Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - Could Gen Z's View of Work Break America? With David Bahnsen

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

David Bahnsen, Founder, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of The Bahnsen Group joins Anthony this week. His new book Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, discusses the societal importance of work and the decline in appreciation for labor. He highlights the negative impact of the boomer generation's view of work as something to retire from, and the subsequent influence on younger generations. David emphasizes the significance of work in finding purpose and fulfillment, and the need to educate younger generations on the value of productive work. He also criticizes the idea of a four-day workweek and emphasizes the importance of faith and the journey of life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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from authors and historians to figures and entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know, I can roll with the punches, so let me know. Anyways, let's get to it. Work and the meaning of life, two of the main themes in today's episode, and they're important ones.

My guest, David Bonson's new book, makes the case that our understanding of work and its role in our lives is deeply flawed. It's something we should appreciate and not just as a means to an end. Let's go to David, who tells us why. Joining us now on Open Book, David Bonson, he's the founder, and managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bonson Group, but he's also a best-selling author. This is one of many books that he has written and one of many books that I have read.

The title of the book is Full Time, Work and the Meaning of Life. You know, I think you're the William F. Buckley of our time, I actually think. You know, it's interesting. You're making headway. You're breaking through the block of ice. there's a lot of grossness to our political rhetoric, but you're a clear thinker and you're a clear writer, and I'm a fan of all your books, but why did you decide to write this one related to the relationship with work, which is something Emerson and Thoreau, they've all tried to tackle?

I think, Anthony, that there is a societal moment we're living in that is theoretically, breaking point. There's a make-or-break opportunity here in that of all the things I could say negative about where I think society is, the political tribalization that drives me crazy, the polarization we have culturally, the red state, blue state conflicts, all these things that are, I think, really unfortunate in American life because for all of our diversity and differences, it's very, odd to me that people now hate each other over these differences.

You know, it used to be that someone who liked Midtown Manhattan like you and I do and someone who liked the mountains in Montana like someone else, they disagreed with each other, but they didn't hate each other. And now they hate each other. And so I look at all these differences and things going on. And one of the things that to me can hold the American experiment together is the entrepreneurial DNA, the shared affinity for risk-taking. the appreciation for labor and the fruits of labor that has been a vital part of the American

experiment for 250 years. And I see that unraveling. I see a lower regard for work, a lower appreciation for successful work unfolding before our very eyes. And I see it from people on the right and the left. And I see it from people of faith and people that fancy themselves secular. And so to me, this issue would accelerate our path to being a more European-like state quicker than anything else in the political arena. And I felt compelled to write about it. Okay. I have a theory. After reading this book, first of all, I love the title.

And I want you to get into how you titled it. But I have a theory I want to test on you. I was born in 1964. I'm the last of the baby boomers demographically. That era was 46 to 64. So I graduated in 1982 from high school. If you were born the year I graduated, you are now 42 years old. And so definitionally, you are in your mid-age.

You are now an adult. And I have a feeling that this generation was very coddled. I'm not saying that we weren't coddled, but they were very coddled. And I have a feeling that the self-esteem movement, the ninth place trophies for soccer, all of these things have led people to become excessively righteous in their point of view. At the very same time, you had this proliferation of social media and this algorithmic technology that reinforces our views or our likes or our tastes. We dial into the same TV programs that reinforce our views, the podcast, radios, whatever it may be.

And we're not even living in the same world anymore, David. And so I find if I, you're one of the more agreeable people and I can have an intellectual conversation with you, a intellectual discourse, we can agree or disagree on something, and we both come out of the situation better informed. But I find that that's no longer the case. You go to places like universities or other places. You talk to these people. They have a totally different fact set that they're living off of than your fact set.

and you're crossing like this, and then the hatred breeds in like you're a dummy. How could you possibly feel this way? Okay, so what did I get wrong? What am I missing? Well, I think that your assessment of the lay of the land is exactly accurate, and I wonder the coddling how much that is at play in terms of the low view of work. One of the things I propose in the book is. that the boomers, and I recognize you're right there at that kind of line between where the boomers

ended and the generation X that I'm a part of started, but there really wasn't a more productive generation in human history than the boomers. The production of goods and services and the basic output measured economically from the boomers was the most productive that the world has ever seen. Yet there's this other component that was very different. And I mean, in the sense that we had never once had a generation that entered the workforce with an eye on retirement, with a vision towards working so that you can then check out for the last 20, 25 years of your life. And I believe that all at once, the boomers gave us a positive legacy of working and output and aspiration and wealth building and a negative of sort of portraying the idea that you're doing it so you can stop doing it.

And you know that I'm an exception, and I sure as heck know, you're an exception. I don't think guys like you and me are wired to be able to stop. But I look around the society and see there's about 10,000 boomers a day retiring. And the notion of people that have been reasonably successful, and I don't mean hyper-wealthy, but they've made it, they've done it. They have a nest egg, and they've been productive for 30-plus years in a given field and now they're going to go to villages in Florida and drink and golf all day long. I find it absolutely depressing.

But see, to your point on the younger generations, in addition to them being coddled, they also saw their parents talk about work as if it was something you did to not have to do it anymore, counting the days to turning 60 or 65 or whenever the Golden Watch was coming and all that kind of stuff. And I just think the millennials beat them to it. They just said, well, you want to talk about work as this thing to stop doing when you're 60. I'm going to start talking about a thing I don't want to do when I'm 30. And you combine that with the coddling that told them everything was okay.

I think it is made for a very different mentality in the way that each generation approaches work. Okay. I mean, very well said. You articulate this very well in your book. Why call it full-time, which is a title I love? Yeah, so there's two reasons. First and foremost, I love the shorthand kind of summary of the fact that I do not view my job.

I've been in a position for some time where I could work less and still make the money I make, but I would be less productive. That full-time is not about the hours, the pay, the status. It's about the mentality of productivity. and that I want to be full-time committed to being my best self, my most productive, innovative, creative self I can be. The secondary reason is a bit more niche within the faith community. As you know, I'm a Christian. Take my faith and my faith distinctives very seriously.

And there's a book that's very, very, very popular. It's sold a million copies. You know how hard it is to sell a million copies of a book organically. called Half Time, Moving from Success to Significance. And it's just one of these midlife crisis books encouraging people that, okay, well, you've been successful, you've had your careers and all that stuff, but now it's time to focus on being significant. And I hate that mentality, and I find it reasonably offensive, that one would suggest that

people in their success, in the things they do that build not only commercial success, but personal, professional, you know, achievement, that those things aren't significant, that they're not significant to God, that they're not significant to society, that they're not significant to the service of others they represent. I think it implicitly captures a terrible view of economics and a terrible view of culture. And so I wanted to sort of transcend that halftime mentality and title my book, full-time. It works. It works for me. And you are a full-time worker, so am I. And I think you get joy out of your work. I don't think my work makes me feel like I'm working. Even my darkest moments at work, and I've had several. I feel like it's part of a process and

it's part of a journey and you have to take the good with the bed. You know, there's a guy that we're both close to. I know him very well. His name is David Rubenstein. He's the former founder and one of the managing partners at Carlisle, 74 years old now. I went to visit him once on the island of Nantucket. He has this spectacular house on the bluff. overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It was a beautiful summer day. I got to the front door. There was a placard on the front door, David.

It said, rather be working. And so here was this man who had built this beautiful house on the bluff to, quote, unquote, retire in. And at age 70 plus, he's now taking control of the Baltimore Orioles. What is it, David? What is in the DNA of a David Bonson or a David Rubenstein that wires them like that so that their full-time experience, which is mostly a work-related experience, is something they want to continue to do. Well, you know, it's interesting.

I would love to say as a man of faith that perhaps it's something theological and spiritual, whether one is Jewish or Catholic or Protestant or what have you. But I think that in my case, I have strong beliefs in my kind of transcendent belief system that drive me. But, you know, there is a sense in with. We all know too many people that also have faith distinctives and don't feel driven that way. And I know so many people that seem to not be connected to a sort of transcendent faith system that do have it. And that story with Rubenstein, I've told you before that it was at your conference where I heard and met Ken Lengone.

And this guy blew me away. It's very Rubenstein-like story. obviously multi-billion dollar net worth man of incredible achievement both in the private sector and in philanthropy and he's just wearing a suit and tie every day going off having a lunch and he just said I get up and do it because I know what happens if I don't and and he feels wired to just continue going and driving and that was an early salt when that conversation happened it really impacted me yeah it was 10 years ago it was 2014 uh Kenny who's been a mentor of mine forever. He's had many great lines, but one of the best Ken Langone lines is that helping others

is the key to your success. And it's the key to your happiness. And of course, he went on to use the money that he's made in his career to fully fund the Langone Hospital, so the NYU Langone. But he's also now set up an endowment where if you go to NYU Medical School, you don't pay tuition. Ken Langone pays your tuition. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor. You get into that school, you go tuition free. And so it's one of the most sought after medical schools in the world now because of that. But that's you, David. I mean, I want to pay you a huge compliment here. You are a thinker and you're looking to the younger generation. The younger generation has a vastly different view, as you point out in this book about work. So, are they lacking purpose? Are they lonely? Are they

are they going to leave the labor force? You know, my dad left the labor force at age 65 on June 9th, his birthday. But he was in a union. And by the way, he worked outside his whole life. He really couldn't work much longer on that job, at least, you know. You and I may be able to go like Warren Buffett into our 90s, but we're indoors, we're out at the direct sunlight and there's no heavy lifting. You know, a man that's working outside, I get why you go in retirement literally on your

birthday, but tell us about this younger generation. Where are we going and why? So on one hand, and I don't know if your experience with Gen Z employees has been the same as mine, there is a sense in which I feel a little encouragement or a little hope because the Gen Zers that I've hired and worked with and what I've observed culturally, both my wife and I have become big students of generational theory. They do want mentorship. They do ask questions for their own self-improvement, where my experience, with millennials was largely, they had a lot to tell me about what I could do better, where Gen Z had a lot to ask about what they could do better. And I think that that's a very important distinction between the two.

But there is a huge sense in which I think we have a big need. And a lot of this, Anthony, you know, my advocacy of free enterprise, we have a lot of education to do with Gen Z because when they say they want mission and purpose, there's a sense of which they say, I love what this company is doing, but it just doesn't have a mission for me. and they need to have something stapled on to a company with some sort of social justice mission or something that strikes them as more virtuous. And I think the reason for that is that they were not taught that the production of goods and services

that meet the needs of humanity is a social cause, that it is driving more well-being for others. And very candidly, it's often doing more than even some of these so-called philanthropic or nonprofit groups. I use the example of Elon Musk, you know, he used to be kind of a darling of the left. He's now become a darling of the right. But regardless, just put all the politics and stuff aside, what are the three things that he's done, which, by the way, are in multi, multi, multi, multi billion dollar enterprises and aspiration. I mean, after taking all the money from PayPal and having that kind of score, he said, well, I want to go save the planet environmentally and start electric vehicle company with Tesla.

And then out of the massive amount of wealth created there, parlayes it into, I want to have human beings occupy Mars with SpaceX. And then he says, I think free speech is under attack. I want to go by Twitter. So you're talking about three enterprises with either tens of billions and in some cases hundreds of billions of enterprise value. And in all three cases, there was some cause around it connected to the company that was massive. Anything that guy does in the nonprofit world is destroying value. He should be doing nothing but for-profit wealth creation activities for the simple reason that he's good at it and he's not good at the other. And with Ken Langone has been a wildly charitable person and you see his name on the hospitals and you know the incredible impact he's had.

At Salt, he was telling us about what he did to raise the money to save St. Patrick's Cathedral and getting Jews and Protestants and Muslims and Catholics to all give. to this cause. But you know what else he did? He started Home Frickin' Depot. The amount of jobs created out of that, the amount of wealth created out of that. So I want Gen Z to realize that there's a cause in enterprise, that there is the meeting of needs of humanity because we cannot have our needs met if we're not meeting the needs of others. And I don't think we have to virtue signal on top of it for the work to be meaningful. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Hear that? That's your next obsession.

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Simply press, brew, and explore. What else? Keep exploring at nespresso.com. I mean, so it's so well said. And there's something else that the baby boomers did, though. You know, they are very productive. There's no question. And there's a ton of them. And again, myself included.

But I'm going to indict the baby boomers for a moment. Because I feel as a political class, the ones that went into politics and the culture that they created has been very destructive to us. It started out, okay. Bill Clinton, like him or dislike him, him and Newt Gendrich, two baby boomers. They fought it out, but they balanced the budget. But we got into the wars and we got into the global financial crisis and we have spiral debt. We went from George Washington to George Walker Bush, $7 trillion, David, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, $28 trillion now in counting. So what do you say to that?

Productive people, but as a political class, didn't the baby boomers over promise under tax and are setting up this new generation that you're describing, you know, with a generational forward transfer of wealth, in addition to the money that's going to go to them in their inheritance, they are inheriting a $30 to $40 trillion worth of debt on the federal government's balance sheet? Yeah. There's absolutely no question that the legacy of the boomers at a macro level, not targeting any particular people or whatnot, but macro, the legacy of the boomers is one of the most self-centered generations in history. If I can go back to my little faith point I made a moment ago as a pretty consistent Bible thumper here, I'd also add the sexual revolution has not really seemed to create happier people, just from my observation.

So there's a lot that's come out of the legacy of that generation that is weighed on the soul of society. Economically, you're exactly right. And in addition to the spending and leaving the debt callously, they've also left a mentality that tells the next generation they can kick the can. And the next generation after them, they can kick the can. And so what generation ends up having the courage, like the greatest generation that preceded the boomers who stood up to totalitarianism and fascism, what the generation will be that is willing to be fiscally honest for the sake of economic stability for their children and grandchildren? I don't know who it'll be. But it wasn't the boomers and it's clearly not going to be gen X or Gen Y either. But this is my secondary question.

That setup, has that affected this generation? view of work. He was like, oh my God, I'm walking into this trap here. Why don't I dial myself back and not care as much? Yeah, I have my question. My answer is no, but I am sympathetic to where it comes from. But the problem I have with it is the is the contrary indicators, the counterfactuals. I look at those things and forget me because I don't want to to chew my own horn, but there's so many people that have mentality of, hey, forget the excessive government debt. Let's go to the two most obvious examples for Gen Z, student debt and ridiculous housing prices. You can look at it and say, this just isn't fair. I got a good job. I went to school. I've studied. And now the student debt is high

and the housing prices are high. I can't get ahead. What do you do at that point? I think there's a mentality in the top 20% of people that says, I'm going to go overcome it. I'm going to go figure it out. I'm going to perform and achieve necessary to meet that moment as unfair as it may be, as challenging and distressing as it may be. I'm going to deal with life on life's terms. And then I think there is a significant portion that have used it as a way to surrender. And then there's a middle ground that I think is the question for society. The old J.D. Vance, the one I liked, he wrote a book called Hillbilly Ellogy.

is one of the greatest books I've read in a long time. I absolutely loved it. Everybody loved it. So I'm not being contrarian here. It was a very popular book. But he talks about that kind of disgruntled person in a white working class town. In this case, it was in Ohio, but he had come from Appalachian Valley, whatever. And someone just saying, I can't get ahead and screw this, screw that.

And he'd get a job. You get an opportunity. And he would just sleep in and he wouldn't show up and he'd fail a drug test. And then he'd get fired. And he would say, man, can you believe this ridiculous Obama? economy. And J.D. Vance said, I'm not saying the Obama economy was great for everyone, but I will say this. It had nothing to do with this guy, right? He was a byproduct of his own decision. And that's what it's going to take. I wish housing prices were not so high. And I think it's inexcusable that we

continue to constrain supply in such a way that we can't clear supply and demand in a more price efficient way. However, those things that we have in life that are unfair, you get to pick how you're going to respond. And I recommend people respond how the top 20% are responding, which is meeting the moment and overcoming the challenge. Very well said. I want to switch to another topic. I could talk to you for several hours, but we limit ourselves here so we can get, I find a 30-minute podcast. I mean, Joe Rogan's a lot better than me as a podcaster, but three hours is long. I feel like the 30-minute podcasts are the ones that get digested. Let's go to the book of Genesis. And let's go to your thoughts about these allegories, these stories, God's book, the good book,

and talk a little bit about the impact that it's had on you and talk about the guidance that's in the lessons of these old stories memorialized in the Old and New Testament. Well, it's my belief that people have to ask themselves the great questions in life, who are we, where do we come from, why are we here, what do we need to do? And I believe very seriously that for those of us who do believe we were made by God, that there's a purpose. And when I read Genesis and try to get an idea of what that purpose is, I recognize a lot of people don't believe the same theological or philosophical things I do. But I wrote this book, and I didn't write it to capture what other people believe. I wrote it to capture what I believe. And what I believe is that God made mankind with an elevated dignity, that we have a soul that. that can never die, that we have an eternal destiny that God cares about us and made us with a reason,

with rational faculties, with self-preservation, with an interiority, the ability to be contemplative, to see beauty, to appreciate beauty, to create beauty. He didn't give that to the platypus or the dinosaurs or fish. And for that matter, he didn't even give it to the sun, moon, and stars. So he made a beautiful world, but he uniquely made us as the caretakers of the world, from which we decided to go invent the wheel and start a fire and build the pyramids and create civilization. So this great journey we're all living in, and my belief comes out of God creating the world because we are made in his image and likeness, and he did so because we reflect his

capacity as a creator, a producer, and innovator. Anthony, the most elitest thing I've ever heard is that there are 50% of us who are capable of working and producing and 50% who are not. I don't believe it's absurd. I believe all of us are capable of being productive. I think you also make the point that the good work, the good book, that there's purpose and work and that we have to provide dignity. And frankly, a good society provides dignity to work and access to work and makes people feel aspirational. Let's go to the four-day work week for a second. Give me your thoughts there. You're right about it.

I'm clearly a big opponent of it, but I want to be an opponent even beyond the absurdity of the policy. What the unintended consequences economically and politically would be are really unfathomable, how much damage it would do to the people that people like Senator Sanders say they want to help. And by the way, I believe him. I do think his motive is being pro-worker, but I think he is naive and wrong. But even if we just ignored the policy differences, ignored the unintended consequences. First of all, the way the maximum hours can't be set. You can only use the state to implement what an employer will allow, what the employee is

allowed to work for an employer. The employer can still work however much they want. So these people say they're so worried about wealth inequality, good luck with that. Because if you think that Bezos and Musk are going to stop at 32 hours or any startup entrepreneur for that matter, I got a bridge to sell you. And the idea, it's effectively a backdoor 20% pay increase because they're not allowed to lower wages. So you're paying the same wages for 20% less work.

It's a war on output at a higher per unit cost. So it is deteriorating of every element of price discovery, of price discovery, of productivity. It's a terrible idea economically. And I'm saying throw all of that out and pretend I didn't say it. It's rooted in a belief that mankind is at its happiest in leisure and recreation and that work is a necessary evil. It's a romanticized Marxian, Rossoian vision of society. It is untrue that mankind is happiest when they're not working. Mankind deserves to have leisure and rest and recreation, family, and memories and vacations, but mankind is fundamentally happiest when they're earning success, when they're being productive, when they're serving others. So the philosophy that is undergirding a 32-hour

work week is offensively wrong. All right. Very well said. Last question. Then we're going to go to five famous words, which is the ending of all my podcasts. You dedicate the book to your dad. Dr. Gregory Lyle Bonson. Tell us why. Well, my dad was my dad, but he was my, um, my best friend, my hero. And, you know, I only, I got 21 years with him and he died at age 47 of a heart condition. And I not only hold him up in such tremendous regard for the brilliant intellectual and thinker that he truly was, but as I say in the dedication, in addition to really, I think, teaching me how to think and live, he taught me out of work.

And his work ethic was unparalleled. I don't think a lot of academics and intellectuals and scholars today work how he did. I woke up pretty early every day, and there he was already working sitting in his study. And that model he set for me, stayed with me. And then as God would have it, it turned out that my work ethic was applied to a business that happened to pay a hell of a lot more than being a pastor. So even though I went to a different vocational field than my dad did, as you did, as you did, Anthony, my dad's work ethic is what I brought into my field. And for that, I'm eternally grateful.

Yeah, we share that. I can remember my dad, the lunch pill went into the refrigerator at 10 p.m. And he took that lunch pill out of the refrigerator at 3.30 a.m. on the job at 4.30. And so it's something he did. And I always think of that. And he did say to me, David, which I think you'll appreciate when I got my job at Goldman Sachs, he said to me, never complain about that job. I said, why is that that? He says, you're indoors, you're out of direct sunlight, and there's no heavy lifting. And I often think about that in the trials and tribulations that I've been through in my career. Okay, I'm down to my five words. How this works is, I say the word you think of something and you respond to me. It could be a word, a sentence, just something

that comes up. I say the word ambition. You say what? Drive. I say the word purpose. Calling. Okay. This is tied to purpose. I think in some ways, but I say the word faith. Oh, yeah. Meaning. There's meaning in our faith. Life. That's a good one.

I think it's all the above. It's faith and purpose and calling all the world. You write about it. But you know, the thing, Bonson, that you write in this book is it's to be loved. It's to be enjoyed. Life is to be enjoyed. It's trials and tribulations. The darkness.

allows us to appreciate the light. And I do believe that we're here to take it in in some ways. And I think you write about that. And I think that's what blends in the purpose and faith and so forth and meaning and ambition. And I think you said it earlier talking about the ups and downs in your career that you view it all as a journey. And in a lot of ways, that's a great word to respond to life with, is this journey. Yes. Because I think we can't help sometimes.

especially as younger people, to have this view of life that we're headed to some mountain top. And we're just trying to get to this spot. And then we're just going to kind of sit in our porch and sort of rub our beards and appreciation of all the things we've done. And I don't think people realize how elusive that is and how evasive it can be. The journey is all the joy. And that journey for you, for me, for many people that know what I'm talking about, The journey is really inclusive of some very difficult moments and being able to overcome and work through those difficult moments.

That's life. No question. Yeah. And I would say that one of the things we have to be careful of is by continuing to have faith, I think it provides us some solace because I'm noticing as we secularize our societies, people despair and they start to fear death. But if you go to Google, there's been roughly, according to Google, 100 billion people that have lived. There's seven or eight or nine billion of them living now, but there's been roughly 100 or so that have lived. God's bad at 1,000, David, or in the immortal words of Mel Brooks, relax. None of us are getting out of here alive.

Okay, so the last word, and I'm going to give you the last word, is work. The word work. I think of just as the book title says, I think of work is the meaning of our lives. that work is that a venue for us to as individuals made with special purpose, dignity. Work is not only the verb of economics, but it is the actions we take that give our lives meaning. Well, you're very kind of join us today. The title of your book, which I absolutely love, full-time work and the meaning of life by David Bonson. Thank you for joining us an open book today.

Thanks so much for having me, my friend. So David raised some important points about how we view work. It shouldn't be something we're just waiting to retire from. Work gives us meaning. Work gives us purpose. I always say to my kids, you have to do what you love. But David's book is a great reminder that we do call it work for a reason. It can be hard.

It can be difficult. It can be stressful. But what it shouldn't be is suffocating. What it shouldn't be is clock ticking, meaning I'm staring at my watch every five minutes to see if I can get off work. I've had jobs like that in my life, and those are the worst jobs. The best jobs are where we're talking to each other in a labor of love, where we're working with each other, but it's manual in a labor of love. And I love David's philosophy related to this, and I'm so glad he came on this week.

All right, Ma, you want to come on the podcast? Yeah, why not? All right, my next guest, Ma, I had a guy called David Bonson on the podcast, and he was talking about the meaning of work. Okay, he basically thinks that work is an integral part of your life. You spend lots of time at work, maybe sometimes more time with your coworkers than you do with your family. So you've got to pick a job that you really love. Do you believe that, ma?

Yes, I believe that. You love your job. Okay, I do love my job because I don't even know what I do for a living. That's the funny part about my job. But let me ask you this. Did you like your job, Ma? You were a makeup artist. Yes, I loved it.

Tell me, why did you like being a makeup artist, ma? because people, including their role models. Okay, so makeup and aesthetics, if people take care of themselves and they take care of their hair and their makeup and their looks, they feel better about themselves, right?

They feel better, yeah. Yeah, even when people lose weight, they get more confident and happier, they get more active, you know what I mean? Okay. Okay. Let me ask you this question, Mom. If I didn't like my job,

do you think it would alter my personality? I don't think he would. Take a job unless you liked it. Okay. I think you have a strong personality. And if you didn't like your job, you wouldn't stay there. You would go forward to find the right thing that you like to do, what you did. Right, right.

All right. Thank you, Mom. Anything else you want to say before I let you go? No, I love you very much. Okay, love you too, Mom. You're my son. All right. All right.

Love you, Mom. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram.

I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and communities? businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CGs national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, Productivity, and Innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable solutions to reverse it.