economic productivity goes down if there's also less less people to share the pie shrinks, but there's less people eating pie. Does that matter? Was that the wrong way to think about it? Why is it I think 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 lead to economic collapse, but they're they're they're their version of an index has been shit. Yeah per microsecond.

Yes, that's a slightly different topic because the reason it's been shit is because it was so preposterously overvalued in 1990 got it. So that's like the two separate different stories. But by and large is 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 without you have whatever you have less investment. You have less Innovation and so in those situations like when was the last incredible Tech?

Clad in Japan. I am sure I'm sure one or two exist but I can't name it off the top of my head versus if you 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 Mitsubishi going down the list. They're everywhere because when Japan had a booming population, it was investment up the yin-yang 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 technical technology growth

with medical technology goes like all the things that we associate with like a better life kind of goes out the window. So maybe it 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 thirty percent better than their parents like that idea might kind of go out the window Sam just ask you about like Trends or prediction, but what is going to come in the future, but actually your new book is

Actually about the opposite it's about what's not going to change same as ever right? So, yep. Can you explain the premise of the book? I like the Buffett story that you kind of lead with maybe start with that one. But give us the the teaser of like what are some of the like I buy the premise that some things don't change. What are some of the big sill? What's that come out of that? But start with the Buffett story. Yeah, so I had lunch last summer news two summers ago with a guy who's very close friends with Warren Buffett and this guy was driving around with Buffett.

It in 2009 in buffets car in Omaha, there was 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's the world ever going to be the same and Warren said do you know what the best selling candy bar was in 1962? I said no Warren Buffett warns us of Snickers and Buffett says, you know the best selling candy bar is today guy says no 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 financial writer for 17 years and it's always bothered me how bad the whole industry is at predicting the next bear 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 is any good at it. And so there's two things you could 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 Buffett approach.

If I could 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 a 500 years ago or thousand years ago. There's some things that you read about your 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

Zack same today as it was 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 changed. So it's going to be part of our future and so that's kind of the premise of the book is 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 would like regardless

Us 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 something where when you studied how people will 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 I you know, they almost like I could read people's minds now, right so it sounds like by studying what doesn't change or how

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 could you action that because I you know, I guess 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