David Senra - Lessons from the Founder Historian - [Joys of Compounding, REPLAY]

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 Hello and welcome to the Joy's of Compounding.

spk_0 We're still on the same mission.

spk_0 To study greatness in order to help you find and compound your life's work, is fast as possible

spk_0 for as long as possible.

spk_0 I'm Paul Buzer and I'm Rick Berman.

spk_0 We're your hosts and each session, our teachers will be some of the world's most compelling

spk_0 people from across the vast range of human achievement.

spk_0 This show is brought to you by Pine Grove Studios in collaboration with Colossus.

spk_0 The hosts of the show Rick Berman and Paul Buzer are the co-founders and co-CEOs of

spk_0 SATA Grove Holdings and co-CEOs of SATA Grove Management Company.

spk_0 All opinions expressed by any of Rick, Paul or their podcast guests are solely their own

spk_0 and do not reflect the opinion of either SATA Grove Holdings or SATA Grove Management Company.

spk_0 This podcast is intended for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon

spk_0 as the basis for investment decisions.

spk_0 SATA Grove Holdings are clients and SATA Grove Management Company may maintain positions

spk_0 and securities discussed in this podcast.

spk_0 Take your seats.

spk_0 Classes in session.

spk_0 Our guest today is our dear friend David Senra, an absolute force of nature who is taking

spk_0 the world by storm with his podcast Founders.

spk_0 Art of Investing has a legacy in welcoming world-renowned historians to our classroom,

spk_0 and I'm not sure there's anyone on the planet who has immersed themselves more in the history

spk_0 of human achievement than David Senra.

spk_0 In class today, we enjoy access to the full spectrum of David's learnings from his

spk_0 decade-long study of history's greatest entrepreneurs, artists, athletes and leaders.

spk_0 We think Founders' podcast offers the equivalent case study education of a Harvard MBA.

spk_0 The library David's built reflects a range of study that's just completely boundless,

spk_0 from Alexander the Great to Catherine Graham to Alexander Graham Bell, from Warren to

spk_0 Jimmy Buffett and from J. Gold all the way to J.Z.

spk_0 When you leave class today, you'll have gained an understanding of why virtually all of the

spk_0 greats in history devote themselves to the study of those that came before them.

spk_0 What the key inputs are that reside behind the success of so many of the remarkable people

spk_0 that David has studied.

spk_0 And of course, a slew of stories and other learnings David shares from his fascinating work

spk_0 and past-allowing in such a passionate and captivating way that has become a hallmark of David's

spk_0 teaching style.

spk_0 Also, a special thanks to Patty Brady and our team at the Notre Dame Institute for Global Investing.

spk_0 We're just coming off an incredible week on campus, including our first-ever art of investing

spk_0 reunion, as well as special classes with Mitch Rails, David Glenn and Sam Hinky.

spk_0 Thank you NDIGI for all of your support with those events.

spk_0 With that, we hope you enjoy our class with the extraordinary David Senra.

spk_0 Come on.

spk_0 David, welcome. Let's begin with a quote from the revolt of the masses by Jose Ortega Gasset.

spk_0 This actually showed up in a recent episode of David's on Itore Bugatti,

spk_0 which is episode 316, by the way, that's going to be the first of many shameless plugs on the

spk_0 family's podcast. And this is what he says, a human life by its very nature has to be devoted

spk_0 to something or other, to a glorious or humble enterprise, an illustrious or obscure destiny.

spk_0 This is a strange but inexorable condition of things. So David, I guess the question is in your

spk_0 study of many great figures throughout time. Have you come to understand about our need to find

spk_0 something to devote ourselves to it? I think the best way to think about this is I just recently

spk_0 become friends with Rick and Paul. And I knew their work. We have mutual friends. And it was

spk_0 fascinating. They're like, hey, we think you should do the class on art of investing because I

spk_0 know literally nothing about investing. It'll be perfect for this class. The response to me was,

spk_0 yeah, but if you think about everybody's an investor whether they do that in finance or not,

spk_0 you're investing your time and your energy into something. There's a friend of ours,

spk_0 Patrick Sánagy, who you might know from the best like the best podcast. He's also the founder

spk_0 of Positive Sum. And his whole thing is trying to enable other people and help their life's work.

spk_0 And his definition of life's work actually want to read to you because I think it's the best

spk_0 definition of life's work that I've ever come across. And he says it's a lifelong quest to build

spk_0 something for others that expresses who you are. And so one thing I would say that I notice is

spk_0 all the people I've read, 317 biographies have been doing this for seven years, it's well over

spk_0 100,000 pages, tens of thousands of hours, right? And as you see the arc of an entire human life,

spk_0 you realize that one, they build a life that is suited to their authentic self. And so to do that,

spk_0 you have to know who you are. And that is usually a multi decade long journey at 22 or 21.

spk_0 You don't know that. You think you do. I remember being 21, 22. You'll realize how different when

spk_0 you look back when you're 30, 40, 50, 60, what you thought you were at 20, vastly different. And so one,

spk_0 I think is they all do this deep introspective journey to figure out who they are and then to

spk_0 find work that matches who they are. But I think that definition is important because what Jose

spk_0 talking about and what Patrick talking about, it's not about you. Your work is in the service of

spk_0 other people. So it's finding a way that expresses who you are authentically, right? With a service that

spk_0 can benefit the lives of other human beings. And every single case, the best description of this

spk_0 that I repeat over and over again, the best description of what a business is. And it doesn't

spk_0 matter if you own the business or you're working a business. All the businesses, this is an idea that

spk_0 makes someone else's life better. It will make your life better if you do more you serve other people.

spk_0 But the focus is on other people. One of my favorite quotes from the history of entrepreneurship

spk_0 comes from Harry Ford. He says money comes naturally as a result of service. The people that reach

spk_0 the top of the profession, they don't talk about, I'm doing this for me. They happen to be obsessed

spk_0 with what they're doing. But they're chasing after whatever it is that they create in the world is for

spk_0 the benefit of other people. That's why people wrote books about them usually many years after they

spk_0 died. But I think that's the first thing you have to cover is finding out who you are,

spk_0 discovering who you are as a person to everybody's born with some innate interest, curiosity,

spk_0 whatever it is. And then how can I use what I'm naturally interested in in the service of as many

spk_0 people as possible? We're going to spend a lot of time just on this topic because I think for most

spk_0 of us, we begin work whenever that is in our lives without having thought a lot about the nature of

spk_0 work. And we're out really thinking deeply about our motivations for trying to find that thing

spk_0 that we want to do. A lot of times you have a lot of other people telling you what you should do next

spk_0 and then do after that. And that can work, but much more helpful, I think, to step back and ask

spk_0 these more existential questions. And David, before we come back into this life's work subject,

spk_0 I wanted to pull from a tweet, or are they still called tweets or accents? I don't know what they're

spk_0 called that. From Paul Graham, we're going to talk about Paul Graham co-founder of Y-Combinator,

spk_0 probably quite a bit. Paul, if you're listening, we'd love to have you in class at some point too.

spk_0 This was an old tweet from 2016. Paul had said, instead of pushing my kids, I tried to help them

spk_0 find the interests that will pull them. History suggests pull has more power. And somebody responded,

spk_0 do you know any books on the topic? And Paul responded, biographies of people who have done great

spk_0 things. So I'm just curious, David, as somebody who's literally devoted his life to

spk_0 locking himself in a closet and reading books, what is it about that that is so profound and

spk_0 helpful for figuring out our own lives? Okay, so let me pause that question because I think there's

spk_0 something I need to say before that. So we were talking about, okay, we're going to do this class,

spk_0 I'm like, what do you want me to talk about? And I get all kinds of requests, they're like,

spk_0 come and give me your top 10 list. I'm not dumbing this down for anybody. You cannot spend this

spk_0 amount of time doing this. I'm like, here's a 10 list of traits. Everybody does. That's useless.

spk_0 And they framed it perfectly like, what do you wish that you could have learned when you were

spk_0 22? And that ties into what I would tell you is read biographies. If I only had one piece of advice,

spk_0 it's just, it doesn't matter who you're interested in, just pick somebody's interested in. Think

spk_0 about how crazy this is. The people that we study on Founders Podcast, they were so good at their job.

spk_0 There's somebody wrote a book about their life. That is the smallest percentage of people that have

spk_0 existed, right? Inevitably, when you pick up these books, the people that live life so

spk_0 remarkable, somebody wrote a book about their life, will then in their biography talk about the people

spk_0 that inspired them and that they had read biographies of. So what the advice that Paul is giving to

spk_0 his son is advice that he had followed that he just started reading biographies of great people,

spk_0 absorbing the ideas. A list of ideas is next to useless. The important part is what Charlie

spk_0 Munger and Warren Buffa picked up is, you don't want to just memorize ideas. You want to tie the

spk_0 people that developed those ideas to their actual life. How did they arrive at that? Why did they

spk_0 arrive at that? You see the whole arc of the human life. And so the first thing I would say is,

spk_0 what I wish I did, and you go back and actually check my Amazon account. It's embarrassing what

spk_0 I was reading when I was 21 or 22. I thought I was going to be a lawyer. I was in business school.

spk_0 It's like seven habits of highly effective people. I don't want to make fun of those things. It's like,

spk_0 those are blog posts in disguise of books. A biography is something that you spend in some cases,

spk_0 like the Bugatti book, right? That you reference at the opening. That Bugatti book, we had this

spk_0 conversation at dinner last night. Highly likely that no one knows anybody's read that book. Because

spk_0 it was first published in 1962. It's only available in French. I happened to find a copy. I think now,

spk_0 first of all, the shoulder on Amazon, if you would have bought it last week, I think that she

spk_0 was almost like 400 bucks. Not many people, other than me, are spending $400 on a book, right? But

spk_0 there's ideas in that entire life story that's written by his daughter, right? And she tells the story,

spk_0 my father was like this because his father was like this. And this is the experience we had. And

spk_0 you see how it tides all together, right? What I wish somebody had been a whisper in my ear when

spk_0 I was 22 is dish the business books, pick up geographies. And then all you do is books are the

spk_0 original links. They take you from one idea to another idea or one person to another person. So let

spk_0 me give example of this. Everybody knows 95% of the entrepreneurs that I study on the podcast. I

spk_0 didn't know existed before I started this crazy project, right? And so what did I do? I picked the

spk_0 people that everybody knows. Everybody in here probably has an Apple product. Everybody knows who

spk_0 Steve Jobs is, right? And so what happens is I actually mapped this out the other day. I figured

spk_0 out how many different episodes have I done on Steve Jobs based on every book I read on them. And

spk_0 then when I did is I went and made a study of all the people that he mentions being influenced by

spk_0 39. There's 39 episodes and now even more because this is a part of a year ago when he did this.

spk_0 39 episodes in the Founders Archive of either on Steve Jobs or people that he inspired,

spk_0 or that inspired him. The reason I'm wearing the shirt, this is Steve Jobs hero.

spk_0 He's named Edwin Landy as the founder of Polaroid. Steve Jobs met him when he was 20 years old. Edwin

spk_0 Landy was seven years old. Steve Jobs said visiting Edwin Land was visiting a shrine, right? And so

spk_0 what happens is, oh, I'm interested in Steve. He's dying. He's working with Walter I just

spk_0 said on this biography, right? He knows he's dying. He knows he's got less than a year left. And so he's

spk_0 putting down his legacy on paper and he kept talking about his hero named Edwin Landy. Like, who was

spk_0 Edwin Landy? I don't even know who this is. And then I start doing it to the search and I'm like, wait,

spk_0 he was talking about this guy when he was just 20s. He's not only talking about him, he's in his 50s and

spk_0 he's dying. I need to go research this guy. So then what I do, I find every single book on Edwin

spk_0 Land. And then what does he talk about? He talks about Alexander Graham Bell. He talks about

spk_0 Faraday. He talks about Thomas Edison. And then you just start realizing the ideas that we think,

spk_0 there are people that you guys look up to and you're like, man, that guy is so smart. That woman

spk_0 is so smart. And look at that idea that they had. They're a genius. I promise you, they found that

spk_0 idea from somebody else. Let me give you a second. I would watch all the old product demos of

spk_0 Steve Jobs. And on every single product demo, he'd have this picture. And it'd be the intersection

spk_0 of art and technology, right? So it shows street signs. So it's fascinating. This is a great idea.

spk_0 He's like, I wanted to build a company at the intersection of art and technology, art and science,

spk_0 whatever it was. That's a great idea. Then you go read Edwin Landy. That is verbatim, a quote from Edwin

spk_0 Landy. A 20 year old Steve Jobs. Hey, this guy's some figured out some stuff. He's worth $400

spk_0 million. He built the last technical monopoly in American history. He literally invented the

spk_0 industry. He created the industry that he made products in, right? Maybe that guy probably figured

spk_0 out something. He worked on it from the time he was 19 until he was 70. What is the chance somebody

spk_0 smart as Edwin Land, right? To a great example, worked out something for 60 years and they didn't

spk_0 discover an idea that you can use in your work. The chance of the probability of that is zero.

spk_0 It is zero. What Charlie Munger said, it's not just the last 200 years of entrepreneurship history.

spk_0 He was running on the best ideas for 5,000 years. The founder of Shopify, Toby Lukeke, has this great

spk_0 quote, why he reads so many biographies. He says biographies are the closest thing that you

spk_0 will find in real life and she codes. You can download into your brain the best learnings of a

spk_0 50 year career in a few hours. Why wouldn't you do this? Start finding the people you're interested

spk_0 in, read their biographies and keep doing this over and over again. There's a reason why

spk_0 some of the richest people in the world, I'm not saying do this just for monetary gain, do it

spk_0 because the nearest is your soul. But I had the opportunity to go to Charlie Munger's house, right?

spk_0 I got invited to dinner at Charlie Munger's house. I saw his bookshelf. I read biographies for a living

spk_0 and this guy had biographies that I had never even heard of. This guy was so obsessed with biographies.

spk_0 He made his own. He had compiled biographies of unpublished works by people that he put into

spk_0 binders. Same thing with Warren Buffett, hundreds of biographies. I had the opportunity to have lunch

spk_0 at Sam's L before he passed away, right? One of the greatest investors and entrepreneurs to ever

spk_0 live. This guy was 81 years old, right? He just passed away. One of the conversations we had a

spk_0 two hour lunch, just me, him, and one other person. And he's like, I'm going to be doing deals

spk_0 till I die, right? So I'm like, oh man, this is crazy. How that happened is this is also the

spk_0 magic of podcasting and just putting your ideas out onto the internet. I made a podcast about Sam's

spk_0 L's autobiography. He listened to the podcast. He's like, I love this. Can I meet this guy? And then

spk_0 I get a message, Sam's L wants to have lunch with you. But what you do, that's like, yeah, I think I'll

spk_0 clear my calendar for that. Thank you very much. So I go to this lunch. I'm like, this is incredible.

spk_0 And I'm like, I'm going to pull out every random, weird esoteric reference of, I can cover the

spk_0 Steve Jobs or the Phil Knight, so they're well known, the Warren Buffett's none of that. I'm going to

spk_0 pull out all these other rare references. It was like, Neo in the Matrix. He's bad at everything

spk_0 away. I was like, oh yeah, not only did he knew the person, knew the company, knew the revenue of

spk_0 the company, had read the book. In some cases, was friends with the guy who went to time with a

spk_0 life. And so I get back from that lunch and I told my wife, I'm like, that is the clearest

spk_0 illustration that I am on the right path. She's like, why? I go, the guy sold the company for

spk_0 $38 billion to Blackstung. I'm like, you don't sell a company for $38 billion and then learn all

spk_0 the stuff. This guy had learned everything since he was in his early 20s, exactly your age, this

spk_0 age group in his early 20s. And he kept reading it. At lunch, he was telling me about, he's like,

spk_0 just closed the $300 million deal yesterday. He was super excited. He was telling me about books he

spk_0 was reading. I don't think he knew he was going to be dead in six months, right? Four months from

spk_0 that time. He was still doing deals. He was still reading books. He was still listening to podcasts.

spk_0 This relentless curiosity is one thing that they all share. It's just figure out what you're

spk_0 intensely interested in and try to do that. This is I think either a Charlie Munger

spk_0 advisor, advice from programmer. I think they both say similar things, but in different words,

spk_0 it's fine, what you're intensely interested in and then do that for work.

spk_0 Just going back to your broader point on what would you do if you're 21 or 22? What do you do if

spk_0 you're 22? Most people are going to go into a typical job. But dinner last night we talk about

spk_0 do one thing relentlessly. So who are the people that can focus on one thing and remove the noise?

spk_0 What do you do as a 22 year old where maybe you're not building your own thing yet? Maybe you're

spk_0 going to work somewhere else, but how do you start to use some of these ideas in your life or maybe

spk_0 it is a job or maybe it is a company you built? You guys seen Oppenheimer, did anybody go see Oppenheimer?

spk_0 So it was fascinating. I just read this book called The Nolan Variations. It's on Christopher Nolan.

spk_0 And what's fascinating is it goes through chronologically and it covers how he was thinking about

spk_0 every single project that he did, every single film he did. And he knew he wanted to be a filmmaker.

spk_0 He's one of the rarest exceptions. Most people don't know what their path is early in life. In fact,

spk_0 it's incredibly rare. And for some reason, I read a bunch of biographies of filmmakers, James Cameron,

spk_0 Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas. They all knew when they were like seven,

spk_0 which is kind of spooky. It's been 32 years to find my path. And what was fascinating is that

spk_0 he would talk about, I want to be a filmmaker, I don't know how to be a filmmaker. So he was actually,

spk_0 his first film, he actually did that on the weekends when he had a full-time job, which again,

spk_0 what would I want to know when I was 22 is somebody pulled me aside like a custom yourself to

spk_0 handling a large volume of work because you get out into the world. I thought everybody was hard

spk_0 working when I was in college, right? Or even high school. My god, I have so much competition. And

spk_0 the large volume of work, and that is an edge in and of itself. But with Christopher Nolan said,

spk_0 so many of his fascinating is he treats what you'll notice with a lot of these biographies. They treat

spk_0 the entire world like a classroom. It's not just what you learn in college. In fact, 1% of what you

spk_0 learned in order, Dame, you're actually going to use in your life. Most of it is going to be from

spk_0 your own experience, conversation with your friends, books you read, stuff that pops up when

spk_0 you're a job. Most of it is just like using, understanding that the world isn't a classroom,

spk_0 and every single thing you experience can be utilized in work, even if you don't understand yet.

spk_0 And so he could be at a museum in France and look at a piece of art and it spawns something,

spk_0 an idea on a movie that he is working on. So what he would tell you is listen, reading all these

spk_0 books, having those conversations, going to college, that is useless if you don't have a foundation

spk_0 that have worked to put it on, right? So discovering whatever it is that you want to do, and in many

spk_0 cases, your first job, second job, might be your 15th job to actually find ways you want to do. Use

spk_0 your actual work, which you do during the day as a foundation, and then everything you learn

spk_0 just kind of filter it through and be like, hey, it's sort of an idea behind this, or can I treat

spk_0 this as a metaphor and actually utilize it. The idea that you could be looking at a picture

spk_0 at the Louvre or Harry Pennout's at the museum, and then that gives him an idea for inception that

spk_0 he's going to do 15 years later is kind of a wild thing. But you see this over and over again, where

spk_0 I think we talked about this yesterday. There's actually a quote that I wrote down that I thought

spk_0 of this morning, but it's one of the best ideas that have come across. This says,

spk_0 the best jobs are neither decreed nor decreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners

spk_0 in free markets, by this investor named Naval Robicon. I love this idea. The best jobs are creative

spk_0 expressions of continuous learners in free markets. The whole point is at any age, you should just

spk_0 be relentlessly curious and then learning as much as possible all the time. The reason this came

spk_0 up is Steve Jobs talks about this in his commencement address, which you can see on YouTube. I think

spk_0 40 million people have watched it. I think he gave this commencement address at Stanford in 2005.

spk_0 He talked about the fact that he grew up in a lower middle class, California,

spk_0 family. He was adopted. His parents didn't have a lot of money. They saved almost all of their

spk_0 net worth went to paying for his college. Instead of making an easier going to state school, he chose

spk_0 this really expensive liberal arts school called Read College. He's there for a year and he's like,

spk_0 man, I don't even like the classes I'm taking when I'm spending all my family's money,

spk_0 let me drop out of the required classes and then let me drop into what I'm actually genuinely

spk_0 curious about. Read College and Dean of Read College is actually very progressive. He's like, Steve,

spk_0 you can stay on campus, put on some shoes and some deodorant, please. Just take any classes you

spk_0 want. You can just hang out here for free and I think Steve had like sleep on the floor or whatever.

spk_0 And so he drops into a calligraphy class. He saw these beautiful posters all over campus. He's like,

spk_0 how do you even make something so visually beautiful? I would like to learn how to do that. So he

spk_0 starts taking that class. He's 19, 10 years later. So in the late 20s, he's working on what we've

spk_0 come to the first Macintosh and is the first computer with a graphical user interface that

spk_0 contains all these beautiful fonts. And that was directly inspired by a class he had taken 10 years

spk_0 from a point of point that he says in the commencement address is you can't connect the dots looking

spk_0 forward. There's so many things you're going to be learning now that when you're 35, 45, 50,

spk_0 you're like, oh, wow, you connect the dots looking backwards. Just like he did. He's like, I'm not

spk_0 taking a class or I can use this in my work. He's like, I'm following my genuine intellectual

spk_0 curiosity. I just want to learn this through skill. And then you have no idea as you keep doing that,

spk_0 then you started the class with a line. I said, what's the line? The joy of all things compounding

spk_0 or something like that? Learning is the same thing. It's just like interest, just like time,

spk_0 just like relationships. It compounds. So you spend as much time doing that now and you're going to

spk_0 have a set of skills 10, 15, 20 years from now that other people that didn't do that same activity

spk_0 don't have. Let me give you an example of my own work, right? I told you it took me 32 years to find

spk_0 my path. I couldn't have been in college. When I was in college, I thought I was going to law school.

spk_0 That was my goal. It was law school. Podcasts didn't even exist when I was in college. So there's

spk_0 a lot of people business that gave me a world class network and all these crazy opportunities.

spk_0 But now I think about it is I was just literally sitting in a room by myself when only

spk_0 3,000 people were listening to founders. And I was just like pursuing my genuine intellectual

spk_0 curiosity. I was like, these books are pretty amazing. There's no possible way that I'm the only

spk_0 person in the world that's interested in this. If I sit down once a week and just say, hey,

spk_0 I spent 40 hours reading this book. Here's an hour of some cool shit. Do you think this is

spk_0 cool shit? I think this is cool shit. Let's do this together. And then you fast forward seven

spk_0 years. Let's say you wanted to start a business to compete with me today. I'm so far ahead.

spk_0 The game is already over. No one will ever catch me. And I work on it seven days a week. You

spk_0 would have to say, okay, I'm going to catch David, right? He's already on 317. I'm at zero. There's no

spk_0 way you're going to ever going to catch me. I'm so far ahead. And it's because of this compounding

spk_0 nature. A good example of how even your skill set compounds. Listen to episode 314, which is we're

spk_0 going to quote heavily from this is the program on, right? And then go listen to episode 5.

spk_0 That's the guy sucks. He published this. This is embarrassing. I didn't know it was embarrassing

spk_0 them because I didn't know how bad I was. But now I actually just listened to episode 1 on

spk_0 Elon. I know it's beautiful. I don't know your job. But it's not compared. So the point being is

spk_0 I wasn't doing this with some kind of plan. Oh, seven years from now, I'm going to be sitting in

spk_0 Notre Dame. They invited me to teach at Harvard in two weeks. That's absurd. I put a name

spk_0 gotten to Harvard. That's absurd. That was a direct result of me following my own advice. I

spk_0 was reading, which I read compulsively for my whole life, entrepreneurship, podcast, and history.

spk_0 Well, what was founders? It's literally if you had a Venn diagram, all those four things

spk_0 founders sits right in the middle. I didn't do it because I thought it was going to be a job. I

spk_0 didn't get paid to do it for years. I did it for two years, paying to do it. Literally paying to

spk_0 do it. People are like, Oh, would you do this? Free. Yeah, I did it for free for years. And then I

spk_0 decided I read, I'm going to hopefully indoctrinate you guys. Go to PaulGram.com. Go through his essays.

spk_0 Pick the ones that you think are interesting. I read one that changed my life. It's how to do what you

spk_0 love. And you see that it changed my life because I was doing the podcast started in 2016. My upload

spk_0 schedule, which is public, you can see, was very intermittent. Did it whenever I had a chance? I was

spk_0 working. I was married. I stay on married. I had a kid. No, I have two kids. I had like support

spk_0 everybody. And I was just doing this thing because I was just kind of fun, whatever. And then I was

spk_0 always doing things just for money or just because I had to do it, right? And I'm like, man, I really

spk_0 like podcasting is just even a business. Like, could I get paid to do this? Kind of weird. And then I

spk_0 remember my entire household is asleep. My daughter's asleep. My wife's asleep. I'm literally reading,

spk_0 sitting up with my laptop in bed, right? It's completely dark. And I'm rereading PaulGram's essay,

spk_0 how to do what you love. And I snapped. And I'm like, man, I just had this relentless self-belief

spk_0 that I was like, I know I love podcasting. I don't know if I could turn into a business. I wasn't

spk_0 making any money on it at that point. I believe if I stop everything I'm doing, if I'm willing to

spk_0 dedicate 100% of my time to this, if I'm willing to work seven days a week on this, I'm willing to

spk_0 bet that I can figure out how to turn this into a business, right? And you see this, me snap,

spk_0 because you can go back and you see, he's just uploading randomly. And then 2018, I think it might

spk_0 have been August 2018. It's every week to now. I have not missed one single week. I completely

spk_0 snapped. I was like, I'm willing to do everything else. I stopped doing everything else. And lucky,

spk_0 I was always a relentless saver because I didn't come from a family of money. And so I was

spk_0 always scared of being homeless. And I just saved like 80% of all the money I made. Just let it sit

spk_0 there. And so I had a fairly large buffer to do this. And so what happens from 2018, all the way 2020,

spk_0 it took me two years before the podcast made enough money just to cover my living expenses. So

spk_0 people are like, Oh, would you do this for free? No, you didn't understand. From 2018 to 2020,

spk_0 I was literally paying to do it every month. I'm looking at my savings account. Oh,

spk_0 shit. I got a wife and a kid. I'll drive over. I'll get a job. I'll do this at night. I was like,

spk_0 there's no way. And then now it's like an unbelievable business. It's going to make my unborn

spk_0 grandchildren rich. But I didn't start. We got to start with the idea of a lot of people.

spk_0 Now, I was your age. I did only thing for money. I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to

spk_0 invest because I'm going to be rich. And you don't realize that like the people that get to the

spk_0 top of the profession don't start out with money as the goal. Money is the byproduct of service to

spk_0 other people. Yeah. I do think it's important to just underscore this point of custom yourself

spk_0 to being able to handle a large volume of work. It seems so obvious. But I think conventional

spk_0 wisdom would say, how hard you work might be more aligned with just what you're passionate about.

spk_0 And if you're not working hard at something, it might just be a reflection of the fact that you're

spk_0 just not that interested in it and that that's okay. And at least as I've observed through founders,

spk_0 is there anybody that you've studied that has not accustomed themselves to this heavy workload

spk_0 that over time probably experiences several pivots and evolves quite a bit to the point that when

spk_0 they finally find what it is their life's work they want to do. They've already created that muscle,

spk_0 that muscle's there. And I think at a very basic level, it's something all of us can do today.

spk_0 It's just this side, I think, about the Schwarzenegger podcast, a guy who first observed that the average

spk_0 high quality bodybuilder of the day was doing two and a half hours of working out. And so

spk_0 it was pretty straightforward. Arnold decided that he was going to start by doing double that.

spk_0 Then he realized when he was going home for lunch that nobody else was doing anything,

spk_0 except eating lunch. So he would work in another hour of crunches. And then he's waking up in a

spk_0 millenite doing a third to a half hour workout. But I think this concept that hard work is a habit

spk_0 and a discipline and it is a prerequisite to doing something great. You don't need to wait until

spk_0 you find that thing. This is going to make me sound so stupid. I had no conception because no one

spk_0 of my family ever even graduated high school. Much less college. My parents never mentioned

spk_0 the word college to me. I knew I was going to go to college because I was going to be a lawyer.

spk_0 I watched TV when I was young. I was like, okay, we don't have any money. Who's got money? And then

spk_0 on TV, doctors and lawyers are like, all right, so there you go. The rich people, I don't know

spk_0 anything. So I was like, I can't stand inside of blood. So I got to be a lawyer. So how do I be a lawyer?

spk_0 Then you look it up. Oh, you got to go to college first. You got to get an undergrad and then go

spk_0 to law schools. I go, okay, I can do that. And then I told them last night, I didn't know people

spk_0 just went to college. I worked full-time. I started working full-time in high school. Then I

spk_0 worked full-time in college. And I had a college room. I was like, what do you do? He's just like

spk_0 go to class and drink a lot and then play beer pong. I'm like, oh, this is completely different.

spk_0 I was like, imagine you've now fast-forwarded. You put him and me in a head-to-head competition.

spk_0 I'm going to eat that dude alive. But this is not unique to me. Edwin Land, go back to the

spk_0 shirt I have, right? It's not necessarily work for money. It's work for what you're interested in.

spk_0 So Edwin Land has one of the unique designations of the only people to ever drop out of Harvard

spk_0 twice. And so why? He's like, I have two main goals in life. I want to be the world's greatest novelist

spk_0 and the world's greatest scientists. He said that when he's like 14, that's insane. And so he's like,

spk_0 I need to pick a scientific field that has not been explored by other people that I can make a

spk_0 genuine novel invention in. And so he decided to get obsessed with light, right? And what does he do?

spk_0 First, he finds books when he's 14 or whatever. He starts reading a textbook on physical optics and

spk_0 light. He reads it every night like people read the Bible. He goes to sleep with it underneath his

spk_0 pillow. Then he goes, okay, I've read every single thing I could find. I need to find what's the

spk_0 best school? Okay, the best school's Harvard. Let me go there. He doesn't go to class in Harvard.

spk_0 He goes to the library and reads every single book in the library on light, not four of them,

spk_0 not five of them, every single one. Then he reads it all. I was like, there's nothing else here for

spk_0 me. Drops out. Goes to New York. So start doing experiments, right? Goes to New York City Public

spk_0 Library, the beautiful one that is still there today, right? He reads every single book in the library

spk_0 on light. Starts breaking in. Think about this. Most people break into things, right? Steal things.

spk_0 He breaks into, I think might be NYU or Cornell, I can't remember. It's probably NYU.

spk_0 He breaks into NYU because he's like, well, they have a lab. I don't have a lab. I'm reading

spk_0 all these books. I can't run experiments. I don't have any money. He breaks into the lab at night,

spk_0 not to steal them just so he can run experiments. That is hard work. He's a custom-self hard work.

spk_0 He was 19 years doing that. By the time he's 38 years old, he said he achieved everything he

spk_0 wanted in life except success. All of his businesses, he dies with more, I think he's got the third

spk_0 most patents out of any American ever by the time he dies, right? The first 20 years of his life

spk_0 is just one failure after another. One failed business after another and then the events, the

spk_0 instantography, which then he works on until he dies. But one thing I would say is if you listen to

spk_0 founders or just a general, you're on education. I don't believe in siloing anything, right? So

spk_0 going back to Patrick Oshanasi, he asked me one time, he's like, hey, David, if you were only

spk_0 known for one episode, what would it be? And I was like, I can't understand that question because I feel

spk_0 all I'm doing is having one giant conversation on the history of entrepreneurship. It just happens

spk_0 to be 400 hours long now. Hopefully I do this till I'm 90 and it's 4,000 hours, right? I think the

spk_0 same thing about the art of investing, the class that you guys are doing now. And so I would tie in a

spk_0 bunch of what we're talking about to people. You guys are going to be in the next few weeks, some of

spk_0 which happen to be good friends of mine. And so this is not a novel observation from me. After reading

spk_0 a couple hundred biographies that, oh, these people seem to have accustomed themselves to

spk_0 large-drying work, being able to handle that. Maybe that's a good idea. You see it in different

spk_0 personality types, different industries, different points in time, different geographical locations.

spk_0 That should put red flashing lights. Hey, this is a good idea. These people didn't know each other,

spk_0 and they said they arrived at similar conclusions. And so there's this extra another piece of homework

spk_0 if I can give it to you. I hate it homework, but I would go to YouTube and watch the famous investor

spk_0 named Bill Gurley. He was at Benchmark. He's a venture capitalist. It was. I don't even know what he's

spk_0 doing now. But he has what I feel is the greatest talk on YouTube for anybody wanting to do anything

spk_0 interesting or difficult in life. It's called running down a dream, how to survive and thrive in

spk_0 a career you love. And he profiles five people that went to great lengths to run down a dream.

spk_0 One of those people, I think he's coming a person, right? Hey, he's coming a person,

spk_0 is going to actually fly here from California just to be with you guys. The more successful people

spk_0 you meet, the more successful people interact with, whether you get to talk to them in person

spk_0 on the phone and zoom, you go to their house and look at their bookshelves. It's filled with biographies.

spk_0 They all do this. Bill being the same thing. So he had realized by reading a bunch of biographies

spk_0 and getting to know these people, the amount of work that people will put into run down a dream.

spk_0 No, what he's going to do this? This is what I meant. On a macro level, at least when I was

spk_0 trying to attack, I'm going to get onto the real world. It's so difficult. And you get out and you're

spk_0 a bunch of adult babies. Most of them, after they get out of school, stop learning.

spk_0 I think another reason that hard work is so valuable, and his precedes doing great work, is because,

spk_0 in a way, if you think about the compound interest equation, which will geek out on throughout

spk_0 the semester, but to simplify it, it's really a function of two things, time and then some sort of

spk_0 a growth variable. And hard work, essentially, is one input to accelerating the growth variable.

spk_0 You are much more likely to find that thing that you are curious about and passionate about.

spk_0 If you are turning over rocks faster and working harder than others, it doesn't guarantee that you

spk_0 will find it at any given point, but it doesn't prove your odds and it does accelerate your path

spk_0 of compounding in some form, whether that's a certain kind of knowledge or expertise.

spk_0 Once you find your life's work, it won't feel like work. To me, it's I'm playing. I found work that

spk_0 felt like playing. I work all the time and I work none of the time. And that's another consistent

spk_0 theme that you're going to see with people that find their life's work. Something I say on the

spk_0 podcast all the time, that history doesn't repeat, human nature does. And the best thing that ever

spk_0 happened to me is, if you read so many biographies, you're able to step outside of yourself,

spk_0 and realize that I am not unique. There has been my same personality type, has existed a thousand

spk_0 years before I was born. After I'm dead and gone, there'll be another same personality type, a thousand

spk_0 years from now. We talked about this at dinner, or maybe, oh no, we were in the class this

spk_0 day, where I did this in-person meetup in Miami for a bunch of people to listen to the podcast. And

spk_0 one of the people that came gave me a book, and it was the biography of Mike Tyson.

spk_0 I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I'll read about it because he came from really poor, had a crazy

spk_0 experience, what a crazy job that he got into. And so I started researching because I might do it

spk_0 in the next few weeks. And he said something's fascinating, where he said that when he was 19, he

spk_0 goes and he starts reading every single thing you can find about. And he wanted to be a great

spk_0 conqueror, which is psychotic. He does Napoleon, Charlemagne, Caesar, Alexander the Great, and he

spk_0 says something great that he goes, the more I read, you read as far back as you can to people

spk_0 like to do great things, and read in chronological order to get to you. And what you realize is this is

spk_0 just me in funny clothes. And he's like, oh, I feel that way. I thought it was unique to me because

spk_0 he's 19 or 20 when he's doing this. And he realized, oh, they all felt that way. It's just another

spk_0 me. And therefore, when you see incredibly intelligent and driven people struggle, Edwin Lann,

spk_0 I could read 10,000 books. I'll never be as smart as I would land. Edwin Lann is a genius. I am not

spk_0 bad. And yet you read his biographies. And I think I read five of them. And you see this brilliant

spk_0 man, this brilliant driven hardworking person go through decades of decades of struggle and not quit.

spk_0 And I think the response is, wow, that's inspiring. This guy didn't get up. He's way smarter me. He's

spk_0 struggles is inevitable. I have to just find my way to work through it. We see, I always say this

spk_0 maximum, the public praises people for what they practice in private, public praises people for what

spk_0 they practice in private. We see the result. He built a technical monopoly, right? He built 400

spk_0 million dollar fortune for his family. This is like the 70s. It's probably multiple billions today,

spk_0 right? He's on the cover of magazines, wins all these awards. He gets all these honorary degrees.

spk_0 We see that. We didn't see that he was practicing and struggling in private for decade after

spk_0 decade after decade until he figured it out. And so that's for me where like when my podcast was

spk_0 not successful, no one could tell me to stop doing it. No one could convince me that it wasn't

spk_0 going to be successful because well, yeah, it's struggles part of it. This is the struggle part.

spk_0 If I step back and like the biography of David is being written right now, okay, when my kids read

spk_0 this, they're like, oh, this is the part where David was struggling. And this is the part where you

spk_0 don't dare quit. And then what if I would have quit in 2018, 2019, 2020? Would it never met you guys?

spk_0 Wouldn't have anything that has happened to me in the last two years would have never happened.

spk_0 That part is in every book. It's going to be in your life stories. It's going to be any life story

spk_0 if anybody does something great. And I'm not saying that I've done anything great. I think maybe 30

spk_0 years, and I could say that I did something great. But I think that's the most important part. They're

spk_0 just another you. David, I know all of our students did their pre-reading. One of the very small PDFs

spk_0 we shared was a piece by John Gardner and our really good friend, Longtime Mentor Will Thorndyke,

spk_0 shared this with us years ago. And John had written many books, but this was a right up of a

spk_0 short hockey game. And there's just so many life lessons in here that we find valuable,

spk_0 that apply to art of investing. But one that comes up after what you just mentioned is the

spk_0 importance of optimism and toughness. And so John says, for renewal, tough-minded optimism is best.

spk_0 The future is not shaped by people who don't really believe in the future. Men and women of

spk_0 vitality have always been prepared to bet their futures, even their lives on ventures of unknown

spk_0 outcome. If they had all looked before they leaped, we would still be crouched in caves, sketching

spk_0 animal pictures on the wall. I think it just applies to everything you're talking about. If Edwin

spk_0 Land hadn't had an optimism about the future and tough-mindedness, we wouldn't have these cameras.

spk_0 We wouldn't have all these inventions. We wouldn't have Steve Jobs.

spk_0 There's something beautiful. I'm not like religious, but there's something beautiful about this

spk_0 campus where he was pointing out to me. You just walk around this random building and there's

spk_0 a chapel you can pray. And the idea that repetition is incredibly important is something that all

spk_0 the world's religions have figured out. And yet in today's society, if you look at all the apps

spk_0 that we're addicted to, for most of human history, we'd identify a handful of ideas and then we

spk_0 repeat them together, right? Religions, we gather together and we repeat the same stuff. There's a

spk_0 community element to it. And now it's like, no, we spend five seconds on something new and we

spk_0 swipe to another screen and five seconds on something new and we swipe to another screen.

spk_0 And I think there's something really important about repeating things. And you see this with

spk_0 the greatest entrepreneurs in Vesor-Sew. They just repeat the same thing so much that inside these

spk_0 companies, like inside Amazon, Jeff Bezos repeated the same things over and over again for decades.

spk_0 And they call them Jeffisms. You just made me think of this. In Edwin Land's company of

spk_0 Side Polarated, they were called Landisms. You just mentioned the term optimism. One of Edwin Land's

spk_0 landisms was that optimism is a moral duty. So one of my favorite quotes I've ever heard in my life,

spk_0 optimism is a moral duty. I do think the fact that he really was optimistic when he had no business

spk_0 to be. Business after business is failing is like, well, I'll just figure it out, I'll work my way

spk_0 through, get more funding, I'll do whatever I have to do, but I'm not going to give up. That's how

spk_0 you get jobs, investment opportunities, relationships, businesses, everything flows from that, things that

spk_0 you cannot predict. Let me give you an example of why you don't have to be a genius to do this.

spk_0 One of the things that I sent to Rick and Paul was one of my favorite quotes. And it came from

spk_0 this book that was published in 1965. This is not a new idea. And he talks about his guy named David

spk_0 Olgarby, which I had no idea who David Olgarby was. I knew who Warren Buffett was. So what I do, I read

spk_0 every single book on Warren Buffett. I read 60 years or 50 years of his shareholder's. I'm really

spk_0 more Buffett shareholder's. And I'm like, why does Warren Buffett keep bringing up David Olgarby?

spk_0 Why is he called this guy a genius? I'm like, all right, Warren Buffett thinks this guy's a genius.

spk_0 I have to go read every single book about him. So then I realized why he thinks he's a genius,

spk_0 because he was a genius. And he became one of my personal heroes. But he talked about he's

spk_0 building out his advertising agency. He's staffing his business with a bunch of young college

spk_0 age students. And he notices the large variance in their ability to work hard. And so he talks about

spk_0 the people that rise through the ranks of his company or any of the other advertising agencies on

spk_0 Madison Avenue in this heyday all share the same traits. And they were like this. So if you don't

spk_0 mind, let me just read this to you. It's a long paragraph. And he says, first, you must be ambitious.

spk_0 Set yourself to be coming the best informed man in the agency on the account to which you are

spk_0 assigned. That's the same exact idea that Bill Gurley mentioned 50 years later in a talk on

spk_0 UT. It's the same idea said by another genius, right? So set yourself to be coming the best informed

spk_0 man on the agency on the account to which you are assigned. This is something no one's going to do.

spk_0 I can read this to you. A thousand people can read this paragraph. That makes sense.

spk_0 Five will do it. This is what he means by that. If for example, it's a gasoline account.

spk_0 One of his biggest companies with Shell at the time. If it's a gasoline account, read textbooks

spk_0 under the chemistry, geology and distribution of petroleum products. Right there, that's a limited

spk_0 to 90 percent. People will just won't do that. Read all the trade journals in the field that

spk_0 goes to the other 5 percent. Read all the research reports and marketing plans that your agency has

spk_0 ever written on the product. Spend Saturday mornings in the service stations pumping gasoline.

spk_0 There goes the other 99. They're gone. They're already gone. Pumping gasoline and talking to

spk_0 motorists. Visit your clients for finalries and research laboratories. Study the advertising

spk_0 of his competitors. At the end of the second year, isn't that weird? Same thing. Bill Gurley said

spk_0 you could do this a two year at David Olga V 50 years earlier saying it's only six two years

spk_0 to do this. This is not actually that hard. At the end of your second year, you will know more about

spk_0 gasoline than your boss and then you will be ready to succeed him. Most of the young people in

spk_0 agencies are too lazy to do this kind of homework and this is the biggest slur that you could ever say

spk_0 in my opinion to somebody. They remain permanently superficial. He just gave you a blueprint and he's

spk_0 like, I could tell you this, but here's the thing. Learning is not memorizing information. Learning is

spk_0 changing your behavior. So many people read these things, these ideas and then they don't change

spk_0 their behavior. So then you didn't learn. Then you're just wasting time. Go play video games. Go do

spk_0 something else. Literally do something else because if you're going to read these books, you're going to

spk_0 listen to spot guests, you're going to go to college and not apply what you're learning, then you

spk_0 didn't learn. This reminds me of episode 272 with the Lake Ray Kobe Bryant. And in there, and if

spk_0 ever you listen to any talks that Kobe gave, he was also just continually offering a blueprint to

spk_0 anybody who wanted to listen on how to master your craft. And you highlight this in the episode,

spk_0 really, it comes down to four things. Master the fundamentals, improve your weaknesses, study the

spk_0 greats and concentrate. Those four themes have probably hit on those a dozen times already,

spk_0 just in the first hour or so. Talk about just the things that get in the way of compounding. Let's

spk_0 intent. Why do so many lives go astray? Why do so many people not accomplish what they set out to

spk_0 do? Because I don't think they truly want to do it. When you guys had this idea, right? And you

spk_0 started it, they have to call you up in the morning and be like, Hey, Rick and Paul, I think you

spk_0 guys should do this. Where did it come from? It comes from within. The answer question, it's part of

spk_0 human nature. Most humans quit it everything. This is what I meant. Once you get out into the real

spk_0 world, you're like, Oh, this is going to be easy. You might have to struggle to figure out what you

spk_0 want to do, but there is not a lot of competition because one, most people can't focus, right? So that's

spk_0 the main. If there is one theme, there's literally like you could distill down every single thing I've

spk_0 learned from this weird seven year Odyssey that have been on is focus. The people that I read about.

spk_0 So I stick my head in the book, right? I have one side of conversations with some of the most

spk_0 successful and accomplished people that have ever lived and they have insane levels of focus. Then I

spk_0 pop my head out and I look around at what people are talking about, what they're doing on social

spk_0 media. I'm like, no one focused on anything. I think we talked about this a dinner last night before.

spk_0 Constantly were like, Hey, David, I love what you do. You ever thought about doing this?

spk_0 Doing acts, doing why? Whatever it is. I'm like, so let me get the straight. You love my podcast.

spk_0 So much that you want me to stop doing it to focus on something else. That's not that that you love.

spk_0 But they do it innately. This is natural to them because people don't understand. I've brainwashed

spk_0 myself to only focus on this. I have two things on my desk. One is a post-sino that Paul quoted

spk_0 earlier. It says, do one thing relentlessly. And the other is a frame treat of Andrew human saying

spk_0 that your podcast is uniquely superb. He's got one of the biggest podcasts in the world. He's like,

spk_0 you're really, really good at this. And I was like, oh, I'm going to frame that because that's

spk_0 motivating because like his audience, I was like, wait, bigger than mine. And this guy,

spk_0 he'd been doing it for way less time. So obviously, I can learn a lot from him.

spk_0 The reason I have those two things on is you have one of the people that are in the same

spk_0 craft as you're telling you, you're one of the best in the world at it. You don't have to jump around.

spk_0 You found the thing. And then the other post-sino, which is on the left, is do one thing relentlessly.

spk_0 Kobe Bryant wasn't trying to be the best basketball player I've ever lived and get a black belt

spk_0 in Jiu-Jitsu or learn how to play the violin or start a venture capital firm. He's like, I'm just

spk_0 going to focus all my efforts on this one thing because it's hard enough to succeed in life.

spk_0 And it's almost impossible to succeed at five or six different things at one time, just like the

spk_0 Arnazwar Sanger example earlier. They're working out two and a half hours today. I'm working out seven.

spk_0 And over time, the gap between us just gets larger and larger and larger to the point. It doesn't

spk_0 matter what work they do. They can't catch up. And so that's the important thing is if you're constantly

spk_0 distracted by everything else you're doing, you have to think incredibly deeply about what you're

spk_0 doing. Most people don't do that. But you will see if they get to the top of the profession,

spk_0 they are incredibly focused. That's a non-negotiable. I think one of the other reasons why it is so

spk_0 hard to focus is that when you are focused on something relentlessly, the rest of the world

spk_0 are a good portion of the rest of the world thinks you're clinically insane. It's only in hindsight

spk_0 that the dots connect. Kobe Bryant, the story of Kobe Bryant, for most of his life preceding him

spk_0 being a professional basketball player was people telling him he was absolutely nuts for applying

spk_0 himself in such a focused way only to basketball. I bet every person in this room and anybody listening

spk_0 has something that they do that they love that just feels really niche even to yourself.

spk_0 And I've seen all your resumes and these quirky things that are interests. And if you just thought

spk_0 about, okay, pick one of those things and that's the thing I'm going to night and day apply

spk_0 myself toward you are likely going to get a lot of people throughout at least those early stages

spk_0 of development toward mastery telling you this is insane. You'll never be able to make a career

spk_0 out of this. You're wasting your time. You're passing up other obviously more great opportunities.

spk_0 And so one of the things is so powerful to me about those two things you have on your desk in

spk_0 Huberman is that reinforcement finding somebody who actually has done directionally sort of is where

spk_0 you want to be or is in the process of mastering that same craft. When you get that positive

spk_0 reinforcement you have to hold on to it because apart from yourself there's just not going to be a

spk_0 lot of voices particularly in those early years encouraging along the voices you'll get

spk_0 will more likely be sort of trying to get you back toward the more common path than most of us

spk_0 sort of tread on finding those voices and then holding on to them maybe through the development

spk_0 of mantras or friendships or whatever. I think that's just really cool part of your own story.

spk_0 My guess is when Huberman said that it wasn't obvious yet to everybody else how good you were at

spk_0 what you did. I do think to give something that's more like prescriptive for you guys all the stuff

spk_0 we're talking about. No one's coming to say you got to figure it out on your own. It doesn't work

spk_0 if it doesn't come from me internally but I do think if you guys do read Paul Graham's essay

spk_0 How to Degrade Work this spawned a mind when you were speaking just now. He gives you a blueprint

spk_0 in that essay that you can actually apply that I wish I had when I was in college. It would

spk_0 save me a lot of headache if I could actually apply it. Who knows college students are not known for

spk_0 the propensity to listen to the wisdom of their elders right. People smarter and older than you

spk_0 are going to tell you something you're like yeah that makes sense and then 15 years from you're like

spk_0 gosh I wish I would have listened. I want to give you just a few highlights from that essay that

spk_0 I think are very helpful. So one he starts out with what I just said when it comes to figuring out

spk_0 what to work on you're on your own. That is actually a gift and a curse. It's a curse because it's

spk_0 incredibly difficult. Added the billions of people on the planet maybe a few hundred thousand

spk_0 whatever actually figured this out and actually get to work that they love and that's actually

spk_0 their life's work. It's incredibly hard to do but two going back to the Kobe example. When he was

spk_0 12 years old he's on the bus his dad played in the NBA and they started doing cocaine

spk_0 doing all kinds of dumb things and gets kicked out of the NBA. Interesting to note because I was a

spk_0 huge NBA fan before I got obsessed with my podcast and I can't watch anything but working

spk_0 on my podcast but Kobe Ryan's dad was signed by I think by the Philadelphia 76ers and at the time

spk_0 he had the largest contract it was 300,000 dollars a year and the people in the NBA this is it this

spk_0 is the peak. No one's ever going to make more than 300,000 dollars a year and so I think it talks

spk_0 to the compounding nature of if something's working the numbers always get way bigger.

spk_0 Steph Curry doesn't even tie shoes for 300,000 dollars for God's sake. What was fascinating is Kobe

spk_0 was learning from the mistakes of his father right. His dad was cheating on his mom got arrested.

spk_0 Led the cops on high speed chase gets arrested with a woman that's not Kobe's mom and a bunch of

spk_0 cocaine in the car. This is not behavior that you want from your dad right and so his dad has to

spk_0 play basketball in Italy and so they're on a bus in 12 year Kobe. Brian's like I'm going to make it

spk_0 to the NBA and I'm not going to fall out like you losers. A 12 year old that is not coming from other

spk_0 people. There's nobody else saying Kobe you should talk to your dad that way or you should have

spk_0 this kind of relentless self belief. He's like I will do whatever to not wind up like you. This can't

spk_0 be my life is a very powerful motivator and I think you see that with Kobe. So when it comes to

spk_0 figuring out what to work on you're on your own you see that over and over again no one can give you

spk_0 the answer. Now there is a way I'm going to give you Paul Graham's prescription on how to find it.

spk_0 In fact this is going to be the last thing I said from the SSA I'll tell you to first and this is

spk_0 the advice he gives at the end of the essay. What's fascinating can I just do another side real quick?

spk_0 I make a podcast on this entire essay. I got one or two messages so glad you made an episode about

spk_0 this. I went to go read this essay and it was too long and I wrote back you're not going to make it.

spk_0 If you can't spend an hour reading an essay you're not going to accomplish anything good in life. I

spk_0 don't know what to tell you. That's pathetic. Please unfollow me and do not listen to my podcast.

spk_0 I'm offended. Your lack of dedication discussed me. That's really how I felt. So this is the advice

spk_0 from Paul Graham at each stage do whatever seems most interesting and gives you the best options for

spk_0 the future. I call this approach staying upwind. This is how most people who've done great work seem

spk_0 to have done it. That is excellent advice. So if I was 22 if I was in college whisper this in my

spk_0 ear. This is now Paul Graham talking to the 20 drill version of myself who would not have listened

spk_0 to him. I have to make that clear. Highly likely you're not going to apply anything you're

spk_0 hearing today. Maybe you'll apply for 10 years from now. We're trying to play the real long game.

spk_0 Paul goes if you ask an oracle a secret to doing great work and the oracle replied with a single word

spk_0 my bet would be on curiosity. This is why I asked the comment internally. Kobe Bryant was

spk_0 obsessed with basketball. He thought it was this unbelievably infinitely complex and like simple

spk_0 game that he could just play different variations and he was obsessed with it forever. Another

spk_0 word saying he was deeply curious about the game of basketball curiosity is the best guy that's

spk_0 Paul Graham. If I wrote that I'd say curiosity is the only guy and it's not the curiosity

spk_0 that person said next to you. It's not the curiosity your parents that's curious to your teachers.

spk_0 You have to ignore these people. They want you to do what they want you to do. It's irrelevant.

spk_0 You only have your life. You have to choose what you want to do. I remember one of my best friends

spk_0 let me give you an example. I'm going to tell you what he said to me because it sounds disrespectful

spk_0 but it's really not because I've known him for like 25 years or whatever. I told him I'm going to

spk_0 make a podcast on the books I read. This is before I'd ever recorded one single episode and he said

spk_0 you're not being ambitious enough. He was dismissive and now I talk to him and he's like why don't

spk_0 you answer my calls anymore. I was like do it. I'm busy. I'm being pulled in a million of

spk_0 reactions. The businesses exploded. Everything's going on. He's like you really did this.

spk_0 I was like yeah you told me not to. This is the way imagine if you're poking your head up and you're

spk_0 seeking what the outside world says. The outside world. One of my oldest friends, somebody who I trust

spk_0 their judgment and your advice just told me don't do it. I was so dismissive. I was like there's

spk_0 just no way this is coming from inside. I have to do this. Curiosity is the best guy. I would say

spk_0 curiosity is the only guy. Your curiosity never lies and it knows more than you do about what's worth

spk_0 paying attention to. That's a fascinating sentence. You can't tell. Here's the problem that you're in

spk_0 the Edwin Land went through that I went through Rick and Paul's story. They just went through.

spk_0 You can't tell what most kinds of work are like except by doing them. This is not something that you

spk_0 can predict or plan in advance. I thought it was going to be a turning. There would be no conversation

spk_0 here because I would have jumped out of that window if I was going to turn. I have all my attorney

spk_0 friends. All of them have dropped like flies. There's still a lot but they've left the industry. There

spk_0 is literally let's say half a dozen friends that we're going to turn these. I know one that stuck with it.

spk_0 You may have to work at something for years before you know how much you like it or how good you are

spk_0 at it or even worst case scenario. My work is something for a decade. Think it's what you're supposed

spk_0 to be doing. Not realizing a decade in that it's not meant for you. A lot of people go through that.

spk_0 One sign, this is the important thing. There's something that everybody in here is good at that

spk_0 other people think is difficult and you're like why do other people think it's difficult? We're like

spk_0 again somebody asked me one day actually the same guy that told me not to do a business around

spk_0 reading. He's like how many books do you think people read? I was like I don't know. At least one

spk_0 a month he's like you're way off. You'll understand how nobody reads and I was like oh they do

spk_0 they read at least a book. Come on anybody can read a book. Come on and we looked at the number

spk_0 since zero is the biggest category and then one a year. I'm like how do you read a book a year?

spk_0 You must read the zero category. What are you doing there? He says one sign that you're suited for

spk_0 some kind of work is when you like even the parts that other people find tedious. I don't find

spk_0 reading tedious like you guys. I'm happy I'm here. I'd rather be reading. No offense. I am an

spk_0 introvert. I don't like being a group's people. That's why I do monologue podcasts by myself.

spk_0 I know there's a ton of people listening but I don't see it. I'm just by myself. I'm drawn to that.

spk_0 Some people will find that boring. I find it exhilarating. This is maybe the most important line for

spk_0 the entire essay for me because I like Maxime's. I like bumper sticker stings because that's the only

spk_0 stuff I can remember. If you're interested you're not a stray. If you're interested in something,

spk_0 if your parents tell you don't do it or if you're best friend outside of a restaurant until you're

spk_0 not being ambitious enough you can't listen to them. You listen to your interest in what you're

spk_0 genuinely curious about. I think that is as close to prescription as you can get. Then from

spk_0 there you have to figure out what is that yourself. I love that. I think if we just start to frame

spk_0 these sort of some hierarchy of motivations we already talked about money. We'll only get you

spk_0 so far. Ambition clearly can play a role but we're zeroing in on this concept of curiosity again

spk_0 or reminds me of something that Gardener said and wrote a self renewal. He said, but we have to bet

spk_0 on people and I place my bets more often on high motivation than on any other quality except judgment.

spk_0 There is not perfection of techniques that will substitute for the lift of spirit and heightened

spk_0 performance that comes from strong motivation. The world is moved by highly motivated people,

spk_0 by enthusiasts, by men and women who want something very much or believe very much. I'm not talking

spk_0 about anything as narrow as ambition. After all ambition eventually wears out and probably should.

spk_0 But you can keep your zest until the day you die. If I may offer you a simple maximum,

spk_0 be interested. Everyone wants to be interesting but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep

spk_0 a sense of curiosity. Discover new things. Care. Risk failure. Reach out. And so I think this is

spk_0 just so important to sort of start to frame this conversation because these are the things that

spk_0 are either going to fuel us or leave us empty along the journey. I'm curious David while we're on

spk_0 the topic of curiosity. One question that has come up every semester we've taught this class,

spk_0 numerous times, is can curiosity be cultivated? Can curiosity be habituated? Or is it something that

spk_0 you just have to kind of fall into or you have innately? What have you learned from your time

spk_0 studying others? The answer to that question is I don't know. I've always just been infinitely curious.

spk_0 My mom passed away a few years ago from cancer at a young age and one of the last things she told

spk_0 me before she died was and she had known I had just started doing the podcast and she had known

spk_0 that like since you could read you never stop reading. She says I'd walk into rooms and read every

spk_0 single thing that was hanging on the wall. I would read the back of cereal boxes when I was four or

spk_0 five breakfast because there's nothing else to read. We don't have a lot of money. She would take me

spk_0 to the bookstore and the bookstores are the best because they let you sit there and you don't have

spk_0 to buy the book to let you like read it. I can't answer that question because I was born with this

spk_0 innate curiosity that I don't know or other people like that. I would hope everybody has something.

spk_0 I highly believe, highly suspect everybody has something they're innately curious about. I don't

spk_0 know if it can be cultivated. I think if you're not innately curious, is it possible to get to

spk_0 college and not be curious about anything? I don't know. I wonder if it's more we all do have these

spk_0 curiosities. The question is do we follow them or are they stifled for whatever reason coming back

spk_0 to this concept that there could be external forces that are going to shun the curiosities when they

spk_0 appear in your life? And so maybe more than anything, it is coming back to that place of what am I

spk_0 just naturally drawn to? What corner am I just dying to look around? Let's take the second part

spk_0 of what that because we have no idea. Let's take your curiosity as an eight. I think the more important

spk_0 part is don't let anybody else get you off what you're truly curious about. Do not pay attention to

spk_0 the opinions of other people. Don't let them convince you. One of the things I ran into Paul at the

spk_0 coffee shop this morning I was thinking about was I read this book called Dynasties which profiles

spk_0 15 of the great family dynasties. I did a podcast just on four of them which was the Ross Shalves,

spk_0 Rockefeller's, Morgan's, and Toyota family. And I showed him a highlight that was thinking about

spk_0 this morning where it's everybody around in the early days of the American Automobile industry which

spk_0 is taking place not very far from here. The epicenter was in Detroit Michigan. They were usually in

spk_0 the early 20s. They were predisposed to be interested in mechanics. Every single one of them that

spk_0 founded the Automobile companies three of which still exists this day. And yet the highlight I shared

spk_0 with Paul at the coffee shop was the response to their weird curiosity of other people around them.

spk_0 And in that book was they were innately curious in this. They were interested in trying to build a

spk_0 car which didn't exist right and everybody around them said that they were wasting their time.

spk_0 And now you fast forward and if you take the economic impact of the Automobile industry on US GDP it's

spk_0 eight or 10% of everything. Let's say it's 10% of our entire economy and you had these idiots 120

spk_0 years ago it's like you should be interested in that. Just make a faster horse. The big thing was

spk_0 when you go back and read people's opinions and like the late 1800s early 1900s this is hilarious.

spk_0 They're like we don't need cars. We just need better ways to get rid of the horse crap and the

spk_0 horse urine on city streets. And so a job you were living in 1880 New York City you could apply for

spk_0 a job where your job is to go around every day literally picking up horse droppings. Imagine being

spk_0 that person. Living in that environment why do we need to improve this? This is silly. We'll just

spk_0 have more crews. We'll remove this horse droppings faster. It's insane. This is why you can't

spk_0 listen to other people. Most other people don't know what they're talking about. This propensity to

spk_0 ignore the opinions of other people right not be influenced by it is excessively rare. It's probably

spk_0 zero in all of life but in what to work on it's probably like 10 or 15%. There's nothing anybody could

spk_0 say to me to this day to tell me I shouldn't be working on the bike. I won't even let that in.

spk_0 It could sit there and come into me and I would just laugh. And so I think that skill can be

spk_0 developed. Curiosity is probably innate and then you develop the skill and thick skin. And essentially

spk_0 what's happening is over time you learn you do the work necessary to trust your own judgment.

spk_0 And so that's when I was dismissive of my friend is I trust my judgment more than I trust his.

spk_0 And this is my life and so I'm just going to go with this. I love the anecdote that you mentioned

spk_0 about your passion for NBA basketball and how you just don't have time for that anymore.

spk_0 The Latin root for decision is to cut away from as in an incision. When you commit to something

spk_0 you're cutting away all your other possibilities. All your other options. I think this is another

spk_0 thing that gets in the way of focus is the other side of focus is you have to be willing to

spk_0 part with a lot of other things in your life and maybe eventually we'll come back to how that can

spk_0 become problematic in terms of building a holistic good life keeping together a healthy family

spk_0 life and other sort of categories that may be valuable to folks beyond just maybe an entrepreneurial

spk_0 journey. But I do think it's important to step back and acknowledge that that is the cost of focus.

spk_0 The cost of focus is the extraction that's required. Some of those things you can just put off as

spk_0 fluff and fat that should be trimmed. There's other things interest that you have that if you are going

spk_0 to really hone your craft and be world class it's just not clear that there's any other way other

spk_0 than to part. I don't want to engage anything where I have to remain permanently superficial.

spk_0 And so the MV season is really long. The playoffs are really long. Keeping up with it and

spk_0 actually understanding what's going on to a level that I would be comfortable with is having a

spk_0 part-time job. I'm not going to do that. So the only sport I watch now is MMA UFC because I buy one

spk_0 pay-per-view a month. I spend a few hours watching it and then I'm caught up on everything I need to

spk_0 know. I'm not permanently superficial and I also think there's this weird comparison between

spk_0 fighters and entrepreneurs. There's a lot of traits that they actually share athletes in general,

spk_0 tennis players too. That is interesting. I need to make something clear though. If you listen

spk_0 to founders or if you read a lot of biographies which are going to be surprised is that people that do

spk_0 great things that are idolized for achievement usually are cautionary tales. I have to be very clear

spk_0 about this. Their desire for professional success comes at the cost of literally every single

spk_0 thing else in their life. Their health, if being married and being a good spouse is important to

spk_0 you. Listen to founders and then do the opposite of everything they do. You're only going to see

spk_0 divorces. You're going to see just a trotious behavior. There are three people I wanted to talk

spk_0 about to make sure we still have time. Out of the 300 people I've studied, there's only really

spk_0 three people that I consider have quote unquote mastered life. Since this is technically the art

spk_0 of investing class, I think the first one to start with and a book recommendation for you guys.

spk_0 This is a guy named Ed Thorpe and he wrote this autobiography called A Man For All Markets. He's

spk_0 still alive. Tim Ferris did this excellent podcast interview with him that's on YouTube. I've

spk_0 said, go look at him on YouTube and tell me how old you think that guy is. I've done this a

spk_0 bunch. They're like, oh, he's probably like 65, 70, no, he's 90 when you gave that interview.

spk_0 And Ed Thorpe is episode 222 of founders and the parentheses on his episode is my personal

spk_0 blueprint for life. I know enough about myself now through experience that if I did not have

spk_0 family, my eyes would open, I'd work until my eyes close. I'm just that person I said, the problem

spk_0 is then you destroy everything else. And so I look at Ed Thorpe, the reason I say, hey, I need

spk_0 guardrails on myself. Ed Thorpe mastered life. What did he do? He built businesses that he was

spk_0 intellectually curious about. He didn't work all time, but you could still build wealth more wealth

spk_0 than you could ever spend. Once he had more wealth than you ever spent, he stopped trading time for

spk_0 money if that time away for more money he's never going to spend because it was important to him

spk_0 to be a good father. Most of the people that I read biographies about are terrible fathers and

spk_0 they tell you that. He was a good husband. He was married to his wife, 15, for like 50 years.

spk_0 She winds up passing away from cancer just right before he wrote this autobiography that a highly

spk_0 recommend reading. He followed his genuine intellectual curiosity and had fun. He built the world's first

spk_0 wearable computer with Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, because they thought it

spk_0 would be fun. They tried to figure out if they could get an edge in roulette. He was the one that

spk_0 invented the counting card system for blackjack, because he just saw it was an intellectual

spk_0 mathematic problem. And then instead of keeping it and making millions and millions of dollars for it,

spk_0 he wrote a book about how to do it and made millions and millions of competitors for himself.

spk_0 And that book sold millions of copies because he thought it'd be a fun thing to do. He took

spk_0 care of his health. He starts lifting weights in college when no one lifted weights. He just had to

spk_0 be 70 years ago. And when he realized he has this great line in there, he says that he viewed every

spk_0 hour in the gym as one less day in the hospital at the end of his life. So he looked at him now. He

spk_0 looks phenomenal shape and he's still working out at 90. So he took care of his health. He was a good

spk_0 father and good husband. Very rare. He had fun. He built an incredible business and generated

spk_0 unbelievable amounts of wealth for him and his family. You don't get better than that. There is

spk_0 nothing better than that. And so there's been two other people that have followed a similar blueprint.

spk_0 One guy is scanning soul price. I just said another episode on him. He lived a life very similar

spk_0 to this. He's the guy everybody knows what Costco is. That idea came from just guiding Jim Sina Gold.

spk_0 Jim Sina Gold was when he was 17 was a mentor of soul price. Jim Sina Gold, the founder of Costco,

spk_0 writes the introduction to the biography of soul price, which is written by soul prices son after

spk_0 soul passed away. And in that biography, Jim Sina Gold talks about being interviewed and he's like,

spk_0 oh, you knew soul price for a long time. You must have learned a lot from me because no, I didn't

spk_0 learn a lot. I learned everything. Everything I learned was from him. That's something we talked

spk_0 about dinner last night. There's a line in Port Charlie's Ominac that I wish I knew when I was 22.

spk_0 There's ideas with billions in a $30 history book. Jim Sina Gold made multiple billions of dollars.

spk_0 The ideas came from soul price. The relationship is literally worth billions of dollars to the life

spk_0 of Jim Sina Gold and his family and all the people around him that his wealth helps. But you get to

spk_0 the end of the last line in that book that is again, written by son after his father passed away.

spk_0 His name is Robert Price. Robert Price actually emailed me. My episode on soul price came out. He

spk_0 listened to it. And he's like, you did an excellent job. You honored our family. Thank you very much.

spk_0 That's incredible. I didn't even know who knew who I was. The end, he goes, my father was the son

spk_0 of immigrants, right? They had escaped Jewish persecution in Europe. He built wonderful businesses.

spk_0 He was married for 70 years. He was a philanthropist and he was a good father. Doesn't get better than that.

spk_0 It's unbelievably rare to be able to balance. So what we're talking about is the ability to balance

spk_0 all these other things and not myopically chase just your work life. And then we have Brunelle

spk_0 Kuchinelli. Brunelle Kuchinelli's price 65 now. He's been, no, maybe older than that because he's

spk_0 been running Kuchinelli. Brunelle Kuchinelli is the name of the company too for 50, 45 years. And he's

spk_0 famous because he sets the entire work schedule in his company. And I think they were from 830 to 5 every

spk_0 day. That's it. You're not allowed to talk about workout at 5 o'clock, emails, do anything. We're

spk_0 going to design with a good trains. We have this work day. We're going to do the best of our

spk_0 ability within this work day. And we're not going to do anything else. And then he likes to reach

spk_0 philosophy. He's a good father to his two daughters. He's still married to his wife. He takes care of

spk_0 his health. He goes on long works and walks. He produces on olive oil. I did an episode on him. I

spk_0 get a copy of his book and then his own olive oil. I'm like, this is the most Italian

spk_0 shit I've ever seen. This is incredible. Didn't he almost become a Catholic priest?

spk_0 He's very like religious. I think they converted one of the buildings that his company's in now

spk_0 used to be a band and chapel or whatever. He'll walk around with priests and he loves Wilder Anne,

spk_0 I think, and Plato. And this is what he likes to talk about. He likes to go to the cafe at night

spk_0 and sit with a bunch of older gentlemen and they discuss philosophy and they do what it times to.

spk_0 He'll do little things or whatever. Drink Kuchinelli. I don't know. I think that's a rather large

spk_0 indictment of the fact that I've been doing this for seven years. I have 300 some examples and I

spk_0 can tell you three that didn't let ambition destroy everything around them. We hope it's a big theme

spk_0 for the semester. There's serial guests in class Peter Kaufman who runs a company called Glen Air.

spk_0 He's actually really good friends with Charlie Munger. I think he has

spk_0 launcher dinner with him many times a week. I think some of the students here have had a chance

spk_0 to go meet him and he often frames this as his one ladder framework and his Rick and I thought

spk_0 about setting up Sator Grove and a lot of the things we learned in our previous role in Notre Dame.

spk_0 This idea of radically integrating all aspects of your life now and not trying to do them one after

spk_0 another. The famous tried to make a lot of money and then maybe give it back later or

spk_0 hope that your family will actually talk to you someday while you're too busy.

spk_0 Peter has just been a great mentor and thought leader on this. He says the idea that one can go

spk_0 all in on career and then later reconcile it with life's other critical priorities is both popular

spk_0 and seductive. It has one major shortcoming who has ever successfully done it.

spk_0 And so for him the seven aspects of the latter would he would say are the seven elements of a

spk_0 successful life from reading all of history and thinking about philosophy, religion,

spk_0 our health, family, career, friends, spirituality, community, and hobbies. And he attempts to treat

spk_0 these as co-priorities and as he's talked to us, I think he would say this is what leads to a

spk_0 successful life. And then from a competitive standpoint, he would also say because no one else

spk_0 tries to do this, that if you're pretty good in all those areas, you actually have a chance to

spk_0 achieve all the worldly success that most people are trying to do when they're a myopic in the way

spk_0 they go after a career. But just curious, David, if those resonate maybe with the three people you

spk_0 just outlined or others that might have gotten some of this right or a lot of it wrong. I think

spk_0 what all three of them shares they have actually wisdom. What makes a contented human has been known

spk_0 for thousands of years. We started the conversation with that quote, humans were right down the

spk_0 best ideas for five thousand years. Just read them. You always hear, oh, this time is different. I know

spk_0 human nature has not changed. It has not changed in thousands of years. It's not going to change in

spk_0 several thousand years. And so when I think at Thorpe figured out, Kuchenelli figured out, and so

spk_0 price figured out, it was just like, when I get to the end of my life, I like starting at the end

spk_0 and looking backwards. So another reason I was able to make this jump is I was reading a bunch of

spk_0 books on Jeff Bezos and everybody knows he started Amazon. But a lot of people don't know what he

spk_0 was doing right before he started Amazon. He was a 30 year old. He's working at a hedge fund in

spk_0 New York City called D.E. Shaw and the founder and he was good friends with the founder called David

spk_0 Shaw. And he was already wealthy, not like Amazon wealthy, but like he was fine. He was going to be

spk_0 successful no matter what. And he discovers that the internet is growing really fast because they're

spk_0 incubating a bunch of businesses inside of D.E. Shaw. And he just felt that he a fundamental once in

spk_0 a lifetime opportunity to play a role in a life altering industry of the internet. And his

spk_0 quarterly bonus was coming up, which is going to be really big. And he goes for a walk in Central

spk_0 Park with David Shaw. He's like, man, I think I'm going to quit. I think I'm going to move across

spk_0 country. I think I'm going to sell books online. They also knew inside the idea for Amazon,

spk_0 like actually came inside of D.E. Shaw because it was codenamed the everything store. So they

spk_0 knew that sort of books, but he knew it was going to sell a bunch of other things. But what was

spk_0 fascinating to me is how he made the decision because David Shaw is like, dude, I don't want this kind

spk_0 to lead. If your boss thinks you're talented, they don't want you playing for yourself or God

spk_0 for another team. So I always think about a sleep on it. And so Jeff is going home and he also

spk_0 is so nerdy when he named this the regret minimization framework. He looked back. He visioned himself

spk_0 on his deathbed in his 80s surrounded by his loved ones, right? And he's like, what would that guy

spk_0 say to this version of him now, right? And he's like, when you're 80, your quarterly bonus when

spk_0 you're 30 years old is not important. It's important to you when you're 30. Wow, I'd like a couple

spk_0 hundred grand or whatever the number is going to be, right? That's amazing. But he goes, I knew my

spk_0 80 year old version would not care about missing my quarterly bonus. What I knew he would care about

spk_0 is the fact that had the opportunity to play a role in this once in a lifetime industry. And I was

spk_0 too scared to take a risk and to take a chance. And he says, once I thought about it from the 80s,

spk_0 I got to think of it as I didn't hesitate. I realized what's the worst case? I go and try to

spk_0 start an internet company, try to play a role in the formation of this brand new industry. And I

spk_0 fail. I'm going to get another job. That's fine. It seems scary, but it's really not scary because

spk_0 I have something else I can fall back on. And so then he made that decision move across country

spk_0 and the rest of history. And so I think what sole price did, Adorp did, and Bruno Kuchin

spk_0 only even without saying so explicitly is I know being really successful at work right now is going

spk_0 to feel great. I'm going to build wealth and maybe people like what I build or whatever, but

spk_0 they're not going to care when I'm 85. But my kids will care when I'm 85. And so the founder of

spk_0 IKEA started working out of K when he's 17 worked on it until he died was his 80s. And he is the

spk_0 best line about this. He's writing his autobiography only for the benefit of the future generation of

spk_0 entrepreneurs. And he goes, don't do what I did. I missed the childhoods of my three sons growing up

spk_0 so I could build IKEA, right? As anybody knows, childhood does not allow itself to be reconquered.

spk_0 Yes, it's great that you made affordable furniture. It's great that you made billions of dollars.

spk_0 Your kids don't care about that. They were like, my dad wasn't at my baseball game. My dad never

spk_0 dropped me off his school. My dad wasn't here. He was selling furniture. Come on, man. I like IKEA

spk_0 just as much as an ex person. IKEA is not worth. Somebody else can build a furniture store. That's not

spk_0 worth the expense of your marriage. I think you got divorced, most likely you got divorced. And then

spk_0 they really should be the kids. And then a lot of them destroy their health. They just work on

spk_0 the time. They're not sleeping, they're not eating healthy. They're not working out. They're not

spk_0 doing anything else. And so there's a great book on this. I think it's episode 168,

spk_0 Skyning Larry Miller. The book is called Driven and Autobiography by Larry Miller. Larry Miller

spk_0 was the richest, he just died recently. Maybe 10 years ago, something like that. He was a

spk_0 richest entrepreneur in Utah. He owned 93 different businesses in Utah. He owned the Utah Jazz.

spk_0 He said the average Utah citizen could not go a week without giving Larry Miller money.

spk_0 And all he did from the time his eyes opened to the time his eyes closed, he worked, did not take

spk_0 care of self. So the point where his health is so bad that he was like, if you Google image

spk_0 search Larry Miller, you'll see him in a motorized scooter wheelchairs on the floor of the Utah Jazz.

spk_0 He couldn't even move. Eventually he's writing the book because he knows he's dying,

spk_0 the chopping off parts of his body. Legit. There's no circulation in his legs because he can take

spk_0 care of self. They'd chop him off his foot. There goes your fingers. He's billionaire, such a

spk_0 decomposing when he's alive. Then he doesn't even survive long enough to finish the book. So his

spk_0 co-author writes the last few chapters. And the worst indictment in so Larry Miller says,

spk_0 my life is cautionary tale. I have a 30,000 square foot house on a mountain in Utah. I own the

spk_0 Utah Jazz. Everything's perfect. And he's like, don't do, don't be me. He's like, I didn't even

spk_0 have any fun in life. It's more than the money then. That doesn't make any sense to me. And so what

spk_0 happens is the author, the co-author is talking to his wife. The last chapter is the biggest indictment.

spk_0 And she's like, well, yeah, we miss him, but it's not like he was here when he was alive. I don't

spk_0 care that he had billions dollars. He's a failure. That's a failure. When your wife and kids are like,

spk_0 I didn't know he is for what? A chain of car dealerships and movie theaters and basketball teams?

spk_0 You have one shot of life. And that's what you did with it.

spk_0 Gardner has this line and Narrow DeSelf are new. All that's beautiful and haunting. He says,

spk_0 we build our own prisons and serve as our own jailkeepers. Makes me think of there's a book. We'll

spk_0 track down the author called the top five regrets of the dying. And those five just list them really

spk_0 quickly. Number one is the courage to live a life true to self. Not what others expected of me.

spk_0 Number two is I wish I hadn't worked so much. And I think a lot of that comes back to

spk_0 the major crisis in the world of just not enough people finding their life's work.

spk_0 Number three, courage to express my emotions. Number four, I wish I had stayed

spk_0 in closer touch with my friends, family and loved ones. And number five, I wish I would have allowed

spk_0 myself to be happier. Several of these really what's so haunting about it is that these are

spk_0 basic things that are in many respects within our control. I feel like that theme continues to come

spk_0 up is what more can we try to do other than become that person that were intended to be or that

spk_0 were desiring to be the reason I would say don't read business books and just memorize ideas but

spk_0 tie the ideas to the life of the people is because something you'll realize in every single book is

spk_0 we're all imperfect human beings. The line that comes up over and over again in these books

spk_0 came across it for the first time in the biography of France for Copeland. It says you can always

spk_0 understand the story of the father by setting the son that the story of the father is embedded in the

spk_0 son and a lot of the stuff that drives us this compulsive working behavior that you see in a lot of

spk_0 type 8 personalities, high achievers because they're trying to fix something that was broken in their

spk_0 childhood. They're either want to prove to their dad that they're better than them or don't want to

spk_0 wind up like their dad or I'm telling you it's in every single biography and I think that's the

spk_0 important part. It doesn't matter if you don't remember anything I said if you can only remember one

spk_0 thing is just read the biographies and try to read the biographies of dead people by the way and you

spk_0 realize it will hit you on a more emotional visceral level because you don't get to the end of the book

spk_0 you got to the end of somebody's life and you'll see how they're all going to talk about their

spk_0 childhood they're going to talk about their relationship with their dad they're going to talk about

spk_0 all this other stuff that influences what's happening so what I see is oh they're going back to

spk_0 the mic types of things oh just me and funny clothes when I say hey I have to be very careful I could

spk_0 wind up like the IKEA guy I know I could I have to learn from these examples I don't want to be I'd

spk_0 much rather be the koochinelli's the thorps and the prices even if my natural inclination is the

spk_0 IKEA guy or I don't think I'd be Larry Miller but that kind of thing and so I think this acceptance

spk_0 of hey we're all in perfect human beings you're going to kind of get more in line with where you

spk_0 want to be but you're never going to get to the end state of perfection I guarantee you when

spk_0 Ed Dorgos is a bed at night at ninety two years old there's still things in his life that he

spk_0 regrets that he did you just have to get comfortable realizing that you're not ever going to attain

spk_0 perfection and you give yourself the room people like it's kind of weird that you study dead people

spk_0 for living and I'm like it's actually comforting because I see people smarter and more driven me

spk_0 making mistakes and being in perfect human beings and realizing oh okay I don't have to beat myself

spk_0 up about this I have to learn from my mistake and just try to do better next time there is no such

spk_0 thing as a perfect life or perfect human being we're just all chasing that but we're never going to

spk_0 get it do you mind coming back to this concept of service because I think at least here so many

spk_0 students grapple with what seems to be attention of wanting to go out and achieve greatness and

spk_0 however you want to define that and commit themselves to a life of service to others this kind of

spk_0 mission orientation and all the time I see those two things separated you look at investing

spk_0 their sort of capitalism investing and then there's ESG an impact investing and these

spk_0 nonprofit more charitable spins on on the act itself and yet so many of the stories that you

spk_0 uncover I think are surprising in the sense that these individuals who have built as an output

spk_0 tremendous fortunes very large companies that have great societal impact have that orientation

spk_0 towards service toward building something that's needed I would throw that back at you whose ever

spk_0 achieved greatness without serving other people that's why we think they're great that's why

spk_0 say focus on service some of this is just entertaining we talked about this crazy drive that

spk_0 could be Brian had what is his service other people it's like the millions of people that watch

spk_0 him play basketball the highest level possible and we're inspired by his story I don't think you

spk_0 achieve greatness in isolation it has to be in the service of other people why are we still talking

spk_0 about Steve Jobs 10 years after he died while we highly likely be talking about him 30 years after he

spk_0 died and he's like he made devices that make our lives better the iPhone is the culmination of

spk_0 everything but he was doing that for decade after decade after decade anybody that you look or

spk_0 admire to or you're going to read a book about even some of the people like the rubber bands

spk_0 yeah they did some atrocious things don't get me wrong but like they also built the railway network

spk_0 and steamship network and these transportation networks and they made affordable refining of

spk_0 kerosene and got lighting in houses that couldn't afford it the reason that people consider that

spk_0 what they did grace because they were able to serve other people and then in many cases scale

spk_0 the business so that they increase the level that is really to me the only reason I think a lot

spk_0 people think in larger business because you make more money but I think they get it reversed you're

spk_0 large in your business so you can serve more people and since you serve more people the

spk_0 byproduct of that as well all of that greatness comes from the service of other people can you talk

spk_0 about just the business of podcasting without giving away your trade secrets why is this so special

spk_0 we know why it aligns with your vision for life what you're good at what you're obsessed with

spk_0 but we're on this new frontier of the ability to connect with anybody anytime through audio

spk_0 what is podcasting why is this so special I said I wasn't going to talk about this anymore either

spk_0 you mentioned the word enthusiast earlier that's how I feel I'm an evangelist for podcasting I think

spk_0 there are absolute miracles again it didn't exist when I was in your guys' age by that point you

spk_0 could stream radio on the internet but you couldn't even listen on demand right but I'd been

spk_0 obsessed with spoken word audio on the radio am station since I was like a kid even when I didn't

spk_0 understand politics news sports advice columns embarrassing stuff right just because I was like oh my

spk_0 god I get to hear other people speak this is amazing and then I remember vividly oh my god now I

spk_0 don't have to be in the car I can stream it on my computer the internet speech are so slow back then

spk_0 like buffer and everything and then I remember the time where it's all the first podcast hey don't

spk_0 worry if you miss it you can listen to it on demand I was like what did you just say and then from

spk_0 there so from 2010 I discovered podcasts in 2016 I started my own I listened to thousands of them

spk_0 I was a podcast fiend and fanatic and it still am to this day reason I would say take away from

spk_0 the business aspect of it I mean obviously they're highly leveraged essentially like miniature

spk_0 technology businesses that are infinitely leveraged if one person listens or a million people listen

spk_0 I do the same amount of work so it's infinitely scalable they have no expenses 95% profit margins

spk_0 but outside the business aspect of it because I know a bunch of people that have built massive

spk_0 businesses off the back of podcasting one of them is a billionaire I was at dinner with him

spk_0 and he pulled me to the side he's like listen to your interviews you keep going on about

spk_0 podcasting he's like we've please shut up we don't want people to know how lucrative this is we'd

spk_0 like to keep building these massive businesses in secret so I'm just the most bullish person on the

spk_0 planet as far as podcasting as a miracle I feel it's the printing press of the spoken word but I also

spk_0 think you're going to see over the next coming decades that don't be some of the best businesses in

spk_0 the world but more important than all that even if you never do it for business the reason I say

spk_0 anybody that has an interesting brain should have a podcast is because listen I love written material

spk_0 more than almost anybody alive the relationship I have with somebody that I hear their audio

spk_0 for hundreds of hours is the same relationship that you have with like your best friend

spk_0 I don't have the same relationship with my favorite authors because I don't hear them I'm just

spk_0 reading their words and their thoughts the one thing I would say is that there's a

spk_0 most special about podcasting is it's a technology that allows you to scale authenticity you listen

spk_0 to my podcast is going to sound exactly what we just did here and so what happens is it's a way to

spk_0 be authentic at scale then people can opt in they listen some people are going to listen to like this

spk_0 is great some people like this sucks the people who think it's great over time they start to be able to

spk_0 pair social relationship with you and so before ever knew you guys you would listen to the podcast

spk_0 and then we get on the phone and it makes becoming friends so easy because you already know who I am

spk_0 and then that doesn't even count for if two podcasters meet so when Patrick comes in a few weeks

spk_0 ask him about the first time we talked I've been listening to Patrick's podcast for like 2019

spk_0 he knew who it was then he discovers me like a year and a half ago or something like that then he

spk_0 was listening then another mutual friend puts us together and then we talk for the first time on the

spk_0 phone it's like that scene and step brothers did we just become best friends talk for like an hour and a

spk_0 half oh we have the same interest I've heard your podcast they know exactly who you are and so I don't

spk_0 even care about building the business of podcasts it's if you feel you have a unique interest in a

spk_0 unique brain the best way in my opinion to express that is through audio and you don't even need a large

spk_0 audience for that to open up and insane amount of opportunities for you the reason I'm up to 11 o'clock

spk_0 a night the reason I wake up in the morning and I do all the weird stuff I do is because I'm not working

spk_0 I legit think this is a miracle it is unfair one thing I do want to say before we close is I don't

spk_0 feel like I deserve to be here right and the reason I'm here is because again I get all these weird

spk_0 benefits because I put this podcast out and other people get value from it but what I would say is

spk_0 I was in the pilot entrepreneurship program when I was in college the last few years of college

spk_0 was the first entrepreneurship program at the school was at some 2004 2006 right it was a joke I didn't

spk_0 anything in any of these classes for two years is useless the one valuable thing I learned was there

spk_0 was an entrepreneur who just sold his company for 40 or 50 million dollars and he was donating three

spk_0 million dollars to build a building at the school and his one prerequisite for giving them that money

spk_0 and building that building was I want a two hour talk with the entrepreneurship students in two hours

spk_0 I learned more than I did in two years from that guy essentially what Rick and Paul have done for

spk_0 you guys is they've curated essentially you have that but you have it for 15 weeks 14 weeks I don't

spk_0 include myself in this because every single other person coming after me is way more impressive than

spk_0 I am and I mean that all I would say is take advantage of that because that is the course that I

spk_0 wish I had instead of all this other stuff they made us do what if you just did what art and

spk_0 investing was where like these guys have a world class that work and what happens is the people that

spk_0 achieve a lot in life when they get older they all want to share what they learned and so they

spk_0 have curated this incredible list of people for you all I would say is damn you're gonna learn a lot

spk_0 spending time with David and I think our mutual friend Patrick as well this whole podcasting

spk_0 stick is so disruptive and kidded around about founders being equivalent to a Harvard or Stanford MBA

spk_0 but it really is true if you think about it let's close with one question that came from one of our

spk_0 students which is just a little bit more practical what advice would you have in terms of taking

spk_0 all of that information from biographies from podcasts and synthesizing them advice on note taking

spk_0 or how you actually increase the volume of information that you listen to actually to crew into

spk_0 knowledge so the only piece of advice I have on that is anybody can figure out how to take notes you

spk_0 guys can figure out how to read on your own your smart enough you made it to Notre Dame I couldn't

spk_0 have made it to Notre Dame needed to be very clear about that so you're already way ahead of the

spk_0 what I was I think what the missing part is people don't reread and revisit and the importance of

spk_0 this sheer volume of repetition we talked about earlier that humans have known us for thousands of

spk_0 years because you see it embedded in every single religion in the world it's not oh read a book once

spk_0 I have read some of these books James Dyson my number one book recommendations episode 300

spk_0 is episode 200 is episode 25 is this thing book every hundred episodes I'm going to reread the book

spk_0 so episode 400 already know what's going to be it's going to be James Dyson's first autobiography

spk_0 against the odds I will read that book probably 15 times through my life it's the repetition you can't

spk_0 pay attention to these apps man I'm telling you you can't we haven't get into my desire to live in

spk_0 an analog world which is kind of weird because a podcast is a technology business so I'm

spk_0 here with technology and I'm talking about how amazing it is and yet all I want to read is physical books

spk_0 and I want to have phone calls and in person stuff and I don't want to do any of this other stuff

spk_0 but because all the apps trying to do is put you in like these dopamine it's the new the new the new

spk_0 the new the new and so what happens you remain permanently superficial that is the biggest slur

spk_0 I would never want to be called permanently superficial stop going for this very wide but shallow

spk_0 you can't be interested in the same stuff I'm interested in there's a handful of people that you

spk_0 tell that are my heroes Steve Jobs Charlie Munger Edwin Land David O'Reilly Rockefeller well you'll

spk_0 see it because I read over and over again I keep talking about them I've done 300 people but I

spk_0 talk about the same 10 over and over again so once you find your five or 10 whatever you're

spk_0 interested go as deep as possible read every single thing you can about them reread your highlights

spk_0 reread your notes and then read all the people that inspired them but really is repetition is persuasive

spk_0 it is the key to actual mastery into learning and all I see is every way just jumping around one of my

spk_0 favorite treats I've ever read and this was years ago before I even had a podcast this guy was

spk_0 honoring his mentor that died and he said the best advice that his mentor gave him a mentor is probably

spk_0 four decades older than him he goes rabbit eye kid quit jumping focus now every single generation

spk_0 they're just full of rabbit eyeed kids they can't concentrate on anything and so therefore they're

spk_0 very easy to beat repeat repeat repeat amen well we're gonna leave it there David you are a

spk_0 force of nature in a total psychopath but a good kind of psychopath and we're grateful for your

spk_0 friendship and for your teaching today that's it for now and we'll see you next week

David Senra - Lessons from the Founder Historian - [Joys of Compounding, REPLAY]

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