Essential Truths W Howard Marks Nima Shayegh And William Green Rwh066

TITLE: Essential Truths w/ Howard Marks, Nima Shayegh & William Green (RWH066) CHANNEL: We Study Billionaires DATE: 2026-02-21 ---TRANSCRIPT--- So this idea that humility is a really vital  ingredient of staying out of trouble is   critical to understand your limitations and stay  within them and to understand it. As Jack Bogle,   the founder of Vanguard, once said to me, you  don’t have to be great, right? You can still do   really well just by getting in early, early in  your life, living within your means, continuing   to add to the pot, and staying in the game for  a very long time, that’s kind of good enough. 00:00:24:16 - 00:00:46:13 Unknown  You don’t have to be extraordinary. Also, how  it’s reminder, I think is really important.   You need to understand your own  personality and understand whether   what you’re trying to emphasize is getting  rich quickly or whether you want to be more   defensive. So either you’re going for lots  of winners or you’re trying to avoid losers. 00:00:46:15 - 00:01:06:11 Unknown  Before we dive into the video, if you’ve  been enjoying the show, be sure to click   the subscribe button below so you never miss an  episode. It’s a free and easy way to support us,   and we’d really appreciate it. Thank you so much.  Hi there! I’m very happy to be back with you on   the richer, wiser, happier podcast. Today I have  something a little different planned for you. 00:01:06:13 - 00:01:32:02 Unknown  Usually, as you know, I tend to do long,  in-depth interviews with great investors,   but occasionally I like to pause and look  back at some of the most valuable lessons   from interviews that I’ve done over the last  few months or a year. And I think there’s an   important reason for this. There’s so much  noise coming at us from every side that   it’s often really actually very difficult  to distinguish the signal from the noise. 00:01:32:04 - 00:01:51:15 Unknown  And I think, probably like you, I’m constantly  listening to things and reading more and learning   more, which is all great. But at a certain  point, I think you have to stop and ask yourself,   what’s the point of it all? What  really matters? What is essential   lessons that you actually want to remember and  internalize so you can actually live by them? 00:01:51:17 - 00:02:08:08 Unknown  It’s one reason, really, why I read the same  books over and over again. And it’s also why,   when I was writing my book,  richer, wiser, happier,   when I was so overwhelmed with material  from many years of reporting and interviews,   I would ask myself over and over again in my  head, what’s the eye of the eye of the bull’s eye? 00:02:08:10 - 00:02:23:20 Unknown  I was always trying to think, what’s the  absolute center of the target here? The   thing that I really want to  convey about this investor,   all the things I really want to learn about  what this thing has to teach me. So that’s   what we’re going to do today. We’re going to  focus on the eye of the eye of the bull’s eye. 00:02:23:23 - 00:02:48:22 Unknown  We’re going to focus on the essential truths  from two of the most extraordinary subjects I’ve   had on the podcast over the last few months,  one of whom is someone who, all of you know,   which is Howard Marks, who’s obviously a legend  in the world of investing. And the other is   someone named Nima Hsieh, who has flown pretty  much entirely under the radar as an investor. 00:02:48:24 - 00:03:19:15 Unknown  I think this was the first big interview he  ever did. But it’s it’s wonderfully thoughtful   and it’s one of my favorite episodes of the  podcast. And afterwards, actually, I received   lovely messages from superb investors like Nick  Sleep and Peter Keefe saying how impressed they   were with Nim is remarkable depth of insight.  Anyway, what I’m going to do is I’m going to play   probably about four clips, two from Howard and  two from Nima, and I’m going to comment on them,   share what I think is important about them  that I want to remember and internalize myself. 00:03:19:17 - 00:03:43:05 Unknown  And then probably towards the end of the podcast,   I’m going to veer off in a totally different  direction and talk about something a little   bit more personal. Perhaps that hopefully will  be helpful to you too. So anyway, the game plan   is to start with Howard and specifically  we’re going to listen to a clip in which   he talks about artificial intelligence and talks  about the euphoria over artificial intelligence. 00:03:43:05 - 00:04:04:15 Unknown  And I think it’s very helpful because it gives you  a sense of how one of the world’s great investors   thinks about markets, thinks about investing,  thinks about how to avoid getting swept up   in euphoria, thinks about technology, thinks  about the importance of humility, and trying   to learn from the patterns of history as well. So  there’s a lot here that’s quintessential Howard. 00:04:04:17 - 00:04:33:13 Unknown  And obviously in terms of how it’s kind of status  in the investing world, it’s almost no one I   listen to more seriously is, as you know, with  the passing of Charlie Munger and the retirement   of Warren Buffett, I’ve kind of come to God.  Howard really is like the reigning wise man of   the investment world in many ways. He co-founded  Oaktree Capital Management back in 1995, I think,   and is now overseeing something like $223  billion in assets in alternative investments. 00:04:33:13 - 00:04:57:08 Unknown  And the firm has something like 1400  employees around the world. But also,   he’s been writing these extraordinary, lucid,  wise memos for the last 35 or 40 years,   something like that. I think they now have more  than 300,000 subscribers. So in this interview,   we talked a lot about the essential  truths that we could learn from   Howard’s career. But in any case,  let’s listen to this clip about AI. 00:04:57:12 - 00:05:01:10 Unknown  Thanks so much for joining me. 00:05:01:12 - 00:05:26:06 Unknown  And I’m wondering when you look at this  period compared, say, to 1973, 74 or 99,   2000 or 2000 and 7 to 2008, what is it?  The rhymes in terms of where we stand in   the pendulum, between greed and fear and  optimism and pessimism and risk tolerance   and risk aversion and what makes you not  think that we’re at that kind of extreme? 00:05:26:06 - 00:05:47:03 Unknown  Yet if that’s still the case, that you don’t  yet think we’re at that kind of extreme? Most   likely. Well, I don’t have my finger on the  pulse, so I don’t know where we are today or   this week or. But I think that when you look  for comparisons, the strongest comparison,   not a perfect comparison. And I’m not saying  that’s true in degree, William, but in kind. 00:05:47:05 - 00:06:19:06 Unknown  The strongest comparison is to the  TMT internet.com bubble of 9899 2000.   The nifty 50 was different because it  was not around one novel technology   and it was around established great  companies. For the most part, I mean,   there were no technological marvels  that dropped out in the nifty 50. And   then the years oh five, six, seven with the  subprime and the mortgage backed securities. 00:06:19:06 - 00:06:42:01 Unknown  Subprime mortgage backed securities is not  comparable because that was not a technological   innovation. That was a financial invention.  Nobody thought that subprime mortgage was going   to change the business of housing. The houses were  unaffected. It’s just that they said, well, we can   make money by giving financing to a new class  of buyers, which turned out to be a bad idea. 00:06:42:03 - 00:07:06:22 Unknown  People who wouldn’t document their earnings  or their assets. And so this is comparable to   the internet bubble. You know, people said the  internet will change the world, but guess what?   It did. Can you imagine today’s world  without the internet? It’s completely   changed in a million ways, including the  fact that we’re talking over it. So this   is comparable to technological innovation  that I think is going to change the world. 00:07:06:23 - 00:07:30:16 Unknown  But my recollection is we had a clearer view  of how the internet would change the world.   And the view of many in 99 2000 has become  true. And I think a lot of the excitement   surrounding e-commerce and e-commerce  has become a major force. It just feels   to me like we had a vision of how that was  going to work out, and it mostly came true. 00:07:30:18 - 00:07:55:05 Unknown  Today, I think we have less of that. I personally  am not an expert on the furthest thing from an   expert world, but I’ve never heard anybody tell  me how AI is going to change the world. We know   it’s a powerful force. It can think, it can  process data. It has access to all the data   that’s ever been compiled, exactly what it’s  going to do, how that’s going to be a business,   how people are going to make money  at it, how it’s going to impact life. 00:07:55:07 - 00:08:19:15 Unknown  I think it’s less clear. But I do think that  the two are comparable. And in both cases,   there was a new, new thing that fired  the imagination. And most bubbles are   around something new. In 69, it was growth stock  investing. In oh six it was subprime mortgages.   In 99 it was the internet. In 1720 was the South  Sea Company, and in 1620 it was tugboat in Hull. 00:08:19:17 - 00:08:43:01 Unknown  So I always make this point that the bubbles  are very real around something new, because the   imagination is untrammeled and it can go off in a  flight of fancy, and you can imagine trees growing   through the sky. You’re never going to have a  bubble in paper stocks or timber stocks. You know,   it’s too prosaic. People can say, well, you know,  we can tell how many houses you’re going to build. 00:08:43:02 - 00:09:06:06 Unknown  We know how much wood is needed in each house. We  can tell where we’re going to get it from. And so,   you know, you can’t have these tree grow  the sky moments in the prosaic areas.   It’s always something new. You had a very  interesting conversation recently, Howard,   that I was listening to yesterday with Edward  Chancellor, author of Devil Take the Hindmost,   which had had an important impact on  you when you first saw the 2000 bubble. 00:09:06:08 - 00:09:29:23 Unknown  And one of the things you  said in that conversation,   you made two bold statements. You said, number  one, I will change the world. Number two,   most of the companies people are investing  in today and in other words, to profit from,   I will end up worthless. And then you said when  the naive or hopeful investor takes the leap that   the irresistible trend will produce short  profits, that’s when you get into trouble. 00:09:30:00 - 00:09:53:24 Unknown  Well, I should go back and reread that memo, I  think. But you know, that’s right. And and change   the world. And investors making money are not the  same thing. And in fact, Warren Buffett pointed   out and I think he said this about the internet.  I think it was in his 2000 annual meeting.   There’s no doubt that the internet will  produce a great increase in productivity. 00:09:54:01 - 00:10:17:20 Unknown  It’s not clear that it will have a positive  impact on profitability. And I think the same   is true of the I. My concern is I saw that  CNN is running an ad I was on my travel,   I watch CNN international and they’re drumming  up interest in a show. And the anchor says to   a guest, you say that AI has the ability  to eliminate half of entry level jobs. 00:10:17:22 - 00:10:45:00 Unknown  That was the whole conversation because then they  cut something else. But the point is, that may be   true. And obviously, if you can produce the US  GDP and eliminate half the entry level jobs,   it could be more profitable or certainly more  productive. But the question is, will it be   more profitable? To whom will the savings accrue  if different companies are competing to provide   the AI service, maybe they’ll compete on price  to the point where it’s not profitable for them. 00:10:45:02 - 00:11:11:07 Unknown  Or if the people who employ AI service compete  for market share, maybe all the savings will go   to the consumer in the form of lower prices.  So exactly how the labor saving tool with AI   is going to turn into profits? I don’t think  anybody can say you often like to ask Howard,   what’s the mistake here? And so obviously we  don’t have any idea how this is going to pan out. 00:11:11:09 - 00:11:38:22 Unknown  But when you ask yourself what would be  the likely mistakes worth avoiding at a   time like this, particularly for either  naive and credulous investors or just   for smart investors who get sucked into  euphoria, what are the likely mistakes we   ought to be trying to avoid here? What I’ve  seen in euphoria after euphoria is, number one,   you shouldn’t make the assumption that today’s  leaders are certain to be the leaders of tomorrow. 00:11:38:24 - 00:11:57:06 Unknown  They may well be, but you should bet your  life on number two. You shouldn’t assume   that because the leaders are selling at high  prices, that it’s a good idea to invest in the   laggards because they’re cheaper. People say,  well, they have a low probability of success,   but maybe big payoff. So I should buy it. And  that’s what I call a lottery ticket mentality. 00:11:57:08 - 00:12:25:22 Unknown  And you know, if they have the low probability  success you should accept that that means chances   are good upon success. And then on the I am  led to believe that you can make binary bets in   companies that have nothing else going on, which  will be sink or swim bets. Or you can invest in   preexisting great tech companies, which will get  moderate benefits from AI if they’re successful. 00:12:25:23 - 00:12:53:11 Unknown  But still be in business and profitable if it’s  not that big a deal. And now we’re back to the   very beginning of our conversation. Do you  want to have a novel entrepreneurial startup,   pure play with just no revenues and no  profits? Today could be a moonshot if   it works. Or do you want to invest in  a great tech company which is already   existing and making a lot of money where I  could be incremental but not life changing? 00:12:53:13 - 00:13:27:07 Unknown  It’s a choice. What’s your style but your  game plan? I mean, if you’re going to make   binary bets on novel companies, you have  to understand how risky that is. All right,   so that’s Howard Marks talking to me in  an interview that we had in the middle of   December 2025. And there are lessons here that  I think are both very timely and also timeless,   not least the fact that I think  to be a successful investor,   but also to function in the world, you have  to have tremendous respect for uncertainty. 00:13:27:09 - 00:13:46:12 Unknown  You need to recognize the fact that we really  don’t know that much about the future. As   Howard often says, with something like Covid,  for example, when we talked about it for my   book In the Midst of Covid, he said, we  didn’t even know what could happen, let   alone what would happen. And here we are in this  situation where it’s totally changing our lives. 00:13:46:14 - 00:14:04:11 Unknown  And now, I don’t think we would have guessed  the degree to which that would disappear. And   would no longer be the issue that’s so  defining and frightening in our lives.   And here we are with this new issue of AI,  which we didn’t really talk about that much   a few years ago, trying to figure out  how it’s going to change the world. 00:14:04:17 - 00:14:34:09 Unknown  Which companies are actually going to make money  off it? What it’s going to do to our careers,   how it’s going to affect productivity, what  it’s going to do to consumer prices. And so   I think this basic attitude of just  recognizing the fact that the future   is inherently unpredictable and that you have  to position yourself so that you’ll be okay,   more or less, whatever happens is  a profoundly important attitude   in life and how it often says he belongs  to the, I don’t know, school of thought. 00:14:34:11 - 00:15:11:03 Unknown  You probably have noticed in this clip there’s  a moment right at the start where he says,   in talking about AI and tech, he says, I’m not  an expert. You know, I’m the furthest thing from   an expert. And so he always comes from this  position, I think, of being pretty humble   about his own knowledge of anything. I remember  once when I was talking to him about Bitcoin,   and we were discussing what he had learned  from his son, who’s also a successful investor,   but much more tech savvy, much more of a futurist,  how it just really wanted to emphasize the fact   that he wasn’t qualified to judge things like  cryptocurrencies, that it just it just wasn’t his 00:15:11:03 - 00:15:32:06 Unknown  domain expertise. And so I think this idea of  knowing our limitations is really critical. I   think the last time I interviewed Howard on the  podcast, 2 or 3 years ago, he quoted one of his   favorite movie lines. So he’s quoting lines  from movies. And this was from dirty Harry,   that Clint Eastwood character saying,  a man’s got to know his limitations. 00:15:32:08 - 00:15:52:17 Unknown  So how does he know the direction of  the market? He doesn’t know what AI is   going to do to us. But this doesn’t leave  you powerless. Right. And so this is one   of the keys is in a really uncertain  world. You need to recognize the fact   that you have to set yourself up to survive  uncertainty. But there are things you can do. 00:15:52:17 - 00:16:21:10 Unknown  You can, for example, as as he does, study the  patterns of history. Right? So going back and   studying the nifty 50, which almost ended  his career as an investor back in the late   60s and early 70s, is really instructive for  him. Going back to study the tulip bubble in   17th century Holland is really instructive.  And one of the lessons of those periods is   you want to beware of the expectation that  trees are going to grow to the sky, right? 00:16:21:10 - 00:16:57:23 Unknown  As he puts it. Just beware of this idea  that there’s some sort of irresistible   trend that’s going to lead to surefire profits.  You look at something like Bitcoin over the last   year where Bitcoin after this astronomical rise,  suddenly halved. And I don’t pretend to have any   knowledge at all about where Bitcoin is going.  This is so far beyond my area of expertise,   but I think it’s really important for people  just to know that they don’t want to make one   way bets excessive one way bets on things where  if they’re wrong, it’s going to blow them up. 00:16:58:00 - 00:17:20:06 Unknown  It’s fine to have some ultra aggressive  bats, but you don’t want to bet the house   on an uncertain future, so it’s a matter  of proportion. And so how it’s point. I   think also that you can’t assume that today’s  leaders are going to remain tomorrow’s leaders   is a really important one. And I remember as  a financial journalist back in the late 90s,   you know, at the time you  had these stories in fortune. 00:17:20:06 - 00:17:41:11 Unknown  I remember the great Joe Nocera, one of the  great magazine writers, writing a story about   Yahoo for fortune, where the headline was,  I think, do you believe? And writing about,   you know, all these articles back then about  Myspace and all of the hot leaders like CMG,   you know, these companies that made people just  massively rich and most of them just disappeared. 00:17:41:13 - 00:18:02:13 Unknown  And yet it’s not about being some kind of  pessimist or a nihilist, right? Because I   remember also back in 2017, I think it was  when I was doing one of my interviews with   Howard for the rich, wiser, happier book.  He was deeply wary of the fangs. Right?   So Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google and  the like for exactly this reason, right? 00:18:02:13 - 00:18:25:18 Unknown  Saying trees don’t grow to the sky. And  he was wrong, right? I mean, in this case,   if you were overly conservative, you missed  out on a lot of extraordinary companies. So   this stuff is nuanced. It’s not easy. One of the  key lessons from how it is, is you always want   to be tethering yourself to intrinsic value.  You always want to be asking, is this cheap? 00:18:25:18 - 00:18:47:11 Unknown  As he would often say? How much optimism is  priced into this asset? That’s one of the primary   questions he’s always asking. And their assets  like gold and bitcoin and the like where he’s just   not interested, as he mentioned in this interview  with me, amid the euphoria over gold, he feels   like I can’t calculate its intrinsic value. So,  you know, this just isn’t an investment for me. 00:18:47:13 - 00:19:06:01 Unknown  And it’s how it is said to me in the past.  There are a lot of ways to make money,   right? I mean, he said to me once, anytime  I say that something is not possible,   there is an investor, you know, whether it’s  a Soros or a Druckenmiller. Howard would say,   you know, you can’t predict the future.  And yet here are these guys who have a   history of making extraordinary macro  bets on the direction of the market. 00:19:06:03 - 00:19:26:09 Unknown  So it’s not that you can’t make tons of money  investing in things where you can’t calculate   the intrinsic value, or making directional bets  about the future, or making big binary bets on   novel companies, as he puts it. With some of  these AI companies, you can make a fortune   doing these things, but know what you’re  doing. Know what your risk tolerance is. 00:19:26:11 - 00:19:49:22 Unknown  As Howard said, you have to ask yourself, what’s  your style? What’s your game plan? What’s your   risk posture? And I think this is one of the most  helpful things that I’ve learned from Howard over   the years is this idea of understanding  our own risk posture of saying, well,   okay, so if, if usually on a scale of 0 to 100  miles an hour, I want to drive no more than 65. 00:19:49:24 - 00:20:10:01 Unknown  In the conditions that exist right now, should I  be driving faster or slower than that? For some   people, you know, they’re younger and they  have better prospects and lots of savings,   and they live cheaply. And maybe  they feel they can drive 80 miles   an hour and they’ll survive. For me, I  don’t feel like I can drive 85 anymore. 00:20:10:03 - 00:20:29:16 Unknown  And so I think that’s part of the key to knowing  yourself, knowing your risk tolerance. But then   also there’s something very profound that I’ve  learned from Howard over the years, which is this   idea of accommodating yourself to reality as it  is. So you’re looking at the conditions that are   available to you in this market, and you’re  saying, well, so how much euphoria is there? 00:20:29:18 - 00:20:54:22 Unknown  How much are other people getting carried away?  And then you adjust your own speed based on those   conditions. And so if the conditions are dangerous  because there’s too much euphoria and people are   doing really risky deals, that suggests the  standards have dropped and that people are   not being careful, then make sure you’re wearing  your seatbelt and you’re diversifying properly   and you’re not doing anything that’s  going to knock you out of the game. 00:20:54:24 - 00:21:17:09 Unknown  None of this stuff is really rocket science. And  yet I think it’s enormously important. And for me,   how it just helps me to remain grounded and  centered, reading how it just reminds you to say,   okay, I don’t want to get carried away. I  don’t want to get overemotional. I don’t   want to bet everything on something overly  aggressive that I don’t really understand. 00:21:17:11 - 00:21:41:16 Unknown  I don’t want to push the envelope. So those  are some of the both timeless lessons I think   that he’s discussing in talking about how  to think about AI and what it’ll do to us,   but I think they’re also very timely.  They’re quite practical. I really think   about whether you want to have, as he puts  it, this lottery ticket mentality or whether   you just want to have some exposure to  this because it’s incredibly exciting. 00:21:41:16 - 00:22:01:15 Unknown  It is going to it is going to transform  things. So it’s not about being a scaredy cat,   as he once put it to me, there are times about  how it is extremely aggressive in his investing,   as he was in early 2009. So you  can be very bold when other people   are very risk averse and there are  extraordinary valuations available. 00:22:01:17 - 00:22:39:10 Unknown  But don’t take crazy risk when the  conditions are dangerous and other   people are being reckless. So the next clip  is actually somewhat related. The next clip   is really about how to keep an even keel  emotionally in a world where everything   is so uncertain. So let’s have a listen and  then I’ll share some thoughts of mine as well.   Going back to this general question that  we’ve been discussing about dealing with   risk and dealing with uncertainty, you often  quote one of your favorite adages, which is   from Elroy Simpson, who said, risk means  more things can happen than will happen. 00:22:39:12 - 00:23:08:02 Unknown  And it feels like the range of possible things  that can happen today is wider than it’s been in   the past. And I’m wondering how you deal with it  not only as an investor, but actually personally,   this sense, you know, as you as you talk  to your kids or you talk to your grandkids,   like how one actually keeps an even keel  in a period where you often quote a lovely   line from Peter Bernstein, who said, we  walk every day into the great unknown. 00:23:08:07 - 00:23:32:17 Unknown  How do we deal with it? Well, first of all,  I’ve concluded in the last few months well,   that the toughest questions I get are the ones  you start with. How? Because I can tell you   what you have to do. You have to keep an  even keel. I can tell you that it may be   desirable if you if you want to be, quote,  sane, to have a more defensive portfolio. 00:23:32:19 - 00:23:55:20 Unknown  But how to make that decision and how to keep  an even keel is a little harder. But obviously,   if you let your emotions run away with  you, if you buy when things get exciting,   which usually means when prices are high  and you sell when things get depressing,   which usually means prices are low, it’s  obviously going to be very counterproductive. 00:23:55:22 - 00:24:19:00 Unknown  So I think the even keel is essential. And I  think most of the people that you’ve met with   and written about have a pretty even keel.  So that’s my strongest recommendation. And   this goes back to not being hyperactivity, not  trading, not trading all the time. Don’t just do   something. Sit there. You know, investing  is not a it’s not a fluke that it work. 00:24:19:02 - 00:25:01:13 Unknown  It’s not a pachinko game or a roulette wheel.  It works over time because economies grow and   companies improve their profitability  over time. And the most important thing   for investors is to get on that gravy train  and stay on it. Invest. Invest early. Invest   a lot. And don’t tamper with and having your  your emotions under control is essential if   you’re going to be able to do that last thing  of don’t tamper with it and getting on the   gravy train and staying on it and not tampering  with it is much more important than getting on,   getting off, picking the right times to  get in and pick the right time to get out. 00:25:01:15 - 00:25:23:07 Unknown  Figure exactly the stocks it’ll go up the most  in a volume stock to the public. That’s all kind   of just embroidering around the edges. The most  important thing is to be a long term investor. You   also said to me something that really helped me  in the chapter that I wrote about you in my book,   about just not overreaching, like the big  question being how much you push the envelope. 00:25:23:07 - 00:25:51:15 Unknown  And I, I think that’s another really key  thing is just ensuring survival. But I was   also very struck. You quoted something in  your Risk Revisited again memo from 2015   where you said, in my personal life I tend to  incorporate another of Einstein’s comments,   which is I never think of the future. It  comes soon enough. And I was wondering   whether you were being kind of  facile, a little bit facetious,   or whether actually that is something that helps  you get through uncertainty, that that idea. 00:25:51:17 - 00:26:10:06 Unknown  I’m not a futurist. I don’t think that  my vision of the future is bound to be   more right than anybody else. So no, I don’t  think about it that much. And I just try to   do you know, all these things are a little bit  counterintuitive and a little illogical. I just   try to think of work laboring in the here  and now to buy things that are going to do. 00:26:10:06 - 00:26:31:21 Unknown  Okay. Well, then you say, yeah, but I in  order to know whether someone’s going to   do. Okay. Don’t you at that view of the  future and how well you kind of do but   don’t think you know everything. Don’t  think you have it right. You’ve quoted   Elroy Jensen. The future is not a set  single thing that if you’re smart enough,   you can figure it out what it’s going to be, and  it’s going to materialize and make you right. 00:26:31:23 - 00:26:52:06 Unknown  It’s a probability distribution. It’s a range  of possibilities in each thing, whether it’s GDP   growth next year or inflation next year,  or who’s going to win the next election,   who’s going to win the next World Series or  or, you know, whether we’re going to have   geopolitical peace or any of these things, only  one thing will happen. But many things cannot. 00:26:52:08 - 00:27:17:00 Unknown  And you should accept that. You should accept  that it introduces uncertainty equation,   and you shouldn’t form a certainty around one  outcome and bet heavily on it unless you have   special expertise, which very few people do.  So I think that humility is a great way to   start or jump. And I once wrote in some memo  or other about my favorite fortune cookie. 00:27:17:02 - 00:27:38:03 Unknown  You probably read that one too, but it said that  the cautious, seldom Or write great poetry. Every   person has to decide for themselves. Do I want  to try to write great poetry and get rich if my   bets are right? Or do I want to avoid erring and  be sure that I’ll do okay if my bets are wrong? 00:27:38:05 - 00:27:56:13 Unknown  It’s a choice. You can have both, or  you can try to do both, but you have to   put your emphasis on one or the other, and  you can’t emphasize both at the same time.   And so, you know, this is a matter of  mindset that I think most people should   adopt. And life is uncertain. The future  is uncertain and investing is uncertain. 00:27:56:15 - 00:28:23:16 Unknown  Are you going to go for winners or are you going  to try to avoid losers? All right. That’s Howard   Marks again talking in our interview back in  December. It’s kind of an extraordinary clip.   I think it’s quite easy to miss the relevance  of it, the importance of it. But what strikes   me is that it’s an absolutely remarkable  distillation of practical wisdom from one   of the great investment teachers, as well  as one of the great investors of all time. 00:28:23:18 - 00:28:45:13 Unknown  And so if you actually break it down, there’s  so much incredibly wise, balanced advice here   in such a short space. So if I think back  at some of the things he said that right,   he said be a long term investor, don’t  buy things when things are exciting.   Don’t sell things when you know they’re getting  pummeled. So keep an even keel emotionally. 00:28:45:15 - 00:29:08:23 Unknown  Don’t be hyperactive. Don’t trade all of the  time. Understand that the reason you’ll do   well over time is that economies grow and  companies improve their profitability. So   you’re aligning yourself with this very  powerful force. As economies grow and   companies become more productive, more  profitable. So you want to get on that   gravy train early and then stay  on it and don’t tamper with it. 00:29:09:00 - 00:29:33:16 Unknown  So that requires you to have your emotions under  control because you’re just trying not to mess   with it. And you also at the same time trying  not to overreach and making sure you survive   because you don’t want to knock yourself  out of the game. Because this basic force   that you’re writing is in itself so powerful. So  you don’t actually need to be an outperforming   investor who picks exactly the right stocks  and times the market or anything like that. 00:29:33:16 - 00:29:53:06 Unknown  You need to align yourself with this very  powerful upward trajectory over time, and   not get knocked out of the game. And then I think  there’s that extraordinary admission. He makes it.   He doesn’t really think about the future, really  what he’s doing. And I love this phrase. I think   the exact phrase, as he said, he’s laboring in  the here and now to buy things that will do. 00:29:53:06 - 00:30:32:15 Unknown  Okay. And there’s something  very modest about that. I mean,   the truth is he’s done extraordinarily well. If  I remember rightly, during the financial crisis,   the bets that he and Bruce Cash made  basically made something like $9 billion.   So sometimes it is a little bit more dramatic  than that. But there’s something almost prosaic   about the ability to keep showing up in  the here and now, trying to be sensible,   trying to do the right thing, trying to buy stuff  that’s undervalued, not letting yourself get   carried away by whatever people are overexcited  about, and not getting despondent or fearful   when other people are fearful, and not deluding  yourself into thinking that you know everything. 00:30:32:15 - 00:30:51:03 Unknown  So his basic idea that the future is a  range of possibilities of probabilities,   it’s a probability distribution. It’s also really  important that you have no idea what’s going to   happen with GDP growth or inflation in rates or  elections, or whether there’s going to be war,   peace or pandemics or whatever that is  going to be. And many things can happen. 00:30:51:03 - 00:31:18:08 Unknown  So just because one thing happens doesn’t  mean that that couldn’t have been all of   these other alternative histories. And  so, as he put it, you have to accept that   uncertainty. You have to recognize that this  is the type of world we’re living in and not   delude yourself and take excessive risk.  And I think also that idea that unless   you really have a special expertise, unless  there’s a reason, is that someone said to me,   for you really to believe that you  have an edge, you probably don’t. 00:31:18:08 - 00:31:45:02 Unknown  So don’t bet heavily. And so this idea  that humility is a really vital ingredient   of staying out of trouble is critical to  understand your limitations and stay within   them and to understand it. As Jack Bogle,  the founder of Vanguard, once said to me,   you don’t have to be great, right? You can  still do really well just by getting in early,   early in your life, living within your  means, continuing to add to the pot,   and staying in the game for a very  long time, that’s kind of good enough. 00:31:45:02 - 00:32:16:06 Unknown  You don’t have to be extraordinary.  Also, Howards reminder, I think,   is really important that you need to understand  your own personality and understand whether   what you’re trying to emphasize is getting rich  quickly or whether you want to be more defensive.   So either you’re going for lots of winners or  you’re trying to avoid losers. So self-knowledge,   self-awareness. And so what you’re seeing here  is this really remote distillation of practical   wisdom accrued over many decades of watching  the market, watching people blow themselves up. 00:32:16:08 - 00:32:40:09 Unknown  None of this stuff is really clear cut right?  It’s not, you know, as he said, the how of   these things is difficult, how you actually apply  them. But understanding these basic principles is   so important. And I think just really trying  to pause and internalize this, to understand   what a powerful distillation of, of wisdom he’s  providing us with is just hugely helpful in a way. 00:32:40:09 - 00:33:05:02 Unknown  Like, this is why I say that, how it serves  to ground me. He’s keeping you straight on   the highway so that you don’t blow yourself  up so you don’t do anything to rashly. You   don’t do anything too stupid. And yes, maybe  you’re not going to drive 125 miles an hour   and have the most exciting ride on Earth,  but you’ll make it to your destination if   you follow the kind of time tested, battle  tested principles that he’s talking about. 00:33:05:04 - 00:33:26:08 Unknown  Yeah. So for me, really, the challenge  is not to have my eyes glaze over when I   hear these great true words that often feel  almost platitudinous. It’s really to take   them to heart and live by them. The next clip  we’re going to listen to is from an interview   that I did with a wonderfully thoughtful  young hedge fund manager named Nima Shire. 00:33:26:10 - 00:33:54:19 Unknown  Nimmo runs a small investment firm in California,  which is named Rumi Partners after the 13th   century poet and Sufi mystic Rumi. And like Howard  Nimmo, is trying to penetrate to the essence of   investing. But he does it in a very different way.  Nimmo invest by finding a handful of extraordinary   businesses and trying to understand their deep  essence, and then holding them for a long time. 00:33:54:21 - 00:34:22:02 Unknown  So in this clip, which is relatively long, it’s  about ten minutes, but it’s a beautiful clip and,   it’s just full of insight and wisdom. He’s  talking about the importance of looking   beyond the numbers, looking  beyond what we can quantify,   to see some deeper truth about what makes  things truly exceptional. So anyway,   let’s have a listen. And you went to UCLA  and then studied mathematics and economics. 00:34:22:02 - 00:34:49:15 Unknown  So in some way there was a part of you that  was kind of very left hemisphere oriented,   as you’ve explained it to me in the past and sort  of convinced that if you could master things like   maths and statistics and economics, you’d  have these skill sets to understand reality.   And my sense is that you gradually came  to realize that actually comfort in   numbers and logical reasoning and  the like was not going to cut it. 00:34:49:16 - 00:35:14:13 Unknown  Can you talk a little bit about that evolution,  the way that it’s actually come together? For   me is this idea of branches and roots. Rumi  has this quote that I love where he says,   maybe you’re searching among the branches  for what only appears in the roots.   And I think that that quote has a  lot of significance for investors. 00:35:14:13 - 00:35:36:17 Unknown  And when I just reflect on the investment  industry broadly, I noticed it both in myself,   but I noticed it in the industry in  general. And it’s this idea that if   you can just get more precise, if you can  quantify reality, if you can sort of measure   things. The industry today has swung so  far in the direction of quantification. 00:35:36:17 - 00:36:06:09 Unknown  You see it in expert calls and credit card  data and web scraping technology. We have   these extremely powerful tools today  that can measure and try to predict   what’s going on. But it’s still the case,  as it’s been for much of the last century,   that almost no one compounds capital  at very high returns for all that long,   despite the fancy tools, despite, you know, having  tons of incentives, despite working really hard. 00:36:06:11 - 00:36:30:01 Unknown  It’s just still very difficult. And so I reflect  on this and I wonder, what is it that we’re   missing? What is it that we’re missing? What is it  that I’m missing? Because I started out as being   really technical and really focused on mathematics  and quantification, and everything is about reason   and science and. Sure. But it felt like I was  just lost in the branches and I missed the roots. 00:36:30:03 - 00:37:01:19 Unknown  What are the branches and roots as it relates to  investing? So the branches are what everyone can   see and measure. It’s last quarter’s margins.  It’s this week’s unit growth. It’s next month’s   inflation print. You know, it’s all of these  quantifiable pieces of information that are   devoid of reality, devoid of context. And  so what would be the roots, the roots of a   business or all of these qualitative forces that  are causal to the future economics of a business? 00:37:01:21 - 00:37:29:05 Unknown  You know, Lou Simpson used to always say that all  investing is figuring out the future economics of   a business. And that statement might sound  easy enough to just blow right past it,   but it actually creates an extraordinarily high  bar. Most investors tend to fixate on the current   economics, the current branches. They fixate on  the present reality. But every once in a while,   you can get a really deep sense for what  the future economics of a business might be. 00:37:29:11 - 00:37:49:22 Unknown  And in those cases, it’s usually the case  that you have a sense for the roots. And   so what are the roots? The roots could be  something like the motivation of management,   the culture of the company, the quality of  the product, the alignment with customers.   None of that shows up on any spreadsheet.  You can’t model it. You can’t quantify it. 00:37:49:24 - 00:38:17:11 Unknown  But they’re actually the most real parts of  a business. So the question to me became,   if the roots are what truly matter? Why  isn’t everyone focused on them? And the   challenge from my perspective and actually  the opportunity is that the roots require   some intuition. So it wasn’t all about  getting better at Excel and suggesting   that the stock market investing in  the stock market requires intuition. 00:38:17:13 - 00:38:45:14 Unknown  I think it makes many people uncomfortable  because it feels subjective and it feels   squishy and it feels, you know, very hard to  communicate. But it’s precisely those qualitative,   invisible factors that live upstream from  the financials that everyone else is sort   of focused on. As you mentioned, you  wrote this piece, Roots and Branches,   and I think it was originally a  speech that you gave a Columbia,   maybe in our friend Chris Banks class in 2023,  but then it became a shareholder letter of yours. 00:38:45:14 - 00:39:16:24 Unknown  Sorry. I’ve read it in both  places. And you quoted in there,   I think Robert Percy talking about pre  intellectual awareness and you talked   about this ability to apprehend essence being  supra rational. Can you talk a little bit about   that sense that it’s kind of supra rational,  that there’s something pre intellectual in   it. It’s something I sometimes have  talked about with Chris Bag as well,   that he has this sense that we have an embodied  ability to tell whether something is true or not. 00:39:16:24 - 00:39:39:07 Unknown  Like when you meet a CEO and you’re trying  to decide, do I trust this person? Is this   person actually honorable or not? Yes,  absolutely. I think that in most cases,   the roots of a business are too hard to  tell. It’s not obvious. And I think the   first thing to note is that you only really  want to swing when it’s pretty obvious. 00:39:39:08 - 00:40:08:22 Unknown  In Buffett’s parlance, you know, there’s  no call strikes. But there are some cases   where you can know with some confidence what  the roots of a business are. And in Persian,   we have this very old expression that is  probably more than a thousand years old.   And it is Chashma Down, which literally  translates to eye of the heart. And it’s   this idea that the heart is more than  merely this organ that pumps our blood. 00:40:08:24 - 00:40:37:12 Unknown  It’s actually a faculty of perception, and it’s  capable of grasping non-material truths. And   whether we like it or not, we live in a reality  that’s qualitative. And seeing with a qualitative   perspective is so important. I’ve found in  investing and in terms of the pre intellectual   awareness, sometimes intuition is framed as this  sort of superpower that you have to develop. 00:40:37:14 - 00:41:08:21 Unknown  And I think that it’s less about developing or  sort of achieving a superpower and more about   clearing away everything that’s muddying  our perception. I truly believe that all   human beings have this capability to discern  and perceive non-material qualitative truths.   These are things like trustworthiness and  sincere authority and ambition and beauty.   These are qualities that you can’t  model them, and you can’t quantify them. 00:41:08:21 - 00:41:30:17 Unknown  You can’t measure them. But there’s something  pre intellectual that can actually grasp and   recognize those qualities when you’re in the  face of them. You had a lovely example of this   when we spoke a couple of weeks ago, where  you were talking about the experience of,   I think, going into the mall of a parking lot in  a Tesla and like the full autonomous driving mode. 00:41:30:19 - 00:42:15:10 Unknown  Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah,  I mean, this is actually quite timely because   Lord Tesla got an update just this morning and I  was out, you know, testing it. It’s version 14.2,   which is the latest update that the company has  rolled out. It’s hard to explain what makes this   product special, but overwhelmingly,  when I take my in-laws for a ride,   my parents or friends who are not familiar,  there’s this kind of moment of all in the example   that I was talking about before was that we were  driving to Costco one evening and, you know, I’d   click the button in the car and it’s navigating  through all of these construction zones, and it 00:42:15:10 - 00:42:34:06 Unknown  pulls over for emergency vehicles, and it gets  on the highway and it gets off the highway. I   haven’t touched the steering wheel or pedals the  whole ride, and then it pulls into the parking lot   of Costco, and there’s plenty of open spaces, but  it decides I’m going to skip these open spaces,   and I’m going to go a little further and  see if I can find an even better spot. 00:42:34:08 - 00:42:59:05 Unknown  And then it just pulls in perfectly and it stops.  It finds its own parking spot. And I’m thinking,   this is almost a miracle that this  exists. And very few people I think,   understand the power of that technology  without having felt, had a direct perception   of it themselves. And I think that that is one  example of coming face to face with quality. 00:42:59:07 - 00:43:24:23 Unknown  There’s plenty of other examples, I’m sure.  The first time that we all touched an iPhone,   we thought, this is some incredible black magic.  And the first time you got same day delivery from   Amazon, where you order a book and it shows  up to your doorstep in two hours. You know,   some of these customer experiences. It’s  worth just listening to them because they   tell you something about the quality  of what’s leading to that experience. 00:43:25:00 - 00:43:49:02 Unknown  You had a lovely word for it that you  mentioned a while back that you and a friend,   an investor friend, had talked about the  quality of blown away ness. Yes, yes,   blown away at us. Is that that experience  that I’m referring to? And unfortunately,   it’s not an industry term that  you can quantify one out of ten,   but I think it tells you a lot about the  quality of something that you’re encountering. 00:43:49:04 - 00:44:15:10 Unknown  And it’s anything as simple as, you know, your  favorite restaurant. You have a perception that   tells you when the quality of that restaurant has  either improved or deteriorated. There’s something   within you that knows, and oftentimes  it’s emotional. It’s physiological. We   all have this commonly held dogma that  you’re supposed to turn off your emotions   when you’re an investor, and I’m not  sure that that’s that’s always right. 00:44:15:12 - 00:44:37:10 Unknown  I love this clip from my conversation with  Michelle, because I think for one thing,   it gives you a sense of the great richness of  investing that it’s not just about the numbers.   Yes, the numbers are important. As Terry  Smith, one of the great British investors,   said to me a while back, he’s  always amazed that people don’t   actually get really proficient at  understanding a company’s accounts. 00:44:37:12 - 00:45:06:03 Unknown  And he was shocked when he discovered some  enormous mistake in the accounts of IBM many   years ago. So yes, you need to understand  the numbers, but there’s a kind of depth   and beauty to figuring out how to invest that  goes way beyond the numbers. And I think Nima   is looking at it at a deep truth here, when  he’s looking for companies that embody quality,   that embody something that you can’t  really express in spreadsheets. 00:45:06:06 - 00:45:37:23 Unknown  And it reminds me of a comment that  my friend Jen Liao made when we first   had lunch together a few years ago, when  he said, quality has its own frequency.   And I came up in goosebumps when he said  that, which I always think is a way that my   body has of telling me that something’s deeply  true. And so I think this issue of looking for   quality and being able to appreciate  quality, maybe even physiologically,   that it actually has a physical impact on us,  we feel it in our body is really profound. 00:45:38:04 - 00:46:04:05 Unknown  The role of intuition in investing in life is a  complex one, an interesting one. But I, I guess   I’m sort of deeply influenced by David Hawkins,  who has this sense that certain things make you go   strong and other things make you go weak when when  you are in the presence of them. And also, Robert   Percy, who wrote sand in the Art of Motorcycle  Maintenance, he would talk about how there’s a an   ugly way of doing things and a beautiful way of  doing things, and that you sense the difference. 00:46:04:05 - 00:46:36:23 Unknown  And when you’re when you’re in the presence  of something that’s beautifully made,   it makes you feel different than when you’re  in the presence of something that’s slapdash.   And so I think Nehme is on to something  really important here about tuning in to   how products make us feel, to how we feel  in the presence of a CEO or an investor,   whether we trust them, whether as you invest  in a company and you get to know it better,   you want to invest more with it, how it makes  you feel, how the product makes you feel. 00:46:37:00 - 00:47:04:17 Unknown  It’s very consistent. I think the approach  that Numerai is taking, it’s very consistent   with the approach that Nick sleep in case  Zakaria took, which I wrote about in richer,   wiser, happier and in chapter six, where they  really focused on just a handful of companies   that embodied quality, really inspired by Zen  and the Art of motorcycle maintenance. This   idea that the businesses themselves should, for  example, be super long term in their perspective. 00:47:04:17 - 00:47:33:02 Unknown  They shouldn’t just be trying to please  Wall Street with its ridiculous obsession   with short term profits, right? They should  be building a moat over the long term. They   focused very much on on this one business  model. In the end, right scale economies   shared where these companies that were very  long term, like Amazon, Costco and Berkshire,   they would gain in strength as they became  bigger because they would take the economies   of scale and they would share them with their  customers to give them an even better deal. 00:47:33:07 - 00:47:59:00 Unknown  As you see, with something like Amazon Prime  or Costco constantly. And the way they,   they keep their costs down and just give  you better and better products. It didn’t   surprise me after this podcast came out,  that people who appreciate this way of   thinking responded so warmly to it, but  I was really surprised and joyful when I   got an email from Nick sleep saying that he  just listened to the interview with Nema. 00:47:59:02 - 00:48:31:03 Unknown  He said, what a super fellow spot on! And he said  of all the folks you’ve interviewed, he may be the   closest DNA wise to doing what Zach and I did,  except that he’s so much younger than we are,   which is rather humbling. So I think this is  getting at something really important, right?   This idea of looking for a few great businesses  that have these kind of intangible qualities   that you sense, you sense whether they really  care about their customers, you sense whether   the management is honorable and is thinking in  the long term in the way they allocate capital. 00:48:31:05 - 00:49:01:12 Unknown  And part of what was interesting in in my email  exchange with Nick sleep is that he said this,   this kind of long term way of thinking, which is  very much how Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger   thought should have been arbitrage edged out by  the markets. But as Nick pointed out, that his tax   returns after they’ve closed Nomad have continued  to be the same basically as they were when Nomad   was open, just by continuing to own Amazon,  Costco and Berkshire’s that main investments. 00:49:01:14 - 00:49:21:16 Unknown  And so, he said a lot of this advantage  basically can be attributed to time   preferences. And so the fact that these guys  are investing in this very long term way,   looking for a few great businesses that  in some sense make you go strong because   they’re looking at the right things, that  thinking long term, I think is quite profound. 00:49:21:18 - 00:49:49:21 Unknown  But as Nema says, you’re having to grasp  non-material quality to truths like is   management trustworthy? Are they sincere?  These things that you can’t really measure   or quantify? And it reminds me also  something that Arnold Sandberg said   to me a while back where he was talking about  his remarkable wife, Eileen, and he said that   Eileen listens with her heart, and it reminds  me of the comment that Nima talked about. 00:49:50:01 - 00:50:17:02 Unknown  He quoted Rumi saying that the soul has been given  its own ears to hear things that the mind does not   understand. So it’s a thought provoking idea. I  think that we want to go beyond just the numbers,   to focus on this slightly nebulous sense  of quality, of blown awareness of things   that you can’t quantify, things that just  give you a particular emotional reaction. 00:50:17:04 - 00:50:41:13 Unknown  And I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m not  particularly good with numbers. So I’m extremely   drawn to this approach. And so I find myself  with the people I, I end up investing with,   the people I trust, the people I like, the  people I feel I want to have in my life. And   so I’ve learned to take this feeling of quality  and integrity and decency more and more seriously. 00:50:41:15 - 00:51:11:21 Unknown  The next clip that we’re going to listen  to is about one of the great long term   investors. And this is Lou Simpson,  who had an extraordinary record and   was hailed by Buffett as one of the greats.  And he’s the person who really mentored and   taught Nima. And so listening to Nima talking  about what made The Simpsons so extraordinary,   I think is very, very instructive about  how to invest for the long term wisely. 00:51:11:23 - 00:51:15:04  Unknown So let’s listen. 00:51:15:06 - 00:51:37:20 Unknown  I want to go back and talk him in much more  detail about Lou Simpson, who’s clearly been,   in many ways, the formative influence in your  life as an investor. And so you moved to Naples,   Florida in, I think, 2016 and worked until  2019 with Lou at his firm as cue advisors.   And for people who don’t know,  who’ve just heard us mentioning him. 00:51:37:22 - 00:52:05:20 Unknown  Lou was head of investments for Geico,  this auto insurance company that’s now   owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Completely.  And he was there for 31 years, I think,   from 1979 to 2010, and crushed the market  over that period by a huge margin. And you   recommended to me a book that I read a chapter  on, Lou yesterday, a book by your friend Bonello   on Concentrated Investing, where he talks about  the circumstances when Bassett first hired him. 00:52:05:22 - 00:52:36:13 Unknown  I’m Buffett said after meeting him, asked him  about his personal portfolio and then after   meeting him, said something like, stop the music.  We found our guy. And he later said, simply put,   Lou is one of the investment greats. This is from  a letter I think, that Buffett wrote in 2010.   Tell us about what it was like when you first  met Lou, because in some ways, the culture that   he created was diametrically the opposite  of the culture that you had seen at Pimco. 00:52:36:15 - 00:53:03:19 Unknown  And this isn’t a criticism of Pimco.  It’s just he embodied something very,   very different. Are you looking to connect with  high quality people in the value investing world?   Beyond hosting this podcast, I also help  run our Tip Mastermind community, a private   group designed for serious investors inside  yummy, vetted members who are entrepreneurs,   private investors, and asset managers people who  understand your journey and can help you grow. 00:53:03:23 - 00:53:27:14 Unknown  Each week, we host live calls where  members share insights, strategies,   and experiences. Our members are often  surprised to learn that our community is   not just about finding the next stock pick, but  also sharing lessons on how to live a good life.   We certainly do not have all the  answers, but many members have   likely faced similar challenges to yours,  and our community does not just live online. 00:53:27:16 - 00:53:51:02 Unknown  Each year we gather in Omaha and New York  City, giving you the chance to build deeper,   more meaningful relationships  in person. One member told me   that being a part of this group has  helped him not just as an investor,   but as a person looking for a thoughtful  approach to balancing wealth and happiness.   We’re tapping the group at 150 members, and  we’re looking to fill just five spots this month. 00:53:51:07 - 00:54:20:08 Unknown  So if this sounds interesting to you, you  can learn more and sign up for the waitlist   at the Investors podcast.com/mastermind.  That’s the investor’s podcast.com/mastermind.   Or feel free to email me directly at  Clay at the Investors podcast.com.   If you enjoy excellent breakdowns  on individual stocks, then you need   to check out the Intrinsic Value podcast,  hosted by Sean O’Malley and Daniel Manca. 00:54:20:10 - 00:54:45:22 Unknown  Each week, Sean and Daniel do in-depth  analysis on a company’s business model   and competitive advantages, and in real  time, they build out the intrinsic value   portfolio for you to follow along as they  search for value in the market. So far,   they’ve done analysis on great businesses like  John Deere, Ulta Beauty, AutoZone, and Airbnb.   And I recommend starting with the episode on  Nintendo, the global powerhouse in gaming. 00:54:45:24 - 00:55:06:08 Unknown  It’s rare to find a show that  consistently publishes high quality,   comprehensive deep dives. They cover  all of the aspects of a business from   an investment perspective. Go follow the  Intrinsic Value podcast on your favorite   podcasting app and discover the next stock  to add to your portfolio or watch list. 00:55:06:10 - 00:55:32:08 Unknown  Every time I think of Lou. The memory that  always comes is the first time that we met,   and I was in my mid-twenties at the  time. And, you know, as you mentioned,   I was working at a more or less traditional  investment firm, which was Pimco. And I remember   the energy that I carried with me at my first  job was this sort of over analytical habit. 00:55:32:10 - 00:56:01:06 Unknown  They had this formality, this intensity. And  when I arrived in Chicago to meet with Lou   for the first time, I carried a lot of  that energy with me. The context of our   meeting was actually to discuss a company  that I thought he might be interested in,   and in my mind, I imagined this very  intimidating investment legend was   going to rigorously cross-examine, you know,  every little detail of my investment thesis. 00:56:01:08 - 00:56:25:04 Unknown  And so, mostly out of insecurity, I lugged  along with me to Chicago this very thick stack   of research material with charts and valuations  and and everything. You know, I was ready. I was   sort of ready to go to battle, intellectually  speaking. And I remember stepping into the   elevator with my suit and pile on and, you know,  your heart’s beating a little faster than usual. 00:56:25:04 - 00:56:51:20 Unknown  And I lugged along my data points with me and my  my thick stack of research and it’s one of those   long elevator rides of where your ears are sort  of popping along the way. And I remember thinking,   I’m going to be met by an assistant or ushered  into some kind of waiting area and instead,   you know, the door’s open and it’s just  Lew himself standing in the hallway,   very unassuming, no formality, no pretension. 00:56:51:22 - 00:57:16:07 Unknown  And he led me into an office that was really the  polar opposite of the office that I had just been   in. You know, the day before, there were no  Bloomberg terminals there was no financial   TV on. It was like the library of a scholar,  you know, a comfortable chair, a couple piles   of reading material, and there’s just very  calm presence that immediately struck me. 00:57:16:09 - 00:57:42:16 Unknown  And he looked at me as he led me inside and he  said, you know, make yourself at home. Let me make   you a coffee. And I remember that that line just  sort of stopped me in my tracks, because here was   someone who had compounded capital at world class  rates for decades, or someone who Warren Buffett   had praised many times over the years, and someone  that I had been studying from afar since college. 00:57:42:18 - 00:58:10:06 Unknown  You know, my idea of passing time between  classes in college was to pull up an old   Berkshire Hathaway 13 F, and in some of those  early years, you could actually scan down and   see which holdings belonged to you and which  holdings belong to Warren. And so I would sit   there at the UCLA coffee shop trying to reverse  engineer why Lou bought Freddie Mac or Moody’s,   why he bought Nike in the early 90s  and held it for 20 years or more. 00:58:10:08 - 00:58:33:02 Unknown  And now here he was, this person behind these  decisions, stepping away to make coffee for it.   Probably visibly nervous, 20 something year  old kid who hadn’t done anything yet and who   was so early in his compounding journey. And I  remember thinking to myself, you know, I should   be making you the coffee. And when he returned,  he didn’t launch into some kind of monologue. 00:58:33:08 - 00:58:58:15 Unknown  He didn’t try to assert how smart he was.  He would ask these questions with this very   sincere curiosity. And it was this remarkable  receptiveness for someone with his experience   and with his reputation. And, you know, that  first meeting left such a deep imprint on me   because it kind of opened a window that there  was just a different way of being in this work. 00:58:58:17 - 00:59:34:12 Unknown  It didn’t have to be this hard charging, zero sum  way of operating, this kind of hyperactive way of   operating. Lou carried himself with remarkably  little ego, and that was so different from the   archetype of person that you typically run  into in the investment world. You know,   the normal experiences that you come across,  folks who are very bright, very hardworking,   but for whatever reason, they insist on puffing  up their accomplishments and telling you all about   their most recent investment win and their assets  under management and all this sort of thing. 00:59:34:14 - 01:00:03:11 Unknown  And Lou was just so different from this. Some  of his most extraordinary achievements were   just sort of slip out accidentally.  After having known him for years,   he seemed deliberately uninterested in indulging  that kind of self-congratulation ery aspect of   himself. He was quick to say, I don’t know,  you know, when someone would disagree with   him or challenge one of his beliefs on  a company, he wouldn’t get defensive. 01:00:03:11 - 01:00:26:01 Unknown  He would simply say, yeah, you know, maybe  you’re right. I should think about that more.   And I truly believe that his humility was,  you know, his lack of egoism was the reason   why he was a good investor, was a big reason  why he was a good investor, because it gave   him a clearer perception of reality. The  one conversation that I ever had with him. 01:00:26:01 - 01:00:49:02 Unknown  I think I may have told you this before. This was  when I had a zoom breakfast with Charlie Munger,   and a few people like Lou were on the call  and Lou already passed in 2022. So already   obviously pretty unwell, I think. And he  was so lovely on the call. And it was a   very it was a very strange call because I  was told, oh, well, our homework is going   to be to study your book, Rachel, why  he’s happier and then we’ll discuss it. 01:00:49:08 - 01:01:04:14 Unknown  So I’m in this sort of embarrassing position  where it’s like, oh, here I am. I got to teach   Lou and Charlie about how to invest.  And there was a moment where someone,   you know, Charlie was very dominant through the  conversation. And then someone turned to Lou   and said, what do you think of the book?  Lou? And Lou was really lovely about it. 01:01:04:14 - 01:01:23:23 Unknown  Like very, very polite and charming and  said how helpful it is to have stories   of great events. That’s like as we  learn through stories. And then we   were talking about Alibaba, which he and  Charlie had just been buying. And there,   you know, Charlie had been saying, oh,  I’m all in. And Lou said something like,   well, I just bought it yesterday, so  it’s bound to go down 50% immediately. 01:01:24:00 - 01:01:42:01 Unknown  And there was something sort of so  self-deprecating about it, like he   wasn’t there to tell you. I just bought it, you  know, and I asked him, why? Why did you buy it?   And he was saying, well, you know, it’s a it’s  a dominant business in a fast growing country,   and it’s extraordinarily cheap. But it  was funny because it did go down 50%. 01:01:42:03 - 01:02:10:02 Unknown  And in a way, it was a very typical of him, that  he was so humble and self-deprecating and in a   way, maybe it was also a recognition of the  fact it’s a really hard game. You are going   to go through these periods where just stuff  happens. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it brings   to mind a friend of mine offered me a definition  of humility that I think is remarkably precise. 01:02:10:02 - 01:02:39:10 Unknown  I think it’s the best definition of humility  that exists, he said that humility is the   awareness. It’s your awareness of your  utter dependance on all that exists and   your interdependence on everyone around you.  And the opposite of humility, of course,   is like a self-centered perspective  to think that we did it all alone,   that we’re the ones in control, that clouds  your perception, it distorts your judgment. 01:02:39:12 - 01:02:58:17 Unknown  And this dynamic was so clear when  Lou talked about his portfolio,   when everyone else would pitch their great  ideas, Lou would say things like, you know,   I think the portfolio is just, okay, maybe  it’s a little tired. And this is, you know,   this is one of the best investors of all time.  And he’s just sort of ho hum about his portfolio. 01:02:58:17 - 01:03:26:01 Unknown  Whereas if you went into the Monday morning  meeting of many large investment firms,   you would hear people pounding the  table on probably mediocre ideas in many   cases. And I think there’s something that’s  objective about his humility. It allows you   to see things clearly and his humility wasn’t  performative. It wasn’t like this inauthentic,   humble bragging. It came from a real  awareness in how little we actually control. 01:03:26:03 - 01:03:57:12 Unknown  And I think Buffett’s lied  about the overrated lottery,   I think captures that spirit so well. We  all like to believe that we are the sole   card of our own success, that things are  so deterministic, but in truth, you know,   so much of anything that goes right in life, in  investing is really just the beneficence of life.   There’s a really lovely line also in our  own banal book I remember seeing before,   many years ago from Lou, where he said, we are  sort of the polar opposites of a lot of investors. 01:03:57:12 - 01:04:21:06 Unknown  We do a lot of thinking and not a lot of acting.  A lot of investors do a lot of acting and not   a lot of thinking. And I’m wondering what you  learned from him about the importance of detaching   ourselves from the noise and distractions and  the kind of casino element of Wall Street.   Yes. Loot lived a pretty balanced  life in the years that I knew him. 01:04:21:08 - 01:04:42:13 Unknown  He would read broadly. He had this  amazing sense of humor. You know,   he would make it a priority to exercise in the  mornings. He would go for a long walk, or he   would go for a swim. I remember on one occasion  it was definitely in the middle of the week,   and I think the market was open, and I think  our portfolio was probably down quite a bit. 01:04:42:13 - 01:05:02:12 Unknown  That day, and he just called me up and he said,  you know, there’s this new exhibition at MoMA   in Chicago. Do you want to go with me? Is great.  And we just spent the afternoon wandering around,   you know, looking at art. And, you know,  this is this is very different from the   kind of experience that you might  have at many, many investment firms. 01:05:02:14 - 01:05:31:18 Unknown  You know, I won’t claim to have all the answers  about this, but what I do know is that if you   intend to have a long term investment journey and  you have surrendered to a lot of this volatility,   I know that if you’re constantly sprinting  and you’re always wired and you’re reactive   to every little data point and you’re  just staring at ticks on a screen,   maybe that will help your results for the  next month or two months or six months,   but over the long term, it will  completely destroy your health. 01:05:31:20 - 01:05:56:11 Unknown  It will destroy your physical and mental  health. It will strain your relationships,   and ironically, it will make the investment  decisions worse at some point. And it’s   sort of perverse that the harder you  push, the harder you try at investing,   the shorter your runway. And in the end,  compounding is all about the number of   years. And so I think creating space in your  life is something that I learned from him. 01:05:56:11 - 01:06:24:02 Unknown  And something that’s invaluable. So much of modern  investing is preparing a memo or updating a model.   You know, there’s so much reactivity. And to his  point, you know, so little time is intentionally   devoted to reflection. And it’s not intuitive for  most people to think that going for a walk may be   better for your portfolio. Then, you know,  adding another scenario to your Excel model. 01:06:24:04 - 01:06:59:21 Unknown  That’s Neema Shea talking about the great Lew  Simpson man. There’s so many lessons here that   it’s hard to know where to stop, but I’ll just  focus quickly on a couple of them. The first,   obviously, is the importance of humility again,  which is something that we discussed about Howard   Marks, this willingness to admit how little we  really know, to admit that maybe we’re wrong,   to be open to other people’s views, to  dissenting opinions and dis confirming   evidence, and that this is not only a virtue  in life, but is actually a virtue in investing. 01:06:59:21 - 01:07:21:20 Unknown  This ability to, to have a kind of lack of ego.  But I, I do think it’s really important in life   as well. And I remember many years ago, I was  thinking of this as I was listening to this clip   again just now, someone I used to work with, who’s  a really superb writer, had done a stint at one of   the biggest investment firms where he had helped  a famous investor write his shareholder letters. 01:07:21:22 - 01:07:47:22 Unknown  And I remember him saying to me that the first  time he met this famous investor who was managing   one of the biggest funds in the world, the guy  swung a baseball bat in his office so that it   kind of nearly hit him. So it was scary, and it  was just kind of a really unpleasant thing to   do. This writer told me I’m specifically  not naming names, but the writer told me   this because the successor to that famous  investor behaved in such a different way. 01:07:47:22 - 01:08:24:14 Unknown  He was such a decent guy. And so, I don’t  know, I, I love hearing about this humility,   and I certainly saw it in that zoom call  that I had with Lou and and Charlie. Like,   it just I had this kindly manner. The other  point I wanted to emphasize, which is something   that I think comes through really clearly  from Nemo’s description of Lou’s lifestyle,   is, I see and so many of the best investors,  that they live in this counter-cultural way,   that they’re detaching themselves from the  crowd physically, intellectually, emotionally. 01:08:24:16 - 01:08:47:01 Unknown  They’re setting themselves up to kind of  remove from society so that they’re thinking   for themselves that reading a lot, they’re  exercising, they’re studying, they’re not   reacting to every zig and zag of the market on  that Bloomberg terminal. And they’re not trying   constantly to predict what’s going to happen next  to the market and the economy or to stock prices. 01:08:47:01 - 01:09:12:15 Unknown  And I remember Nick sleep talking derisively to  me once about that tendency to engage in wiggle   guessing, as he called it. And so I think  in Nemo’s description of Lou’s lifestyle,   you get this sense that there  is an advantage as an investor,   but also in terms of the quality  of your life, having a slower,   slightly more thoughtful lifestyle where  you’re really focusing on what matters. 01:09:12:15 - 01:09:31:03 Unknown  And I realize that for the last few years,  I’ve often talked about this question of   what it is that you’re optimizing for. And I  realized that I’ve actually stolen the idea   from probably my first conversation with Nomura  a few years ago, because he repeats the idea,   the wording in this conversation that he’s  always thinking about what he’s optimizing for. 01:09:31:05 - 01:09:56:23 Unknown  And so when Nemo was setting  up this company, Rumi Partners,   and he asked Lou for advice, Lou  was very clear in saying to him,   look, focus on performing well. Don’t worry about  things like raising as much capital as possible.   And Nomura is very clear that he’s not  optimizing for managing a huge fund,   or managing lots of people, or a big team, or  fundraising or doing lots of administrative stuff. 01:09:57:00 - 01:10:34:01 Unknown  He’s created this very simple lifestyle  where he owns fewer than ten stocks, and   he’s basically just spending his time analyzing  businesses, looking for 1 or 2 new ideas a year.   And there’s lots of time for reflection, lots of  time for thinking about the best business models,   thinking without distraction about great  businesses. And so when I look at these   great investors, the ones who inspire me  most in many ways are not the ones who are   like these adrenaline junkies who are running as  fast as they can, trying to beat the market by,   you know, getting an edge where they’re  trading a few seconds before anyone else. 01:10:34:03 - 01:10:57:03 Unknown  It’s these people who are really thoughtful in  looking for great businesses and understanding,   as Lou Simpson often talked about, just  understanding the future economics of a   business, which you can’t do with that many  companies. But sometimes, sometimes you can.   Sometimes there is some clarity. In a way,  it’s all about focusing on what matters most,   focusing on what’s essential, which is something  that Howard Marks has a gift for as well. 01:10:57:03 - 01:11:19:13 Unknown  Right. This distillation of wisdom. So you  focus on what really matters, on what’s really   essential. So I think for me, that’s part of  the inspiration here. When I listened to Nemo,   talking about Lou Simpson is it creates a kind  of yearning in me to have a less superficial   life, a less speedy life. And it’s difficult  because I’m always piling more stuff on myself. 01:11:19:13 - 01:11:41:23 Unknown  And I’m sure you feel the same, that we’re all  overburdened and overstretched in so many ways.   But I feel like listening to Nemo talk about  Lou Simpson, it makes me want to have a little   bit more of a spacious life and to have the  time to think. And the more, the more people,   you know, getting very superficial  quick answers from ChatGPT and the like. 01:11:42:00 - 01:12:18:24 Unknown  It’s interesting to me to focus on these people  who were thinking about the long time, who are   reading books, who are thinking about the essence  of great businesses, the fact that Nemo can quote   the poet Rumi left, right and center. And he’s  really drawing on centuries old Sufi wisdom from   this great thinker. That’s a really wonderful  advantage. I see the same thing with Bill Miller,   who emailed me the other day about various books  that he’s been reading, and he’s creating AI has   been creating an end of life book list because,  you know, in typically pragmatic fashion,   he’s like, well, this is probably the amount of  time I have left in life because, you know, you 01:12:18:24 - 01:12:42:23 Unknown  never know how long you have. But this is probably  the number of books that I can read. And so he   plans to read 40 bucks a year for the next decade.  And I love that. The fact that one of the greatest   investors of our generation is finding the  time to read 40 bucks a year, and he’s sort of   slightly aghast when he looks back at a year and  he’s like, well, I only read 24 that year, but,   one of them was Anna Karenina, which is  really long, so that kind of counts as two. 01:12:43:00 - 01:13:01:17 Unknown  And so I think in a way, when I think  about these people like Bill Miller,   the Simpson or Nimah or Howard Marks, it makes  me want to be more patient, more thoughtful,   less rushed, less superficial. So lead  a little bit of a quieter life, right? I   remember once when I was working on the  book, I went to interview Paul Isaacs. 01:13:01:17 - 01:13:29:13 Unknown  Great investor, really smart guy, who’s very  close to Jim Grant. And his office was just like   a library. It was just so quiet, so peaceful. And  I, I think that’s a great advantage in many ways.   And so this isn’t about ego and speed and noise  and hyperactivity and self-congratulation and   bluster. Often the thing that actually leads to  success in investing is something much quieter. 01:13:29:15 - 01:13:50:18 Unknown  You know, these qualities like humility and  decency and the like. And and that very much   strikes me when I think about the one encounter  that I had with Lou Simpson on that zoom call,   my enduring memory of him, my  impressionistic memory of him,   is of this humility and decency and kindness.  He came across as a good human being. 01:13:50:18 - 01:14:14:18 Unknown  He was, you know, so flattering about  my book, but I couldn’t really tell if   he truly meant or if he was just being kind,  because you, you know, if he didn’t like it,   I’m sure he would have said something nice about  it too. And looking back, I can see because   it wasn’t that long before he passed away.  That zoom call, I don’t think he felt well,   I think he left a little bit early, but he seemed  like a gentle soul, a decent, a decent person. 01:14:14:18 - 01:14:38:00 Unknown  And so it kind of makes you want to be more like  someone like that. So I’m really grateful to   Nima for talking about what it was like working  for one of these giants of the investing world,   because I think it gives us a really rich sense  of what works and what created enduring success,   and also why Warren Buffett would  have been so enamored of Lou. 01:14:38:04 - 01:15:01:15 Unknown  You can see the qualities, the decency and the  talent and the lack of ego of this guy. Why   that would appeal to Warren, and I’m grateful to  have met him. So, yeah. So that’s the great Lou   Simpson. Finally, before we wrap this up, I wanted  to share a few personal thoughts of my own. I’ve   noticed lately that this has been a particularly  challenging time for a lot of people I’m close to. 01:15:01:17 - 01:15:25:12 Unknown  I know that it’s difficult for many parts of  the world in terms of wars and geopolitics and   economics and politics and the like, but I’m also  just seeing lots of personal suffering. You know,   people with health challenges, mental health  challenges, financial setbacks and the like.   And I don’t know, I’m feeling it. I’m feeling  it myself that it’s just a it’s been a very   challenging year, not a bad year, but a  really challenging year for me already. 01:15:25:14 - 01:15:47:12 Unknown  And so for various reasons, I started to go back  to some of the stoic philosophy that I’d studied   many years ago because Bill Miller, who had  talked to me about this back when I was first   writing about him about 25 years ago, and then we  talked about it again after the financial crisis,   when he had been drawing on stoic philosophers  like Epictetus and Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. 01:15:47:14 - 01:16:08:16 Unknown  And he had also read this book  by Vice-Admiral Stockdale,   called thoughts of a Philosophical  Fighter Pilot. And so I went back   recently and I did a kind of deep dive,  and I reread that book by Stockdale and I,   I started digging back into Epictetus. And these  are people that I’d written about in the epilog   of my book when I’ve been writing about Bill  Miller, and I found it incredibly helpful. 01:16:08:17 - 01:16:36:11 Unknown  I, I have this small group of friends along  the path, which is a group of people from   last years rich, wiser, happier, master  class. And and so I talk to them a lot   about this. And so this has been very much  on my mind, this whole issue of what we can   learn from people like Epictetus. And I just  want to share a couple of thoughts and quotes   and observations in case this is helpful for  you, as it’s been for me, because I think I   think people like Epictetus were remarkable  at figuring out how to deal with suffering. 01:16:36:13 - 01:16:54:04 Unknown  If I remember rightly, this is that’s part  of a couple of thousand years ago. But he   was born into slavery, and he had a  cruel master who basically crippled   him. And then he ends up in the court  of Nero, the Emperor. And so, you know,   he witnessed all sorts of depravity and  difficulty and had lots of personal suffering. 01:16:54:04 - 01:17:13:23 Unknown  And so he came by this philosophy of stoicism,  really partly through personal experience,   figuring out how to deal with  all of the suffering himself.   And so when I talked many years ago to Bill Miller  about stoicism and what he had learned from it   that had helped him, he summed up the essence  of that kind of beautifully. The chief lesson. 01:17:13:23 - 01:17:33:09 Unknown  This is a quote from Bill. He said to me,  there’s the lessons of stoicism, where in   essence, you can’t control what other people are  going to say about you, think about you, whatever.   You just control your reactions. So if you let  other people determine whether you are going to   be unhappy or happy or your physical condition,  you can’t even do anything about that sometimes. 01:17:33:09 - 01:18:03:04 Unknown  So you only want to focus on what you can  control as opposed to what happens to you.   That’s important. And Bill has this ability to get  at the essence of things. And so for him as a fund   manager, after the difficulties of the financial  crisis, one of the things he said to me is, is,   look, the big thing is understanding that  if you keep yourself focused on trying to   add value to clients, every month, and that’s  what I’m focused on, I’m not focused on what   some people are saying that you should do it this  way or that way is like, that’s really the key. 01:18:03:04 - 01:18:21:22 Unknown  It’s just it’s just focusing on trying  to add value to clients every month. And   so this idea of simply focusing on what you  can and can’t control is really important. So   Epictetus says a lovely line from him that  I think I quote in the book where he said,   for it is within you that both your  destruction annual deliverance lie. 01:18:21:24 - 01:18:57:01 Unknown  So it’s up to us to some degree. You know, we  can’t control all of the external circumstances.   We live in an uncertain world where stuff  sometimes goes wrong. And this had a huge impact   on James Stockdale, author of that book, Thought  So versatile fighter pilot, because Stockdale was   shot down above Vietnam and had to eject from his  plane as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War,   and he said something along the lines of, if I  remember rightly, as he ejected from the plane,   he said to himself, I’m leaving the world  of technology and entering the world of   Epictetus because he knew he was going to spend  the next few years basically in prison and being 01:18:57:01 - 01:19:21:11 Unknown  tortured and he was he spent something  like seven and a half years in prison   in desperate conditions, several years in,  like, chained, several years in isolation.   And he was tortured something like 15 times.  And so when he talked about what he’d learned   from Epictetus, he said, and this is an exact  quote he said, each individual brings about his   own good and his own evil, his good fortune, his  ill fortune, his happiness and his wretchedness. 01:19:21:13 - 01:19:42:12 Unknown  You can only be a victim of yourself. It’s all how  you discipline your mind. So he said, the point,   then, is to do nothing shameful, nothing  unworthy of yourself. Because if you do,   and you are in any way honorable, it will  haunt you and corrode your will. And he said,   these are simple, but very true,  very powerful, very important facts. 01:19:42:14 - 01:20:10:24 Unknown  So he ends, he continues this quote.  He says, resolve to stand for what   is worthy of us to live so that our  own best conscience is not offended.   So I love that this idea that, you know, you  have to really distinguish between what you   can and can’t control. And so for Epictetus and  for Stockdale, a lot of it was about protecting   what they would call the inner man, you know,  making sure that the inner man was preserved,   that there was still a sense of inner  honor in the way that you behaved. 01:20:11:01 - 01:20:47:06 Unknown  Right? Moral purpose, as Epictetus would say. And  I think my single favorite quote from Epictetus,   which I’ll read you, which I had never  noticed before I did this recent deep   for a medium deep or shallow dive is he said  this. He said, remember, you are an actor in a   drama of such sort as the author chooses.  If short, then in a short one, if long,   then in the long run, if it be his pleasure  that you should enact a poor man, or a cripple,   or a ruler, see that you act it well, for this  is your business to act well the given pot. 01:20:47:08 - 01:21:05:02 Unknown  And I’ve been thinking about this line a great  deal in recent weeks. Right. This idea that you   should picture yourself as an actor in a  drama and, and the author of this drama,   highly regarded as the creator of fate or  randomness or whatever, is deciding to cast   you in a particular way. So maybe, maybe a party  short. Maybe life is short, maybe it’s long. 01:21:05:03 - 01:21:24:05 Unknown  Maybe he wants you to play a poor man, or a  cripple or a ruler. But as Epictetus says,   see that you act it well, for this is your  business to act well. A given pot. And so   I keep thinking about that, like I hurt my  back a couple of weeks ago. Not terribly,   but it’s been pretty painful. I was thinking  this morning, okay, my my part is to play. 01:21:24:07 - 01:21:40:21 Unknown  It’s to play the part of a 57 year old man  with a really painful back who has a podcast,   a record, and a wife who at the  moment has been in a sling because   she had shoulder surgery and and so,  you know, having to take care of her   to the degree that I can while also do  ridiculous amounts of work and the like. 01:21:40:21 - 01:22:06:13 Unknown  And these are, first of all, problems. It’s it’s  not that difficult, but it’s challenging. And so   for me, these lessons from Epictetus and from  Stockdale and from Bill Miller have just been   hugely helpful. And so, that idea from Stockdale  that the point is to do nothing shameful, nothing   unworthy of yourself. That’s important. Right?  It’s like you can control the way you behave. 01:22:06:19 - 01:22:34:21 Unknown  You can control the way you view  yourself. But at the same time,   I’m deeply conscious of the fact that we’re  screwing up the whole time and that we’re not   living up to these very high expectations  of ourselves. And and I think it’s really   important also to show ourselves a little  bit of, of self-compassion in this situation.   I was amused this morning when I was carrying  a couple glasses of water trying to clean   up the kitchen, which was a wreck, and my  wife asked me to go get something for her. 01:22:34:21 - 01:22:54:16 Unknown  And as I got something else for her and was  carrying two glasses of water, I dropped one   of the glasses of water and spilled the water  absolutely everywhere. And I found myself blurting   out something like, I can’t do everything,  which is sort of full on. If a psychiatrist   had seen me at that moment, they would have  chuckled at how revealing that comment was. 01:22:54:18 - 01:23:17:07 Unknown  I think there’s this sense that  we’re trying to control what we can,   but it’s difficult. And sometimes we’re going  to screw up, sometimes we’re going to fail,   and we need a little a little self-compassion  and a little compassion for others. And I,   I think I quoted in the epilog of the book, this  lovely line that’s often attributed, I think,   to Philo of Alexandria, who said, be kind for  everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. 01:23:17:09 - 01:23:37:20 Unknown  And so these are some of the things that I, for  me, have been helpful during a challenging time.   And I’m not in any way saying my time has been  challenging in the grand scheme of things,   but I am tossing out these ideas in case they’re  helpful to anyone else out there. Anyway,   thank you so much for listening. I  hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. 01:23:37:22 - 01:24:00:09 Unknown  I’ll be back soon. I’m going to miss one  episode, partly because my schedule is crazy,   partly because I’m actually going to be  traveling to Nepal soon. But then I’ll   be back with some great guests like  Matthew McLennan and David Epstein,   whose last book, range, was a number one  New York Times bestseller. So nice. A nice   mix of really great investors and  really great writers and thinkers. 01:24:00:11 - 01:24:19:14 Unknown  And in the meantime, as always, feel  free to follow me on Exit. William Green,   72, will connect with me on LinkedIn.  I also have a new YouTube channel. It’s   called Signing at William Green Markets  and Life, which is all one word. So,   I think if you search William Green Markets and  Life on YouTube, you’ll be able to dig it up. 01:24:19:14 - 01:24:40:16 Unknown  And I regularly post videos there if you want  to get highlights in the first 65 episodes or   so of the podcast, do subscribe and I’m always  happy to hear from you. So please reach out,   let me know how you’re enjoying the podcast  and I hope it’s helpful to you so anyway,   thanks for listening. Take good care of yourself  and stay well and I’ll see you again soon. 01:24:40:18 - 01:25:02:23 Unknown  Thanks for listening. To tip. Visit the  Investors podcast.com for show notes and   educational resources. This podcast is for  informational and entertainment purposes only   and does not provide financial, investment, tax  or legal advice. The content is impersonal and   does not consider your objectives, financial  situation or needs. Investing involves risk,   including possible loss of principle, and past  performance is not a guarantee of future results. 01:25:03:00 - 01:25:28:07 Unknown  Listeners should do their own research and  consult a qualified professional before   making any financial decisions. Nothing on this  show is a recommendation or solicitation to buy   or sell any security or other financial product.  Hosts, guests and the Investor’s Podcast Network   may hold positions in securities discussed and may  change those positions at any time without notice.   References to any third party products, services  or advertisers do not constitute endorsements,   and the Investor’s Podcast Network is not  responsible for any claims made by them. 01:25:28:11 - 01:25:54:19 Unknown  Copyright by the Investor’s Podcast  Network, all rights reserved. Personally,   the craft of investing was the part that I loved.  That’s how I wanted to spend the majority of my   time. That meant that the structure had to be  exceedingly simple and free from unnecessary   complexity. So today I run one portfolio. There’s  fewer than ten holdings. I might find 1 or 2.