The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 502: Vitaliy Katsenelson - The Art of a Meaningful Life (Soul In The Game)

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12    https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 VItaliy Katsenelson was born in Murmansk, USSR, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1991. After joining Denver-based value investment firm IMA in 1997, Vitaliy became Chief Investment Officer in 2007, and CEO in 2012. Vitaliy has written two books on investing and is an award-winning writer. Known for his uncommon common sense, Forbes Magazine called him "The New Benjamin Graham." "I guess I was born in Russia but made for America." The two ways to look at life. Like an airport… Where you rush to get through it. Or an art museum. Where you take time to enjoy your surroundings. I think we should treat more days like they're an art museum. "When you love what you do, your work stops being work and becomes a craft. And no matter what it is, you do it with pride, love, and care." "In our relationships, we should set a goal, not for someone to love us, but to behave according to our values (to be worth loving) and to be a good, caring partner. We cannot control whether people will love us, but we can control our actions and our behavior." "I'm perpetually in beta. This in beta attitude is liberating, as it gives you the chance to constantly improve yourself; to learn and grow. This doesn't mean you need to be buried in self-help books. You just need to have this in beta attitude." "The best way to guard ourselves against our ego is by thinking of ourselves as evergreen students." Albert Einstein said, "As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." We should welcome the circumference of darkness wholeheartedly. How Zeno, the founder of Stoicism approached his students: "He did not claim to be a physician-- he saw himself as a patient describing the progress of his treatment to fellow patients in the hospital beds beside him." When Vitaliy's mother died (he was young), it made him appreciate his dad much more. I think we'd all be better off if we made the most of the time we have with the people we love and never take them for granted. What Vitaliy learned from Warren Buffett? He was not a present dad. It's important to be in your kids lives. It's a gift to get to drive your kids to school. Sit side by side with your children and talk (car rides, sit at the bar at restaurants, go on walks) Vitaliy plays chess and he loses a lot... "Losing is part of tuition." Seneca said, "Time discovers truth." Attention is the currency of time. "Writing is the most important thing that happened to me." Spend two hours a day organizing your thoughts. Writing helps you do that... "Create a connection between the unconscious and conscious mind."

Hey, it's Ryan. I have a quick ask of you prior to this episode. If you have received value from this podcast, the Learning Leader Show, over the past seven and a half years, I would be very grateful if you would write a review and rate the show in Apple Podcast. And I set up an easy link to do it. It's Ryanhawk.net. It's my name, Ryanhawk.net. It will shoot you straight to Apple Podcasts where I'd love it if you would spend invest a minute or two and write a thoughtful review and rate the show hopefully five stars. This really helps spread the message to people who have not yet heard it. And as you know, it is a goal of mine to impact as many people as possible. So, Ryanhawk.net write a thoughtful review and rate the show hopefully five stars. All right, here we go. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text, Hawk to 666-866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of

other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book, The Pursuit of Excellence, will help you become a more effective leader. Text, Hawk to 66866. Now, on tonight's featured leader. Vitaly Katsal Nelson was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States in 1991. After joining Denver-based value investment firm IMA in 1997, Vitali earned the CEO role in 2012.

Forbes called him the new Benjamin Graham. He has written multiple bestselling books, including his latest called Soul in the Game, the Art of a Meaningful Life. This one had so much depth. We discussed what it was like growing up in Russia. and moving to America to go to college and why he stayed. And then why we should be thoughtfully arrogant. Then he tells me what he learned from Warren Buffett about parenting. I would bet it will surprise you.

This one was so wide-ranging and deep. I love conversations like this one. I hope you enjoy. It's Vitaly Katsler. Nelson. Vitali, it's so great to have you here on the Learning Leaders Show. Welcome him. Ryan, it's my pleasure. I'm looking forward to it. So your book, Soul in the Game, The Art of a Meaningful Life, that's a pretty big statement to say, the art of the meaningful life, but it absolutely delivers. And that's why I wanted to talk to you. I mean, sometimes

I'm pitched ideas and all like, maybe in this case, I was reading through all of your work and thought, I have to talk to this guy. So I'm just, first want to say how grateful I am for putting, for taking your thoughts from your mind and putting them onto the page. It's such a pleasure. And I'll tell you, when I was writing this book, I was visualizing just trying to help one person. And, you know, just if I could make a difference in somebody's life, you know, like that is one of the biggest achievements you can have, right? outside of being a great parent, you know, outside of being a

great husband, great parent, you know, et cetera. But just for the society, I just, that's what I wanted to do. I just wanted to have for this book to have a positive impact on others. And so I'm glad. One of the things you start out with, as you say,

I guess I was born in Russia, but made for America. What do you mean by that? Well, first of all, so my life Russia was not easy. At the time, I did not realize how difficult it was, especially in the contrast they experienced after moving to America. And I was also not the right person to grow up in Russia. And again, I have to be very specific in the Soviet Russia. The Soviet Russia basically

wanted everybody to be the same. They did not like people who had different. opinions who were too creative that stood out and the education system basically approached everybody as they kind of there was very little attention it paid very little attention to individuality that's that's a very important point so therefore I was a horrible student in Russia because I learned differently I had different interests I was horrible at memorization and I needed it and I was I also needed teachers to see that I have a potential, and they just, at least in case with my teachers, they basically approached that I was a C student.

I never got a grade higher than C in Russia, period. And even when I'm, even one time, and I'm slightly embarrassed for what to say, but I was young, even when I cheated on my exit exam in high school, and I had a basically literature teacher literature, literature write an essay. That essay still got a C.

So I have a suspicion that they just never even read my essays. But anyway, so the point is when I moved to United States, this country actually embraces

and I know a lot of times you go too far, but embraces individuality. And to me, that was incredibly important. because here I graduated from a college, Summa Kama'aoudi. I basically had a very high GPA. I loved going to school.

When Russia, I absolutely hate going to school or college. And this is why I think America has prospered in part because it embraces, you know, individual. You know, it's, you know, it embraces creativity. What do you think now about Russia? And I guess we'll just go straight into it, like fighting a war. I have to believe that this is a question that comes up to you since I know it was different than when you were there. But like when you see the news and you see Ukraine and you see Russia and you see Putin, like what goes through your mind? So when somebody asks me where I'm from, I used to say I'm from Russia and I was proud of this.

Now I just say I'm from USSR. because that's how I'm embarrassed I am to be from Russia. I'm embarrassed. I'm incredibly embarrassed what this country is doing. I was growing up hating Nazis. And I would argue that Russian behavior today is not that much different from Nazis. And this is a strong statement, you know, but let me let me explain this a little bit. I read, you know, I still read in Russian.

So I read a lot of Russian newspapers that basically look at Ukraine as inferior nation. They look at Ukrainian culture as a culture that has no reason to exist. It's almost like a little Russia. So in fact, what Russia does when it invades, when it captures Ukrainian villages and cities, they basically rip out all of school curriculum, replace it with Russian curriculum. They completely try to wipe out Ukrainian history and replace it with Russian history.

So how is it different from what Nazis did? I mean, yes, there is no concentration camps, this kind of stuff, but they're still killing, raping, you know, innocent people. So, yeah, the way I look at what Russia is doing, doing is basically not much different from Nazi Germany. Again, it's a, you know, but in, you know, in general sense. Wow. You just said you read in Russian. So when you're dreaming or when you're thinking, do you think in English or Russian? No, English. Like when I read in Russian, it requires me a lot of

effort. Like, because I just haven't practiced it for so long. I can still read. I'll give you, okay, so now I'm going to switch subjects a little bit. Sure. But one of the, but one of the, my books, my first investment book was published in the United States and was published by John Wiley and Sons. And it was translated, I forget at the time, six or seven languages, from Polish to Romanian to Korean to Japanese and other ones. It never got translated into Russian. And I really, when I wrote this book, I really wanted to make my father proud. Because my father really never took my profession very seriously. And let me tell what I do. I'm a value investor. I run an investment firm, IMA, and I think what I do is kind of an intersection

of art and science. My father always looked at what I do is a kind of a form of legalized gambling. So I wanted to show him that what I do is not that. It's actually, there was a lot of thought that goes into it. And there is a lot of, you know, there's a lot of foundation. What I do is build a lot of, you know, foundation. So anyway, so my first book, active value invested, published in every other language but Russian. So what I did, I reached out to one of the biggest Russian publishers and said, would you guys like to publish the book? They, I sent him the PDF of the book. They came back to me and said, sure. And so they went back to Wiley and arranged the, you know, the rights, et cetera. But then they came back to me and said, Vitale, would you mind edit

in the book. They said, we'll translate it. We'll send you the files and you just see, you know, if you got it right. I'm like, sure, absolutely. Six months later, I get email with all these files. I started reading it and I realized I understand all these words separately, but when I put them together, like the blank, they mean very little to me. And there was a good reason for that because I received all my business education in the United States. I have an undergraduate degree in finance. I have a graduate degree in finance. I have a CFA designation. And so, you know, so I can read in Russian. You know, I can read in Russian. But when it comes to reading business language, even if it was my own book, I couldn't do it. So what I did,

I asked my father, who has a PhD in electrical engineering, to edit the book. He agreed. and I'll be honest, I'm so glad he did this because he actually read this book as an editor would. And we would have this long-term conversations about this. And that's probably one of the best gratifying experience of writing the book that my father read it. And people won't believe me for a long time. After I already had a master's degree in finance, my father thought that I should open a bagel shop just in case, just in case that investment thing doesn't work out. So after he read this book, he actually admitted that what I do is not legalized gambling.

So anyway, so that's my, that's my, you know, that's the story. You write a lot about your family, and I love it, whether it's your parents and growing up and your mom and some of the pain there, as well as your own kids, which I got a joy out of, we shared a story about going to volleyball tournaments before we're recording. but can you take us back to the beginning and about your mom and your dad and what was what it was like in those early days in the USSR,

as you call it? Yeah. So despite all the difficulties of growing up in Russia, I had a fairly happy childhood until it wasn't. Meaning that I had this loving, you know, parents, I have two older brothers who I love. And we grew up in a city

in the northwestern. Russia, Murmansk. And if most listeners will remember the movie The Hunt for the Red October. Well, that Red October, the fictional submarine actually came from Murmansk.

It's the where the Russians Northern Fleet is. And so in Murmansk, it's located so far north that during the summertime, there is a, there's an unlimited amount

of light. So the sun basically never goes down during the summertime. But you have to pay price for that sunlight in the summertime because during the winter, there is no sunlight for months. I would walk to my school in the morning, it's dark. The sun would come out for 10, 15 minutes while I'm at school. I miss it. And when I walk back, I walk in darkness again. Now I look at this and I'm like, oh my God, that must have been difficult. but it wasn't because that's the life I knew. That's where I was born. That's the life I knew that that was normal to me.

Also, when I was growing up, again, remember, this was a Soviet Russia. So stores a lot of times had empty shelves. So my mom always struggled to figure out how she's going to fit us every day. But we never went hungry. My father, he has a PhD in electrical engineering. And for 28 years, he taught at Murmans, Marine Academy and he taught electrical engineering and he also painted as a hobby. And if you're watching this podcast, you can actually see some of the paintings behind me.

Now, when I was on May 6th, 1983, oh no, 1984, I was 10 years old then. My wife, my mom, it's a day, the reason I remember this day so vividly because it was a day after my mom's 50s. birthday. She had a headache and she was hospitalized with that and they discovered that she has brain cancer. And the, I remember my, no, and so on May 6th that year, I went to see my mom in the hospital and she, you know, she had a headache, et cetera, but she was talking to me. She was asking me all these questions, you know, it's just talking to my father. And that was basically the last time I saw my mom. Because after that, she went through several surgeries and they sent me out in a summertime to my grandparents. And when I came back, I see this woman at home has a short gray hair

doesn't recognize me. The only thing she calls my father, Papa, and that's it. And so that's woman who I, like, I walked into my house and there's this woman and I don't know who it is. and that was my mom. So, and then a few months later, she, you know, she dies. And what's, and it took me a long time to realize I never really said goodbye to my mom because my mom, to me, you know, died basically May 6th because the person I saw after that was not really my mom, because she did not look at my mom, she did not recognize me. She, you know, and that's when my life changed because now my father had to take care of me.

And I kind of rediscovered, the relationship with my father has changed. Because before this moment, most of my relationship was, like, I spent 80% of my time with my mom because she took care of me. And my father, he was, you know, he was teaching at university, he was doing inventions and other things. So he spent time with me, but his focus was on science. after that, my father basically had to step up and become a full-time father. And I have to tell you, the relationship with my father has changed tremendously.

It was good before, now it became very different. But it also, when losing my mom made me appreciate my father so much more because I was cleaning to my father because I was so afraid to lose him. and interestingly, that lasted for decades. In the sense, even if it was in my 30s already, I made an effort three, four times a week to go to my father for breakfast. We would walk in the park.

We went to Europe, to South Africa. We went all these different trips to Sanofi because I knew that losing my mom made me appreciate my father so much more, and I knew that nobody's, you know, like made me realize that this is not forever. And stoics have this concept called negative, you know, negative visualization.

I'm sure we'll talk about it. And inadvertently at that time, losing my mother made me negatively visualized that my father won't be there forever, and therefore I should make an effort to spend time with him. I think it's a good lesson for all of, us and sometimes maybe going to a funeral, even if it's for somebody else, it makes you think more about death.

And I have really come full circle on this after having this podcast and talking to a number of people who have had people die that are close to them and say, let's take this mindset, even if we haven't had something as tragic as what you had happened with your mom. Let's do that right now. Maybe you're fortunate enough like me to have your mom and your dad who are still close to you, which I do and say they want to go for a five-mile walk on Sundays. Well, I'm going to go. Like, I want to go as many of those as I possibly, if I'm in town, I'm going, you know.

And because I know, like, I try to think of this, what I regret, what would I regret more? And I know those won't happen forever. And so I want to get as many of them as possible. And I think when I was reading that story about you, your mom and your dad, it just reinforced that line of thinking that all of us could probably be better at that. This negative visualization, as you put it. Could you share more about that? Yeah.

So let me tell you another story. So when my kids were very, very young, I read a book by Alice Schroeder called Snowball. That is the only authorized biography. of Warren Buffett. Okay, I'm a value investor. I go to Brexhachathaway No Meetings every single year. I'm a Warren Buffett's fan. In fact, he had an incredible impact on me. So I'm incredibly thankful to him. However, after I read this book, the biggest lesson I got out of this book is not to be like Warren Buffett when it comes to my kids. Warren Buffett was so obsessed about investing, that he basically neglected his kids. I mean, you know, they didn't go hungry,

et cetera, you know, the mom took care of him. But he, that's one of the biggest regrets he has, that he did not spend enough time with his kids when they were young. And I promised myself that I will make, I will never get Warren Buffett's wealth. And I'm fine as it. I don't want it. But most importantly, but I never want to have this regret that I never spend enough time as my kids. And Ryan, this is important. It's not something, like when you're passionate about what you do, it's like a drug. It's an addiction.

So you have to make a mindful decision to kind of to walk away, like to create space to spend time as your kids. And it sounds horrible because it sounds like I don't enjoy it. I do. It's just the addiction to, I have to invest in and writing is so strong that I have to make this effort. And it has to, and the way I do it, I basically realize that my kids will not be home forever. I'll give an example. My daughter, Hannah is 16 years old. She's in 11th grade in high school. I only have 400 more days with her when I can drive her to school. After that, she'll be driving and she should be going to college. She won't be living at home anymore. So I reframed it. In the past, I looked as

driving my kids to school as a chore. Now I look at it as a gift. Now I look at it as an opportunity I have 400 more days when I can, you know, when I can drive you to school, we can talk, we can listen to music. And suddenly, that changes my, you know, my, the changes how I look at this. And, you know, and I always try to find time, like just, just the same way I found time to spend with my father. I tried to, yeah, I always, you know, when my kids ask me for something, go outside and play, I never say no.

Yeah. It's also, I like one-on-one dates with kids, especially if you have more than one kid. Even if you only have one, still do it. But if you have more than one, one-on-one. And I found actually with whether it's a, especially with teenagers that if, just a little tip, when you're side-by-side, it seems like conversation flows more than when you're face-to-face. And so what I mean by that is side-by-side is like car rides or,

if you go to a restaurant, like sit at the bar, right? I don't drink alcohol around that, especially when I'm driving kids, but sit at the bar and order your wings or whatever. And side by side, the conversation seems to flow so much better than when you are face-to-face and maybe it's the, you know, some of the awkward years. And I say this because I don't know how many one-on-one dates I'm going to get once they leave. When they go to college and then they do other things, like, that may happen not very much. And so I try to maximize those experiences because I see the finality of that.

And it scares me. And I want to make the most of it and not only make the most of it, but make the most of each one by being fully present. Because I think those are the things that those are the memory dividends all create for us, I hope, is that, yeah, remember we want to sit at the bar and we get wings and then we'd watch the game where we would just hang out. and talk or we'd have long car rights to volleyball tournaments as i know you you've had too and i think that's that's that's that's the ultimate like if you ask me what success is that's it's that it's that's kind of in-between moments where we're just hanging out driving to a tournament sitting eating some food side by side going on a walk maybe that's what i think it's all about to me obviously we have to provide we got to work really hard we got to make money but that's the thing that i hope like i'm

remembered for by them. I think you're absolutely right. And actually, I think that's a very good insight, side by side. I love this. That's a very good insight. And if you think about some of the best conversations I have with them, when we go skiing, the car ride, when we sit side by side on the ski lift again. And if you think about our life, at the end, it's just really all just

collection of memories. Okay. And so let me run this new analogy by you. Okay. Okay. There are two ways we can go through life. We can go through life the same way we go through the airport. When we get out, you get over the plane and you look for the baggage claim or for the exit, right?

So what you're doing, you're really not looking left or right, you're just going forward. You're looking for the destination. or you can go through life as if you're going through the art museum and you are not just focused forward for this kind of for the destination but you're looking left and right you kind of slowing down and you actually enjoying it okay and I think for somebody who is driven a lot of times it's so easy to have this kind of go through life as you're going through the airport,

and we have to kind of, I'm going to put it, we have to mindfully look at ourselves and ask us, are we going, I be at the airport or we probably should switch to the art museum mode. Yeah. And, yes. I love that one. I mean, sometimes we play these little games where,

let's say we're driving two and a half hours to a volleyball tournament and usually you've got to drive the night before it starts early the next month. morning and you're staying in a hotel. And sometimes we'll get into traffic. It's normal, right? Somebody, maybe there's an accident or something happens. There's traffic on the highway. And my wife, Miranda, does the same thing where we say, there's nobody I'd rather be stuck in traffic with than you. And instead of just complaining, because like, complaining doesn't help the traffic move. It's not going to move. But instead of that, we view it as I get to do this versus I have to do this or, oh, God, we got traffic. Because what are you going to

do you're just going to the hotel and you're you may get some food and just hang out but hey we're hanging out now so instead of complaining and say oh you make a statement like that and obviously they laugh or they make fun of you or they say something cheesy because you just said something cheesy but but it really seems to change like change the tenor of of what's happening in that environment with your child or your partner or whoever you're you're there with they laugh a little bit and I think it makes it better. And it also shifts your mind to be ready to say something like that as opposed to going straight to traffic means I complain.

Yeah. So what you did, you reframed. And this is a concept, you got from Stoic philosophers, right? And reframing allows you to look at the same situation from a different perspective. right and instead of because a lot of times we choose you know we choose to look at the situation from a negative perspective where it doesn't have to be negative it could be you can look at as neutral as a positive um if somebody uh mark monson wrote it in one of his books if somebody puts a gun to your head and say run 26 miles you're going to feel like being victimized

and you're going to run because there's a gun to your head and you know you you you're you're not going to enjoy it. You're not going to enjoy it. In your mind, you'll be very miserable. But people do this all the time when they run marathons. The different, and they just, the only difference they choose to do this versus they feel like they've been forced to do this. And when you're stuck in traffic, you can look at it as an opportunity. You write, spend time with your children, have a conversation, listen to music, listen to a podcast. And suddenly, this is not stuck in traffic. This is with the time you choose to do something that's fun. And this reframing, I feel it's something, to me, it did not come naturally. It's something that

I had to teach myself to do. So I want to pull a quote and then ask you to expand on, I'll do that probably a few times here that we have left, but you're right, in our relationships, we should set a goal, not for someone to love us, but to behave according to our values and to be a good, caring partner. We cannot control whether people will love us, but we can control our actions and our behavior. This reminds me of the quote, how to get a great spouse, deserve one. and I think that is right in line with it. It's like trying to get everyone to love you. It's like, no, be the type of person that deserves that.

And you have to first exude those qualities yourself. And if so, it will probably work out. But I love that quote that you put in your book. As a writer, the last thing you want to do is try to figure out what your readers. want to read and write for them. Because if this does not organically click with who you are, the quality of your writing is going to suffer. Okay.

So what you should be doing is find what interests you and write that. And if you do that, you're going to find an audience that wants to read this. Because the quality of your writing is going to be so much better when you're going to try to be somebody who you are not. And the same thing applies to relationships, right? Because if you're going to try to adjust to become, if you're going to try to create a behavior that's unnatural to you, then you're going to be miserable.

And it's going to be very difficult for you to sustain this behavior. But you should carefully think about what your values should be, what values do you want to have, and then behave, strive to behave to those values. And then if you do this, then you, then, and also, it's also important, you want to behave, you know, in relation to your spouse or your kids or et cetera, or your friends, in the way that they would want to love you because your behavior is, you you treat them with respect, you know, all these different things.

And then that's going to, if it's either going to work out or not. But you can control, here's the key. You can control how you behave. You cannot control if they're going to love you or not. And speaking of that, you write about a relationship with somebody from earlier in your career named Mike C-O-N-N-N- is it Kahn. Is that how you pronounced the last name? Mike Kahn, yes, yeah.

Mike Kahn, okay, founder and then CEO of IMA, which you're the current CEO, which is pretty cool. But anyway, you talk to him, and one of the things you said about him is I've yet to meet a person who is better at talking to anyone about anything and not wanting anything from that other person except a good conversation. Can you tell me more about Mike? Yeah, so Mike is a 64 boy from Iowa who grew up in a town, Louis, Iowa, which had 300 people. and Mike, when he was late teens, he moved to Colorado, and he's such a smart guy,

ended up going to Harvard. So, you know, he's probably one of the first kids from his little town who went to college and the only one who went to Harvard, I'm sure of that. But I think this kind of, this, Mike kept this kind of small town, you know, small town personality. And I remember when we would go on a business trip and we would go to, I forget, to Burger King or something. And at the time, Mike smoked. And forget if I, I didn't smoke at the time, I think I already.

And Mike would talk to anybody. And he would just have a conversation, share stories. And just a random stranger. And then the person would leave. And that was it. Mike just enjoyed. But Mike, when he had a conversation with a, person, he was present. And, and, you know, and Mike never, he was really never a good marketer

because, like, you know, because he, you know, to be a good marketer, I guess you, you, you always have to ask, like, you know, ask for something. And Mike never did. And I always admire that, you know, the quality of Mike. And you're just absolutely lighthearted person who, you know, who was my mentor for the last 25 years, I guess. You also write about being in permanent beta, perpetually in beta, and essentially meaning it's a liberating feeling because it gives you the chance to constantly improve yourself to learn to grow. It doesn't mean you need to be buried just in self-help books, but you need to have this

in beta slash student of life attitude. And that's like the ethos of what being a learning leader is, is we're going to be decisive, we're going to take action, we're going to do stuff, but we also are going to have an open mind and a willingness to change our mind when better evidence presents itself. And I really love this part of the book and your mindset on being essentially a lifelong student. Can you share more about how you think about that? One of our biggest enemies you have as a leader as an investor, as a human being, in general, is your ego. because your ego basically tells you that you should not learn

because you already know the answer. Ego is extremely dangerous in investing because I'll give you an example, Sof Bank, which is run by Masayoshi's son. Masayoshi's son is an incredible investor and we used to own the stock a long time ago and right now he just, you know, Sob Bank just took a right down of, I forget,

20 or 40 billion dollars. And Masayoshi's son basically said, you know, admitted that he was, he got completely arrogant. He, he was, you know, he, and I think that's, that, that is his, that's what led to this loss. So as an investor, so I'm going to get off topic a little bit, what you need to do, you need to become what I call thoughtfully arrogant. What does it mean thoughtful arrogant. Well, investing in general, especially if you're a value investor, you know, you basically, it's an arrogant decision because when you're buying a stock, especially a value investor because you're buying stocks that everybody hates, you're buying, it's an arrogant decision because you're saying, I am right and you're wrong.

Is that a value, so can you define what a value investor is? Okay. All right. So this is a, it's a much bigger discussion. Okay, but value investment philosophy, if you think about Warren Buffett, he practices value investment philosophy. But you are looking to buy companies that are undervalued, okay? A lot of times for companies to be undervalued, people have to, everybody has to agree there is something wrong with the company, and because everybody agrees, everybody sells, you know, they sell the stock, okay, and the stock declines.

Now, a lot of times, even those people may be right, but there's something wrong with the company, Because they collectively make the decision, they depress the stock price so much that to the scenario where even if they're right, they're already worse scenarios priced into it. Okay. So a company might have been worth originally a dollar and now maybe worth 60 cents. Okay. But everybody drives it to the price to 20 cents that even if they were right, this company is nothing worth a dollar anymore. it worth 60 cents. Now the price is so low that you can still make money because you will still be able to make money because now it's so cheap. But isn't everyone in a value investor then?

Like doesn't everybody want to do that? I mean, it's a lot harder in practice than in just talking about it. But I would assume everybody's a value investor. That is a phenomenal point. And Warren Buffett would say that the whole term value investing is redundant because it should be just called investing. It should be just called. I hope I'm a value investor. I don't know. I try to be. I hire other people to help me with it.

But yeah. I think you're exactly. I think you're absolutely right. It's the, I guess the, no, you're absolutely right. And it's the, it's just the reason I have to use the term to separate myself that what I do is irrational. And that just because a lot of people, what happens, just because you bought a stock does not make you an investor.

Okay. And a lot of times, in fact, I would argue a lot of times. investors are they're really gamblers because they're buying and selling stocks. They know what the company does. And they say the company has a great product, but they don't ask the same a question, what is it worth? What is the company worth? Anyway, so let me get back to the, yeah, to the third for Oregon.

So what could have. happened to you as an investor, when you become successful, you start thinking that because I'm successful, next stock I'm going to buy, I'm going to make money. So at this point, your line of thinking is completely based on pure arrogance. Now, what you do, you forget that the reason you made money in the past, because you had a process where you are less companies and you wanted to buy them a significant discount with their worth. You forget about that your success came from

process and you start attributing it to you being you. And that eventually leads to what happened to Marseus-Sahe-San at Sobank. Now I call what we do, I have to be thoughtfully arrogant because I still have to make a decision where I'm going

against the crowd when I'm buying a stock. However, I make this decision because we put in hundreds and hundreds of hours of research analyzing the company. We looked at all the contrary opinions. We basically disprove them. And that led us to believe that the company we're paying for 20 cents is worth 60. Gotcha. So the reason it's a thoughtful arrogance because we got to this arrogance

through doing our, you know, through putting a sweat research. That, you know, now I forget the question I was answering, though. Oh, being a student of life. Yeah, perpetual beta. Yeah. So if you're a student of life, then everything you look at, you are not 100% certain. That you're always questioning and you're looking always for the opposite opinion.

And then when you arrive, only through thorough research, you arrive to an opinion. And you still, even at that point, is too open to other points of view. I find that it's liberating on so many different levels. I'll give you another example. I play chess. I play chess for a long time, but I never really took lessons. And I started to play chess more seriously over the last couple years.

And I lose a lot. But because I have this student of life mentality, when I lose, I basically look at it. Well, that's a part of the tuition. I don't get angry. I don't get upset. Because I see this happening to a lot of times. To all the chess players, they lose, they get angry, and some of them actually stop playing. Because they keep losing.

If you're just looking at it as you just look at it as you're learning, because I'm sure I'm losing every time I learn something. Well, so if I lose, I learned something, I gained. So that's the attitude I have. Let's talk about leaders a little bit more. I run a, I'm a CEO of IMA, so I have employees here. I want everybody here to be a student of life. So I want everybody to be learners. But to do this, and I want us to be what I call, like in the scientist's mode.

In other words, I want everybody here to, especially in research, in research, what we're trying to do, Seneca has the saying, time discovers truth. As an investor, what I'm trying to do is to discover truth before time does. Now, for me to have a discussion with my analysts, we need to, all of us have to be in a scientist's mode because we have to be looking for the truth. So therefore, if somebody held a view and they see data that would lead them to change their mind, I want them to be able to do this. But for them to do this, they need to be comfortable with that. So as a leader, I have to publicly show to them that I do this all the time. And when I do that, they feel safe that they can do this too.

And that's very, very important as a leader. It starts with you. Yeah. You set the tone for everybody else that we are learning leaders here constantly. I love the, you write about the best way to guard against ego is by thinking of ourselves as Evergreen students, Albert Einstein said, as our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it. We should welcome the circumference of darkness wholeheartedly.

And like I so identify it with this because at the beginning of this podcast, seven and a half, almost eight years ago, Vitale, I thought like, okay, I have a pretty good handle on leadership. And I think I know what I'm talking about from playing football and then leading in the corporate world and all this. And then I talk to more people who are far, far. wiser than me. And I'm learning about them. I'm writing a lot. I'm publishing books. I'm giving speeches. And then I start realizing, oh my goodness, the more I learn, the more I realize I have no

idea what's going on, right? I'm expanding my zone of what I'm, of competence, I think. But it's weird how now I've realized there's so, so much more out there that I don't know. And isn't that a weird paradox when it comes to learning and leading and just life and So you're so right about this. And when I was writing this book, my wife told me, aren't you too young to write this kind of book? And I, you know, my first reaction, I kind of got upset about this. But then I thought about it.

I realized she was right. And then I realized, all I have to do is just call it Volume 1. Because, and I'll tell you this, I already changed my mind on some of the things I wrote in the book. And that is the beauty of that. That means I learned, right? So that means that I have an opportunity when I write it either next edition or write other articles or even volume two.

I can say, here's what I used to think. And here's why I changed my mind on this. And that is absolutely fine. I love that element of the fact of how you approach this. And we start at the beginning talking about. kids and again I think about this so much because they're they're everything right what is it like what are you do intentionally to be fully present in your kids lives wow at the same time have this massive responsibility of being the CEO of

your company there are so many ways to answer it first of all the way I work I list of this. Number one, I identified things that I love to do. I realize there are certain things only I can do. So I try to match what I love to do and things that I'm the one who can do this.

And that's what I try to focus on. And I try to outsource and delegate everything else. Like what are those things? I'll give you one example. when we were scheduled this podcast, you were, you are your people were communicating as my assistant Barbara. I'm sure that process probably took three or four emails

to find the time that works for you and for me. If I did all that, it probably would spend three or four hours a week or whatever, trying to schedule my calendar. By having my assistant do this, now I'm basically able to save a few hours a week on doing other things. As an example, I also, I say no a lot.

I'll give you one example. I never give speeches. Let me explain to what I mean by this. I used to give speeches where I would throw it to another city and do a speech. one thing I found that I don't like giving speeches. Here's why, because before the speech, even months, weeks before the speech, my mind always going through the speech and thinking about this. And also, and while I'm giving the speech, I'm not really enjoying it. However, what I found that I really enjoy doing questions and answers. It requires very little preparation, so it consumes

a very little real state of my brain before the speech. And I learned something when I answer those questions, and I really enjoy it. And here's the thing. If I enjoy it, when I answer it, people will enjoy it because my answer will be better. So you know what I started doing? When people ask me to give a speech, I said, sure, but it has to be a Q&A in a Q&A format. And here's the amazing part. 95% of the time

people said, okay. And this is, and this is so, so I stopped doing things I don't like to do anymore. You know, and that's another example. So this way, I'm more efficient with my, you know, it's just, it was another example. I'm a lot more efficient with my time.

You know, another thing I found is that with my kids, we just scheduled to do things all the time. We go skiing. Once year we go to Santa Fe. This is something we do every time. I just spend 10 days in Europe with my older kids. And this is an important point. When I'm at home and we have dinner,

I put away my phone and I try to be present. So I'm Jewish and my wife is very religious. Every Friday night, we get together. and we have a family dinner, and we have a conversation during family dinner. And that is a, and I'm sure there's, other religions have their own days. But even if you're not religious, pick a day. It could be Wednesday. And so, and we just have a conversation with love.

We, you know, on Saturdays, we play board games, et cetera. And attention is a currency of time. And so being in the same room as your kids is not enough. you want to be present when you are with them. And just really just have a conversation, not be judgmental, and just listen to them. And my son and I have a very similar relationship as I have with my father. You know, my son and I talk a few times a day,

and he shares me what's happening with him. We talk about current events, this kind of thing. And, you know, and he, he, looks at me as I'm one of his closest friends and I you know that's you know that's you know that's how I guess you know that's how I spend time as my kids I guess uh do you have time for a couple of really quick questions I have as much time as you need why do you take cold showers so there's a lot of health benefits for this and Wim Hof will tell you you know all the reasons for them I find I do it for a couple reasons.

Number one, I only take them in the morning. So it's very clear about this. I only take them in the morning because they wake me up. That's the reason number one. But there is another reason that's more important, I think. When I turn on the shower and I put it on the cold setting, and then I stand in front of it, and I'll be honest, every single time I don't want to go into it.

And then I ask myself, what's, worst thing is going to happen to me. Like it's like it's not even skydiving. Like when you do skydiving, at least there is a tiny probability they will die, right? There is a risk of death. Like tiny, tiny probability. Here, there is just a little bit of discomfort. And when I force myself to do this, I realize that a lot of things, you know,

let's say I'm training myself to do things that may be unpleasant at first. But if you do this enough, they stop being unpleasant. And that's basically exercising this muscle of doing things that may be overcoming a little bit of fear. And but over time, if you do this long enough, you realize it's not such a big deal when you get used to it. So that's why I do cold showers. At some point, actually, I'm going to go on the Wim Hof's retreat and I'm going to do ice baths and stuff. So I haven't done it yet. What's the best thing about having a regular writing practice?

Writing is probably the most important thing that has happened to me as a human being, as an individual. It's kind of, it's somewhere there with having kids. I have a chaotic mind. And every day I get up at 4.35 o'clock in the morning and I write for two hours. and what writing does, it does several things. Number one, it allows me to organize my thoughts. Number two, if you look at our mind, and I'm going to give you this mental model,

we have a conscious mind and subconscious minds. Conscious mind, think of it as a kind of a lower-powered computer, like your iPhone. And subconscious mind, think of it as an IBM mainframe. frame, this super, super computer. So when we write, when we do something creative, we create this magical connection between conscious mind and subconscious mind. And I'll tell you, like, what I'm about to say is going to sound ridiculous, but a lot

of times when I finish writing, I, and when I say I, I mean my conscious mind and myself, are surprised of what I just wrote. Because a lot of this content came from my subconscious mind. And by the way, this experience is not unique to me. Talk to anybody who writes a lot for living or who writes a lot. They have the same experience. And so, what writing allows me to do it, establish this connection. And that basically elevated my IQ by 20 points.

And Ryan, I needed that 20 points of IQ desperately. So it's a, it's probably one of the biggest, again, I've been writing for since 2004, for 18, years now. And if you listen to this interview and there were any insights that jumped at you, thank my writing for this. That's it. It's just because I write. If you want to clarify your thinking, get it from your head to the page. And this is why I've found the most impactful and effective leaders have writing practices. And for those who make the excuse that they don't have time, That's an excuse. It's not true.

It's an excuse. We will make time for things that are priority, and this is a thing that I believe, and the reason I believe it is because I speak to so many people like you, Vitaly, who are highly accomplished and are only getting better and better and better. It's because they're regularly clarifying their thinking by taking this mess of what we have in our head and trying to get it down on the page and a somewhat. coherent way and through repetition and thinking about it and some editing and publishing some and talking it out then afterwards, that's how that keeps getting sharper and sharper and so the most precise thinkers and precise speakers are usually reading a ton and writing a lot as well. And so this is all about leadership, right? And leaders, I think this is an absolute necessary skill for us to be precise thinkers and speakers and great communicators. Well, here is

a way to do it. It's not easy. It takes time. It needs consistency. But this is, I think, from what I've seen and gathered over the years, the way to make it happen. You're yet another example of that. One more question, Vitale, you're talking to someone who's earlier in their career. Your kids are about to be this age, at least your older ones, maybe. Maybe they're say like early 20s. They graduated college recently, and they're thinking about what to do. They know they want to be a positive contribution in the world. They want to leave a little dent. They want to do right by people. They want to do good. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to that person? Well, let me tell what I tell my son. Don't choose your career based

on how much money you're going to make there. Because if that is your most important criteria, you're going to have a very miserable life. Because money is a very bad motivator. It motivates you up to a point. After you get a certain point, every incremental dower buys less and less of happiness. I'm not even sure if it's happiness.

It's just buys less and less. what I mean by that is just after you paid for after you paid for your basic needs that you know that that money bring you just that money has a lot less value to you now I tell my son that my son is 21 years old he until recently he did not know what he wants to do you know

and I told them to tinker with a lot of different things I changed seven majors before I found my love for investing. So I told him to Tinkuner to do different internships and talk to different people and see if something clicks with him. Whatever he does, I tell him he has to have a soul in a game. And what I mean by this, so he needs to choose the game, the game is something that he's going to be doing for the rest, you know, for a long-long period of time.

It's going to consume a lot of his time. And it has to be meaningful to him. And when you have soul in that, that means that you would be doing it if you're making a lot less money. You're doing it for the love of that. I'm investing and I'm writing and I'm not, I haven't worked a day in my life for the last 20-something years because I love what I do. I have, it's, you know, what I do has all of me. And money is just a very secondary reconsideration. And I would not do anything to, like I have, like,

because I have soul in the game, I have sacred taboos. There are certain things I would never do. Because it would just, I would lose, you know, I would not have soul in the game if I do it. So that's what I want my son to have. And my daughters as well, when they're a little bit older. Actually, let me go take a step further. My 16-year-old daughter, Hannah, started to teach chess lessons to an eight-year-old girl.

And before first lesson, I asked her, did you prepare for the lesson? She said, you know, I kind of know what I'm going to teach her. And this is where I went through my speech. And I told her, you need to have soul in a game. Here's why. Because what you do, imagine the impact you could have on this girl. If you teach her properly, if you do a great job, she may become the next world champion in chess. Can you imagine the impact you could have on this girl where 20 years later, 30 years later,

she'll be thanking you for teaching her? So whenever you can have a substantial impact on somebody, you always have to have a soul in a game. And so my daughter went and watched YouTube lessons, et cetera. And my wife told me, no, she had a great lesson. But I think this is when you start, not just when, you know, you start looking for your first job, et cetera, or trying to select your career. But you start with little things like this, you know, doing chess lessons for the kids. Love it, man.

The book is called Soul and the Game. the art of a meaningful life. I highly recommend it. I'm grateful that you've chosen to invest so much time to get those thoughts from your mind down onto the page for the benefit of us. This is one of the few books that's kind of essentially your journal of life, a lot about kids, parents, upbringing, personal stories.

I don't think many of those types of books work. It's really hard to do them. well and this one just killed. I mean, it got recommended me by many people from different parts of my life that don't know each other. So whenever that happens, I read the book. So that's why I was excited to have a chance to talk with you and you certainly not only lived up to it, but exceeded my expectations, man. So I really appreciate it, Vitale and I would love to continue our dialogue as we're both progressed, man. Absolutely. Ryan, phenomenal, thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. What a thoughtful guy.

I would encourage you to watch this one on YouTube. YouTube.com slash Ryan Hawk. And to see not only his father's beautiful artwork in the background, but the way he processes questions and thinks of what he wants to say and then explains with such energy and a smile. And like he's so appreciative of life. You could tell he's done a lot of reflection. and doesn't take it for granted.

And I love having conversations with people like that. I never would have imagined that I would get to speak with the CEO of this amazing investment firm who came here from Russia and just the wide differences in our life experiences. That's what it's all about. And so I hope you enjoyed this one. A few takeaways from my notes. The story of when his mom died was tragic. And Vitaly was used.

young and it made him appreciate his dad much more. He was almost scared of the fact that that could happen to his dad too. And I think we'd all be better off if we made the most of the time we have with the people we love and never take them for granted. Maybe think of stories like this one to motivate you to pick up the phone, go see them, go on the walk, take the hike, whatever it is to spend time with the people you love the most. Then following up on that, when it comes to being a parent,

It's a gift to drive your kids to school or to be caught in traffic with them. Instead of complaining, we should embrace the time we have with the people we love the most. As Ryan Holiday told me, there is no such thing as quality time. There is only time. Let's make the most of it. And there are two ways to look at life, like an airport where you rush to get through or get the baggage claim and get out of there. Or an art museum where you wander. you look at the walls, you appreciate your surroundings, and you enjoy them.

I think we should treat more days like they're an art museum. Again, I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did. If so, I'd love it if you would write a review, rate the show, hopefully five stars on Apple Podcasts. Tell a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with Vitaly Katsl Nelson. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, you give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis, which is have these deep, long-form conversations with people who have a wildly different set of life experiences for me. And I treasure those.

And I'm so grateful that you give me the opportunity to do that. All right. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Okay, wait.