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Language: en
the hard truth about money is that if
you don't invest it you will lose it to
inflation that forces all of us to
become degenerate gamblers and I have a
growing thesis that hard money that
can't be seized or inflated ought to be
an inalienable human right but currently
that's not the case so you have to
invest in something as a way to beat the
hidden theft that is money printing
today's guest is Cody Sanchez and she
has one of the most unique solutions to
this problem I've ever
seen I want to start with a quote from
Cody Sanchez if you game for it yeah
here we go we're about to have one of
the most difficult markets of our
careers I was at Goldman Sachs in 2007
and 2008 when the world was falling
apart I saw what happened to retail
investors then and I think it will be
worse this goor round between interest
rates commercial real estate and the
fact that we also have to battle
inflation we are going to come into one
of the most difficult markets in our
history of
investing why do you think this time is
going to be different why isn't the
government going to come in print more
money and either stop us from having a
recession at all or if we do have one
that we won't just bounce back I think
guns only have so many bullets right and
the government in some ways at the
federal level operates like a gun and
they've used their bullets you know
they've used quantitative Ean which was
a massive money printer for a long time
longer than they should have from QE to
then tarp uh which the temporary asset
relief program actually Contin continued
far past when it was supposed to um and
then they did it with uh interest rates
and then they're going to have to try to
figure out how to manage a burgeoning
deficit that is getting slightly out of
control 34.4 trillion doll as of the
time of this recording which now has
higher interest rates on it and will
continue to have higher interest rates
on it which they didn't extend longer
terms for and they should have when
interest rates were at the lowest amount
uh you know during our lifetimes and so
I think the government is out of bullets
and we you know when when you're out of
bullets what do you do next I mean you
have to go to like bigger ammunition and
so I think the thing that scares me the
most about this recession is because the
government doesn't know what else to do
that is within their normal arms they're
going to have to come and do something a
little bit crazy or let the market
really really fall and I think political
will right now does not want to let the
market Fall and big corporates do not
want to let the market Fall and so for
that reason I worry about the
economy you and me both I don't see a
way around printing they especially in
an election year there's no Universe in
which they will let that happen they
have also proven every time there's a
problem every time there's a problem
since 2008 they whip out the money
printer and that's everybody Democrats
Republicans does not matter print print
print print print and I keep asking
people about this and the only so what I
ask people is the debt is increasing
every 100 days we add a trillion dollar
in debt as you said the interest rates
are high interest rate payments are now
the third biggest line item that the
government has that's going to keep
growing if you lower interest rates then
inflation is going to rear its ugly head
again if you print money inflation is
going to rear its ugly head and so to
your point about being out of
bullets yes but I think the analogy ends
up breaking down because they will fire
the bullets they'll just kill the wrong
people and so what ends up happening is
the dollar begins to struggle now I
don't think we're going to have rapid
dollarization or hyperinflation or
anything like that but it's going to be
a super weird economy where everybody is
turned into a
gambler yeah I mean I think your points
on inflation are really well taken too
what concerns me with inflation is you
know if you go out right now on the
market everybody says inflation's coming
down we're more around a 2% level we're
not at the four to 5 to 8% inflation
that may be depending on how you measure
it we at in the past but then you go and
buy groceries right and you feel the
difference in groceries bought in 2020
versus groceries bought in 20124 and so
I looked at some sample baskets both
economically and from an individual
person and you could see that if you
bought $10 in groceries in 2020 and $10
in groceries in 2024 you basically got
50% Less in 2024 so you went from $10 to
$5 for the same amount now what's
fascinating is you go well how's that
possible because inflation's down and
you know we're trending at a at a better
level well how it's possible is once you
have a permanent price increase that
settles along small businesses they
actually don't pull those down on a
commodity basis just because the
commodity prices have come down if they
already know that they can charge XYZ
amount businesses typically don't wheel
back their prices once they raise them
now baskets like um you know oil for
instance those definitely change but
small businesses across the us are going
to normalize prices and so I think the
bigger issue too is people are not
making more inflations come down but
they feel like they have to spend more
and they're right they do and actually
the way that we measure inflation
doesn't make a lot of sense for the
normal average Joe who really has most
of their costs and things like everyday
food utilities rent I heard a stat I
don't remember exactly where this comes
from but it sounds intuitively correct
and somebody in the comments will uh
bang me if I'm uh off but uh that while
it is true that the stock market which
is basically the only place that the
most people invest in they're not Savvy
investors they have no idea what they're
doing so they just do a basic fund uh
that most even though the stock market
returns roughly 10% on average that
isn't what the average investor gets the
average investor ends up losing to
inflation and so that I think speaks to
a lot of what's going on in crypto and I
know you're not a big crypto person but
so I'm I'm uh I'm a part of a meme about
sitting on two chairs because I very
much Michael sailor who has literally
bet the farm and then some on bitcoin uh
there's no Universe in which I would do
that so I'm just I don't trust anything
that much so I don't think the future is
a guarantee and so just too many weird
things can happen so anyway uh I'm
taking a far broader uh approach to this
but when I start talking about like hey
we have a debt crisis what's the
solution I don't see a way to unwind
this like every that I run every
scenario that I run you end up with a
debt Jubilee now a debt Jubilee sounds
awesome but it usually comes when people
are getting shot and blown up so uh
historically the button that says debt
Jubilee is war so as somebody who'd
really like to avoid that anyway when I
bring this up that I don't see a
solution people always like bro Bitcoin
okay first of all let me say I'm a huge
believer in Bitcoin and that is my
largest single holding crypto in general
for sure is by far my largest holding
however that is what I'll call a life
raft because the people that know to get
in it sure you now have a protection
from inflation but that isn't additional
uh productivity and so you're not going
to be able to escape the debt crisis
that we're in now it may avoid the next
debt crisis from happening but it
doesn't help us with the one that we're
in now so when you look at at that you
see something I'm missing well you know
I think no I don't see anything that
you're missing I think the federal
government has turned into a transfer
service and they are essentially they
used to provide services to uh to all of
us to Citizens and now if you actually
look at the amount of money and where
they spend it they spend most of their
money transferring money from those who
have made it to those uh who say that
they need it um and like there's
actually a graph that's fascinating that
I sent to you that we can put on here
and people can can disagree with it in
the comments but it basically shows that
federal spending is at all-time high
levels with transference which is things
like um you know Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid and um and so I think the
problem even bigger than the debt crisis
is we have systemic issues in this
country that the government has no
incentive to change because what are
they doing when they transfer your
dollars to somebody else times 20 um
they're buying votes and so you know of
course they're going to be able to stay
in office and continue to have systemic
issues like this if they keep
transferring money in this way and so I
think it's not everybody's focused on
government spending that is problematic
very much so how much they're spending
but it's also where they're spending it
it's the fact that we've turned into
this you know this funnel system and
that's the thing that I think scares me
more than anything else because you are
not increasing productivity of those
dollars when you transfer it from one
person to another based on need not
output capability uh you know additional
spending that they're going to do to
push the economy forward and so it would
be much better if we were spending on
even things like defense infrastructure
Innovation and we're just not that's
nice and distressing so when I saw that
graph I'd never seen that before and uh
for people listening we will have this
up on screen but what I found very
interesting so the it starts tracking in
like the 1940s and obviously defense is
massive it's like 80 plus% of what the
government spends on as you expect
because we were in the middle of World
War II y um then that pretty
precipitously falls off in the 50s and
you get this sort of normalization but
what's interesting is you see that line
fall really low and then the what I
think the graph calls individual
payments what you were just describing
starts rocketing up in like the 50s and
60s and what's really interesting and oh
man this is this is one of those things
that to really talk about you have to
get into the nitty-gritty of why people
want to do this so it's the sense of
nobody left behind right so we see that
somebody has need we want to make sure
that they're taken care of I love that
the most but what ends up happening to
your point is you're taking efficient
Capital dollars yeah and you're turning
them into inefficient Capital dollars
simply because some people are good at
allocating capital and some are not and
so you are literally siphoning money
from people who made that money because
they're good Capital allocating they're
good at building businesses just to not
use fancy words they know how to build a
business they know how to build things
that people want people are willing to
pay money and so hey it greases the
wheels of the economy GDP goes up we're
able to make more with less and the
people that are able to make more with
less one would think you would want to
keep the money in their hands but what
we're doing Instead at an ever
increasing rate is we're moving that
capital from the people who have
demonstrated an ability to do something
to the people that don't know how
certainly have not yet demonstrated an
ability to do that yeah that's exactly
right well I think also you know if you
think about what's happening here I
think you individually get overwhelmed
when you know you think what do I do
about these huge things okay so the debt
ceiling's happening you know I mean so
we have this massive uh debt problem
Cody says we're out of bullets Tom says
they're going to shoot us anyway you
know what do I do about all of this
right and what I'm just a normal person
trying to get by trying to afford
a two we vacation during the summer and
a smaller house than I had before maybe
and less cars and the government keeps
getting bigger but I have less what am I
supposed to do about this I I'm not I'm
not calling up Senators I have no access
to this sort of change that you two are
talking about and I think if that's how
you feel in my mind it's one knowledge
is power so now you get to know what is
happening and when somebody says
something idiotic to you like it's good
to transfer the money from the rich to
the poor you go wait a second why
because it turns out we are very
Collective individuals as opposed to
individualistic this Collective Society
if you live in the US you can't get away
from the repercussions of those on high
so I think everybody listening you
should you should feel like man I want
to understand this so badly because I
want to explain to all of my friends why
the government's decisions today can be
more impactful than what my boss does in
some instances or how much money I make
you know I had one business that was
eradicated because the government
changed one regulation and because of
that everybody got laid off in the
business I actually ended up leaving the
business and it was because they changed
this one little rule about Mark to Mark
Accounting in 2008 that we talked about
previously and money market funds and
variable nav like very Tech techy things
in the finance space and because of that
people lost their jobs and so I think
it's really important to like get to the
numbers through the narrative and so you
know as I was thinking about this today
I'm like what do the numbers say uh
versus what do the politicians say well
right now the politicians are telling us
tax the rich tax the billionaires that's
the solution let's take all their money
it's those guys fault and let me tell
you why I think that's so dumb is
because when you look at the math if we
took all of the Forbes one uh all of the
Forbes 400 richest people in the world
and we clawed back all their wealth
something like $4 trillion that would
run the US government for seven
months okay that's not going to do
enough then what if we took 100% of
their earnings every year about a
million people's earnings and we took
all their earnings how long would that
run the government well it' be about
like $500 billion and that would be 34
days so oh that's really helpful Mr
politician when you talk about let's tax
the rich show me what that gets me and
what it gets me is 34 days of your
salary no thanks we don't have a revenue
problem in the US we have a spending
problem and it turns out the politicians
just need to know how to use a [ __ ]
calculator and they don't or they do and
it's even worse and more mancal than
that yeah I mean for now I'll assume
that there's no uh evil intent behind it
um which I trust me I understand that's
playing naive a little bit but I think
if people start there they're going to
Blind themselves to what's really going
on um okay so we don't have a revenue
problem I don't actually think that's
true so anybody with a managing a
household budget if you come to me
because I get asked this question a lot
uh Tom I just cannot like make ends meat
or I'm struggling in my business I want
to scale what do I need to do the answer
is always you have two options you can
lower your expenses or you can make more
money so you could look at this and say
we do have a revenue problem cool I'm
here for that conversation the problem
is we've already covered this in this
conversation which is you've got you're
pointing your finger at the quote
unquote rich people I forget the stat
but most wealthy people did not inherit
their money certainly more than 50%
might be more than 70% it's pretty high
like it's really hard to retain wealth
really hard and they don't stay there no
within your own life you go up and down
in and out of classes so uh but the
narrative is not that but so you have
these people that are proven I'm very
good at at generating money I know how
to increase that y um and I increase it
by doing more with less so meaning I can
get you that stereo that you want it's a
better stereo for less money or a better
stereo for the same money TV car
whatever it's just more efficiency uh
take Amazon is my favorite story I canot
believe that people hate on Jeff Bezos
because Amazon changed our lives now if
you are willing to trade and I don't
want things that quickly I'd much rather
have Mom and Pop shops everywhere okay
fair we can at least have that argument
but you can't deny that he's been way
more efficient with the capital and when
you talk about and look let's put the
elephant in the room this is to wealthy
people having this conversation this is
also to self-made wealthy people which
I'd like to remind people so so if you
are overt taxing the rich what you're
doing is saying I'm taking Revenue as a
solution off the table because I'm now
going to handicap them because that
Revenue that they would have used to
become even more efficient to scale
their business or to start the next
business or whatever that's not you
don't have that ability because
especially if you're talking um taking
the tax rate up and up and up and people
will say oh there was a time where the
tax rate was 90% or whatever we did just
fine there was a time where the tax rate
was briefly 90% and you will notice they
brought that down real fast because you
were going to get Capital flight
massively people are just not going to
put up with that so anyway it could be
solved with Revenue but it won't be
solved with Revenue if the answer is
just go tax the life out of people and
to your point it just doesn't go long
enough so you end up taxing the life out
of the middle class anyway okay so if
you
remove Revenue now you're left with how
do we reduce expenses and and nobody
will vote for that you need to only look
at all the burning cars in France every
time somebody proposes like raising the
retirement age or whatever even here
people will twig out if you talk about
raising the retirement age so what do we
do with that well I think a couple
things are already happening if you
don't like the taxation system that
you're under you leave and so if you
want to be around winners the best thing
that you do is you go where there's more
winners than anywhere else and you
seeing in your state right here in
California you called my state a fail
State exactly sorry it's beautiful it's
a beautiful nightmare of a regulatory
environment yeah uh you know I I was
looking up these interesting statistics
and uh so I was like so what how would I
Define a failed State why would I say
that California is a failed State well
let's do a fun metric which is let's see
where the U-Haul prices are more
expensive versus not more expensive when
people are moving in and out and what
you basically see is my friends at First
Trust did this analysis where they
showed that a U-Haul going from you know
San Francisco to I can't maybe it was
Arizona or Texas is
6.42 times more expensive out of
California as it is into California so
what does that tell you that basically
people are voting with their feed and
they're saying I'm not going to stay
here and be taxed to high heaven and if
I by some chance turn my little plumbing
company into a big plumbing company I
buy a nice house now it's a mansion
because what we don't think about today
that is real is the real trickle down
economics are that governments think the
word Rich trickles all the way down
until it gets to you every single one of
you including you and me and so you know
when we when we talk about a thing and
we hate on it we're never going to
become it right and so when you say you
hate the rich you should tax the rich
you should realize that you will never
be rich you're never going to achieve it
then and so if you want to think about
what to do differently it's actually hey
do the opposite of what most politicians
are saying and maybe do what they're
doing which is look at their stock
portfolios they're investing like crazy
they're picking the really efficient
Capital allocators to put their own
dollars behind they're leaving political
St uh positions and going to lobbying
firms where they get paid a ton of money
um and so I think we need to push back
on the fact that we need a big brother
we don't need one like I think
everybody's had a bad boss that's why
you leave jobs nothing worse than an
insufferable boss also nothing better
for you to achieve than that chip on
your shoulder and that's what the
government is the government's become a
bad boss that is trying to tell you all
the time what to do one way or the other
and they're saying oh by the way instead
of me being your bad boss and still
paying you you're going to pay pay me
for being a bad boss and I think about
that constantly I'm like could you
imagine a job in which you don't make
money instead you pay money and that
boss is awful nobody would stay in that
job and yet we do stay in those tax
Havens those cities those States and in
the future I don't think we'll do that
why not what what's happening in the
future that's going to make that it's
just easier it's easier to leave it's
easier to go to new country countes and
cities and states it's easier to change
your regulatory structure to be located
somewhere else the global pool of talent
is huge I mean people don't like to talk
about this but you know the the talent
pool that you have to compete with today
is global it's not communal it's not
Statewide and it's not National you know
we are not only having to compete with
people located in India Indonesia Europe
I have people in my teams in all of
those locations but now we also have to
compete with with robots right we have
to compete with AI we have to compete
with actual robots like the company
figure that we invested in and so I
think people are just moving and that
will continue and the government is not
noticing that and we have a mutual
friend bology that we're both in a chat
with and I I love talking to bology
because his brain is fascinating to
watch live um he's an AI yeah he might
be he might be an alien dude that kid if
he isn't an alien he's AI for sure he is
a very nice very smart alien AI I love
him to death probably he is a single
mind yeah he really is and you know last
I was chatting with him I'm like you
need you have a moral imperative I think
to explain the network state to more
people so that they can understand how
to become independent centers of gravity
that aren't reliant on many other things
in order to succeed but in order to do
that we have to do what you talked about
which is like simplify things I think
that's how people take money from us
they make it seem complex they make it
seem like oh you couldn't understand
it's too it's too much for like poor
normal humans let me help you and uh and
if we can break down those you know that
verbage like in finance we use a bunch
of big confusing words in order to keep
your money and so I think we have to
push back on that we have to start
saying no I'm smarter than you say that
I am explain it to me if I don't
understand it I'm capable of that and by
the way I do not need the government to
stand in for me because I'm a perfectly
individual Sovereign human and I think
most people
are yeah we're I'm sure we'll get into
that at some point I the that whole
thing the government is not going to
take that kindly yeah and we have lost a
sense of the government works for us
mentality like there's the greatest
trick the devil ever pulled was
convincing the world that he doesn't
exist and the thing that scares me about
the government is that they are riding
on and
Fanning uh the wave of I need to be
taken care of Nanny State protect me um
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/ Theory I don't think the book is out
yet but Jonathan hey I know is working
on a new book or just published a new
book about that where his first take the
coddling of the American mind was about
amazing uh was about hey social media
came and cobber at everybody and we now
have a problem yeah and now he's
realizing it's more than just that it's
the fact that parents became extremely
paranoid about letting their kids out
and taking a risk and getting hurt
abducted and so as the world got safer
and safer parents got more and more
paranoid and now you have a world where
people actually believe words are
violence and so when I grew up it was
sticks and stones may hurt May um break
my bones but names will never hurt me
and so that is what your parents would
say when you were like yo I was getting
bullied people were making fun of me do
the number of times Cody that I got
called Dumbo I can't even tell you yes
now I like them oh well that makes one
of us uh but here's here's the reality
my cousins were so cruel to me about my
ears that by the time I got to school I
was just like whatever you have this
whole thing like I I think my response
was cuz everybody went straight to Dumbo
hey Dumbo I was like at least Dumbo Can
Fly good BL yes young Tom so my mom
wasn't like oh my God poor you she was
like what's your comeback what do you
got like you can't just go in and uh let
people you know make fun of you now it
be like yo somebody goes into the school
you've got to stop that we can't let
people speak and so the expectation on
me was you have to get tough like you've
got to be tough enough to deal with your
cousins you've got to be tough enough to
deal with the kids on the playground and
now it's very much the opposite and so I
can see the government leveraging that
to say yeah we are going to take care of
you uh no kid Left Behind do you know
the the mckin vento law I don't know if
this is just in Washington state where I
grew up so my mom worked in
transportation she's now retired but
they will literally literally drive a
school bus two and a half hours one way
to pick up a single
child think about the math on that yeah
no it doesn't look good no no so anyway
all of that that's why the spend is
going up up up up up and things are
getting worse and you have my own team
Millennials coming up to me and saying
I'm just getting Savaged like I don't
know how to get on the property I don't
know how to invest I feel like I can't
get ahead I've got student debt that's
just drowning me like basically nihilism
I just want to give up and then that
pushes him further into the bosom of CLA
Schwab yeah and his idea of you will own
nothing I like it you will like it you
will like it which was then retracted as
never said what do you think about like
that whole we things are going just fine
don't worry don't worry no I mean I
think I think you could try this on
which is you know take some risks try to
sell something every single day get up
at 6: a.m.
continuously uh ask for feedback
relentlessly in what you're doing and
continue to repeat for somewhere around
one to two years I'm sorry Kim
Kardashian did you just tell me to work
harder yeah I think that's I think
you're going to surprise yourself about
how many people are going to call you
lucky and you're actually going to just
say there was a recipe and I think there
actually is a recipe but it's it's much
easier for all of us to say there's no
recipe everything is against me than it
is to say what would happen if I
followed these few steps and so um one's
just really empowering and one's
disempowering but um you know there's a
bunch of Statistics that are fascinating
today I was reading a study the other
day that said uh Millennials and jenzy
on average take 25% less risk than the
previous generation and how is risk
demonstrated they start less
businesses they get married later they
have less intercourse risky in some ways
good bad or otherwise um they have less
relationships um and they buy less
property uh because they're living at
home to to agree I've never seen before
45% or something like that for Jen what
45% up to what age it's a good question
the internet will tell us um but 25%
less risk what does that mean well that
means that you're probably going to make
25% less per year that you have that
activity right at least because you're
not putting yourself out there at all so
how does that compound over time if
you're taking less and less risk you
know I talk about this all the time with
my team I think you should be at
companies that allow you to have an
ability for you to continue to earn more
if you drive more Revenue to the company
and so you know I don't think any one of
my employees has ever come to me and
said hey if I drive more Revenue if I
close this deal for you if we hit this
metric and it makes us X can I can I get
why from it now I might not like their
why I might say no you don't get 25% but
you could get five um but the thing is
this generation doesn't want to take the
risk of asking trying none of it and so
you have to change that mentality or
you're never going to win you and I
aren't that much smarter than anybody
else we just took a lot of risks
continuously and we compounded every
time we learned that we were bad at
something and made a mistake and change
direction and that's sort of it yeah
we're not that much smarter than people
that I really want that to land for
people um to me this is not look
intelligence matters a lot I'm not
downplaying that Jordan Peterson has
made it very clear if you meet a magic
Genie just ask for more intelligence
like just simple as the the number one
predictor of ability and success is IQ
now it's a UR it is yeah Angela
Duckworth study on grit that shows that
being the number one predictor how about
this I'm going to guess that grit is
going to be tied to intellect none of us
are going to like that but there's
almost certainly some truth that I'm
making that up I don't know that that's
true but life has taught me that
intelligence is like height on a roller
coaster yeah that if you're below a
certain level when you go upside down
you fly off and die yeah that's true and
if you are too tall then you're going to
get your head walloped when you go under
a piece of scaffolding so there there's
a goldilock zone of intelligence to be
sure I remember at one point the
smartest person in America had like a
220 IQ Einstein is estimated to be at
160 was at 160 to give you an idea uh
and they were a bouncer at a bar yeah I
was going to say but they weren't
successful they can't actually empathize
with most other people right they're
alien which is partly why bology seems
like an alien he's just so much smarter
than me yes um so look intelligence
matters I'm not going to pretend that it
doesn't but it's more of a minimum
requirements thing if you minimum
requirements it's what I always tell
people if you meet minimum requirements
and if you're listening to this point in
the podcast I'm going to guess you meet
minimum requirements then it becomes
grit determination and the
ideas that you live by and those ideas
so you were saying that people are
taking 25% less risk and what that got
me thinking is going back to Jonathan
Height's idea of safetyism becoming
safety isn't potentially being the big
problem of the generations right now
because they're reject reting ideas that
they think are quote unquote dangerous Y
and if you reject an idea out of hand
because you think it's dangerous um then
you're you are closing your mind off
there's actually God I don't even I'm
going to bring it up because it is true
but H God this is going to get me in
trouble probably there is a Jewish Times
article about me because years ago the
thing is I still believe this uh years
ago where before I knew about safe ISM
or anything I had no idea this was going
to trigger people uh and I was like bro
I don't understand why people are
looking for reasons not to hear somebody
out I was like you should be this person
might be a total psychopath but if they
have one idea that's useful like take
that idea so I was like I'd have
musolini on the show if he had a good
idea that I could learn from and so the
article says he said it he really said
it like you can go look it up he
actually said the words view it for
yourself so anyway I'm just saying if
you're looking to reject ideas I'm not
saying I want to invite him to a family
bar
I'm just saying if you're afraid of
ideas then you will never find the best
most efficient most effective idea and
therefore you will get stuck could you
imagine how poor you would be if you
only took ideas from people you liked I
poor never get anywhere yeah the
correlation between uh do I like this
person and is this something that could
function and work in society it could be
zero it actually doesn't matter at all I
mean this this idea of moral absolute
ISM lately that we have which is if a
single human did anything at any point
in time that we consider bad by today's
standards we have to wipe their name off
of the face of the planet and we could
no longer say that we might be able to
learn something from them is a huge
disservice to anybody who is in learning
and growth phase because you there's no
perfect human we've never met one I've
never met one and so every one of us has
some dark thing in our closet every one
of us has done things that we've been
embarrassed about or grown past at some
point and so the idea that you can only
take ideas from people you like is a
great way for you to stay poor um and so
I don't really believe in anything that
doesn't have an outcome that I like so
why would I why would I only listen to
people that I like it's such a bizarre
philosophy that somehow has been
normalized I'll even push it farther uh
I will take a good idea from somebody
even if they are despicable of course uh
I think there's even something in the
Bible about this that the
luciferian intellect I don't know if
that's Jordan Peterson phrase if that's
actually in the Bible but that uh I know
in the Bible there's something that
sometimes uh the evil Among Us have the
better idea oh God I'm paraphrasing but
like that's the idea that there are
times where you can actually learn
something from somebody even if they are
just outright evil yeah uh I think
that's wise I think the way that people
should live their life and I'd be very
curious to get your take on this this is
how I advise everybody to think and that
is from first
principles for first principles to work
you have to understand what your goal is
where am I trying to get to and I think
a big part of what's breaking down in
dialogue today is people don't
understand like where are we trying to
get and then they don't have an explicit
stated Philosophy by which they decide
what things they will and won't do in
order to achieve said goal and so what
people end up arguing about are the
quote unquote facts of the situation now
the problem is your worldview which is
made of your belief Bel and your values
they will change how you interpret the
quote unquote facts
and until people can say
stated this is my goal the these are the
the value systems or philosophical
underpinnings that I use to get to that
goal or to navigate the world and then
here's how I can track back my thinking
based on those beliefs assumptions
values and this is why I've come to this
conclusion but if you are just winging
it then usually the values are blind to
you you have them but you don't know
what they are your beliefs you confuse
for objective reality which they most
certainly are not um and so people end
up thinking oh I am just approaching
this from objective truth and objective
reality and so the fact that you view
things different than me just means
you're a lunatic versus going oh that's
a useful idea I'm going to take that and
so yeah taking a useful idea from
wherever it comes seems wise very I mean
I think it's quite useful to hold up a
mirror in front of yourself and ask you
who you think you are we were talking
about this to some degree and so what
what would I do if I was going to ask
who am I as a person and what outcomes
and actions would I like to have
according to my own philosophy and the
only way I've been able to do it well
and consistently is in every company we
have a Creed we have some sort of
guiding principles that we one for every
company uh no but I do one for every
company now there are like three
companies that have a same set of core
principles but some companies
necessitate something else and the CEO
gets to be the captain of that ship and
so they should get to set those
principles um but the principles that I
have for our contrarian thinking
grouping of companies are are 13 because
we like this idea of trying to make our
own luck and uh and they you know and
there are some that are very core and
helpful when you're thinking about what
action should I take I like to fall back
on making my brain be as lazy as humanly
possible so decision fatigue is real
it's really hard to continue to make
good decisions all day any parent knows
this and so how do you decrease the
fatigue that comes from making decisions
you have principles that you get to
revert back to and so like our very
first one is those who say it those who
say it can't be done should get out of
the way of those who are doing it very
first one you know one of the other core
ones is that we clean up the sink we do
the Dirty Work and so that's based off
of a company where they got rid of their
entire cleaning staff and the company
all the employees take care of cleaning
up the building by themselves
continuously and so if you believe that
another one of ours which is how you do
anything is how you do everything and
like you pause on that for a second
that's really impactful but the thing is
most of us we might have had a family
crest a million years ago but we
certainly didn't have a family crest we
didn't have a personal Creed we a lot of
us don't have company cedes and so you
don't have a set of aligned values and I
think values are so much more important
even than what your company does does
because they mimic your daily actions
and so you know if I was listening today
my husband and I have family values that
are mimicked off of contrarian thinking
values and and it goes back to little
things like one of ours is uh do you
want to be a good white shark or do you
want to be a great white shark and it's
tongue and cheek it's cute but that way
every time we're like in the gym and we
don't want to do it every time we could
eat poorly but we don't want to we just
kind of joke each other like what kind
of shark you and those little things can
just remind you of the type of human you
want to be I love that how do you think
through these incredibly intractable
problems like do you if so if my
methodology is first principles goal uh
beliefs values they're stated boom boom
think up to get there what's the
framework that you use what is the
framework that I use so I uh the other
weekend I met with a daughter of one of
the richest billionaires in the US old
old money uh in the energy space and and
she's incredible which is rare for
Billionaire's daughters right and so I
said to her hey um weird question but uh
you turned out really normal why and uh
and she said you know what my father
always taught me that uh our family name
means something and we have to stand up
for what that family name means for and
he made us repeat back to him what the
family name meant to him and then the
second thing he always said is that uh
the only thing you can control is how
hard you work that's the only thing you
can control we can't control how smart
you are we can't control what happens in
the world but you can control your
belief and what this family name means
and your ability to work really hard and
so when I think about my actions I think
about the same thing I think I want my
name to mean something I want to
remember that I'm here on this planet
for some particular reason and that the
only thing I really have in my control
is hard work and so it's not enough but
it is a lot and that's what I revert
back to every single time I really think
it's hard to beat somebody who works an
hour longer than everybody else in their
industry you know it's on average pretty
hard now you're going to have outliers
but like hard work's one of the easiest
things to actually do which seems like
it doesn't make a lot of sense given the
word hard in there I am a hardwork
junkie every time you say um do the
thing that you're obsessed with and it's
going to be hard to beat Obsession I'm
that's like my pornography like I'm very
much the hustle culture kind of person
however um obviously I want people to
live a life that that they're joyful
about so I'm I I'm not the psychopath
that's like work and that's all that
matters yeah um but I do want to push
back and say okay if if I like to think
about this a lot because I worked in the
inner cities I can't remember how much
of my backstory yeah you told me that
incredible so you're working with people
and you're really seeing what Poverty
Looks like up close and one it's
interesting how they will oftentimes
like as a family unit come together
there's some beautiful things to it
anyway setting that aside because
there's way more horror than there is
Beauty and I just got obsessed with okay
I've got whatever a month with this guy
how am I going to train them to actually
get escape velocity and get out of the
hood and hard work for sure foundational
layer but it isn't everything and so the
thing there are two things that add to
hard work tell me what you think uh one
is skill acquisition you have to be a
sociopath for acquiring skills because
ultimately if you're working hard but
stupidly you won't go anywhere and what
I find is people confuse hard work with
morality it's like this Puritan
underlying thing like I worked really
hard and therefore I
deserve to do well no you don't
[ __ ] if you did the right thing
the market will reward you because you
did a thing that other people can't do
and so getting people to understand the
whole reason that you acquire skills is
so that you can do a thing that other
people can't do and if you can do a
thing that the world values better than
other people can you will always be
employed always and then the other one
would be emotional control like if you
can't control your own emotions like you
are going to be in a very dark place and
so hard work Relentless skill
acquisition doing the effective thing
and then being able to control your
emotions that feels closer to like I'm
still like that's such a thumbnail
sketch and of course it's beyond
complicated in each one of those three
things yeah um how does that sit I think
it sits I mean I think here's the thing
that everybody should do if they want to
get rich but nobody wants to listen to
which is fascinating to me is that
amateurs do lots of things and Pros do
the few right things and how is that
possible it's because Pros teach other
amateurs how to do all of those little
things that they don't need to do and so
they have leverage right so Pros don't
have to be busy amateurs do have to be
busy because they can't differentiate
what is right and effective yet so I
think there's this portion of your life
where you have to you have to do
incredible amounts of hard work because
you can't delineate what is good versus
what is busy work and every one of us
just needs to realize that some point
and the only way you start to realize
what is good versus busy work is through
skill acquisition one of the skills of
which is what is effective versus what
is just filler and so you know you don't
even you don't even have to pick up
numerous skills you can be like what
Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett talk
about which is making three to five
really high signal to noise bets over
your entire career and sitting lazily on
your asses for the rest of the time I
mean Munger talks about all the time
that in fact their strategy is only one
thing which is when they see big risk
they go in huge if they think that risk
can be rewarded and they do not go in if
they do not see a huge risk reward so
they just are professional nosers
and that's because they learn to
differentiate the difference between
busy busy work and good work and I think
that is where most people should strive
can you strive to actually determine
what actions to take that will make
movements or change and it's really
really easy to say but hard to do I mean
think about it in your business in my
business every single day there's a too
to-do list so big I will never ever
finish it and I have to determine every
single day what is the one thing that if
I do it becomes the fulcrum on which I
get to place lever that moves a giant
boulder and if I can't
continuously get closer to that one
thing the business will fail and I think
that's how most of us are is we have to
be able to figure out what does a
fulcrum look like what does a lever look
like and what do just a bunch of pebbles
look like that are going to do nothing
for me and that's actually quite
hard okay skill acquisition matters a
lot yeah getting that leverage matters a
lot we've painted uh a dark picture
about where we're going but I don't
think I neither of us are afraid
paranoid yes uh because only the
paranoids survive but when I say I'm
paranoid what I mean is I'm trying to
see the angles yeah I'm not taking that
it's going to happen easily for granted
yeah so I my channel can be rightly
accused of quote unquote Doom and Gloom
but I'll just blame all of you
[ __ ] cuz that's all you click
on in a headline uh but the what I hold
myself accountable to is every word out
of my mouth is something I actually
believe so I believe all the things that
I'm saying I just don't have uh
crippling fear the only thing that that
maybe unnerves me even though I'm a huge
proponent of it is AI we'll get to that
later so anyway uh potentially quote
unquote dark period coming from a
recession standpoint I say dark because
a lot of people who aren't paranoid who
either don't have the intellect or have
not put the time in or just don't have
the right set of ideas whatever they're
going to get blindsided I love too many
of those people so it it it does appear
as a dark time to me however
you have a quote from Baron Rothchild uh
that I think Bears bringing up yeah buy
when there's blood in the streets even
if the blood is your own maybe
especially when it's your own and he
became a Titan of Industry uh probably
one of the richest men ever on an
inflation adjusted basis so I think he
did okay and uh you know I was thinking
I I pulled some some data for us uh for
this conversation today because here's
the thing if you haven't been if you
haven't been through a recession yet uh
you're going to survive this next one
too I mean if you look historically and
we can show this graph too we we
survived 90 99 two you know 2020 2008
those were just the recessions during my
working years and if you look at what
happened after all of those recessionary
periods not all of them bounced back in
a v-shaped recovery but all of them have
bounced back and so the best predictor
of the future is the past it's not
perfect but it's likely that we will
continue to sur survive as a country and
as individuals just like we have
historic
and so I think even though it's scary
out there realizing a sale is coming can
also be really really powerful what do
you mean sale when the market goes down
everything becomes cheaper you already
seen that Austin's one of the worst hit
real estate cities in the country so if
you're looking to buy real estate in a
market that has Tesla moving to it that
has Dell that has a bunch of Google
headquarters uh moving to it a bunch of
Facebook employees move to it a bunch of
AI it's like one of the defense AI um
centers of the country but it's you know
the average uh house in Austin's down
somewhere between 20 to 30% and so what
does that mean well interest rates are
coming down and houses are 20 to 30%
cheaper and so you can buy a house for
less money at less interest rates than
you could a year ago and probably your
pay hasn't gone down by 20 to 30% and so
in this market you're going to have a
bunch of opportunities to buy things at
sale and most people get their money I
sort of think about it like the
unprepared transfer their money to the
prepared during downturns and so if you
do not listen to channels that are Doom
and Gloom about what might come then
when it comes one you won't recognize it
two you won't act on it and three you
will actually lose from it because
somebody also take advantage of your
panic and so one of my biggest missions
is just getting people to see the
pattern because once you see oh look
this happened in 2008 it happened in
2020 it happened in 99 it happened in 90
and by the way signals right now that
show the same thing well then you might
be prepared for what's coming and it
might not scare you when you see that
you know auto loans are at the highest
level since the last recession uh auto
loan uh defaults that you might not see
that credit card delinquencies are at
alltime highs and that might not scare
you you might instead go okay well
something's coming on sale so how can I
make sure I have enough cash to do
something with how can I Circle up a
couple friends so we could make a smart
investment in property during this
period because the other thing that's
interesting those big scary people we
talk about all the time Black Rock
Blackstone all the big companies they
get a credit crunch too you know they
they cannot get as much access to
Capital as they can during normal
markets so that's another one there's
very few times where the poor get to
steal from the rich and one of them is
in a downturn if the poor are actually
thoughtful enough about preparing for it
and you can't do it in a big way but you
know most of America will die broke
alone and fat and so if that's the case
one smart house acquisition one smart
multif family acquisition is enough to
set up a family for generations and it's
just continuing to take those small
steps in a period where most people are
acting
emotionally walk us through so you are
um I've heard you speak to people before
like this this is the time you need to
be ready as you were just saying but you
also need to act so what is your very
unique br rrt
uh strategy for not only getting through
a recession but really taking advantage
of it yeah so we have a a strategy about
how to buy businesses during a recession
and we talk about you buy a recession
resistant business so think a plumbing
company a landscaping company a company
that you work in you could even buy part
of it during a down period where maybe
your boss needs a little bit of capital
or your boss needs you to go out and
bring in more clients for them and you
do that in a recession resistant sector
you raise price because most small
businesses are underpriced somewhere
from 30 to 300% and you add technology
and this generation in particular like
if you are young and
hungry you are 10 to 20 to 100x more
Tech competent than the average small
business owner and so your ability to
work alongside one or take over a small
business and add technology that makes
things cheaper faster better is probably
quite High I mean in fact I was with
this cleaning company this week that we
met might invest into and all these guys
did they're they're window cleaning
they're a window cleaning company they
went from uh unemployed laid off during
covid uh from pretty good jobs and uh no
money you know trying to figure life out
they're first year in business in a
window cleaning company they did
$200,000 in Revenue the next year they
did $500,000 in Revenue this year
they'll do somewhere between $700,000
and a million dollar in revenue and
these are two kids that are both sub 28
years old
one with a newbor baby on the way and
how did they do it they added incredible
social media marketing so they do really
funky videos they added really
incredible branding and Merchandising
because can you name one window cleaning
company of course not nobody can so how
could you as a young person get on board
with a business that's very simple but
hasn't been sex up by the internet and
hasn't been sexed up by adding
technology and I think those are all
around it's just on the internet I think
people look down on those types of
businesses because we were told for so
long let's go become a doctor a lawyer
let's go to school let's go to college
what if you're actually happier with a
little dirt under your fingernails in a
company that you own where you get to
get out of your house occasionally away
from a screen and get to know your
neighbors and your community turns out
you might be happier than working at
Mackenzie or Bane for 60 hours a week
under somebody else's thumb and that is
something that not enough young people I
think know yet it's really interesting I
think you've got your finger on
something that is that is going to be a
cultural shift of massive proportions I
had a friend over last night um shout
out to Dean who was walking me through
his new thesis so he's he's done
everything in from um helping Finance
films creative producing to spcs to
traditional investing I mean just all
all over the place and he was like hey
I've got a new thesis and um he was like
like we're going through this really
interesting transitional time you're can
to have a ton of baby boomers retiring
but they're not going to have anyone to
pass their business on to you've got a
lot of people frustrated this is going
to start to sound familiar here uh
working traditional jobs they don't want
to be in Investment Banking and so the
new play is going to be skip College buy
a business and I said my friend I have
somebody you need to talk to um but I
imagine a lot of people listening to
this if they're new to your world that
is going to sound
ridiculous especially in a time where
we're going into a recession so if they
don't have access to money they've never
bought a business never run a
business why would this be a good idea
how do you um for a second just you're
here to persuade you're here to help
make that Revolution actually come true
what do you tell people first I say
don't do it if you don't like pain
because owning a small business is
painful owning any business is pain
owning any business is painful and there
will be nights that you will regret it
but here's the flip side the second that
somebody tells you you shouldn't do it
and yet they are an owner or they run
their own business you ask them why
didn't you go back to being an employee
for somebody else and they won't have a
good answer they'll say well I'm
unemployable well I had no other choice
and the best don't listen to what people
say listen to what people do and what
people do is when they get a taste of
Freedom they either want to partner with
other people on more deals and
businesses or they want to work for
companies that they're obsessed with
they don't want to have to work for
companies that they don't like doing
things that they don't want to do for
money anymore and so I will say it's
painful but it is worth it and that for
most people running a small business is
not rocket science especially today I
think it's never been easier to start a
small business uh as evidenced by the
amount of businesses that have been
started somewhere between like 2 to 5x
the number of businesses that were
created over the last three years as the
past 10 years and that's just determined
by like LLC and entity creation but it's
never been harder to have a pro uh
profitable business so most small
businesses 90% of them never even hit
the $1 million Mark oh and so with that
out there I've always had this idea of
well it's really hard to figure out
product Market fit in a small business
right like most businesses somewhere
between 30 to 40% of them die because
they couldn't find product Market fit
just they had an idea and nobody wanted
their idea right and so I'm kind of like
that I don't I don't know that I have a
crazy idea that somebody's going to want
to buy I never had that and so instead
I'm like why don't I just buy a couple
of these small businesses and I can
partner with the founder of the small
business and I know that somebody
already wants it because they have
revenue and it's profitable and I could
just help it grow and so we see that
again and again and again but nobody
taught us this in school because it's
there's risk right you when you go and
get a job at Mackenzie or Bane there's
no risk of you losing money you know
they're going to pay you a salary which
is largely guaranteed unless you get
fired
And yet when you go and buy a small
business you could lose money and you
could not make money and you could owe
money from debt and so I think people
are so scared of that they're they're
terrified of failing and my point is
like the US actually has an incredible
system called bankruptcy which a lot of
of of countries don't have this is an
ability for you to wipe the Slate if a
business doesn't work out for you well
what's the best time to wipe the Slate
when you really don't have anything
anyway so when you're young and you
don't have a lot going on I don't know
why you wouldn't take a huge risk and
try to buy into a business try to earn
into a business because you're because
you're a general contractor and you work
in a construction business and you can't
progress any further in the construction
business so you go to a competitor that
you realize a 65 years old plus and you
say to him hey what are you doing with
your business are you going to sell it
at some point are you going to run it
forever you going to give it to your son
no you're not well maybe somebody like
me could buy into part of your business
and I could could earn into it using the
profits and pay you out over time like
would you ever consider something like
that and it turns out small business
owners don't have other options if
they're under $10 million in revenue for
the most part and so there's a lot of
these small businesses that will just
close as opposed to get transferred and
I think I think you know by now we've
taught I don't know five six thousand
people how to buy businesses across our
courses and um and our Mastermind they
bought something like $262 million in
Revenue wow yeah and these are people
who are like former teachers Engineers
um they're doing seller financing
they're doing SBA Loans and what I've
realized I can almost tell immediately
if somebody will be successful at it or
not like if they'll buy a business or
not and the way I can tell if they will
be successful or not is do they complain
about how much work it is and if they
say this is a lot of work you know I
just kind of want the deal to fall in my
lap you're probably not going to be
successful buying a business the ones
that say that they're willing to do the
work it's fascinating I haven't seen one
of them go sideways yet we've seen three
people's deals go sideways and all of
those were because they didn't want to
keep working on the business and so I
think I think hard work is really an
underrated an underrated thing in a
society that wants nobody to work and
everybody to take do you have a mental
model for why that is why everybody
wants that these days not necessarily
why they want it though maybe that's
part part of the answer but why you're I
think you're rounding hard work to
something yeah um I don't think you
literally just mean work hard but since
we've already gone into detail on that
so whatever that thing is that you're
rounding it to do you have a mental
model for why that's so important I see
what you mean well one of my favorite
questions to ask when I interview people
is when was the last time you worked all
night on something by your choice and
what was it what did you do literally
for me like well yeah for you I know
what it was for you though I bet uh uh
the last time I worked through the night
it's a good question I think that was
for the comics that was the last time
because we had a deadline to pitch yeah
and so I had to hit that deadline yeah
yeah that was the last time it through
the night and you know what it would be
a fun thing is there are many people I
bet listening to this that would say I
have never worked through the night for
something I've never wanted something so
bad that I was willing to sacrifice
sleep for one night which like Brian
Johnson is not going to like you know he
wants us to sleep which I it from a
health perspective but there is such a
joy in working on something that is
really hard but really fun and you know
my husband is uh former military and and
a Navy SEAL and when I look at his
relationships I'm in awe of them his
friendships from that time you know
they've become my best friends they stay
with us we stay with them we're great
you know we're God Parents to his kids
we have this this tight-knit community
that's almost impossible to break if I
needed to bury a body they would just
ask asked me the coordinates and they
would be there and um and the reason
that he has that is because they went
through something really hard together
and people wonder why they I mean the
youth I read this quote the other day
the youth today especially young women
sub30 say that uh not a single person
really knows them not one single person
we have a crisis of of friendship and
family in the US and Faith lowest levels
of that across the board and I was
talking to Arthur Brooks the other day
who just wrote a book with Oprah who's
one of I think the great thinkers on
happiness Oprah or Arthur
Arthur and and Arthur said said there's
four things that determine happiness and
that is Faith Family friendships
meaningful friendships uh and work that
serves and he's like we've done Decades
of research on this at both Harvard and
at AI where he was previously and he's
like and so it's no surprise the people
are more unhappy than they've ever been
because they feel more disconnected than
they ever have because they have no
purpose in their life and nobody to
share it
with all right so that was a response to
me asking the thing you call hard
work is the under appreciated thing and
we ended up talking about faith and
family and friendship that's really
interesting so um I'm gonna see if I can
tease AP part the way that you think
yeah okay so part of this is you have a
base assumption that working hard is in
and of itself if tied to a thing that
you love is the reward in and of
itself yeah is it love first hard work
second or is hard work in your mind an
inescapable need that's a good question
I know this
that everyone has had a moment where
they're so miserable working on the
thing that they're working on that they
almost can't stand it any longer they
just want to quit they do quit they make
irrational decisions because their their
misery gauge at work is so high and I've
felt that before and if I go back and
think about why did that hard work not
make me happy what what was the root
cause of that I think it is at the
moment in which you feel like you have
nothing else that you're learning so I
coordinate hard work with learning I'm
usually learning something if I'm
working hard at something I coordinate
that with working on something that
matters so if I if I've lost my why for
why I'm working and then lastly if I'm
working with people that I don't aspire
to be or don't want to be around so it's
sort of this like people purpose and
this learning component that if I have
those three things the hard work is
really fun but if I don't have those
three things then perhaps the hard work
feels futile unnecessary and more like
labor than work I'll be curious to hear
if this resonates with you there's a
spiritual component to your mission to
get people to consider buying small
businesses that now I'm I've always
known that was true but I didn't know
why it was true um now teasing that
stuff out so some of this is a an aspect
of a life well-lived for you yeah I
think that's true like did you ever work
in a cubicle yes yeah did you work in a
cubba when you didn't work for yourself
yes have you seen the Tucker Carlson
response to um oh gosh postmodernist
architecture uh I've no but I've seen
the headlines now you make me wish that
I had clicked beautiful I can send you
the clip afterwards if people are
curious but but basically um he's in an
interview with somebody can't remember
and he says postmodernist architecture
is a um
I'm gonna simplify meant to suck your
soul out yeah it's basically like it's
it's um yeah meant to demise Humanity
you know
postmodernism is a direct affront to
humanity it wants to suck the human out
of us and how he ends it is he basically
says and no privacy at all and then he
says very intensely it is because they
do not value you they do not value you
as a human you are a number nothing else
to them and that is why po modernist and
cubicles demoralize humans because they
are showing you with their actions that
you mean nothing you mean nothing to
them and when I watched that I thought
God as a creator of things which is how
I think about building and what we do
here too everything that I put my name
on is like a little piece of me right
the things that I'm creating with my
hands there's a reason that I'm doing it
I only have so many seconds and minutes
and hours in my life in fact we have
very few of them and so why would we put
our workers in these instances that show
that we don't care about them at all
that it's like copy repeat copy repeat
copy repeat and I'm a capitalist so I
understand the idea of of profits and
losses and needing to be Capital
efficient but I also really believe in
humans and I believe in our ability to
elevate one another and that if I find
Tom in his zone of Genius in a place
that has power for for Tom I believe in
the power of place then I will have a
Tom that outperforms on an incredible
level and I don't mean distractions
which is where I think Google and all of
them got it wrong foosball and nap
chairs and whatever we don't need to be
children that when we stop working we
have to go play around with something
else in order to distract ourselves from
our work we don't need that but we do
need to see beauty around us because
we're capable of it and why wouldn't we
and so I think you're right there is
part of this that I think is almost
spiritual and the place where I found
the most Flow State just like athletes
do when they when they do their craft I
find the same thing when I'm caught in
work that means something and I think
for people to say you should have work
like balance you should not work all the
time you know that that is is bad for
your mental health it's like what the
[ __ ] do you know about what flow is is
flow netflixing and drinking on Friday
evenings because it doesn't have to be
but if it's if that's for you let it be
you and I'll do
yeah that's not Flo um Flo I will say
has a definition but uh that won't be
met by that anyway probably not the
important part of that um the
spirituality so I can feel you trying to
make the world a better place which I
love it is very much why I do what I do
as I said earlier I think we are in a
battle for ideas yeah uh one of the
ideas so everything is Downstream of
ideas so they grip us at the individual
level they grip people at the collective
level and so it really matters what we
push and promote um you have a very
unique stance on hey there's a thing
that you're probably not thinking about
that's not currently in the Zeitgeist as
the cool thing to buy the boring
business the Gateway business that will
make you realize that these are being
run by people no smarter than you to
sort of Co-op the Steve Jobs quote um I
think that's really important and I
think that marrying that back to your
message is going to be really important
so that people understand hey I'm trying
to me Cody Sanchez I'm trying to reach
out into your soul and help you find
that path to the thing you secretly want
which I Tom Bilu will round to
fulfillment I think that's what
everybody wants and so I have a mental
framework for why hard work is so
important I think we have an
evolutionary algorithm that runs in our
mind that absolutely mandates that we
work hard and that nature only has two
levers Pleasure and Pain nature over God
knows how many hundreds of thousands
millions of years has been shaping us
from amoeba to now
uh saying surviving is going to be hard
and my job as nature is to keep you
alive long enough to have kids that have
kids so there are going to be certain
things that I'm going to incentivize and
if you get a tremendous dopamine rush or
whatever when you work really hard and
make progress towards a goal now all of
a sudden you're going to want to do that
because man if you ever watch the TV
show alone no I need to like start
getting a a kickback from Amazon who I
think hosts the show I talk about this
so much that gives a real glimpse into
what all of humanity was like until like
a thousand years ago I mean it it is
hysterical how hard it is to stay alive
to just like find enough calories to
live it's bananas you don't have to go I
read so much history you don't have to
go much more than a hundred years back
in time to hear where it was like oh we
were just trying to get from here to
Oregon uh you know and we were suddenly
eating slugs oh and then we ran out of
those and so we had to eat each other as
we died it's like yo so we all play that
game didn't we yeah organ Trail uh so
life is a level of hard that we don't
understand so Evolution had to make
doing hard things internally rewarding
so that we just have this algorithm that
says oh you work really hard well done
good on you and if you aren't working
hard it's going to feel wrong that's
part one part two is entropy and if I
could come up with a simpler word but
that that really is the right word yeah
meaning that all things are fighting
against you uh if you want to jump high
gravity Yanks you back down if you want
to start a business other people are
going to start a similar business if
you're doing well people are going to
copy you one of my favorite stories from
our time at Quest so when we launch
Quest We Looked ridiculous compared to
all the other um companies in the health
and nutrition space they all looked what
we call veins and chains so it was all
aimed at bodybuilders nobody was using
food porn it was just all tough guys big
muscles veins bulging literally chains
draped around their neck red and black I
mean taking a page out of Hitler's
Playbook which if you've never read
minec conf I'm really doubling up on my
uh learning from the Psychopaths day
here uh but he just lays out like oh
this has a certain psychological
reaction so we're like we're going to be
everything that that's not we're going
to be uh blue because it Peaks
creativity we're going to be food porn
we want to feel like welcoming and
inviting and we did so well three years
later I walked to somebody else's booth
at a trade show because I thought it was
ours and I was like these [ __ ]
like they've literally just copied
everything that we're doing yep so
anyway you get everything is fighting
against you and if you don't get real
pleasure out of working hard you just
won't ever be able to overcome entropy
it it will there just so many things
fighting against you and so to to be
able to run a business is really what
you've said hard work and what I call
the physics of progress which is just
it's iteration you you it it's very
important that you do the steps but if
you can work hard and run the physics of
progress you really can pull this off
but I think people need to contextualize
oh this is a spiritual journey I'm doing
this as somebody who's pursuing
fulfillment I'm doing this as somebody
who looks out at this particular moment
which I certainly do I think you share
and we're at a Tipping Point for the
wrong ideas taking a hold of people and
so we're talking about business
recession etc etc but this is really
about what ideas should win and hard
work recognizing you can buy a business
if you so choose if autonomy is a major
driver for you it could be a real path
out but I I think if people fail if
people just hear the cha-ching of the
cash register and they don't understand
that you're speaking to their soul as
much as you're speaking to their
pocketbook they'll get lost yeah I mean
I think one of the best books of all
time for that is atas Shrugged which has
had some political connotation which I
don't know why um because it really is
about this idea of the joy in finding
the thing that you are uniquely built to
create on this planet and um you know
there's one quote I love from it that's
to summarize it's basically like what a
tragedy to let your spark go out Spark
by Irreplaceable spark in the shadows of
the could bees the wha ifs the Mayes and
and that always stuck with me of this
idea of and at the end of the day I hope
I show up at the Pearly Gates rung dry
saying to God I had not one drop left
which was a paraphrase from an Emma Emma
Bombeck quote that I is one of the
quotes I go back to a lot who was just
like what else is in there like having
this curiosity for yourself about what
else are you capable of doing is so
powerful you know every time I was just
at at lunch with with one of my team
members and my husband and we were
talking about what was the hardest thing
you've ever done like the hardest thing
you've ever done think about that like
one instance and you know we talked
first physically and so I remember one
of mine it was like hiking a mountain I
was super miserable it was blizzarding
it was a very high mountain there were
creases you know whatever and it turns
out I don't like hiking I don't like the
cold and I don't like heights right and
so it was just like it was miserable you
had to poop in a bag you know it was
just like not fun multiple days you lost
me at
pooping but I'm glad I did it because I
need to have more of those hard moments
to realize how lucky we have it in life
and I do think we're kind of as humans
we we kind of forget how lucky we have
it we have such short-term memory to
history which we do not study enough and
even to our own history remembering what
we've been through before and thus are
probably capable of doing in the future
you know but I I remember we have a
company called Main Street holding
company where we own all of our small
businesses and that's where we buy other
people's businesses or invest in other
people's businesses and you know I
remember almost every single one of
those businesses at some point having a
moment where I thought we were going to
lose everything you know I remember one
company approachment where you know we
got all of our money stolen from from a
guy that we thought we were best buds
with you know um and then was like kind
of public about it and how how much that
hurt you know I remember when we had our
first car wash deals go through and we
thought we were going to sell for a huge
amount of money and then the whole thing
fell through and then you know we almost
didn't have the we didn't have the grit
to like keep going we were so close to
the Finish Line it's like seeing the
marathon right in front of you end and
then all of a sudden they're like just
get in 10 more miles you know and we
weren't ready for that and so I remember
all of those hard moments and I think
those Build You Up and enable you to
kind of keep going and you build up
these calluses right it's just like
weights at the gym at some point like
you don't feel them as much and anytime
I feel it too much I go to a book from a
great like we were talking before I'm
reading Ted Turner's book call me Ted
right now and it's incredible because he
goes through like the things that uh
bother you know he he goes through his
difficulty like it's Tuesday they know
he's like well then we lost a100 million
dollars on the games over there and that
he literally says it like that moves to
the next line and I like rewound it a
couple times and I said to myself I want
to be so big and have created so much
wealth and prosperity that I can say we
lost 100 million on that you know think
about that but there's a guy out there
who that is the way that he thinks and
then for all those people who are like
crunchy granola hate making money you
know think the world's going to end all
about climate change what did he do with
his billions he owns now the biggest
bison Preserve in the world and has
single-handedly brought back almost the
level of bison in his area which I think
is is Wyoming um so guess what money can
do a lot of good too no doubt
um what is the single hardest thing
you've
done the single hardest thing I ever did
was get divorced when I went through
that previously um so that was
emotionally the hardest thing I've ever
done you know you make a promise to
somebody you say you're going to be
together for life and then you break
that promise and I I tend to try to keep
my promises and so that was really hard
for me and did you initiate I did yeah
and and realizing that you know when
you're young and your prefrontal cortex
is not fully developed and you listen to
what everybody else says your life
should be as opposed to having your own
internal guiding Frameworks Creed uh
vision for life then it's very easy for
somebody else to supersede theirs on top
of you and I think that's what I allowed
to happen to me I superseded my families
on top of me my moms you know his and I
tried to be uh a painting that somebody
else painted as opposed to my own and
and I think that happens to a lot of
young people because we don't spend that
much time asking ourselves like who do
we want to be what do we stand for what
does our name it mean and uh what do we
actually want to work towards and we
would we would be time would be better
spent in universities if we spent more
time on that as opposed to amibas and
Pythagorean theorems how do you come to
know
thyself I honestly I don't know another
way besides doing things so hard that it
feels comfortable constantly and then
deciding if you want to keep doing those
things or not you I've only ever learned
about myself through negation I don't
like this because I tried it and that
wasn't great I don't like this because I
tried it and that wasn't great I'm not
smart enough to go I like that and I
want to go after that I kind of have to
trial the things and realize I don't
like them and then I sort of ping pong
my way to finally something that I think
is me and so um I think that's a lot of
us too and it's okay to have varied
career paths it's okay to make a lot of
mistakes you just just try to not make
ones that are lifetime early and so you
know I'm a big proponent of marriage
being married is the best thing that
ever happened to me this go around and
the strongest partner I have by far has
ever been Chris in any sense of the word
um but I probably wouldn't have made
that decision that early without fully
knowing myself through having gone
through a lot of hard things and
realizing what I was willing or not
willing to
continue what do you think the answer is
to that how do you know
yourself okay how would
I have five minutes and I have to
explain to somebody how to figure
themselves out okay number one what is
this is all going to reveal who you are
I've never thought through this before
so good do uh this is the problem with
interviewing people that are used to
being on camera they end up flipping
things on you uh one what's your goal
what are you trying to achieve yeah I
don't care what it is just tell me um so
in life what is your life goal yeah yeah
so if you almost certainly you will say
I don't know right um or you're going to
give me a really terrible answer like um
I want to be rich or even worse because
it's even less specific I want to help
people yeah so uh because the money
thing isn't bad because chasing money is
bad it's bad because fulfillment is my
nor star so when somebody's asking me a
question that is looming in the
background that I everything I operate
on in my life assumes that you're trying
try to increase human flourishing and
decrease human suffering so whether
that's at the individual level or the
population level uh and I don't want to
do things that sound good I want to do
things that actually work so uh I ran
the experiment for people and chasing
money will not fulfill you yeah so
anyway uh nail that down and once you
have that that's already going to tell
you a lot but you then need to know how
am I going to get there yeah if you want
to help people in what way if you want
to get rich what are you going to sell
make do whatever um that's going to take
you there so that is the big thing and
then I would ask yourself if you were in
extreme pain what is the thing that
would allow you to double the amount of
time that you could stay in that pain uh
and so this is the um the question sort
of posed by um man search for meaning
Victor Frank FR so he was saying the
Nichi quote a man with a strong enough y
can endure almost anyhow so he said you
could predict when somebody would die
this is in a concentration camp for
people that don't know them um you could
predict within 72 hours when somebody
would die from because it was the moment
they gave up 72 hours later they'd be
dead and I just thought that was so
interesting so what you're really trying
to figure out is what are those things
that drive you whether they should or
they shouldn't to get there you want to
start with the big gross what of it all
the big gross why of it all but
ultimately if you don't track back to
your beliefs and your value system
you'll be lost and this is what I see
happen all the time so if I were you and
I were talking and I said I have a
pathological inability to be a brand um
but I'm I'm really trying and I think
that over time especially if I'm right
about what I think my brand is right now
my brand is I want to teach people how
to think from first principles in order
to arrive at fulfillment and
so that will be in comic books that will
be in interviews um I could do a mindset
interview I could do an interview now
where we're talking about
um buying businesses in a recession it
could be what is money all of it but
it's all the same thing to do that you
have to understand how the world works
so we are all beholden to the physics of
the situation the reason I say that is
to think from first principles you have
to get down to to physics you have to
get as close as possible to things that
are not in any way shape or form
subjective yeah um so anyway that I
think that's finally going to be the
thing that's broad enough that
everything will fall under that umbrella
um it it bifurcates in people's mind so
it probably doesn't matter that that's
my governing principle to the outside
world it'll still seem like I'm all over
the place but um that is me working
backwards to get to my beliefs my values
my base
assumptions now if you can do that now
we can make real progress so i' I've
been talking about this a lot lately and
I want to be very clear I I am very
impressed by Lex Freedman very impressed
I don't know him never met him no
encounters whatsoever
but uh he did that debate on Israel
Palestine and I wanted to basically
punch everybody in that debate uh
because they were doing my pep peeve
which is they arguing at the level of
facts instead of at the level of
philosophy now philosophy in a modern
context is taking on a really stupid
connotation which is like it's aidite
it's detached from reality false it is
getting to the beliefs and values that
actually drive the way that you think
and so that debate can be summarized as
one side believes Israel should not
exist and the other side believes Israel
should exist now if you don't argue that
point everything else is pointless and
so they're all arguing about well uh the
definition of genocide is this out or
the hold on that that's not none of you
actually care about that what you care
about is should is Israel exist or not
and to have that conversation you have
to say this is the moral scaffolding on
which I'm building my arguments now
we're at least arguing about the real
thing so this is what my wife and I call
don't argue about the Tea yeah the
biggest fight we ever got into was over
a cup of tea and it was like into like
hour three of this screaming match where
I was like there's no way I'm this mad
about a cup of tea it's just not
possible and so what am I actually mad
about and then you drill in and you get
to the real issues so anyway I think I
went over my five minutes here
that you're going to start with this
sort of gross big planetary stuff but
timately you're trying to work your way
back to the philosophy that guides your
entire life once you get there you'll
know who you actually are yeah and a big
part of that by the way is your genetic
makeup like what do you respond to yeah
I think I can tell you why um Atlas
Shrugged is political so here's the
thing that I find really interesting
about the political system it it is born
of a truism of the condition which is
that you have a social creature that
over evolutionary time scales is going
to realize that there needs to be
dynamic tension between two personality
types this is obviously very blunt force
trauma here to talk about things in a
hypers simplistic way but on the left
you have people that are no men Left
Behind hyper compassionate um make sure
that we have group cohesion everybody
come together there's a really
interesting reason for that so when I
realize the following statement is true
it was one of those mic drop oh my god
do you know what the best way to store
calories for the longterm
is fat on somebody else's body oh God so
think about this I can only eat so much
I can only store so much my stomach will
get full so now if I've got meat that's
going to go bad I am way better off
giving you some an animal with
reciprocal Tendencies and now I'm going
to feed you even though why would I do
that I should just take it all for
myself but instead of doing that CU I
know I will max out I will eat so much
will start vomiting or uh I won't be
able to store any more fat and so I'm
just defecating it out so way smarter to
be like hey I'm going to store some of
my fat on your body and then I'm gonna
eat you no okay that s there are tribes
that do that no but then the next time
when you're the one that gets the kill
and I don't you're going to be thinking
oh I want to store some fat in your body
and so it becomes this reciprocal
relationship where we're all like Hey
we're spreading things around so that
there's more of us more likelihood to
get the next kill the next kill the next
kill and if we share we're good to go
and they see this all the way down to um
uh vampire bats so you can take a
vampire bat and they'll like give a
little bit of blood to other people's
children not just their own and they
they figure this out they can inject the
bat's cheeks with air so it looks like
they have blood but the bat knows it
doesn't have blood so it doesn't go to
give them to anybody and the bats will
shun that bat's children and not they're
like you're not helping our kids we're
not going to help yours okay that's the
right so the right's like Hey we're not
going to do freeloaders because what
happens is if you have a system where
it's like oh my God no man Left Behind
no matter what I'm going to help you
then the problem is you get one person
in the group that's a narcissist they'll
take over everything they will literally
just run rough shod so you have to have
this balance what I like to call Dynamic
tension between the two sides because
they're not me to convince the other
side I repeat as a PSA they're not meant
to convince the other side they're meant
to live in this Dynamic tension so that
you don't get pathological compassion
AKA authoritarian rule I saw this
amazing meme it shows uh Care Bears with
love shooting out of their hearts and it
says what authoritarians claim they're
doing yeah and then it shows a real
photo of somebody with an AK 47 behind a
woman's head and says what they actually
do and that's pathological compassion
like we're not going to leave anybody
behind even if I have to kill all of you
to get you in line that I think we all
lived through a little bit of that not
too long ago and then on the right it's
so hardcore like pick yourself up by
your bootstraps I don't care if it's a
90-year-old dying in the streets in fact
I heard you talk about uh you don't buy
retirement homes because you're not
going to kick a 90-year-old out who
can't pay their rent right that's that
Dynamic tension you you need both sides
and the problem is we're living through
this really wacky moment where we're
saying No Other Side bad and so uh an
Ran's Atlas Shrugged is very much from
the rights perspective I think we can be
very honest about that and she's like
putting capitalists up on uh a hill and
I think that all makes sense when you
think about when she wrote it and that
she fleed a communist country and so of
course she's going to be like hey this
goes really wrong when you have this
pathological compassion and you should
not I mean this goes back to where we
started you should not be robbing from
the people that are good with their
capital and giving it to people that are
not it doesn't make sense it actually
ends up breaking the whole system down
and she's not wrong because you need
that Dynamic tension but that's why that
book has such a like people on the left
are going to have such a negative
reaction to that in a modern context in
more sane times where people actually
extended a hand across the aisle it
might have still been like oh that's not
my vibe but a little less controversial
yeah it's such a good point I mean I
grew up in a household where my mom was
on one side and my dad was on the other
side really are they still together yeah
wow happily married for decades and they
still sort of air that way and um and I
thought that was normal you know we we I
have something called the four chairs
framework which is basically if you want
to become really close as a family and
used to Dynamic argument which I think
is one of the best things you can do uh
as a human is is really beat up ideas I
mean AI a think tin that I'm a part of
the AEI yeah American Enterprise
Institute their motto is the competition
Brooks yes this is Arthur Brooks I love
him I know me too hi Arthur the
competition of ideas H kind of like you
were talking about you have to beat up
ideas to find which one is best and so
we used to sit in these four chairs as a
family in the dining room and we would
debate for hours sort of what do you
think about that no I don't like that
idea how could you say that and by the
end of it we' be like okay good night
you know see you guys later words are
violence yeah and so that we just had
none of that you know and there was no
shame to having a certain opinion if you
could back it up now if you couldn't
back up the opinion then uh you felt
some pain surrounding how would you back
it up you'd have to I mean we are I I
think numbers always beat narrative but
numbers can turn into narrative and so
as much as possible actually talk about
that yeah yeah for sure I mean my mother
was a 30-year special education teacher
so she was a teacher by Nature um she
liked us to think for ourselves and my
father um was an entrepreneur came from
nothing you know didn't get a chance to
go to college you know raised and and
ate his own animals went hunting with
his father you know to bring back food
for the family like you know just
totally different than me you know my
dad worked in a slaughterous when he was
younger in order to pay uh his way whoa
you know he's yeah he's kind of seen it
all and um and then started multiple
businesses but would probably never call
himself an entrepreneur or a Founder he
would just say like I sell marble you
know very humble and uh and we would
talk about that because um how much more
interesting one are those conversations
you know I think some of the reason that
we've gotten away from family values in
some way is because you we we talk at
such a surface level with people so when
you come and back and you talk to your
parents how often is the conversation
like hey Mom hey Dad how's it going
what's up with you yeah Life's good with
me it takes a lot of energy to go a
little bit deeper with people I think
that's why people are so obsessed with
podcasts because we are actually having
less of these conversations in real life
we don't have people who will debate us
on our ideas it's not something that's
okay for you to push back intensely on
your friends's opinions uh it's not okay
to ask where they got that data point or
what they could support that with or why
they believe that because most people
cannot back up the statements that they
have without emotional pleas and so I
think people are craving podcast because
they're actually just craving real
conversation can somebody tell me
something that is true and can two
people argue you know like I said well I
don't really know about that are you
sure you're like well let's look it up
later neither of us determine that our
worth is based on whether our individual
idea is right or wrong and these days I
think we've lost our identity in
ideology and so we have individuals who
say my ideas are me and thus if you say
my ideas are wrong I am wrong and that
is a very dangerous path to tread on and
so how much more freeing is it to say I
have an idea at this moment I think it's
true with everything that I know but if
you show me something that I don't know
I'm very happy to change it because I am
in no way shape or form my individual
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I think the big problem is that people
don't
know I'm going to use a gross word but
so it'll stick in people's heads they
don't know what their God is
and utility is my God yeah now if you
are pursuing something stupid you will
pursue the utility of stupid things but
if you're pursuing something honorable
and it's the meaning and purpose for
your life how could you be focused on
anything other than utility that's the
thing that drives me crazy Thomas soul
is um he just has one of my favorite
quotes and he says the last 30 years
have been marked by exchanging what
worked with what sounds good yeah and
that is blasphemy in my worldview
because you are now
abandoning utility actual usefulness
actually moving in the direction of the
thing that you want and this is why
again I'm just going to beat this drum
to death people need to understand what
motivates their reasoning everybody's
reasoning is motivated it's motivated
towards something uh we were looking at
the Tucker Carlson thing postmodernism
motivated by power um so you get to your
point I I've never thought about it
before so I certainly reserve the right
to change my opinion about anything at
any time but um that the brutalism of
the structures which if anybody's never
looked up brutalist architecture it's
actually a style of architecture that is
brutal yeah uh heavy concrete very few
Windows nasty nasty Soviet
Eastern
blnar uh and ironically one of them was
just built in La which there was like a
whole huge backlash which I'm not
surprised anyway and the fluorescent
lights and all
that if your assessment is right about
why they're doing that and my assessment
is right that postmodernism really is
about power and nothing else uh then it
becomes a statement of power we are
bigger better stronger than you you work
for us you do as you're told um
and that when you force somebody to pull
into the light what drives their
thinking like in fact did you ever see
the documentary what is a woman yeah
okay it fascinating glad they did it
however it would have been more like it
becomes just a dunk on the lunacy and it
really did come across as lunacy to me
but we could pulled it back out of
lunacy if you just start asking what are
the base assumptions that are driving
your rationale yeah and when you make
people State like this is why I believe
that and one and this I learned this in
business so the physics of progress you
come up with a hypothesis about what you
would need to do to achieve your goal
okay what does a hypothesis do a
hypothesis makes predictions so when
you're talking to somebody what you want
to do is say okay the things you're
saying are the end result of of a
prediction you're making that's
invisible to me because you're not
saying it out loud you're just telling
me the outcome but if I think of that as
a prediction then I'm like okay this for
that to be true the following base
assumption has to be true and so I'll
just ask people okay because you're
saying that the following statement must
be true so for instance um if uh you
want to give puberty blockers to a young
child um that makes a prediction that
you believe that self-professed
identity is the most important thing in
their life and that you're even willing
to put them through a medical procedure
that has some risk of complication and
death uh is that accurate and they're
going to say yes that's true or they're
going to say no that's not accurate but
I believe If you deny them the ability
to express their gender through a
physiological change that the rate of
suicide goes up okay so the prediction
that that makes is that um they are more
likely to die die if they don't do this
surgery is that accurate yes okay cool
that's a testable hypothesis it makes a
prediction I can now look at the data
and find out is that really true now the
problem becomes if that's a red herring
and that's not really what's motivating
their thinking then it will all fall
apart because I will present them with
the data and I actually don't know the
answer to that but let's say just for
the sake of argument that it comes back
and no there actually is an increase in
likelihood of suicide postsurgery I'm
just I don't know that's true I'm just
saying if it were if in that moment they
go okay word like what we're seeing in
England where they've they've now banned
the use not just Tav a stock closing
down they've now banned the use of
puberty blockers on miners okay so they
look at the data and they change word
I'm here for that but if somebody looks
at the data and then they say oh no no
no we still need to do it for this
reason and you'll get this all the time
with uh in business where somebody will
say this is why I couldn't get that
thing done and you're like okay why
didn't you do this well no that's not
really the reason it was because of this
okay why didn't you do that well no no
no it's not really that it's this I will
say you're making me Chase you don't
make me Chase you just tell me the
reason and then we will and if there's
four reasons give me all four and then
we'll go through them one by one but
this is a knowable set of things right
the problem is again people they argue
with the level of fact they're just two
ships passing in the night instead of
getting down to what are your base
assumptions what predictions do they
make and do those pred come true and if
people start thinking through that so
rather than trying to be right or pass
judgment which is what I could feel in
that documentary instead of that like
it's what I call trapping people in
their own values you just tell me your
values and then we'll see is the thing
you're doing leading to your value or
not and if your value is madness then we
can at least I now know what your value
is right like Hitler that [ __ ]
just told everybody what he was going to
do uh need somebody to blame Jews are
going to work they've worked all
throughout history so we for sure uh
blaming the Jews and then we're going to
take over Russia sh don't tell them yet
but we're going to take it over because
we want that to be the new version of
what America was you know whatever 7500
years ago where everybody just flooded
into America for opportunity and land he
was like that's going to be what we do
with Russia is it will be Europe's
America I he literally just said this
[ __ ] and so he had a value system where
it's like uh the lives of the German
people the Aran race whatever words he
would have used are superior yeah okay
so that's a pretty ugly uh prediction
that that makes uh that also predicts
that you're going to do all the things
that he ends up doing but you're now
pulling it out into the Forefront
nothing's hidden everything's out on the
table and now we can say uh do we think
that human life is equally valuable or
not and you start getting people saying
this stuff and it's like whoa now we you
can just follow things out to their
natural conclusion and you find the
place where it breaks because what I
what I'm always encouraging people to do
is you need to reflect somebody's
beliefs values back to them in a way
that they would recognize so that they
wouldn't be like no you're twisting my
words or
whatever now it's out on the table now
you can make progress yeah it's really
you know I think if people want to
understand what is happening in the
world around them and be able to
influence it quickly efficiently and
without emotion
they should read a book like statistics
for dummies because I actually think a
lot of what you're talking about are two
things first is we don't understand
statistics we don't understand
probabilities we don't actually
understand how to look at the numbers
presented to us in a worldview and
statistics Drive business they drive
wealth they drive the economy and then
the other H half is the the um being
able to follow the scientific method so
I think X hypothesis I want to test that
hypothesis here's how the scientific
method works and those two things we
learned in school but not they were not
the focus of lots of what we did I
recall learning much more calculus than
I did statistics and in fact statistics
do not have to be super um deep
mathematical learnings they can be
understanding assumptions and how to
read uh the math that is happening
behind the scenes and I think a lot of
the reasons why we get sold a bunch of
Lies is because we don't actually
understand statistics and scientific
methods so we end up going with what
feels good and sounds good as opposed to
what actually works and Thomas soul is
is a genius at this for many many
different reasons but you know if people
haven't read economic facts and
fallacies from him Incredible Book if
people haven't read statistics for
dummies good if you don't have a basis
for how to understand when they show you
the you know I always love that uh
example of sometimes when I go on the
news they'll ask me you know what is the
average XYZ what is the average averages
really bother me on average because
because there it's a really poor way to
measure right especially monetarily it's
like what does the average American make
well really depends how you determine
average because you have a few outliers
in there you have a bar everybody makes
100K Bill Gates walks into the bar all
of a sudden the average income goes from
100K to $10 million or whatever that
would be why is that it's because you
should have used median a not average
and that's not actually mathematically
difficult to understand we could start
there we don't have to go to super
complex biology understanding cryptology
and deep understanding of the network
State we could just start with
Statistics and scientific method as
opposed to emotions and narrative I hear
a lot lately that like he who holds the
best story wins and I do think that is
true but the reason that is true is
because people don't understand how to
poke holes in arguments and if you
really want to win be rich be successful
you have to understand is somebody lying
to me about something that I can verify
one way or another which would be Stacks
statistics or scientific method all
right now let's see if we can agree on
why that matters so much why does it
matter to you well let's take it from
multiple different angles one from a
business perspective every business is a
constrained business nobody has
unlimited resources right so if you just
started out starting out and you're
doing the $100 startup method and you
don't have much money and you don't know
how to make a business work very well
you have very little dollars so you have
to understand statistics to understand
where if I put $1 will it be most likely
to go out and bring back friends back
with me that's just probabilities and
statistics and so in business everything
you're doing every decision you make is
really just a determination of should I
do this or this and which one of those
is going to make me more money or more
opportunity or more options or better
decision making something and so
business is really just a complex game
of statistics that ends in dollar signs
right and I think the scientific method
is so important because we think about
it just in science but all it is is what
you're talking about it's like turtles
all the way down you know you're just
you're trying to figure out what lies
underneath the things people tell you so
for instance in our content business
because I come from Finance I push back
really hard on ideas so they'll say well
this is we had this argument the other
day like words mean things words mean
specific things and if we don't agree on
the definition of a word we can't
actually have a conversation and so what
is a good video well lots of people
might have different definitions of good
so I said okay at this company a good
video is one that gets the most views
let's just Baseline it a good video at
our company is the one that gets the
most views is everybody on understanding
about that and we had to debate they
were like well what if it's a you know
this type of video where you're naked or
this type of video where somebody's
getting shot or like something awful and
I go well because we have our Creed and
and our values we would never make that
video because we understand our values
and beliefs so because we understand our
values and beliefs then we can decide on
a quantitative determination of the word
good in the video sense which means
views okay fine if we don't do that you
have a huge problem because then you go
well I think this video is great I think
this video is great I don't know what to
do with that that's like your personal
taste in a video and taste as we all
know from the fact that when we go out
to a restaurant very seldom do all of us
order the exact same thing every single
time why because our taste is different
and so I think a lot of business is
getting really definitional what does
taste mean oo taste is difficult to
Define so that is a bad word instead we
should use a word like does it
convert do I make money off of this
thing if I make money then it is in
taste with this company as long as it
follows our Creed does this video get
views if this video gets views then it
is tasteful according to us and so a lot
of people these days don't like
definitions they want to be really
wobbly with them but that's a huge
problem because then you cannot have a
conversation and you cannot agree on
what a good outcome or a bad outcome
looks like but I that's why they do it
yeah but I I [ __ ] you not Tom the other
day I was like they're like can we
please stop talking about this and I was
like no we have to like have a argument
about what an individual word means and
we need to do that continuously across
the company and I need you guys to do
that individually because otherwise we
all feel good because we're
agreeing but because our foundation is
not the same we're not agreeing at all
but what I found with this generation
again and again and I fall into it too
because I'm a people pleaser sometimes
is like nobody wants to have those tough
conversations how silly does it feel
about arguing over what is one
individual word good and yet it's so
necessary right the infamous Christmas
argument
uh on my side so yeah we got in a huge
debate as a company and it was me
against everybody else and I was like I
know I'm burning relationship Capital
right now because you all think I'm a
psychopath but I'm like it was I don't
even remember what the specific thing
was anymore but it was like that it was
a single word and we're not moving on
until we all agree that this is for that
very reason now I you described exactly
the way that I think about this I use
slightly different words exact same idea
for me the reason that because it's all
started started with why does it matter
to detect a lie and are we being lied to
by people the whole point of my channel
is to say the world Works in a certain
way the vast majority of it is behind a
curtain that you've never looked behind
and so the whole goal of my life which I
just happened to make a show about is
that I am trying to figure out what's
behind the curtain and what I want
people to understand is it is I've
actually never watched the video with um
Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris where
they debate truth but the reality is
that finding truth is really
really difficult now the reason is
difficult is because we all wear What I
Call Whole Life beer goggles and we
cannot see what's really there we're
interpreting what's there and so two
people can look at the exact same thing
and see something completely different I
can spend time explaining how this
happens from an evolutionary standpoint
but just for now we'll say there are
algorithms running in your brain and
they will control how you perceive the
inputs that are coming in yeah okay so
if the world Works in a certain way and
words matter and narrative matters and
even data can become narrative at some
point your life is controlled by how you
interpret the things that are before you
what narrative you're telling yourself
and if your narrative doesn't make
accurate predictions it's broken so the
reason identifying a lie matters is
because it breaks your prediction engine
and if you want to make money in
business statistics are going to be your
best friend because you have to
understand do I do this or do I do this
which is going to have the bigger impact
you're asking yourself a question of
predictive ability I predict that based
on what I know if I do this one I'm
going to get the outcome that I want and
that's why you do it but if your
worldview is messed up if there's
something you don't understand you will
choose the wrong thing and of course
it's never one or two there's usually a
thousand options before you and so
people just have no idea how to choose
because they don't know how they think
they don't know where they're being lied
to they don't know how to dissect uh the
information that's coming in they don't
know how to test hypotheses they don't
understand that when somebody puts
something forward
it makes a [ __ ] prediction and if you
ask people if you stop and go okay hold
on a second what prediction does that
statement make and then I'm just going
to ask you is this true and if in that
moment you're worried about looking
stupid then you're just going to nod and
smile when they give you some [ __ ]
answer which they will almost always do
because they probably don't know what's
driving this they probably have never
thought about the prediction that it
makes but man if you really are unafraid
to look stupid and you say to somebody
okay for what you just said to be true
the following base assumption also has
to be true and I'll just say it to them
is is that true or this makes that
prediction is that accurate and if they
say no one of two things is true either
they're wrong which happens more than
you would think and I'm talking from
experts the brightest Minds in the world
or you don't understand something and if
you don't understand something and
you're not afraid to look stupid then
just keep asking and asking and asking
you understand somebody's worldview
statement whatever when you go ah it
makes this prediction is that accurate
and they say yes then it's like okay
cool I understand what you're saying and
now that I understand I can't be
Bamboozled and that is the only way to
get good at business and this is why
okay I think I may have learned this
from you so forgive
me Specialists
generalists the reason that your
business content is so good and your
business content is so good thank you is
because you're a specialist you buy
businesses all day long MH I'm a
generalist so I launched a course called
business decision making that that is
the greatest course I'm gonna I really
believe this that is the greatest course
on entrepreneurship ever taught and all
I did was say to whatever the small
group of people uh bring me your hardest
business problem and we're going to
solve it in real time and then I would
just walk people through this is how you
do it I don't need to know your industry
none of that like I'm going to think
from first principles I'm going to ask
you questions about what you said makes
a prediction I mean literally all the
things I'm just talking about but in
real time hey and you're going to come
back week after week and we're just
going to keep going okay now you made
progress what's the next problem boom
boom boom we go through it and live fire
and what I would say to people is I know
you think you want copywriting or you
want funnel marketing or all of that but
you can hire somebody to do that because
it's very finite and it's very teachable
the real thing that makes an
entrepreneur great is the ability to
solve novel problems is a problem not
only have you not seen before nobody's
seen before and so now you have to be
able to build up from first principles
to think through it but that [ __ ]
hardest thing in the world to sell
because people know this is your
painkillers versus vitamins that [ __ ] is
a vitamin and people want painkillers
they know they have a problem and if you
Market it as I'm going to take you from
zero dollar in Revenue to $3 million in
Revenue that shit'll sell all day long
you're exactly right God damn it it
isn't all weather it it will work for
one thing in that one moment but it
doesn't translate because it's not a
framework 100 100% I mean I think a
couple things there one
is the real definition of a CEO is a
scary one so if you say you want to be a
CEO here's what a CEO is it's your you
go out you hire the smartest people you
can possibly find you tell them to fix
problems then they find the problems
that are so hard even the smartest
people you can't find can't solve them
they bring them back to you and you have
one job only which is to deal with the
worst problems that the smartest people
that you know can't solve that's all a
CEO is and so if you think you are
anything more than a firefighter in the
most complex fires of all time you're
crazy the CEO is not a fun easy breezy
position I've never met a CEO that felt
that way um that's why they moved to
Chairman after a while because they let
somebody else deal with it and so I
think that's exactly right the other
thing that I find fascinating there is
um so I started contrarian thinking in
2020 with this idea that people have
lost their minds they are no longer able
to think because they can't question
anything and I believe that I will give
like you will make more cash if you are
curious than if you are a genius and the
reason why is because you can use the
collective genius if you are curious and
you are limited by your own genius if
you are not and so especially with the
world of chat GTP if you are a genius
but unwilling to ask questions because
of your own Brilliance you have just
lost the world of knowledge and so I
believe our ability to question things
is integral to our individual success
and uh and yet I thought people were
losing that ability and they were
smothering it and they were saying it
was wrong to question things and I
thought that was criminal so I started
contrarian thinking and I was like we
are going to teach you to question
things to be contrarian not for the sake
of it but in order to learn
and then it was crickets and people were
like I think just fine this Noggin is
pretty smart I don't need your help
thinking better like nobody really goes
around and says I wish I could think
better except those at the very very
very very top it's like a 1% problem
most people think that they think fine
they just haven't found the deal the
money the next job the girl the whatever
they don't think there's anything wrong
with the way their brain functions and
unless it's a pill that can make them
like super human intelligence um and so
I quickly realized that okay if I want
people to think differently how could I
get them to do that what would be the
Trojan Horse to think in and I was like
well what do all humans want they want
love in some degree they're greedy they
want like some sort of personal wealth
right uh and they want maybe relevancy
in some way shape or form you could also
say they want Health right and so if we
have wealth health
sex grid uh which do I know a lot about
well I I don't really know that much
about health uh I don't really want to
talk about sex on the internet wouldn't
say I'm an expert there either um but
what about wealth or gred well yeah I
know a lot about that I've been in
finance for a long time so what if I
could Trojan Horse my way into thinking
by getting people to talk about money
I'll tell them how to make more money
but in the process of telling them how
to make more money I'm actually going to
get them to think about something more
important which is ownership and what do
ownerships have they have personal
responsibility for outcomes when you
have personal responsibility for
outcomes you have incentive alignment
when you have incentive alignment then
when somebody breaks something that you
own you feel it when somebody lifts up
something that you own you feel it you
have the pleasure pain uh you know cycle
happening within you and so that is why
we eventually started talking about
money and contrarian thinking because I
realized it's a trojan horse to getting
people to care about decision- making
because they actually have skin in the
game and ownership ownership is the key
to freedom and that in fact if you do
not have control over your life uh
through Financial Freedom it's very hard
to have other levels of ownership and I
think that is true yeah no doubt um man
ownership is such a part of your message
and I think it's so so so important um
how one why don't people have that like
push now that's not the cool thing that
it once was yeah it's not is it yeah
it's interesting the other day uh we had
an employee um you know decide that they
wanted to leave to go into a
meditation Community like a monastery
not really sure and um and I thought
about that at first a really good
employee by the way great employee and I
thought well what is that decision-
making and I went back to the to the
quote I can't remember who it's from but
that the the purpose of
Faith or religion is to live it in life
that you you know are you truly a it's
why the Dal Lama doesn't stay in Tibet
right his purpose is to go spread this
faith that he has while living life
because life is hard and difficult it's
very easy to stay peaceful if you're in
247 meditation States and yet I think
this
generation they presuppose that if they
find the perfect circumstance that that
will lead to Bliss instead of realizing
that actually Bliss is found in the
difficulty and so I don't know about
this personal situation with this
individual but I thought about this a
lot because I thought what would make
somebody like put their life on pause
that way and and you know stay in this
one one situation and I think the reason
is because we have not been conditioned
in this generation to um to find joy in
difficulty instead we want to find joy
in in extreme pleasure I mean look at
what we've done to this generation I
mean this is wild and even to parents
today we told them we said parents you
know uh run your kids around 247 to all
of these activities if they get upset in
any way shape or form run to the
principal you know talk to the parent on
their behalf don't let them handle it um
if something is wrong with them and they
are sad or anxious they are probably
depressed or maybe they have ADHD we're
going to label them and pathologize them
as opposed to tell them they're having a
momentary issue we're going to get them
into the most expensive colleges or any
college we can but then they will have a
massive amount of student debt and then
on top of that we're going to tell them
that uh you know no it it's it's okay
about every single feeling that you're
having and that is all of this trauma
and yes you know your cat died 15 years
ago and you are still carrying that
inside of your hips and that's why
they're tight right because that's where
you hold the trauma from you know fluffy
and and so this is what we've told
parents and kids and so of course
they're confused you know they're
confused and they don't know what real
Joy is and they've checked all the boxes
they've done all the things that they
thought they were supposed to do and
it's led to them being like in debt not
that happy not with a partner um you
know and so what's next so I do as much
as I kind of give my generation Our
Generation and the Next Generation a
little bit of a hard time I really get
it because I was told all those same
things too and had to come out on the
other side and realize no no I'm the
only one responsible for my happiness
and that there's actually a lot of joy
in the journey and there is no
destination that you can reach and by
the way you can never stay for the rest
of your life in perfect meditation the
point of meditation is not that it is to
be in life you know I heard this thing
the other day that I really liked I
think it was Mel Robbins and Mel Robbins
was
saying uh the eye of the hurricane is
what she tries to be so you know the if
there's a hurricane and there's chaos
and there's tumult and there's broken
windows and danger and floods on the
exterior of the hurricane in the middle
of it it's silent and Serene and so her
goal is no matter what's happening out
here that she wants to stay silent
inside and I was I was thinking about
that I was like I like that that
philosophy and I was like but you know
what's even more interesting the bigger
the hurricane the bigger the eye right
the more silence inside of it so if you
put yourself in bigger more intense
situations are you able to find a deeper
level of silence and quiet and
contemplation and I think the answer is
yes you are which goes back to the Ted
Turner we lost 100 million bucks on that
and so if we all will die and it may be
painful at some time and the only truth
in life is that we will experience pain
we will die and all of our loved ones
will die and they will probably not
remember us much sooner than we would
ever like then we should probably
prepare ourselves for that with a bigger
hurricane so that as we look the true
difficulty of life that is eventual
death and difficulty on the path of it
it doesn't daunt us because we've lived
in difficulty too and so I come closer
and closer to that you know that
Buddhist idea
of you know that life has suffering life
is suffering um but that's sort of the
point of it all and that you can find
joy in that and it's way too deep you
know Tanner would go that's deep um but
uh but I think it might be
true the storm destroys most everyone
that it touches that's the the problem
how do you
I mean do you think about
that like the like creating hurricanes
for no reason no do you lament to God
wail from your gut at the fact
that you can create an eye in the middle
of the largest storm but that most of
the people you know and love will get
Torn to
Pieces I
think
I don't think that I have that
individual power I think I think all of
us are like um I get really careful
about like overstating what I think I'm
capable of and so I don't think I am
capable of destroying the ones around me
no no no not you I'm saying that uh I am
very distressed that most people will
not be able to
do most people won't be able to be a CEO
most survive their own hurricane they
create yeah exactly like this is one of
those where I don't want it to be true
I've just seen it play out too many
times yeah that and you and I have both
said the same thing so I know that you
see what I'm about to say which is Step
number one of being a CEO is ask
yourself do you really want to be a CEO
yeah because all I hear when someone
says I want to be a CEO is that you want
to get punched in the face over and over
and over no it really like really really
really and the longer I do it the more
punches I take yeah and you do start
going huh I routinely am asking myself
why am I doing this and in fact it's
really interesting to compare my wife
and I okay so I have married my equal my
wife is UN unimaginable and and she has
helped me become the person that I am
and I I really don't even know who I
would be without her because of how
gifted she is and how smart she is and
all that she can't do what I can do yeah
so and she will be the first to tell you
I mean she did tell you literally before
we started rolling she was like I don't
don't want to be CEO I see what he has
to deal with and I don't want it Y and
um that like it is so exciting for me
and I can give the spe I I can be the
dancing bear that you uh poke fun at I
can be the dancing bear of
motivation and be very performative
around like just living in that
personality of the person that can
create the calm and that you can do
anything you set your mind to um and and
then I've seen it up close and the
reality is that most people don't have
the skill yeah emotional management that
that's what being the eye of the storm
is is can everything be burning down
around you and you're not panicking yeah
you're concerned you're taking decisive
action but you're not panicking yeah and
what I have found is that the person you
lost to the monastery like Place uh
they're the norm yeah what's interesting
is they to give to steal men their
argument I keep in my back pocket that
life choice MH I studied Eastern
philosophy a lot when I was younger at
one point I actually called myself a
Dost and I meant it I was a Dost said
and I always contended with the idea of
becoming a monk of some kind and I
thought I really believe that the um the
Wellspring of all suffering is desire
that makes sense to me and but what I
found was that that felt like a choice
between engaging with life and
disengaging from life and you could say
that you're engaging with the pursuit of
non-attachment but it just isn't how it
felt to me yeah and I'm perfectly
willing to accept that maybe that's just
the part of my spiritual journey that
I'm on and one day I'll be start
laughing at my myself that you know
Detachment was the right answer all
along yeah but I decided I'm I'm going
to fully engage with life but for my
sanity I keep in my back pocket that I
could just stop wanting any of this yeah
and the second I sto wanting to grow my
YouTube channel to make more Revenue to
be an entrepreneur for the ages to build
the next Disney I could just let go of
all of that and if I actually let go of
it all of a sudden those punches Don't
Hurt Anymore they don't matter it's you
just let it go now you do have to
contend with freedom coming from
Financial Freedom but one way to do that
is to beg for food and live in either a
monastery or a cave and come out every
now and then with your Rice Bowl it's uh
I don't pass judgment on that lifestyle
I just don't currently want it for
myself but it's in my back pocket yeah I
like the back pocket idea I think I
think it's really important and I don't
have a good definition for it so I have
to work on this but this idea of
ownership I do not think has to mean
owner I think there needs to be a
difference between the two and ownership
uh in my opinion there's like four
levels to Rich I think about monetarily
and so you have the first level is like
a spender you make money you spend it
the second level is a saver right you
make money you save some of it the third
level is an owner in my opinion that you
take the money and you apply it towards
your Pursuits so you invest in you
working more your business Etc and the
fourth level is an investor and that's
you take your exess and you invest it in
other people and their
Pursuits and the the levels you know you
you can't really go from a spender all
the way to an investor I don't believe I
think you kind of have to like climb the
rungs and I've thought a lot about what
does ownership mean because I do not
think everybody should be an
entrepreneur or a CEO in any way shape
or form but do think that they should
have some skin in the game for what
they're doing and they should have a way
where they can continue to earn even if
something catastrophic happens to them
so that could be that they have
additional income streams that could be
Investments that could be that they help
their wife or husband learn a new skill
and thus the family has multiple income
streams and what they do that could mean
you know sovereignty in that they live
on the land and they like subsidize part
of their you know income that they would
need by growing things or having
agricultural tax credits but I think
it's really important that we don't
become like you talked about people who
own nothing and like it I think we can
be people who want less material things
because our neighbors have them but
simultaneously have more ownership of
the things that can protect us from
negative consequences like a health
event where you need money like an
authoritarian regime that tells you they
want you to do x y and z money is like
it's an option that you get to either
use or not use and so I need to narrow
down this idea of ownership but I do
think you're right not everybody should
be a CEO and and what what trouble would
we be in if everybody was one who would
work with us right I think the job of a
CEO also is to have a dream so big that
your umbrella has room enough for many
people and to sell them that dream and
to show them that your dream is bigger
than anything that they could create
individually and is going to uplift them
in a way that is bigger than what they
could do by themselves it might be more
fun and might be more interesting um
because high high performing teams are a
joy to be in um I actually think one of
the worst things that ever happened to
us was that we sold this lie that remote
work was better for us I think it was
actually really detrimental and me
mental health numbers seem to to show
that and that you know I say online a
lot you know our our teams we make them
as much as possible come back to to the
office and it doesn't mean they have to
be there every day we don't put them
under fluorescent lights and and
cubicles um but we do require them to
now all be in Austin for contrarian
thinking we bought a studio there we
bought a headquarters we're hiring like
crazy my other company Biz Scout is
located there too contr and thinking
Capital based there so it's Main Street
holding company and so I'm bringing all
the people back into the office because
I see what happens when they're on an
island and I think it's really really
negative but I have to get closer on
that idea of of ownership in order to to
explain it like even how you know it
used to be that the people who owned
companies were not unaligned
shareholders that just gave them money
for their stock right that really have
no ability to affect the outcome you and
I both anybody who owns stocks you have
a percentage of Google you have a
percentage of Amazon but you are not
really aligned with the employees and
the people inside of Google or Amazon
you just want as much money as you can
get for that stock and there's actually
really perverse short-term incentives
that happen with that really perverse
and so I think as an employee part of
your game should be I want to make as
much money as I can to a certain degree
and then I want to invest it in things
that are oi to me and I want to find
ways to skill stack to become so
valuable that the people I work with
will give me some percentage of a
company a deal you know uh an
opportunity to invest in another company
along onside them and that's where I
think we went a little bit wrong like my
employees don't have Equity at
contrarian thinking well one does now
but two of them just got Equity at one
of my other companies um and so they're
now they're now Partners they're owners
in that business even though they're
also employees and I think we should be
able to do that a lot with our top
performers and just like people
shouldn't stay at minimum wage they
should aspire to grow into more you know
I agree aggressively what do you think
about Black Rock and big companies
buying
everything so Main Street holding
company is where we own all of these
companies right we have like 26
companies in the portfolio right now and
not so long ago my goal was I want to
create the next KKR carile I was like I
saw how this these guys operate I want
to create a private Equity Fund that's
just as big I've already raised a
billion dollar fund at at First Trust
and yeah I can do this again but let's
do it in a better asset class which
would be uh private companies and so I
went was on my mar way buying these
companies and then I kind of started
seeing what was happening with a lot of
these private equity-owned companies and
it's stripping the employees turning it
into post-modernist buildings with
fluorescent lights and cubicles it's uh
nobody knows your name when you go to
the corner store it's that they have
perverse incentives because they want to
strip it and flip it to somebody else
and then that next person wants to strip
it and flip it and a lot of these
companies you know get sold by three or
four private Equity companies before
they go public and they've lost kind of
their soul and so I realized man I want
to build a billion doll company maybe
multiple billion doll companies but I
don't want to own all of America's small
businesses I want Americans to own those
businesses and if I can create value by
building something that hasn't existed
before that's cool but do I have to go
gobble up all the things that other
people could own within their
communities no and so I am very much
pushing back against the big guys
everything and we have to work for them
I think and D I mean I don't know if we
talked last time but for those economic
nerds on here like if you don't
understand the unfair advantage that
black rock and Blackstone has it will
scare the hell out of you like if you
think about it this way they have
immense data right because they've been
doing this for a long time they have
most of their former Executives having
at some point or the other worked in the
FED been consultants for the FED been in
itical positions um been the chairman of
of the FED uh they have also by the way
all been at varying companies like the
CEO of Black Rock and Blackstone who
have both uh you know one's been an
owner of the other company before and
they get rates to buy these companies
and houses and assets and anything that
you want to talk about that are like one
half to one3 to 1/4 of the rates that we
have if we want to buy these individual
companies and why do do they have that
because they have all our money because
you and I have our investments at Black
Rock in their ETFs which means that they
get to use those assets on the balance
sheet to have lower rates to buy things
that then increase the prices of single
family homes in the US with our
dollars and I think that is Criminal and
I'm I don't love the government
regulating many things but I think they
should at least get their neck off the
little
guy get their foot off the neck of the
little guy get their neck off the foot
of the little guy yeah get their foot
off the neck of the little guy there go
dyslexia live you know what's
interesting though I've heard you talk
about that before there is some crazy
stat about the highest paid CEOs or
Founders I forget uh like onethird of
them have dyslexia oh is that true it is
true yeah so I'm going to guess that
there's something about the way that
what reads is oh I have a hard time
keeping these things straight yeah is a
blurring of the lines so there's less
rigidity in the categorization I'm
guessing here but this really feels like
it'll be true there's a blurring of the
lines of categorization of different
things so like a be and a do they don't
have like a distinct categorization
between them but that allows you to make
more sort of unique connections between
things so people with that like Richard
Branson I know is dyslexia there's a ton
of them um that would make a lot of
sense to me yeah there's also this this
is like a fake pathology like so many
are today but there's one that's um
basically you can't get analogies right
and so my my husband always jokes with
me that I must be a Russian agent
because I'll be like the thing is dogs
and horses it's raining today and he's
like what is wrong with you and I just
for some reason I can't keep them right
and so I mess them up in my head all the
time so I could never be a politician
because there' just be meme after mem of
me just fine just fine he's a
groundbreaker actually they you know
what's funny they both are in a way like
Biden has shown you don't have to be
eloquent at all to be the president and
you could mess up all the numbers always
be shy of dementia yeah you could trip
often and be a president and then Trump
has shown that you could have every bad
thing you know like you could have
lawsuits against you you could say a
bunch of crazy things and just be like
nah anyway we're going to keep going and
there's like good and bads to both sides
sometimes I look at Trump and I'm just
like God how do you keep putting up with
this cuz I would have I would have given
up by now
bro yeah uh I'm not loving our choices
at that level um I have Joo willink on
tomorrow so many people have asked so
I'm not even going to waste my time
asking him if he'll run yeah um but man
would I prefer somebody like that now
you do a lot of political fundraising
tell me more what's
your how do you think through that
problem so I know some of the origin
story is what you told us earlier
regulation gets changed business goes
poof gone um so you care do you think
more at the local level at the federal
level yeah I think all politics is
really local politics and that's how it
should be and so you know if you
actually want to sh if you want to see
firsthand the impact you can have uh go
to your local community because nobody
cares I mean I went to one um Community
uh city council meeting in Austin and it
was the most fascinating thing I've ever
seen uh that the room is entirely empty
until like the very end because the
entirety of the meeting is like
meaningless meaningless meaningless
meaningless and at the very last 10
minutes when they know like everybody's
going to be asleep and they're kind of
done they try to push through like
really aggressive legislation and then a
crazy thing happens which is both sides
pay people to come in so whichever sides
you're on and like Heckle them and say
crazy things on both sides and what I
realized by watching that is like God
there's actually not 50 people on both
sides of this debate there's like three
people here and four people here and
they're sort of trying to play each side
against each other and Austin is very
contentious at the city council level
and so I saw that and thought huh that's
really interesting like I could I don't
know if I could do anything federally I
don't know if I could have any change
there but in my local community I
certainly could and you know so we
supported some things that helped with
ensuring that homeless in the city of
Austin uh you know were actually
tracked that uh housing was available
that the you know multiple hundreds of
millions of dollars that they allocated
to homeless housing and uh and movement
was actually used uh and not just
studies that they pay to Bane and
McKenzie to push it down the line three
to five years out which is what a lot of
those that money goes to and so um so I
think the local level is really
interesting and you can have uh a lot of
change there and then I watched you know
we lived in in multiple cities where I
watched just I watched what happens when
those of us who have succeeded in some
way shape or form just go I don't really
like politics I'm just going to do
business I don't want to deal with all
that of course who wants to deal with it
Psychopaths nobody besides Psychopaths
runs for office for the most part you
know it's like a lot of narcissists it's
a lot of people who have not been very
successful because if you've been
successful they come after you like
crazy and why would you put yourself
through that when you already have
relevance power you community and so if
those of us who don't want to lean in
don't lean in then the crazies do and so
I always have a plea with people like
get involved on a local level to
understand what's going on if you can
and if you have resources commit them um
so that's that's what started it but
then I you know the other part that's
interesting
is you get a chance if you want to be
involved politically people are actually
quite easy to get to and so when they're
trying to get votes you know I became
friends with uh Vivic ramaswami I mean
last weekend you know I was at a thing
with uh with RFK you know I've I've met
Trump I haven't met Biden yet um you
know but I've met a ton of senators and
congressmen and it's because if you call
up your local Congressman or senator
they by and large need to get back to
you especially your congressman and so
we don't even think about the power that
we actually have to evoke change for
some reason but on the local level you
can do a lot is your standard rubric Pro
business what's the thing you're really
angling for rationality I have like a
low bar you know the bars but what would
drive like how would you define
rationality right each side thinks
they're right um that's a really good
point how would I determine who I give
money to well the best predictor of
future behavior is past Behavior right
so I typically would look at how has
this person voted before and has that
led to Pro business and pro- freedom
initiatives so I really believe in like
personal sovereignty and I believe in to
a Libertarian level I I do think we need
systems in place so to your point I
don't think if somebody starving on the
street we should leave them there and
they need to figure it out I do think we
need social safety nets I do think that
there's a huge benefit to helping others
both like mentally societally um but I
believe in optimizing for this idea that
the individual might be the one who is
best suited to know what they need need
except if they infringe on the rights of
others so if they're violent or they
break the law and so I do tend to vote
you know and focus on things that are
more economic uh from a business
perspective can we create more GDP
growth can we have less reg regulation
less Taxation and then can we allow for
more freedoms and those span both lines
like Reproductive Rights gay rights you
know ability for individuals to
determine if they want to work as a
trctor or not like things that span both
sides very interesting
um when you talk about people not
wanting to leave them on the street
wanting to make sure that they get
helped uh if I were to put the sort of
really traditionalist hat on I would say
do we want the government doing that or
do we want to push that to um
churches um neighborhood groups things
like
that in a perfect like I think you and I
and anybody watching we want um we
basically want whatever is the fastest
outcome to success so like people like I
want a six-pack as fast as possible with
as least pain as possible right yeah
right terrible idea PS yeah right like
we that's what we want and so I think
what we have to to think about is two
things one what is the most efficient
and effective way to get it done
whatever it is which is likely if we do
scientific uh methodology and also
statistically probably not usually the
government it is probably more effective
for an individual for-profit group to
solve an issue because of incentive
alignment than it is for the government
um but we'd want to you know we'd want
to figure out the actual truth of that
statement so I'm not like a a purist I
think we've seen a lot of things go
poorly that are PR that are private and
profit driven prison system it's a great
great example like huge private Equity
owned segment of of our country that has
terrible repercussions from optimizing
for profit and you know think about it
what what do we love in finance
recurring Revenue you know what do we
also love in finance we love a customer
that can never leave us you know and so
I do think we have to ponder for a
moment whether things like for-profit
prison systems are right
uh but we might be better served by
allowing free market activities for
helping somebody in a tough situation
inside of our community it's really
interesting the prison thing so let's
take that head-on it's not something
I've thought a ton about uh but first
principle should always do so my initial
reaction would be that it isn't a having
profit isn't inherently
incorrect however as Charlie Munger said
show me the incent incentives and I'll
show you the outcome so if they're
incentivized to keep people there if
they're incentivized to um see people
return then that's what you're going to
get so you'd have to be exceedingly
thoughtful about what the incentive
structure is now that really may be one
where you just don't want um profit to
even factor into it but it does feel
like if you got the right incentive so
for instance if
um if you were judged by recidivism rate
and judged by how well that person was
able to integrate into society and you
were paid like very substantive bonuses
based on those two things now all of a
sudden I'm like okay what does it take
to get somebody integrated back okay I'm
GNA have to get them off drugs 100% 100%
like that's just going to be number one
number two I need to figure out what is
a marketable skill so that they're able
to integrate back into society and if I
get bonuses based on how long they hold
job for how much they make in that job
like now all of a sudden I mean look I
even as I say it I you have to start
thinking through the second and third
order consequences because now people
might be like well I don't want that
person in my prison because they don't
have future prospects so you do have to
be really really thoughtful but anybody
that thinks oh this is a failed Endeavor
because I can't come up with it in nine
seconds on a podcast that's foolish but
if if people are really attacking this
from first principles what what's the
outcome that we want to get right so our
objective and then what are the the
things that I believe and know about uh
drug I mean this I'm almost certain the
following statement is true that drugs
drive just some absurd north of 70% of
all convictions uh that somebody was
either drunk when they committed
manslaughter murder what I forget the
number of people that are drunk when
they either get murdered or murder
somebody it's ridiculous yeah I believe
uh so anyway drugs alcohol is going to
drive a lot of this stuff uh but being
thoughtful about the downstream effects
I I just don't think that simply
stripping money out of the equation and
making it a government run thing is
going to be the answer because it isn't
efficient you're not able to attract the
best and the brightest because the best
and the brightest are going to ask how
do I get the biggest Roi oftentimes from
a lifestyle
perspective
um in my Pursuits so yeah it's a it's a
good Counterpoint I do think most things
can be changed with incentives and then
you'd have the you know because the
counter argument could be well if we get
you know you could go makavelian and say
all right we're g to we're going to
judge them based on low recidivism rates
so let's just do what we've done in New
York and California not put people back
in jail for X dollar amounts we don't
actually say you would have to have the
their success has another metric so that
they're not just incentivized to boot
them out yeah but at the end of the day
I do believe that I mean if you think
about like Ponder this for a second you
run a business and that business at the
end of the year all your managers
get less money the following year from
you in their budget if they didn't spend
everything that you allotted to them no
matter what their outcome was like you
would have a failed business right but
that is what the government is right so
at the end of the year if you run a
division within the government and you
don't use up the full budget that the
government gave you that you were
allocated that year then they will give
you less next year regardless of out
come so we have a perverse incentive
from a spending perspective inside of
the government which is why I remember
once I invested in a lanyard company
like like you get it uh badges like
conferences right and uh we would get
crazy orders at the end of the
government's fiscal year from like the
dod and a bunch of different because
they would spend like hundreds of
thousands of dollars on whatever we
could get them quickly so that their
budget wouldn't be taken because your
budget is a sign of your power in DC and
so it's not it's not outcome driven it's
power driven and then interestingly
enough when I ran a business
internationally and I was in China I
remember it fascinating I was they had
had massive economic growth when I was
there which would have been like 2009
2010 so Peak years and I remember
talking to some members of the of the
Communist party there about um how they
how do they run their uh their they
don't call them Mayors or Governor ships
but something similar to that and they
were saying here's what's really unique
about us everybody is tracked from their
ability to drive increase in GDP they
actually had a score card for the uh
their their elected leaders to um
whether they uh hit more or less GDP
numbers and that would be like us it
would be like okay did you make me more
money or less money in my business if
you made me more money I'm going to give
you more money okay great that's like
what they did and the fascinating part
about that is it led to huge GDP growth
really smart but it's also led to huge
uh climate issues and environmental
issues interesting and so they had to
offset their scorecard a little bit but
think about in the US do you know how to
score a single politician like we don't
have scores for politicians you could
have scores of or do they vote Democrat
do they vote Republican but we don't
have any scores about like how are they
doing whereas you have a score every day
Tim Cook how you doing at Apple you know
Elon Musk how you doing how's the Tesla
stock doing score and so I think it's
really important
like and even for yourself individually
give yourself an ability to quantify
whether you're winning or losing a
personal scorecard is really really
valuable for that most people let their
bosses set their scorecard how much more
powerful if you go this year I want to
drive a 100 million views in my job as a
cinematographer or videographer this
year I want to make a million dollars in
this division for the company because I
know if I do that I will make X I have
my own scorecard fine rate me however
you want but like I'm an owner because I
decide how I'm going to be scored like
that's not just up to you and that's
very very
rare yeah I think this is um the metric
that people use for the presidential
election as far as I can tell is
basically just the economy if things are
going well in the economy you're going
to be golden if things are going bad in
the economy you're going to be toast and
so certainly pulling that to the
forfront and saying this is the
scorecard that we're going to judge
people on even just having that even
even if it were an independent
organization that just campaigned and
campaigned and campaigned here's the
scorecard and they show every year this
is what the score was for this um
Administration something like that I
think would be really effective so uh
could be economy infrastructure
education like you know what I mean
International standing those kind of
things and just here's the 15o scorecard
they'll want to make it 200 but that
would be stupid but you come up with
some limited number of things get
everybody to just agree okay cool these
are going to be the metrics that we
judge people right now without having
that I've heard you say this and I
certainly agree that if you're trying to
run a company and you don't have kpis if
people don't know the standard to which
they're being held like you you don't
know what they're going to aim at and so
everything becomes rudderless and this
is why I'm always telling entrepreneurs
the number one thing what is your goal
and so if the goal is get reelected
which is the only real goal for a first
term person uh and if it's Congress or
Senate then really just reelect
reelect then that's what they're going
to optimize for show me the incentives
and I'll show you the outcome and if the
incentive is should just get reelected
money printer go Burr because the real
thing people are paying attention to is
the economy and so right now we just
print and print and print our way out of
every problem because one people are
like I'm not going to get reelected
which is really my goal and it's the
world's slowest motion train wreck right
so oh we hit the debt ceiling again
we're going to saber Rattle and say
we're going to raise it of course you're
going to raise it cuz the US government
is the US government is not going to let
the US government default on its debts y
it's just not going to because who's
going to be hurt and this is where
people don't understand the economy
which look I love you all if you don't
understand the economy a I don't
understand it as well as I will a year
from now certainly not as well as I will
10 years from now and three years ago I
knew literally nothing about it so but
the more you understand it the more the
curtain is peeled back and you realize
that your if you own bonds and
treasuries you're the one that gets
defaulted on so yeah it's just the US
government is not going to betray its
own citizens by bouncing that and the
only way to avoid it is to print money
and as they print money they are taking
your buying power yeah like it the
printing money feels good but it is
socializing the losses yeah and because
people don't understand how it all works
they can just do it in plain sight it's
bananas you're right I I do think so I
don't think this will happen but I do
think there's a way they could get out
of this which would
be you get in this isn't that different
to what Vic said which is GDP growth
grow grow your way out of
this have in uh interest rates come down
restructure the debt so that your debt
is at fixed low cost longterm so do what
Mexico did do 50-year uh bonds as
opposed to right now you know 1 three
and uh so you could do those two things
Focus aggressively on GDP growth which
would mean Cuts in regulation overall it
would mean Innovation bonuses it would
mean probably allowing for a little bit
better job than we've been doing lately
of doing International Trade probably
signing up for some things like
TPP um and uh so we could do that and
then we could add on top of that what
would be extremely painful but maybe we
could do it if we were growing like
crazy GDP growth uh and the economy was
really good for people which would be
systemic changes in our um in our
Medicare Medicaid and Social Security
and if we did those things we could
change this country and this country
could be on a very positive trajectory
but without without a structural change
in our debt without a structural change
in our GDP growth and without a
structural change in our um Medicare
Medicaid and Social Security this
country is in definitely trouble at
least for the long term maybe not in the
next couple of years because they might
keep printing money but longterm it's
just math you can't keep spending more
than you make continuously and
compounding it for the rest of time a
trillion dollars in debt every 100 days
an extra trillion dollars yeah that's
Insanity yeah uh you need only run the
math on the interest it will just it
will become more than our GDP in I
forget how many years it's not a lot of
years it's absolute Insanity um do you
so when I hear that when I hear anybody
throw productivity in the mix my only
hope is AI yeah what do you think is is
AI going to bring the needed amount of
productivity or do you see Innovation
credits spring us on enough I mean it's
hard I'm just by no means an expert in
this um so I don't know and all I can
tell is like qualitative examples and
stories you know we invested in a
company called figure which is now
backed by a bunch of big names which is
you know humanoid looking robots uh for
manufacturing and warehouses
predominantly so very like single use
case robots um which I think is the
right way to do it as opposed to like
anthropomorph or like turning a robot
into a full spectrum human that can do
everything right and so um so in this
company I can see a future in which we
have massive productivity leaps because
it's already really hard to get Workers
inside of uh warehouses continuously for
example um and so I do think there's a
world in which we have massive like you
know gain of function uh productivity
changes due to AI I'm not intelligent
enough to to understand that but um you
know my husband he works in AI for the
government uh anyway and so he sees all
these fast fting use cases for
AI and they're incredible and I'm sure
you see it here you're friends with a
bunch of people in the in the sphere so
I think there will be some version of it
but my my bigger point is like you
individually as a human have to prepare
for the worst without being able to
affect the outcome and so I think for
most human beings the best way that I
see to prep for this is to have some
sort of business where you can raise
prices as Things become more expensive
over time and for you to have multiple
income streams in case one of them gets
annihilated by a new technology or
regulation and for you to increase your
skill stack so that no matter what you
continue to stay relevant and some of
that might even be just becoming more
knowledgeable with AI like if I was
young today and I didn't have a lot of
skills I would have told you a few years
ago that the only thing I would have
focused on was sales I would have said
just get really good at sales everything
else you can figure out become
incredibly charismatic learn how to get
what you want from people to learn what
they want and you'll be able to go far
and I think that but plus an ability to
understand usage of AI not even creation
of AI um I think that next generation is
going to Mint a lot of millionaires and
billionaires so I might focus on that
but I think in the interim it's unlikely
that somebody's who's like 45
56070 is going to become an expert in AI
now and so what would be your best case
scenario invest in things that become
more valuable as the world gets tougher
and things like that are assets for
instance which when inflation happens
your assets grow in value and that's
also how you steal from the poor poor I
mean the government steals from you
because assets inflate the rich own
Assets in inflationary periods and wages
don't inflate and so that is how the
government steals money from the poor
and gives it to the rich yeah so I have
a for people that don't understand what
you just said that's very terrifying and
I hope that they will take a second to
um walk through that I have a growing
hypothesis that I would love to run by
you yeah tell me if you think I'm crazy
great uh that hard money the ability to
save in a hard money ought to be a
inalienable human right and what I mean
by that is if you have money that
inflates and and let's not use fancy
words if the government is allowed to
counterfeit money by printing it which
which is literally just legal
counterfeiting yeah so they get to make
more in their back office but you can't
uh so if they're allowed to legally
counterfeit
um your money loses buying power over
time and so the true flation calculator
shows that over the last four years it's
23.8% I think y um
so your dollar four years ago used to
buy a dollar worth of stuff y now four
years later it buys roughly 75 cents
worth of stuff that's brutality yeah and
that's not a a function it's not a law
of nature which is what I thought
inflation was just never looked at it so
I just thought things inflate I never
stopped to wonder why uh it's not it's
born of printing money the legal
counterfeiting that the government does
um and that means if you're a good boy
or girl and you save your money that the
government is using an invisible tax to
take more of your money away yep but in
a way that it doesn't look like it of
course so it's like if I went in and ate
the inside of your cake but I didn't
disturb the outside frosting you be like
I still have my cake but then when you
cut it and eat it it does not go as far
calorically as you had hoped
so that really feels nasty and we've
just gotten used to it and so
everybody's like okay I guess in the
last four years I've lost almost 25
cents per dollar that's
insane okay so it as I look at that and
feel the trauma of that over and over
I'm like look I'm basically trying to
teach people how to think through how to
become a wise Gambler the fact that I
have to tell PE that's investing by the
way when I say wise Gambler I mean
invest because it is a gamble you are
hoping that the stock market goes up you
are hoping that the US economy continues
to grow you're hoping that Bitcoin moons
whatever investment you choose you are
making a gamble because I assure you it
is not guaranteed even if you buy gold
uh you're gambling on the future of that
M you must gamble on the future of that
in my opinion because otherwise you will
just continue to get eaten alive by
inflation if there was
some thing whether it's gold whether
it's Bitcoin whether it's whatever what
whether it's sea shells whatever we can
prove has a limited amount it cannot be
inflated no matter how badly they want
to even in case of emergency it just it
cannot be inflated therefore you make
money you Sav in that thing and since I
have a a very crypto friendly audience
who heard me talk about this a thousand
times to me it's gold or Bitcoin like
that that's the thing that you're going
to move over into now technically gold
does inflate a little bit but it's a
pretty knowable amount of inflation so
you can plan for that Bitcoin cannot
inflate but is a bigger question mark no
matter what anybody tells you y you get
potential bigger upside so that's why
it's attractive to me but nonetheless
just be real about what it is but we
need to give people a noninflatable like
it can't be inflated way to save their
money so they can just work a 9 to-5 and
they don't have to be a genius and they
don't have to be looking at charts and
they don't have to listen to their
friends and they don't have to put
everything at risk they can just be like
I'm going to buy this thing and it's
going to give me a really boring return
maybe even no return but it isn't going
to go down in purchasing power over time
now I don't know how close we can get
people to that if gold gold has been
used since Roman times so we certainly
have something that holds its value
reasonably well but even that I think
back in the80s was like $35 now it's
like
$1,000 so there's volatility which you
want to get this thing as close to who
was it that said the ounce of gold is
always worth about the price of an ice
suit that's interesting which I about
right because I think
$35 back then might have been a nice
suit today from the maybe yeah exactly
depends on when but um I mean I think
that it is criminal that over 16 years
you lose a 100% of a dollar that you had
16 years in the future you know or in
the past is that really true well I mean
23% over four years if you take it out
and
extrapolate inflation is down just so
everybody knows but theoretically I
think that's criminal and I I think um I
think our government has lost its
mandate in that completely in utterly
and I buy into the idea of uh taking
away government power to remove money
from our hands and put it into theirs I
think the problem as we both know is
it's the same with my solution which is
once somebody has power it's very hard
to take it back the government never
gives back power to the people or very
rarely gives back power to the people
and so I'm curious to see what happens
you know I was talking with bology about
this the other day and he gets on these
long Rants and I listen and I I watch
him actually do deductive reasoning as
we're we're talking and uh and you know
when I talk to him about it I say I'm
still fighting here you know like I
still think the US is redeemable and
that there are enough of us who see
what's happening and people's eyes are
opening and they're saying no more and I
I can like Sense little wriggling of it
andology would say wrong actually the US
has passed the point of no return in the
future they will come after your assets
as every failed State eventually does
and the only Counterpoint to that is
some form of off off uh platform Bitcoin
or cryptocurrency potentially and if
that's the case like that's tough that's
a real real problem but I think that
there's a big argument in the next
however many years as we become more
Tech Advanced your thesis might actually
play really well in the 25th Century
sort of similar to how Brian Johnson
talks about it he's like I'm not worried
about my trolls today I want to I want
people in the 25th Century to think well
of me because I understood things today
that they knew for sure that they know
for sure now and I think yours is
similar I think in the future there may
be a future where people say you guys
let your government do what to your
dollars that's Madness how could you do
that at least that's a future that I'd
rather live in yeah it is definitely a
future I would rather live in as well
but I think that the chasm that we have
to cross between where we are today and
there is one of Bloodshed and horror uh
just as a student of History it's
interesting um I cannot help myself but
talk about this how do I really think it
will play out it probably won't be as
bad as I fear yeah but I'm going to walk
you through a story that really unnerved
me it was both exciting and I can't
shake it out of my mind so I go to Dubai
for the first time and I'm about to go
on stage at a conference and I come into
the The Green Room in the back and Ray
diio what are you doing here and he was
like oh I come to the Middle East a lot
and I'm like oh really why why do you
come come to the Middle East a lot and
he's you know starts going down like how
many of the major hedge funds are there
and um and he was also uh you know it
really comes down to how we are with
each other I was like yeah I've heard
you say that a lot Ray what do you mean
and he was like well you know you just
you want to go where people are are
treating each other well where there's
not a lot of political strife and you
know we're talking and he's and I was
like um like a friend of his or
something came in that had one of the
white robes on and Ry was like oh I you
know I thought about wearing mine but I
didn't think any and I was like Ray you
have one of these oh yeah you know like
I said I'm here a lot I'm like so hold
on time out how much time do you spend
outside of the US right and so he's Pro
us obviously loves it the most but he
just keeps saying it all comes down to
how we are with each other hey Ray what
percentage do you give there being a
civil war in the US I think last check
he said 50% so I'm like uh you think
there's a 50% chance that we escalate to
a hot War within our own country and you
spend a lot of time outside of the
country I was just like oh God like is
this one of those things where um that's
somebody who's and again this is not
what he said but it just made me be like
should I be preparing for something so I
don't know I feel like people are a
little Cavalier about when they look at
the
debt how fast it's growing like if you
see ited out it looks like a cliff it's
unbelievable it isn't a straight line
but it's almost a straight line and so
I'm just like okay wait it's The Chart
you want to see in Silicon Valley but
the opposite yes you know you're like
dude it's so crazy it's so crazy and I'm
just like maybe there's something I
don't know and we're like oh no you can
have something that's 500 times worse
than this so it's bad but like you can
just keep getting way worse and you know
hyperinflation doesn't happen until way
further down yeah um I don't know I
don't know is the honest answer and I
heard uh chth poopaa say this whole debt
thing's a nothing burger and shth I'll
make one more appeal bro come on the
show like I want to understand how it's
nothing Burger nothing would make me
happier than to realize oh I have a
flawed assumption yeah and all my
predictive engine breaks right here and
he has the thing that he understands
that I'm missing and okay cool I can
relax that would be amazing because I
zero a good enough argument for him I
mean obviously very smart smart man
but you know all of us are human and
flawed you know I watched what a lot of
those guys did with spaxs a few years
back and having been in the Cannabis
World when they were doing a lot of spcs
I remember looking at the underlying
deal documents and thinking this is so
perverse for the last investors in which
would be the retail investors that come
on when it actually goes public and the
historic nature of how these things have
performed uh shows that most of them
lose money and the people that lose
money are not those who create the backc
they aren't the people who fund the spec
because they both make their money up
front it's typically the retail guy left
with the bag and by and large you know
none of his spacks panned out and so you
know again I always watch for like not
what do people say but what are their
actions obviously some genius moves with
with tech but anybody who looks at mark
fs and thinks with such certainty as
opposed to humility concerns me I think
you should you should you should
approach irrational things like Mar
markets with extreme levels of humility
and that's a good sign in somebody that
you want to partner with and work with
that if in fact they can be charismatic
and confident and they decide instead to
be hum to have humility in a place where
they might be wrong and almost certainly
could be wrong with a high degree of of
probability and so I have a problem uh
sometimes with indiv ual like that who
are so certain because we all have a
historical bias right he's had some huge
success and so when you've had huge
success it's a lot easier to buy our own
[ __ ] right it's much harder for
somebody to argue with me who hasn't had
my level of success and when you get
into the billionaires Club how many of
them have had other people argue with
them I I saw it firsthand we were at
this little event at this private place
with all these leaders of the Free World
and some of the richest people in the
world and you're not allowed to talk
about specifics happening there and it
was fascinating
to watch the questions that they asked
the certainty that they had um and the
assumption that everybody else thought
the same that's that's the thing that
kills me almost more than anything else
you say with a lot of humility I'm
testing a hypothesis what do you think
about that which is a brilliant way to
communicate if you want to actually get
somebody on board much higher likelihood
of success for me agreeing with you
actually to go hey what do you think
about this it's like the old adage I
remember when I was first raising money
for a startup we were raising a couple
million bucks and uh one of my mentors
said let me tell you what to do he's
like he gave me money and then he goes
but the way you pitched me don't ever do
that again and I was like oh my God what
did I do and I had just given him like a
PowerPoint I thought it was really good
I thought i' crushed the meeting he goes
don't ever do that again and I'm like
why and he's like because if you want
money you ask for advice and if you want
advice you ask for money he goes because
those who you go to advice for feel like
they're bought in they've like sort of
gotten on your side of the table and of
course it doesn't always work that way
but I think it's it's rather intelligent
so I worry about individuals that feel
that level of certainty and especially I
think you have to be careful with the
charismatic ones because oftentimes
they're hard to refute and I found
myself I mean I had a partner where I
thought he was killing it in this one
business and every time I talked to him
about it he he would have such strong
convictions about why this would work
and it would go forward and then a
series of missed deadlines and
opportunities quickly told taught me
that confidence is not always a
predictor for
performance um and so I hope he comes on
here I think that'd be great to go deep
but I think you'd have to push hard on
his assumptions and the other thing
that's tough about those people is they
bring a mountain of data and so in order
to have a real argument you'd almost
have to say please present your data
ahead of time I will present my data
ahead of time and let us both analyze it
and see what the underlying base
assumptions are and if we agree with
them because I can make numbers sing if
I present them in a certain way and
certainly a man with that intellectual
horsepower too can too by the way what
are chim's incentives chth runs a
company that is VC backed right he many
of them so he wants the money printer on
he also is a big investor in public
markets so what else does he want the
money printer on because that keeps the
stock market going up so would he want
them to aggressively Tamp down interest
rates which would immediately dive the
stock market of course not do I care as
much about that because I have private
companies that won't have one toone
return with interest rates uh less so
like my my incentives are actually
better than Chamas even though chth has
more history of doing this and a bigger
bank account than I have so you have to
balance the
two very interesting all right give us
some hope yeah we um you and I are both
optimistic you and I I think believe you
can succeed in any environment as long
as you have accurately mapped what the
moment is um look forward a year to two
years we've got an election coming up is
it going to matter um how does somebody
approach an all-weather strategy if
they're going to buy something how do
they make sure that they're doing it in
the right um recession resistance space
as you mentioned earlier you can't
control the election so I wouldn't worry
about it very much I would try to find
the most information that I could on
each candidate in order to make the
decision that I think is right my bias
would be a decision that is right leads
to more freedom less regulation and your
ability to be the master of your life as
opposed to others and a belief in
yourself and individuals as opposed to
the state um but you should do your
homework and choose your candidate um
but the election you know I've never had
a presidential election be the impetus
for massive change in my careers the
only thing that I've had is a regulatory
issue which was me not understanding the
risk of my business so what did that
actually mean I didn't have the
sufficient skills so I think in an
environment like this you need to do a
couple things you need to obsess on this
idea of how can I become almost Chris
and I my husband joke about how to
become hard to kill like physically so
we you know we shoot we do Muay Thai we
do Jiu-Jitsu we lift weights we eat
healthy because he's a former Navy
Sealand so he's like you know that is a
principle for him is that we are harder
to kill than the average person and one
of my principles is to be hard to kill
financially and so there's a reason not
all my businesses are listed online it's
because I don't want everybody to know
everything that I own you know there's
there's safety in that and I think that
is where people should obsess on today
is like I don't know that there's a
better time than right now for Freedom
of Information and if you can kill
distractions and focus on the things
that drive you towards your goal which
in my mind should be some form of
financial Freedom like there is more
permissionless profit than has ever
existed in the world you know even when
I went if I go back 10 years to the
beginning of my career you had to get
permission to do things you know you had
to if you were in finance you had to be
you know under certain regulatory
regimes only then could you do something
you had to go up to a very few number of
banks who would Bank you one way or the
other there wasn't crowdfunding there
wasn't Venture Capital to the to the
normalized degree that there is now you
couldn't go to friends and family to
raise money you know that wasn't like
normal then like it is now and I think
we now have access to more Capital than
ever more potential profit than ever and
more business model than ever because of
the internet and so anybody who's
telling you that you can't is really
just saying they can't and that they
don't know how and so you should
probably make it your mission in this
environment to go figure out the highest
Roi in how to your
goal all right who would give us more
freedom Trump Biden or RFK
Jr that's a good
question
uh I think I'm going to go with Trump I
think the problem with RFK is I I
couldn't get him to annunciate his
economic views interesting he's the one
I know the least about yeah I I actually
think that he has really interesting
views about food safety I think he has
interesting views about medical safety
and allowances I think he has
interesting views about um you know like
individuals as Sovereign uh even
psychedelics um but if I had to choose
between you know two candidates I would
choose Trump and that is a very
unpopular thing to say today but I think
we all have to start making some
unpopular decisions if we want to make
changes I mean I I did a a post the
other day on Twitter that I really would
rather have not done which was you know
about what was happening in the Border
you know we talked about this before but
when I was a journalist I covered the US
Mexican border I'm Latina and I've
crossed the border illegally multiple
times when I was a journalist covering
stories right so I'd seen it
and uh you know my friends my family's
from Arizona my friends who are still
along the the Arizona US border or the
Arizona Mexico border and the Texas
Mexico border you know it's inundating
and uh another way that they can steal
our money is by creating a much bigger
transference of our money as Citizens to
individuals that have not gone gone
through the legal immigration process
and I think that is you can't have a
country Without Borders we need a better
immigration policy but it cannot be free
for all and in fact it's really unfair
to them you know we have a friend who's
who was brought over when she was 10 and
she's here illegally and she didn't
apply for DACA because she was too
scared when it was going down and she
thought it might get revoked and you
know so she's still here in the US she's
a upstanding member of society and she
can't get legal
immigration and we this is not that
difficult of a problem to solve if our
govern government actually wanted to
solve it they could come up with a
system to allow legal immigration to
happen for those who are actually
contributing to our society in a big way
because hey we actually need the
productivity and people here and they
could come up with a way to stop people
from coming along the border not
perfectly but definitely better than
we're doing right now so that's my take
it's a good take yeah I uh the thing
about the border that and admittedly
I've not looked closely at this problem
at all but right now we're trying to um
hire some that needs an
H1B Visa yeah uh and I'm like this is
grueling it's hard and the fact that
we've got so many people coming over the
border illegally I'm just like that's
crazy like if you're going to have
effectively an open border uh then let
me just have this person yeah like this
is crazy town I have a friend actually
uh who you know too and they flew back
uh on a private plane from Mexico to the
US and they' had some work done so the
face and the ID look different right and
uh as they get off the plane they're
getting like hammered by the uh you know
whatever Customs or immigration and uh
you know we're laughing about it later
about how like yeah it would have been
better if I just said I didn't have
documentation and I'm just here right
and so it's just anytime you have those
things that make absolutely no sense I
get concerned that there's something
deeper happening and I'm like at the end
of the day remember Mike wrote Dirty
Jobs yes never saw the show but I know
who he is yeah so his idea was to bring
dignity back to Everyday workers in
America and I think my my mission is
similar I want to bring dignity back to
Everyday workers in America but I also
want to turn them into owners in some
way shape or form owners of their house
or a little side hustle or a little bit
of their business or a big business and
I think Americans are one of the hardest
working group of humans on this planet
as measured by productivity um and gross
GDP and as a percentage of total gr uh
Global GDP and
so I think that we have a lot of work to
do to help the people that are here and
that to me is really important because
if we can raise up all of you know
Americans as we do and have through
multiple poverty Cycles to a degree
that's like never before seen anywhere
on this planet at scale like America has
capitalism's actually been incredible
for that um then I think we can have a
better immigration policy because we'll
have more immigration or we'll have more
Innovation and right now we're just
we're not uplifting the American worker
we're beating them down with deaths of
Despair and fentol normaliz
normalization and calling it a pill not
a poison and inflating away people's
salary and giving universities money
that puts our children in debt as the
only type of debt that you can't call
off from bankruptcy then it's [ __ ]
wrong and I think there's a lot we can
do about it I love it where can people
follow you as you write these wrongs
yeah uh it's like let me tell me what
you really think Cody um contrarian
thinking. Co is our free newsletter
where we talk about that the most and
then Cody Sanchez on all the socials
we're going to be starting this new
series on YouTube that I think will be
really meaningful and so we're Cody
Sanchez on YouTube and what's the new
series can't tell you yet it's going to
be a secret we're working on it though
and uh and the idea is it's not just a
show it's going to come with something
else like when we win we have something
called when I get a deal you get a deal
which means we only take money from
sponsors if they give money back to our
people and then we take that money and I
don't take any profits from any of of
this business and so it just goes back
into the content and I have an idea for
that with our show overall so we're
we're working on that and it'll come out
this summer can't wait to see it yay
thanks for having all right everybody if
you haven't already be sure to subscribe
and until next time my friends be
legendary take care
peace if you like this conversation
check out this episode to learn more
there's people who are really rich who
wake up really late and work really late
and there's people really rich who wake
up really really early and there's
people who are really rich who eat
really healthy and there's people really
rich who drink Coca-Cola and eat french
fries every day and so there's all these
things that we want to make is
truth