388 - What Matters

[music] Hey everybody, this is Phil Town. And this is Daniel Town. Welcome to the invested podcast. We are deep in the weeds of doing Warren Buffett style investing. I'm trying to handle this up and down craziness market while remaining emotionally filled with equanimity and calm and maybe even becoming more anti-fragile by knowing ourselves better. How does that sound? What we just wander into the weeds of a psychology experiment here? Yeah, it sounds good. I like it. I like it. There's so much about investing that's tied into the way your emotions work. It's just you can't you can't you can't even imagine how driven by emotion most investing decisions are. Including the decision many of you are making which is not to get involved. Oh so true. Absolutely. Don't want to do this. Go read if you haven't read the book yet read and invest it. Daniel writes splendidly about not wanting to be involved. Thank you. Quite good. At length and over chapters. Do not want to do this. Stay away. Terrifying. But yeah, I mean, I think it's a lot to do with the unknown is terrified because there's a lot of scary things that could be in the unknown and often being afraid of it is very reasonable. But being able to learn and tiptoe is a really great way to learn to what is there something scary around there than just like losing your money. I mean, you're not unknown. That's kind of scary. It is scary. I would think. But that's it. That's the thing. That's it. Yeah. Of course you can do all the all the rest of the things that go along with losing your money which is now I'm going to have to eat cat food when I'm old. Or even worse come and live with my children. Oh dear Lord. Well, considering that the end of my book which was about living your authentic life and becoming more free ended with me living with my mother. I will say that's not always a bad thing. Apparently there's quite a large number of people there was an article in the Wall Street Journal today about something this editorial writer was calling it the cybos. So these are cyber bohemians meaning that they're just staying locked up in the dark on their phones or computers living in their parents basement. And having no desire whatsoever to take a job to be a contributing member of society. Nothing. Like apparently this is quite a thing explaining like the Bohemian vibe is very like artistic and contributing to society through art and magical creations and not necessarily being about selling out and money. But but this is not so much. I think he was defining bohemians as like the original definition of bohemians back when people didn't like them. Something like useless human being is a translation sort of thing. So I yeah so I don't know maybe living in the basement is something that other people are finding to be perfectly perfectly good idea. I mean it started maybe big time during the pandemic and maybe a lot of people aren't coming out. It's possible. I mean there's like a million jobs. Everybody down there is learning to invest and making a crap ton of money off of the newfound knowledge. Me too and by the way. Because you can do that from the basement. I'm I know this probably will go badly with some people but I find it. I know there are a lot of you out there who are perfectly willing to work a nine to five job and just grind it out. Right. I mean that's life. You got to do what you got to do to feed the family and I completely honor that and appreciate it. My dad did that. Your grandfather ground it out. You know just in a job that I don't think he liked particularly. And I think about the time he retired he was replaced entirely by a computer. I mean it's just sort of that sort of job. And but you know from from that I just saw it's a. I don't know I've a long time I was really getting out in the weeds but for a long time I've sort of admired the cultures that were more alive than that you know. I don't know when I was guiding and down on the 12th of May River. We had a rapid that I actually named earlier on in the season when we were doing our one of the first exploratories of the 12 May. We decided we could run this river commercially and there was this rapid called chicken shit that was basically. Is that the one you named? I named it because I was I was sitting in the boat when we crashed and went swimming for this rapid. And another guy named Sandy was was on the ores. And we came back to the rapid we were reading and going and so we really sometimes didn't know where we were. A lot of the river looks the same right boulders and rapids and the whole thing. And Sandy was watching me and I came toward this rapid and I realized what it was. And he said let me do it let me do it let me do it because he wanted to get it. Like meaning put him on the ors. Yeah let me get back on the ors. It was just the two of us in the boat. So I jumped off he got on. And the idea that we could see from having flipped there before we went back upstream and walked up and looked at it was to tuck the boat behind this boulder. You got to go slide down the side of the boulder, suck the tail of the boat and the stern into the eddy and it would swing the nose of the boat just perfectly so you wouldn't hit this house size rock. The giant thing that was right in front and then you would miss it and it would be perfect. And Sandy started coming down there and at the last moment he chickened out and rode his butt off into the gravel and just graveled our way down over rocks and just sharp stuff and just grind in the boat. And I'm going oh man we're going to blow a tube and we get to the other end of it and I'm like you chicken shit I can't believe you just did that. That was all to avoid getting sucked in under that gigantic. You just wasn't yeah yeah because we sucked in under that rock first time through. So the first commercial trip down there the other guides had not yet run this rapid. They're taking people for money and they hadn't done it yet. It was the 70s. And he's like just knew you were going to say that. And so I said let me lead this thing down right I hadn't run it yet either but I knew what I was about. You just had done it twice now. I haven't been rowing. So I knew what I wanted to do so I I led and I nailed it got in right behind the boulder pulled the boat around. That's right. Perfect little run we slide over and we go into this Eddie below this big boulder and we're sort of hovering to watch everybody else is doing it. And another boat came through okay and then the third boat didn't and he missed the pull in got hit by the rock and just went upside down and the people in his boat went into this cold river. And they didn't come up. I mean when I went in I popped up fast right but these guys didn't come up and they were an older couple. And I think one other person in their guide the two other people came up the guide came up and this other person did the other couple did not come up. I'm I'm on the shore we've at this point we've tied off and I'm yelling at a guy to untie us and he's the boats got so much tension on it from the rapid. He couldn't get the not loose so I jumped up cut it cut the boat loose jump back on the orders as we swung out and just as we swung out this. Yeah just as we saw out this woman popped up she's about in her mid 60s I grabbed her by the life of life jacket pulled her into the boat and then her husband popped up grabbed him pull him in the boat. And they must have been hypothermic. Oh they were so hypothermic and they'd been under water for like 30 seconds or something like an eternity. I know and we were now being swept down stream into this next rapid and just boulders everywhere so I'm on the worst trying to get our way through and get to the shores quickly as we can. We pull over found a place down river and the other boats pulled over with me and we built this giant fire up on this rock slab. And put up we put our or we grabbed ours and we put them all up together and it kind of a teepee and put tarps around it and and started putting rocks on this fire and built. Like I don't know it was really a cool sweat lodge and we just like whipped up you know. Yeah just to get as much heat into them as possible. Yeah, yeah exactly. I brought it in there. I had that work. We're really really good. Oh good. Okay. They came back really fast. Oh, I mean such flashbacks to that story. Like, you told me that story so many times when I was little. The older couple and oh lord. Super intense. Yeah, super intense. But the point of this was that one of the guides pulled out a book that had quotes in it. And one of the quotes was from, oh, who is this writer? I'm not forgotten the guy's name. From back in the early 1900s. I want to say, "War of the World's Author." Let me see if that comes up. "Who is the War of the World's Author?" So basically you guys all just went through. H.G. Wells. It's right. It's actually almost at least a near death experience for them and then a sort of near death experience by proxy for the rest of you. So you're just what, like, do you compressing and freaking out over being alive? Yeah, so he gets his book out and he reads this quote from H.G. Wells, which I'm just going to paraphrase here. It basically says that most people live such a protected life that they never deal with the real elements, the elements of living, the real, I wish I could read it. I don't know where that quote is. Maybe you guys can find it for me. And I just wonder, you know, when you think about the kind of, the kind of jobs most people have, are just kind of getting by, right? And then also, I don't know, I love a book called, I'm going to get this wrong too. I think it's Empire of the Summer Moon. I think that's right. Empire of the Summer Moon, yeah, about Kwanoparker and the Rise and Follow the Commanches. And one of the points that the author made is a book by S. C. Gwynn. One of the points that Gwynn made was that the Comanche males, the male warriors were probably the freest human beings ever to live on the planet. That they had almost literally no rules. They had almost literally no hierarchy. Every problem was solved in some way. It could be a violent solution. It could be a negotiated solution. It could be everybody walks away or change tribes or go to different groups or whatever. The Commanches, according to Gwynn, were almost free of rules for the males. I'm sure it was quite different from the females. But. Definitely was. Point being. But what's the point? That they didn't want to quit being Commanches at all. The European life, the disconnect from nature, the rules and obligations and moral codes, and all of the squeezing in on you that were done by European culture, Western culture, were anathema to the Commanches. They fought to preserve their life as well as probably any people ever have done. And we're successful at preserving their life, their culture, for 200 years. That's a long time when people are trying to move in on you and we're unsuccessful. They controlled an area larger than the state of Texas that went from Mexico to basically Wyoming. And we're phenomenally successful people. And I guess just the remarkable thing about it is how vital life was for a Commanche. I mean, everything mattered. Every person mattered in some way. In a way that just isn't the case today, you know? So I'm just putting pieces together here from my experience of kind of living. I don't know, living out there on the edge a little bit for about 10 years as a guide. And not having money, not having a real career or anything. But having a job that was a vital job, right? I mean, not that somebody needed to be on a river trip. But once you're on it, what I did mattered every day, all day long. Pretty much every minute that I spent out there mattered. And I think that's important somehow. And I guess when we come to think about investing, one of the amazing things about that is that it gives you the ability. If you're successful as an investor, you have the financial freedom to live a vital life, to live what you would consider to be a vital life. You don't have to go down there and do nine to five for somebody selling Cheerios if you don't want to. There's anything wrong with Cheerios? I love Cheerios. I'm glad you guys are selling it if you're in that job. But to do something that you consider that you're passionate about, that's vital, that's important, that makes a difference to your people, I think is a really fulfilling life. And so many of us don't have that opportunity. We're locked in. Right? We're locked in. And I think that's what you're saying is exactly the frustration that has been building and building and building for 10, 20 years. And now people are starting to large numbers of people are starting to really act on it to say, "This is not worth it." Selling the Cheerios is not worth it anymore. I'm not getting paid enough. I'm barely making my rent with this minimum wage job. I can't pay for health insurance, et cetera, et cetera, the car costs too much. It's cheaper to live month to month with rented stuff than it is to buy anything. Nobody can buy a house. All of the student loans, that's a whole thing. And it really feels like the deck is stacked against you. And I think every generation coming up has probably felt like the deck was stacked against them. I think more and more and more. But more and more, absolutely, because that's not incorrect. We have far less opportunities to build a better life than certainly our parents did, than our grandparents did. And I mean, we, in our book dad, put an entire section about the cost of buying a house and how it's not even possible on a standard salary anymore. Whereas when my grandparents were buying their house, they could do it as a young family with two kids on one salary that was not a highly trained job. And that's just 100% not possible. Maybe a couple of towns in America and Europe, but in general, not possible. So people feel that. And I think what you're saying really taps into something because when you start to feel like no matter how much you work, you can't accomplish a better life or an easier life or even make one for your kids necessarily. You start to think, I'm going to opt out of this complete BS system. And what? What's the other option? So some people are, you know, living in their parents house. I get it. I get it. Some people are going back to nature more like you. That's where your head went. That's where a lot of people's heads go. And forming more like communal living societies in places where they can work remotely and have a tech job remotely, but live cheaply in an inexpensive area. There's people who have given up the entire I live somewhere concept and have become what do they what do they call it cyber nomads or something where you just go and live in Airbnb's and friends houses and just work from wherever and save the money you would spend on. A mortgage or rent. So people are are finding ways around it. And you know, it's a topic probably for an enormous book, but I do see a connection between this stock market going up and up and up. And now kind of as like people are realizing, oh, this really isn't going to change. What is it going to change? This economic personal finance economic situation. Yeah. And see in the stock market just go crazy because of what I mean, that was one option, right? Like people have been getting into like, oh, I have access to the market. I'm learning about it. I'm able to do some of my own investing and what that means is buying stocks. And when you buy stocks, those stocks go up in price. So that has been coming into it, I think. And then now as we're post pandemic and sort of it's becoming real. Like what does post pandemic look like? I don't know the answer to that. Nobody does. So, man, just think about all of the people who are doing everything that they were told to do, right? And struggling to figure out why do I just feel so removed from real life? Why does this feel like this? This is a good life. I've done all the hard work in school, I've gone to college, I've got a degree, and here I am doing this job that I hate. And it just doesn't feel like any of that was worth it. But I'm going to disagree a little bit on just one piece of this. I do think actually if you are young and you don't have children, you don't get children, and you finish high school and are literate, right? I mean, you can read and you can write and you can do basic math. I think if you work hard, you do get ahead. Absolutely. You pull yourself out. You will come out of poverty. And there's a ton of data that that's true. Oh, so if you start in poverty. Yeah, if you start in poverty. But I mean, obviously, there's a lot, there's way too many people who do. And many of those people are people who feel like there's no way out. And in fact, they've just painted themselves in a corner by having just a tough upbringing that doesn't let them understand what are the right things you have to do in order to get out of there. And then by the same token, you can be born rich and most people who are born rich find ways to squander the money. And that's also well documented. So in fact, the New York Times ran this thing where it showed people flowing out of the poorest class and out of the richest class. So the richer getting richer, but it's different rich. And the poor getting poor, but unfortunately, it's the same poor. It's just the people aren't getting out of there. So I think if you do work hard, you can get out of that kind of poverty situation. But assuming, I kind of like assuming that you've gotten out of there or have those opportunities, you're privileged enough to be raised with the right values for the society to have help and help. But then you can be stuck. You can be stuck. Yeah, I mean, you get ahead, but ahead is not a lot of that. And that's where you want to be. And then those are the, I don't think it's people in poverty who are sitting in their mom's basement playing cyber games. No, this is the middle class or upper middle class or even upper class. But so with that frustration, I mean, certainly like I've found investing to be a rather extraordinary thing in my own life, you found investing to be a rather extraordinary thing in your own life. So we can talk on that. But is that the answer for everybody? Of course not. No, yeah, it's a systemic problem. Oh, really? Of course. So you have to use what society gives you and find a way to take that and make yourself free. I think that's what it kind of boils down to. And I was just lucky. I had good karma. I didn't know what I was doing when I accepted this apprenticeship. I had no idea. It just was a door that opened and all the rest of the doors at that point in my life seemed closed. I was at the point of just like, I'm not going to be a river guide anymore. I'm just fried. I just don't want to do it anymore. And you know, that door opened and I went through it just hoping something good would happen. So I was lucky. Well, and you're credit. You're insanely smart and able to take opportunities very quickly when they come up. Like that's something you're really good at. I think I mean, and although I appreciate this very much my daughter, I don't think I'm insanely smart, you know, I can work hard. I can work hard at something I really want. I can grind. Yeah. You know, and you've got the smarts to grind. Oh, thank you. That's nice of you to say. I think honestly though, if you've got an average IQ, you can do this. I mean, I think I have a pretty average IQ, maybe a little bit above average or something, but not super smart by any means. And you know, a lot of people look at Buffett who is absolutely super smart and think, well, he can do it, but I can't because he's smart. But he said this over and over again, this isn't a game where IQ wins. Yeah. This is a game where discipline wins. I agree. This is this is what it is. You know, the basic rules of how to play and then be disciplined about it. Yeah. And I just got to get some money. Yeah, that's true. But I just want to say, like, I didn't mean smart regarding investing. Of course, you're smart regarding investing. I meant like when those opportunities come up, a lot of people won't jump on them. That's true. And you, it maybe smarts the wrong word, but you're able to like see it. You're able to recognize it as an opportunity. I've seen you do that a lot of times. And I think a lot of people don't simply don't recognize it as the opportunity that it is. Or they're afraid of it or whatever. And I've certainly done that many times. So, you know, I get it. I think I've just got it. But there's something there with that moment of it's something I've been trying to think about myself because there have been times in my life where I've been like, this is something I'm going to do, period. And I don't know how I'm recognizing this, but I am. And I'm going to make it happen. And I've been very successful with those moments. So there's something to that, like saying, okay, this is a thing that's important and that matters. It's worth my time and attention and shifting things in my life to make it happen. So the thing is people try to figure out what those things are by looking at your life or my life or above its life or somebody that they admire and say, oh, well, they did these things and these things are what led them to this good life. And I think there's a step that goes before that. I mean, you've been meditating since you were five. I taught you to meditate at five years old. And I've been meditating since I got back from Vietnam. So 1972. And I think that meditation brings you transcendence and transcendence brings you that sense of what's right in your life. And I think that comes from contemplative, I think transcendence comes from contemplative prayer, long distance running, long distance swimming, playing basketball at the level of a Kobe Bryant, getting in the zone and athletics. I think there's many kinds of meditation. There's multiple kinds of meditation. Many kinds of transcendence. And if we want to call all those kind of a meditation, then yes, many kinds of meditation, in meditation, in activity with your eyes open. You know, I mean, Melissa goes and she calls it meditation. She's walking through the woods and she's just part of nature there and has these transcendent experiences. So you know what? I was just listening to Smart List, which is a great podcast that like everybody should listen to with Jason Beatman and Will Arnett and Sean Hayes. It's a comedy podcast and they just like have their Hollywood comedy friends come on and like shoot the shit. And Jake led literally listening to this this morning and they had Justin Thoreau on it was an older episode and they were talking about transcendental meditation. They said, you know, have you ever done it? Because he's friends with who's the Hollywood director who's really into TM. Chris Clint Eastwood. No, no, no, no, no, no, the one who started the foundation. Oh, yeah, David Burnett. David Lynch. David Lynch. So he's friends with David Lynch. So they said, have you ever done TM? He said, yes, da da da da. Jason Beatman said something like, I've tried to do lots of kinds of meditation. I can never tell if it's working. And that struck me so much because it is so sorry, Jason Beatman. I hope you listen to this. So try to get him again because it was so the wrong concept around meditation. There's no working or not working. And there's no telling if it's working or not working. It's simply the experience. That's it. It's about what you experience accepting it, coming out of it, going back to your regular life, having the experience accepting it. No, you wouldn't say that. I would say, I would say it a little differently. I would say the experience you're having doesn't matter at all. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. And so you're having the experience, it doesn't matter what the experience is. And then the proof of the meditation being working is your life gets better. And by better, what I mean is that you start to have better ideas of what to do, what you want to do starts to work better. Oh, that's a good point. Yes. You start to bring that joy to why you've even thought of this. Right. You start to be more connected in your life. Yeah. Healthier. As having better relationships, feeling more calm. Yeah. You're right. Actually, you're right. I take it back. It takes a while for those seeds to sprout. I remember, you know, it's just like when I first started meditating, I did it because your uncle said, you got to do this. So I thought, what the heck, I'll try it. And I learned to meditate up in Marin County and Dolores Johnson taught me. And he's a little hippie chick and a little hippie dress, this little altar and these swinging flowers around it. I'm like, whatever. And then I learned the meditators really easy and I went and she said, okay, that's it. I'll see you tomorrow and we'll do another class. I got in my car and I started driving down the hill out of Mill Valley and I started laughing so hard. I mean, I was, you know, like the word overjoyed. I was overjoyed. (laughing) I was so overjoyed, I had to pull over. I couldn't stop. It was this massive release that happened, you know, a few minutes after I had meditated. And then it just kind of like, oh, okay, it just became routine and it wasn't a big deal. And I got my next boost by going to like a five day meditation course about six months later where I thought, holy smokes, this really is powerful stuff. And you do it a lot. And so I, you know, I got real, I got real into it obviously and became a teacher and all that kind of thing. But I don't have a real axe to grind here. I mean, I think there's a ton of different kinds of meditation. Yeah, well, I think what I was trying to say and I completely agree with you that there is signs that it's working, it's making your life better. But those signs are later and they're over a longer period of time. Yes, yes. And I think what he said was that he was trying to tell like, while it was happening, is this working? Is this working or maybe like immediately after like, did that work? Yes. And that's what struck me as just thinking about it. So off, like it's just not related to what's happened. Yeah, you're right. And so I think, you know, I say this all the time to people who are learning investing. It's exactly the same process. It's like, it may not feel like it's working right now. And it may not make sense and it may be frustrating. And it's about coming back to it over and over and doing a little bit more and understanding a little bit more and reading a little bit more and finding a little bit more the companies or subjects that are interesting to learn about and exciting and add value to your life. And over time, it adds up to become something that makes life better. And then when that opportunity shows up, as it inevitably does, hopefully we can recognize it. This sounds quite a lot like an investing practice, doesn't it? Is sure does. Gosh, if only amazing. I had called it. Those two things are quite similar. We'll call it an investing practice. We got to go, Dad, we're just rambling on today. We were going to talk about the market dropping, but guys, that's going to happen next week. Yep, we should probably wrap it right there. Who knows? Maybe we'll come back and talk about this whole meditation thing. More shooters, little, if you guys have questions or comments, fire them away. They go to [email protected]. [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you. We'll take more of these as we get them. So until then, time to go play. Thanks everybody. And stay calm in the storm. Right? Just stay calm in the storm. Thanks everybody. Bye. Hi guys, thanks for listening to Invested. If you enjoyed this episode, or if you want more information, or to listen to additional episodes, visit our website at InvestedPodcast.com. And sign up for my virtual workshop right there. Spots are definitely limited for this event. I'm not kidding. They really are. They sell out very quickly. So everything discussed on this podcast, by the way, is either my opinion or it's Daniel's opinion. And it really important. It's not to be taken as investing advice, because I am not your financial advisor, nor have I considered your personal situation as your fiduciary. So remember that. You're on your own here. This podcast is for your entertainment and education only. And I really hope you enjoyed it.