Frederik's Labyrinth Of Life podcast

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المحتوى المقدم من Frederik Gieschen. يتم تحميل جميع محتويات البودكاست بما في ذلك الحلقات والرسومات وأوصاف البودكاست وتقديمها مباشرة بواسطة Frederik Gieschen أو شريك منصة البودكاست الخاص بهم. إذا كنت تعتقد أن شخصًا ما يستخدم عملك المحمي بحقوق الطبع والنشر دون إذنك، فيمكنك اتباع العملية الموضحة هنا https://ar.player.fm/legal.

Mind The Business: Small Business Success Stories

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Integrating AI Efficiency + Human Connection to Better Your Business 31:08

منذ 13 يومًا31:08

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31:08

AI isn't about replacement – it's about enhancement. Austin and Jannese travel to Tampa, Florida to meet Alexa Kritis Mancuso , founder of Alexa Kritis Events , who reveals how she masterfully blends artificial intelligence with the personal connection essential to event planning. Discover how Alexa shares how she leverages AI platforms to handle routine tasks as well as showing clients how she can bring their creative visions to life. Like QuickBooks, there’s a perfect combination of AI-driven processes and human expertise that can help free up your time to make more money and focus on the things that matter. Whether you're AI-curious or AI-cautious, Alexa explains how to harness this technology to boost your bottom line while creating deeper connections with your customers. Learn more about how QuickBooks can help you grow your business: QuickBooks.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

Frederik's Labyrinth of Life

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walking life one page a time
www.enterlabyrinth.com

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#Trading #Business #Frederik Gieschen

Frederik's Labyrinth of Life

updated منذ عام واحد

منزل السلاسل•Feed

walking life one page a time
www.enterlabyrinth.com

58 حلقات

#Trading #Business #Frederik Gieschen

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Writing Stories Close to Life: Jared Dillian's Night Moves 47:30

منذ 17 weeks47:30

47:30

I talk to author, trader, and DJ Jared Dillian about writing, lives, and his new collection of short stories: Night Moves . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe

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🎙Audio: Searching for True Words 2:16

منذ 52 weeks2:16

2:16

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com The Art of Alchemy is a reader-supported publication. Become a paid subscriber to listen to the audio version of this post.

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Lyn Alden: Studying the Financial System 57:32

منذ 1 year57:32

57:32

My conversation with Lyn Alden, author of Broken Money. Twitter: @LynAldenContact Disclaimer: I write and podcast for entertainment purposes only. This is not investment advice. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe…

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Nervous System Mastery with Jonny Miller 44:18

منذ 2 years44:18

44:18

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Jonny Miller , writer , podcaster , and breathwork facilitator. Jonny wrote some of my favorite recent pieces, including the amazing operating manual for the nervous system and How to Pay Off Your Emotional Debt . Jonny also puts together terrific small wikis like this one on emotional resilience , the ‘ spiritual MBA ’ and Somalist (‘a global directory of somatic practitioners + trauma-aware bodyworkers’). We talked about breathwork and its benefits and risks (including Wim Hof), ‘state over story’ and the ability to change the state of your own nervous system, Jonny’s own journey, the $55,000 he spent exploring various modalities and experiences to find the most impactful ideas (including super interesting stuff like darkness meditation ), emotional debt, repressed anger , and men’s work. In the context of a breathwork journey, incomplete reflexes will rise to the surface and they will be felt. The body will move in a certain way, and then there'll be relaxation. It's almost like layers of an onion that keep on unpeeling. The more we become comfortable with feeling the full spectrum of emotions, the more that these deeper pieces start to arise. We tend to focus on the outer journey, the how of success. How to spot opportunities, how to invest, how to build a business. Mastering the inner journey is equally important: both understanding your why and having the tools and practices to master the stress and setbacks along the way. That’s one of the lessons of the maze . Remember: great investors are survivors and experts at cultivating resilience . We have what I think of as this Cartesian hangover, almost going back to Descartes, of this mind-body dualism. I think the rational brain, the intellect, the kind of left-hemispheric way of perceiving the world has been very prioritized and almost worshiped in our culture. Controlling your mind, mastering your mind, mindfulness, all of these things have been really, really emphasized. I think what is starting to happen is the pendulum swinging back to, ‘oh no, there is no actual distinction between the brain and the nervous system.’ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe…

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Cultivating the Creative Seventh Sense with William Duggan 51:38

منذ 2 years51:38

51:38

I had a chance to interview William Duggan, professor at Columbia Business School and author of Strategic Intuition . He explained how Kendo led him to his big idea, the difference between creative/strategic intuition and expert intuition (with examples including Howard Schultz, Henry Ford, and Elizabeth Holmes), and the roles of memory, passion, and presence of mind. Quotes that stuck with me: There is no now. Everything is history. … There is no other guide to the future. You don't have to have the passion before you have the idea. The idea gives you the passion. Oh great, this is what I'm gonna do. How do you judge an idea when you have it? Is it based on real knowledge and experience? Real pieces of the puzzle. That's how you judge. The moment you step into the battle, you forget everything. Meaning that you let your brain make the correct connections. That's the presence of mind, where your mind is clear. In martial arts, it's very fast, but it's really the same idea. It's to clear your mind and let your brain make its own connections, according to the situation and the circumstances. A lot of people think Henry Ford invented the assembly line. He did not. The assembly line was invented a hundred years before, at the start of the Industrial Revolution. He invented a certain kind of assembly line, meaning he put together the old assembly line with something new. I like to distinguish the natural flash of insight … Steve Jobs was good at it. He'd search and search and search and then something would strike him. I don't know if you know about the origin of Starbucks. Howard Schultz was working for a coffee company, high quality coffee, where you fill up your bag and take the coffee beans home. He goes to Milan for the first time in his life and he sees the coffee bar and he says, oh, okay, well we should clearly convert all our stores into that. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe…

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Escaping the Caterpillar Pillar with Jared Dillian 1:04:51

منذ 2 years1:04:51

1:04:51

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Escaping the Caterpillar Pillar with Jared Dillian 1:04:51

منذ 2 years1:04:51

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Hello everyone, I had the pleasure of chatting with Jared Dillian , author of The Daily Dirtnap and We're Gonna Get Those B******s , about his new book Those B******s . Years ago, I read his book Street Freak and I fondly remembered his wit, candor, depth of introspection, and keen eye for the antics of markets. Those B******s is a collection of Jared’s essays on life, death, meaning, friendship, marriage, luck, ambition, suicide, and much in between (including a few great bits on markets and finance). It’s refreshingly honest and fun and led to a lot of reflection. For a taste of Jared’s writing check out his excellent recent essay People Don't Change : People don’t change, until they do. What has to happen is that person has to hit bottom. Bottoms vary for different people—people with a high bottom get to keep their jobs and spouses. People with a low bottom have to lose everything before they learn. In our conversation we touched on writing and finding your voice, escaping the caterpillar pillar , how markets are ruled by fear, being the guy who knows a guy, mental health and the power of writing, making meaningful memories, the right temperament for markets, why people don’t change, and why you should ask people if they are lucky. Enjoy, Frederik You can listen to our conversation on Spotify , Apple , anchor (and via RSS ). A few highlights from the conversation: A lot of people think that markets sort of oscillate between fear and greed, right? But it really isn't fear and greed. It's fear and fear. It's all fear, right? Greed is fear of not getting something that you want. So working in the markets is, if you have any background in psychology, it's a very depressing place because the markets are filled with fearful people, like acting based on fear. But the thing is that it's very predictable. People behave in very predictable ways. So that's been my thesis about markets all along. I like to know lots and lots of people. Now, having a newsletter has been the perfect way to do that because a lot of times if I have a question about like air conditioning, I can put it in my newsletter and I get 20 responses. I know somebody who owns an HVAC company. I know people in all different kinds of industries and if I ever need help, I can reach out to them. I like to call that having a big world. I like to have a big world. I like to know lots of people. That's just my personal philosophy. I learned that people had similar experiences, they just would never talk about it. There are things you cannot talk about in polite conversation, but you can do it with words, you can do it on the page and you can bring people into this world. And that's the magic of it. My Substack is like a safe space for people to read this stuff and think about these issues, really the only place you can talk about 'em is with a therapist or something like that. The ‘top five memories’ piece came from the show Lost . There's a character named Charlie and he has a premonition that he's going to die. He knows exactly when it's going to happen. And so he sits down and he starts thinking of his top five memories of all time. And it got me thinking like, that's actually a really good exercise. Like what are your top five memories of all time? I think one of mine was marching band in high school. One of mine was DJing. Really your goal in life should be to make more of those top five memories and keep doing that over and over again. I had a trade that made 15 million bucks. That was a great trade. But it doesn't make my list of top five memories, because top five memories are about relationships and achievement and things like that. Lehman was a great place to work, but ultimately that's not what we're here on earth for. A few quotes from Those B******s: As a trader you must have the memory of a goldfish. You f**k something up, you clean up the mess, and move onto the next trade. There is always another trade. This is something they teach professional athletes. It was said that Derek Jeter was the best at doing this- he did not dwell in the past. He had absolutely no memory, and was out there hacking at his next time up at the plate. We all have slumps. It's about your ability to shake it off, rub some dirt on it, and get back in the game. If you are to be successful, pray that it happens very slowly. Peaking early isn't just true in high school--it's broadly true throughout life. You see this a lot on Wall Street. Good performance is difficult to sustain over any period of time. Early success leads to hubris which leads to mistakes. After a few successively smaller fund launches, you end up as a CFP in Evanston, Illinois. I was 34 years old at Lehman Brothers and still a vice president. A 34-year-old VP. Many people are surprised to hear that. Well, most of the guys I worked with are now selling insurance. I'm not a snob and I don't look down on people, but I did resent people dumber than me getting paid more for work that required less technical sophistication. But as time has gone by, I've learned ... that a bonus has practically zero correlation with performance. Once you learn that, life gets a lot easier. Finance is depraved. The further away it gets in the rear-view mirror, the worse it looks. I like investing. I like the intellectual challenge, I like taking risk- but I am allergic to b******t. And there is more b******t than ever on Wall Street. I like to say that when you work in finance, you understand how the world works. The average person sees used car prices rising, and has no idea why. The financier knows. You become conversant in politics, geopolitics, raw materials production, trade, the FDA approval process, venture capital, private equity, and many other things. In short, you become much more worldly. A kid from Staten Island can get hired on a desk and within a few years, acquire enough sophistication to carry on an intelligent conversation with most world leaders. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe…

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So Far, So Good: Roy Neuberger's Long Walk Down Wall Street 28:09

منذ 2 years28:09

28:09

"What first led me to Wall Street was a desire to make money so I could buy great art and support artists. What I didn't know when I started is that working on Wall Street can be a fascinating art in itself and one for which I was almost immediately suited." — Roy Neuberger DISCLAIMER. I write and podcast for entertainment purposes only. None of this is investment advice and any information contained in my work should not be relied on to make investment decisions. Do your own work and seek your own financial, tax, and legal advice before making any investment decisions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe…

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Drew Cohen of Speedwell Research: Deep Research and Business Counterfactuals 56:34

منذ 2 years56:34

56:34

Disclaimer: None of this is investment advice. I write and podcast for entertainment purposes only and this conversation reflects our personal opinions. It should not be relied on to make investment decisions. Do your own work and seek your own financial, tax, and legal advice before making any investment decisions. Also see Speedwell’s Disclaimer . Drew and I talked about Meta, Constellation, Floor & Decor, Restoration Hardware, and his research and writing process. I will share excerpts from the conversation and Drew's work on the substack . Drew Cohen writes at Speedwell Research and is a Portfolio Manager at Davidson Kahn Capital Management. Prior to Davidson Kahn, Drew was at Capital Group, where he helped managed $5B+ of AUM. Prior to his role at Capital Group, he worked at Goldman Sachs in New York in their Global Investment Research division. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe…

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🎙Podcast: Paul Podolsky and The Paradox of Financial Fiction 1:13:17

منذ 2 years1:13:17

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Hello everyone, I’m usually skeptical of fiction involving financial markets. To make it thrilling and get life and death stakes, the genre typically blends with crime or conspiracy. Which means you need an engaging writer who knows both worlds well enough and doesn’t turn the financial combatants into caricatures. But there are surprises. During my recent trip , I churned through Master, Minion by Paul Podolsky who also writes the Things I Didn’t Learn in School Substack. Master, Minion is a fast-paced and thought-provoking thriller at the intersection of financial markets, geopolitics, and intelligence agencies. Paul started his career in Russia, worked on Wall Street for 20+ years, most of that time at Bridgewater, and spent a lot of time in China as well. He brought all of that to bear in the book. The story weaves together hot spots from Moscow to Hong Kong and, yes, Boston, with a wonderful depth of detail and cultural observation. Paul’s depiction of the “verbal kung fu” and politics in his fictional hedge fund is priceless. But his real strength is to paint compelling characters ensnared in their respective systems of money and power. After reading his book and Substack, I reached out to Paul and am excited to share our conversation. If you can just take one thought with you this Sunday, consider his metaphor for life, the flow and the eddies . The eddies being the loops in which can get stuck in without being aware of it. When I asked him about it, I realized he was the living embodiment of the lessons from Tim Urban’s The Tail End : One of the reasons I left Bridgewater when I was 52, I calculated how many months I was gonna live. I literally looked at an actuarial table. I think when I left Bridgewater, I had 384 months to live, statistically speaking. And there's a pretty wide range around that, if it's an individual. I thought about that. These 384 months are gonna come. There's nothing I can do. That is just the flow. How do I stay in that for myself? It's very hard to see, at least it was very hard for me when I was young. You have to listen carefully. What is that real thing that works for you? There's a period of time where I had no money and I had a young family. Money really, really made a difference, to try to make a comfortable tent, if you will, to sort of shelter them. But a little bit like you, I was thinking inside, this isn't the primary thing that motivates me. If I've got a million bucks now, if next year I have a million dollars and a hundred thousand, and the year after that I have a million dollars and two hundred thousand, that does not actually motivate me. And those months are going by. It's going 383 and 382 and 381… There are eddies that you could get stuck at in life. We talked about Paul’s journey to writing, his book, intrigue and investing in emerging markets, understanding Russia, and much more. You can find a few quotes below. I hope you’ll enjoy the conversation. I certainly did and look forward to reading more of Paul’s work in the future. You can listen to this conversation on Spotify , Apple , YouTube , anchor , and via RSS . The information in these posts and on this website is not and should not be construed as investment advice. The paradox of writing fiction The strange thing about fiction is, there's a weird paradox. On the one hand, you're making stuff up. On the other hand, it's sometimes easier to say something true by making something up. In the real world, you never quite know what other people are thinking. You have a hypothesis. Fiction allows you to create a bunch of characters and imagine their interior world, which is where so much of the mystery and the richness of life is. A few quotes that stuck from the book (no spoilers): Working at a hedge fund: Everyone understood the Boss had money, they, the hangers-on, me included, wanted that money and we all tried to destroy each other to get it. If [the CIA] was a team, this was Lord of the Flies. The Boss said he liked disagreement, but almost everybody was too scared to disagree. Understanding certain emerging markets: The idea that the state itself was criminal was something Americans had trouble getting their mind around. But the Boss might understand. In the Boss’s mind, there were predators and prey, and he had dedicated his life to joining the ranks of the predators. Wealth was a precondition. Institutions are people: But the Fed is people and people are wired the same everywhere—ambitious, striving for greatness, prone to error, guilt-ridden. Great investors understand impermanence: Most people tend to look at what they are growing up in and think that it is normal, he said. To them it is normal that the US is the richest country. Normal that China is poor. Normal that Black people are poor and white people are rich. But the reality is, things change. Nothing is stable. Magic in markets: The signaling felt like primates establishing hierarchy. While the central bankers had the magical power to make the economy expand or contract, the investors had the magical power to become rich. Some things I learned from Paul during our conversation: The magic of writing You spend a lot of time alone trying to … write the b******t out of an idea. Then you put the story out there and you get what I describe as pings from the universe. The story connects with somebody and you get this response back. It's kind of a magical process that you've created something. The medieval is alive and well in Russia The final thing which helped me understand [Russia] is it is medieval, in all that sense. If you think about the picture in your mind about the way Europe was working in the 14th and 15th century. There is a king. You pay tithes. There is palace intrigue. People are poisoned. You could end up in prison for no reason. Rule of law grew out of all of that, but that world is still alive and well in parts of the world. It's a very bizarre thing that a place with a space station that could do complicated computer programs has the medieval in it, but it's there. And what you're looking at in Ukraine right now is exactly that. It's a land grab for disobeying the emperor or the czar or whatever you call it. And the punishment is death. The traps of life There's a quote at the beginning of the book from Chekhov, I should grab the copy off my desk, but basically that ‘life is a vexatious trap.’ And I thought that was actually unbelievably powerful. You see these traps recreated in many different forms. I just think they're more virulent in those other cultures. Wall Street has that. Money on Wall Street has an addictive character. And people are willing to put up with a lot to endure that. They have these jobs that pay huge amounts of money, but many of them don't involve that much talent. Being a person like the Boss is a different type of thing. You know, a sort of character who can see the future. That's slightly different. And so some of the characters I was trying to get out of the hedge fund are people that are getting these insanely big salaries. Like the chief trader there. And they have this constant insecurity and they're stuck in this system where they love the money, but they don't have the talent to do something outside of that. And so that's that master minion relationship. And then the secret police in places like Russia or China, they're so corrupt. And I saw this firsthand with families. It's unbelievable that there is no escape. One of the characters actually wants to be a reformer and non-corrupt. And there are people who you will meet in these places there. But corruption has sort of infected his family. He's basically on the payroll of his father-in-law who is tied to all these nefarious things. And that repeats again and again and again and again. You can't extract yourself from it. Great portfolio managers as artists I think really exceptional portfolio managers can look at something that's today and imagine a radically different set of circumstances. And their mind works a little bit like a kaleidoscope. In other words, they're staring at the world and they keep shifting the kaleidoscope and it's literally changing every single day. And they're imagining what that future is. But some of those things are radically different than what we're living through right now. And those are the people that correctly call stock market bubble tops and crises and things. It's a weird thing. There is an element to it that I think is quite artistic. If you think about artists that create stuff that seems really out there initially, but then 10, 20, 30, 40 years later, people are like, this is the most beautiful thing ever done. They're doing the exact same thing. They're imagining a set of pictures in our head that are gonna resonate “If I can’t understand something, I remove it from my portfolio.” I saw what was going on in Ukraine. I said, this seems crazy. But what do you do if all of a sudden, the risk of your position has expanded more than what you'd anticipated? You take less risk. I called up all my contacts in Russia and everybody said, he is bluffing. There's no way he's gonna do this. And then I took less risk. And then as we got closer to it, I said, listen, I cannot predict this. I just closed all my positions in ‘21. And the minute he invaded, I closed all my positions in China. My thought being, listen, if Putin is crazy enough to do this in Ukraine, who's to say that Xi can't do this in Taiwan. I certainly can't. From an investor standpoint, there's other ways of making money. If I can't understand something, I just remove it from my portfolio. And that's one of the reasons I love liquid markets. Stories and understanding people People think in stories. Numbers are really important for measuring stuff. But the way people think is in stories. And stories are about feelings and emotions. And the feelings and emotions are relatively limited in number. People have been telling stories for thousands of years and they revolve really around a couple of themes. Escape, which this book is about, is one of them, and a couple of primal emotions. So to make a story resonate with people, you need to be in that zone for it to work. And so when I'm writing either a non-fiction piece or a fiction piece, one of the things I really try to do, which has taken me years to get to, is just listen: what am I feeling right now? Where is that coming from? And when I was writing Master Minion, I was imagining, what is going to irritate each one of these people? What's gonna scare each one of them? What do they really want? And you have to be, to make the scenes come alive, you have to be very locked-in, just the way you would be in a business meeting. If you're somebody who's good in a corporation, you have a very rich understanding of everybody around the table, what they want. And when you're writing a book, you're doing the same thing. It's just all the characters are in your head. George Soros on Putin I had the occasion a few times in my life to speak with Soros. I spoke with him in, I believe it was January of 2000, two weeks after Putin. Putin came to power December 31st, 1999 if my memory's right. So I asked him, I said, you know, what do you make of Russia's new president? And he just looked at me and he said, ‘not to be trusted'.’ That was all he said. And that was an example of somebody way out ahead. I mean, think of what came next. Too much money (or being around it) can make you crazy There's a little bit of me in every single character, truth be told. Even the diabolical ones. They say, write what you know, and each one of those people draws on strains of yourself. I think that money can make you crazy. It's a very strange thing. We need money. I've been in very limited circumstances. It's unpleasant, But it's also true that money, too much money, is not good for you. It's a little bit like food. When you were asking those questions, I was imagining how different it is in another industry. Imagine you're sitting around the table with Tim Cook and he's making 80 million or whatever. And you're the guy that's making a million bucks. Now a million bucks puts you in the top 0.1% of salaries. And you're sitting next to him and you're like, but this guy's not that much smarter than me. He's earning 80 million. I guarantee you there's somebody in that room thinking that way, cause people are people. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe…

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Paul Podolsky and The Paradox of Financial Fiction 1:13:17

منذ 2 years1:13:17

1:13:17

My conversation with Paul Podolsky author of Master, Minion and the Things I Didn’t Learn in School Substack. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe

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🎙Audio Repost: Watching Game Tapes of History’s Best Entrepreneurs with David Senra 48:49

منذ 2 years48:49

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Hello everyone, A few months ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing David Senra , host of the Founders podcast. David is incredibly high energy and authentic about what he does. You think Mohnish Pabrai takes the idea of cloning seriously? Here’s David: I can live the rest of my entire life never having one original idea. As long as I’ve mastered the handful of ideas that I see as recurring themes in the history of entrepreneurship, I will live a fantastic life. Because it's not only knowing this stuff, but also actually applying them. To paraphrase Bruce Lee, fear not the man who has read 10,000 books once but rather the man who has re-read the best ones over and over. Or, in David’s case, the man who does both. David sticks to Munger’s maxim of taking a simple idea and taking it seriously: The greatest entrepreneurs had one idea. They built everything around that one idea. There might be things that spawn off of that idea later on. There are other businesses that can grow out of that, other business lines, other products. But fundamentally, they start with an idea. In David’s case it’s podcasting and a vein of high quality information that he mines and converts into an attractive product. Actually, it’s a combination of two big ideas: a big wave to surf (podcasting) and a big insight about David himself (love of reading and learning, ability to go deep in one area without burning out). I hope you enjoy the conversation and pick up some valuable ideas from his entrepreneurial heroes (and villains…). Reading a book is a movie for the mind. It's impossible to read a life story of an interesting person and not be involved emotionally. You're with them in their ups and downs. It's a predictable human reaction that you put yourself in their shoes. You can listen to this conversation on Spotify , Apple , anchor (and via RSS ) or find a full transcript at Compound . If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution to manage your personal finances, Compound can help ( disclosures ). A few things I learned from David: Building a company can require an illogical amount of persistence. James Dyson "has 14 years of struggle. He builds 5,127 prototypes. He mortgaged his house. Some days, after doing all these experiments, he's climbing into bed at night covered in dust, crying at how painful what he's trying to do. It's 14 years and 5,127 prototypes before he has a vacuum of his own design, that he owns completely, that he could start selling to the public. We know at year 14 he's going to have success. What about year three? What if he stopped right here? That makes perfect sense. This is why it's so difficult. It is the logical decision. He should have stopped there, but he didn't. The founder is the guardian of the company's soul. I covered the biography of this guy named Sidney Harman. If you ever get into a luxury car, you'll see speakers that say Harman Kardon. He winds up writing this fantastic autobiography. He's 80 or 90 years old when he's writing it. It's called Mind Your Own Business. In that biography he's distilling 50 years. We haven't even been alive for 50 years. This dude had been trying to build companies, successful and unsuccessful for 50 years. Imagine what he knows. He gave the best description of what I feel is the founder’s role. The founder is the guardian of the company's soul. You cannot be the guardian of your company unless you love it. Edwin Land, Enzo Ferrari, and Steve Jobs, they talk about their products the way you would describe your lover. It's not the same as, I made a toaster, here's the toaster. No, they describe it like they're in love with what they've done. No one would have known Walt Disney's name if he’d started Disney and sold it five years later. There is this weird mind virus. I have an idea, I'm going to start up, I'm going to scale up, I'm going to sell, and then I'm going to do that over and over again. Inevitably, the question is who are the entrepreneurs you look up to? Who are your entrepreneur heroes? And they start listing off people that literally worked in the same company forever. I don't understand. Are you learning from these people or not? Because no one would have known Walt Disney's name if he started Disney and sold it five years later . No one would know Job’s name if he just got kicked out of Apple and then disappeared. The value of compounding knowledge. An investor understands the power of compounding. Knowledge compounds, too. Imagine going back and trying to talk to Warren Buffett about everything he knew at 35 compared to what Warren Buffett knew at 80. That's not the same person. I've read 272 biographies of entrepreneurs so far. I have a unique set of knowledge there. It's going to pale in comparison to what I will know two decades from now or three decades from now. Studying the birth of industries. Henry Ford had an idea. I want to build an easy, reliable car that the average person working at Ford can actually afford. That was unheard of. … Edison says something that changes Ford’s life. He says, that’s it, young man, you have it, keep at it. So, the next 5-10 years of struggle, he remembers what Edison said and it helped him. That's how Ford approached it. That's his idea. … Billy Durant had built this vertically integrated carriage company for horses. He … went and bought a bunch of other carriage brands, and put them under one umbrella. The exact same playbook at the early days of GM. … Henry Leland worked for Samuel Colt. The ideas that he learned in the mass production of firearms, he then shows up in Detroit and starts applying them to automobiles. When Henry Ford has a question, he goes to see Henry Leland. He is the wise old counsel with a lot more life experience.” On founders and culture. Whoever you are and whatever is important to you, put that into your company. Don't shy away from the eccentric part of your personality because your personality is the foundation and the beginning culture of the company. The downside of intense focus and dedication. The people that get really good at what they're doing don't allow themselves to think or do much of anything else. Jony Ive, who worked very closely with Steve Jobs, was talking about one of the main lessons from Steve Jobs. He's saying, “Steve was the most remarkably focused person I have ever met in my life.” Jony works with Steve almost every day. This guy who is having lunch with him damn near every day says he is the most focused person in his life. That should tell you to do an audit of your life. Am I focused? But also: It's safe to assume that every single person I have read about is smarter than I am. Yet you see all these smart-driven people make mistakes. They usually over optimize their professional life to the detriment of everything else. They destroy their personal lives. They destroy their health. Time is the best filter. I love this idea. It’s somewhat analogous to Buffett’s insistence on a track record, on data with which to judge a person. Decisions made over time inevitably reveal character. I don't read a story and say that person's dead, I have nothing to worry about. No, that personality type was alive then, they're alive today, they will be alive in the future. Human nature is constant. … When I come across somebody that’s completely ruthless. The minute you stop being useful, they will discard you. This is a problem that appears over and over again. What is your solution, David? The solution I’ve come up with for my life is avoidance. I don't want to partner with you. I don't want to chase money with you. I don't want to be friends with you. … I am very selective about who I spend time with. I only have one good filter for this. I think there might only be one good filter. That is time. Time is the best filter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe…

1
Watching Game Tapes of History’s Best Entrepreneurs with David Senra of Founders Podcast 48:49

منذ 2 years48:49

48:49

This conversation was originally published at Compound . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe

1
🎙Audio Repost: Josh Wolfe. Using Doubt as Fuel and Bootstrapping an Enduring Partnership 1:04:04

منذ 2 years1:04:04

1:04:04

Hello everyone, A few months ago, I finally had the chance to record a conversation with Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital. This was published at Compound ( I also previously profiled Josh ). Josh has been a frequent podcast guest and I did a lot of prep work to find questions he hadn’t tackled yet. As a result, I think it’s a timeless conversation with the exception of a brief discussion of the macro cycle (Josh and Lux were bearish and cautious before markets turned down). Josh and his partners were young with an unconventional background when they bootstrapped Lux. With little capital under management they earned additional cash flow through a research business. We sold [the report] for $4,750 bucks a copy, sold a few 100 of them and helped keep our little business alive. I got access to all these famous CEOs and VCs. Vinod Khosla was one of the first VCs to buy it. And I was like, Okay, I'll sell it to you, but only if I can come and meet you. So I went out to Sand Hill Road and I remember his office, I remember viscerally what it looked like, it was the first major billionaire VC I met. I absolutely loved his comments about using doubt as motivation and fuel. Anybody that doesn't believe in you, either you let that bring you down, or it becomes fuel. To this day, we like to say that we believe before others understand. Because there really is something powerful, just psychologically, of believing in somebody. I would be on a run on a treadmill, and I'd be getting tired. And I would imagine some of these heroes cheering me on. ‘You can do it, come on.’ I have ghost images of these individuals to cheer me on. Peter and I would find strength in the people that didn't think we were going to make it and felt really motivated to prove correct the people who did. It’s also a framework he uses to assess founders. Chips on shoulders put chips in pockets as he likes to say. The best entrepreneurs we see are the ones who are so obsessed to prove other people wrong who don't think this is possible. That to me feels honest. It feels petty, but it's real. I also admired Josh’s focus on his family. It’s easy to neglect that if you’re highly competitive. Being with my kids is just the great salve. … Family stuff for me is very cathartic. Whatever is going on, I could be negotiating a big financing. And my little guy who's six is like, Dad, I can't get the screw into this thing and that is more important. Getting the screw into the little toy is more important at that moment. That to me is a big thing. Thank you for listening and happy holidays🎄🕎 ‍ You can listen to this conversation on Spotify , Apple , anchor (and via RSS ) or find a full transcript at Compound . If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution to manage your personal finances, Compound can help ( disclosures ). A few things I learned from Josh: Why does a VC spend so much time on macro? Ignorance of the macro is no virtue. … We're trying to get a palpable sense for what massive currents are shaping the environment. … The number one determinant of future returns is never the hockey stick curve that some consultant or bank or optimistic entrepreneur shows. It's how much capital is going into a sector when capital is abundant. Lessons from living through two cycles. There are lots of differences, but the market sentiment similarities make me think that we're in Q3 of 2000. You're going through the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief … Markets have to go through that, both individually as investors, and then collectively. That's our guiding playbook at the moment. Use your struggles to grow and build intrinsic motivation. Almost every step of the way, there was some moment when we were running out of cash. I still remember the people that told me no for $250,000 checks or dragged me for six months doing diligence on data that didn't even exist to tell us that they were writing a $100k check. That was a formative thing because it shaped the kind of people that we want it to be when we pay it forward. You need struggle and you need people that doubt you so that you can prove them wrong. Networking at the beginning of your career. I remember I wanted to get in touch with some famous investor. I was like, You'd be doing me the biggest favor if you can introduce me to him. And he was like, stop, right there, stop. I thought I insulted him. Maybe this ask crossed the line? And he's like, Do you believe in yourself and what you're doing? And I was like, Yeah. And he's like, Do you think anybody else knows what you know in this particular field? I'm, like, No, I feel like I'm one of the best. He's like, so who's doing who the favor? It was a little bit of a mindset switch, even if you're slightly deceiving yourself to get over that absence of confidence. And the same way that when there's a task that you don't want to do, thinking, I get to do this, because you could be dying tomorrow, versus I have to do it. That was a real confidence booster. Not arrogance but, I'm doing these people a favor by both showing interest and wanting to connect. But also because I have something of value. Building an enduring partnership. We studied why firms split. One of them was geographic and one of them was sector. … Avoid sector silos so you don't get a coup, which is what happened at firms like Greylock and Matrix and Venrock. One partner became the dominant player and said, okay, we're shutting down that other office. So everybody here is a generalist. I feel like presence is really important for the sustenance and sustainability of a culture. Like any system, things fall apart. Entropy is the norm. You need to put energy into a system to prevent entropy. That's true of human relationships. ‍ ‘Crazy’ founders. I don't mind if they say the crazy thing. I don't mind if they have an ambition that borders on delusions of grandeur. I just want them to be honest. Becoming a better storyteller. If you take a technological view of this, language is a form of code, just like law is a form of code. And just like code and software can influence machines, I am influenced by language, I'm influenced by a beautiful quote. I'm influenced by a great scene of dialogue. I just wanted to be better at that. Invest in having time, memories, experiences (and assets). I'd say we're relatively conservative. I don't care about boats, or cars, or watches or material possessions. I like vacation indulgence and we invest a lot in our kids’ education. I really value time and moments and memories and experiences. Wherever money can help to create that, that's what we invest in. ‍ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe…

1
Josh Wolfe, Lux Capital: Macro, Mentors, Motivation 1:04:04

منذ 2 years1:04:04

1:04:04

You can find a full transcript of this conversation at Compound . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enterlabyrinth.com/subscribe

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The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About

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Frederik's Labyrinth of Life

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مرحبًا بك في مشغل أف ام!

The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About

The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About

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The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About

مشابه لـFrederik's Labyrinth of Life

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