the most interesting thing is the money

is just a vehicle for playing the game

of how to

constantly recreate yourself innovate on

yourself and pursue you know um and so

yeah it I I love the the conversations

how yeah money asking the money

questions are the least interesting in

my opinion um but as a final question I

do have to ask one money question for

the audience because unfortunately this

it breaks my heart that this will get

the most views um but we're all about

views I'm a social media slot let's face

it well and yeah I mean like the the

understanding the psychology and and

trying to live a beautiful life is

um yeah I hope everyone um has just been

profoundly impacted by what you've just

said to me uh and everyone watching but

uh for everyone who does want you to

answer this um if you were starting with

a million dollars today what would you

be doing differently someone asked

Warren buff at that at the birkshire

meeting I'm curious what your answer

would

be differently to what I'm doing now y

if you were starting just with a million

dollars of your uh own money or or

Capital you've you've

raised um so if it's a million dollars

the first thing for me is that I'm

getting a job as well so I'm doing it

part-time because I want I I want to

preserve that $1 million for

investing and um I don't want to draw

down on it for living so I'm getting a

job and I'm and I'm paying all of my

living expenses from my job and I'm

going to try and find a job that pays my

living expenses and allows me to invest

so I don't want to pay my life expenses

out of the returns and that part of that

is just take the pressure off I know

that all need to do is compound that

capital a million dollars at any rate of

return but if I'm living you know on

$660,000 a year then I'm drawing down I

don't want to be forced to have to make

a 6% return just to stay even say so you

know and obviously given the Way I Live

Now if that were the case I'd have to

massively cut expenses I have three

children going through college all sorts

of expenses so so now we just talk about

the investing I've sorted out my life

expens as part of it and um and you know

you pay down debt don't have any Debt

Pay down the morgage get rid of that so

so really be able to just

invest I think that what then I would do

differently to what I did and what I'm

doing today

is I I would want to take higher risks

with my

investing uh if I'm starting so it

depends what age I am let's say you're

you're under 30 yeah so so I think I I

want to divide that million

into at least 10 buckets but it might be

as many as 20

buckets and I'm going to take

um hopefully so so I'm going to try and

make bets where none of them can turn

out as a complete loss but but they are

they they all have a high enough

probability of returning multiples of my

money

and I and I I'm going

to and the key is to divide it into the

pots to enough pots that I can keep

going I'm not going to give up that I'm

not going to get

scared and um if I'm if I've got big bar

brass balls like Mish pabra I may only

need three or four pots but even Mish

went to 10 by 10 so he was talking about

10% I think that for me it's it's 20%

and

so I got to keep making those bets and

um I'm not sure how many pots because I

think that I need to make those bets

over a 5year period minimum so maybe

it's two bets a year and then it's it's

10 bets so it's uh so then is actually

10% each time so I'm drawing down the

million dollars would you be flipping

through value line would you be oh I see

uh but to find two bets a year would you

be digging through the weeds so so

everybody has their own journey and

their own story and it's important to

own that jourian story and not to regret

that it's not a different story in my

story I had enormous fears of losing

money losing the confidence of my first

investor was my father and so um I I had

some bets like that that worked out

enormously but I just didn't put very

much money into them an example was uh

Duff and Phelps where given the amount

of money I was managing I ought have put

a million dollars in I was managing

about 10 and instead I put two 00,000

and that $1 million would have turned

into $7 million instead 200,000 turned

into 1.4 still not a terrible result but

but um I didn't

invest um enough so so I was all the way

through the life of the fund I've had

shares of Nestle Nestle is a wonderful

company isn't going anywhere but it's

not going to get you 7x in three years

or two years or whatever it was that it

was in Duff and Phelps um so if if I was

doing if I was starting my 30s and was

doing it again I would have way more of

those and if you take the scenario where

my job is covered yeah each one of those

bets is a Duff and Fels types bet I'm

putting 5 to 10% of the net worth you

talked about a million dollars into that

and where am I looking if you want to

find ideas that are going to be um you

know uh 7x your money in in that period

of time you're looking at sub billion

dollar market market cap companies on

the whole it's far less likely to happen

so where where am I going um I'm I'm

flipping through value line I'm uh

looking at um value investors Club

Seeking Alpha you know I'm I'm going to

things like the Zurich project I'm going

to Value X I'm going to the Burkshire

meeting I'm talking through best ideas

I'm trying to develop network with

people who have good ideas I'm running

screens but all of that you know

um I love this so this came up in the

recent podcast that Mish pabai had with

Shan Puri he said an idea is like an

everybody's got

one so ideas are like an

everybody's got one at the end of the

day you know I have to so it's not hard

to come across the ideas or so so so the

thing is at some point one has to

actually say okay I'm going to commit

now and it's going to be in an uncertain

environment you're not going to see

green you're going to see Amber it's not

going to be perfect that's that so so

that's a kind of like a level of

risk-taking in the past I was

uncomfortable with because of this so

ugity stuff I want to go with things

that are far shorer bets I'm trying to

find something that's a 7x and also is a

Shore bet every now and those now and

then those will come up but I'm going to

take things where it's not a sure bet

but it's still but still a potential 7x

and I actually have to move to and then

where I find them is constantly going to

be changing uh but but I need to try all

sorts of different Avenues I was reading

recently a wonderful piece of research

that was produced four or five years ago

where they looked at companies and I can

show with you the the

research uh that had had done sort of

like 100 Baggers or 50 Baggers they

looked at where those those ideas came

from and they show that there was a kind

of a for example to the countries where

those companies existed and funnily

enough the um there you know the

countries like the Scandinavian

countries score quite highly in that

category and years surprising because

it's a social welfare state with high

taxes and things exact reason for that

who knows but it might be you know it

turned out that the aim Market in the UK

had a pretty high number of those

companies so maybe I'm saying look at

aim companies maybe I'm looking at small

caps maybe I'm like running F finding

what work but at some point you got to

make a move you know and Warren caus

them wrinkles so yeah I'd be doing more

of those

wrinkles and I would have been

developing the muscle that so the muscle

in me for all sorts of reasons is not as

de well developed as it could be of

being willing to look at wrinkles things

where there's something going on special

situations that makes it an unusual

valuation and a very good likelihood of

a very very high return but where

there's also some hair on it and uh uh

you know that's a muscle that you can

strengthen that that that muscle is far

stronger in Mish than it is in me and

they're all sorts of reasons for that

partly it's temperament in Mish partly

it's a very unusual childhood that Mish

had mish's father was an entrepreneur

who went bankrupt many times that's Mish

has told that story a few times and uh

and Mish

learned that that was okay he's not

afraid of of those kinds of high risks

potential losses and that gives him an

unusual orientation towards risk which I

don't

have um and so I would I would be

working hard to strengthen that muscle

at a younger

age yeah that's what I'd be doing with

the million dollars thank you so much

well you know I sort of come back on

myself and say you look at my last

letter to

investors the most important thing

survival is everything so I think in all

of that I'm

I I'm at the same time so I want to

optimize that better I think what I'm

trying to say is that if I look at what

I did for understandable reasons I was

way more risk Avers and conservative

than I should have been and that's okay

I forgive myself I think that I should

have been willing to turn that dial up

in the ways that I've

described but with the

constraint of never uh risking going out

of business and I would say that when

when Warren Gets asked that

question he's so confident at that yeah

but and and probably Warren is right to

be confident but for every Warren

there's probably a million people who

are not right to be confident and so

what's the probability that I'm Warren

what's the probability that I'm not

there's a far higher likelihood that I'm

not Warren so even if I think that I'm

going to be successful assume you're not

you know and forgive me I'm I'm just

like I'm adding length to this I hope

that's positive not negative it's a

positive

um so I you know uh the inter I've got

right now SCH um he enjoyed this was

like assume God is watching you and it

doesn't matter whether you believe in

God or not you know God is wired into

our genes uh most humans evolved with

some idea conception of some kind of God

so so if you don't believe in God it's

not a problem just activate that part of

your genetic makeup that believes that

there is a God we all have that and be

an atheist and do this and now God Is

Watching Me

and if I invest in that thing God is

going to make it go down by 50% only if

I invest in it if I don't invest in it

it's going to go straight up to the moon

but the minute he sees that I invested

in it it's going to go down by 50% at

least because God is going to say are

you serious you know did you really want

to invest in that show me how serious

you were you know assume God's going to

do that to you on every investment you

know and um and then there's another

thing which is that every risk that I

don't investigate is the one that God's

going to make show up in the so if I you

know it's kind of like the uncertainty

principle you know it's like if I

investigate it won't show up and it will

turn out to being useless but if I don't

investigate it God will dafa is the

Hebrew expression will just to be just

to be that way we'll make it show up you

know so um assume that and what so one

of the reasons why I love maths after

this I'm going to D with

mathematicians um it's like the negative

the square root of NE of of minus one so

fasc you know for the longest time ma

there were mathematicians who like that

doesn't exist and we don't do maths with

with the square of negative one for a

certain period of time there were

mathematicians who didn't accept the

existence of negative numbers how could

there be negative numbers you either had

objects or there weren't any a minus one

you know until they finally accepted the

number line I find it FAS fting that

those those ideas about God watching me

is extremely powerful and you don't have

to believe God exists for that idea to

be powerful and to be effect action so

yeah but it's fun to talk to you I hope

that I hope that I've been helpful i' I

just find myself blathering on no very

helpful we'll find out by the number of

video views That's How we'll find out

that's true yes especially the last part

there in that question uh yeah people

people come for the the the gossip and

what would you do with the million

dollars but we're going to keep them by

uh having the here's what actually

matters hopefully in life um so thank

you so much guy really been a pleasure

I've been looking forward to hosting in

my office for a very long time and so

ever since you came out of the Woodworks

I don't know about three years ago maybe

it's been such a pleasure getting to

know you and uh it's been really fun for

me to be at a place in my life where

I'm you know you're a highly selected

person so I didn't I didn't I didn't

walk out on the street and pick up a

Jeremy Stickney Jeremy Stickney sent me

an email you identified me you sent me a

message was it on Twitter uh no just

email it was an email yes that's right

but I I did some I mean Jeremy told me

about you told me about a little bit

about what you'd worked on I was like

wow I've never met a guy like that the

only guy I know the only or one other

it's not the only one connection like

that is s balky who sent me a message on

Twitter and I I in your case I looked to

see the podcast that you'd worked on and

I was like oh my God how many how many

how many subscriptions was it at the

time uh at the time 3 million yeah yeah

I was like my god I've never talked to a

guy 3 million so and in this case um s

gets in touch with me and uh I look and

I see my God he's got 100,000 followers

so I messaged him back within a week we

were talking on the phone within two

weeks I introduced him to Mish pabai and

he's now part of our lce lce work groups

quite incredible