Mae West said, “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” That might be true for some things – health, happiness, golden retrievers, maybe. But in so many cases the thing that helps you can be taken to a dangerous level. And since it’s a “good thing,” not an obvious threat, its danger creeps into your life unnoticed. Take intelligence. How could someone possibly be too intelligent? How do you get to a point where you realize you could have been more successful if you had been a little dumber? ...
Mar 08, 2024•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode discusses my take on what you should pay attention to when reading history. There’s a quote I love from writer Kelly Hayes who says, “Everything feels unprecedented when you haven’t engaged with history.” It’s so true. History’s cast of characters changes but it’s the same movie over and over again. To me, the point of paying attention to history is not the specific details of certain events, which are always random and never repeat; it’s the big-picture behaviors that reoccur in di...
Feb 28, 2024•11 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast Let me share a little theory I have about optimism, and why progress is so easy to underestimate. I’ll explain it in four parts.
Feb 14, 2024•12 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast Behavioral finance is now well documented. But most of the attention goes to how people invest. But the study of how you spend money might be far more interesting -- and practical. How you spend money can reveal an existential struggle of what you find valuable in life, who you want to spend time with, why you chose your career, and the kind of attention you want from other people. There is a science to spending money – how to find a bargain, how to make a budget, things like that. But there’s a...
Feb 01, 2024•13 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast There’s obviously a hierarchy of information. It ranges from life-changing good to life-changing disastrous. That got me thinking: What would be the most interesting and useful information anyone could get their hands on? Years ago I asked that question to Yale economist Robert Shiller. “The exact role of luck in successful outcomes,” he answered. I loved that answer, because nobody will ever have that information. But if you did, your entire worldview would change. Who you admire would change. ...
Jan 17, 2024•13 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast There are two big ways to learn: Active learning : Someone tells you what to learn, how to learn it, on a set schedule, on pre-selected standardized topics. Passive learning : You let your mind wander with no intended destination. You read and learn broadly, talk to people from various backgrounds, and stumble haphazardly across topics you had never considered but spark your curiosity, often because it’s the topic you happen to need at that specific time of your life. I can’t be alone in realizi...
Jan 05, 2024•12 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast One sentence that knocked me off my feet when I read Will and Ariel Durant’s The Lessons of History was: "Learn enough from history to bear reality patiently, and respect one another’s delusions." I love that so much. The key here is accepting that everyone is deluded in their own unique way. You, me, all of us. When you realize that you – the good, noble, well-meaning, even-tempered, fact-driven person that you are – have views of how the world works that are sure to be incomplete if ...
Dec 22, 2023•9 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast My wife recently bought me an old book. It's called The Mathematical Theory of Investment. It was written in 1913 and it's as dry and boring as it sounds (but the old weathered cover looks awesome on a bookshelf). I flipped through it and thought, "Does any of this matter?" These formulas, these charts, this data? Well, yes. But not nearly as much as the soft, behavioral side of investing. This episode shares 10 of what I think are the most critical financial skills -- none o...
Dec 12, 2023•16 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast Expiring skills tend to get more attention. They’re more likely to be the cool new thing, and a key driver of an industry’s short-term performance. They’re what employers value and employees flaunt. Permanent skills are different. They’ve been around a long time, which makes them look stale and basic. They can be hard to define and quantify, which gives the impression of fortune-cookie wisdom vs. a hard skill. But permanent skills compound over time, which gives them quiet importance. When sever...
Nov 17, 2023•15 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast My new book, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes , is out today. Books are hard, a multi-year slog from start to finish. But I’m excited for you to read this. I think it’s the best writing I’ve ever done. And it was fun to write! My hope is that you enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it. My first book, The Psychology of Money, was really about how you, the individual behave. Same As Ever is about how we, the collective, behave, and what we keep doing over and over. It’s 2...
Nov 07, 2023•15 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast All optimistic beliefs can be dangerous because they’re so comforting, so easy to accept without asking further questions. Hope often masquerades as optimism when you think things will improve only because the alternative is too scary to contemplate. Every optimist needs to justify exactly why they're optimistic. In this episode, I offer my own three reasons.
Oct 30, 2023•13 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Daniel Kahneman says, "The long-term success of a relationship depends far more on avoiding the negative than on seeking the positive." It's like that in so many areas of life. Most people know what they're good at, or at least they think they do. Flaws, though, tend to be nuanced, and we're often blind to them. This episode shares dozens of little flaws I often think about -- ones that are easy to ignore, but can compound into disasters over time....
Oct 21, 2023•11 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast Measuring wealth is easy. You just count it up. Measuring some of the downsides of wealth is so much harder and more nuanced. They can be so nuanced and hard to measure that many people won’t even believe they exist. A downside to wealth? How could that possibly be? Let me propose that the absurdity of talking about the downside of wealth is part of why wealth doesn’t tend to make people as happy as they thought it would. When the benefits of money are so obvious but the downsides are so subtle,...
Oct 12, 2023•18 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast My new book, Same As Ever, comes out in a month. It's about things that never change -- what's always happened in the world, and will keep repeating again and again? This episode shares five examples.
Oct 06, 2023•18 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast Just after my son was born I wrote a few things I thought he’d find helpful as an adult. One of them was: "You might think you want an expensive car, a fancy watch, and a huge house. But I’m telling you, you don’t. What you want is respect and admiration from other people, and you think having expensive stuff will bring it. It almost never does – especially from the people you want to respect and admire you." Eight years later I still believe this to be true, and I might even double do...
Sep 27, 2023•12 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast A truth that applies to almost every field is that it’s possible to try too hard, and when doing so you can get worse results than those who knew less, cared less, and put in less effort than you did. There are mistakes that only an expert can make. Errors – often catastrophic – that novices aren’t smart enough to make because they lack the information and experience needed to try to exploit an opportunity that doesn’t exist.
Sep 18, 2023•14 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast All greed starts with an innocent idea: that you are right, deserve to be right, and are owed something for the efforts you put into establishing your beliefs and opinions. It’s a reasonable feeling. But it sets off a chain reaction that leads to an inevitable boom-and-bust cycle. This episode explores one of the most important topics in investing: the lifecycle of greed and fear, and why it cannot, and will not, ever go away.
Aug 31, 2023•12 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast This episode is about the difference between intelligence and smarts, and why one is valued more than the other despite being less useful in the world. The core here is realizing that people are not spreadsheets. They are emotional, hormonal, misinformed, status-seeking, insecure creatures trying their best to make it through the day. So if you have to choose between understanding how the world should work in theory vs. how it actually works in practice, lean towards the latter. It’s like histor...
Aug 22, 2023•15 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast This is a short personal story about a fluke event 16 years ago that changed everything in my life. You probably have a similar story, and there is so much to learn about how everything can change from an event you never saw coming.
Aug 10, 2023•11 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast You spend years trying to learn tons of new stuff, but then look back and realize that just a few big ideas truly changed how you think and influenced most of what you believe. Let me share a couple that had a big impact on me.
Aug 04, 2023•15 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast I think there’s an “ideal” net worth for everyone, when money not only stops bringing pleasure but becomes a social liability. And that number is probably lower than most people think. A subtle problem with money is that assets are easy to measure but liabilities can be hidden. Measuring assets is simple. But how do you measure losing your privacy? Or the nagging doubt that some friends only like you for your money? That’s way harder. My theory is that the more money people have, the more social...
Jul 21, 2023•9 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast Chris Rock joked that Bill Gates would jump out the window if he woke up with Oprah’s money. Like most comedy, it’s funny because it contains a nugget of truth. There is no objective level of wealth -- everything is just relative to something, or someone, else. That means a billionaire can feel poorer than someone with infinitely less money. This episode tries to create a spectrum of wealth based on the quality of your life, feelings, and social circles, versus measuring it on money alone....
Jun 29, 2023•12 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast A weird thing in life is that everyone strives for a good life because they think it will make them happy. But what actually brings happiness is the contrast between what you have now and whatever you were just doing. The best drink you will ever taste is a glass of tap water when you’re thirsty. The best food you will ever eat is fast food when you’re starving. The best massage you will ever feel is sitting on a couch after a long run. The best sleep you will ever experience is when your newbor...
Jun 22, 2023•10 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast The knee-jerk way to set expectations is to anchor to what everyone else has right now. But imagine the tragedy of there being unbelievable progress throughout your life and you enjoy none of it because you expected all of it. This episode is all about expectations, and how the key to happiness in so many things in life is to aim low.
Jun 14, 2023•15 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Sometimes the best you can do when learning about any topic is to memorize a few short stories -- quick, direct, and to the point, that you're likely to remember forever. This episode shares 15 short stories that have stuck with me, and helped me contextualize so many things in life, work, and investing. One other note: I have a new book coming out this November. It's called Same as Ever, and you can pre-order it here: http://amzn.to/41CHgKM...
Jun 05, 2023•18 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast There are so many times in life where what you do is less important than how long you've been doing it for. It's true in careers. It's true in relationships. It's true in sports. And it's true with money. This episode is about compounding -- and how staying put, uninterrupted, is often the most overlooked skill.
May 23, 2023•15 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast If you can explain something important in just a few words, it's a double win: You've probably found something that's obviously true, without needing further explanation or detail. And it's probably something you'll remember for a long time, easy to recall without having to memorize dozens of details. This podcast is a smattering of ideas that have been important and impactful to me, shared in as few words as I can manage.
May 08, 2023•17 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast This episode has little to do with money. But in some ways it has everything to do with money. That's the riddle I want to unpack. I want to share a bunch of examples of what one field can teach us about another. What can we learn from biology that teaches us something about money? What can we learn from physics that teaches us something about business? If you find something that is true in more than one field, you’ve probably uncovered something particularly important. The more fields it s...
Apr 26, 2023•19 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast One of the most complicated topics in money: How it impacts your family. Your spouse. Your kids . How do you avoid spoiling kids? How do you and your spouse learn to agree about the best way to spend? There are no easy answers -- but I try my best here, including sharing the letters I wrote to my kids when they were born.
Apr 20, 2023•20 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, “I can do whatever I want today.” People want to become wealthier to make them happier. Happiness is a complicated subject because everyone’s different. But if there’s a common denominator in happiness -- a universal fuel of joy -- it’s that people want to control their lives. The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays....
Apr 13, 2023•24 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 
