The INVESTING Expert: Do This To Get RICH and STAY Rich (It’s SIMPLE!) | Morgan Housel

1. 0:00 – 1:27

   Intro

   1. MHMorgan Housel0:00

      The top things that make people broke. Number one, the most important. Ask yourself, like, do you wanna use money as a tool to give yourself a better life or as a scorecard for other people to measure you by?

   2. LHLewis Howes0:10

      Mm.

   3. MHMorgan Housel0:10

      And most of those people are not even paying attention to you to begin with. I don't think anyone could have seen it coming, even the people who read it before it was published. Even if they said, "Oh, great book," was not, this is gonna become one of the best-selling investment books of all time. Nobody, nobody saw that.

   4. LHLewis Howes0:24

      Wow.

   5. MHMorgan Housel0:24

      Including me.

   6. LHLewis Howes0:25

      What was your investment strategy like before having that much money versus now? What is that strategy for you?

   7. MHMorgan Housel0:30

      Uh, to me, I keep it as painfully simple as I possibly can.

   8. LHLewis Howes0:33

      Yeah.

   9. MHMorgan Housel0:33

      So my entire net worth is...

   10. LHLewis Howes0:35

       A lot of people think, "I can never make money." How can we change that, and why do our brains trick us into thinking we will always be broke if we don't have money?

   11. MHMorgan Housel0:44

       I think so much of this is...

   12. LHLewis Howes0:48

       I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness. Really? [laughs] Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes. Welcome back, everyone, to The School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Morgan Housel in the house. Good to see you, sir.

   13. MHMorgan Housel1:00

       Thank you so much for having me. Good to see you.

   14. LHLewis Howes1:01

       Very excited that you are here. You have, uh, a new book out called Same As Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes, which I'm excited to dive into. And you also stormed on the scene with Psychology of Money, which has now sold 4 million copies. Is that right?

   15. MHMorgan Housel1:14

       That's right.

   16. LHLewis Howes1:15

       In the last few years?

   17. MHMorgan Housel1:15

       Yeah.

   18. LHLewis Howes1:17

       And I wanted to ask you a question about money and the future to start. A little bit about both in each book, Same As Ever and The Psychology of Money.

2. 1:27 – 4:11

   Why people stay broke.

   1. LHLewis Howes1:27

      I'm curious why you think our brains trick us in staying broke because based on historical past with our families and predicting the future, a lot of people think, "I can never make money." How can we change that, and why do our brains trick us into thinking we will always be broke if we don't have money?

   2. MHMorgan Housel1:53

      I think so much of this is the value of comparison and expectations because there is no such thing as an objective measure of wealth. There's no such thing as once you have X dollars, everything will be okay. Everything is just relative to the other person next to you. How much do I have relative to you, relative to that person? So in a world where things tend to get better for most people, not everybody, but tend to... We tend to get richer over the generations. Well, if you're just comparing yourself to your peers, then if you're, if you get richer but your peers do as well, you went nowhere. And so that's the thing. That's why you can look at-

   3. LHLewis Howes2:27

      Ah

   4. MHMorgan Housel2:27

      ... you know, the average median income adjusted for inflation has doubled since our grandparents' generation.

   5. LHLewis Howes2:33

      Really?

   6. MHMorgan Housel2:33

      Adjusted for inflation. But we don't feel any better off at all because... Now, look, we're living in bigger houses, driving nicer cars, but so are our peers, so relative to them we've gone nowhere.

   7. LHLewis Howes2:43

      Really?

   8. MHMorgan Housel2:43

      And you could easily imagine a world in which our grandkids are living twice as well as us, and they don't feel any better off either.

   9. LHLewis Howes2:50

      And that's all based on comparison?

   10. MHMorgan Housel2:51

       It's all because you're comparing. And it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Like, it doesn't matter how much, how many resources I have. What matters is that I have more than you, more than the next guy.

   11. LHLewis Howes3:00

       Really?

   12. MHMorgan Housel3:01

       There's that joke about, like, there's two hikers being chased by a bear, and then one of, and one, one of the guys starts running. And his friend says, "You idiot, you can't outrun a bear." And his friend says, "I don't need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you."

   13. LHLewis Howes3:13

       Wow.

   14. MHMorgan Housel3:13

       And that's money, too. That's what it is. And so it really is... It's a sad thing to ponder, that you can live in a world where everything gets better and you don't appreciate any of it because you expected all of it. But it's, but it's real. It's happened forever, and I think it will happen forever.

   15. LHLewis Howes3:30

       Really?

   16. MHMorgan Housel3:31

       Yeah.

   17. LHLewis Howes3:31

       So this is like a psychological safety? Is that what this is, like-

   18. MHMorgan Housel3:34

       It's just, it's just general social comparison.

   19. LHLewis Howes3:37

       Really?

   20. MHMorgan Housel3:37

       And I mean, there's a, there's the Chris Rock joke where he says, "If Bill Gates woke up with Oprah's money, he'd jump out the window," because who is a billionaire comparing himself to? Other billionaires. That's it. And, like, I, I've also thought about the minimum wage in, in Major League Baseball I think is $500,000 a year.

   21. LHLewis Howes3:53

       Right.

   22. MHMorgan Housel3:53

       By any metric, a lot of money, but do you think the guy on who's playing for the Yankees making 500K feels like he's crushing it?

   23. LHLewis Howes4:00

       No.

   24. MHMorgan Housel4:01

       No. He's playing with the, all of his peers who are making 10, 20, 30 million a year. So even if by any definition he's in the tippy top of income, he d- you don't feel like it.

3. 4:11 – 14:08

   Top 3 patterns that make people rich.

   1. LHLewis Howes4:11

      Based on the book Same As Ever and connecting it to Psychology of Money, what are the top three patterns that are keeping people broke consistently versus the top three patterns that are making people rich?

   2. MHMorgan Housel4:26

      I think the, the top things that make people broke. Number one, the most important. This might seem like a cop-out of an answer. It's they don't have enough luck. I mean, that's, that's, that's so much of it. I know so many people who would disagree with that statement, so if, if you do disagree with me on that, I, I get it. But I think, like I said earlier, in any kind of extreme success, m- even mine, and I would venture to say yours too, if you're really honest about connecting the dots in the past, you would say that there is this thing that happened to me that I never planned on. I did not strategize this. It just kind of happened to me. As I said, even if that thing is you were born in the right era.

   3. LHLewis Howes4:59

      Right.

   4. MHMorgan Housel5:00

      And so that's, that's a big part of it that I think is too easy to ignore. The second is, I think, some sh- form of short-termism, whatever it is.

   5. LHLewis Howes5:09

      What does that mean?

   6. MHMorgan Housel5:09

      I heard this great story from MrBeast recently where he said, when people who have YouTube channels come to him for advice, and I'm sure a lot of them do, he tells them, he tells everybody the same thing. He says, "Go make 100 videos and then come back to me." And he said that 99 of those people will give up before they make 100 videos, and the person who actually makes it to 100 doesn't need his advice anymore.

   7. LHLewis Howes5:30

      Doesn't need to go back. Yeah.

   8. MHMorgan Housel5:31

      And so I think the... But the fact that 99 of them gave up is, is, I mean, that's really what it is. It's just, it's just like do you have the endurance, if not stubbornness, to keep it going?

   9. LHLewis Howes5:42

      Yeah.

   10. MHMorgan Housel5:42

       In any business endeavor, in any investing endeavor, what you're really getting paid for is to put up with uncertainty and pain. And most people will, they realize that they're gonna cry uncle sooner than they thought, and that's okay. I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of.

   11. LHLewis Howes5:56

       Right, right.

   12. MHMorgan Housel5:56

       But the people who don't make it are the ones who... Or the people who do make it are the ones who are just like, "I have such a high tolerance for pain."

   13. LHLewis Howes6:04

       Mm-hmm.

   14. MHMorgan Housel6:04

       Uh, I've heard this about Navy SEALs too, that when Navy SEALs start, you got the big, burly 6'4" bulging guys- And then you got the skinny little guys who are, like, 5'7" and kinda pudgy. There is no telling early on which one of those people are gonna make it, because what actually is gonna help you to make it, to actually get to the finish line, is just your tolerance for pain.

   15. LHLewis Howes6:25

       That's it, man.

   16. MHMorgan Housel6:26

       And the s- the scrawny guy might have a super tolerance for pain. Uh, I remember, uh, when, uh, when Obama met the Navy SEALs who killed Bin Laden, he had this comment where he was like, "I was stunned at how ordinary they all looked."

   17. LHLewis Howes6:38

       They just look like average dudes, yeah.

   18. MHMorgan Housel6:39

       He, he, he, he said half of them could've been, like, high school principals.

   19. LHLewis Howes6:42

       Exactly.

   20. MHMorgan Housel6:42

       But, but their tolerance for pain was off the chart, and that's why they got where they were. And I think that's a great analogy for people who make it in business, in investing, in any career.

   21. LHLewis Howes6:51

       That's amazing. So that was... You said luck, short-termism. What was the third one? The-

   22. MHMorgan Housel6:55

       Uh

   23. LHLewis Howes6:55

       ... tolerance and pain, or...?

   24. MHMorgan Housel6:56

       I think, I think, yeah, yeah. That's, that... I, I, I would put them in those order.

   25. LHLewis Howes6:59

       Yeah.

   26. MHMorgan Housel6:59

       In that order of what it is.

   27. LHLewis Howes7:01

       It's interesting you say that, because people come to me all the time when they wanna launch a podcast. I'm 10 years in, it's our 10 years this year. And, uh, they're like, "What's the secret?" And I go, "To be honest, like, I've just been showing up three times a week for 10 years."

   28. MHMorgan Housel7:14

       Yeah.

   29. LHLewis Howes7:14

       I wish I was a lot smarter than I am. Like, I'm not as smart as a lotta people who are launching shows and going super viral and building it really quickly. I've just showed up consistently and tried to be better every time. I try to improve myself, I try to learn, I try to research, and I just keep showing up. And a lotta people do it for six months, two years, and they stop.

   30. MHMorgan Housel7:33

       Yeah.
4. 14:08 – 16:01

   Does money make life better?

   1. MHMorgan Housel14:08

      to show off to people.

   2. LHLewis Howes14:09

      With all the research you've done for Psychology of Money and now Same As Ever, your life completely changed over the last few years financially, socially, you know, opportunity-wise, all these different things. You have more money now than you did three years ago than you probably imagined.

   3. MHMorgan Housel14:26

      Yeah.

   4. LHLewis Howes14:26

      You have more opportunities. You have more access. You have more everything. Has your life gotten better or worse since you've made this much more?

   5. MHMorgan Housel14:36

      I would say it has not made me happier.

   6. LHLewis Howes14:38

      Really?

   7. MHMorgan Housel14:38

      It's probably made me more content, which you might confuse with happiness, but it's very different. I don't think I'm happier in the sense that I don't wake up smiling more than I used to, but I think I probably have fewer anxious days than I used to. I say fewer, 'cause they still exist. So I think it has removed anxiety, but it has not improved happiness. And I think that for most people is what money will do to them. Everyone's a little bit different, but I think that's actually a pretty common thing.

   8. LHLewis Howes15:03

      It will remove what?

   9. MHMorgan Housel15:04

      It, it will remove anxiety and, and it will reduce the number of bad days that you have.

   10. LHLewis Howes15:09

       Right.

   11. MHMorgan Housel15:10

       But it's not gonna increase the number of great days that you have.

   12. LHLewis Howes15:12

       Really?

   13. MHMorgan Housel15:13

       Or i- if it does, it's pretty, it's minor.

   14. LHLewis Howes15:15

       Mm-hmm.

   15. MHMorgan Housel15:15

       Because people will com- become accustomed to the new house, the new car, whatnot. You're never gonna get accustomed to, like, having bad days. Like, the removal of that is always gonna be a positive influence in your life.

   16. LHLewis Howes15:26

       Right.

   17. MHMorgan Housel15:26

       But it's different than happiness. Now, chasing contentment is worth chasing. It's a great thing. It's not to say money does nothing for you, like it absolutely does, but contentness is not happiness.

   18. LHLewis Howes15:36

       Wow.

   19. MHMorgan Housel15:37

       And so that's, I feel like that's been for me. I've also, my wife and I have always been kinda, we found a lifestyle that worked for us, and we've gotten the goalpost to stop moving.

   20. LHLewis Howes15:47

       Really?

   21. MHMorgan Housel15:47

       Because what really matters for us is, like, time with our kids, going for walks, going kayaking. And the social aspiration of like, "Oh, we need a bigger house, nicer car," it's like it doesn't really appeal to us that much.

   22. LHLewis Howes15:57

       Right.

   23. MHMorgan Housel15:58

       So in that sense, nothing has changed, but that's by design.

5. 16:01 – 23:21

   How to validate success or failure.

   1. LHLewis Howes16:01

      What is something that you studied before Psychology of Money came out that you talked about with people who had more money or who were making certain money or had take, uh, took a risk, and you talk about in this book as well about taking risks and some luck involved, that you had to test a theory when all the success came to you? How did you... What was that that you researched that then you were like, "Oh, I'm actually living my research"? And how did you respond?

   2. MHMorgan Housel16:30

      I think before the books came out, uh, I, I would've, I would've said, um, w- what I just said, "Money's not gonna make you happier." But I, I would've said it, but I c- there was part of my brain that was like-

   3. LHLewis Howes16:42

      You're right, but I want more money. Yeah

   4. MHMorgan Housel16:43

      ... Yeah. But I want more money. And I think, and then when you experience it, I think for me it was like, wow, that's really true. That's incredible. And to say that to someone who is still aspiring to gain some sort of net worth, I think just as I did, it's like even if you believe that, you're like, "Yeah, but [laughs] but-"

   5. LHLewis Howes16:59

      Yeah. But it really does make you happy. Yeah

   6. MHMorgan Housel17:01

      ... exactly. And I think experiencing is like, wow, that's actually pretty amazing. I mean, I, I bet you, you've had this experience too, right?

   7. LHLewis Howes17:07

      Yeah. I think it's more about, like, the, the thing that makes me happy is knowing, like, I worked really hard to create something. I overcame challenges. I put it out in the world. I overcame my fears. I, you know, believed in myself, and I was able to alchemize and manifest an idea in my mind and actually take action to create something, and it added value to people.

   8. MHMorgan Housel17:27

      Yeah.

   9. LHLewis Howes17:28

      And if it made me more money, then that's a cool little extra thing that I'm like, "Wow, that's nice. I can do more with it now." But it's really about the whole journey, I think, of like what I had to overcome to make something.

   10. MHMorgan Housel17:39

       Yeah.

   11. LHLewis Howes17:39

       And thinking about, oh, it actually served another human being-

   12. MHMorgan Housel17:43

       Yeah

   13. LHLewis Howes17:43

       ... well.

   14. MHMorgan Housel17:44

       Yeah.

   15. LHLewis Howes17:44

       That's the way I think about it.

   16. MHMorgan Housel17:45

       It's, uh, the other thing that I had never experimented with that we just started to in any meaningful way is giving money away.

   17. LHLewis Howes17:52

       Mm.

   18. MHMorgan Housel17:52

       Which I really am, I'm kind of ashamed to say it, we really hadn't done in any meaningful sense until-

   19. LHLewis Howes17:56

       Right

   20. MHMorgan Housel17:56

       ... a year or two ago.

   21. LHLewis Howes17:57

       Really?

   22. MHMorgan Housel17:57

       And doing it has... It's interesting. It's, um, it feels great. And if you think, like, like, is buying, uh, myself a new watch, even a new car, is that gonna increase my happiness? Maybe marginally. Is helping someone for whom this amount of money is meaningless to me-

   23. LHLewis Howes18:13

       Right

   24. MHMorgan Housel18:13

       ... but life-changing to them? And then you just see, like investing is all about like leverage and compounding, and you see the leverage of like 10 grand's gonna do nothing for you, but 10 grand can utterly change this person's life.

   25. LHLewis Howes18:24

       Forever.

   26. MHMorgan Housel18:25

       Then y- then it's like, wow, that's a, that's a cool thing.

   27. LHLewis Howes18:28

       Yeah.

   28. MHMorgan Housel18:28

       And I think there is, once you get to some s- level of material life, whatever it is, there, at least for, m- maybe not for everyone, but there is some... Like guilt's probably the wrong word, but it's just like, eh, there's a lot of wrong going in the world, and like do I need to like push up my ego a little more or help this person [laughs] who really, really needs it?

   29. LHLewis Howes18:46

       Yeah.

   30. MHMorgan Housel18:47

       So that's another thing where three years ago I would've said, "Oh, I bet that's the case." But then when you experience it you're like, "Ooh, wow, that's interesting."
6. 23:21 – 24:57

   Biggest revelation in Morgan's book, "Same As Ever"

   1. MHMorgan Housel23:21

      progress.

   2. LHLewis Howes23:21

      What's the biggest thing you realized in the research of Same As Ever about the future, taking risks, and where we should be putting our attention?

   3. MHMorgan Housel23:31

      One of the, the first chapters, the, the first chapter in the book is a, a focus on how fragile the world can be, and how the world can hang by a thread in your personal life and throughout history. How we look back, and when you try to connect the dots in hindsight of how we got here, it will give you so much humility in, on the idea that we know where we're going next. Like there's a saying, like if you know where, like to know where we're going you have to know where we've been.

   4. LHLewis Howes23:56

      Uh-huh.

   5. MHMorgan Housel23:56

      But the truth is if you know where we've been, you realize we have no clue where we're going next.

   6. LHLewis Howes24:00

      [laughs]

   7. MHMorgan Housel24:01

      One of the stories that I use in here that's always just utterly blown my mind is that back in, in the Revolutionary War in the 1700s, there was a period, the Battle of Long Island, when George Washington and his troops were cornered by the British, and the British were just about to wipe them out. The war would've been over. All they had to do was sail up the East River in New York, they would've cornered George Washington and it's all over. It didn't happen because the wind was blowing in the wrong direction that night, so they could not sail up the East River. George Washington got away, and the rest was history.

   8. LHLewis Howes24:29

      Wow.

   9. MHMorgan Housel24:29

      David McCullough, this great renowned historian, was asked. He said, "If the winds were blowing south instead of north that night, would there be a United States of America?"

   10. LHLewis Howes24:37

       Holy cow.

   11. MHMorgan Housel24:37

       Without hesitation, "No. No." So how do you, when you say there's a million of those kind of stories in your own life and through history, but when you accept that, how do you look at the next 50 years and think you know where it's gonna go when literally the entire existence of the United States relied on the winds blowing in New York-

   12. LHLewis Howes24:55

       Wow

   13. MHMorgan Housel24:55

       ... on some night in 17-whatever

7. 24:57 – 26:53

   Where we should put our energy and money in an unpredictable world.

   1. MHMorgan Housel24:57

      it was?

   2. LHLewis Howes24:57

      So if, if the world is so unpredictable in the future, where should we be putting our time, attention? How should we be setting goals? Should we be visioning, uh, goals we even want, or does none of that matter?

   3. MHMorgan Housel25:12

      I think so. I've b- always been a fi- a f- financial writer, and what bothered me for a long time, still does, is how bad we are at predicting what's gonna happen next.

   4. LHLewis Howes25:20

      Right.

   5. MHMorgan Housel25:21

      When's the n-

   6. LHLewis Howes25:21

      And there's always analysts predicting

   7. MHMorgan Housel25:22

      ... when's the next recession? When's the stock market gonna fall? Nobody has a clue.

   8. LHLewis Howes25:25

      [laughs]

   9. MHMorgan Housel25:25

      We, we will keep doing it as we always have, but no one has any ability to do it consistently. So there's two things you can do with that. One is just become a fatalist and say, "No one knows what the hell's gonna happen. Nobody knows anything." The other is let's focus our attention on the behaviors that never change. What were people doing 100 years ago, 500 years ago? Okay, let's focus on those things 'cause we know they're gonna be doing them in our future. Um-

   10. LHLewis Howes25:48

       What are those main behaviors that never change?

   11. MHMorgan Housel25:50

       A lot, like how people respond to greed and fear and risk, how people are so attracted to stories and narratives, people's tribal affiliations. Like, those have never changed, and if you're a student of history, you can read about what was going on 500 years ago, and what will shock you is how many of those things you're like, "Oh, we still do that today."

   12. LHLewis Howes26:09

       Wow.

   13. MHMorgan Housel26:09

       So when you find that, you're like, "Okay. Well, let's, that's what we need to focus on for the future." And I think it's true in your individual life as well. I read this shocking thing, uh, just this morning. And this is gonna go in a direction that nobody probably saw this coming. The single best metric for whether you are gonna cheat on your spouse is how many people you slept with before you got married.

   14. LHLewis Howes26:30

       Oh, man.

   15. MHMorgan Housel26:31

       Those behaviors don't change.

   16. LHLewis Howes26:32

       Wow.

   17. MHMorgan Housel26:32

       If you are constantly sleeping with somebody else every week before you got married, really good chance you're not gonna be able to shed that behavior-

   18. LHLewis Howes26:38

       Wow. Yeah

   19. MHMorgan Housel26:38

       ... in the future after you get married, and vice versa. And I think that is applicable, that idea is applicable to so many things in life.

   20. LHLewis Howes26:45

       Interesting.

   21. MHMorgan Housel26:45

       So when you're looking at your own behavior, who have you always been? What have you always done?

   22. LHLewis Howes26:50

       Yes.

   23. MHMorgan Housel26:50

       Good chance you're not gonna get rid of that kind of behavior.

8. 26:53 – 32:26

   Can we trust people when it comes to money?

   1. LHLewis Howes26:53

      What should we, what should we be worried about within ourselves or the people around us when it comes to money and opportunities? Should we be worried more about people's desire for power and greed or people's envy? Or what are the things that we should be concerned about, the emotions from the past that keep coming up today?

   2. MHMorgan Housel27:13

      I think the most dangerous trait in money, whether it's saving or investing, is FOMO, fear of missing out. It's if you are susceptible to watching your neighbors or your friends or your coworkers get rich, and that just makes you boil with envy, and e- e- even if it doesn't feel like envy, you wa- you see it and you say, "I need that as well," that is so dangerous for, for two reasons. One, if you watch someone getting rich fast, there's a very good chance that it's not sustainable.

   3. LHLewis Howes27:42

      Mm-hmm.

   4. MHMorgan Housel27:42

      That there's gonna be a reversion in the mean, and your friend who made 10,000% in Bitcoin, y- you're, you're, you're not gonna be able to repeat that.

   5. LHLewis Howes27:49

      Right.

   6. MHMorgan Housel27:49

      So if you chase that after the fact, like, you're in trouble.

   7. LHLewis Howes27:52

      You're gonna lose it.

   8. MHMorgan Housel27:53

      The second thing is how f- fake is probably the wrong word 'cause I think it's innocent, but people put their best foot forward. So what they are showing you, uh, is, is-

   9. LHLewis Howes28:01

      It's not real life

   10. MHMorgan Housel28:01

       ... usually not indicative of what it is.

   11. LHLewis Howes28:03

       Yeah.

   12. MHMorgan Housel28:03

       In college, I was a valet here in Los Angeles, and it always stunned me that when people would come into the hotel I worked driving a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Bentley, when you get to know some of these people, some of them were actually not that successful. They were like a law firm associate who spent half their paycheck on a Porsche lease.

   13. LHLewis Howes28:21

       Wow.

   14. MHMorgan Housel28:21

       And so when w- the fake it till you make it idea is so powerful in America, that if you see, "Oh, that guy's driving a nice truck, I need to go get one too 'cause I'm just as smart as, I work just as hard as that guy," that's really dangerous 'cause you're not chasing their success, you're chasing their fakeness.

   15. LHLewis Howes28:37

       Ugh. Why do, w- why is that in so many of us where people feel like they need to go in debt, overspend to try to impress the people that don't even care about them?

   16. MHMorgan Housel28:48

       I think it's very true that people are naturally wired for status and not for happiness.

   17. LHLewis Howes28:54

       Really?

   18. MHMorgan Housel28:54

       You don't, your, like, your inner soul, like, your evolution does not want you to be happy, so to speak. It wants you to be successful.

   19. LHLewis Howes29:01

       Why is that?

   20. MHMorgan Housel29:02

       Because that's what's gonna gain the attention of potential spouses, male or female. It doesn't matter who it is. Like, it, it's a, it's a competition for resources-

   21. LHLewis Howes29:09

       Wow

   22. MHMorgan Housel29:10

       ... so that you can climb the ladder to gain the higher social status, to gain the better wife, the better husband, the better friends, whoever it might be. It's all a competition. And so, and so that's why, that's why no matter how rich society gets, I think it'll never be like that. It, it, we'll, we'll never get rid of that.

   23. LHLewis Howes29:26

       Did you ever struggle with this?

   24. MHMorgan Housel29:28

       I did, absolutely. I don't know if I struggled, but definitely when I was in my late teens and early 20s, my, I wanted to be the guy with the mansion and the Bentley and the yacht.

   25. LHLewis Howes29:36

       Really?

   26. MHMorgan Housel29:36

       I think every 19-year-old does. I think part of the reason is because when you're 19, at least for myself, I had no wisdom to impart. I had no knowl- I had no skills to give an employer. I didn't know how to love a woman. I didn't, I didn't know anything. So when you have nothing to offer the world, I think it's natural to be like, "Well, maybe they can look at my car, and they'll, and they'll admire me for that." I think as you get older, at least for me, it's been I don't care if you like my car, but I w- I, for, at least for some people, if there's wisdom I can impart, a skill that I can impart, communicate more effectively, I, I, I hope that the small people who I really want to love me respect me for that and not because of the house I live in or the car that I drive.

   27. LHLewis Howes30:17

       Wow.

   28. MHMorgan Housel30:18

       So I think when you're young and you don't have any of those skills to put forth, it's very natural to just say, like, "I want the Bentley."

   29. LHLewis Howes30:24

       Mm.

   30. MHMorgan Housel30:24

       It's all you have to offer the world.
9. 32:26 – 36:32

   Luck = success and money?

   1. LHLewis Howes32:26

      How much to success and money is around luck?

   2. MHMorgan Housel32:30

      I think the more success and the more money, the more that luck played a role with no exceptions. And it's not to say that people who have extreme wealth or success were not smart, hardworking, uh, industrious. Like, of course they were all those things, but the higher you get, you can say, you know, it approaches 90% luck, 10% skill. For everybody, there's no exceptions. And even if you say something, like, so simple about Steve Jobs was born in the United States in the middle of the 20th century. Are we gonna pretend that if Steve Jobs was born in Cameroon in 1650 he would've been as successful as... Of course not.

   3. LHLewis Howes33:07

      No.

   4. MHMorgan Housel33:08

      So, like, even just, like, the very broad macro luck of what's involved, it's, it's huge. Now, it's always when luck and an incredible amount of skill meets at the same time, but I think there are a lot of people in the world, a lot of people in the world who are just as creative as Steve Jobs, just as driven as Bill Gates, just as motivated as Mark Zuckerberg, but if they don't meet some incredible stroke of luck in their life, they're gonna have a, a, a middling level of success.

   5. LHLewis Howes33:36

      Right.

   6. MHMorgan Housel33:36

      I think that's always the case.

   7. LHLewis Howes33:38

      Wow.

   8. MHMorgan Housel33:38

      So I, I don't think it's black and white. All of those people who are very successful are in- ridiculously talented at their things, but it's easy to overlook the role that luck played.

   9. LHLewis Howes33:46

      Right, right. Timing, you know, the, the people around them, the opportunities, season of life, all those things. Did you predict the success of your book?

   10. MHMorgan Housel33:56

       No.

   11. LHLewis Howes33:56

       Did you think-

   12. MHMorgan Housel33:57

       No

   13. LHLewis Howes33:57

       ... like, "This is gonna do millions of copies," or, "What if it does this?"

   14. MHMorgan Housel34:01

       Not in a thousand years.

   15. LHLewis Howes34:02

       Really?

   16. MHMorgan Housel34:02

       And to show that there's no false humility, or the first print run was 5,000 copies.

   17. LHLewis Howes34:06

       Wow.

   18. MHMorgan Housel34:07

       Because that's w- all we thought it would sell.

   19. LHLewis Howes34:09

       Really?

   20. MHMorgan Housel34:09

       So we're obviously, we're obviously not gonna print 5,000 copies if we knew it was gonna sell four million. [laughs] Like, it's, the first year was a disaster of trying to print copies to keep up with it, which is a big problem to have. It's a good problem to have, but it's a real problem. So never in a million years did I think it would, it would do this, or did the publisher, or did anyone else. Um, and, and I think even looking back in hindsight, it could not have been predicted. It, and I don't think anyone could have seen it coming, even the people who read it before it was published. Even if they said, "Oh, great book," was not, "This is gonna become one of the best-selling investment books of all time."

   21. LHLewis Howes34:43

       Wow.

   22. MHMorgan Housel34:43

       Nobody, nobody saw that-

   23. LHLewis Howes34:44

       Wow

   24. MHMorgan Housel34:45

       ... including me.

   25. LHLewis Howes34:46

       That's amazing. What was your investment strategy like before having that much money versus now, you know, passive income coming every single week now in abundance?

   26. MHMorgan Housel34:56

       Hasn't changed one iota.

   27. LHLewis Howes34:57

       Really?

   28. MHMorgan Housel34:57

       Not in the slightest. It's the, there's more, there's more zeros, but it's the sa- it's the same exact allocation.

   29. LHLewis Howes35:02

       What is that strategy for you?

   30. MHMorgan Housel35:03

       Uh, to me, I keep it as painfully simple as I possibly can.
10. 36:32 – 39:06

    What gets WORSE when you make money.

    1. LHLewis Howes36:32

       What has gotten worse for you since making more money?

    2. MHMorgan Housel36:35

       Uh, hmm, oh, that's a good question. I think, I think some idea of can I keep this going?

    3. LHLewis Howes36:41

       Ah.

    4. MHMorgan Housel36:41

       And look, I think if all of this ended tomorrow, I think I'd actually be okay. Uh, like psychologically. It might hurt for a while, but I actually think I would be okay. I don't expect this to last forever. And I think being an author is very much like an athlete, where you might have a couple of good years, but you're not gonna have 30 good years. That's just usually not how it works.

    5. LHLewis Howes36:59

       It's very rare.

    6. MHMorgan Housel36:59

       Unless you're John Grisham or something like that.

    7. LHLewis Howes37:01

       Yeah.

    8. MHMorgan Housel37:01

       It's pretty rare. So I think I need to, like m- like keep myself psychologically prepared for this to end. But there is that thing of like, of course, I want it to keep going. So when you want it to keep going but you need to be realistic about the odds of that continuing, I think that's something where it's like, look, if you have some level of success, great, amazing, but there is a first-world problem of, like, look, someday this is gonna decline, and that might sting a little bit.

    9. LHLewis Howes37:25

       Right.

    10. MHMorgan Housel37:25

        There's this great quote from Will Smith I use in the book. He says, "Gaining fame is the best feeling in the world. Being famous is okay, and losing fame is pain like you've never experienced."

    11. LHLewis Howes37:37

        Really?

    12. MHMorgan Housel37:38

        Because what people like is the elevator ride up. It's the change in circumstances. It's not being famous, it's gaining fame. And I think money is the same. Like, being rich is, is, is okay. Gaining money is incredible. So g- so let's look at someone who has $10 million. Does having $10 million make them happy? Like, maybe a little bit, but what really was a thrill that they loved was going from one million to 10 million.

    13. LHLewis Howes38:03

        Right.

    14. MHMorgan Housel38:04

        That elevator ride up was incredible. Now, when you go from 10 million back to a million, you need a therapist as soon as possible.

    15. LHLewis Howes38:10

        Wow. Why is it so painful to lose, even if you still have a lot of money? From 10 million to one million, that's still a lot of money in the bank, but why is it so hard for people to lose even 10% and, and start changing their behaviors and habits around how they even got there?

    16. MHMorgan Housel38:29

        I think it becomes part of your identity. Fame and money is like this. In any time in your life where you can say, "I am a blank," no matter what comes after that-

    17. LHLewis Howes38:37

        Ah

    18. MHMorgan Housel38:37

        ... it's your identity. So if, even if you're not saying this to other people, but in your head you say, "I am a rich person," even if y- again, you're not saying that, but in your head, that's what you are, and now because your net worth go down, goes down, you start wondering like, "Am I anymore?" Like, "Am I the person who I thought I was?" Or if you said, "I am a successful entrepreneur," if that's what the bug you have in your head, and then you have a really bad year, you start questioning that. And any time in life where you have to question your identity, it sucks. It's really painful.

11. 39:06 – 40:41

    How to hold onto identity and values when you make money.

    1. LHLewis Howes39:06

       What can someone do in that time when things are fluctuating up and down to hold on to an identity and values that they are a good and enough as a person of who they are versus their net worth?

    2. MHMorgan Housel39:19

       I think it's really important, if you have any kind of success in life, that your, your identity was formed before that success. And to the extent that it changed with wealth or fame, like, that's what's dangerous. So I, I hope... My, my wife would say, I'm confident she would say this, that I'm the exact same person that I was five years ago. Maybe a ho- hopefully I'm a little bit more mature, but it hasn't changed anything material about my personality and how I treat her and how I treat my kids. If it did, that's, that's, that's what's gonna get stung on the way down. There's a say- I, I heard this story once that, uh, ancient, like, Roman soldiers, when they came home from battle and they're like full of hubris and they're just like, "We're the champion warriors," and they would like march through the city as like a welcome home parade. They would hire somebody to walk behind them and whisper in their ears, "You are just a man. You're not a hero. You're not, you're just a man." And I think that, like, forced humility or like going out of your way to shove humility in your face is absolutely critical for everybody. Like, forget the rich and famous, everybody needs to remind themselves that they're just a person. And this is where I think having kids, young kids, is so helpful because no matter... It doesn't matter how many books I've sold, my daughter will be like, "I'm out of juice. Get me more juice."

    3. LHLewis Howes40:34

       [laughs]

    4. MHMorgan Housel40:34

       It's like nothing-

    5. LHLewis Howes40:35

       Or throwing up on you or whatever

    6. MHMorgan Housel40:36

       ... nothing, throwing up on you, noth- nothing of that matters to them, and that's so healthy to see.

12. 40:41 – 43:31

    Being a good father while having so much success.

    1. LHLewis Howes40:41

       Wow. How many kids do you have?

    2. MHMorgan Housel40:42

       Two. Four and eight.

    3. LHLewis Howes40:44

       What have you learned as a, as a father around making money and ensuring that you can still raise good kids?

    4. MHMorgan Housel40:52

       I've gone, I, I, I... My thoughts on this are not fully formed 'cause it's something I'm still grappling with. Since my kids are only four and eight, like we're not talking about like, you know, buying them cars or whatever. So I'm still, I'm still trying to form my thoughts on this. So I talked to someone the other day who was, uh, he's the child of a, of a billionaire, and grew up when his dad was a billionaire, and he had the most balanced, thoughtful, wise view on money I'd ever heard, which was, you know, his... And he, he lived the high life, private jets, mansions, go on down the list, and it did not ruin him-

    5. LHLewis Howes41:25

       Really?

    6. MHMorgan Housel41:25

       ... or his siblings.

    7. LHLewis Howes41:26

       Why?

    8. MHMorgan Housel41:26

       And he said it was because his parents never made that big of a deal about money, and they went out of their way to make sure that their kids knew that just because they have more money than other people, they are not better than them. To value people based off of their intelligence, their kindness, their empathy, not on the square footage of their house. And I think that's very hard to do. Their parents did a ridiculously good job. But your kids are gonna learn your values, not your spending habits. You know, they, they, they may, they may get accustomed to some level of spending, and, uh, and that can be dangerous. This is not black and white, but I think mostly they're gonna learn your values. And the point that he made was whenever you see a rich, spoiled kid, a kid who is not only, not only has a lot of money, but he's just a brat, just a jerk, that's not because the parents were giving him money, it's because the parents did a really [censored] job teaching him values.

    9. LHLewis Howes42:16

       Wow.

    10. MHMorgan Housel42:16

        And so I think that's... I go back and forth between this idea of if you wanna raise well-balanced kids, don't give them money, don't spoil them, versus actually we can give them a great material life if we are going out of our way to make sure that values are first.

    11. LHLewis Howes42:31

        Oh.

    12. MHMorgan Housel42:31

        I go back and forth on this because I think it's just easier said than done.

    13. LHLewis Howes42:33

        Right. Right, yeah.

    14. MHMorgan Housel42:34

        When you say that, you're like, "Oh, great. That sounds..."

    15. LHLewis Howes42:35

        You have to test it.

    16. MHMorgan Housel42:35

        "How do you actually do it? How do you actually do this?"

    17. LHLewis Howes42:37

        You have to test this theory, yeah.

    18. MHMorgan Housel42:37

        I also think there's a thing that's really important that-

    19. LHLewis Howes42:39

        Yes

    20. MHMorgan Housel42:40

        ... it's very kid specific. So I make this point that if Bill Gates or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, if they inherited a billion dollars at age 18, it would have not slowed them down at all. They were so ambitious, irrespective of money. But if I inherited a billion dollars at 18, I, I, I'd be a disaster. Like, most people need to be motivated by the fear of not making it.

    21. LHLewis Howes43:01

        Mm.

    22. MHMorgan Housel43:01

        And if you tell your kids from a young age, "You're always gonna make it. I'm alw- I'm always gonna shovel money at you"-

    23. LHLewis Howes43:06

        Yeah

    24. MHMorgan Housel43:07

        ... and they don't have that fear, that's a dangerous thing.

    25. LHLewis Howes43:10

        Interesting. So there's a balance there. Yeah, I think I've heard you talk about how, you know, most athletes go bankrupt, you know, within a few years after their retirement, uh, even though they have a ton of money, and then there's also lottery winners that commit suicide or go through depression or lose all their money within a few years after, you know, gaining the lottery.

13. 43:31 – 49:18

    The difference between getting rich and staying rich.

    1. LHLewis Howes43:31

       What is it about people that lose their money versus people that get a lot of money and learn how to grow it and maintain it?

    2. MHMorgan Housel43:38

       I think getting rich and staying rich are two completely different skills.

    3. LHLewis Howes43:41

       Mm. Tell me more.

    4. MHMorgan Housel43:41

       And that is what is, like, so often overlooked because we wanna think of just money as one skill, like getting rich as one skill. But the skill to make a lot of money versus holding onto it for a generation or more is totally different. And I think the best way to explain it is, like, getting rich requires being an optimist and taking a chance and being optimistic in yourself, swinging for the fences. Staying risk- rich is also, is the opposite. It's, it's a completely contradictory skill where you need to be, like, pessimistic and paranoid-

    5. LHLewis Howes44:11

       Really?

    6. MHMorgan Housel44:11

       ... about... Yeah. So being optimistic and pessimistic at the same time, and getting those to coexist, is so difficult, and not a lot of people can do it. And you see these in statistics, like the Forbes list of billionaires. There's, like, 70% turnover every decade.

    7. LHLewis Howes44:27

       Really?

    8. MHMorgan Housel44:28

       Not from people dying, but from people being at the top and then falling out.

    9. LHLewis Howes44:32

       Are they taking too much risk at that point?

    10. MHMorgan Housel44:34

        I think that's the biggest... It's, it's, that's not the only point, but that's the biggest, is the kinda personality that you need-

    11. LHLewis Howes44:39

        To get there

    12. MHMorgan Housel44:40

        ... to become a deca-billionaire is not the kinda personality that's gonna say, "Okay, that's enough. Let's cash out and put everything in municipal bonds."

    13. LHLewis Howes44:47

        Right, right.

    14. MHMorgan Housel44:48

        They're, they're not gonna do that. It's more... Like, I, I, I've said this for years.

    15. LHLewis Howes44:51

        It's the rush of growth, right?

    16. MHMorgan Housel44:53

        Yes.

    17. LHLewis Howes44:53

        It's, like, the rush, the high that you see growing.

    18. MHMorgan Housel44:55

        I've said this for years, that I think Elon Musk, there's, it's one of two outcomes. He's either gonna become a trillionaire or go bankrupt. And honestly, I'm spitballing here, but I think it's 50/50.

    19. LHLewis Howes45:04

        Didn't you see the, did you see his interview he recently did?

    20. MHMorgan Housel45:06

        Yes.

    21. LHLewis Howes45:06

        I think it was yesterday.

    22. MHMorgan Housel45:07

        He's just, he's ridiculous.

    23. LHLewis Howes45:07

        Where he was like, "Let's see where the chips fall."

    24. MHMorgan Housel45:09

        Yeah.

    25. LHLewis Howes45:10

        Where it's like $44 billion I invested. Maybe it all goes bankrupt.

    26. MHMorgan Housel45:13

        Right.

    27. LHLewis Howes45:14

        He said, "See where the chips fall."

    28. MHMorgan Housel45:16

        It's pr- it's pretty astounding.

    29. LHLewis Howes45:18

        That is, that's ballsy, right?

    30. MHMorgan Housel45:19

        But here's the thing. Of course it's ballsy. He's trying to go to Mars. Of course he's ballsy.
14. 49:18 – 51:52

    Additional lessons from "Same As Ever".

    1. LHLewis Howes49:18

       What else did you learn in Same As Ever, this new book, A Guide To What Never Changes, that really shocked you or surprised you?

    2. MHMorgan Housel49:27

       I think what's always blown me away, that is one of the chapters in the book, is the power of storytelling, where the person who has the right answer d- doesn't necessarily win. The person who says the accurate thing doesn't necessarily win. The person who tells the best story and the story that people want to hear is the person that people line up behind and they're like, "Yep, that's the, this is my guy." You see it in politics all the time when people can, politicians can propose really bad policies, but if it's what people wanna hear, that's the one who's winning. And the per- and the policy wonk who's like, "Well, according to the data, we should do it," that politician's never gonna win. It's the person who pounds the table who's gonna win every time on both parties. Doesn't matter who it's from. Barack Obama, very charismatic. Trump, very good storyteller. Like, on both sides, that's always who's gonna win. Uh, and but I think you see that in almost every endeavor. In business, in media, the best story always wins. I use the example of the book of Ken Burns, who's makes these, uh, documentaries about history. He's the best documentarian who's ever lived, and he'll make a documentary about the Civil War. It came out in 1990. More Americans watched it that year than watched the Super Bowl.

    3. LHLewis Howes50:35

       Wow.

    4. MHMorgan Housel50:36

       B- and this was for the Civil War. This is not a new topic. Everybody knows how it ends.

    5. LHLewis Howes50:39

       [laughs]

    6. MHMorgan Housel50:40

       Everyone knows what happens.

    7. LHLewis Howes50:41

       They know the story.

    8. MHMorgan Housel50:42

       But he told such a captivating story that y- you will sit there. It's a 14-hour documentary, and like 100 million Americans watched all of it.

    9. LHLewis Howes50:50

       Holy cow.

    10. MHMorgan Housel50:51

        And Ken Burns has talked about what is so powerful in a documentary that's easy to overlook is the background music, and he said that he will literally edit the script so that a certain beat in the background music will match up with a certain word. And-

    11. LHLewis Howes51:05

        The timing of it

    12. MHMorgan Housel51:06

        ... the timing of it, so that when this powerful word is spoken by the narrator, boom, there's this beat in the background music to catch your attention.

    13. LHLewis Howes51:13

        Probably also what's visually on the screen at the same time, too.

    14. MHMorgan Housel51:15

        Yes, absolutely.

    15. LHLewis Howes51:16

        Like, all of it, creating that emotional connection or reaction.

    16. MHMorgan Housel51:19

        Yeah. So here's the thing. Is Ken Burns the best historian? No. Is he finding new information that we didn't know about the Civil War? By and large, no. He is the best storyteller that's ever existed, and because of that, he's the most successful historian who's ever existed.

    17. LHLewis Howes51:33

        He's telling the story of the past better than anyone else.

    18. MHMorgan Housel51:35

        Better than anyone else, even if all this information is already known. In all of his documentaries, World War II, Vietnam, uh, the Great Depression, all these big events in American history, every single one of his documentaries you know how the story ends, and yet it is utterly captivating.

    19. LHLewis Howes51:49

        So it sounds like from what you've learned here, the

15. 51:52 – 56:04

    How to tell better stories and build confidence.

    1. LHLewis Howes51:52

       best story wins. How do we learn to tell better stories if we're shy and introverted and we don't have confidence, we don't communicate well? How do we tell better stories?

    2. MHMorgan Housel52:02

       One thing I've learned as a writer is just the power of getting to the point, and it's easy to underestimate how short people's attention spans are. Whether you're having a casual conversation or writing an email or writing a text, like, what is your point? Say that point and then be done.

    3. LHLewis Howes52:15

       [laughs] Really?

    4. MHMorgan Housel52:16

       Mark, Mark Twain has this quote where he says, "Kids tell the best in... Kids have the best information because they tell you everything they know and then they stop." Whereas adults will be like, "Well, let me stretch my legs and, like, tell you a backstory that's gonna ramble and go down all these rabbit holes." So getting to the point is, is really critical in storytelling.

    5. LHLewis Howes52:34

       Is that what Ken Burns did, though? It sounds like he was creating more of an experiential-

    6. MHMorgan Housel52:38

       Well, here's what's interesting. Even for Ken Burns in a 14-hour documentary, not a single word is wasted.

    7. LHLewis Howes52:44

       Wow.

    8. MHMorgan Housel52:44

       It's always interesting.

    9. LHLewis Howes52:45

       It's intentional.

    10. MHMorgan Housel52:46

        It's intentional. So there are a lot of, of 100-page books that are 90 pages too long. There are also 1,000-page books in which every single word needed to be there. And so brevity doesn't mean short. It just means that every line you're like, "Oh, oh, oh." It's you're always captivated by what is there, and it's getting rid of the fluff and getting to the point. So at any, at every moment in Ken Burns' documentary, there is a point and he is telling you about it, and when he's done with that point, he moves on to the next point.

    11. LHLewis Howes53:13

        Wow. You talk about a, a chapter about competitive advantages, how eventually most of them die. What does that mean?

    12. MHMorgan Housel53:21

        I mean, there are very few, like, sustainable competitive advantages, and there are some things in your personal life or in business where for a temporary moment you have this incredible edge.

    13. LHLewis Howes53:30

        Give me an example.

    14. MHMorgan Housel53:30

        But it has a shelf life. I mean, I tell you what happens to a lot of founders. They are very good at building a product, and that's why early on they build a successful company.

    15. LHLewis Howes53:39

        Or maybe they're good at raising money.

    16. MHMorgan Housel53:40

        They're good at raising money. But let's say they're great engineers and they build this incredible product that people want and it's a successful startup.

    17. LHLewis Howes53:46

        And we have this competitive advantage.

    18. MHMorgan Housel53:47

        And then they grow.

    19. LHLewis Howes53:48

        Yeah.

    20. MHMorgan Housel53:48

        And then the company grows. Now that the company has grown and they're the CEO, they need to be an expert at HR.

    21. LHLewis Howes53:53

        Ah.

    22. MHMorgan Housel53:53

        They need to be an expert at legal. They need to be an expert at marketing, and they're probably not.

    23. LHLewis Howes53:57

        Manage people. Yeah.

    24. MHMorgan Housel53:58

        So the skill that they had in building this product is not what you need to grow the company. Perfect example of this, Uber. Travis Kalanick, no one else in the world could have built Uber from day one and build it into the product that he did-

    25. LHLewis Howes54:11

        That fast, that big. Yeah

    26. MHMorgan Housel54:11

        ... because he was so ambitious. He was so just, "Everyone get the hell out of my way, I'm gonna build this." There was no worse CEO for Uber once it became a good company. And so that's an extreme example, but that happens a lot with competitive advantages.

    27. LHLewis Howes54:24

        Kind of the differ- it's the same between getting money and keeping money.

    28. MHMorgan Housel54:27

        Exactly.

    29. LHLewis Howes54:27

        Right?

    30. MHMorgan Housel54:28

        And some people can do it. Bill Gates ran Microsoft for 35 years or whatever it was.
16. 56:04 – 1:02:33

    How we will evolve over the next decade.

    1. MHMorgan Housel56:04

       10 years.

    2. LHLewis Howes56:04

       What is that thing for you that you think's gonna need to get you over the hump for 10 more years?

    3. MHMorgan Housel56:08

       I think when I was a young writer building an audience, I could take a lot more risks because people were more forgiving. And so for a lot of my early days, I was really experimenting with different voices, different formats, different what if I write this way or that way? I think if I did that now, it would have much more brand damage than it did back then.

    4. LHLewis Howes56:27

       Because they're-

    5. MHMorgan Housel56:28

       People were way more forgiving back then

    6. LHLewis Howes56:29

       ... 'cause they're used to how you write now, and they wanna see that same style.

    7. MHMorgan Housel56:31

       Yes, they want a consistent product. The best definition of brand is consistent.

    8. LHLewis Howes56:36

       Mm-hmm.

    9. MHMorgan Housel56:37

       And so when you don't have a brand, you can just throw things at the wall and see what works. When you have a brand, you can't. And I think there are a lot of authors and artists, musicians who will do that. Now, some of them pull it off very successfully. Taylor Swift went from country to pop flawlessly. But other people, I'm trying to think of, of, of, of a musician. Oh, you know what a good example of this, Offspring. The best, like, punk band back in the '80s and '90s, and then they became pop, and I think 80% of their fans were like-

    10. LHLewis Howes57:05

        Nah

    11. MHMorgan Housel57:06

        ... "Not for me. Not for me."

    12. LHLewis Howes57:07

        Wow.

    13. MHMorgan Housel57:08

        So I think that experimentation that made you successful can really hurt you if you're not careful about it.

    14. LHLewis Howes57:12

        Wow. So what is your fear moving forward with, you know, this book, other books you're gonna write? What... Do you have any fears or insecurities around the future of your work?

    15. MHMorgan Housel57:25

        I think I, I've always admired, and I write about this in The Same As Ever, I've always admired people who quit while they're ahead.

    16. LHLewis Howes57:31

        Wow.

    17. MHMorgan Housel57:31

        People who say, "Look, I've reached the pinnacle. I've reached heights that I never thought I would a- and I have a lot more opportunity in front of me, but I've, I've had enough." And to me, the best example of that was Jerry Seinfeld. Like, at the absolute top of his game in 1998, 1999, uh, NBC offered him $100 million to him personally for one more season, and he said, "No. No. We've, we've had enough." The other recent example is Cameron Diaz, who a lot of people don't even know this, but she doesn't, she doesn't act anymore.

    18. LHLewis Howes57:59

        Crazy to me.

    19. MHMorgan Housel58:00

        And I think she basically said, she's like, "I achieved everything I wanted to. Like, I'm done. I'm ready to move on to the next phase of my life." Uh, you know what the other person I heard recently? Freddie Prinze Jr. is now a race car driver. He just said, "I've achieved everything I wanted to in acting. I'm gonna move to something else." And I think you would contrast that with people who hang on well past their welcome. The best example of this is The Simpsons-

    20. LHLewis Howes58:20

        Wow

    21. MHMorgan Housel58:20

        ... which was the be- the greatest show-

    22. LHLewis Howes58:22

        Amazing

    23. MHMorgan Housel58:23

        ... in the '80s and '90s.

    24. LHLewis Howes58:24

        My childhood was all The Simpsons.

    25. MHMorgan Housel58:24

        My childhood. It was all, it was so good. They still make new episodes.

    26. LHLewis Howes58:28

        I, yeah.

    27. MHMorgan Housel58:28

        And from, from what I understand, they suck.

    28. LHLewis Howes58:31

        Really?

    29. MHMorgan Housel58:31

        So that, that's what's sad.

    30. LHLewis Howes58:32

        They're hanging on to it.
17. 1:02:33 – 1:08:20

    Training yourself to evolve with your success.

    1. LHLewis Howes1:02:34

       H- how do people train themselves to get successful and realize that success is-

    2. MHMorgan Housel1:02:39

       It's peak

    3. LHLewis Howes1:02:39

       ... not always gonna keep going until you die?

    4. MHMorgan Housel1:02:41

       Well, I'll say for me, I think that's most certainly true-

    5. LHLewis Howes1:02:43

       Yeah

    6. MHMorgan Housel1:02:43

       ... with S- with Psychology of Money. I, I mean, I think the odds that I surpass that are, are very low. They're not zero, but they're very low. I think I've come to terms with it, and I think if you can say, look, if that's your biggest problem in your career, is that you were-

    7. LHLewis Howes1:02:55

       Right

    8. MHMorgan Housel1:02:55

       ... ultra successful when you were young, like, cry me a river. You're gonna be just fine. But it can kinda sting, you know?

    9. LHLewis Howes1:03:01

       But a lot of people who get famous or rich or successful when they're young have really messed up adult lives.

    10. MHMorgan Housel1:03:07

        Yes. Uh, I think this gets-

    11. LHLewis Howes1:03:09

        Child actors, stars-

    12. MHMorgan Housel1:03:10

        Yeah

    13. LHLewis Howes1:03:10

        ... ath- you know.

    14. MHMorgan Housel1:03:11

        Michael, Michael Jackson.

    15. LHLewis Howes1:03:12

        Yeah.

    16. MHMorgan Housel1:03:13

        Famous since age five, and you look at his life, it's complete disaster.

    17. LHLewis Howes1:03:15

        Yeah.

    18. MHMorgan Housel1:03:16

        And I think a lot of childhood celebrities are like that. If from the time you were a child, every person, including adults, bow to you and, and treat you differently, and I, I think that is a form of mental illness that you will never-

    19. LHLewis Howes1:03:28

        Wow

    20. MHMorgan Housel1:03:29

        ... never... I, I'm sure there are counter examples to this, but not many. It's a really tough thing.

    21. LHLewis Howes1:03:34

        Right.

    22. MHMorgan Housel1:03:34

        And so I think if your identity is not your career, I, I, I think I'd go out of my way to do that. And it's also possible that once I try to step back, I realize it's, it hurts more than I thought. My dad was, was a doctor for 25 years, retired, and about six months later said, "I, I wanna go back part-time-"

    23. LHLewis Howes1:03:52

        Right

    24. MHMorgan Housel1:03:52

        "... and in a different form of medicine."

    25. LHLewis Howes1:03:54

        Right.

    26. MHMorgan Housel1:03:54

        But he said being a doctor was his identity, and when he retired and he woke up the next morning and said, "I'm not a doctor anymore," he said, "Hmm, I, I don't, I, I don't like this." So I think it's, it's possible that this vision I have of pulling back is gonna be much easier said than done.

    27. LHLewis Howes1:04:08

        Yeah, and I think also you get a lot of value out to, uh, creating something that impacts and inspires others.

    28. MHMorgan Housel1:04:14

        Yeah.

    29. LHLewis Howes1:04:14

        So if you stop that and you just focused on your immediate family only, there might be limited joy to that too, right?

    30. MHMorgan Housel1:04:20

        Yes. Absolutely. So it's important, but also, like, w- if I think about what actually gives me a lot of joy in life, it's, it's my family-
18. 1:08:20 – 1:15:26

    Two biggest takeaways from Morgan's books.

    1. LHLewis Howes1:08:20

       What else do we need to know about this? Anything else that we've missed here today?

    2. MHMorgan Housel1:08:23

       I think the biggest thing in both of my books, there's two, like, grand takeaways from it. One is a plea for humility.

    3. LHLewis Howes1:08:30

       Mm.

    4. MHMorgan Housel1:08:30

       That, you know, in your individual life and at the society level, like, stop pretending that you know what's gonna be in the future, 'cause you don't. I don't, you don't, nobody does. The other is a plea to look inwards and realizing that the right financial solution, the right career s- solution for you is gonna be different than it is for me, and vice versa. Not because we disagree with each other, but because we're different people.

    5. LHLewis Howes1:08:53

       Yes.

    6. MHMorgan Housel1:08:54

       And so there is no one-size-fits-all solution for almost anything in life. You have to spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, so to speak, to figure out who you are and what you want, and to play the game that you're playing.

    7. LHLewis Howes1:09:05

       Wow. What are you gonna see in the mirror at the end of this year when you reflect on any change you might need to make next year?

    8. MHMorgan Housel1:09:12

       I think I'll look in the mirror and say, "I, I gave it all that I had. I gave it my best shot. I didn't, it wasn't always perfect. I didn't always do the right thing, but I, I tried my damnedest and I'm pretty proud of that." And I think I'll also realize this year that I probably went a little too hard. It was probably too much. I traveled too much. I spoke at too many conferences. I spent too much of time away from my kids. Just on the flight down here this morning, I was looking at some old videos of my kids from a year ago, and every parent will relate to this. I'm a s- just utterly shocked at how much they've grown. And then I'm like, "Well, how much was I gone in the last year during this period when they grew six inches and their voices changed-

    9. LHLewis Howes1:09:48

       Wow

    10. MHMorgan Housel1:09:48

        ... and my, you know, they're different people?" And it also made me kinda sad. So I think that it's, it's a healthy realization to say, "Look, I wanna be ambitious in my career, but that was probably a little bit too much."

    11. LHLewis Howes1:09:57

        Mm. Gotcha. It's good lessons. Before I become a father in the future, it's good to know these things. Same As Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes. Make sure you guys get a copy or two. Give it to a friend. Uh, also, where can we follow you online and how else can we support you?

    12. MHMorgan Housel1:10:12

        Most of my time online is on, on Twitter, for better or worse.

    13. LHLewis Howes1:10:16

        Okay.

    14. MHMorgan Housel1:10:16

        That's my drug of choice. My, my handle is MorganHousel.

    15. LHLewis Howes1:10:18

        Okay.

    16. MHMorgan Housel1:10:18

        It's my, my first and last name.

    17. LHLewis Howes1:10:19

        Cool.

    18. MHMorgan Housel1:10:20

        I also have a budding aspiring c- podcast called The Morgan Housel Podcast. Still experimenting, playing around. I don't, I, I don't have a studio quite as grand as this, Lewis. You're doing really good.

    19. LHLewis Howes1:10:29

        You don't need it, you know. You don't [laughs]

    20. MHMorgan Housel1:10:30

        You're, you're doing a little bit better job than me, but I'm just still experimenting with it, but it's a lot of fun.

    21. LHLewis Howes1:10:34

        It is a lot of fun.

    22. MHMorgan Housel1:10:34

        I enjoy it.

    23. LHLewis Howes1:10:35

        That's good. That's good. We'll make sure to check that out and link that up as well. Uh, I've got two final questions for you. Before I ask the final two questions, I wanna acknowledge you, Morgan, for your values. Because I think a lot of people who become very successful, what looks like a lot of success overnight, which obviously was 17 plus years of doing something every single day, um, a lot of people seem to lose their values. And so I really acknowledge you for speaking back into that and making that really your foundation.

    24. MHMorgan Housel1:11:04

        Thank you.

    25. LHLewis Howes1:11:05

        Being a good person, being kind to people, having humility, looking inwards, being a good husband and father, and a good friend.

    26. MHMorgan Housel1:11:14

        Thank you.

    27. LHLewis Howes1:11:14

        So I really acknowledge you for focusing on that as your identity and not your success in your work. And when people ask me who I am, I say I'm a loving, passionate, wise man, 'cause that's who I wanna be remembered as.

    28. MHMorgan Housel1:11:28

        Yeah. Yeah.

    29. LHLewis Howes1:11:28

        That's who I wanna be known as by my friends.

    30. MHMorgan Housel1:11:31

        Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:15:26