The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 556: Morgan Housel - A Guide To Human Behavior, Telling Great Stories, Becoming a Reasonable Optimist, Writing Advice, Mr. Beast, & What Never Changes

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Join 10's of thousands of your fellow learning leaders and 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 "Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what's happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works." "All behaviors make sense with enough information."  The best story wins: Good stories have an extraordinary ability to inspire and evoke positive emotions, bringing insight and attention to topics that people tend to ignore when they've previously been presented with nothing but facts. Stories are more powerful than statistics. And most statistics are incomplete props to justify a story. Stories are easier to remember, easier to relate to, and emotionally persuasive. Progress requires optimism and pessimism to coexist: A rational optimist. - Save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist. - Plan like a pessimist and dream like an optimist.  "It's supposed to be hard." – Everything worth pursuing comes with a little pain. The trick is not minding it hurts. It's impossible to plan for what you can't imagine. - Invest in preparedness, not in prediction. - Realize that if you're only preparing for the risks you can envision, you'll be unprepared for the risks you can't see every single time. Fostering envy vs. admiration. Are you creating envy by what you post on social media? "People admire you when you are pursuing something, not when you have it." Reasonable Optimists: Once people believe in a better future – for themselves and others – they become willing to take risks, work hard, sacrifice near-term comfort, delay gratification, and cooperate with others, all of which are the raw ingredients of economic and social progress. A realistic optimist is someone who knows that what happens in any given day, month, or year will be surprising, disappointing, difficult, and mostly out of your control. But they know with equal confidence that what happens in any given decade or generation is likely to be pretty good, bending heavily toward progress. The reasonable optimist expects the world to break all the time. But they know – as a matter of faith – that if they can survive the day-to-day fractures they'll capture the up-and-to-the-right arc over time. Writing: I think "know your audience" can be dangerous advice for writers. Write stuff you yourself find interesting and entertaining. Writing for yourself is fun, and it shows. Writing for others is work, and it shows. If you're efficient, you're doing it the wrong way (Jerry Seinfeld micro-managed everything about his show). Counterintuitive. Highlights the dangers of shortcuts. Be careful what you wish for: A carefree and stress-free life sounds wonderful only until you recognize the motivation and progress it prevents. Hardship is the most potent fuel of problem-solving. And what makes life mean something is purpose. A goal. Read less news and more books. If you read good books, you'll have an easier time figuring out what you should pay attention to. (News isn't timeless. Good books are) Writing: People don't remember books, blogs, or articles. They remember sentences. That should be your goal: a collection of memorable sentences. One good line is infinitely more powerful than a few clumsy paragraphs. Mr Beast tells aspiring YouTubers to make 100 videos and he'll give them feedback and advice. 2 things happen. 98% never get close and give up. The 2% who do, no longer need his help. People use success as an indication of what to keep doing. But most success plants the seeds of its own demise, so what people think works and try to copy is always changing. Keep running - There is never a time when an investor can discover an investing strategy and be confident it will continue working indefinitely. The world changes, and competitors create their own little twist that exploits and snuffs out your niche. Same with careers, job skills, relationships, and countries. It's hard to accept that you have to put in a ton of work just to stay in one place, but that's how it works. Keep running. Acceptable Flaws -- Short-term thinking is the root of most of our problems in business, investing, and politics. But I get why it happens. It has to happen. Short-term thinking can be the only way you'll survive long enough to experience long-term results. It's an acceptable flaw. Useful Biases -- Reasonable ignorance – intentionally limiting your diligence in order to avoid decision paralysis in a world where everything, if you dig deep enough, is more complicated than it seems. (the paradox of choice). Progress happens too slowly for people to notice; setbacks happen too fast for people to ignore. "Stop telling kids they can be whatever they want to be. You can be whatever you're good at, as long as they're hiring. And even then it helps to know someone." -- Chris Rock A good test when reading the news is to constantly ask, "Will I still care about this story in a year? Two years? Five years?" "Money buys happiness in the same way drugs bring pleasure: incredible if done right, dangerous if used to mask a weakness, and disastrous when no amount is enough." "I'm not interested in anything that's not sustainable. Friendships, investing, careers, podcasts, reading habits, exercise habits... If I can't keep it going, I'm not interested in it." "I know people who have a lot of money, and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is nobody in the world loves them. If you get to my age and nobody thinks well of you, I don't care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster."

This episode is brought to you by one of my favorites. Storyworth. Storyworth is an online service that helps you and your loved ones preserve precious memories and stories for years to come. It is a thoughtful and meaningful gift that connects you to those who matter most. Every week, Storyworth emails your relative or friend a thought-provoking question of your choice from their vast pool of possible options. Each unique prompt asks questions you've never thought to ask. Like, what's the bravest thing you've ever done in your life?

Or if you could see into the future, what would you want to find out? And after one year, Storyworth will compile all your loved ones' stories, including photos, into a beautiful keepsake book that you'll be able to share and revisit for generations to come. I did this with my dad. I have the book on my shelf, and I love revisiting it often. Reading the weekly stories helps connect you with loved ones no matter how near or far apart you are. To take advantage of this, go to storyworth.com slash leader and save $10 on your first purchase. That's storyworth.com slash leader.

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, 8,000. 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 for 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 to tonight's featured leader, one of my favorites. Morgan Howsell is a partner at the Collaborative Fund. He's the author of The Psychology of Money, a book that sold over 4 million copies. His latest book, A New York Times Bestseller, is called Same as Ever, a Guide to What Never Changes. Morgan is one of my must-read writers. When he publishes something new, I read it every time.

During this conversation, we discuss how to become more self-aware and gain perspective. Then why progress requires. both pessimism and optimism, as well as what it means to be a, quote, reasonable optimist. Then Morgan shares a story from Jerry Seinfeld about why efficiency is not always a good thing. Then he talks about why the best storyteller will always win. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation from one of my favorites. It's the great Morgan Housel. Morgan, great to have you back on the Learning Leader Show.

Welcome, man. Thanks so much, Ryan. Good to be here. Nice to see you. Let's start with the question around awareness and perspective. And this is a quote, I believe it was in psychology money, but you've talked about it since then as well. The quote is, your personal experiences make up maybe 0.0000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.

That is so true when it comes to awareness and perspective. Can you share a little bit more about what that means to you? Here's what's funny. After I wrote that in the psychology of money, one of the common criticisms of the book that I think is valid is people who would say, hey, interesting book, but it's written through the lens of a college-educated white American male. And I was like, yes, of course it is.

Like, hello, like of course it is. And nobody can escape the lens of their own experiences in life. You can be empathetic. You can read and learn and understand about what other people have been through. But nothing is more persuasive than what you have experienced firsthand. That's true for me. It's true for you. It's true for everybody.

And I think a consequence of that is that everybody thinks they are trying to make sense of the world independently. And they're just saying, I'm going to see what's happening and then create my own little model of how the world works. But since the world that I have seen is different from the world that you have seen, Even if we are white men from the same country, roughly the same age, we've experienced very different things. So of course, we're not going to see the world in the same lens. My brother-in-law is a social worker. He works with very disadvantaged and abused children. And he had this quote that I love. It just knocked me off my feet. He said, all behavior makes sense with enough information.

He met it in the context of when he's dealing with a kid who has very poor behavior at school. They're disobedient. They're not studying. They're absent. Whatever it is. With enough information, the behavior makes sense. If you understand what they're going through at home and their broken family life, whatever it may be, the behavior makes sense. And I think there are almost no exceptions to that. All behavior makes sense with enough information. Even the behavior that you disagree with, that you find repulsive, that you find violent and immoral, all of it makes sense with enough information. And I think understanding that is such a calming sense of making sense of the world. I'm just curious, after doing a podcast speaking with hundreds and hundreds

of leaders. I talked with Paulina Pompeiano about this. She's another amazing writer. And we said the world becomes actually more gray and you become more reasonable as you open up your eyes and see the world through others' eyes through having these deep long form conversations. It's one of the best benefits of having an interview style podcast is it's really opened my eyes to all the different perspectives and life experiences of people different from me. It's made me more reasonable, more realizing that the world isn't black and white. It's so gray. And I think this quote really speaks to that as well. And that's why it benefits us to get out there, to talk to people, to learn the stories of others. It'll make you just probably more compassionate and a more

reasonable person. Yeah. I think that's so you nailed it right on the head. And I think one way to think about this is that whenever you see someone who's doing something that you disagree with, they have a viewpoint or an action that you're like, God, that's the wrong thing to do. A better question, rather than asking, why did you do that or why do you believe that? Better question is, what have you experienced that made you believe that? And if I experienced the same thing, would I believe the same thing? You can think about this in politics, too. Whatever your political beliefs are, nobody should pretend that if you grew up in the household

of a family who had the opposite political beliefs, you wouldn't believe the same exact thing. And you can even take these, like, very extreme views. of this of if you grew up in in Iraq, if you grew up in Germany in the 1920s, would you believe things and would you have followed actions that you consider absolutely repulsive today? And I think we're fools if we say the answer is no, that we are just masters of our own beliefs rather than mirrors of the experiences that we've had. So true. You dedicated your most recent book, same as ever, to quote, the reasonable optimist.

Who are the reasonable optimist? Well, I devoted my first book to my wife and kids and parents. So I was kind of out of people to devote this one to. I kind of checked on it. I'm going to devote it to my dog or something. But to me, the reasonable optimists are of whom I consider myself one are people who believe that the future will be much better than it is today and that my kids and grandkids are going to live a much better life than we are on average today. But the path between now and then is going to be a constant chain of setback. and problems and disappointments and recessions, bear markets and pandemics and political disasters, that if you can endure all of those, then the benefits for the long-term optimists are going to be great. And I would contrast reasonable optimism with just pure optimism, which to me is complacency,

the people who just say, everything is going to be great in the future. That's not optimism. That's just complacency. So that's what I think a reasonable optimist is. But progress, as you've written, requires both optimism and pessimism to coexist. Can you share why progress requires both? Yeah, if you are just an optimist, as I said just now, then you are actually a complacent. You're actually, then you're just going to get smashed on your face because the world is very

fragile and unpredictable and goes in all kinds of crazy directions that you don't want it to go. But if you are just a pessimist, you're not going to go anywhere. You're not going to benefit from humanity's incredible ability to solve problems and become more productive. And so getting optimism and pessimism to coexist is so important. In finance, the way to think about it is save your money like a pessimist and invest your money like an optimist. Have a level of cash and an avoidance of debt based off of the belief that what's going to happen over the next year, over the next five and 10 years is going to be really tough. It's going to be a constant set of challenges that you can't see coming that are going to knock you on your butt as

as soon as they hit you. But invest your money with the idea that if you can survive that and endure it and stick around for 10 or 20 or 50 years, the rewards are going to be incredible for those who can stick around. And so the example I use in the book, who I think is the best modern example is this, is Bill Gates, who took the most optimistic swing of the bat of maybe any entrepreneur in history of back in the 1970s saying, every desk in the world needs a computer on it. That was the most audacious bet anyone had ever made. And yet, at the same time, he ran Microsoft about as financially conservative as any business has ever been run. From the day he started Microsoft to the day he left in 2000, he said he always wanted enough

cash in the bank that he could make payroll for one year with no revenues, which is like the most conservative way to run a company. And so I think that's why Microsoft has been successful for almost half a century now. It's like they've gotten optimism and pessimism to coexist. I also think Google, Apple, they all kind of follow the same mentality, very optimistic. and yet they manage themselves very conservatively at the same time. In the world, though, it feels like the pessimist or the ones with the loudest voices seem to get a lot of TV time or shine on social media.

But to me, I am just so attracted to not the ones who are kumbaya, like everything's great no matter what, but like they really believe in it, whether it's in themselves or the mission or their company or just in general. Maybe I'm surrounded by it because I grew up in a home. with this amazingly optimistic dad. I married a person who rivals him when it comes to a level of optimism that she brings every day. And I just love it. I love it so much. But the pessimists seem to always get booked on shows or be the loudest ones on social media. And you've talked about this in the past, but that's the one thing to me that dichotomy is I just want to be around

those optimists because I think those are the ones who actually are going to change the world and make the biggest difference. I totally agree with you. The only asterisks I would put there is I want to be around reasonable optimists, not the kumbaya people. There's a great quote from the late scientist Hans Rosling where he says, I am not an optimist. I'm a very serious possibility. As in low, the future is guaranteed to be better. No, it's not. But the odds are definitely in our favor. So let's play those odds right. And it's always been the case, literally for thousands of years, that pessimists get more attention than optimist. And a lot of that is just basic evolution. of we are designed to respond with more urgency to threats than opportunities because you have to

survive the threats in order to gain the opportunities. So it's always been like that. Another big reason this occurs that are right about and same as ever is the speed in which good news and bad news typically plays out. Bad news usually happens very fast. It's like a median. Girl Harbor, 9-11, COVID, we're literally in one day the world changes dramatically. Good news tends to be slow compounding over decades. And so in any given daily news cycle or weekly news cycle, you never hear about it. But if you look at things in like life expectancy improvements, heart disease mortality improvements, cancer mortality improvements, they've gotten so much better over the last 80 years. And you almost never hear about it because it's a 1% improvement

every year. Now, 1% improvement compounded for 80 years, completely and utterly changes the world. But in any given day, you're never going to hear about it. What you're going to hear about our terrorist attacks and car accidents and pandemics. I want to talk about luck for a second. And I want you to share the story. I think it's a lucky one, particularly when it comes to how you met your wife. How did you meet your wife?

This is one of my favorite stories. The story about how I met my wife was I started college at University of Southern California. I was actually a transfer student. And I wanted to be a business major. I was interested in finance. Wanted to be a business major. And on the first day of orientation, you go into this giant room with all of the students, all of the transfer students, actually, and they split you up by table based off of your major.

Business majors here, English majors here, biology there. And then there were no more seats at the business table. There were just no more chairs. I think I arrived late and there was no one there. But next to the business table was the economics table. And there was an empty chair. And I sat down next to this girl who I'd never met and we introduced each other. And we became inseparable best friends.

this girl, Kathleen, all throughout college. We took all of our courses together. Everything was great. And then Kathleen was working for the president of USC. And she got tired of me complaining about being single all the time. So Kathleen had this coworker in the office of the president, who was also newly single. And she made a connection, a blind date between this girl, Gretchen and myself. It was a blind date set up by our mutual friend Kathleen.

Our first date was actually horrible because I'll tell you why it was horrible. Kathleen told both of us, she said, I'm telling you guys are going to marry each other. We had never met each other before. But Kathleen said, I know this is a blind date, but you two are definitely going to marry each other. So the pressure for this first date was so ridiculously high that things worked themselves out for there. And she eventually became my wife. We've been married for 12 years now. But I always think about this, like in terms of luck that you mentioned, if there was an extra

seat at the business table that I intended to sit at, I never would have met Kathleen. And therefore, I never would have met my wife. I never would have had the children that I do have right now. I think almost everybody, I'm sure you do, has some version of that story where the most important things that happens in our life, whether it's meeting our spouse or finding our career. And sometimes those events are good or bad happen because of this dumb level of blind luck that you never saw coming.

It was never part of the plan. You did not set out for this thing to happen. But when you put piece together the dots in hindsight, you're like, God, I never could have seen that coming, but it's literally the most important thing that's ever happened in my life. Wild story. I love it. I love the chapter titled, it's supposed to be hard. Everything worth pursuing comes with a little pain. The trick is not minding. It hurts. To me, when I think about Morgan, the greatest moments of my career, whether it's in sports or post sports playing or my life afterwards, they're preceded by something really hard, whether it's the June and July workouts that led to the victories under the lights, whether it's the big speech in front of a thousand. people that was preceded by tens, hundreds of hours of preparation with a coach in order to crush it. Whatever it is, it was hard leading up to the moment.

And that is what made it good. I think the preparation, whatever you put into it's what you're going to get out of it. Can you share more about why the hard is what makes it good? I remember this is maybe a decade ago at a former employer. They hired at one point a social media consultant to come in to talk to us about how to maximize social media. And this consultant went through, here's how hashtag work. Here's like the best time of day to post your tweets. Never once did they say what actually works, which is write good content.

And because nobody wants to hear that. Everyone wants a hack. Everybody wants a shortcut. But in anything where you're actually going to gain a benefit, anyone who's good at social media, the hack is write good content. What's the hack for writing a book? Write a good book. What's a hack for exercise? Like sweat and lift heavy things.

It's always the hard work that's going to lead you there. It's so obvious, but it's so easy to ignore. And in investing, there's always this, you know, the statistics that get thrown around about 90% of mutual fund managers underperform their benchmark. And my response is always, of course they do. What world do you live in? What world do you expect to live in which everyone who tries to beat the market can do it? It's supposed to be hard.

Like, you would never say, what percentage of college athletes make it to the NBA? 0.001%. But nobody would say, you know, college basketball is a scam. It's supposed to be hard to get to the NBA. But for some reason, in investing, they don't really use that logic. They've used the statistic that 90% of managers unperform as a statistic of, oh, the mutual fund industry is a scam. Like anything, the cost of admission is the fact that it's hard and things that are very hard,

very few people are actually going to do. I heard the story recently from Mr. Beast of when young YouTubers come to Mr. Beast and they say, hey, I want some feedback. I just started this channel. Give me some feedback on my videos. Mr. Beast says, how about this? make 100 videos and then come back to me. And he said, 99% of the people won't make 100 videos.

They'll give up after three. And the 1% of people who do make 100 videos don't need his help anymore. And it's like, that's it. Like if you're going to do the hard thing, that's how you're going to get rewarded. And so I think it's so basic and obvious, but it's overlooked in life of a really important question for any endeavor, whether it's writing or investing or school, any career is, what is the cost of admission and make sure you are willing to pay that cost. And the cost is not in dollars.

The cost is in stress and anxiety and uncertainty. That's the cost you have to be willing to pay. And for a lot of these endeavors, the cost is worth paying. The cost of admission is worth it. You just got to make damn sure that you're actually willing to pay it and make sure that you know what that cost is before you enter the gates. It reminds me so much of Seth Godin. I called emailed him when I was on episode like five of this podcast nine years ago. and he said, email me back when you've published episode number 75 and I'll do it.

And I put that on the calendar. Like I had it like mapped out when 75 was going to hit. I emailed him on that exact day when 75 hit. And he said, oh, love it. Let's go. And now episode 86 ended up being Seth God. And so I think like sometimes too, it's like a good thing for leaders to do if somebody's asking for something is give them something to shoot for.

It can actually be the motivating juice they need if they're willing to put in the work. Because ultimately, that's what it's all about. I think as leaders, that can be something good for us to think about. Because now you're in a leadership role, whether you call yourself one or not, so many people are influenced by your work. How do you view your responsibility and the weight of your words as a leader for people who follow your work? I don't know if this is a cop-out answer.

But to be honest with you, I don't. And I actually think that's okay because I've always thought that I'm writing for an audience of one, which is me. Yeah. And I'm writing, I think all of my writing. in blogs, in books and podcasts, it's almost like my diary of I'm trying to figure out the world for myself. And then I write it in stories that I find attractive. And I use statistics that I find insightful and whatnot.

And I never think what is the audience going to do with this. Now, I have over the years made a conscious effort to not give specific advice. I'm never going to write something that says you should do this with your money because I don't know you. I know myself. I barely know myself. But like, I don't know you. who am I going to pretend that this advice that I think might be good advice for me is also going to be good advice for you. It won't. And I think that is one of the ways that I avoid the responsibility of

using these words. And I always wince when people say, hey, I read your book and then I went home and I made all these changes to my personal finances. I had one person just a couple of days ago email me and they said, I read psychology of money. And then we immediately called our contractor and canceled our kitchen remodel. And I, there's part of me that's, I hope that was the right decision for you. I didn't tell you to do that. Like maybe, hopefully you made that on your odor cord because maybe you should have done the kitchen remodel. It may have made, maybe you could afford it and it may have made you really happy.

So sometimes you see that responsibility and it scares me a little bit, but I always just try to think that I'm just trying to figure out the world for myself and tell stories that I think are interesting to listen to. And then I take a leap of faith that if I'm interested in it, it might be helpful for some other people to figure it out for themselves. How does it make you feel when you get such positive recognition on the work you've published and how it's helped people. Well, I'm definitely a believer that you can't take the praise seriously unless you also

take the criticism seriously. And I don't like and I don't like to take the criticism seriously. So therefore I can't really take the praise that seriously either. I got to believe your approval rate amongst kind of the it guys out there and you're certainly one of them is got to be so high. So high. I mean the positive to the negative. I don't see a lot of Morgan Housel hate on the internet like I see some of the other famous people.

And you've sold more books than a lot of these people I'm talking about. I just feel like you're a proof. I don't know, man. I mean, it feels like it's very high. I feel like it to the extent that might be true. It's because I don't say anything controversial. I mean, what are the chapters in psychology of money? Compound interest is really cool.

Everyone is a different experience. I'm not saying anything controversial. And I've gone out of way. Of course, I have political beliefs. I have social beliefs that I am never going to share in my life. articles because I feel like I don't want to have a high approval rate necessarily, but I mean, maybe I do. I definitely want to be non-offensive. I think that's the difference. It's not that I'm trying to have a high approval rate, but I definitely don't want to have a low approval rate.

And that's, I think that's a big part of this. But also, it's like, I stopped reading reviews, even if 90% of them or whatever were positive, because the 10% that are very negative, and then they didn't want to take seriously. It was like, I don't want to live in a world in which I take all the positive reviews seriously and discount all the negative reviews. That's a very unhealthy mindset to have. My friend, Garon Stokes, told me if they're not going to be crying at your funeral, then you shouldn't really worry too much about what they think. If they're crying your funeral, maybe you should listen to them.

But outside of that, and that's to your family, friends, and loved ones. And I thought, that's probably a good idea to think about it that way. Yeah, I feel like in my own life, there's probably fewer than 10 people who I love and I want to love me. It's like my wife, my kids, my parents, and maybe three friends. That's probably the whole cohort. And it's not that I don't care about everyone else, but the careness level drops precipitously after those 10 people.

And then once you get into the realm of strangers, it's, look, I'm sorry you didn't like this book. I'm sorry you didn't agree with everything I said, but that's the world. And you have to know as a writer, particularly if you have a big platform and a big audience that, look, if you sell 4 million books, if 1% of those people hate it, that's 40,000 people who are going to vocally tell you how terrible your book was. And you can be prepared for that. You notoriously write without really, I mean, the books get edited, but for the most part, all your writing is you, right? Everything you publish on collaborative funds is you. The majority of your

books are you with that with some minor editing, which I think is super rare. I'm curious just overall about your writing process and like your total ownership over what you decide to write and publish. I think a lot of it is just my belief that writing is an art. And since it's an art, there's no right answer. It's subjective. And I think about it as in terms of painters don't have editors, sculptors don't have editors. And if someone looked at Picasso and said, hey, imagine a world in which Picasso had an editor to say, hey, you need a little bit more red up here. Hey, that's not where the ear goes. The ear doesn't go on the chair. Whatever he did. That's ridiculous. Everyone views as art is it's your thing. And so I'm not proud of this. I do think it's a character flaw that. I don't have the best history with editors. They're great people. They're lovely people. But particularly the editors that I worked with 10 years ago who would say, oh, Morgan, this paragraph doesn't make sense.

Let me rewrite it for you. I'd be like, those are my words, not yours. This is my painting. And again, like, I don't think that's a great way to do it. It's, I've just accepted that's who I am. Since it's an art, I want every word to be mine. I also think there's a good thing that in the blogs and the books, because every word is mine, I get full ownership of the good and the bad.

If your article is heavily edited by an editor and then it flops, it's very easy for you as a writer to say, oh, that's because the editor took all the bad parts out. Whereas when I write an article that flops, I'm like, I got no one to point to. Like, I wrote every one of these words. And then you get, it's much easier to learn, more effective to learn that way. When the good and the bad, 100% me, nobody else to point to. And when it's good, I'm like, I can take credit for that. I learned something.

This style worked. We try to replicate that in the future. And when it doesn't work, I'm like, that's all me. I should try to learn from that and move on from it. One of the reasons you're writing so compelling is your ability to tell amazing stories and weave them together with the point. And you write about this and same as ever. It's called Best Story Wins. And it's the fact that stories have this ability to inspire and evoke emotion out of people.

And I remember my dad when I first got a real job, Morgan, after I got done playing football. And he said, listen, one of the skills you got to work on is the ability to get up in front of a group of people and tell a compelling two minute, five minute, ten minute, story of the business, of your career, of what we're trying to do as a team, whatever we're trying to do. If you can learn that, you can literally do anything. You could write your own ticket. And when I read, you write about the fact that best story wins, that evokes that with me. Because I've seen the power of the great storytellers. Why, from a leadership perspective now, is storytelling such a useful skill to learn? I'll tell you one little example of this that I think I really first caught my attention was in college.

I was an economics major. And economics is very math-based, chart-based, very analytical. But I had one teacher. It was on environmental economics, who the first day of class he said, there's no textbook. There's no handouts. I'm just going to tell you a story for every class. And then the midterm is write a 10 page paper on something we've talked about. And the final is write a 10 page paper on something we've talked about.

And every story, he had been an economics consultant for environmental issues for 50 years. And he had seen, he had so many war stories. And every class, he would just sit in, we would just sit down. And he would start riffing. Back in the 70s, I had this client who did X, Y, and Z. And here's how they solved the room. And it was the most captivating class that I or any of my classmates had taken. And I learned more and I remember more from that class.

then literally all of my analytical class was put by. And so that was my first experience with this like, best story wins, man, not the right answer, not the guy who's going to teach you the late formula, because you remember it. I don't remember a single formula from college. I'm sure you don't either. I remember every good story that I was told. And then also it was like a survival mechanism for me as a writer. Where early in my days as a writer at the Motley Fool, I would write articles along the lines of

the Dow Jones went up 400 points yesterday and the PE ratio. is this and the earnings yield is this and just very analytical. And you can't survive as a writer doing that. It's too competitive. You're not going to get anyone's intention. But every time I told a story about myself or a story about other investors, it did great. Everything worked. So that was putting all together. It was like, nobody wants a lecture, but everybody loves a good story. And the other thing is, particularly I'm a finance writer. But if you are only writing about finance through the lens of finance and you're just writing about analytical concepts, you're going to put people to sleep. But if you could write about behavior and write about stories. So there's stories

in the psychology of money from the Battle of Stalingrad from like syphilis treatments. Like all these things that have nothing to do with investing or money. But they explain behavior. And money is nothing if not just behavior. So to me, it was not only was it more fun. It's going to be more memorable, but I also think it gets you closer to the truth of what's actually going on here. What's your process to gather all of these stories? Then how do you decide which ones to use and where and how do you relate it to that topic of that piece? I think process would be the wrong word because that implies there's some sort of strategy, whereas I think you find the best stories if you're just like, I'm just going to follow my

curiosity. Oh, this book looks interesting. I don't set out to read this book because I'm like, oh, I can pull out some good stories from this that I'll use my next blog post. It's just like, oh, this looks kind of interesting. But if you always have the bug in the back of your head of what about this story that I just read, how could I tie that back to finance? That's the bug that's always in my head. And once that bug is there, you see it everywhere. You can read a book about meteorology. You can read a book about

botany and find 10 investing analogies in there. Once you're looking for it, you can't stop finding them. So I guess if there is a strategy, it's just lots of curious, casual reading with a bug in my head and a high letter in my hand to try to remember these stories. And then sometimes I'll jot down a story and save it. And I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. And Sometimes five years later, I'll be like, oh, there's this investing idea I have ties perfectly to that anecdote that I highlighted five years ago. So it's almost like for the busy leader who's got the back-to-back type calendar, which I hope we can get better at this.

There needs to be blank space in the day to follow your curiosity, to read something, not because you feel like you're going to get anything out of it other than, hey, I'm curious about that topic or I like the way that author writes. I want to read what they have in store today. creating time for that, I know you're not an advice giver, but that feels like a good use of time for any leader. And this is a topic that I think a lot of writers will disagree with me about. And I know Ryan Holliday is one who I so admire him. He's so talented.

And I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I'm pretty sure he thinks creativity can be fostered. You can create an environment in your office that is conducive to creativity. I've never been able to do that for myself. and every creative moment that I've had in my entire life has come when I'm like sitting at a restaurant in the middle of a conversation. It all of a sudden will just be like, that's the article idea for tomorrow. I got it. Or I'll just be in the shower. I'll be doing the dishes, folding the laundry. And then it just hits you like a lightning bolt.

And every time that I've tried to sit at this desk and crank the creativity engine in my head, it doesn't work. It never works. So everyone, I guess it's different for everyone, but I've tried to create a lot of white space in my calendar in my life. and then I just have the leap of faith that it'll come to me eventually. And okay, I need to write an article next week. What's it going to be about? No idea, but it'll come to me between now and then. So you don't have a list of like next 20 ideas?

Never. No list, none of that. Never. I just take a leap of faith that at some point in the next seven days, it'll come to me. And I've been doing that for 17 years. Wow. What about, do you like, you get stuck? Less than I used to because I've become much better at killing bad ideas.

I don't know if I'm better at finding good ideas. but I'm much better now. Sometimes I'll be like, oh, I have this article idea. This is going to be good. And I'll write one sentence. I'll open up Google Docs and write one sentence and be like, nope, this isn't going to work. You can just be able to tell really quickly what needs to be killed.

Whereas 10 years ago, I would have worked on that article for two days before I realized it wasn't going to work. So one of the things you've read about is the fact that if you're efficient, you're doing it the wrong way. And one of the examples and the stories you tell is about Jerry Seinfeld. And he said he micromanaged everything about his show. So this is counterintuitive to what people talk about today, but it highlights the dangers of shortcuts. Can you share more about why if you're efficient, you might be doing it the wrong way?

One of the things we saw this so starkly with is when supply chains broke after COVID in 2021. A lot of the reason that they broke is because for 30 years, every manufacturing business in the world was about efficiency. Just in time inventory, efficient supply chains, squeeze as much juice out of the supply chain as we can. And because of that, by design, they had no room for error. Everything was running as efficiently as I could. So then when there was any kind of breakage in the system, everything just imploded. And you saw this in like 2021 where there were more demands for autos than there had ever been. But the car companies couldn't make them. They couldn't split because supply chains are all broken. That was a direct consequence of people trying

to become as efficiently as it possibly could. And I think it's true for personal finance as well. If you, particularly when interest rates were zero, it was so easy to say cash is trash, opportunity costs, you should invest that elsewhere to get a higher return. And then COVID runs around and 25 million Americans lose their job or more than that, whatever it was. And everyone, and then all of a sudden you realize that actually the opportunity cost of not having cash was off was ridiculous because now you're forced to sell your stocks when they're down 50% or whatever it is. And so a little bit of inefficiency in your day, in your calendar, in your finances, in your supply chain is absolutely vital in order to survive the surprises that get thrown at you in

life. If you look at my asset allocation, my personal finances, most financial advisors would look at that and say, you're too conservative. For somebody your age and of your income, you shouldn't have this much cash. And they might say, what are you saving for? And my answer is always, I have no idea. I have no clue. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. saving for the fact that life throws everybody ridiculous curveballs once in a while. Very good example. There's a wonderful guy named Ryan Russell who was kind of in the financial advisor community. His wife is in the financial advisor community who two weeks ago passed away from brain cancer. He's 41 if three kids under age seven. And you want to just look at a stark

example of life throwing you a curveball. Two years ago, everything in their life I think was going wonderful. Two, happily married couple, three beautiful kids, two great careers, and then boom, that's out. And that's, of course, an extreme example. But everyone, myself, you, everyone listening to this will have some variation, hopefully not that extreme of that, whether it's a job loss or a divorce of. And like, you can't read enough of those stories before you realize life is uncertain and life can be very difficult. And the only anecdote to that, if there is anything, is some degree of room for error in your finances and your expectations and your career, whatever it is, to have some fighting chance of enduring that.

Thank you for sharing that story. I read what you'd written about him online and a moving story went down that whole rabbit hole of him and his family. Tragic, but it seems like his wife is doing everything she can now to help others, which is inspiring to see in the midst of such a tough time. To shift gears a little bit, on March 25th, 1911, a fire broke out and a garment fact staffed with hundreds of mostly immigrant women. What did we learn from that tragedy?

So the triangle fire in New York City in 1911, it was the, it was one of the deadliest fires until 9-11. So for almost 100 years, it was the deadliest fire. It was a garment factory in New York in which the owners of this factory had locked the fire escape doors so that the garment workers, the huge majority of them, were teenage and young women, could not take unlawful. unscheduled breaks. They literally, you come to work, they literally lock the door behind you so you can't get out. So then there is this fire in the garment factory, as was not too uncommon back in the day because

just the materials they were working with. And they're locked in. And hundreds of women died, many of whom literally leapt out of the building to escape the fire. And on the ground watching this was a young woman named Francis Perkins. And as everyone who experienced this fire back in the day, saw it left an incredible, indelible scar in them watching this. Francis Perkins, 20 years later, became Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor. She was the first female cabinet member of any president. And she talked about that the experience of watching the triangle fire made her so furious and so devoted to improving workers' rights that this tragedy was utterly preventable

if you had stronger workers' rights, that watching this made her devote her entire life to improving workers' rights. When FDR hired her to become Secretary of Labor, she became the chief instigator of the New Deal, like the massive improvements in workers' rights. That was such a big part of the New Deal in the 1930s. And she later said that if it were not for the Triangle Fire, that utter tragedy in which these women died

because of their deplorable work conditions, there may have been no new deal. And she said the New Deal began in spirit in 1911 when this began. So I use it as an example in the book of most good things in the world, a new technology, a new social improvement, whatever it is, are fueled by something terrible happening. And the two others examples are the new technologies and productivity and efficiencies that came out of the Great Depression and World War II are off the charts. And every single person watching this today is benefiting from a technology that would not have existed if it were not for World War II, whether it is satellites, rockets, nuclear energy, penicill, and the list goes on forever, microwaves that came about specifically because of the tragedy of World War II. So nothing influences progress like panic

and necessity. And when things are going well in the world, when things are peaceful and calm and prosperous, then the motivation to improve is, oh, if I create this new technology, I might make a little bit of money. And that is a good fuel. That's great. But when you have, when your fuel for improving is, if we don't figure out this new technology, technology, Adolf Hitler is going to control the entire world next year. Then that motivation is there was this period in the 1940s when everyone in the scientific community was like, drop everything and try anything to make this work. And the amount of innovation that came out of those five years is utterly off the charts. I think there was more technological innovation

from 1939 to 1945 than there was in the next 30 years after that. It was just, it was just this utter explosion. And it happened specifically because the world was on fire. So there is, Is this like careful what you wish for element to tragedies? You have to be very careful because it's way too far to say the silver lining of World War 2. That's obviously a step too far. But after every tragedy, including I would say COVID, there is this, you look back and you say despite as bad as it was and as traumatic as it was, we gained all of these new

technologies that make the world safer, healthier, better. And those technologies would not have existed if it were not for that tragedy. Is it in a way the next time a tragedy is happening in the moment? to think of, not the silver lining, but to think of almost like a mindset shift, like something positive is going to come from this, even though it's hard to think of that like in the moment when we're like locked in our houses. But is that what you're saying is one of the takeaways here? Yeah. You can look at COVID and say, look, I think the number is more than 10 million people around the world die. Maybe it's more than that. But you could look back in hindsight and

say, look, what did that do to speeding up different kinds of medical treatments and vaccine treatments that we might look back at 20 years and 30 years. I am not an expert in this in the slightest, so I'm just shooting from the hip here. But what if, because of COVID, there is this explosion in mRNA research. And 30 years from now, that has effectively eradicated cancer. Again, I'm shooting from the hip here. But that's the kind of thing that these major events can lead to. And you can look at the technology that you and I are using right now. This computer technology, this internet technology would not exist without the Cold War is what exploded internet technology, satellite technology that wouldn't exist if it were for that war.

And so all of these major depressing traumatic events lead to something extraordinary in the future. Another getting back to luck as well as just wild stories, David McCullough told a story about George Washington and how the wind affected all of our lives. Can you give me the details of this story and just the difference? I don't even know what would be happening right now if it wasn't for this night. Yeah. So David McCullough is one of the greatest U.S. historians. He actually passed away not too long ago. But one of his books, and he was kind of a foremost expert on the Revolutionary War. And he writes about the Battle of Long Island, which was a battle during the Revolutionary War in which George Washington and his troops were getting their asses kicked.

And there was a period where Washington and his troops were cornered by the British. And all the the British had to do was sail up the East River in New York. And it all would have been over. They would have captioned George Washington, probably tried him for treason and executed him and it all would have been over. The revolutionary would have been over. But they didn't sail up the East River because the winds were blowing in the wrong direction that night. And so they couldn't. And it was just enough time for Washington and his troops to escape and regroup and the rest was history. So David McCullough was asked. He said, if the winds were blowing in the other direction that night and the British could have sailed up the East River, would there be a United States

of America? And without hesitation, he says, no, no, wouldn't have happened. I don't know. Like, what would happen? We'd all be, you know, have English accents today. I don't know what would happen. But you look at something as fundamental to your in my life as the exist of the United States. And you realize it all hung on the directions of the winds in Long Island on this random night in August of 1770, whatever it was. It's extraordinary. And then those kind of stories of the world hanging by a thread are everywhere. They're absolutely everywhere. I mean, one well-known story about it is that in the 1920s, Adolf Hitler was. was involved in a beer, Paul Putsch where he was kind of going in with a bunch of people to

start a political revolution. The guy standing right next to him was shot and killed. And so you can imagine, what if the bullet was six inches to the left and Hitler himself was killed in 1920s? What does the rest of the 20th century look like with no Adolf Hitler or no Joseph Stalin or no Mao Satang? You can go on down the list of five people who completely transformed the world and you get a completely different history than what we've actually had. There's so much, man. So I love your ability to find these stories and history and these little threads. I want to fast forward to current day now, specifically when it comes to the use of social media.

So conflicted when it comes to what to post, what not, why, what's promoting like my business and helping it grow versus what's like just super self-promotional. And you talked about the fact that you may be creating from others by posting like I just posted yesterday about being on the. big stage with 800 people in the crowd. And part of the reason I do it is because I'm proud of the work and I love the group and I said thank you to them. I'm also kind of signaling to others, hey, this is part of my business. This is what I do. You can hire me to do this in the future. So it's a little bit of a marketing thing. And I'm sure there's a significant portion of the people following who say, F that dude, because he think he is. He's full of himself, all of this stuff. And so I'm always conflicted here. You have talked about this. I want to get your thoughts because

I don't see you sharing a lot. I know you speak to tons and tons of people all over the world and have made a big name for yourself, but you don't really share that much. What's the right approach here? What do you think when it comes to envy when it comes to how to best use social media when you're trying to grow a business and spread ideas? It's such a hard thing. And this gets back to my content being like a diary of me trying to figure this out. When I write, make sure that you're not fostering envy when you think it's admiration. I think about that for myself a lot because these statistics that I do share on social media are, hey, my book just crossed four million copies. I just got New York Times bestseller. I share those things. And every time I do, I'm like,

I don't know if this is the right thing to do. Now, I'll tell you, the reason I share those is because there is no more effective marketing that exists than hearing this book sold four million copies. It creates a level of FOMO that leads to more sales. That's why I do it. But I always think, are people going to look at that and if and by some degree of social comparison even if in reality my life is not any better than theirs are they going to feel is that rather than creating a good like making myself look better it makes them feel worse about themselves and when they feel worse about themselves then they start hating you they start hating me and that's a really difficult thing to manage I think if there is any formula for it it's when you are young in a field when you're just starting

your field, starting in a career, you're new on social media, wave your arms and shout as loud as you can because you're growing and you're on your way up. Once you get to whatever the top looks like, however you want to define that. Like James Clear level right now, but he does on social. Then you need to shut up. Then you need to stop. Then you need to stop. There's this great quote from Drake where he says, people admire you when you are pursuing something, not when you have something. And I think that is, maybe it wasn't Drake. Maybe it was not one of those guys. And I think that's really true. So when you are on your way up, people are rooting for you. They're clapping for you. Once you're at the top, they're like, now, okay, now you're just bragging. And now you need to stop.

James, you mentioned, has done a very good job at this. He does not share many studies. Once in a grand while, he will share a statistic about how Tomic happens is doing. And of course, it's doing just utterly extraordinary. But for the most part, he's not. And there are other writers who don't find that balance. And those are the people who end up fostering envy. And the envy is going to come back to bite you because now the people who were cheering for you, all of a sudden, very quickly, are cheering for you to fail. They're rooting for you to fail. They want to see you fail because misery loves company. And if you fail, it's going to make the other people feel better about themselves, about their own lot in life. So you've got to be really careful with this. I really admire people who

quit while they're ahead. The example I always use is Jerry Seinfeld. Cameron Diaz is another example of I don't think most people know she doesn't act anymore because she just said, I've achieved everything I want to do. I'm out of here. I really admire that because I think to some degree what they're doing, I mean, even if this isn't this explicit, but they're like, you have to be able to,

in order to keep people liking you, keep your friends and your family and your fans liking you, you have to stop rubbing in your face how good you are at what you do. Now, of course, there are exceptions that, like I hope LeBron James never quits. Because I want to keep watching his greatness. But I think for some professions,

Writing is probably one of them. At some point, you have to shut up. Even if you're still on doing your work, you have to stop talking about how successful you are. That's a good point. How about the difference between reading news and watching the news versus reading books and maybe watching documentaries or things that are more timeless? So 10 years ago or so, I was a columnist of The Wall Street Journal. And something the editors always said is, hey, interesting article that you wrote Morgan, but how does this relate to today's news. How does this relate to anything that's happened in the last seven days? And I'm like, it doesn't. And that's why it's, that's why you should pay attention to it. This is timeless.

And they, I understand why they did this. But they'd always say, no, it has to tie back to something that happened in the last 48 hours or else it's not relevant. And in my view, I was like, look, if this article is only relevant for 48 hours, it's not relevant at all. Because I'm thinking about the next 50 years. So I only want to pay attention to things that are timeless. And, but in the news world, what gets people to click by and large is like something that. happened in the last 24 hours. So this is why I think books versus the news, I mean, the news has its critical importance. I read the news every day. But books tend to be more things that are more timeless. And the things that are timeless are the things that are really what matter in the world.

You know, whether Microsoft beat earnings by a penny per share does not matter, particularly 20 years from now. But the concepts that Benjamin Graham wrote about in the intelligent investor 90 years ago are as relevant today as it were back then. So that's what to pay attention to. As a writer, there's this quote from Nassim Tel-Aid, where he says, if you want to write a book that people will read 20 years from now, write a book that people would have read 20 years ago. You have to just write things that are timeless if you want to give yourself a fighting chance

to have a long tail in the content world. Yeah, I think the same thing is true for a podcast. I want to be able to listen to every episode at any time. Very rarely do we talk about current events because I want it to be a timeless one. and that you sacrificed a little in the short term for, oh, look, hot news, let's talk about open AI and what's going on with Sam Altman versus whatever is going on that. I think this entire conversation would be useful to listen to 10 years ago, 10 years from now, certainly today. I just prefer that as well. Morgan, I'm curious of all the people that you've been around, whether it's working, studying,

reading about, when you think about those people who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, what are a few things those people seem to have in common? I'm going to take a slightly negative spin on this. And I would say that a lot, not everyone, this is not black and white, but a lot of those people, I would use the word mentally tortured. And it's an obsession in the negative sense, that they wake up every day just absolutely tortured. I have to solve this problem. I am inadequate. I have not made enough money. I do not have enough success. And I need to go chase more. I think that's for not, I think that's 60 to 70 percent of those people. The other 40% are just, they legitimately just absolutely love what they do. And they found a

strategy in a system that lets it be sustainable. But there is a, the very high profile Elon Musk interview last week. He did with Lex Friedman. And Elon Musk said, I'm paraphrasing him. He said, people think they might want to be me, be the richest man in the world. You don't. You have no idea what it's like to be me. Because he, I think, is definitely someone who I think is mentally tortured, wakes up every morning with just an explosion, a bad explosion in their head of anxiety and probably depression and inadequacy that fuels their drive. And from the outside, you look at their drive and you're like, oh, so inspiring, so amazing. But I think inside, you would not want it for yourself. So I think that's an overlooked. That's obviously the negative view of the question that you asked,

but I think it's an overlooked part of a lot of these people, whether it's an athlete or an entrepreneur, read any biography of a very successful entrepreneur, very successful athlete. Nine times out of 10 when at the end of the biography, I think to myself, I'm so glad that you exist for the things that you've created in the world and never would I want to be you in my life. Your life sounds horrible. Sounds disastrous. And so I think it's very easy to overlook that when you're looking up to these people as idols. What about for you? I don't know if I found that balance. And I was literally just before this podcast talking to my wife about what's next to my career. What do I want to do now? Do I want to keep going at this pace? Do I want to do something

different? Do I want to throw in the towel and just become a full-time dad? Maybe. So if the question is, how do I keep this going? I think the answer is, I don't know if I will. Or I'll find a different pace to do it at. And I truly enjoy what I do. I don't think there's ever going to be a world in which I stop writing. But there might be a world in which I write much less. And rather than devoting 60 hours a week to writing, I'm devoting 10. And the other 50 hours I'm devoting to my children, devoting to my health, devoting to hanging out with my wife and my friends. I think there's actually a very good chance that that will happen. And I would say, I think that's a positive thing, because I do not consider myself mentally tortured. I don't wake up saying, I have to write

another bestselling book. I honestly don't. I just want to do things. I want to be independent and just wake up and say, I can do whatever I want today. And if I wake up and say, what I want to do is go play baseball with my kids, I'm going to do that rather than saying, I need to go write another book. I admire that, man. If you're meeting with somebody who's 24 graduated college have done really well and they want to make a dent in the world and they're like, Morgan, I know I want to leave a positive impact on people and do really good. I just don't really know what I want to do. What should I do? What do you say to that person? Particularly the young people. If you're in college, just out of college, my advice is go get a weird job at a startup or something weird. The reason why

is because when you're 22, you can almost certainly afford to take a weird job that maybe in six months it doesn't work out, maybe in two years of companies bankrupt, you'll dust yourself off and you've got time to figure out the next act. When you're 47 and have two kids in college, you can't do that. When you're 47 and have two kids in college, you need a stable paycheck and health insurance and a good 401K, you need stability. So when you're 22, you're 22, you're Two, take the weird job because when you're 47, you're going to want the job at KPMG or whatever, the big company that's going to give you a stable paycheck. Look, I think there are some people for whom out of college, they're going to go work for

the big company with the stable paycheck, and that fits their personality. But if you think, like, you're trying to find, like, your passion, then go do something weird. Don't take the job whose job title is like analyst one. Whenever there's a number after your job title, whenever they do that, you're like, you're not working company that's going to teach you something that is going to change the world or find your passion. You need to go find something weird. Yeah, get in the fight, do the work, right? I love it. Morgan, first books called The Psychology of Money,

over four million copies sold, I believe. Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed and Happiness. The next book, which is equally as good, same as ever, a guide to what never changes. Morgan, one of my all-time favorite writers. I love what you do, man, and I'm super appreciative of your time. I'd love for us to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. This has been fun. Let's do it, Ryan. Thanks so much. Thanks, ma'am. It is the end of the podcast club. If you're a member of the end of the podcast club, send me note, Ryan at learningleader.com.

Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Morgan Howsel. A few takeaways from my notes, your personal experiences make up maybe 0.000,000, 1% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. and all behaviors make sense with enough information. Let's get out of our own heads and try to see the world through somebody else's eyes, have conversations, read books, travel, talk to people. I just had a 30-minute conversation with my Uber driver in Mobile, Alabama, and learned so much about the history of that state and that area.

I got to see the world through his eyes, through his life experiences. He actually grew up in London. move to Mobile to get married. Wild story, man. But it helped me get out of my own head and see the world through his eyes and his experiences. I think we'd all be better off if we did that regularly. To the best story wins. Good stories have an extraordinary ability to inspire and evoke positive emotions, bringing insight and attention to topics that people tend to ignore when they've previously been presented with nothing but facts as a leader. It is our job to move people, to inspire them, And I would bet your chances of moving and inspiring them will go up if you're using stories as opposed to graphs and facts.

The best story wins. And then progress requires optimism and pessimism to coexist. Let's save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist. Let's plan like a pessimist, but dream like an optimist. Let's be a rational optimist. We have a belief that things will be better. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Morgan Housel.

I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And then you also go to Apple Podcasts, and once you're there, you write a thoughtful review and rate the show. Hopefully five stars by doing that, you are continually giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk you soon. Can't wait.