We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - RWH043: Survive & Thrive w/ Guy Spier: Part 2

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. Hi, folks, thanks so much for joining me for this special double episode of the Richer Wiser Happier Podcast. What you're about to hear is part two of my conversation with Guy Spear, who's the manager of the Aquamarine Fund and the author of a classic book titled The Education of a Value Investor. If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, it's worth going back and starting there. Meanwhile, here in part two of our conversation, Guy talks about some of the dumb, self-defeating investment mistakes that prevent many people from compounding wealth successfully over the long run. And he also mentions the type of companies he specifically avoids.

Starting point is 00:00:40 He also talks about the critical importance of building strong relationships as a key component of success in investing and life. In the spirit of Charlie Munger, we also discuss the challenge of engaging in an open-minded way with people whose beliefs and perspectives conflict with our own. And Guy talks about his ongoing quest to build a truly rich and meaningful life that goes way beyond money. And of course, we chat a bit about some books that have hopefully made us very slightly wiser. I hope you enjoy our conversation. You're listening to The Ritcher Wiser, Happier Podcast, where your host, William Green,

Starting point is 00:01:21 interviews the world's greatest investors and explores how to win in markets and life. Let's go back to this issue of the game that you're playing, which is the game that I think a lot of our listeners and viewers ought to be playing, is one of long-term compounding without disaster so that you get to the finish line of being securely rich. It's a sort of get-rich slow approach. That requires you to avoid a lot of dumb behavior to think of it in, you. in Charlie Munger-esque terms, like just avoiding standard stupidities. So can you just rattle off for us some of the key things that you have to remove that are likely to interfere with that long-term compounding journey? What do you have to get rid of in order not to create catastrophe along the way?

Starting point is 00:02:26 So, you know, two things before I get into it. One is I love this Chinese expression. Apparently, it doesn't matter how slow you go. so long as you don't stop, which I think is a beautiful idea. This friend who's climbed Everest five times, and he's taken various people up, I think less of that is happening these days, but he sort of feels like he can get anybody up Everest so long as they're willing to put one foot in front of the other

Starting point is 00:02:49 and never stop putting one foot in front of the other. That's the most important thing. And so I think that the other thing that I ought to share with you is that obviously I'm aware of all the domain of things that I've figured out that I want to avoid. But obviously, that that's what's within my consciousness and there's probably a vast infinite area of things I ought to be avoiding that I'm still not aware of. And obviously, we make rules for ourselves. And so just to rattle off a few, you know, I shorted three stocks. And, you know, it's funny because I had a conversation with a really

Starting point is 00:03:23 wonderful investor who's extremely quiet and private. And he said, you know, I said to him, I talked to him about shorting stocks. I met him, Steve Waldman, I met him in Omaha, incredible investor. And he said, yeah, you know, I believe that Charlie Munger shorted three times before he decided it wasn't a good idea. And I actually shorted three times before I decided it wasn't a good idea. But simply looking at the mathematics of shorting, you realize that if you just cut that from, if you just, you know, if you just cut that from your behavior and your activity, you're going to be

Starting point is 00:03:58 already ahead of the game. The next place is leverage period. And in any way, shape or form, certainly inside the portfolio, there was a period in 1998 where we were 10% levered. It was just not a smart idea to be levered at all. The only way that I could argue that a investment portfolio perhaps could be levered is if you really had access to not a margin loan, but long-term capital that is not contingent on the movements of the market. So one of the problems with margin loans is that they may require more capital exactly the time that you're indisposed for it, because you might get redemptions from your investors, for example. So you cannot see the leverage that is in a margin loan or some kind of loan against a portfolio, which may have very specific market-related

Starting point is 00:04:46 terms as to when more capital is required or when they can take the margin loan away and sell securities from underneath you. You cannot compare that to a mortgage on a home, a 30-year mortgage on a home where even if you, in the United States, even if you stop paying your mortgage interest, they can't evict you from your home. Those are two very, very different kinds of leverage. And then you can go into the leverage inside of the corporations that you're in. And one of the huge mistakes in Horseshead was that I did not pay attention to the buildup of leverage inside the company or debt inside the company, which should have been pretty obvious to me. And it's kind of shocking that I didn't do that. It was a kind of a boiling frog phenomenon.

Starting point is 00:05:24 I then go into, in my case, the selection of investment. So we're taking away vast areas where people operate. And then when we go into what I find is happening to me, I think with the selection of companies where I'm even willing to look and start thinking about investing, is that that area is becoming narrower and narrower. And I kind of don't want to think about assets that could evaporate for one reason or another.

Starting point is 00:05:57 So if you're a company that has a new drug that you're at work to develop with the FDA, and you've made progress through the first two stages, but you might not make it through the third stage, that asset could evaporate. And so you kind of like rule out every possible asset where it could evaporate in one way or another. And what you're trying to do, what I'm trying to do is only look at assets, that will exist through time forever and ever, even after a nuclear winter or an asteroid hitting Earth. I can sort of like predict that on the other side that will still be there.

Starting point is 00:06:33 And that cuts out a very, very large number of businesses where you just can't tell if they'll be there on the other side of some sort of like huge event, because most businesses are just not like that. Any kind of consulting business is really just the people. And what we've seen, for example, in the case of you can have an Arthur Anderson or a McKinsey where it's extremely well known, highly respected. And then a series of events happened where suddenly the brand has been utterly damaged. So getting to those assets that are really around forever and ever and only operating with those assets is also hard. But those are a few things where you're kind of fearing things off the table and getting a way to kind of like shut them out or. or reduce the brain cells,

Starting point is 00:07:22 and thinking about them quickly. You mentioned something interesting to me the other day also when I said to you, what could interrupt the compounding journey, the long-term compounding journey, in terms of your own behavior? And the very first thing you talked about, before you even talked about meddling unnecessarily

Starting point is 00:07:40 with the portfolio, trading too much, things like that, having too much leverage. You said messing up my relationships. Can you talk about that? Because I think it's something that people people don't really think about, and actually I think it's such an important insight that if you mishandle your marriage or your relationship with your kids or something, or your relationship with your friends, that actually can have a really powerful impact on your

Starting point is 00:08:07 compounding journey. And yeah, and I find it interesting that there are a few areas where I, with the deepest of respect, part company with these great sages that I worship in Omaha every year. Somebody made the point to me that, you know, these these kind of like extremely famous value investors live a very long time, but they don't necessarily have the best marriages. And so, so, you know, pay attention and something really irks you. And that bothers me because that is just not an outcome in my life. I don't want to have an unsuccessful marriage. I don't want to be somebody who's, who got married twice if I don't have to. I totally respect and understand somebody who loses a spouse, God forbid, to some tragedy, and then they end up getting remarried.

Starting point is 00:08:54 But so that bothers me, and I, because it seems to be a pattern with some of these famous value investors. But I think that my experience of one CEO who was going through a divorce, and so it's not that, you know, you get into the office and you're having, I'm having difficulties with my wife, we've had a bad argument over something. It's when behavior, it's sort of like becomes, and I saw this from the outside with the CEO, where what one spouse has done to the other makes the person so red with rage that in this case he was willing to make decisions about compensation structures inside this company that he had significant influence over to spite his wife, or the wife with whom he was going through a divorce. And I think that the problem is

Starting point is 00:09:44 not you're going through turbulence with your spouse, which we all have or with significant relationships. It's where the thing overwhelms us in such a way that we're unable to take rational decisions anymore. I think this is one of the most important things I've learned from you over the years is actually the importance of having a calm, quiet, steady base or foundation on which to build everything. And I think one of the reasons why it resonates so much for me is that like you, I have an unquiet mind. There's a lot of noise in my head. Both of us, I guess, you know, we often talk about having different types of attentional issues where our minds are all over the place. And so to find a place to create an environment where we can be quiet, where we can think

Starting point is 00:10:34 calmly is probably even more important for us than it is for other people because it's so easy for us to get flooded or overwhelmed or distracted. And so I think one of the things that I saw very vividly with you is how you, by moving to Switzerland, you create a quieter environment. And something that you mentioned me when we were working on the book that's always had big impact on me was you said it was a beautiful image. You said, I need to have my mind be like a calm pond so I can see the ripples in the pond. And so I think you understood much earlier than I did the importance of structuring your environment, including your physical environment, your office, but including your relationships,

Starting point is 00:11:24 so that your mind can be a calm pond. And I think for some people, there are people who can sit in a cafe. I know Tim Ferriss has talked about how he can write in a cafe or something where there's lots of noise and that's helpful to him. My friend John Gunton, who's a wonderful writer who wrote these books like The Ice at the End of the World and the Idea Factory about Bell Labs. He used to sit down with Wilco playing on headphones and would start writing. For me, my kids would start playing piano or guitar at home and it would drive me insane. You know, my daughter, Malin, complains that for years she couldn't play piano because I was working on on my book at home. And so I think just understanding how your mind works and how to create an

Starting point is 00:12:06 environment in which you can operate peacefully and how the relationships matter, I think there are some people who could be arguing with their wives and still have amazing returns. For me, so much of my life is built on the fact that my wife Lauren is a really lovely, kind, gentle soul who makes life possible for me. Likewise with you, I see how much, like I said to you earlier this week, and in politics, this long-winded monologue. But one of the things I said to this week is, you seem much better this year than last year. And I can see that's because Laurie is around. And it's lovely. You're so happy when Laurie has been around. She drove up from Zurich the other day and cooked us dinner and was hanging out with you. And you just, I can see the calmness.

Starting point is 00:12:48 I think it's such an important realization for us to think about how to create an environment in which we can operate peacefully and think, think calmly. Do you have any thoughts on that? So many. And my brain wants to dart in five different directions. But so one really important thing is that I think that I was right to focus on constructing the right environment and the physical environment is important. But I think that today, from the perspective of today, everything counts and the physical

Starting point is 00:13:21 environment counts, but the right relationships. And that's not, so first of all, get the right relationships and then work on them to make them better and to support your decision making. I think is something that I would focus on a lot more. And so I, you know, the idea that you can't build a successful investing firm in the middle of New York City is wrong. And especially given that some people, for example, work extremely well in noisy cafes and some people don't. Another thought that comes up to me is that people have approached me who are kind of young. They're in there. Sometimes some of the people who attend Berkshire, like as young as 14 and have totally committed to compounding or I'll meet men in their early 20s who are maybe not even dating or

Starting point is 00:14:02 haven't figured out their life partner. And I will tell them, if you plan to compound, from my perspective, I think that one of the most important things, I started really the journey of compounding around 30. And, you know, that extra 10 years or Warren started at age 11. makes a huge difference. I mean, often the difference is just the amount of time you've been in it. I tell them, don't worry so much about setting up your investment structure and your financial compounding structure. Figure out the right spouse and invest yourself in figuring out the right spouse and get that done. Get your marriage into the hopper and settled because that's going to be, at least to me, I think that's a really, really important building block.

Starting point is 00:14:43 The third place I want to go is to thank you because I remember one of the times, I think I think it was perhaps after the horsehead bankruptcy, and I was rattled. And you came and visited, and you did, so William did, you did psychotherapy and effectively or marital counseling in which, so you sat down with Laurie, and I don't know if I was there, but you kind of said, do you see that he's rattled? And I think that up to that point. And so it's worth saying, I mean, you know, William, that you're one of these people who sees through people.

Starting point is 00:15:13 That's your job in a certain way. So, you know, one of the scary things about having William around is that he'll see things that you don't want to reveal to him, but you'll see it anyway. So I don't even know if I'd, it's not like I'd sat down with you and said, I'm rattled, but you took the opportunity and Laurie has trust in William and said, do you see that he's rattled? And I think from that day forward, you kind of opened up a channel that had been closed in Laurie, and she opened up to that, to seeing that. And once she saw that, she was able to act differently around me when she saw that I was rattled. And so, yeah, I think, I mean, to be most,

Starting point is 00:15:48 specific about it. I saw that you were in, I think this was the start of 2016 and I was staying with you in Zurich and I saw that you were in unbelievable pain because horsehead had just gone under and it was a huge mistake. It was probably the worst investing mistake of your career and it was deeply painful and the market was getting hit at the same time and you were doing even worse. and Laurie, who's absolutely lovely, was acting as if things hadn't changed. She was like married to this young hot shot hedge fund star who had just published a book that everyone loved. And so she was flying around the world, having a great time.

Starting point is 00:16:30 And I was like, Laurie, guy is in so much pain. You don't understand. And there was a moment there where you said to me, I think we were sitting in your office in Zurich, and you said to me, I understand why C-Captains sometimes say you have to relieve me of your, you have to relieve me of my command. And I said to you, guy, do you hear what you're saying to me? And you said to me, yeah, I'm saying to you, get me out of my pain. And so I think, in a way, part of my role in your life and your role in my life has been, you know, to use this beautiful phrase from another friend of my Matt Ludma is to be friends along

Starting point is 00:17:09 the path where I can kind of come in and say, guy, you're under a lot of pressure and make sure that the people around you know what pressure you are under or and try to steer them to help you. And I think this idea of finding friends along the past who can give you strength when you're really suffering, but who also were there to celebrate with you during the good times. And there was also a time I remember when we were in New York, when you were at your annual meeting and you were talking kind of embarrassed that your returns weren't better. And I was like, guy, do you hear yourself? Your return's been really strong. And I had to kind of remind you, no, no, no, you're not getting carried away becoming too arrogant.

Starting point is 00:17:55 You're actually getting carried away beating yourself up too much. And so I think, I don't know if there's some takeaway for our listeners and viewers, I think this idea of finding. people in your ecosystem who wish you well and are friends along the path and who see when you're in trouble and when you're thriving and when you're getting ahead of your skis, if that's even the term, is so too far ahead of your skis, is so valuable. Yeah, I mean, so just to go into some of the subtlety of my interactions with Lorry, So there'd be times that I'd be feeling down on myself or stressed or lacking in sort of like having imposter syndrome. But the way, so that's what I was trying to express to Laurie.

Starting point is 00:18:46 But given other things going on, young children, you know, sort of like disagreements over our roles in the home, what it came across was along the lines of, damn it, I'm out there working all day. and you're doing nothing. And no matter. And so, you know, one of the things that your conversations with Laurie helped us to transition to is, here's some pain that I'm feeling, or here's something that's kind of like not happy for me at work right now. And to be able to talk about that without making it sound to her, like I'm disparaging her role in the home. And what's important here is not what I actually think. It's the way she receives it. And so that's kind of a subtle difference. I would tell you that what Laurie and I've learned when we have, when things come up, and it's very easy to tell when something's come up, because one or both of us is riled. And the perspective that I've developed is I don't have to try and figure that out on my own.

Starting point is 00:19:48 There's most of the time there is a template out there that we may not have within our toolbox. And so we've gone to this marital counter in London who's helped us in all sorts of ways. and, you know, there are subtle adjustments and differences or modeling of certain kinds of interaction that just once you've got it, you've got it. It's a bit like learning to ride a bicycle. We had a transition. One of our children was moving from one school to another that I was deeply uncomfortable with. And we went to him. We had three or four sessions with him. His name is Philip Trenshaw. He works in London. He's amazing. And he helped us. And I know that my relationship with my daughter is and will be far better because he helped me navigate us.

Starting point is 00:20:29 navigate that transition. So it's subtle. I think this is one of the important things that I've learned from you is the extent to which investing is this inner game. There's the there's the outer game of figuring out how to do financial analysis, how to, you know, how to look at the numbers, whether the numbers are trustworthy, what the leverage is, all of the, you know, whether management is good. And then there is this in a game that because I've had this up close and personal view of you over all these years. I can see you having to manage your own relationships, your attention, the structure of your office, the environment. And I'm not sure, I don't know if most people are conscious about it, and maybe because you've done a lot of therapy and a lot of

Starting point is 00:21:14 analysis and also a lot of writing, which I think has been hugely helpful for you in figuring out what it is you think and believe. You're just much more aware of this than most people, this aspect of the inner game. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. So the writing definitely helps. Writing is really worthwhile. Writing in order to figure out what you think, not writing for somebody else. But interesting enough, as we've discussed, in the writing of the book, which in a way is does something that therapy cannot do. But I'd gotten to a certain point, and you incredibly pulled me further, further than I was comfortable going despite the writing, which is interesting. I think that, you know, sort of, So in difficult circumstances, so if I think of my father for a second, it's fascinating because he is, he, for because of his experience as an officer in the Israeli military, other experiences he's had, when it's difficult and adverse circumstances and decisions have to be made somehow, he's an incredible person to have in the foxhole with you.

Starting point is 00:22:22 Why? because he's developed a mode of thinking under adversity and a mode of dealing with adversity in difficult circumstances that my brain kind of taps into. And if I just go for a second to the great investing partnerships, I think that Nick Sleep and Zach, I actually, Zach is kind of almost a recluse, I think. I would love to spend time with Zach because I think that

Starting point is 00:22:47 he's a very, very important part of Nick's thinking process. I think that, and we know the role that Charlie has played in Warren's life. And I think that what we also have to do is some people are lucky enough to find that sparring partner that works early on for them and the relationship. But just because we have the template of, say, Nick and Zach and Warren and Charlie doesn't mean that our template will be exactly the same. Our template may be different. And I guess what my point I'm making to you and anybody listening in is see that as an area of work, see that as an area of study. What role does my father play?

Starting point is 00:23:28 What role does my wife play? What role does William play? And so to come back to structuring the physical environment, I actually think that while it's all important, if I would give 1% of my thinking power to the physical environment and 99% saying, what is my relationship with Monash, what is a good way to structure it, when is a good way to time to talk to him,

Starting point is 00:23:50 when isn't it good time to talk to him, was my relationship to my father, when should I, shouldn't I? How do I, all of those things is really where the juice is. And I would say that, I think that some successful investment farms incredibly, not only do they develop those relationships, but they managed to transmit it through generations. And we've talked a little bit about Ruehne Conniff and perhaps others and it'll be interesting to see how that transition happens with Berkshire Hathaway. But developing that and understanding that and having a way of work with that. I mean, I think that actually you told me that Ray has an on-call psychologist at the office.

Starting point is 00:24:28 Well, also, Steve Cohen, right, was very big on this. I remember Jason Kopp used to work at SAC, and they would have these sports psychologists, right, like super sophisticated. And I remember one of the great things that Jason Kopp said to me about that sports psychologist, Jason had unbelievable returns there. I think he was kind of the best performing person there for a long. time internally at SAC. And then the sports psychologist basically said to him, now that you're getting really rich, are you going to use the money to complicate your life or to simplify your life?

Starting point is 00:25:05 And so one of the things that Jason figured out is, I don't want to own multiple homes. I don't want to have like extra complexity. He would love to go to some Barts, I think, on that vacation. He's like, I'll just rent a place. And he's like, I'll have six. outfits that are all the same. So part of what that guy was helping him to do was actually figure out the softer side of investing. You know, don't let the money complicate your life so that it all spirals out of control. Keep it calm. Keep it simple so that you can focus on what matters to you. So yeah, I think, I think Ray Dalia has always been really smart about this. Steve Cohen was smart about this. I don't know. I look at friends of mine like Yan Liyan.

Starting point is 00:25:51 who I hope will come on the podcast at some point. He's incredibly aware of these things about how you structure your environment, how you use your time. So I think a lot of the best money managers have these very systematic minds that I don't really have where they think about how to structure your environment, how to use your time. It's much harder for you and me, I think, naturally. So yes, they have systematic minds, but I think what it comes, well, I don't think this has come up, but I think it's an important sort of principle to lay on the table. And it's this paradox that once we acknowledge, once we shine a light on our weaknesses, shortcomings, the places where our hardware doesn't quite fit and work right, that's where we can actually solve the problem.

Starting point is 00:26:36 So we've talked about, I am not systematic. It's why I did well in structured environments like universities and why I was drawn to Zurich. And in hiring Chantal, I was very clear. I have ADHD and I need help with all sorts of ridiculous things like where are my keys and leaving on time for the airport. And so you can invite what is missing in your life in once you acknowledge what it is that you need and express it in the right way. And kind of the universe has a way of potentially delivering that to you. I want to sort of like, it just comes up and it's really, really important. we talked about the role of my father and the role of Laurie.

Starting point is 00:27:18 And I realized that there's something that was missing there. And I'm sorry because I kind of circling back a little bit. But so Laurie showed, with your help, Lorry started showing up in my life in a far better way, in a more supportive way. My father has become more and more supportive as he's trusted me more and more. And he's understood that where my, you know, I'm, I don't have high EQ, I don't think. And in periods of adversity, that's where. he really comes into his own. But I realize that part of why I think that's happened better,

Starting point is 00:27:51 in Laurie's case, certainly, is that I didn't wait for her to show up in the right way. I also asked myself, how can I serve her needs? What does she actually need in this relationship? And the channels opened up for her, perhaps at a parallel time, that channels opened up for me that allowed me to see her more clearly, see who she was, see what seat she needed, see how I could modify, in some cases it's very minor modifications of what I do that make her feel super safe, or far safer than she felt. I think my point to you is in constructing, it's kind of like a beautiful idea that in constructing one's not physical, but a relationship environment, it's not just saying how do I go to the supermarket of people and pick off the shelf what I want.

Starting point is 00:28:41 It's like actually, if I find a way to serve the people in my life in the right way, they will now become the people that I need them to be. It's kind of like a weird energy thing, spiritual thing, and it comes to this idea that, and I was doing it constantly and you kept pulling me away from it because it's just so easy to point over there and say, you know, that person really needs to dot, dot, dot and you a few times brought me back and basically saying yeah but forget about that guy because you can't change them the only thing you can change is yourself so all we really need to do all I really need to do is yeah to see the dynamic to see the way it's not positive but then own my

Starting point is 00:29:22 part in it and change that part in it and somehow the world has this way of once I do that change then the change is far more likely to happen on the other side let's take a quick break and hear from today sponsors. All right. I want you guys to imagine spending three days in Oslo at the height of the summer. You've got long days of daylight, incredible food, floating saunas on the Oslo Fjord, and every conversation you have is with people who are actually shaping the future. That's what the Oslo Freedom Forum is. From June 1st through the 3rd, 2026, the Oslo Freedom Forum is entering its 18th year bringing together activists, technologists, journalists, investors, and builders from all over the world, many of them operating on the front lines of history. This is where you hear firsthand stories

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Starting point is 00:33:43 Back to the show. Yeah, I think it's a really profoundly important point. It's like we're constantly looking to change other people. And I remember a friend of mine once saying to me, he said, yeah, when I look for the perfection in my wife, I find things go much better. Right. And it was, I really stopped me in my tracks. It was an extraordinary, extraordinary thing. So yeah, I think I also find sometimes when I'm looking at other people,

Starting point is 00:34:13 I'm looking at the flaws in other people, that's a really important cue for me to realize there's something amiss in my life where I'm stressed or upset or overwhelmed in some way. And it's leading me to criticize other people. And so it's actually, it's become a kind of sign for me, like a sort of symptom of like, oh, I'm struggling in some way. If I'm looking at someone else and I'm thinking, go, how much he is, I'm obviously looking away from myself because it would be too painful to look at myself. And so it's a way of me, like you, you just start to get more familiar with the tricks of your own ego and to see, oh, okay, I need to focus on myself because I can actually control my own behavior. And so I saw very different behavior in you last time we were here.

Starting point is 00:35:05 It was which, and this is, I think I can trace out the ways, the sort of like indirect paths by which things unfold. So William and I, and when you get into locked horns over something, so I was riled, you were riled, and suddenly it's like it's a struggle not over what we think we're struggling about, but there are eight things below it. And then I don't know how well you remember, you did something. that I'd never seen you do before, you said. And it's certainly under the influence of Dan Galman and certainly Rimposhae, Dan Goldman, one from your podcast, one of the things he says, you just want to increase the distance

Starting point is 00:35:41 between the trigger and the reaction. So you did something that I'd never seen you do before is in the midst of this heated, sort of like both at each other's throats, you said, I'm getting heated, I don't like this, I've got to take half an hour just to walk away. and literally you disengaged almost I felt like I was mid-sentence you just walked away to the bedroom and you disappeared and and that was hard for me

Starting point is 00:36:07 because I wanted to remain locked in verbal combat with you and and I was kind of a break I was like what now you know do I make another coffee I wonder when he's going to come out you always make another coffee so that that was new but but what so then and I just want to trace this because I'm learning in the process of talking about this. So you did something that didn't enable me to distract myself from whatever was going on inside by focusing on whatever the hell I perceived to be the source of the irritation from you. But then something else really important. So William's been talking, you've been talking to me a lot about meditation and you gave me, and this is now Matt Ladmour who gave me this. And I just think it's such a gem and it's so

Starting point is 00:36:53 important is, I don't know what you went and did in the room, but the key is not to say, oh, I'm calm, I'm calm, this annoying argument, I'm calm. No, it's like, create the space to try and understand what is going on. So the time that Matt Ludma gave me is spiritual bypassing. That's not the point of the disengagement. That's not the point of calming the mind as I understand it. The point is, now you have the space to try and understand what's really going on. And so that calmness is to do real work. It's not just to deny it and put a lid on it. Yeah, you're trying to look at what's actually going on in your body and your mind in an honest

Starting point is 00:37:34 way, not looking away from it, not avoiding it, not pretending, oh, I'm so Zen that everything's just fine. It's like you actually, you're looking at it. I think this is one of the great gifts of meditation is you're looking at it with a higher level of resolution. so you can be like, oh my, I've been feeling it during this conversation. It's like, I don't know if it's that I drank too much coffee, which is usually, but I, I can never drink too much coffee.

Starting point is 00:38:01 Usually it doesn't have any impact on me, but I'm like, there's like something weird, you know, like there's a sort of anxiety kind of here that I, you know, in my chest that I'm like, it's like, it's uncommon for me. And I don't know if that's, so, so yeah, slightly uncomfortable because you've become more self-aware. So you're like, oh, what's going on with me? But that's kind of helpful instead of avoiding what's going on in your body and just being kind of, or your mind and just being quietly controlled by, you're like, huh, okay. So one of the things Ken Schuberstein, our mutual friend taught me that was hugely valuable that I wrote about a little bit in Richer Wiser Happier,

Starting point is 00:38:39 was when he said that you don't want to make important decisions when, for example, you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired, in pain or stressed. And so knowing, knowing what state you're in is hugely valuable. So when I was in, so when we had that my lot of horns last year, and I could see I was just getting angry and upset because I was saying something to you that you didn't get and you were kind of rejecting

Starting point is 00:39:07 and then I felt hurt and rejected. And so I just know if I continue to have this discussion while I'm angry, I'm going to cause damage and that's not going to help me. let me just take myself out of this situation. And so I don't think it was optimal because I wish I hadn't got angry, but I think it was, at least I had the self-awareness to know, I need to take myself out of this situation.

Starting point is 00:39:31 It gave us a chance to cool down. So I think with a lot of these things, it's not, it's not like, oh, I'm going to become so zen and so profound, such a great practitioner of meditation and so self-aware through therapy or whatever it is that none of this stuff will occur. And Dan Goldman talks about this a lot. he was on a recent episode of the podcast, and just incredibly thoughtful about this.

Starting point is 00:39:52 It's not that those thoughts or emotions are going to go away, but because you're more aware of them, yeah, I think he was quoting Victor Frankel, who said that you can expand that space between stimulus and response, and in that space between stimulus and response, you have a choice, and that's your free will. Whereas for most of us, it just, It's like the match is lit.

Starting point is 00:40:19 You just explode. There's no space. You just gave me a little more on that. That's so beautiful. I just want to pause and just reflect on it. So there's the stimulus and there's a response. And when you increase the space between the two, that is free will. And that is such a beautiful idea.

Starting point is 00:40:39 I, oh, my brain was going in two different directions. Yeah, because you get to choose in that moment where if you're just controlled by the stuff that's swirling under the surface. You have no choice, you're just controlled by the fact that you got triggered by something. You said to me something very interesting the other day where we, you said to me that there were certain points in our discussions

Starting point is 00:41:00 over the last few days where you were being slightly triggered by something and so you would start to feel your feet as a way of grounding yourself and you would breathe more deeply. Can you talk about that? Because that strikes me as a sort of practical thing that you've learned to do

Starting point is 00:41:17 to kind of lean into difficult situations instead of avoiding them. Yeah, I'll have a go as my brain comes back into focus. So one thing that, so I, so it's Dan Siegel, who wrote a book called The Developmenting Mind, which I read tiny years ago. What an incredible guy. And I'm sure he and Dan Goldman know each other. He was a professor at UCLA. And he gave me this insight that, so in, in the development of diads, in the, they're,

Starting point is 00:41:47 There are different, John Balby, there's different kinds of attachment, and he continues with this attachment theory. And the key on developing good attachments is not that you get into fights and disputes. It's that you both have the ability and the confidence to repair from those disputes. And so if I go, and so this is a diet as just two people in this sort of intense mirror norms interaction and it happens in deep friendships, it happens in relationships, parent, child, husband, wife. And for various reasons, when Laurie and I would get into a fight over something, the way we locked horns, that would feel extremely unsafe for Laurie because she had grown up in a family where there

Starting point is 00:42:34 were never any fights. Whereas I grew up in a family where I was arguing constantly. I was like, that's always an awful space for me to be, especially with my father. So we had to learn to ride that bicycle together. And what would happen with Laurie is that Laurie would run away, not physically, but she would shut herself off from me. And that would actually trigger me in all sorts of ways. So learning to repair after you've had that break, that upset, one person yelled, one person started crying, whatever it is, is where the action is. What I started learning to do, in part through having structured sessions with Laurie and a counsellor, is first of all, when that happens, if we can possibly do it, is to get excited and to get curious.

Starting point is 00:43:19 So, my God, something's happening here. What is it? And in the sense, that's sort of like trying to become medicatives. And I've done this with Laurie many times. I say, oh, my God, look, we're fighting. There's something here. There's something valuable for us to learn. Let's find what it is.

Starting point is 00:43:33 Very early on in those sessions, one of the things that the therapist said was because what happens is you become reactive. You want to kind of interrupt the other person. You want to try and impose your point of view. You want to disagree with them what they're saying. You just like, don't buy it. And so literally just putting one's feet on the floor, it kind of like it grounds you. And so I was remembering that.

Starting point is 00:43:56 And I've done that a few times, actually. And because the point is when William or Laurie, and it's like, you're saying something and I profoundly disagree and then I'm about to do more damage. And so just like feel my feet on the ground and breathe it in. and breathe in what he's saying. And it's this fascinating thing that when, so I want to go back because I had a realization in our conversation.

Starting point is 00:44:21 So this is how learning happens. So I wanted to very much say how me serving my wife opened up the channels for her to serve me. What I realized, William, is that you wanted to start every session where we were working on the book with some study of the Zohar. And I'm proud of myself

Starting point is 00:44:41 because every now and then I realize I did something good. So if you would have asked me, honestly, in that moment, Guy, is your most important thing to do right now to study Zohar? I would have said, no, I get to work on the book. But what I would have been able to say at the time is, but I know that William is doing incredible work, and I know that this is important to him. And so I want to open myself up to that,

Starting point is 00:45:05 not because I see it is intrinsically important to me, but it's important to him. And now I think my relationship to doing that before we do any real work is changed. I kind of like I did it and then I learned it. And so it seems to me that it's just really important in all of these interactions to sort of go, okay, how do I open up to this person here in ways that may be difficult, uncomfortable, I don't see. I'm going to have to go to a new territory, but open up to them and trust them if that makes any sense.

Starting point is 00:45:37 And it's got, it's interesting because I really don't know. meditation very well. I don't know all of the learning that you've been doing with people like Sopnyrimpusha, but it's got to do with putting your feet on the floor, breathing in what is happening, giving space to the other person. And I'll just end with this before I hand the mic over to you, is what they taught me. And the book to read is this guy, Harville Hendrix, Imagothotherapy, was extremely helpful for us. And this skill, which is this riding, a bicycle skill, that they taught, he taught to me and Laurie in the most basic way is, so just, you know, if in doubt and if feet on the floor and other things don't work, just repeat back what the

Starting point is 00:46:19 person is saying. So rather than react, say, okay, so what I hear you telling me is, and just try and create the space for them to see that you're seeing or you're making an effort to acknowledge their reality. I don't know if that's helpful. Yeah, I think part of it is getting quiet enough. You use that beautiful term talking about giving space, that you're trying to create enough space and enough quiet so you can hear where the other person is coming from. And you can, yeah, so I think a lot of this stuff is about adding space.

Starting point is 00:46:55 Like, you know, as we were saying before, like expanding that space between stimulus and response. And so when, because you and I, are pretty emotional and pretty intense people and our minds are just very, very busy and distractible. We're probably sort of a more extreme version of a lot of people. It's more important for us to find ways to keep quiet, to give space, whether it's through meditation, exercise, walking in the mountains or whatever, anything that you can do to create a little more spaciousness so that you can respond more wisely. On that subject, I wanted to ask you something

Starting point is 00:47:40 that you and I have been talking about a lot over the last few days. I think is a really important issue that's contentious for a lot of people, but really worth us exploring, which is you and I have been talking about the fact that we live in this very intense period where there's a lot of division and high emotion over Trump and US politics over the environment and global warming and ESG over women's right to choose what to do with their bodies versus the Supreme Court kind of deciding they don't have certain rights and arguments about guns and issues with Ukraine and Gaza. And one of the things you and I have been talking about a lot this week is how to engage with

Starting point is 00:48:32 people who are coming at us with very different views, very different experiences, and find ways to talk and find ways not to be just reinforcing our own prejudices and shutting ourselves off from other people's views. Because, I mean, I saw this yesterday at ValueX, this event that you're hosting here in clusters that a friend of yours, Abdulaziz from Saudi came onto the stage and you just immediately hugged him. And there's something really beautiful about seeing a guy whose father is Israeli, mother is South African in your case, and this guy who I think is a Saudi living in London,

Starting point is 00:49:18 able to kind of look at each other and kind of express love in that way in a situation that could be incredibly intense. And it seemed to me that was a very conscious decision on your part. And I'm trying, I'd love to get a sense from you, of what you've learned both through your mistakes and through the times when you've done it well in recent months since October 7th, not least, the attack in Israel, how you communicate, how we can communicate better with people whose experiences and views and prejudices and biases and understanding is just so different from ours on any of these contentious subjects.

Starting point is 00:49:58 Yeah, I mean, boy, I feel like I am. So first of all, I need to say, Aziz is very huggable. Yeah. But, and he's, you know, I joke with Aziz. I've said to Aziz, Aziz, I want to meet your mother because I just feel I see in Aziz somebody who's deeply loved by his mother, perhaps by his father as well, but I feel like it's his mother and it comes through in his smile and all sorts of things. And I'm very grateful for Aziz in my life.

Starting point is 00:50:26 But I feel kind of slightly daunted and honored that you ask me that question because I don't think that I've necessarily handled myself, if you like, the best in the wake of the October 7th attacks. And so, and I think that there are people who are real experts. I'm thinking of a sort of a forum trainer, moderator coach type in Israel called Amil Kvil, who I've seen moderate disputes. And so there are people who are real experts at it. And I'm not one. And I think that I think that I I know the principle and the principles, but acting on them, especially when you're involved, is extremely hard. And I think there's many nuances and solities, but I'll just give you what I know, which is that

Starting point is 00:51:13 when we have anger and hate, but let's stick with anger, a lot of the time, not always. So the way I understand anger, anger, as an appropriate emotion, is an emotion that says, my boundaries have been violated and I need to take action. And there's some sort of saying somewhere, you know, to get angry is easy, but to get angry with the right person in the right way at the right time. So that sometimes, maybe often that motion of anger is appropriate, although acting on it and finding an appropriate way to act on it. I'm reminded of Warren Buffett who says you can always tell somebody to go to hell tomorrow. You know, that's a, you know, we feel angry, somebody's wronged us, but is the appropriate thing to tell them to go to hell?

Starting point is 00:51:58 Maybe there are other things that we can do. We should wait. So that's one version of anger. But there's another thing that happens in anger, when we experience the emotion of anger, the way I understand it, which is that it's actually covering up pain. And for one reason or another,

Starting point is 00:52:16 we don't feel like we have the safety, the space, the ability to experience our pain, and therefore anger comes along with this, protective shield and the anger allows us to push away whatever it is that is causing us pain. If we can somehow in ourselves, in others, see that actually what this anger is doing is it's shielding pain and allow the anger to kind of be not obscure the pain. So if we could just go to what is highly contentious and a dangerous territory, but it's the one that I'm most familiar with

Starting point is 00:52:55 because I've been probably far too engaged with it is that what is going on in Gaza and I can template it onto fights that I've had with Lurie is that there is enormous pain on both sides so whether one can talk about the rights and wrongs of all sorts of things but I don't think anybody if we could get them in a quiet conversation could dispute that there is enormous pain

Starting point is 00:53:22 And I guess we can go into a little bit. You know, on the Israeli side, well, I'll start with the Gaza. Well, I'll start on the Israeli side. So there is enormous pain at the atrocities that were permitted, which on the Israeli side, very clear, and I think to most humans, feels extremely unjustified, unprovoked, and things that one human being should never do to another. And then over and above that, that triggers, that's triggered two further things, which is, this has happened to the Jews throughout history and another trigger, which is that the state of

Starting point is 00:54:02 Israel was supposed to protect us against these kinds of pogroms happening, but it didn't protect us. And we thought that we would live in a world without anti-Semitism, but anti-Semitism is right there. And then on, you know, I want to take the perspective of an innocent guy. and family who are trying to make their lives. And I would tell you, William, that for the longest time, and if somewhere in my Google account, this was well before we had Google, you know, in Ramotschavim, which is a village that was founded by my grandfather and other people in the 1930s, my aunt Miriam had somebody who was a farmhand who would travel from Gaza. He's from South Gaza, I believe, from Khan Yunus. And it's terrible because I forget his name. But he was like,

Starting point is 00:54:55 he knew everybody. We knew him. He would stay overnight when he was allowed to. And then Israel changed the rules. And in theory, he had to get up very, very early in the morning and then go all the way back to Gaza. And then for some time, my aunt Miriam allowed him to stay overnight against the rules, because he was supposed to go back every night for security. reasons, not for any other reason. But when I talk about Garzans, I just want to be clear that I know Gazans. There was another Garzan that I knew at business school who, at the time, had started the Gaza Rowing Club, actually. There's a beautiful beach there. So from the perspective, and I know that there's the claim, and, you know, this will be controversial, but there are,

Starting point is 00:55:41 there are also, you know, some people want to say the whole of Garland society is complicit in the acts of Hamas in Nazi Germany. Hitler's willing executioners was a book that was quite successful where the author of that book made the same claim. But I'm certain in the same way that Abraham said to God, there's at least one innocent person in Gaza. There are certainly more than one, many, who just want to live a quiet life. That's what we all want to do. And from their perspective, there is enormous pain. We can't get a state. We, for one reason or another, you know, from the perspective of that person, I don't have a freedom of movement. It's very, very hard for me to travel just within the Middle East, let alone outside of the Middle East.

Starting point is 00:56:30 I have work every day just to get my children educated and just to put food on the table. Hassan is his name. Is his name. We don't know where he is now. No, Hassan wants to feed his family. He wants to earn his daily wage and buy bread to feed his family. It's that simple. And so long story short, and I don't know the half of it because obviously I connect

Starting point is 00:56:52 far easier to the Israeli side than to the Garsan side. But I would imagine in an ideal world sitting down with somebody from, even somebody in power and say, you're in enormous pain, aren't you? And sorry, that was a long way of asking that question. I think it's important. I think it's, this is one of the things that you and I have been discussing. over the last few days is how easy it is to forget the humanity of the people on other sides of any of these arguments. It's one of the things that happened in the U.S. with Trump,

Starting point is 00:57:28 that Republicans started to hate Democrats and vice versa. And so I listened to someone, there's a very good podcast that Andrew Sullivan has called Dishcast. And he was talking to an old anchorman who was saying that one of the things that went wrong, in US politics was that in the age of Newt Gingrich, they started to have cameras in Congress, and the politicians started to play to the cameras instead of looking each other in the eye across the benches. And once they no longer saw each other as humans and no longer had to look each other in the eye, it was much easier to demonize each other. And so I think one of the great challenges for all of us on both sides, on every side of these debates, whether it's, whether it's

Starting point is 00:58:15 Gaza, Ukraine, politics, you know, Trump, abortion, guns, any of these things, is somehow to yank ourselves back, to remind ourselves of the humanity of the people on the other side. Whatever, whatever we think of them, however misguided we think they are, and they think we're misguided too, not to forget their humanity. So that's, that's one thing that's a real challenge for me, because in my, in my anger and my pain, or my distress or my anxiety about politics or geopolitics or any other thing, it's very easy for me to kind of batten down the hatchets and just sort of retreat into my own sense of dogma and prejudice. I think that's key. The other thing you and I discussed that I thought was very interesting was an insight from

Starting point is 00:59:02 David Brooks that actually also came from a discussion that David Brooks had had on the dishcast podcast with Andrew Sullivan, which is David Brooks, is this great New York Times columnist and writer, said, you want to ask people what experience led you to have these beliefs? And this is something you and I discussed yesterday, that there's something so powerful about that ability to kind of gently open yourself up to the experience of the other person. Can you talk about that? Because it seems to be a really valuable insight.

Starting point is 00:59:39 So the first place I want to go briefly, is this idea of seeing somebody else's pain and the inability to see somebody else's pain. And, you know, I go back to an early therapy session with Laurie with my then-Yungian psychotherapist called Soren Ekstrom, God bless his soul. He's, I haven't had any contact with him since I stopped being his client slash subject.

Starting point is 01:00:04 But really incredible guy. And Laurie came to him. We were in the midst of a big fight. And so, you know, I had to be quiet while Laurie laid it out from her side and then she had to be quiet while I laid it out from my side and I was full of anger and he turned to Laurie he said do you see how much pain he's in I was full of anger and it was just a moment and and I don't think that Laurie saw at that moment how much pain I was in and she may not have seen it for the rest of the therapy session

Starting point is 01:00:36 but just those words over time sank in and so I find myself really wanting to get some kind of anchor who will sit with some of the people who are representing the Palestinian case, I think, awfully and say, wow, you guys are in a lot of pain. You're in a lot of pain. But I'm sorry, William, because I wanted to say that, but I've not really addressed the question. So please bring me back to the question. Well, it's important. We were talking about this idea from David Brooks, this idea of asking what experience led the person to think what they think. Because at the moment, part of what's happening, this gets at Charlie Munger, right?

Starting point is 01:01:16 Charlie Munger would talk about how people just want to go back into their echo chamber and get into what he would call heavy ideology. He talked about Buffett's father, having heavy ideology. And so in a way, what we're talking about is how to have, how to operate in a way where you're not just reinforcing your own heavy ideology and biases, but opening yourself up to other people's perspectives. And I mean, one of the things that Munger would do in practical terms is, as a Republican, he would read articles by people like Paul Krugman,

Starting point is 01:01:53 who he disagreed with a great deal. But he's like, this is one really smart Democrat. And he wanted to engage with his views. So he was very consciously engaging with the other side. And as a result, he was a free enough thinker that he could say, well, he was a Republican who ended up voting for Hillary Clinton. And this is not a political debate. What we're really talking about is the ability to open yourself up to the opposing view,

Starting point is 01:02:27 whatever side you're coming from. That's what I'm really trying to get at, is how we do that. And yeah, so where do I go fast? Something that's sort of like, in a way, it's just a problem with media and social media and the way communication works is that it really upsets me that some of these people are reasonable people with whom one can compromise, who can see the other side and understand the other's narrative. but they know that in order to get elected or in order to win their supporters over,

Starting point is 01:03:06 they have to say things that they know are not true or leave half of the truth out because that's how you win in the political game. And I think that that's kind of like just distressing to me, and I don't know what the answer is. When it comes to Swiss political culture, and I really, I think, I don't know how you construct this, that, you know, how do you get to a place where, what is truly respected in society is the person who can best represent the middle ground.

Starting point is 01:03:36 What is truly respected is the person who can best demonstrate to an audience that they understand the opposing sides position and to really go into it in depth, which is kind of like this healing process that we're talking about. And I don't think that I've spent enough time studying or experiencing politics. I just like a McKibitzer from the side, But there are people on the Israeli side who seek to understand, say, the Palestinian narrative. And I say Palestinian narrative because there's no point getting into facts. This is a narrative. And what they try and do, and I'm thinking specifically of a woman called Enat Wilf, was introduced to me by Hillel Neuer.

Starting point is 01:04:17 And she has worked hard, as I believe did Amos Oz, and is to say to Israelis, look, this country was created in the wake of the Holocaust. There was much violence that was done to Jews because they didn't have a state, and that feels really good. And we have a history that we tell ourselves. But in order for us to make peace, real true and lasting peace with this set of people who are also occupying the land, I know that we want to either ignore their narrative or we want to pick holes in their narrative and show that it doesn't correspond to historical fact. But one way or another, the only way we're going to get to a true resolution of our

Starting point is 01:05:03 differences with the population that inhabits more or less the same space is to engage with their narrative in a real way and to at least, even if you disagree with it, because we'll always disagree with it, express empathy. Now, what happens to an Amos-Az in that kind of situation is that he could do that because he was an author, because he would never have gotten elected by writing and saying things like that. And Amos Oz is a very famous, well-known Israeli author, who is no longer around, but his daughter is Fania Oz is her name.

Starting point is 01:05:36 And similarly, Aynat Wealth, I mean, amazing woman who was a member of the Knesset, might have been Israel's nomination for its representative in the United Nations, who sat with me, she's part French, so her mother's French. She sat with me in the south of France in the one time that we were lucky, I was lucky, twice I've met her.

Starting point is 01:05:59 And she had to make the decision between telling, I mean, this is kind of like nothing profound, telling lies to get elected or being intellectually honest. And she decided that she wanted to be intellectually honest. And I think that what is deeply disappointing to me about the person it seems that Benjamin Netanyahu has evolved into is that he has become utterly fine with telling lies, it seems to me, in order to be politically expedient. He's a different person now to the person he was, flawed as he was at the very beginning of his career, where I felt like what he was talking about was in some way rooted in realities,

Starting point is 01:06:35 and he's very, very capable of talking to a specific portion of Israeli society in ways that are just not helpful and productive. But, I mean, in a way, I don't even really want to get into the specifics of politics like that. I think it's more, more what I'm getting at is politicians are playing a particular game, as you point out, which makes it hard for them to be honest and makes it very tempting for them to exploit division and exacerbate division. I think what we're trying to, and we can move on from this subject in a second, but I think what you and I are groping towards is what a lot of our friends and peers are groping towards, which is to try to get to a place where we're not

Starting point is 01:07:16 boxing ourselves into narrow ideologies and anger and hatred, but we're like, it's more that action of you hugging as ease and looking at each other with love and openness to learn from people with different experiences rather than coming at it thinking, I'm right, you guys don't understand me and I'm under threat. And I, so I feel like you and I have both made our mistakes on this front. We don't really know how to engage on this front. But that's what we're sort of working out. And the more all of us can work towards that, I think, I think that's, it's an incredible challenge over the next few years because these divisions are not going away in all of these different areas. I mean, I just want to bring it back to the parcel,

Starting point is 01:08:07 because that's where I feel like I have the best experiences. I can trust my experiences, and it's empirical data that I feel I can share without kind of fluffing around and things that I don't really know a lot about. So I come back to my, my experiences in my most important relationship with Laurie, my wife, and I don't know if I've told you this story. It was kind of utterly miraculous for me when it happened. And I think that my personal experience, what you're asking for is how do we translate that into the political realm. And I don't know how to translate it, but I feel like talking about my personal experience and expressing the hope that it can be translated, I do believe it can be. So I'll

Starting point is 01:08:45 just take you through the sort of miracle, really. I felt it was miraculous. So it It's early on in our relationship. We have no children, but I believe that Laurie's pregnant. Lorry's, we've had this incredible marriage, and it was a fantastic celebration, and now it's probably sort of February, and Laurie's now pregnant, and it's a dark winter in New York City, and I've had a lousy day at the office, and Laurie, who came to the US with the largest French base in Mexico, kind of alone and lonely, but I walk in through the door, and do what I would often do, which is I had a lousy day,

Starting point is 01:09:25 walk straight through to the TV room, flip on the TV and zone out the way I think many men do at the time that was a way to zone out. And Laurie comes into the room and she's beside herself. She's like, you don't love me and you didn't even say hello to me. I probably thought I grunt. I did a grunt as I walked through the door acknowledged her in a very basic way. And what comes up for me is,

Starting point is 01:09:49 is like you screaming, yelling, ungrateful, be words, here I am battling the world all day, had a lousy day, yet you've had nothing to do, you've been hanging out, spending my money, you know, and like all you've got to do is like maybe make some freaking food for me at the end of the day. And all I want to do is watch television and you are going to come. come and give me grief? So this is what I want to say to her. It's on the tip of my tongue. I'm like, get out of my face and leave me the hell alone. And instead, you know, by some miracle, I remember some of the marital counseling sessions. And literally, William, I say it through gritted teeth. I don't believe what I'm saying. I don't own what I'm saying. So what you're

Starting point is 01:10:47 telling me is, when I walked through the door and I walked past, you felt like I had ignored you. And even in saying that in that way, in that kind of tense that way, I want to say, and I did say hello to you. And I didn't have to go long into it. And she's full of rage and anger. And she burst into tears. And she says, yes. And I felt so unlobbed. And it's been so difficult for me. And I, you know, And in that moment, if I'm tearing up right now, everything changed inside me. That was a miracle. And I was like, you know, it was like, holy moly. And we've been through many of those things.

Starting point is 01:11:26 But, you know, through Gritter-Tief, William, I wasn't even, I was trying in the most minimal way. So that is the transformation that is capable of happening in a relationship. And that is what needs to happen in the Middle East, for example. and how we get there, I don't know. Yeah, but I think it has to start with a willingness to, a willingness to see the other person's experience in their humanity and to get over our own, our own narrow, narrow prejudices. So I don't know, I hope, it's helpful for me to think this through

Starting point is 01:12:02 because I, because I mess it up the whole time. I wanted to, I wanted to switch. Yeah, thank you for giving the space to that. I think that this feels more, this is even more authentic to me, because it's been deeply distressing to watch this. It's been deeply distressing in all sorts of different ways. And I feel like at least we're honoring the people who are in distress right now. And I specifically forgive me, William.

Starting point is 01:12:26 I walk around every day caring about these people who are underground. They've been held hostage now. Kfir B-Bas is more than one-year-old. He's spent about a third to, is going to come up for more than a third of his life. he has a hostage. No child should ever have to do that. And while I'm saying that, and I've posted this on Twitter, there are from time to time photographs of injured guys and children. And what I want to say is that no girls and child, no child should have to deal with that. And that is also deeply wrong. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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Starting point is 01:16:26 Back to the show. Yeah, no, it's a very important, it's a very important subject. We talked before about this idea of this long-term compounding journey. And one of the things you and I have discussed is you're 26 years into this. And we sometimes talk about, okay, so a couple of years ago we would say, so let's say you're halfway through this journey. And now we're starting to think, well, okay, so you're about to turn 58, I think, in a couple of days.

Starting point is 01:16:54 That's true. Thanks for reminding me. I was really holding on to that 57, you know, nice prime number in the second digit. And so I was sort of saying to you the other day, well, wait a second. So let's say you do the fund for another 10, 12, 15 years. You know, it's probably not halfway through anymore. I mean, we figured out the other day that if you continue to compound at 9% a year, which doesn't sound that fantastic, that original $14 million in the fund becomes over a billion.

Starting point is 01:17:22 That's how extraordinary it is. If you continue to combat over half a century, 9% would turn that original state into a billion. So it's an enormous number. But you and I were sort of discussing, like, what's the point in it all anyway? And you were talking about, well, so as I look to the future, what am I really aiming for? What does a meaningful and beautiful life actually look like? And what part in that is to do with money and continuing to compound? And what part is developing these other areas of life?

Starting point is 01:17:57 And I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about how your views have evolved on this question of what actually creating a meaningful life and increasingly meaningful and beautiful life actually looks like for you. And it's something that, thank you, and it's something that I've struggled with because it's not clear to me. So I think that when you have an immigrant's mindset, it doesn't mean necessarily you're a first generation immigrant. might be just, but the immigrant mindset is, first of all, to acquire security. And I don't think that non-immigrants can fully understand the sense of unease. And yeah, I guess it's the sense of unease of being in a society where you don't fully know your way. And I would say with the UK, you know, my family, starting with my mother and father who immigrated to the UK when I was 11 years, old, I would argue that we're still on a journey of understanding what the United Kingdom is

Starting point is 01:19:02 really about. It's particularly complex, I think, society with a very, very complex social system, and I'm on a learning curve that I'm still going through and getting to. And I think that many immigrants understandably lunge for financial security. That is why in many countries, immigrant populations, there are many very successful entrepreneurs amongst immigrant population. because that is the source of security. And I think that when I look back, that is a part of what's motivated me to be doing what I'm doing. And we've talked, and I think I've written in my annual letters, about that, you know,

Starting point is 01:19:41 often that kind of that sense of security or not goes back generations. So in my case, I think there's a particular break in the 1930s when any family wealth that my family had in Germany was completely destroyed and there was kind of starting again. And what's fascinating about this is that I think that we need to be aware of it because it influences us whether we like it or not. And it's not like my father or my grandparents or relatives have ever sat down with me and told me that story, but we grew up living with it. And so it is worthwhile to make it explicit. The place where I struggle is that, and I've said this to you, it seems to me to be asinine is the word that I want to use. But we're in front of a guy who

Starting point is 01:20:24 has read many more words of English and maybe we'll get on to Proust at some point. That would be childmonga's words, Asinine. Yes, it is. And I'm kind of using it to reference here. But actually, before I go that, do you mind, William, what does Asinine really mean? Well, it's in the same genre of words like puerile, stupid, naive. So, Asinine, it's kind of dumb. It's a fancy word for saying. It would be dumb and puerile and idiotic.

Starting point is 01:20:53 And I think that what's my point? is I'm using the word just because Charlie Munger's use it. And actually, I think the better word for me to use is shallow. Yeah. He would say assininitis and inanitiz. Right. But it's shallow because what are you actually trying to optimize for? And, you know, William, I think you worked out that we have less than 10,000 hours based

Starting point is 01:21:12 on life expectancy. Yeah, this is based on my conversation with Chris Davis. He said, once you hit about 54, you're into the third session. of 10,000 days. And so given that we're into this, what maybe, you know, it takes it into our early 80s. So let's say another 10,000 productive days

Starting point is 01:21:37 that I have as a 55 year old, and you as a soon to be 58 year old. Yeah, so Chris's point was if you apply munger's inversion technique, you want to say, what could mess up these last 10,000 days? And let me not do that. in any case, absolutely. And over and above that, you know, what is really the limited resource is

Starting point is 01:22:01 what is every moment of our lives filled with and what do we want it to be filled with. And it's come up for me many times is the moment. So if you're Warren Buffett, to whom you could have asked the same question, his answer, I believe, would be, but I just really, really like looking at companies. And I really, really like continuing to work on this work of arts that is Berkshire Hathaway, Museum of Modern Business. And I've tried reading, I could imagine Warren saying, I've tried reading Proust and it really left me stone cold. And I remember that moment when I realized that what really made Warren so remarkable for me was that he wasn't trying to be that person who's utterly fascinated with examining businesses all day long. He is

Starting point is 01:22:53 that person. And he's tried being a different person and he isn't. And then I go to at some point at one of the Westgo meetings where Charlie's asked what novels he's read and he said that he doesn't read much in the fiction world anymore. And that irked me. And I realized that I did not want to go through the rest of my life, having not read all sorts of works of fiction, including the world's great classics, just because I think that, and I actually think that later, so it's only in the last decade that I read David Copperfield and War and Peace and the Magic Mountain, and I think I'm a wife's a better person for it. So for me, those last 10,000 hours, I believe it's more meaningful for me to spend at least some part of that time exposing myself to some of those

Starting point is 01:23:40 great minds of literature. And it's fascinating for me that, you know, what I've not been able to do is to pick a particular author. And I think it's really beautiful. And I'm fascinated that, you you seem to have picked Proust, all one and a half million words of in search of lost time that you've chosen to spend time with. So what I struggle with is that in a certain way, up to now I set up my life with the goal of creating this financial security for myself and my investors, in a certain way I've achieved that for the people who've been with me, at least some of the people who've been with me from the beginning, including my father and my own family. And I haven't really figured out the right way to structure my life,

Starting point is 01:24:21 going forwards. And I know that the right answer for me is not to say, because I do love the investing side of things. And I don't want to clean that off the table, but it's creating the space for the other things for a balanced and rich life. And for me, that involves reading and learning and developing. So, so, so, so, so, and then just forgive me, going back to this financial security, and I go back to a talk that was given and then I'll hand the mic over to you to see where you go, where this, I think his name is Collier. I wish I I would remember his first name, five-year reunion for Businessful, where you see, he talks to us and says, as the years go on, many of you will not return to your reunions. And the reason you don't

Starting point is 01:25:04 return, he said, he was talking from experience, from analysis of Businessful reunions. He said, it's not going to be your health. It's not going to be your wealth. It's going to be because you messed up some important relationships in your life, quite probably the relationship with your spouse. He dressed us as a group and he said, don't worry about your finances, your graduates of Harvard Business School, you're going to do great. You're going to do far better than the vast majority of the American population. Worry about the non-financial side of your balance sheet. And I urge you to invest in that. And so I really took that to heart. And so why would I continue to think about only getting wealthier in a financial sense? if I'm not investing in the non-financial side of my balance sheet. My family relationship is my psychological health, all of those things. What I would tell you is that having thought about that for the last couple of decades, one of the things that's been disappointing and hard for me to understand is that,

Starting point is 01:26:02 you know, we can do as much as we can with our own children. And even then, I mean, I've got teenage children. You were very soothing to me. I mean, the outcomes are often different to what we hoped for and expect. And part of wisdom is learning to adjust to that. And when it goes beyond immediate family, you can invest as much as you like, but the world has a way of taking over. So the answer is also not to just invest in the non-financial side of one's balance sheet or of one's assets. But so I'm looking to kind of balance that out.

Starting point is 01:26:34 And I don't think I've done a particularly good job. And it's also, there's a kind of a sense of sort of, I feel conflicted because, I mean, one of the first things I said to you and you came was like, you know, William, I feel bad. because I'm putting out not an Omaha number, and you're an investor with me. I have to be honest about what's going on. I am interested in these other things. So that's kind of hard for me, and I have to find a way to navigate my way through that. And what I was committed to doing, and I wrote it somewhere, so I delivered to William a whole bunch of things, is that I'm determined to be honest about this process and not to try and cover up something,

Starting point is 01:27:11 which it would be very expedient to do, but ultimately that will lead to more diminished life. I think in the way that when I said to Chris Davis, what does Warren talk about in private? And he talked about the extent which Warren talks about making Berkshire resilient and bulletproof for many decades to come. I think people would be surprised at not to recreate ourselves with Warren and Chris Davis, but at how much of our conversations over the last week and probably always are about these questions of what's an appropriate? speed limit. How hard should we be pushing ourselves in life? How intensely should you be devoted to generating good returns? And what are you willing to sacrifice for that? And what actually is going to constitute a rich and abundant life? And what are we actually optimizing for? And are we

Starting point is 01:28:08 optimizing for the wrong things? And so these are questions that relate to investing, but they really, as Charlie would say using that phrase you mentioned before, everything is one damn relatedness after another. It's all related. I think this is something you and I worry about a lot or ponder a lot or agonize about a lot, this question of like just how intensely focused should we be on things like material and professional success. And I had this extraordinary experience with a great Tibetan Buddhist teacher recently

Starting point is 01:28:45 who said to me that the greatest wealth is a tamed mind. And once you hear that, you're like, wait a second. So if I'm really intensely driving for success blindly in this kind of physical, material, reputational way, but my mind is a mess and I have no equanimity, I've kind of lost the battle. And so I think maybe this is part of our sort of middle-aged existential crisis is we spend an enormous amount of time actually trying to wrestle with these. questions. Yeah. I mean, yes, and it's interesting because, you know, I would have felt

Starting point is 01:29:22 guilty about doing that, but somehow you've made me feel less guilty. You've actually made me feel like that's perhaps the most important work. And once you get that right, many other things fall into place, I find I find myself reacting to just a calmed mind as being the ultimate goal. I feel like, a tamed mind, she said, yeah. is that somehow for me, so envy, I think, is such an interesting emotion. Again, we could spend a long time discussing, trying to understand envy. There's some things on my reading list that I haven't yet read on envy. Mimetic theory that is something that Peter Thiel is super a twin into is, you know, if you understand the envy in yourself, you can probably manage yourself a lot better, although it would

Starting point is 01:30:06 not be good for the demand for luxury goods. So I'm quite happy that it's a phenomenon in humans. But again, envy is an interesting call to action. So when we feel envy, it's, I think, triggering something in us that says, I could be that. I could do that. And envy properly channeled says, that person has got something or is doing something that I would really like to be doing. And actually, maybe I can't do exactly that same thing. There's a path for me. What am I not doing that I can do? And so to the extent that I felt enormous envy for Warren Buffett when I was at D.H. Blair. And then I started taking steps and I got far closer to a life that is that is suitable to me and it was motivated and but what I find myself envying I don't I know that academia is very very messed up in all

Starting point is 01:30:55 sorts of ways and there are practical academics or public academics who are no longer part of universities but um no one guy that I had I was on a call with recently is an astronomer at Harvard University. His name is Ivy Loeb, and he's highly respected academic, and he writes something for his substack email newsletter, short thoughts, not academic papers. Every three or four days he's got an interesting thought that he's kind of sharing with his readership. Many, I've looked at his and other academic resumes, and, you know, I feel envy for the fact that they have a, they've left a body of work, a body of thinking behind them if they were to be taken off the planet. And I'm super grateful. I mean, I would say that the most important things I've done in my life

Starting point is 01:31:45 is get married, have three children, and produce a book with you. So I've left something behind that perhaps will be of lasting value. We'll have to find out. But maybe there's more there that I should be spending time thinking through. And partly, I mean, we discussed this as well. I think that there's a lot of meaning to working at trying to understand things, perhaps the way the Montaigne did in his essays and George Orbel did. And I think that what comes up for me, and I've asked you about this, is that doing that is extraordinarily painful. It's hard work. Enormous, real writing, sitting at the rock face and saying, now, what do I want to put on paper? What do I think about this?

Starting point is 01:32:29 What is important for me to express is just the most. painful thing without really actually being physically painful. I think that I've done far more difficult than therapy, far more difficult than fighting with my wife. And so do I really want to do that? Real conversation is painful too. I realized I was thinking a few minutes ago that that tremendous discomfort in my chest disappeared a few minutes ago. And I'm like, oh, I think that was probably anxiety about talking about Gaza. And so literally, so I think, like there was one point earlier in the where I literally, I felt so physically uncomfortable that I could have, like there was a part of me that was thinking, I need to get up and go lie down in fetal position in a room over there.

Starting point is 01:33:13 And now I realize, oh, that was like my body was like really anxious about the fact that I was going to raise this very painful, divisive, difficult issue. So I think, I think it gets at the fact that we now, thank God that's gone, because we talked about it. We talked it through. And so I think that's part of part of what we've been doing for years and there's probably an appropriate place to wrap this up especially since we're going to have to go for lunch not fine because i got something i want to say to this okay and we haven't talked proofs we're going to talk proofs okay but part of um we'll talk briefly but part of what this is about is some kind of inner journey where you're looking at these difficult emotions you're looking at these these conflicts that the painful conflict

Starting point is 01:34:00 between things like trying to be materially and physically successful in the eyes of the world and true to yourself. Like these are all, you know, how to have your own views and be true to your own view and your own experience. And yet at the same time, open to other people's views. I think this is why it's been such a rich area of exploration for us with the conversations we've had over all these years and with your book and with you helping me with my book that we're just sort of, we're grappling towards some sort of.

Starting point is 01:34:30 of truth that requires us actually to look at quite difficult, quite painful, quite uncomfortable stuff. And it seems to be that at some point, though, we have to, and maybe this is the last 10,000 days, you have to actually make a conscious decision, which I don't think that I'm afraid of making really, is, what do I want my life to be about? And there's this beautiful idea that, so Ben Franklin, comma, printer. Ben Franklin was many, many more things than a printer. But there was a friend of mine that I'm in a forum with and is like,

Starting point is 01:35:06 um, landscaper, you know, and he's a real estate developer, very successful real estate developer, but landscaper, what is my life about and, and what do I want that content to be?

Starting point is 01:35:18 And two people came up to me as you were talking, uh, and you're never going to expect who they are, but they kind of like live with me because, and so, uh, Russian dissidents. We can talk about three. We can talk about Gary Kasparov. We can talk about Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Karamurza. I had the privilege of meeting Vladimir Karamorzo.

Starting point is 01:35:38 He was at Oxford, by the way, is an incredible mind. Now, Gary Kasparov says, you know, there's a book up on the shelf there, winter is coming. I hate what's going on in Russia. I'm going to do my very best to try and nudge it in a good direction, but I'm going to stay very, very safe in the West, where they can't get to me. Both Alexei Naval and Vladimir Karamaza take an extraordinary decision. And, you know, there's a documentary on Alexei Navalny. He decides that if he's going to change Russia, he's going to go back to Russia. And he knows that he might get arrested, which he did.

Starting point is 01:36:15 He's going to spend enormous amounts of time in prison. They might torture him. They might poison him. He's going to be separated from his wife and from his children. And I've met his wife. And she's an incredible lady. But in a way, Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Karamorza decided that what their life should be about is changing Russia and taking whatever risks it takes. And he's on the subway into Moscow and he's being videoed on somebody's iPhone and the police coming to arrest me says, we have nothing to fear.

Starting point is 01:36:51 And he's a guy who made the decision. I would rather be in a prison cell somewhere in Siberia than live a comfortable life. That is a meaningful life for me. And I look at that and then just briefly, the guy who changed South Africa is Nalda. So, you know, his biography, you have many, many hours and days

Starting point is 01:37:16 that he was away from his family because he was working on changing South Africa. And he got himself imprisoned in a way the same way that those two Russian characters did, and he had to spend all that time on Robin Island. That was a conscious choice that he made. And I look at that, and I go, I don't think that even if I was inhabiting the same body,

Starting point is 01:37:34 the same circumstances, the same thoughts, I would have opted for a more comfortable life. And they would have looked at me. So there's a choice that they made. I just mentioned them because they're extraordinary people, and human rights activists who take enormous risks with their own personal security and sometimes paying an enormous price,

Starting point is 01:37:51 often paying an enormous price, Masa Amini, who was killed in cold blood in Iran because she wanted to protest not having a veil on, that's not me, and I feel slightly cowardly as a result. But there's an incredible exercise. Warren's talked about it. Monash and I have done this exercise. Write your obituary. What do you want your life to be about and then try to live up to that obituary?

Starting point is 01:38:15 And I would tell you, William, that Monash and I did that exercise recently, and I had a really hard time with it because I had a really hard time. deciding what, you know, I definitely don't want to be an Alexei Navalny figure. It's just not for me. I'm sorry. Sorry, all those people that I might have served. But that's just really, really important. What was the most important revelation for you in writing that obituary about what you want your life to add up to? And it was, I was just so, you know, it wouldn't have had a hard time saying I don't want to be Vladimir Karamorza much as I respect him enormously. But I knew that, you know, Gey Speer, discovered Warren Buffett wrote a book and made a lot of money, was not enough asinine to use

Starting point is 01:38:58 the word, or shadow. It had to be Guy Speer discovered Warren Buffett, had a family, wrote a book, made enough money, continued to make money, but devoted himself to, and produced and thought or something. And that was very, very hard for me, and it was very hard for me to see exactly how that would fit together. And I think that the answer for me is just a struggle with it. And you know, And so here's where I'll go into dangerous territory with you, William. Just is that, so, you know. I want to interrupt you for a second before you go into that dangerous territory and just, and we'll wrap it up in a couple of minutes.

Starting point is 01:39:31 But when you look at Munga, who's nearly century-long life just ended a few months ago, does that, does his life clarify for you anything about what, you know, when you look at his life, does that clarify at all? question of like what constitutes a really meaningful and valuable life? I think it does, yeah, and I think that's true. That's absolutely right. And in a way that, that, you know, it's hard to approach the multiplicity of things that he did, whether it was building dorms and being on the boards of hospitals and being at the center of an incredibly rich family with the summer compound in Minnesota. Yeah, I think that does. I think, you know,

Starting point is 01:40:20 we have to make our own path. The Arthurianites in the legends would enter the forest in the darkest place. We all enter the forest in the darkest place. I have to figure it out for me, and I'm nowhere close to figuring it out. He was a channel for rationality and worldly wisdom. I mean, I think he figured out somewhere along the road that that was sharing, sharing wisdom, sharing rationality was a huge part of who he is. I think somehow, you know, in our own less grand ways, we have to kind of figure out, like, where do I fit into this mosaic?

Starting point is 01:40:59 It's something that's really interesting. But, you know, the yin and the yang of Charlie and Warren, you know, Warren with his singular focus on Berkshire and Charlie with his extraordinary intelligence and rationality that, you know, looking at that person, I can't say I am friends or was friends with either of them, known Warren, just a very, very little. bit and Charlie even less, just observed them from afar. I think that I would have, even though Charlie is a far more interesting conversation partner, an interesting person with all of the range of his mind, on some level, I think I would have preferred to have Warren as a friend, the Blumkins are friends with Warren. Somehow, I don't know why that is, but that's just an interesting thought for me. So yeah, those, I don't know exactly, I mean, I don't even know actually how one figures that out, because I failed at the obituary exercise.

Starting point is 01:41:50 unless you push me, I want to ask you, William, because it's come up multiple times. So the search is also fun and interesting, but I think it should be more than just a search. But I want you to talk to me about how you, it's clear for you that Proust is your author. And I think that I just feel like it's just fun to hear it again because it sort of puts it into my mind for me. I think that you're becoming a far wiser person reading Proust. And I want to hear you on that. I think it's really fun. I'll just try to wrap up in a small way with this.

Starting point is 01:42:27 So I think both guy and I have been thinking for years, what's going to constitute a truly rich and abundant life for us? And given our limited amount of time, and for both of us, our limited amount of attention, because our mind goes all over the place, so we can very easily fall into rabbit holes. We have to be really discriminating, really discerning about what are the really important things to focus on.

Starting point is 01:42:53 So I think for both of us, family is absolutely the top of the list. Then there's professional stuff, friendship, helping people, sharing insights that we've learned. And then there are certain things that don't really make that much sense that you're like,

Starting point is 01:43:10 no, no, this is ungodly important to me. And so for me, one of the things I figured out along the way is it's really important to me to study great literature and then figure out what's deeply valuable in it that applies in other areas of life. Josh Waitzkin, who wrote The Art of Learning, talks about thematic interconnectedness, this idea that when you find something in one area and it's interconnected with something in other areas, there's something really beautiful there about that kind of, if you find something in, say, for him, Taoism,

Starting point is 01:43:49 and also in martial arts and also in investing, that's kind of really beautiful thing. And so part of what's wonderful for me about reading Proust, and this is the third time I've made a big attempt at the ascent of the Proust Mountain. And it's hard because it's like 3,000 pages or something. And I got 400 pages from the end when I was 39 and then got distracted. by Philip Roth and never finished.

Starting point is 01:44:14 So now I'm trying again. I'm about a thousand pages through this time, a little less. Part of the fascination with Proust is that among his other great gifts, he had an astonishing understanding of the human mind of our inner life and an incredible ability to understand the ways in which we're contradictory and that we lie to ourselves, we deceive ourselves, and also the way in which we appear as different things to different people. And so there's a beautiful example of this great character, Charles Swan, who's at the heart of the book, who is this tremendous East Thede who, if you want to identify, if you want to tell whether it's a real Vermeer painting or not,

Starting point is 01:45:01 you can go to Swan. And yet, he's basically kind of destroying himself through this obsceny. with a woman named Odette, who's kind of a courtesan, a sort of high-class hooker. And then at a certain point, he realizes that she wasn't even my type, and yet I was totally obsessed with her and destroyed my peace of mind for this woman who wasn't even my type and wasn't interesting to me and wasn't smart or anything. And then right after he's had this revelation, she's described as Madam Swan, and you realize that Charles Swan has married the woman after he realized this.

Starting point is 01:45:40 And then they turn out to have a pretty happy marriage. And so I look at this stuff and I'm like, it fills me with a sense of how unknowable people are, how contradictory they are, how we're not even knowable to ourselves. We confuse ourselves. We deceive ourselves. And this does have a connection to investing and to everything else because also, you know, we construct stories about things. We look at people and we construct a narrative about a person or a company and we say, this is what it is. This is what I believe it is. And Proust reminds you,

Starting point is 01:46:15 it's so much more complicated. And it makes you, I think it makes you a little bit less hasty in judging people harshly because, you know, Proust sees everyone's flaws in a sometimes vicious and very funny way. But there's also great compassion. there. So for me, it's a reminder of the complexities of human nature and how difficult it is to see anything clearly. I want to relate two things because, you know, the next best thing to reading yourself, because you can't read all of this stuff, is to have a friend who's either reading it or read it. So, you know, I was describing to you, William, somebody that was, you know, I kind of made me feel slightly uncomfortable, wasn't sure why or how, and I don't know if you

Starting point is 01:47:04 remember, and you said, wow, the person you're describing to me sounds to me like this personality in this book in Charles Dickens' book, David Copperville, called Uriah Heep. And I'm so grateful because I'd actually put that book on my reading list. There are books that I read and I just read them, and there are books that I make myself read. I'm making myself read the red and the black right now by Stendell. And I was like, my gosh, that's right. And it enabled me to see this person in greater clarity because all you had to say to me was Uriah Heep. And then I will just tell you something else. Yeah, who was smarmy.

Starting point is 01:47:39 Uriah Heep was someone who was incredibly smarme and would tell you what you wanted to hear and would make you feel good, but would be quietly plotting your downfall. Yeah, so go read David Copperfield, focus on Uriah Heep. But that, I think, first of all, I got wiser reading the book. And then by your referring to the personality and making that connection to me, Uriah Heep's personality to somebody in real life, I became wiser. So I really do think that reading the right literature that's for you at the right time written by the right person will make you wiser. And I'll just give you one more example of that that I think is rooted in your reading of Proust, which is I've brought something else up to you.

Starting point is 01:48:15 And you said, yeah, it just shows you how you never know people. That's all you said. And I was like, what the hell is he talking about? But now that you talk about Proust, I kind of think I understand where you're coming from. And so I think a beautiful thing, just to bring Nicholas Christakis into this. So, you know, there are networks of wisdom that created. And so in many ways, I'm benefiting from the wisdom that you've received through Proust, even though I've not read Proust. And so that's kind of interesting in and of itself. And I'm looking forward to learning more. And I don't know if it's going to happen, but I've been told by William that if I start reading it myself, he might include me in a book group. But I know that I have to do some real reading for it. But I I would have spent, I know you want to close it down, you've given me multiple hints, but I would have loved to explore that, but I'll let you take the mic and take control. Well, the real moral, I think, is that in our own different ways, we're thinking about how to

Starting point is 01:49:07 construct a meaningful life for ourselves in all of our own weirdness. And so for Charlie, constructing a life where he didn't read fiction was just fine because he was busy designing dormitories. I have no interest in designing dormitories, but it's pretty fun for me to read fiction. proved. Windowless stormatries. Windowless dormitres. So on that note, Guy,

Starting point is 01:49:31 thank you so much and I just really enjoyed these conversations and it's, I've covered about, you know, 30% of the topics that I meant to cover with you, but it's been, it's been more fun. We went in other directions. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.

Starting point is 01:49:47 At some point, our wonderful soundman and video men told us that the fire went out and decided I had to let it go. So sorry about the loss of the fire. That's symbolic in some kind of way. It's been fun. Thank you. All right. Thank you. One last thought. Sorry. This is like you. What's fascinating as well as I have this feeling. So we have some awareness of what we think we've been talking about. Then there's everything that's sort of like below the conscious level that there's also been going on that neither of us are

Starting point is 01:50:14 aware of and that's in a way also being fun. So we're going to need your therapist to give us the real explanation of what's been going on. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you, William. It's privilege to be able to talk to you and to be able to work with you. All right, folks, that's it for this conversation with my golden dear friend Guy Speer. I hope you enjoyed it and that you managed to listen to both parts of this extra long, special double episode. If you haven't read it already, I would strongly encourage you to read Guy's memoir, the educational value investor.

Starting point is 01:50:47 I'm distinctly biased since I helped him to write it, but I think it's an amazingly honest and candid book. I've also included various other resources in the show notes for this episode, including links to the podcast conversations that Guy and I had back in 2022 and 23. I'll be back very soon with some more great guests, including a fascinating conversation that I had with Brian Lawrence, a very successful and extremely thoughtful hedge fund manager who almost never gives interviews.

Starting point is 01:51:18 Meanwhile, if the spirit moves you, please feel free to follow me on X at William Green, and do let me know how you're liking the podcast. It's always great to hear from you. Until next time, thanks so much for listening and thanks for being part of this ongoing journey to figure out how we can become richer, wiser and happier. Take care and stay well.

Starting point is 01:51:41 Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to follow Richer, Wiser, Happier, on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on episodes. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only, before making any decision consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - RWH043: Survive & Thrive w/ Guy Spier: Part 2

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