1:25All right. I was just telling them that we're so lucky to have you that you want to one of the smartest people I know. So Hopefully I don't disappoint now.
1:35No, never, never, never, never.
1:41Come on, give the guy a warm welcome. First time in Brazil. Come on.
1:50The people here are amazing.
1:52I know. I know. And he hasn't had enough of the food just yet. So I told him he cannot go away. He cannot go back without having a proper meal. You know, that's the thing.
2:02All right. So, Shane, let's just start like there could be people out there who don't really know, you know, your story, a little bit of your story. So, why don't you tell us a little bit about you, your trajectory since the agency days? I always get a crack when people would call you a spy. Were you ever a spy? Did you feel like a spy? Like tell us a little bit about that.
2:22I started working for an intelligence agency right after uh university. And part of that journey was incredible.
2:30September 11th happened. It changed everything. And I ended up thrust into leadership roles that I wasn't ready for. And I didn't know how to make decisions. There's no class on decision-making 101 in university. And so, I started to try to figure out how I can make better decisions in the real world. And that led me to Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett and countless other people. And I was taking their ideas and
2:59using them on the inside at work. And I I think there's a lot that we can learn. Intelligence agencies are very insular. And they don't tend to pull ideas in from the outside. And I wasn't even allowed to have a Facebook page or LinkedIn or anything. I was supposed to be anonymous. And then all of a sudden this website I was writing that was anonymous, like a diary for me almost, blew up.
3:23And And that's Farnam Street, right?
3:25Yeah. And so, that was Farnam Street.
3:28And I got in a lot of trouble at work because, you know, my boss walked in one day and he's like, "You should read this." And I was like, "Oh god, that's me."
3:36Uh and then I was like, "I have to call security and tell them." And anyways, I left there. I had pulled in a lot of ideas and a lot of learning from the outside. And since then I've sort of continued with the podcast and books and sort of the website, and investing.
3:54So, for those of you who hadn't necessarily learned his story till now, @farnamstreet on Instagram, his podcast is called The Knowledge Project, okay?
4:06There's a newsletter, Brain Food. I'm doing all your marketing, man.
4:11It's almost a million people now who read it.
4:13It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. It's a great newsletter, and the book, of course, Clear Thinking, right? Which has a Portuguese version called Pensamento Eficaz. Uh and it's on Amazon, everywhere that you you you you can get books. So, make sure you you you follow that. Um so, talk a little bit about sourcing your knowledge, because a a lot of like the the the principles, like the the the foundation behind The Knowledge Project, was about uh learning what other people have mastered, right? Like
4:42that's what you what what you say on the podcast. How do you source uh people to go on the podcast? How do cuz there's a lot out there, right? Like that we could be consuming. How do How do you distinguish? How do you know that something is great enough for you to bring that into your podcast or newsletter, whatever it is? How How do you do that?
5:00Well, I think about it as mastering the best of what other people have already figured out. I'm not smart enough to figure out everything myself, and so I reach out to the top people in the world and try to I I I don't go on like I don't ask them on the show uh because they're popular or they're famous. I ask them on the show because I think there's something we can learn from everybody, and I tell my kids this all the time that you're Sherlock Holmes, and your job is to figure out what you can learn from people, even
5:29people you don't like. And so, the whole premise of the show is I suspend my judgment about the person or the ideas, and I just want to see the world through their eyes. I want to feel what they feel. I want to see what they see, and I want to think how they think. And there's so many people I'm interested in just getting inside their brain and then revealing that in a deep conversation where I don't interrupt and I let them speak and you get a lot of nuance and a lot of contacts and it's been really fun. One thing I learned when I was
5:59working at the intelligence agency is you can pretty much reach out to anybody in the world and if you're clever, you can usually get them to talk to you.
6:08Now, you've been extremely successful in terms of attracting people and talking to people. Some of the most famous ones have been Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger themselves, which is phenomenal, right? I know you're a big fan for obvious reasons.
6:20Uh but beyond them, like what are can you name a couple of like your favorite people that you've hosted on the podcast or that you've had the opportunity to talk to over the years and why?
6:30Well, I'll mention some memorable ones.
6:32Picking a favorite would be really hard, but I had a sex therapist on once who taught me about armpit sex. Apparently, that's a thing. I've had Daniel Kahneman who is a Nobel laureate come on and talk about thinking and judgment. Uh I've had Esther Perel come on and talk about relationships and her background and She's phenomenal.
6:56She's amazing and you know, I had just had Bill Belichick on who was the coach of the New England Patriots for people who follow American football and he's the greatest coach of all time. He came on and talked about what did he talked about winning, what it takes to win, talked about the preparation, uh disciplining players, how to lead a team of people, a team of people with egos.
7:19Uh so, I always find these threads where I'm like, I really want to learn that and then I feel very fortunate that I can share that with the world.
7:28Oh, that that's phenomenal. You know, people ask me all the time if I have mentors, if I have like people that I look up to. I mean, of course there are things that we admire from from a lot of people, but I tell them we have an obligation to learn from anyone.
7:44To your point, like even people that we don't like, right?
7:46Uh I I make it a point of learning from everyone. I think you're a little bit like that, too, right?
7:51Totally. Can you imagine not learning from people you don't like? Uh I find that just really interesting. We often turn our brains off, like whatever you think politically, you can think Joe Biden, you can think Donald Trump. The minute people hear that, their brain goes in a certain direction and they stop listening and they stop learning, and I think it's a very it's a mixed missed opportunity to learn something, uh even if you don't agree with it.
8:16In a polarizing world, it's an increasingly valuable uh skill, you know, to be able to do that.
8:22Um all right, so I'm sure there are also things that you've learned from these people, from these phenomenal people that you've got the opportunity to meet, that you really wish you had learned sooner, right?
8:33Okay, one of them, I was in Daniel Kahneman's apartment, and he answered the phone. And at the end of the phone call, he said, "My rule is I never say yes on the phone."
8:45And he got off the phone, and I said, "Danny, I I've spent a lot of time with you. I've read almost everything you've ever written. I've never heard you say this before." And he said, "You know what? I always say yes to things I don't want to do.
8:59I get on a phone call, and somebody's asking me to blur a book or to go speak an event, and he's like, "I didn't want to disappoint people, so I said yes."
9:09And I was like, "That's fascinating, right? That's your system one response is we spent 10,000 years needing to fit in with the tribe." And because we needed to fit in with the tribe, we have this unconscious response that basically means we want people to like us. And we say yes because we want other people to like us.
9:30How many people in here have said yes to something they don't want to do?
9:35I should see everybody's hands cuz we all do it. We're all sort of like that, and we we we do this thing, and he said, "I just created this rule." And the rule was that I would not say yes on the phone, cuz at first he was like, "I can't do that date."
9:52And then it becomes a negotiation. Well, what date can you do? And he's like, "If I say my rule is I don't say yes on the phone, I'll get back to you tomorrow."
10:02He's like, "Nobody argues with me." And that gives me time and space to think, and then I send a polite email the next day saying no or yes, rarely. And I thought that was the most powerful thing that he has ever done. And I told him that. I was like, "I know you won a Nobel Prize, but this is the most useful, like, tactical thing that you've done." And I flew home that night, and I remember thinking about it.
10:27And I was like, "What can we do? How do we take our desired behaviors and make them our default behaviors? How do we reprogram our unconscious mind?" And I started thinking about the ways that I could do that in my life, and one of the ways was like, "I want to work out every day." And I went to the gym, and I got a printout of all the times that I was there, and I was thinking in my head that I was there three times a week, and I ended up I was only there one and a quarter times per week. That's how often
10:58And that really threw me for a loop, and I said, "Well, I'm going to make a rule that I work out every day." My desired behavior is that I'm healthy, and a workout can change. It doesn't mean going to the gym. It could be a run, it could be something else, and the duration and scope of that can change, but my rule is I'm going to work out every day, and I did that about 6 years ago, and I think I've missed 5 days since then. Um because there's no excuses for it. So, your brain goes from
11:26how do I um am I going to work out today to how do I fit in a workout today? And that default switch is really interesting. And another lesson I learned from Charlie Munger, which I thought was really interesting and something I talk about in the book, is a little bit about positioning. When I had dinner with him one night, I asked him, what was what is the most under appreciated aspect of Berkshire Hathaway's success?
11:54And he said, most people don't understand we were never forced into bad decisions. There's very few exceptions when they were forced into doing something they didn't want to do. We always controlled what we were doing. And he's like, a lot of people get into trouble when they don't control what they're doing.
12:13And I remember thinking about that a lot, and that's the concept of positioning that I talk about in the book at all. And I think that's a really powerful concept to think about. And maybe I'll take that out of the business realm and give you an example personally.
12:26So, one of my kids came home one day, and he was 13 at the time, and he handed me his exam, and I have to sign his exam to signify that I've seen the results.
12:39And he he flipped it over and handed it to me, and he said, I did my best, and walked walked away. And for anybody with kids, I wasn't going to talk to him in that moment. I looked at it, and I was like, this is not your best.
12:52And I remember going up to him later that night, and I was like, I want to talk to you about that, but I don't want to talk about the score. I want to talk about you said you did your best.
13:00And he said, I did. And I was like, well, what does that mean? And he's like, well, I sat down at 10:00 a.m. in total teenage sarcasm. I read all the questions, I looked at the points, I allocated my time appropriately. And I And that was it. I did my best. And I was like, well, you think about that the way that most adults think about life.
13:21You think that I show up Monday morning at 8:00 a.m., and that's when the clock starts. And I was like, let's rewind 72 hours. Did you study for this test? No.
13:32When did you remember you had a test?
13:35Oh, the night before at 11:00. Well, what happened then? I pulled out my books. I realized it was 11:00 and then I made a grilled cheese and went to bed.
13:43Didn't get a full night's sleep, right?
13:45Like didn't sleep. Didn't do the things within his control to put himself in a good position for success. The language that I use now is easy mode and hard mode. Are you playing on easy mode or you playing on hard mode? And it to tie that back to Berkshire Hathaway, they're always playing on easy mode. They have $350 billion in cash.
14:06on a pile of cash now.
14:08Well, if the economy takes off, they win. If it goes sideways, they win. And then if it tanks, they win. I mean, they win in every conceivable scenario because they'll never be forced to do something they don't want to do. And I think that's a very powerful concept that we can all apply to our own lives.
14:25That's a pheno- By the way, all this is in the book, right? Like easy mode, hard mode, uh positioning. Um I'm If If you allow me, let me do a a a little digression cuz when you talks about uh positioning um I don't know if you read or maybe saw the TV show uh Little Fires Everywhere.
14:43Are you familiar with that?
14:45So So So it's a based on a a novel and is a TV show with Kerry Washington. It was on maybe 3 years ago. And uh there's a dialogue that really stuck with me uh in which like uh somebody's talking to to the Kerry Kerry Washington's character and she's saying, "Well, but I have made good choices." And she says, "You had good choices."
15:08You had good choices.
15:10And the point that she's trying to make is like her character never had good choices to to pick from in the first place. And that stuck with me, you know?
15:18I think And And That's speaks to your concept about positioning. How can we engineer our lives? How how can we make sure that we have good choices available to us when we need to make a hard decision or or important decision, I should say.
15:32I think the line I use in the book is everybody looks like a genius when they're in a good position and even the smartest person in the world looks like an idiot when they're being forced by circumstances into doing something they don't want to do.
15:45Exactly. Exactly. And the other thing that you that you mentioned on the rules on on defaults, the importance of defaults. Uh so that's something that I copied from you like the workout thing.
15:57I because like it's always a negotiation against yourself, right? Like every day they're like, do I go today or not? Like I I didn't go yesterday. I should definitely go today, but I could go tomorrow and the day after that and I would still get my three days out of the week. So like just just the the the cognitive load of having to constantly like have that those negotiations with yourself is just so high.
16:18And you lie to yourself.
16:20You totally lie to yourself.
16:21a Monday, you're like, I'll do extra tomorrow, right? You have these little mental lies.
16:26Absolutely. So I do like my husband and I we just go every day.
16:30We know that we're going to miss some days like the days that we're traveling for landing in a country like you know that we won't have time. That's fine, but if you go every day, you know that the ones you miss will matter because you're like all the other days are there. You see what I mean?
16:43So that was something that I got from you. Thank you very much, Mr. All right. Um So you've you've talked to so many smart people, accomplished people, uh you know, people that we look up to.
16:57Did you ever find a common thread or a trait that those people share like, you know, when you try to when you try to find a correlation, right? Like between everyone that you've learned from. What do you see that they have in common that we should we we could also learn from?
17:13I think there's a lot of things they they in common that we can learn from.
17:17Uh one is a taste for salt water. They have a lot of determination and they're willing to do things that are very hard that other people choose not to do. So, they're willing to choose obvious things to do that will put them in a better position that are hard in the short term that other people choose not to do because they're hard in the short term. I I think that that is one commonality.
17:41Success comes in many different shapes and forms, but there are commonalities in behind the scenes that get there. The mindset is another one. We were talking about this backstage where uh you have this hat that says What is it? I don't I can't translate it.
17:57Foda-se. I brought him a hat.
18:02For those of you that that that know what this means, right? I've been talking to him about like how important it is for us not to be distracted and just you know, just really focus. Do you want to tell the story about the swim lane?
18:13Yeah, so I think of this is when whenever I talk to people who are doing something incredible, they're almost never talking about their competitors.
18:22They're never They don't even know what they're doing half the time. And I think of this as swimming in your own lane because there was this Olympics, I think it was like 2008, where this one swimmer was leading and he was leading with like 10 m to go. And he poked his head up and he looked to his side to see if he was winning against his chief rival. And he ended up losing by like 8/10 of a second. And he ended up losing because he poked his head up to focus on what
18:51other people are doing. And so often, we're so in the business of other people, the drama of other people. We try to make ourselves better on the hierarchy almost by putting other people down or getting involved or telling them what they should or shouldn't do. And I think we're just much better off to take all that energy and focus it on like what are we really trying to accomplish?
19:12And I think the reason that people don't do that is it's really scary to set a big goal and go after it cuz you might fail. And it's really scary to say no to your friends who are partying because you want to you've got a deadline and you have to do something. And it's not about whether that choice is right or wrong, it's what's right or wrong for you. So many people live their lives unconsciously and then they get to the end and they have all these regrets. And
19:41I always say the pain of regret lasts forever, but the pain of failing is over pretty quick and everybody moves on and nobody remembers. But if you regret writing a book or starting a company or doing that one goal that you wanted to pursue. Um and people say they don't have time, but so often they're just intertwined with other people in a way that is not healthy.
20:04I think that's another example of sort of how people don't and it comes down to focus. If you want sort of that common you you have to pick your goal and then you have to go all in and burn the bridges or burn the boats, so to speak, and make it so that the only thing you can do is succeed. But you really have to find the thing that you can do 10,000 times without getting bored.
20:28What is that thing for each of you that you can do over and over and over again that you don't give up on even if you suck.
20:38There's something on our newsletter from this Sunday. I don't know if you remember them all by heart, but just this Sunday you said something or there was a line uh that said, you do something until you can get it right.
20:50You you can fail, but when you when you do something enough times until you cannot get it wrong, nothing can stop you, right? Like something like that, wasn't it?
21:01matter. Your emotions don't matter, the weather doesn't matter, the Nothing will stop you.
21:05Right? So uh so that's phenomenal. A couple of things that I wanted to say on that. So, that that's one. The other thing is I I like to say that extraordinary results require extraordinary effort. You know, like that's a little bit of how I think about that.
21:23So, if if you want to build something that is remarkable, you're not going to do that comfortably, you know, working from 9:00 to 5:00 and taking a break and taking all your vacation days and you know, being very It's just not going to happen, right?
21:39We've been sold this lie and I don't know what the culture is like in Brazil.
21:43I can only speak to the culture in North America. And the lie in North America is that you can work 9:00 to 5:00 and accomplish all of your dreams. And it just doesn't work like that. And it especially doesn't work like that now with AI coming and all the technology, you know, if you're between the ages of 24 and 45 and you're not using AI reflexively, you're probably going to lose your job.
22:08And I think that that should be a warning message, but at the same time an opportunity because some kid who's coming in at 21 has the power of thousands of GPUs working for them. And the only reason I think this is I watch my 14-year-old use AI.
22:26And if you never saw his face, he would be a mid-level employee at most companies based purely on output cuz he knows how to get those GPUs working for him 24/7 non-stop to do not only his homework, start a business. He just understands that world and we have to move to a world where we're AI by default, not AI by push.
22:50So, the analogy that I I've learned to use on that is like a lot of you So, think about languages, right? Like a lot of people are fluent in English, fluent in French. But there's a difference between being fluent and being native.
23:03You have to be native.
23:04to be native, right? That's what we're trying to do. You know, just a little bit about new bank. So, we are leaning heavily on AI.
23:11And and we're paranoid about it. We're trying to be native. Like, you know, we're we're not going to build our own like, you know, AI platforms, but we want to be their best customers. Like, the people that are adopting first, that are using it natively, like in the back We're We're like, if you go on OpenAI's website, like we're one of the feature cases. We're like, we're doing but we're assuming we're behind. We're like, we're probably behind.
23:35People tell us, "Oh, no, you're doing really well." I'm like, "No, no, we're behind."
23:39We're probably 6 months behind where we should be, you know, like that's the mindset because it's just going to be so fast, right?
23:44This thing is coming and I think you just it's one of those things where the world is going to change. You really have to dive in and if you don't dive in, you're going to be left behind.
23:56Um For sure. That's yet another reason for us to focus on the sale, right? No distractions, you know, not not wasting any time talking about the neighbor, the the the brother-in-law, the co-worker, uh somebody else's boss, the celebrity, whatever it is that distracts you, that sucks your energy, sucks your time.
24:19If If there's a a famous One way to think about this is just pull up pull up your calendar and look at how much of your time is being spent towards your dream. And you you think you can tell me your priorities, but I don't want to hear them. Show me your calendar and I can tell you what your priorities are.
24:37Exactly. If you look at your So, that's something that I do also. I don't know if I picked that up from you, but either way, here it goes.
24:45So, uh every few months, at least twice a year, but usually every 3 4 months, I go my calendar and I delete everything from the future. And I do a zero-based calendar based on my priorities from that moment on for the next like quarter, let's say. You know? Because that's exactly it. Like if you're not putting time towards what is important to you, that's not important to you.
25:10And what it's surprising cuz when you do that and you have all these recurring meetings, not all of them come back.
25:17Many of them won't come back. That's the beauty of it. That's why you zero base it. Last thing on this, so maybe uh you're you may have heard of this phenomena called Bluey. No? The the kids show? Bluey Bluey and Bingo? Your kids are too old already. So for the parents here, like you've seen Bluey, right? Like Bluey's Bluey was the most watched um streaming um program last year in the world.
25:47So there's an episode from Bluey called the baby race in which Bluey's mom, she's like she tells her the story about when Bluey was a baby and she rolled very quickly and then she was determined to get uh her like walking before like the other kid. And eventually, you know, she learned that she needed to run her own race.
26:07So that's it. Run your own race, right?
26:10All right. Um let's talk about the book. So first, thank you so much for writing the book. You know, I was telling you backstage, I think this book should be mandatory reading. No one should graduate high school without reading that book. No one should turn 18 without or get a driver's license or vote without reading the book, right? Like it's it's it's so it's it's it's such an important book.
26:32It has inspired so many so many videos, so many conversations for so many people. Why did you decide to write it?
26:38How did you think about uh you know, because you had the podcast, you had the newsletter. What was the thinking process behind writing the book, synthesizing everything into the book?
26:48Like what what was the type of audience that you wanted to reach or the type of format, like how was the thinking behind it?
26:55I wrote the book for me and you know, to to get into why I'll tell you my theory of learning. And so most people think that they learn by experience.
27:07And I don't think you actually learn by experience for most things. I think you learn by reflecting on your experience and creating sort of like a distillation of that experience, like a compression if you will. And then that compression turns into action. And so you have a learning loop. You have an experience, you reflect on it, you compress it, and then you have an action that you can take based on that. And for me, I was trying
27:34to put into practice 15 years of decision-making under uncertainty having tried to learn as much as I can from other people and I wanted to distill that for myself. And I wanted to synthesize all of those experiences, whether it be life or death decisions where where people's lives were involved or my country and other countries or just sort of how do we make a
28:03decision-making book practical? How do I distill all of these experiences that I've had and just pull out what's essential and what really works and what works across the board for most people.
28:16And the little tips and tricks that I learned to just get more out of people to run more effective meetings. You know, a great example of that is one way to run a more effective meeting is instead of everybody talking about what everybody already knows the only thing you're allowed to talk about in the meeting is what you think you know in this room that nobody else knows. And it changes the conversation. It changes the social signaling. It changes the status.
28:43The other thing and it was really effective. It shortened our meetings and increased the quality and density of the information we were getting.
28:51And then people make decisions, not committees. When a committee makes a decision, everybody is a hero and nobody is to blame ever. If the decision goes wrong, everybody's like, "I tried to convince them. I was right." If the decision goes right, it was because I was right. And so we we switched out of that and only people made decisions, especially if you're involved in a situation that's critical. We need a name. We need a sign-off. We need ownership and accountability over that
29:20decision. So I just wanted to write a book that I thought was practical for me, but it was really taking How do I take 15 years of experience and distill it into a memo almost to myself and then share that memo with the world because I think uh I was I thought that that would be a good idea. I never thought it would do as well as it has. Um and large part thanks to you.
29:44But uh it's done really well and it's been amazing and and a great experience and people find it useful. And there's nothing better you can say about a non-fiction book than it helped me. I found it useful. It changed how I think. It changed how I decide. And I think that's the ultimate compliment and it keeps going. I think we're we're approaching half a million copies now.
30:07Congratulations. Congratulations. Half a million copies is a big deal. I remember from your interview with uh Brian, I want to say.
30:15Brian, yeah. So like very few books actually reach 10,000 copies sold, right?
30:21The average The average book sells I think 500 copies. And if you hit uh I think it's 10,000, it might be 100,000, but you're in the top 1% of books It's 10,000. It's less than published ever in the history of humanity, which is crazy.
30:35It's crazy. Less than 1% of the books sell less than 10,000 copies. It's crazy. So half a million is phenomenal.
30:42Uh again, thanks for writing out. So, it started with you. Is that Is that So, you wrote for yourself?
30:47So, the audience was me. I was writing for myself, and at the end I sort of um edited it a little bit to So, other people would understand, but it was more just that type of writing, and this is how we we actually learn. We We take the time, we reflect on something, and then we draw our own conclusions.
31:07For sure. For sure. I'm asking I'm I'm very curious because people have been asking me to write a book for a while now, like for a few years.
31:14And I tell them, "Listen, there's so many good books out there. Like so like so many. This one included, you know?
31:20Like go read the good books, you know?
31:21Like I don't The world doesn't need another good book another book from me, you know? But at the same time, recently, uh I started recording voice notes. And I I I And I put it on Spotify. Just, you know, because that's something that I do like for friends, you know, like when they want advice.
31:40And it you know, the Weekday Launch was the number one business podcast in Brazil, number two podcast in Brazil, period. You know? And people are loving it. And it's it's it's that. It's condensing like some of the learnings and something that I, you know, I record for like some some of the people that I know, and it's And it's been very useful for people somehow.
32:00That's amazing. And like AI can take that and help you make it into a book.
32:05But I think the reason to write is because I wouldn't start out writing a book. I would start out with like, "What do I want to learn more about? What am I passionate about? What is it that I'm interested in?"
32:16See, cuz when you understand something in your head, it's very different to write it down. It's not the same clarity. It's not And when you're talking about it, it's the same thing. It doesn't come out right. You say the wrong words. And so, practicing that is really good. But writing is about to change forever. The number of books will explode. The value of books will decline. The rise of AI will sort of take their place.
32:41Well, one of the things that I want to do with that. So, a few years ago before the pandemic, I started writing letters to my daughters. So, I only had my eldest daughter and I started writing letters for her because I I would think of a something that was like, oh, when my daughter's older, I want to tell her that. And then she was like three. And I'm like, by the time she's 15 I'll I'll have forgotten. So, like I I started writing. So, I I wrote like I think three full notebooks of letters.
33:08And then I And then my second daughter was born and started writing for both. And then eventually with AI, I was like, you know what? I'm going to record notes because that's With that I can train an app like a model like an AI to to to respond to them like me even after I'm gone. So, I'm like I'm I'm ready feeding That's awesome. That's a really good idea.
33:32It's like mom at AI mom, you know, like Yeah, yeah. What would mom do?
33:38She would tell me to put my head down and get to work.
33:42Right? So, anyway, we'll we'll get there. We'll get there. But I've seen you you you talk about uh after immediately after you launched the book you like maybe weeks after that you're already, I wish I had done this differently and that differently like maybe structuring the book. What would you have done differently? And most importantly, why don't you do it? Like do the you know, second edition?
34:04Well, I wrote the book three times. So, the version that everybody sees today is the third time. And it was only at the end uh of the journey, sort of like getting through the process, that I sort of was like, I would or I wouldn't change the content, I would just structure it differently. And a structure means so much to a book and the structure that I landed on made more sense to me.
34:29Uh and so, I think the structure that I would do makes more sense to me and everybody else and I I think that that would be a good maybe a follow on in the future or we'll see what happens, but yeah.
34:42You could do a revised edition. You know, there's still a lot of people that still need to read the book.
34:50Any any any big learnings from the process of writing it? Like any anything that you remember that uh know, you when when you started Well, I guess you laid out in one structure. You did it three times. Anything like for people that want to produce content, anything that you would do differently like from the get-go now having learned I tell people that experience is something that you acquire immediately after you needed it.
35:14100% yeah. So two things that I would say. One, if you're writing a book uh figure out the structure before you write the book. The structure is what everything hangs on and I didn't do that and I had great advice from Ryan Holiday who's like, "What are you doing?" And I was like, "I know better." And no, I don't know better. But the the other piece of advice that applies to all of your goals and not just writing a book is if you think about writing a book or
35:43running a marathon, that's a really big goal and it seems so far away and it's so far away that you don't start. You wait for perfect conditions. You talk yourself out of it. You do you know, the smart smart people do this you know, procrastination is like I need to learn more about it and that's a disease of smart people and I think the way out of this I learned from Emily Balcetis who was on the podcast and she had this
36:11really interesting insight that I've forever thought about. And it was like when a marathon runner gets tired halfway through a marathon, they don't focus on the finish line. They focus on the stop sign. Something that they can see. And I I took that and I applied it to my life. And so for a book, everybody focuses on when's the book going to be done, but you really need to shrink the gap between where you are and what your
36:40goal is. And shrinking the gap means I'm going to write a sentence today, going to write a paragraph today, going to write a chapter. And you think about this when you're running or when you're working out. We always tend to narrow the distance between We don't want to quit. We're like, if I can make it to that stop sign, then you make it to the stop sign or the light, and then you focus on the next light, and you keep going, and that's how something big gets accomplished. And I think it's a really interesting point for all of our goals
37:09for writing. I can't sit down and write a book, but I can write a sentence, and I can write a paragraph, and I can write a chapter. And I think breaking your goals down into those bite-size pieces gives you really good dopamine reward cuz you accomplish something, and you build this momentum, and the momentum actually starts to propel you. You do a couple of those stop signs, and all of a sudden you're not thinking about the next stop sign. You got through the hard part, and that hard part is where most
37:39Well, a lot of the results show what I I come just by not giving up, right? Like there two things also that I think might come from Charlie and and it like, you know, Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, too. Like just not being stupid, right? Like not not not being dumb, not making the mistakes. In opposition of getting a lot of things right, just not getting things wrong, right? Like or at least showing up, showing up every day. You know, in opposition of like being a brilliant or like being, you know,
38:07having that phenomenal insight. No, just show up. Do a little bit every day, but always show up.
38:12Well, you have to show up, and you have to give effort. And And to your point about not losing, I was talking to Bill Belichick last week, and one of the most interesting things that he said is a coach of a professional sports team, the winningest coach perhaps in history in his sport. And he said most teams aren't beaten, they lose.
38:34And what he meant was most teams self-inflict their own wounds. They're not beaten by the other team as much as they lose themselves. And you have to avoid losing before you can win.
38:45Oh, for sure. For sure.
38:48That's a great sentence for the I'll I'll even repeat. You got to avoid losing before you win, right? Like you cannot win if you're already losing, for sure.
38:56Um all right. So, let's talk a little bit about parenting cuz I know that's something that you're also passionate about. Uh so, you've been studying, making great decisions, learning. You have the knowledge project. How much of that were you able to pass on to your sons? I guess like there's one piloting AI like really well, you know? But but beyond that, like how how do you feel about how much you've passed on to them?
39:21Like by the way, parenting it's my the one thing that I'll go on for hours talking about is parenting, you know?
39:27So, I'd like I'd love to hear how you think about it.
39:29Well, I love being a dad. Uh it's one of the most rewarding things.
39:34sons, 14 and 15, and he loves being a parent, so.
39:38Yeah, it's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. Uh also one of the most challenging.
39:44Of course. I tell people like building a company, parenting. Parenting harder.
39:48For sure. More rewarding, for sure, right? Like the hardest, most rewarding thing ever.
39:55Well, I I think, you know, the hard part is doing the what you believe to be the right thing for your kids even when they don't see it that way. And I'll give you an example. So, coming out of COVID, I sent my uh son, who was going into grade seven, into a French school. And this sounds pretty innocuous. However, uh he didn't speak French.
40:22And he did not like it, and he cried every night for 3 months. He came home crying. And I remember just being present with him and saying you can do hard things. You can learn. You can get through this. And by the end of December, he's like, this is the best school I've ever gone to in my life. I know exactly what to expect.
40:46And I was reported to child services for sending him to this school and him crying. I was on the Tim Ferriss podcast and I talked about this. And I talked about the fact that as parents and culture, we've stopped getting our kids to do hard things. And I literally picked the hardest school I could send my kid to.
41:05The one that gave him 90 minutes of homework. The one that was in a different language than he spoke. And I really wanted to challenge him. And also, it was really hard. It was hard to have him come home and cry every night.
41:19It was really hard to sort of be like, we're going to get through this. We're going to get through it together. And now it's rewarded him because he knows what hard work looks like. He knows how to study. He's doing exams this week.
41:31And he's taken 200 exams. He's in a class with somebody, you know, it's their first exam. And it gives him sort of the confidence that when things are down, that he knows how to do it. He knows how to pull through. And I think it's really hard as a parent. It's hard to know that you're doing the right thing when he's coming home crying every night. And I feel this. Like, I would I would get really emotional, too.
41:55And for me, I was just like, we're going to do this.
42:00We're going to do it together, but I love you. I support you. And it's really hard as a parent to keep going down that path when everybody's telling you what you're doing is wrong. Everybody's telling you it's too hard or it doesn't make sense. And And I think that there's a lot about that that kids need to learn. And you know, I I I don't talk to my kids in the language of the book.
42:22Easy mode, hard mode is their way of defining it, which I thought was brilliant because it's like video games for them. It's like, why would I play on hard mode if I can win on easy mode? Or I don't want to play on hard mode until I can win on easy mode. And we started thinking about like, well, what does it mean to have easy mode? And so every Sunday afternoon we have easy mode time in our house, which is we sort of get our house in order. We do the Set it up.
42:49Yeah, we set it up because we don't know what the week is going to bring. We don't know if you're going to have a test this week. We don't know if you're going to have a lot of homework or a little homework. So, we know today we have time, we can do laundry, we can put away the ever all the clutter that gets around the house. We can What are the things that we can do? We can prep our meals this week to make the week operate on easy mode. And it really gets them thinking in terms of what do I control, what don't I control, how do I position
43:17myself to be my best self. Um and then letting them have the consequences to their decisions is another hard thing and knowing when to push and when to back away and when to let them fail and when to sort of like catch them and when to let them fall. And I think all of these things make parenting just as challenging as running a company, but also so rewarding and so incredible.
43:40There's nothing like coming home after a bad day or a long day and just getting a smile or a hug from your child.
43:48I I I couldn't agree more. And by the way, uh I I there are cultural differences, right? Like from how how parenting materializes in the US or in Canada versus Latin America in general. Like in here uh usually people have more help around the house. Like they have, you know, people helping with the house often they'll have a nanny like they'll have So the relationship is different to parenting.
44:12And one of one of the things that I've been telling people you may have seen some of this there's been like this surge of executives CEOs whatever like running marathons like doing Iron Mans like doing a lot which is of course remarkable. It requires a lot of discipline a lot of you know a lot of intensity a lot of resilience for sure. All all all great.
44:35Um and to the point that I saw an article on in the Economist that said that running a marathon was a new MBA because you know it brought you all these skills and this discipline and this resilience all true.
44:49But then I said you know what?
44:51So does parenting. You know I I I tell people that I practice extreme parenting. First because I have four kids. Secondly because I want to be very present in their lives so I didn't have a nanny until my third daughter was born. So like my my first two daughters all the the baby food that they ate I cook it myself.
45:13So it while running a business while doing everything that I was doing so well my husband and I we've always made it a point to be like very present and and really take care of them. And I tell people that you know parenting that way also requires a lot of resilience a lot of discipline and by the way it's not just up to you. When like in sports like you do the trick parenting is not about you.
45:37So it it's something that I really value and in that context I think there's a lot that we can learn from our parenting side like that that's a a question that I get all the time is like what has motherhood in my case but just parenting has taught you that no job no career no business could have ever taught you. So do you have a comment there like is there something that you feel that you've learned from parenting uh you take maybe to the business side or has it been mostly the other way around?
46:06How do you think about that?
46:07I've learned how to communicate better.
46:09Uh I think because the kids give me a test ground for communication. I I've learned how to be more patient because you can't be mad at a 2-year-old trying to walk falling down. You can't be upset. You can't be like, "Come on." Um so you learn all of these things and you learn to be present in the moment. And I think these moments are all fleeting. I was never one of those parents who wished for the next stage. Um there's always like, "I'll be happy when" people and I sort of talk about this in the
46:38book, too. Happy when the kids are out of diapers and those people are never happy because when the kids are out of diapers, it's "I'll be happy when they're in school. I'll be happy when they graduate. I'll be happy when" and you're just never happy. And so how do we embrace the moment that we're in uh whether they're vomiting on the floor or you know, you're just getting the best cuddles that you've ever had and how do you just be present in that moment and remember
47:06one day you will wish to have this moment back. And I think that um that's the most incredible thing about parenting.
47:14Oh, for sure. Whenever So I have very small children. Yours out of diapers for for a little time, but I have a 6-month baby.
47:21That's awesome. I would have more, you know.
47:24I have a 3-year-old, a 5-year-old, right? And And sometimes I like like they all sleep through the night. But you know, it happens, right? Like a a kid like waking up in the middle of the night. And whenever that happens or even when my last you know, child was was very young and you know, it was very was a newborn and I had to wake up in the middle of the night. I would tell myself, I was like, "10 years from now, 15 years from now, I would give so much to be back here." You know, in the middle of the night like, you know, trying to cuddle, trying to trying to
47:53soothe like this crying baby like, you know, what wouldn't you give? Right?
47:57Well, think of it differently. When you're when you're 80, you would give up everything, all your money, all of everything to be back in that moment.
48:05Everything to be back at that moment.
48:07So, I I try to savor like every every moment and to really like value it, for sure. Anyway, like uh parenting is is my thing. Is my is my jam. Is my jam.
48:19Your kids are very lucky.
48:21Um all right. So, we couldn't wrap this up without talking about AI, right? I think I feel like we touched about it. It has always been uh there's a lot that has been said about it, for sure. I'm just curious about as a content creator, right? Like, which is what you do.
48:37Um what what do you think and and I think many people in this audience are also content creators in some shape or form. They have businesses. They're trying to produce content in the context of their businesses to grow their businesses. How do you think AI is going to impact like you you've mentioned about AI taking a lot of jobs, like you people are not going to Scott Galloway says that, right? Like, you're AI is not going to take your job. Somebody that knows how to how to use AI is going to take your job.
49:03But, from the the point of view of a content creator, how do you think that's going to impact the knowledge project and knowledge curation, you know, in general? Like, how how do you think about that?
49:12Well, so I'll give you an example. So, uh about 4 weeks ago, we put 20 minutes of pure AI audio into a podcast that went out and was listened to over 200,000 times. Not one person noticed. Or not one person told me. So, it was our like my my voice synthesized by AI.
49:35And so, like, we're in a world where it gives you incredible reach. So, instead of me having to sit down and record something for 2 hours, uh it could be typed up and I could release it. But, the byproduct of this is everybody uses AI. And so, you have to be better than AI. And there's still a market and there will always be a market for real insight. And that real in Yeah, for this. And real connection with
50:02people and creating meaning and uh relationship with the people consuming your content. And this is one of the reasons so, I've always been behind the scenes. I've always been anonymous. I've always been uh relatively sort of it's not about me, it's about Farnam Street. And what I've come to realize with AI is that it has to be more about me. It has to be about my relationship with my audience and the people who are listening. And so, we have to actually go the opposite
50:30direction of what we were doing because in a world where you can get a book on demand or you can learn the lessons from any any person in the world tailored to you, probably hearing it in their voice.
50:44Uh what does that look like? Well, it looks like relationships. It looks like curation. It looks like insight. And I think if you're just creating content to create content and build something, you have to be better than AI. And AI is getting better, you know, say 20 to 30% a year because all of your competitors will be using AI. So, you can't create a competitive advantage if you're doing the same thing everybody else is doing.
51:10You have to do something differently or you have to do that thing differently. And how do you tie your brand and content creation to real life events, to people? I do more speaking now in part because of this. Um whereas before I was like just content to stay at home behind my computer. Oh, just hide here.
51:30Newsletter, blog, here you go. Podcast.
51:33But it's always been about other people.
51:34And and I think ironically it has to be a little bit a little bit more about me. I want to be uh I want people to know who I am because it's a human connection. And I'll give you an example of like one way we tested this. Two weeks ago, uh the newsletter we send out on Sundays to almost a million people, it always came from the name Farnam Street. And we switched it to Shane Parrish.
52:00And the open rate changed 4%.
52:04So, we had 4% higher open rate because it came from a person.
52:09Not And people connect with people. And so, I think that there's a just a shift going on, but if you're using AI to create your content, everybody's doing that. So, what differentiates you? Where do I add value, and how do I add connection to people? And I think those are the key questions that all content creators will have to answer in the future around AI.
52:31I'm a big believer even within the bank, like I tell that to people because we're a tech company first and foremost. Uh but, I believe that the the more technology there is in the world, the higher the importance or the like the more important it gets for us to be really human when it matters, you know, like the more um human emotional connection people will crave.
52:56So, you you got to find the ways to offer that in whatever shape or form.
53:00We have a psychological need to be a part of something larger than ourselves.
53:06The best companies in the world tie that to their products. Apple was about rebelling. It was about going against the system. It was about thinking differently. You, by buying an Apple product, were part of something larger than yourself. You were part of the rebellion.
53:27And I think the best content creators do the same thing. They make you feel that way. But, if you think of like what work from home has done, it's really driven us into an isolated space where we the world just looks like us, and we don't feel even if we're working at a company, we don't always feel like we're part of something, and companies have to go out of their way if you have a work from home policy to make people feel a part of the company cuz you shut the laptop down, and then what does your world look
53:57like? Well, you go hang out with your friends, and your friends make the same amount of money as you, and they probably think politically the same as you do, and they live in the same area as you do. So, the world just really starts to look like you. And then you vote that way, and you think that way, and the world is As you can see here, the world is much broader, and it encompasses all different types of people, and there's a meaning that comes from being part of society in that way that we can't replicate. And you can tap
54:25into this as a creator, you can tap into it as a brand, but how do we create the Like how do we satisfy that fundamental human need to be a part of something larger than ourselves? And this is the problem with universal basic income. You can't just pay people money and have them sit at home because then they disconnect from society.
54:47For sure. For sure. You know that we tried to do that um since since we launched Nubank. I was telling you about like this wagon.
54:53Uh So, we have a We've You've probably seen it. We have like this purple card, and when we first started, now we have 100 million customers in Brazil. So, almost everyone Who is a Nubank customer here?
55:04Like almost So, 60% of adult population in Brazil is a Nubank customer. And we're the largest um financial institution for SMEs, too, for small businesses. So, we have about 5 million small businesses that are also our our our clients. So, Well, hold on. All the people who didn't raise their hand, there's a Nubank booth here. You have no excuse.
55:28Exactly. So, when when we started, people would see each other like with the card, and they would say, "Oh my god, you have that card, Oh, I have it too. You know, like it was something that they bonded over. Now it's like more well spread, but we can still even for some of the new things that we that we launched like people are still like behaving like that. So, it's very it's very it's very rewarding to see like how people feel like they they belong that they have an emotional connection.
55:53guys are trying to do that, right?
55:54Create an emotional connection with your customers. And I think in a world of AI that will be a differentiator because AI is not going to create the emotional connection. Um you might still have a similar result, but you'll lack the emotion. And the emotion is really the highest switching cost you can have.
56:15All right. So, in that context, in terms of belonging, for those of you that want to belong to Cancer, I do have hats. I brought hats. Not thousands of hats, but many dozens of hats. Where So, where where are the hats? So, there's somebody from my team that is going to stomp like Oh, here he is. So, he's going to throw some around, okay? Lucas, feel free to Oh, I love this idea.
56:42So, I bring gifts, you know?
56:45They want some more there. Oh, Lucas, on this side, uh There's somebody having a heart attack on that side.
56:53going to need more hats.
56:54Okay. See? People go People go crazy for that.
57:00All right. So, I cannot wrap this up. One last question for Shane.
57:06What is success to you?
57:09Has somebody ever asked you that question?
57:12So, that's the question that Okay, let let's wait for the hat commotion for a minute. Cuz otherwise Omar, on that side over there, there's somebody that That guy with the with the black t-shirt there. Jumping up and down there there.
57:30I'll give you mine. I'll give you mine.
57:35Uh people are just going crazy over the hats. All right.
57:38This is awesome. The lights are on.
57:39I told you. Like it's Okay, so I think of success in a couple of different ways.
57:45In parenting, success is being present and having kids who grow up to be independent. In life, I want to leave the world a better place than when I got here. And I want to do that by creating equal opportunity and and trying to give people equal opportunity, but I don't believe in equal outcomes. And so, I want to make the best business education in the world available for free to everybody through
58:13the newsletter, through the podcast. And I think that's my way of sort of leaving the world a better place than I found it.
58:21That's a great contribution for sure for the world. I think I mean, most of us, if not all of us, we want to leave the world a better place than we got here for sure. If I may offer you something that I I I felt that really resonated with me. I think you're going to appreciate.
58:35Uh I tell people that my biggest dreams for sure is to see my kids grown up, being good people, being generous, being kind. Of course, like, you know, being being uh productive members of society, right? Like being useful. You know, generating value in some shape or form. To your point, like, we don't know it about about outcomes.
58:54But I think success is a lot ti- it's very tied to having your grown kids wanting to be with you.
59:01Oh, totally. There There's wanting to go to work and there's wanting to come home, and you need to want both of those things.
59:07Right? I think that that's what I'm aiming for for sure. Like, I want to raise kind, generous, you know, functional human beings. But if they want to hang out with me by the time I'm old, like, that that's that's really what I what I want to accomplish, you know? It's really hard.
59:24That's a That's a great answer.
59:27All right, guys. So, let me let Do you have any questions for me? Did Did you want to say anything that you want to say before we Thank you very much, Brazil.
59:39Give him, you know, our best applauses. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And see you soon. So, I'm going to be on the other stage. If you want to see me talk about career, business, mice on the sale, anything else, we're going to have a session on the other stage soon. Thank you so much for having me. Have a great day, guys. Bye, everyone.
