Every conversation with William Green is an adventure, so was today’s hour and half where we talk about everything from investing to kindness, spirituality, the pursuit of freedom, and more –
His book Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life is a must read for anyone serious about investing, and everyone curious to learn some of the greatest minds not only about getting richer, but living better lives.
William is also a host of The Richer, Wiser, Happier collection of podcast episodes featured on We Study Billionaires, the flagship podcast of The Investor’s Podcast Network, which has more than 100 million downloads. He interviews high-profile guests such as Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, Ray Dalio, and Bill Miller, exploring what they can teach us about how to succeed in markets and life.
Over the last 25 years, William has interviewed many legendary investors—everyone from Sir John Templeton to Charlie Munger, Jack Bogle to Bill Miller. That experience led him to write a landmark book, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life. In the Richer, Wiser, Happier podcast, William draws on this unparalleled access to the world’s most successful investors, so you can listen to—and learn from—the very best.
Over the last quarter of a century, he has interviewed many of the world’s best investors, exploring in depth the question of what qualities and insights enable them to achieve enduring success. He’s written extensively about investing for many publications and has been interviewed about the greatest investors for magazines, newspapers, podcasts, radio, and television. He has also given many talks about the lessons we can learn from the most successful investors, not only about how to invest but about how to improve our thinking.
Green has written for many leading publications in the US and Europe, including The New Yorker, Time, Fortune, Forbes, Barron’s, Fast Company, Money, Worth, Bloomberg Markets, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Observer, The (London) Spectator, The (London) Independent Magazine, and The Economist. He has reported in places as diverse as China, India, Japan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the US, Mexico, England, France, Monaco, Poland, Italy, and Russia. He has interviewed presidents and prime ministers, inventors, criminals, prize-winning authors, the CEOs of some of the world’s largest companies, and countless billionaires.
While living in London, Green edited the European, Middle Eastern, and African editions of Time. Before that, he lived in Hong Kong, where he edited the Asian edition of Time during a period in which it won many awards.
Green has collaborated on several books as a ghostwriter, co-author, or editor. One of them became a #1 New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller in 2017. He also worked closely with a renowned hedge fund manager, Guy Spier, helping him to write his much-praised 2014 memoir, The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment. Green also wrote and edited The Great Minds of Investing, which features short profiles of 33 renowned investors, along with stunning portraits created by Michael O’Brien, one of America’s preeminent photographers.
Born and raised in London, Green was educated at Eton College, studied English literature at Oxford University, and received a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in New York with his wife, Lauren, and their children, Henry and Madeleine.
Today we talk about:
Authenticity and Quality: We discussed the importance of being genuine and valuing quality in all aspects of life.
The Praise of Slowness: We delved into the value of taking things slowly and appreciating the moment.
Contradictory Truths: We recognized that profound truths can sometimes be opposing.
Contrasting investment strategies of Guy Spier and Mohnish Pabrai.
Emotions: We also emphasized the role of emotions in investment decisions.
When to persist, when to quit: We emphasized the importance of resilience and knowing when to persist or when to step back.
Kindness: We reflected on the significance of nurturing kindness and cultivating positive habits now, rather than waiting for a future time of wealth or success.
Right habits in times of crisis: we talked about preparing for crisis situations by establishing solid routines in advance.
Return on Life: William shared his views on the importance of assessing the value we derive from life, rather than just material gains.
Spirituality: William believes that spirituality could be the connecting thread in our journey towards becoming richer, wiser, and happier.
Pursuit of Freedom: William places a high value on freedom in his life and actively seeks it in his choices and actions.
Luck and Gratitude: We wrapped up our conversation acknowledging the role of fortune in our lives and the importance of remaining grateful for the life experiences we encounter.
---- Crisis Investing: 100 Essays - My new book.
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NEVER INVESTMENT ADVICE. IMPORTANT: As a reminder, the remarks in this interview represent the views, opinions, and experiences of the participants and are based upon information they believe to be reliable; however, Sicart Associates nor I have independently verified all such remarks. The content of this podcast is for general, informational purposes, and so are the opinions of members of Sicart Associates, a registered investment adviser, and guests of the show. This podcast does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any specific security or financial instruments or provide investment advice or service. Past performance is not indicative of future results. More information on Sicart Associates is available via its Form ADV disclosure documents available adviserinfo.sec.gov
William Green - AI Generated Transcript, it may contain errors.
[00:00:00] Bogumil: hello William. How are you? It's so nice to see you.
[00:00:03] William Green: Hi. It's great to see you as well.
[00:00:04] Bogumil: we spend quite a bit of time together in Switzerland at Guy Spears Value X over dinner, and then on a nice walk, wintery walk at night talking about your books, your writing, all the people you've met and your podcasts. So it's a, it's a real blessing to have you back here and continue that conversation.
So thank you for joining me today.
[00:00:25] William Green: I'm really delighted. That was a memorable trip actually. I was a little exhausted that whole trip. I kept having to speak and at the same time I was, um, I was editing guy's annual report and at the same time I was preparing for a podcast interview with him
[00:00:42] Bogumil: you had a lot going on, but I've seen you speak at Value X and then in Omaha, and I always admire how you can cherry pick one idea and turn it into a story with some quotes, with some anecdotes, and I'm always curious, do you have those ready and prepared, or they just come to you in the moment?
[00:01:02] William Green: I think, I think to some extent I just wait and hope that something's gonna emerge in the moment. But, um, but I think when I, when I spoke in, um, yeah, it's funny when I, I remember I gave a talk in Switzerland at Value X, where I really didn't know what I was gonna say. Maybe I had like one idea that I was gonna share and I was thinking I'll talk for like two minutes, and then it was like 20 minutes later and I was still going.
But then in Omaha, I think I talked about quality. I talked about Michael O'Brien and the photographs he'd taken for the Great Minds of investing as a way of getting at this issue of quality and, and Nick sleep. So I think, I think I had thought a little bit about that, but yeah, it's a, there's an interesting conflict because you don't wanna be too canned and say the same thing the whole time.
And then if you don't prepare at all, it's kind of a highwire act. But I quite like the Highwire Act. I mean, I was saying to you before you, you had sent me some, some questions, but I, I almost consciously didn't really look at them. I kind of glanced at them a little bit, and then I was like, I, I wasn't gonna prepare what I was gonna say because I, I, I don't know how you feel about this bogm mill, but I, I, I sort of feel like we are starved of authenticity.
[00:02:22] Bogumil: Mm-hmm.
[00:02:23] William Green: And I, I remember hearing some famous writer, um, going on, I, I, I think the Fresh Air Show, which I love, I mean, I love Terry Gross, an amazing interviewer. I heard him tell this great anecdote, and then I listened to him on another show a couple of days later and he told exactly the same anecdote in exactly the same way.
And I sort of thought, that's really not what I want to do. Like having inauthentic conversations where you repeat the same thing or where you've just prepared what you're gonna say. I, I don't know what, what the point is really.
[00:02:56] Bogumil: No, I agree with you. I write down the questions because I prepare quite a bit for those conversations and there's always so much that I wanna talk about. And even after the conversations that we had, I had so many follow-up questions, so I write them down for myself to have some sort of a framework. But my experience so far has been with this podcast that the conversation can go in unpredictable directions, and I never know where it's gonna go with some of the questions.
So I like that unpredictable part to it too. And I was going to ask you about it down the road when you create a profile of somebody when you're writing about them, There's a lot of lag and time to think, rethink, maybe even ask what they meant. But in a podcast, it just happens. And obviously you can cut things out, you can edit, but some things come up and I'm curious about your experience writing about people and then talking to people and allowing us to hear their stories in their own voice.
Something beautiful happens in that hour or two when you have people on your show.
[00:03:58] William Green: Like, like you, I prepare a great deal for the podcasts and so I literally, the, I am often finding that I'm trying to reduce my number of questions to eight or nine pages by the time I'm, I. Interview so often it's like 16 pages, and then I cut down the questions eight or nine, which is sort of more manageable, six or seven if I'm really lucky, but I rarely get it down to that much.
So there's a tremendous amount of pres, uh, a tremendous amount of preparation. And then I think sometimes when it's at its best, you're so well prepared that you, you can go in any direction in the moment. And so there's this peculiar kind of paradox that all of the preparation, writing down all the questions enables you to be sufficiently present, that you can slightly ignore the questions. But it's difficult. It is a highwire act when you let go of, um, when you let go of the questions and you're just like, yeah, I'm just gonna. Move in any direction. But then I, I, one of the things about interviewing people over Zoom is that you can see your questions and it's different when you are, when you're sitting, interviewing someone in a room, uh, which I've done for much of my career, where you are, you are interviewing someone for a book or for a magazine article, which is what a lot of my career was.
And there, one of the things that makes it different is that you can keep going back to the same question in different ways. And so if the person isn't really, if the person isn't really answering it in a satisfactory way or there's so much there that you wanna come at it from multiple angles, you can keep doing it in a way that would probably make for a very boring podcast because you have to move on.
Because a podcast is a bit more like a, like a live show or, um, but when you're interviewing someone for a magazine or a book, I. You don't, the reader doesn't get to see the making of the sausage, which gives you a little bit more latitude to do certain things. So you can also, you can also talk about your own life in ways that are kind of revealing, that are gonna put the person more at ease and are gonna make them more like a tell you stuff.
And so you can be much more self-referential and you can tell stories that are kind of politically incorrect or that are insensitive, or that are scurrilous or, um, too revealing about yourself. So, so there are think because because you are not on camera and it's not live or it's not recorded in quite the same way, it gives you a little more latitude.
And then also if someone says stuff that's kind of inarticulately put, but there's something really profound or elegant in it. You can synthesize it and distill it and reword it. Not, not in quotations, but you can, you can restructure stuff so you can give it shape. So it's just a different, it's a very different craft, but there's a kinda magic to the actual conversation when you hear people's voices.
So, so it's not that one is better or other, uh, better, better or worse. It's, uh, they, they both have a kind of beauty. I remember someone once saying to me, I, I, I was going, I think it was at the very start of working on Richer, wiser, happier, um, he said to me, you know, when you go interview someone, it's really, it's like a connection of these two souls.
And it's a strange and kind of, um, elevated way to talk about it, but there is a beautiful thing where you have a, a deep connection and the other person says something that you know is true. And, you know, they're saying something that's a little bit raw that maybe they've never said before. I have an interview coming up that, that probably by the time this podcast is out, we'll be, um, on, on my podcast.
It's an interview with Christopher Blooms Strand and there are some moments where he starts to say, talk about some things that are very personal and very candid and very transparent and, um, that he hadn't been intending to talk about. And that's kind of beautiful when someone feels comfortable enough to tell you things that are true and maybe painful and raw about their childhood or something like that.
And so I think, like, again, it's always this, this pursuit of something that's, that's true and authentic, rather, you know, in a world where so much is so superficial and so much is just like, I've gotta get someone on my podcast to fill this slot that's gonna, and it's like, no, I don't think people want that.
I, I think I, I don't know, I think we. We have too much information. One of the great problems with this period is that we have too many articles, too many blogs, too many podcasts. And so my bet is that the more you can shift towards doing stuff that's authentic and truthful and not, not, not superficial, not just, oh gosh, I hope I can get a lot of people click on this and a lot of people will like it, and a lot of people will, um, enhance my brand or buy my book. We all have that. It's not like I don't have that side of me, but I think I, I think there's a deep beauty in an, in an, in an interview or conversation where you can tell that the person just wants to share stuff that's true and helpful, and it's one reason why I think sometimes I remember listening to Tim Ferriss talk about this once that.
He said that he assumed that sometimes, you know, the biggest names that came on his podcast would, would be the best. And then he would have a conversation with someone who was more obscure, and actually that would totally take flight. And I find that too. I mean, there are these big names, you know, if, if you interview Ray Dalio or Howard Marx or Joe Greenbelt or something, it's likely to do well.
And I, I have found that. But then, you know, there'll be someone like Chris Begg, who I interviewed, who teaches the class that Ben Graham taught to Buffett back in 1951 at Columbia Business School. And so his guess in his class that people like Seth Klarman and, um, Nick Sleep, all these amazing investors.
Uh, and he, he never really talks in public. And it was just a really beautiful conversation because he's an incredibly thoughtful person. And so the fact that he has no profile, no public profile, um, doesn't matter at all. So maybe it's authenticity that we're after some, some degree of truthfulness and authenticity in a, in a world where maybe there's not that much of it.
[00:10:51] Bogumil: but I think listeners can tell. And I sometimes see how people listen to the end of the episode. I, I really admire that because it's an sometimes an hour, an hour and a half of a conversation and for all of us to find that much time. And I actually listened to some of your episodes more than once because I found some really, uh, you know, golden nuggets once I was listening the second time around.
But it's a big gift that somebody spends an hour with us on their walk. They actually email me and share with me. They were on a walk, they were doing something and, and I feel like they invited the two of us on a walk with them and to be a part of their life in that way, I think it's really special and they can tell that it's an authentic, real conversation and
[00:11:35] William Green: think also one of the things is if someone is going to spend that long in your company, I. I take it really seriously. So I had one interview, um, you know, with a famous Nobel Prize winner, and I listened to it and I was like, I, I don't like this interview. It didn't really work out. And I'm like, can I ask people to spend an hour and a half in my company this interview?
It's not great. And then I listened to it again and I tried to cut it up. I was like, maybe I can get a really good 10, 15 minutes. And I, maybe I could. But there's a part of me that's like, if I'm, if I'm taking people who are busy and have a lot in their lives and I'm asking 'em to spend an hour and a half, two hours sometimes in my company, um, and in my guest company, I wanna make it worthwhile.
And so I think this, this gets at the issue that I discussed at va, uh, at Value X in, in Omaha. Guys, there's event there where I talked about this idea of quality and somebody, um, He's a very well-known investor, very interesting guy who's, um, who I've become friends with over the last couple of years. Um, I was once having lunch with him in, um, in R New York.
It was the very first time I'd met him and we chatted for about three hours. He had an extraordinary lunch and we were talking about this issue of quality and he said at one point, quality has its own frequency. And I came up in chills because it was, which is funny 'cause Arnold Vandenberg often says to me that he knows when something is true because his right arm comes up in chills.
And I mentioned it to Chris Begg once, and Chris Begg was very rational, highly intelligent, incredibly thoughtful guy. Said to me, oh yeah, truth bumps. And so it, yeah. And so there is a sense in which your body sometimes knows, I think, and what do I know? But your body seems to be telling you. That something has deep truth.
And so that idea that quality has its own frequency, its own kind of vibration is a very profound one. And I, I think this is something that Nick Sleep and Case Aria figured out when they were running Nomad fund is they, they, they read Robert Per Zen and the motorcycle maintenance. And they really took seriously what Percy had said about living a life of quality.
And so they said, well, what would that mean as money managers? And so this slightly airy fairy idea, this sort of nebulous vague idea about the metaphysics of quality infused everything that they did. And so they would say, for example, well, we want to get rid of. All of the information that has a short shelf life that's just perishable and superficial and banal.
So the stuff that most of Wall Street is fixating on, like quarterly earnings estimates or, or what Nick called wiggle guessing about the direction of a stock or the direction of the market, or whether, as, as Zach said to me, whether the, the economic rebound would resemble a Nike swoosh, which is something that, that Financial Times had been writing about.
They just ignored all of that stuff. And they said, well, so if, if our quest is for quality, we are gonna look at, we're gonna look for really high quality companies, and we're gonna say, well, so what's the best business model? So then they start looking at all these different business models and they say, well, the, this whole idea of scale economy shared is probably the greatest business model of all, where you look at a company like Costco, Instead of, instead of their size becoming an anchor, it actually becomes a benefit because as they grow, they get these economies of scale and then they share them with their customers to give them a better deal, to give them more and more value.
And Amazon did the same thing. And so that idea of just looking for quality in every area of your life sort of infused the, the, the, the metaphysical experiment, the spiritual experiment, that was the nomad fund. So it infused the way Nick and Zach treated each other. So Nick said, our, our relationship was built on kindness because kindness has a longer shelf life.
So, for example, there was a discussion at the start of, of their business relationship where Nick was sort of the alpha dog. He's like this very dashing. Had some charming guy who'd had already a successful career as an, as a fund manager. And Zach had had a horrible time working as an institutional, an, uh, as a, yeah, I guess an institutional salesman.
Um, I think at Deutsche Bank, which he kind of hated. And, um, and yet when they partnered up, Zach said, well, uh, well, Nick said, you know, we should just own the company 50 50. And, um, Zach was like, no, I want you to have 51% of it and me to have 49% of it. And that way if we ever disagree, you'll make the final decision.
And Nick said to me, well, when somebody hands you a line, a, a loaded re revolver and says, here, shoot me if you want. How are you gonna behave? You, you have to treat them with kindness and fairness. So their relationship with each other was also one of quality. And it's telling that even though they wrapped up the fund and closed, closed it and returned something like three and a half billion dollars to shareholders many years ago, they still, last time I was in London and saw them, they, they still shared the office.
Even though they didn't use it very often, they're still friends and they still shared the office and they would complete each other's sentences, you know, really like a married couple almost. And so this idea of quality infused everything that they did, it affected who they took on as shareholders. So they would say, well, um, there was some heirs to the tetra Tetrapack fortune who came in and were like, yeah, well, we'll in, we'll invest with you a huge amount of money, but you have to show us your stock picks and you have to share your analysis and.
I remember Zach telling me that, you know, Nick is this very mild mannered, likable guy, was sort of crossing and uncrossing his legs more and more irritably and impatiently. And after about 10 minutes they just showed them to the door. 'cause they were like, no, these aren't the sort of people we want to have as partners.
And so they were prepared to turn away profits, fees, to have the right kind of partners. So this simple idea of leading a life of quality in a world where there's so much pressure to go for the quick fix, the um, the low quality decision is actually really powerful and profound. And so it, it affects everything.
It makes you think about, well, how much do I wanna do the podcast? Like, am I gonna do 50 episodes a year or am I gonna do 20 episodes that are better? Am I gonna write 10 books or am I gonna write three books? Am I gonna spend five years on a book, which is what I did with Richer, wiser, happier, or am I gonna pump out a book in two years so they can get the same advance
[00:19:07] Bogumil: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:08] William Green: and it'll be that much more profitable?
Or you can just say, I don't really care. I'm just going to create something that's as good as I can and then see what happens to it in the world. And so it's a very counter-cultural thing to do because we are in this, in this era where there's, there's pressure to do more, faster and or superficially.
And so I think this relates to you and me and all of our listeners is, is to really, is to really ask yourself, do you want to buy into the pressure of just pumping out crap constantly, uh, that the model or is, and sometimes you're just in a job or in a situation where you kind of have no choice and there's just so much stuff coming at you.
I, um, I think this is a really profoundly important question, and so just that, that inquiry that Nick and Zach made about the importance of quality, the metaphysics of quality, for me, that's had a really profound impact in, in many areas of my life. But maybe I'm just justifying how slow and ponderous I, I wanna do less, but make it better.
[00:20:24] Bogumil: I like that idea of choosing the right pace for the right. Task at hand. And I actually had on the podcast Carl Re who writes about slowness and the idea that in the world where we praise speed, he praises slowness. But he says there are moments where you want to go fast. And there are moments where you slow down and he talks about music, how find the right tempo.
And I thought it was really interesting 'cause I always found this contradiction in my life where there are moments where I want to do certain things quickly. I like that the email goes out in seconds, but then I'm spending quite a bit of time getting to know a business or preparing for a podcast interview.
And that takes me a disproportionate amount of time to go really deeper. And that's the quality that you talk about. But I think there is room for both in our lives. You mentioned
[00:21:13] William Green: Um, did you, sorry to interrupt you. Did you read Annie Duke's book? Um, the, the last one, I'm, I'm spacing on what it was called. Uh, quit. Yeah, quit. Where?
[00:21:23] Bogumil: I haven't read that one, but I, I heard about it.
[00:21:26] William Green: well, there's a very interesting footnote in the back where she was talking to the guy who wrote super forecasting, who's a mentor of hers. Steven Te, is it Tetlock?
Steven Tetlock, I think. And, and, In some ways, her book is the opposite of Angela Duckworth's book, which says, you know, you should have grit and you should stick with it. And the real predictor of success is sticking with it. And she's saying, well, no, there are certain times where actually you want to, you want to quit, you have a lousy hand and you should give up and move on.
And one of the things that te Philip Tetlock, I think it is one of the things that he said to her is, um, well the opposite of a great virtue is also a great virtue. And this is something in the footnote. I think Thomas Mann had said something similar, and Neil's boar had made something, uh, had said something similar.
And I found this a lot in my own life. And so I was very relieved when I saw that they were, they had found the same thing. It gives validity to something that I'd already observed in my own life, this sense that it's not, for example, that going slow is the great virtue. Um, going fast is also a great virtue, both, and I think that's one of the things that's.
It's complicated, uh, in life is that anytime, anytime you write about something that works, then you realize that the opposite thing also works. And so there's a, uh, you know, what was that f Scott Fitzgerald quote where he talks about how a, a mark of intelligence or genius is the, the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time without going crazy.
But I think it's profound because yes, you wanna do everything with quality, but you don't wanna be paralyzed because you're so obsessed with quality that you never do anything. And so there, there is a conflict there. I was reading about this this morning because there's a, um, there's a, a great catalyst, a great spiritual sage who died I think in 1827 on this day.
And so I. I was looking at some of his teachings this morning, and one, one of his most famous teachings, probably his most famous teaching, which is the, the one I share most often think about most often, it's called Rev Bun. Um, rev Bun of ish, I think the Town of Ish in Poland, where he's buried. And he said, uh, that you should have two pockets and a different piece of paper in each pocket.
And in one of them it should say, I am, but dust and ashes. And in the other it should say the whole world was created just for me. And both of those things are true. And he says, you know, whichever one you need at that time, you pull that piece of paper out. So sometimes you feel crushed and you feel worthless, and you need to pull out the piece of paper that says, actually the whole world was created just for me.
And at other times you need to pull out the piece of paper that says I, but dust and ashes, which I think is from Psalms, which reminds you that you should have a little more humility. And so, I like that sense that that great truths are often contradictory and it, it, it, it makes things much more subtle and nuanced.
So when I'm writing, for example about Sir John Templeton in the book, in the second chapter of my book, I asked him if anyone had had an influence on him. And he is like, no. And I said, what about your parents? He said, no, not even them. He said, I always just thought for myself. And yet the first chapter that precedes that is about Monish Pry and the Art of Cloning, which is really about replicating smart ideas that other people have had so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel yourself.
And I, I think hardly anyone has mentioned the fact that those two chapters are, in a sense, totally contradictory and both true.
[00:25:21] Bogumil: Uhhuh. Well, you're touching on something interesting. And since you mentioned Monish, I'm, I'm curious about your thoughts because you know Monish and Guy very well. I spent quite a bit of time with Guy and I think I saw him three times this year. And I met Monish early in my career. He invited me to his investor meeting in Chicago and I, I followed both of them over those years and I found it really interesting because they're close friends, yet they don't necessarily invest in the same ideas or the same way with the same positions.
And they explain now and then, and even laugh about it, that it's their personal experience that shapes how they invest. And I'm curious about your thoughts because we see this in the investment world that people say we're both value investors or whatever label you choose, but then the outcome can be completely different.
And I think you have a way of showing us the person behind the legend, behind the investment record. That explains a lot why some people are less risk averse, or even the term risk can mean completely different things to different investors.
[00:26:22] William Green: I mean, guy's, guy's, personal narrative is very different than Monash's personal narrative. So Guy comes from a family that was very wealthy and then they were living in Germany and they had a hack factory that was very successful. And then all the money was stolen by the Nazis and his family had to flee.
And they went to Israel and they became farmers and they had just absolutely nothing. And, um, so this at least is one part of his family that went from tremendous wealth to nothing. And so there's a sense, and, and then guy's, father was successful, an entrusted guy with pretty much everything that he'd made along with money from a few friends and partners and I.
So guy's story over the last 25 years of running the fund, and I, I've been invested in the fund for about 22 years and I've known guy for probably 25 years, although I first met him at Oxford about 30 something years ago when we were undergraduates together, although he was a couple years older. So guy's story is one of restoration is restored the family fortune through prudent, careful risk averse investing.
And so he's not really trying to optimize and when he takes too much risk and takes his eye off the ball as he did with Horsehead several years ago where he made a mistake, he, he listened, you know, he internalized Monash's view that it was a waste of time to go see management because um, you know, they're gonna snow you anyway, that.
Snake oil salesman, why should you bother listening to them? They're just really good at selling stuff. And so he didn't go and look at their new plants and the like, which I think would've tipped him off that something was going wrong in the business. And so, in some way, as a gregarious, outgoing person who loves people, he went against his nature and didn't, didn't go talk to management, which I think would've been very helpful to him.
And it's worth pointing out that Monish does talk to management in India because he, he feels like there, he really has to have a sense of whether they're being truthful or not. Um, so he has to gauge their character. But Monish has a very different story. So Monish, so, so these attitudes really shape your view of risk and what your, uh, what your goal really is.
So Monish starts out. In a $20 a month apartment in the suburbs of what was then Bombay. Now Mumbai as the son of this, uh, irrepressible entrepreneur who had this knack for going bankrupt. He just kept setting up businesses that would be sort of magic trick boxes or, you know, just so many. I, I mean, literally magician sets, you know, I mean, he was in so many different businesses and it would always go wrong or pretty much always go wrong.
And he said to Monish once I could be standing naked on a rock with nothing, and I'd still managed to set up a new business. And so Monish saw his parents losing everything repeatedly and struggling to pay the rent, struggling to pay for food. And the thing that he told me was that what had the most impact on him was seeing that it didn't really raffle his parents, that they were kind of okay.
They could come back from anything. And so Monash's view of risk is very different than guy's view of risk. Monish. If, if Monish went from being very rich to having like a couple of million, I have no doubt that he'd still turn it into 20, 30, 50 million. You know, he has an ability, he's very smart, very energetic, very driven, very intense, got an appetite for risk, got an appetite for asymmetric betts where there's a lot of upside, a limited downside.
And so he would manage to make money again. So he's not that fearful. So he said that when, when he was down 60 something percent in 2008, he said his wife at the time didn't even know that he was going through a tough time. Like there was nothing to portray it. And I sometimes thought that means that, you know, he was very unemotional.
And he is unemotional about investing, but I think I've increasingly realized he's not unemotional. And so even that, it's kind of nuanced, my sense of how the great investors are wired has kind of changed over the years. And, and I, I, I had dinner the other night with Guy Spear and with Monash's daughter, and we were talking about precisely this.
Like, I, I feel like Monish is a very soft-hearted person with a tough exterior. Uh, he's actually quite an emotional person. Um, but when it comes to investing and making mispriced, betts, uh, betts on mispriced stocks, um, he's very unemotional, very and very analytical about that. So, so yeah. So they have very different backgrounds, different personalities.
Guy is more fearful. Guy has this history of, of wanting to replenish his family's fortune. And Monish has this history of, um, Being able to come back from zero without being crushed by it. So, so I think you, you do have to, you, you have to be aware of your own wiring when you're trying to be a good investor.
You have to, you have to respect the fact that you're not wired the way Monish is wired and you're not wired the way guy is wired. And you know, I, so I, I've never invested with Monish, although I admire him tremendously. Uh, um, whereas Stig Broon, my partner at um, the Investors Podcast Network has invested with Monish, which is interesting 'cause I don't think he ever invested with anyone else.
So that, of all the people he's interviewed, Monish is the one he ended up investing with. Monish is too risky for me, he's too concentrated, and I think he'll probably outperform guy, but it's too risky for me. And so I have to, I have to accept the fact that Guy is probably a little bit less intense and dynamic and money driven and ambitious.
Monish. And also as a result, he's more likely to survive and get me to the finish line in one piece. And so it's just different. So, so I'm actually, so this is not a, this is not a judgment of people's flaws or of our own flaws. It's just like a, being aware enough of their makeup and your own makeup that you can say, well, so who do I wanna partner with?
And so I would love to partner with Monish in the sense of like, him being very highly talented guy with great integrity. Um, but in a way it's easier for me emotionally to partner with guy who's slower moving less, um, less intense, more patient. And, and you know, Monish will sometimes talk about this and he'll say, um, he'll laugh at Guy for the fact that, you know, he can never get guy to sell something like Book Sha Hathaway or.
Um, Nestle or something like that, but precisely that virtue is what's enabled guy to keep his Ferrari stock. Whereas Monish looks back and he's like, I can't believe I sold my Ferrari stock. And so that, that patience, that sort of solid, um, you know, sort of, uh, unshakeable patients where he's just like, no, I'm just not gonna do anything.
I'm just gonna stay with these stocks. That's, that's both a flaw and a great virtue. And, and so Monish will sort of laugh and say, and, and his typically exuberant expletive filled way. Uh, what an incredible, what an incredible thing it is. That guy just won't sell these things. You know, he is like, it's, it's unbelievable.
Uh, but he'll add a few f words in there. Uh, uh,
[00:34:59] Bogumil: It
[00:34:59] William Green: same time.
[00:35:00] Bogumil: It takes a lot of discipline in your books and in your podcasts. You know, I was thinking about emotions and it was one of the topics that I highlighted, and there's another contradiction when it comes to investing, especially if you're a professional investor. And I actually asked Guy about what you mentioned the moment when his father and trusted him, the fortune to manage, and he said he was shaking.
It was a very powerful moment in our conversation. I thought about it quite a bit since how on one hand you have to be so unemotional. When you're making investment decisions, but then you have to have this unlimited empathy because you're managing other people's money and you might be responsible for their livelihood, their savings, and their kids.
And if it's a multi-generational wealth, we manage family fortunes. At Sea Card, you're responsible for many lives and wellbeing of many people. So on one hand you're very an emotional. On the other hand, you have to listen and take into account other people's experience and why certain portfolios will not work for them.
[00:36:01] William Green: It's a, it's a really difficult thing. I I, I was talking, I had dinner the other night with a well-known fund manager, and he was saying that one of his clients literally would call every day when the market was getting killed. He's like, you know, this, this one client takes up more of my energy than all of the other clients combined.
[00:36:23] Bogumil: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:23] William Green: And, you know, he was kind of understanding about it. And I was like, did you ever consider firing him? And he said, no, because he's a very close friend of a close friend of mine who's a really important client, and it would be too mean. And so he's prepared to, to put up with that. But managing, managing our emotions or your client's emotions is so key and so difficult.
And so I think some of it starts with that self-awareness of, of knowing how you're wired, of recognizing when you are fearful. I, I have something where, um, I dunno why the last couple of days I was very, I was, I felt like I was getting jostled a lot. I felt very, um, discombobulated and I could see there was a moment where I think I was in the car in New York City the other day and, and I started to get irritated with people in my own head.
Like I, I would s you know, when the voice in your head starts to be critical of other people who, you know, and I'm, and I know myself well enough in that way, that I'm like, oh, I'm upset. I'm, I'm like projecting onto other people my own upsetness, whether it's with myself or my situation or my, my frustration.
I keep getting lost in, um, in keeping late and so, or whatever it is, you know, and I'm, and so I can see that my projection onto other people. Is of this criticism is something that I do when I'm, uh, rattled in some way, or discontented or overstressed. And so to be able to look at that, that's just one example.
I mean, sometimes my right eye starts twitching. Uh, hasn't done it for the last few days, but I don't think, but then, you know, I'll think, uh, I think I was booking, booking a trip the other day for a speech in California and then a speech in Australia that I'm doing. And my right eye started twitching for moment as I was thinking of something and I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
There's still a little bit of stress about that trip and you know, so you have to be, you have to be kind of attuned to your own emotion I think. So you can see when am I in a state where I'm not gonna make really good decisions and, and then kind of slow down. In those situations. And so I think this is one of the reasons why meditation is such a valuable thing for so many investors and so many other people, that in that quietness, you become more aware of the state that you're in, and then you're more likely to observe these, these ripples that maybe, maybe a lot of people are not really conscious that there's something going on under the surface.
But if I'm there and I'm like, oh, I'm mad at this person, and, and, and then I'm like, I really, I was mad at someone the other day who had actually been really kind to me, and I'm like, like, I'm just like irritated. And I just was like, I have too much stuff going on. There are too many things going on and I need to simplify.
I need to get back to a simpler life. That's a little bit. Quieter and there's too much stimulation. And so, so it was like a cue for me that something's out of whack. So I think somehow to develop practices that give you that self-awareness, so you can see I, I'm pretty good at seeing it in other people.
Like I'll be interviewing someone, I'll say something and I can, I can, I can see when their breathing changes, for example, uh, or when they become slightly flashed, like you'll bring, I, I was talking to a couple of hedge fund managers a week or so ago, and um, I brought up something that was kind of slight conflict between them and, um, a slight difference.
And I could see the change in breathing very clearly. And so just being more attuned to emotion is very helpful because then you can have some practical interventions. So one thing I write about in the book that I've taken very. Very seriously is a thing that Ken Stein said to me. And Ken not only was a very smart investor, but then became a neurologist.
So somebody really understands the brain. And he said, there are four things that we know can optimize your brain health and your brain function and their meditation, good sleep, good nutrition, uh, and exercise. And so he said to me that when he's getting overstressed and he thinks that he's in a state where he's likely to make suboptimal decisions, he'll clear his calendar as much as possible and he'll get back to the simplicity of those four basic things of knowing that he's sleepy enough, exercising, eating, nutritiously, and um, and exercising.
It's funny how much I struggled to remember exercising and all this of four. I'm very happy to, to forget that.
[00:41:45] Bogumil: I'm, I'm glad you brought that up because it was one of the ideas I wanna talk to you about, because I asked you about, Crisis. You and I spoke about crisis before. How the part that I liked a lot that you mentioned, and you mentioned your friend, um, Dr. Ken, who shared how it's better to prepare and have the habits and the routines in place before the crisis.
Not when the crisis happens. And I think for a lot of us, the covid three years or two years, however you look at it, not just investors, but for all of us was a very difficult time. And meditation or walks or exercise or even being outside has played a big role. And reading your, your book and, and listening to your podcast, I realize, and you, you have those building blocks, you know, richer, wiser, happier, but then there's a human being behind it all and you have to treat your body, your brain in a certain way so that they will continue to serve you through sometimes a very difficult time.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts about it, but you, you kind of shared already. I.
[00:42:44] William Green: Yeah, well you, you picked up on. A very, very important point that I think most people don't realize, and I've never really heard anyone except Ken Rubenstein mention this, which is the idea that you don't wanna wait until the storm to have those good habits in place. So you don't want to say, okay, everything's going to hell.
I need to get back to basics and, and meditate, exercise, sleep well, um, uh, and have good nutrition. Yes, that's very helpful. But what you really want is before the storm to bed down all of these good habits. And likewise, one of the things that Guy Spears pointed out to me that I think is a very profoundly important and practical observation
[00:43:27] Bogumil: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:28] William Green: is that in terms of resilience, your relationships are absolutely critical.
And so, you know, one thing he's been very honest about is he says, look, if I'm not having, um, um, you know, um, An easy and pleasant time with my wife and my three kids and friends, then it's very hard for me to make the best decisions about investing. You know, if, if my home life isn't calm and happy, you know, how can I make good decisions?
And so he said to me after we worked on his book, the Educational of a Value Investor, years later, I think he said, you know, it was way too facile to say, I'm cloning Nick sleep in case Saria, who he's friends with by putting my Bloomberg terminal somewhere uncomfortable and leaving it off so that I, I'm not bombarded with this call to action.
He's like, yeah, that's really helpful, but it's nowhere near as important to me as having good, solid relationships. And one of the things about the relationships is, You need to invest in them through thick and thin so that they're there for you to celebrate with you during the good times, but also to be there for you in the bad times, but also for you to get outta your own head by helping other people and being there for them, which has a huge impact on your own happiness to be a good friend to others.
It gets back to the thing Munger says, where he says to, to have a good partner, be a good partner, and to have a good spouse deserve one. And so the best way to have good relationships is actually to be a good friend. And so I think you have to, so part of part of preparing for the storm is those habits, but part of it is really making sure that you have good relationships that are, that are there for you, but also that you are gonna be there for other people.
And I, I think that's one thing that, because like a lot of. Our listeners have been very driven over the years and very career focused. I tended to neglect friendship and relationships, and I, uh, you know, I moved around. I moved, I grew up in London, and then I moved to New York and then I moved to Boston.
Then I moved back to New York, and then I moved to Hong Kong. Then I moved to London, then I moved back to New York, and there were a lot of really valuable friendships that I let wilt on the vine over the years. And some of them were preserved because my wife was better at keeping it. So she ended up becoming better friend of my friend than I was.
But it's a, it's a mistake, you know? It was a mistake. And I, I remember guy once saying to me that there are people you should be willing to fly across the ocean to spend some time with. And he would very, He would very consciously fly to America just to go visit Monish. And that's a, that's a really valuable thing.
That's a, that's a beautiful thing to make time for your friends to, to say, yeah, this person is so important to me that I'll go across the country or across the world to spend time with them. And I didn't do that as much. And partly it was a matter of not having as much time or not feeling as flush or having too many deadlines or, you know, so it was very easy to say, well if I were guy I could do that.
You know, it's like people saying, well of course he can be generous. Um, uh, 'cause he is very rich. But he was always kind of like that. And, you know, there's a reason why he became rich. I mean, it helped that he had relationships with people like Monish that he, you know, 'cause Monish is brilliant and they often share ideas and, um, and they.
Test their ideas against each other and, you know, to see what they're missing. Um, and so, I mean, I think Guy is probably more open than, than Monish who had probably more confidence than Guy does. But, um, you know, the, the investment in relationships has been hugely valuable. And so it, there is a chicken and the egg thing here where people often think, um, well, if I were that rich, if I were that successful, I would do that too.
And it's like, no, you have to start the behavior, uh, even in a small way and, and then see whether it leads to greater success. And so the investment in relationships, investment in, in kindness to other people that you come across is, is hugely valuable. I mean, I, I saw Guy the other day in, in New York and.
He said, um, he sent me a message before and he said, uh, he was staying at, at some club that he often stays at in New York. And he is like, uh, he was dropping his daughter off at college here in New York. And he said, uh, 'cause she's just starting now. And he said, uh, yeah, I booked a room for you and your daughter, Madeleine.
And he didn't need to do that. And then when I went, you know, moved met for dinner, and then when I went to pay for it the next morning, um, I was like, no, he'd already paid for it with his credit card. That's, it's very easy to say, well, if I were that rich, I would do that. I'm not sure I would. And it was just nice.
It was a nice thing to do. And, and so I, I don't know that, just to be looking, it's not all about money. It's about care and kindness. But to be, you know, for guy, that compounding of goodwill has been immensely powerful. And I, I, I think that's a, that's a. I was slow to recognize that the, the, the, he once said to me, relationships are the killer app.
And I was slow to recognize just how true that is. And, and even now, I never get around to sending people Christmas cards or stuff. I can never, I, I can never get around to keeping people's addresses. And partly it's that he's much more efficient and systematic 'cause he has lots of good help. Um, but partly is that he cares more.
And so, yeah.
[00:50:02] Bogumil: I think he has a gift for bringing people together and just being at value X and spending some time with him. I realized how he was able to maintain friendships for different, from different points of his life. Like you went to undergrad school. Undergraduate, undergrad together. Although, you know, time passes, being able to stay in touch with people that you meet in different places.
And I moved around as well. I was born in Poland. I went to schools around Europe and I spent most of my adult life in New York. And I have friends that moved around. If you live in New York, your friends end up moving around as well. So we have friends that are in Asia and Australia, but staying in touch, I think it's easier these days because of technology, but we are also more distracted than ever.
So finding the time to even have a quick call and catch up and see how everybody's doing. I gave a talk about my lessons from the pandemic in Zurich this summer, and one of the things I, I wrote down was, uh, and I was a little bit, uh, shy about sharing it, but I, I included it anyway, and I said, I can't do it all alone.
That was one of my lessons. And I said it on an emotional level, on an intellectual level. I realized that once we were all sent home, stay home and. I realized staying in touch with people that have an influence on you, that you used to spend more time with in person, because I was in the city now, spending the additional time and effort to stay in touch with them, talk to them, being a support to them, but also finding support from others.
I think there is a lesson that comes down the road as an investor, but as a human that we can't just do it all alone. I think that's a, it's a big revelation.
[00:51:41] William Green: Yeah. And when I asked Ed Thorpe, um, you know, who's an extraordinary game player, who'd figured out how to count cards and how to beat the casino at blackjack, and then how to beat the casino at, at roulette, and then had an incredibly successful hedge trial manager. When I, when I asked him if you were approaching life as a game, how you would stack the odds in your favor, one of the things he said to me is, look, the most important thing of all is who you spend your time with.
[00:52:11] Bogumil: Mm-hmm.
[00:52:12] William Green: So when you see someone who's as brilliant as Ed Thorpe, Saying to you, it all comes down to relationships in the end. That's very valuable. And I, I, I think we often try to clone the wrong things from investors. We'll, we'll look at the great investors and we'll say, um, yeah, well I should figure out how to get super rich so I can have beautiful home and a car and a plane and stuff like that.
And it's like, yeah, that's, that's fine as far as it goes. But actually, I increasingly think what you want to learn from them is the much more personal stuff. Like how do you build a really rich life, a truly rich life? What part do relationships play in that? How do you have good relationships? What, what actually makes for a good relationship for a good partnership?
Um, how do you deal with things like ethics and integrity? I, I gave a speech a week or so ago in, in, um, Nevada, and someone comes up to me at the end and he says, um, hi, I am, I'm Gil. He's like, you might know me. He says, I'm Gil Emilio. I, I used to run Apple. And he says to me, you know, it's a really nice speech.
Thank you. He's like, there's one, there's one word you didn't use that I wish you'd used. And he said, integrity. And so, you know, this whole question of integrity, how to, how to, how to lead a life that is principled and whether that makes you credulous and vulnerable and gullible, or whether actually it makes you happier.
That's a really important question that, that a lot of these great investors have thought about very seriously. So again, when I said to Ed Thorpe, who was probably then in his late eighties now, now I think it must be about 90, I said to him, um, do you have any regrets? And he said, I don't regret any of the principle decisions I made.
That's a very interesting observation. And so in some ways the book is packed with these things, but it's very easy to overlook. But if you actually look just at that one sentence, say, really the thing, the thing that he's glad about, that he has no regrets about is the fact that he made that, you know, he made all these principle decisions.
He wasn't trying to gouge his shareholders, for example, and that makes for a happier life. Whereas I was talking to someone the other night, a hedge hedge fund guy, um, uh, and he, he was talking about a, um, a presidential candidate, uh, whose identity you might be able to guess, who had failed to pay some, um, uh, someone who'd done some construction on one of his properties.
And as a result, the guy went bankrupt
[00:55:09] Bogumil: Right.
[00:55:10] William Green: and. I don't know, is that a successful life? When, when you look back and you say, well, I really chiseled that guy by not paying the bill. So it made it more profitable. Would, would you want to be that person? I, I wouldn't. Whereas you look at, at top and you're like, you know, he won the game.
I mean, he, he made a fortune. But he also just sort of pursued his curiosity in all of these interesting ways. Um, very thoughtful, very brilliant, a great solver of puzzles in all of these different ways. But he wasn't so obsessed with the money and with the winning that he was prepared to sacrifice his principles.
And so one of the things I wrote about in that epilogue was saying, you really have to decide what are you prepared to sacrifice for the money? Will you sacrifice your principles? Will you sacrifice your health?
[00:56:03] Bogumil: Mm-hmm.
[00:56:04] William Green: Will you sacrifice your peace of mind? Will you sacrifice your friendships? And those are important questions.
So for me, I mean, I do slightly sacrifice my health for the sake of working intensely. And I don't think it's smart. I mean, I don't exercise enough and consistently enough, and I, I, I take on too many projects and it's probably dumb. And so to have a sense of some kind of true north of the things you believe actually work and to keep recommitting to them.
So at least I know that I've let my nutrition slip, I am not exercising enough. Um, and that maybe some of my relationships I'm not investing enough in, you know, things like that. It's very important to, to have a keen enough sense of what the rules of the game are and how you are wired and how you want to, what, what your values are, what your priorities are.
So that you can keep coming back to that kind of true north every time you, you drift. And so for me, a big, big part of what I'm doing in studying the greatest investors is really what Munger talks about when he says, I, I observe what works and doesn't work and why Originally it was really about making money, and now increasingly I don't really care that much about that.
It's like, like once, once you've reached a certain point and you're like, I'm gonna be okay, hopefully, God willing, I think you can, you can start focusing on the other stuff and say, well, so why, why do I, why do I want a nice house? Well, wouldn't it be nice to be able to have people come stay? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to host, host, host people, host parties or whatever it is that you value?
So I, I remember, um, once, uh, I. Talking to, um, John Spears, who has a great record over half a century, and he's a bit of a cheap skate by his own admission who sort of, you know, he's is, he's a, a, a devout Quaker and he doesn't like to overspend and he really values money. And, and then at one point he bought an apartment in, um, in a really nice part of Florida and then he sort of expanded it, so I think he bought the apartment next door.
So he got an entire floor, I think it's in Naples. And he said, um, yeah, it means my grandkids can come stay anytime, like the whole family can come stay. And he quoted something from um, one of those guys from T Lt a, I think it was re, um, whose name I'm probably mispronouncing. He said he talked about a return on life, you know, there's return on investment, return on equity, and then there's return on life.
And he said, I get a return on life from. Owning that big apartment there. So that's an expense. I think he told me he paid something $5 million for, to have that floor of the apartment. I'm sure it'd be much more now. Um, that is an extravagance, but it's an extravagance that gives him a return on life because it builds the relationships, not because it's so flashy and enables him to sort of look at the neighbors and be like, look how much richer I am than you.
I have a whole floor. And so I, I think these are the things you want to be studying people who are further along on the path to, to learn. It's not, it's not just, here's how I'm gonna get rich, but may, maybe that's a, maybe that's slightly self diluting. 'cause I, I love that quote from Ben Franklin that Buffet and Munger often say, which is an empty sack, can't stand straight.
So when you have a. When you are earlier in your life, or you've gone through a lousy period in your life and you don't feel any sense of abundance, it's very difficult to say, yeah, I'm gonna focus on relationships and return on life and integrity and principles and or, you know, I, I can see why, why those things would feel like a luxury.
But again, it gets back to that chicken and the egg issue that I discussed with Guy that I think, I think you want to be as much as possible practicing your life this way before you hit the jackpot. Um, just as you want to have good habits before the storm, you, you want to, you, you wanna adopt these good habits and trust that it's gonna work if you just keep plugging away, doing the right thing, treating people decently, opting for the, the high quality choice.
You know, reading, reading books rather than really ephemeral nonsense and wiggle guessing. You know, the more, the more you can push towards quality, depth, authenticity, um, deferred gratification, um, the, the better you are gonna be in the long run. It's not a guarantee, you know, this isn't, this isn't about, um, this always works, but you, as with investing, you're stacking the odds in your favor by behaving this way.
Whereas if you, if you treat your investors badly, you, you get angry at your family the whole time and you don't apologize when you've lost your temper and you don't exercise and you don't, um, uh, you know, you don't eat healthy and stuff. You may still live to a hundred and you may still be fine and you may become very rich, but you minimize your odds of a happy outcome.
[01:01:55] Bogumil: I I have to ask you about, uh, the big picture question that you and I talked about over dinner in, uh, clusters, which I would call spirituality. And when I was reading, rereading your book recently, preparing for this conversation and I. Quite a few of your episodes of your podcast episodes introduce what I would consider, you know, richer life, but spirituality.
You had Michael Burke, Mary recently, Arnold Vandenberg before, and you had, uh, conversations about search on Templeton. I'm curious, is that the glue that keeps it all together, the path from which wise are happier or is it the next step beyond all of it? I'm curious how you think about it and I can tell that it's increasingly important to you.
[01:02:41] William Green: Yeah, I think it kind of underlies everything I. Really, I mean, everything. It was funny, I had this discussion with Nick Sleep once, where he had said in his nomad letters that Nomad was a metaphysical, an almost spiritual experiment. And I said to him, anytime someone says, almost, especially an Englishman, what they're really saying is, yes, it's a spiritual experiment.
He is like, yeah, and it is. It, you know, nomad was a spiritual experiment. I mean, running money in a way that was dedicated to the metaphysics of quality, of making high quality decisions, of treating people honorably, of finding companies that, um, that grow because they're not lining their pockets in a super short-term way, but a deferring gratification and keeping their margins down by sharing the scale economies.
That is a, a moral and spiritual decision.
[01:03:43] Bogumil: Mm-hmm.
[01:03:44] William Green: That's, so I just, I think increasingly, um, maybe all of it's spiritual. I, I don't know, but it's, but it's hard because there's, there's a resistance to this stuff when you talk about it that way. And I, I, I, I, I know you're friends with Tom Morgan, who I chatted with yesterday.
We went on a walk, 'cause he was in, in my neighborhood in New York. And we were talking about precisely this. The, um, you know, people like Carl Young, um, had to kind of conceal the degree to which everything that he did was kind of spiritual and that he saw himself really as a kind of prophet. And then he dresses it all up in, in, in scientific language.
And I, I was, I was reading this great book, um, Kafa, um, by Peter Kingsley about Carl Jung and, um, There's a, there's a wonderful line that where Jung said something about how in the end, you know, I'm a mystic fool, and that, um, that outweighs all of my science. Like, like there was a sense in which things were being, he felt things were being revealed to him.
Great truths were being revealed to him. And he was a channel for great truths. That's a very, and, and then, and he spent much of his life denying that that was what he really believed. And so I, I do think there's this interesting conflict here where we're, we're writing and speaking about the world of investing, which is such a rational game, right?
I mean, it's in a, in a way, when I think of the people I've interviewed, like Charlie Munger and Ray Dalio, and Howard Marx and, and Bill Miller, they're such profoundly rational people. And yet there's something. Sort of inexplicable underneath it all that I, if, if I'm honest about it, I, I just find the, the less rational and the less explicable to be increasingly beautiful.
And so one of the, one of the things that Tom, Tom Morgan actually had posted something on Twitter a few weeks ago about Peter Kings's book, Kapha saying it was one of the most important books he'd read in recent years. I don't really check what other people have said on Twitter. I occasionally share stuff, but I don't really check.
And, but I happen to see that. And that sent me down this deep rabbit hole where I think I've read three of Peter Kings's books since then and listened to about eight or nine hours of his lectures. And, um, and it's very profound. And one of the great lessons from Kingsley is that in some way we've become so obsessed with rationality.
I. Science and, and the power of rationality and science that we've lost our connection to the sacred. That we've somehow become disconnected from nature, for example, and I see this so much in my own life, like the degree to which, when I'm, when I'm in nature, uh, I have to take a photograph of it or I'm, I'm probably happier to be looking through the window of a five star hotel at nature rather than actually being in it.
And so there's a kind of, there is this kind of modern disease, I think, where we've, we've rightly in many ways become aghast about the power, the awesome power of technology, logic, good thinking. And we've lost something in our obsessive worship of rationality. And I, I, I was. I don't know. I, I remember when I was at Oxford, I, I was particularly drawn to the great romantic poets like Blake and Wordsworth and Shelly and Keats and Coleridge.
It was an extraordinary period, and a lot of that was about the relationship between the perceiver and the perceived. It was about how as you saw an object in a particular way, it became either a transcendent experience or a very dull experience. And I, I often quote this beautiful line to my kids from, from, I think Keats, where he talked about, um, a world of tin kettles and tin kettles are sort of those, those kind of battered tin kettles that growing up, up and gonna school like Eaton, we used to have our tea outta these battered tin kettles.
And so it's a beautiful image of the mundane and. Blake wrote about this in songs of Innocence and Experience that the, the songs of experience are kind of dead. Like there's, like, it's about this loss of, um, I haven't read it in a few years, but about this loss of vision, of the childhood sense of wonder and, and like that's in the songs of innocence.
And likewise, Wordsworth would, would write about these, these flowers in this extraordinary way where they're just kind of alive. And so I think part of it is about waking up and reconnecting yourself to this sense that things have a transcendent quality to it. It's not necessarily that you want to say, um, it's not necessarily that you wanna be a holy roller preaching and proselytizing about God and religion and all of these things.
It, I, to me, it's much more trying to wake up to that sense of. Transcendence in everything. And, and so that's, that's why someone like Kingsley is valuable to me, that reminder to, to, to try to reconnect to the sacred. And it sounds, it sounds kind of kooky and it makes you sound like a bit of a fool to a lot of people probably.
Um, but I think I, I think it's valuable and, you know, when you look at Buddhism, I, I, I think, I think Buddha basically means, oh, uh, awake or awakened. I mean, it's to do with an awakening. And so for me, none of this stuff is, is really conventionally religious. Although I do go to a Shabbat service more or less every, every Saturday.
And I often do some kind of morning connection where I say various ancient prayers in Hebrew and I do do some, I. Uh, you know, a lot of study of Tibetan Buddhism. Um, but it's more, it's more about the consciousness. It's trying to wake up so that you see that there's something beyond the surface.
[01:10:41] Bogumil: Mm-hmm.
[01:10:42] William Green: I think we sensed that.
I mean, I, I remember when my son Henry was born 25 years ago, and, um, I was, I was handed Henry, um, 'cause my wife, I guess, was recovering a sin just a few minutes after she gave birth. And I remember just looking at him and he was absolutely beautiful child. He's enormous. He was 10 pounds three and he had these very faint eyebrows and these tiny, perfectly formed finger nails.
And I just remember looking at it just with this sense of absolute wonder that this, this creature had come into our lives. And I remember, you know, I'd suffered from lots of existential angst before that. And plenty after it, but more before it. But I remember thinking now there's some greater meaning to my life.
Like at least we brought this one fabulous creature into the world. And then three years later had our daughter Madeline, who's equally fabulous. And so that sense of wonder, that sense of transcendence that I think you have in the moments where your kids aren't driving you nuts, um, where you see the beauty of this creature or your dog or going out in nature or listening to um, uh, extraordinary music.
We sense that there's something sublime and then we kind of forget about it and we slip back into the world of tin cattles. And that's what I don't really want to do. And I, I was saying to Tom yesterday, I remember, I remember saying, asking Ed Thorpe if he believed in God. And Ed Thorpe said, no data.
It's a very clever. Response. And I was saying to Tom, I think, I don't know, I don't wanna be rude to Ed, who I respect greatly, but I think it's kind of moronic. I think you could also say there's only data. Everything we see has this kind of sublime aspect to it. It's all kind of, I mean, it's not to say life isn't difficult and challenging, but you just go walk out the door and you, you look at, you know, the rain sitting on a leaf and you're like, it's exquisite.
And that guy mentioned before, rev Bunum of Pisha who's death anniversary this today. I asked chat, GP chat G P T this morning, what are the most important lessons from Rev Bunum of this 19th century sage? And um, one of them was, he said that wherever I go, I find something holy. And I remember a teacher of mine, a great catalyst, Rav Berg, who said, um, The, the word holy should be spelled w h o l l y.
Like there's a sense of wholeness. And so I think when we're not connected to these more transcendent things, when we're not awake to the beauty and the sublime aspects, the transcendent aspects of life, when we're just looking at the surface, the body rather than the soul to put it, you know, these are very inadequate terms because the, the language that we're using is to describe something so ineffable.
But I think to, to, to wake up and to keep reminding yourself of the sacred, to keep reminding yourself of these, these wonders in your life is very important because it's a muscle as well. And so I can get. Swamped by this sense of like, ahs just all so routine and I'm just having to plug away at the same thing over and over again, and I'm tired and I need a rest.
And then I tune out and I'm like, I should go watch an episode of Ozark or whatever, you know, so that I tune out and, and I do that. I'm not, I'm not wandering around the whole time in a, in like this transcendent, sublime days, but I'm very consciously trying to drag myself back to noticing things. And there's a, you know, this, this teacher of my Rev book used to just say over and over consciousness is everything.
And so if your, if your consciousness is in this state, You're just in the world of tin kettles and everything is quotidian and boring, and you're just gonna come back day in, day out and do the same nonsense with the same sense of, of routine, and just always gonna be mediating everything through your phone and through your iPad and through your computer.
You become disconnected. And so one of the things that, that Peter Kingsley did that I thought was interesting is he spent an enormous time listening to birds. And he would say, well, birds are kind of from this other realm in some way. You know, they're connected to the infinite. And that was one of the fascinating things in that book Catal about Jung Yung.
Yung said the real question when you meet someone is, are they connected to the infinite or not? And it's such a strange question that the, you know, one of the two great founders of psychoanalysis would be saying, the real question is, are you connected to the infinite or not? Um, and I would've rolled my eyes at this and thought, These guys were morons and I was a moron for listening to them, but I, I just don't, I don't think so anymore.
I think it's all, it, it's, it's inestimable important. And so there's a, there's a sort of, there's an inner and an outer of everything. And the outer may be the how do I get rich, how do I get successful? How do I get a good reputation? How do I do more in the world? But the inner is connecting more to things like, how do I make my house a home?
How do I have kids, but actually have the relationship be a real gift and a joy, and how do I have friendships and not be exploiting my friends, but actually get great joy and richness from my friendships? And so when I interviewed Michael Berg on, on the, on the podcast, who's Rav Berg's son, Michael said, uh, One of the tests that he has is how many times a week does he just feel overwhelming gratitude for everything in his life?
And that, to me, that's a very beautiful way, uh, like when I see someone like that who's much further along the path than I am, I mean, like the whole different category. It's like the difference between me and Buffett as investors, right? I look at that and I'm like, yeah, well, okay. So that is possible to get to a state where you're overwhelmed with a sense of appreciation because you look at your life and you're like, what, what did I do to earn all these things I, I couldn't possibly have earned?
Um, you know, a son like Henry or a daughter like Madeline or my infinitely patient wife who puts up with me talking about Peter Kingsley and pretends he's listening, um, after 30 years together, or, you know, or the fact that, you know, I get to do stuff like this and chat. I. And I get to interview extraordinary people.
I mean, it's a, it's very easy to forget the gift. And so I, I don't know, this to me is increasingly important. These are all spiritual principles, and they're all, they're all timeless. The things that are, that the great spiritual teachers through all of these different faiths figured out, they're as timeless as ever.
So if something has stood the test of time, this is something Talleb talks about, Naim Talleb, right? Where he talks about wanting to read books that have lasted centuries or thousands of years. It's very, you know, if you read Marcus Aurelius, there's a reason why it survived 2000 years. And so it's striking that these truths about appreciation, about kindness, about humility, about, um, Sharing your wealth, sharing your time, things.
It's extraordinary how much they crop up in all of these different paths and how timeless they've proven. And so I don't, I don't just want to be engaged in a Darwinian dog eat dog battle for supremacy in a meaningless universe. And I, I would previously have thought when I was much younger, I would've thought, well, just because you don't want it to be that way doesn't mean that there's any meaning.
And I would've thought it was kind of pure to find this deeper meaning. But I, I think our consciousness creates our reality. So when you assume that the world is that way, um, that is the reality in which you live. And, uh, didn't Einstein say this where he said, you can either live as if everything is a miracle or as if nothing is a miracle.
So I don't wanna live in that world of tin Cattles.
[01:19:45] Bogumil: I like that. I, I like the part that in our conversation we had so many ideas where you have. Opposing sides to the same idea. Lack of it or, or presence of it. I wanna ask you about success. I dunno if it's the best word to describe it, but you're on a journey, you're discovering new things, you love learning, and I can tell from the conversations and the books that you're writing that you're on a hunt for discovery.
And I'm curious, how do you think of success? Is it, uh, is there a destination? Is it a path? And how do you know you're on the right track?
[01:20:21] William Green: For me, it's a lot to do with freedom, A lot to do with having the freedom to pursue what I want to pursue. And that's an extraordinary gift actually, to be able to. I mean, I, I, you know, I got up this this morning and I spent the first hour of the day reading and I, I don't know, that's kind of a beautiful thing.
And then I come into, you know, then I did, I did some meditation and then I did Morning Connection where I say a few capitalistic prayers. And then I came in and I'm talking to you. And the freedom to do that, um, is a really beautiful thing. And so none of those things have earned me a dime. And you could say they're all an indulgence, a self-indulgence, but they're all very enriching in certain ways.
And then I'll spend the afternoon preparing for an interview that I'm doing later in the week. And that's a very, that's a very beautiful, yeah, and I talked to my mom this morning as well. So that's the other thing. Who's in, who's in London? Um, uh, so in some ways that for me, Is a success, have the freedom to do that instead of having to go into an office to work for someone who would eventually lay me off when they made stupid financial decisions that were short term about the future.
Uh, you know, trying to maximize their quarterly earnings to satisfy investors with unreasonable expectation, you know, like that. I, I did that before and I'm glad that I did that because I met some extraordinary people and I got to work on amazing stories. And I worked with some beautiful magazines. I worked with some incredibly gifted people at places like Time Magazine.
It's an amazing experience. So I don't regret any of that. I, I love the fact that I went into an office and built those friendships. Um, but to have the freedom to do what I want to do, that's massive. And so for, for me, things like making a lot of money. Not really about, um, making people look and say, wow, he's rich, or, wow, he's powerful or influential.
It's much more to do with freedom, independence. Does that make any sense?
[01:22:50] Bogumil: No, it does and, and I use the word freedom a lot. Some friends laugh at me that I'm only looking for freedom, and to me it means that I can pick up and go or sit down and do whatever I want whenever I want. I do have a full-time job we manage money for, for families, but. I still find a lot of time to do the things I really wanna do.
Pick up a book that has nothing to do with investing or have a conversation that has nothing to do with my job, just because I'm curious and Tom Morgan talks about curiosity a lot. So I'm glad you guys had a chance to talk. And he talks about luck and I think a lot of what the things that you mentioned at the end, we are also lucky and fortunate in this life.
And it's good to pause for a minute and be grateful for all the things we get to enjoy. And it's, it's not a race the way some people might think that you have to be the richest person in the world. And coming back from Omaha, I wrote an article and I called the Return on Kindness. All the people I spend time with those few days and I think it's a very special experience. Especially after a few years of Covid, I, I missed a number of meetings. I didn't go, and some of them were canceled. But just being around people that have, uh, shared the same principles, think about the world, challenge you in some way. I think it was a wonderful way to just share and spend time with, you know, fascinating people listening to you at, um, guy Pierce event over there in Omaha.
Just kindness. And I think that's a, that's a great way of looking at it. So anybody that thinks that money is a race where you have to be the number one, maybe there's more to it. Obviously money helps, but let's get wiser and happier on the path. Mm-hmm.
[01:24:21] William Green: Yeah, it helps, but it can, it can create tremendous problems as well, because it, like everything, there's an energy to it. And so if you misuse it and you have a lot of it, it can create great chaos. And so I think understanding, putting it in context, knowing what it can give you, but also having a sense of the limitations, having a sense of where your happiness is likely to come from, and, um, Approaching money with a sense of balance.
Not, it's not about idol worship. It's not about like, ah, if only if only I get to this point, then I'm going to be happy. Or if only I get this relationship, then I'm gonna be happy. I, I, I think that's a, you know, we were, we were wired in this way so that we would keep driving ourselves. We weren't necessarily wire for happiness.
And so then you have to start studying these great spiritual teachers and say, well, why, why are they constantly bringing you back to this moment? And, you know, there's a beautiful Hebrew word, um, that Abraham says, which is Heini, that Leonard Kearns sang a song called Heini as well, which means, here I am.
And I think that it's like, yeah, just this, just here in this moment. Like, why, why is this not enough? Like we're sitting here talking to each other. About what we've learned, trying to share some of the lessons that we've learned, and we don't need to defer our sense of what heaven will be. You know, if we make X million dollars, then we'll finally have time and peace of mind to be happy.
I, I think one of the great lessons from all of these different spiritual paths is to come back to this moment, to be fully present and awake in this moment. And then there's this great paradox, which is that we also have to be moving and we can't just sit and do nothing. And so again, it's like the opposite of a great virtue is also a virtue.
You, you need to sit and be present in this moment fully awake, appreciating the gift. And you somehow need to have the sense that you need to keep improving, keep changing, keep growing. 'cause there is the force of, of evolution that we wanna align with. So both of those things are true. Simultaneously to be, be present and relishing the gift of this moment.
And to be pushing yourself to keep changing, keep improving, keep growing. And so these, these, in a sense, contradictory, contradictory goals and practices are both true and both valid. And, and that's, that's what makes everything so impossible to reduce to, you know, some super simple,
[01:27:18] Bogumil: No.
[01:27:19] William Green: I remember coming back from one of the Omaha meetings and saying to my daughter talking about, um, how one of the great virtues of buffet, one of his great strengths is the ability to say no to almost everything.
And then I was like, yeah, except you also have to say yes to a lot of things. Yeah, no, I don't know why I'm gonna move to that country or why I'm gonna take that job, or why I'm gonna enter in this relationship that's likely not to work out, but I'm gonna say yes to it. And so both of those things are true.
Say no to almost everything and say yes to almost everything.
[01:27:53] Bogumil: When it matters. William, this was wonderful. I really appreciate your time and generosity and, uh, I learned a lot. I, I love rereading your book and you mentioned your wife. My wife was listening to me talk about richer, wiser, happy the last few weeks. So
[01:28:09] William Green: Ah,
[01:28:10] Bogumil: it's been a wonderful experience talking to you today and learning from you.
So I want to thank you again
[01:28:16] William Green: Thank you. My pleasure. I'll get to meet your wife at one point. What's, what's her name?
[01:28:20] Bogumil: Megan, she'll be coming to clusters, uh, next winter. So if you're gonna be there, we'll be both there.
[01:28:26] William Green: Excellent. I, I'm sure our wives are much wiser than we are, but they.
[01:28:33] Bogumil: There's some truth to it. William, thank you so much.
[01:28:36] William Green: Lovely to see you. Take care.
