WEBVTT - The Stoic Path to Wealth w/ Darius Foroux #854 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.960 Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel and I am 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.920 Matt and today we're talking the Stoic Path to Wealth 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:07.520 with Darius Feroux. 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:27.280 Yeah. 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.960 So you might be tempted to think that an alternative 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.599 name for this episode could just simply be Emotionless Investing, 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:39.040 but there's a lot more to Stoicism and finances, specifically 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.960 investing than just that. And we're excited to be joined 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:46.040 by Darius Feroux. He is a prolific author and entrepreneur 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.599 and productivity expert known for his work on personal development. 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:52.920 Much of his writing can be found over at his 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.560 site by the same name dariusferux dot com, where he 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:00.680 focuses on wealth building, productivity, and finding meaning and work. 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.360 And these are all topics that we're hoping to cover today. 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.200 And Darius has written several books, including the newly published 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.319 literally was just published yesterday, The Stoic Path to Wealth, 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:15.679 which blends ancient Stoic philosophy with modern financial wisdom. And 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.120 that's what we're mainly talking about today. It turns out 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:20.640 Marcus Aurelius, he's got something to say about your four 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.440 win k. But Darius, thank you so much for speaking 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:26.280 with us on how to money today. 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:28.919 Yeah, thank you for having me really appreciate. 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.520 It of course. Yes, interesting subject and you're the expert 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:34.360 on it. So looking forward to this combo, Darius. The 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.200 first question that we ask anybody who comes on the show, though, 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:39.960 is what do you like to splurge on? Because Matt 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.039 and I we like to spurgeon craft beer, and we 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.920 figured that's a good release anybody, even if they're doing 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.240 the stoic the whys the smart thing saving investing for 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.280 their future, they got to have something to spend on 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:51.680 in here now too. What's that for you? 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.880 Yeah? So the thing that I splurge on is Apple products, 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.040 something that I struggled with for a long time because 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.280 I always try to talk myself out of it, saying, oh, yeah, 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.760 do I really need to have a new iPhone And 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:08.519 the answer is no because the previous one works perfectly, 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:13.240 But deep inside I just love to play with those 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.160 gadgets and my house looks like an Apple store. So 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:21.079 that's something that I splurge on and fortunately doesn't happen 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:26.160 that often, but still I really enjoy using the products. Nice. 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.600 Okay, So were you happy or disappointed with the new 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:31.440 headset that came out last year? 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.960 Well, that's the only product probably that I don't have, okay, 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.000 because that was just a little bit too much for me. 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.000 But yeah, I honestly I have of course the phone, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.640 the iPad, the MacBook, the iMac. I even got a 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:51.200 MacBook Pro. I have two laptops. Who needs two laptops? 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.280 Well, the only the biggest problem I think with anything 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.240 Apple or just the biggest electronic gadget that people replace 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.400 more frequently than they want to now the earbuds, like 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:03.880 I figure with Apple calls them, but I have the 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.080 cheap kind myself. But think about those, there's like one 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.160 hundred and twenty bucks or something like that, maybe even more, 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.040 and they lose, they fall out of your ear like 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:13.960 it's those to me here. I don't know the biggest 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:15.799 problem right now with electronic waste. 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.120 Yeah, I had some issues with the first one, but 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.320 now since I have the Pro or not the big one, 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.760 I don't have those either, the Max but the in 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.760 air earbuds. Fortunately I bought them once and they still work, 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.160 so nice. I've been lucky with those, very nice. 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.560 Darius is an Apple fanboy. We want to hear a 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.160 little bit about your background, Darius. Though your family it 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.880 sounds like they basically mean y'all started from nothing. So 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.320 can you just kind of share with us the impact 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.080 of leaving like a war torn country basically, and then 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:49.760 the impact that it had on you and your family. 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.960 Yeah, definitely. So I was born in nineteen eighty seven 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.760 and Tehran, and at the time there was a war 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.600 between Iran and Iraq, and my parents fled the country 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.720 to the Netherlands in eighty eight when I was one, 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.280 and they basically had to start from zero. We almost 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.680 had no family, and my father had to go to 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:17.880 school and get educated and have a start a career, 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.479 and he always worked blue collar jobs, and my mother 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.560 stayed at home to raise me and my brother, and 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.839 we always lived paycheck to paycheck, and my parents always 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:33.800 did their best to make sure that we didn't know 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.520 the height of the financial struggles in the house, but 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.359 it was always present, you know, we could just feel 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.960 the energy even as kids. So that was something that 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.000 really created a sense of urgency in me, because as 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.920 a child, I knew that I had to become wealthy 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:56.359 because I just didn't want to go through life worrying 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.440 about money. So that was really something that really my 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:01.760 outlook on money. 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.479 Yeah, you said that your parents tried to kind of 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.360 guard you. They try to protect you from knowing kind 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.160 of what they're going through. And I think most parents, 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.320 the best parents, try to do that, but even still 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.240 it's insufficient. Like kids are perceptive and they're going to 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.599 pick up on the things that are going on behind 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.679 the scenes, even with parents trying to do their best 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.120 to make sure their kids aren't impacted by it. Yeah, 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:24.920 and I'm curious you mentioned how that kind of sets 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:29.800 you up for desiring financial security in your own life. Yeah, 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.320 how did kind of what was going on with your 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.159 family's finances impact your career path, your view on money, 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.920 and then this kind of belief that you needed financial 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:38.920 security for yourself. 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.200 So when I was like twelve or thirteen, my friends 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:46.239 started to have jobs, and I went to my parents 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.240 and I said, look, everybody has a paper route or 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.360 works in a supermarket. I need to have a job 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.719 because I want to start making money. And they said, no, 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:01.200 you should focus on getting your degrees, focus on school 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:07.720 because if you get distracted, you might risk doing what 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.279 we did, which was to not educate it because in 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.800 my direct family, no one ever went to college, and 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:19.200 that's what my parents wanted for me, so I struggled 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.640 with it because I always saw my friends not only 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:26.480 it wasn't really about having a little bit of income 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.640 for them, but it was more that they had this responsibility, 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:32.920 and I felt like I was kind of missing out 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.080 on something. But looking back, I'm really glad that my 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:40.080 parents always encouraged me and my brother to focus on school, 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.400 because when I finished high school, they said, okay, fine, 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.159 just go and work during the summer, and that's what 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.760 I did. So I got a job at a call 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:54.480 center and I worked almost every day for the entire summer, 0:06:54.520 --> 0:07:00.920 and I basically saved everything that I made. So looking back, 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:02.680 I think that was a good experience for me to 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.640 wait for so long until I could have my first job, 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.040 and then they really saved that money because at that time, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:14.679 I was still thinking that you need to just hold 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:16.880 on to everything that you earned because that's how you 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.080 get wealthy. And of course I had no clue about investing. 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.600 And I did watch the movie Wall Street in my teens, 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.560 so that's one type of education exactly, so I did. 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.360 So I already knew at that stage, Okay, I need 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:36.640 to somehow become like Gordon Gecko I just don't want 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.480 to end up in jail. But I need to become 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.240 a stock trader or investor because that's where all the 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.720 money is. But yeah, it took me a long time 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.560 before I really figured out how to get into that. 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:52.920 Darius learned the exact obbsos lesson of what they're trying 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.280 to portray, which is like, look at this terrible, wretched 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.760 human being. Yeah, Garius is like, I want to be 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:02.480 that exactly my hair in that same beautiful way. So 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:07.040 how do you bridge the gap then? From being frugal, like, hey, 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.160 I see my parents struggles. They stress the importance of 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.280 education that way I can make a solid income. 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:15.880 But then I need to be an investor. I need 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.480 me building wealth and the Gordon Gecko thing that seems 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:20.640 like it's like the seed of something. But then how 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:23.640 did you become an educated investor? And what was that process? Like? 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.600 Yeah, so I have my first taste of investing in 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.480 two thousand and seven. So at the time, I was 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.960 in college, and this is before the financial crisis. So 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.800 I was twenty years old and you could have a 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.520 side job at a bank, and I started in the 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:46.199 personal banking division, just handing out credit cards and processing 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:52.040 applications for credit, et cetera. And there was a position 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.480 to become a mutual fund advisor and all you had 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.040 to do was get a four week training and then 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.840 you could just call clients of the bank and offer 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.599 them the latest mutual funds. So my Gordon get go 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.120 censor goes off and I'm like, yeah, this is what 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:16.439 I need to do, and almost instantly I think I'm 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.920 this genius. So I also start to invest with my 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.320 own money, and I bought stocks of the bank that 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.840 I worked at ing and within a year, of course, 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.559 the financial crisis happens and I'm down like sixty percent. 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:32.880 Tough time to get invested in the market for the 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.839 first time, Yeah, exactly. It. 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:41.720 I honestly bought at the height of the market. Yeah. 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:45.319 So that experience taught me a very important lesson that 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.480 money and investing is very emotional because it felt like 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:55.360 a gut punch. And I didn't sell at the bottom 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.080 because at that time I was still learning and I 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:04.720 knew that you shouldn't sell during these moments. However, I 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.600 didn't know what else to do because I was picking stocks, 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.440 which in hindsight wasn't a smart thing to start with 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.840 but I stayed in the market for a few years, 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.600 and then I just couldn't handle it anymore because every 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.680 time I looked at my account it was just down 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.520 and I wanted to stop the pain. So I sold 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.839 and I said, look, I need to figure this thing out, 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:32.319 and when I figured it out, I'll come back to investing. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.360 And I just started on this educational spree. I went 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.840 to business school and specialized in finance and started reading 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:46.200 all of these investment books and yeah, still nothing really happened. 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.000 To be honest, I'm sure that was a period of 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:50.160 time where you wish you would have had a degree 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.960 of stoicism in your life that you would have been 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.800 able to abide by. But I guess on that note, 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.319 I feel like, generally speaking, it feels like stoicism. It's 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.640 a little bit more in Vogue's days. I'm sure Ryan 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.880 Holliday probably has a lot to do with that's the 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:08.720 resurgence of the stoics. But why have you found that 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.280 that approach to life resonates with you so much? 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:17.200 Yeah, so fast forward to twenty fourteen fifteen. At that stage, 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:20.640 I was still trying to figure things out of my career. 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.800 I had started a business after I finished grad school 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:28.040 with my dad, and it was in the industrial laundry equipment. 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:32.679 I wasn't really passionate about that industry. And then I 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.080 started a corporate career in London. I worked at Gardner, 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.600 this IT research firm. I realized this is also not 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.200 for me. I want to start a business for myself, 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.240 but I didn't know what. So I moved back to 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.880 the Netherlands and I thought to myself, I need to 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:53.240 figure it out. I need to get started with something 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.360 because I have no clue what I'm doing. And at 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:02.160 that stage I discovered stoicism. Because every time I feel 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:07.120 like I'm overwhelmed or confused, I always turned to books 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:12.080 and I remember reading The Four Hour Workweek by Tim 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:16.760 Ferris and he had this small chapter or section on stoicism, 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.679 and I found that really helpful. So I started reading 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.280 all of the original works. And what I love about 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.960 the philosophy is that you can just explain it in 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.559 one sentence, which is focus on what you control and 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.360 ignore everything else. And it gave me a lot of 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:37.040 clarity because I honestly had no clue what I wanted 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.080 to do with my career, and I thought to myself, well, 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.800 now that I have a little bit more clarity and 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:49.320 I can stop worrying so much about my future, let 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:54.120 me start writing a book. And that's when I wrote 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:59.160 my first book. And around that same time, I also 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:04.320 thought to myself, well, I'm reading these works from these 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:09.320 philosophers like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and these 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.160 folks wrote about all of these ideas for better living 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.920 twenty three hundred years ago. But all that I'm thinking 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.440 is how can I use this knowledge to become a 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:26.880 better investor. So I was lucky that my book and 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:31.000 the first few articles that I wrote resonated with readers, 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.200 and I started to see a path to earning a 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:40.120 living with writing books. And that gave me this opportunity 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.439 to really study the stoics more and see how I 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.480 could finally figure out how I could apply it to 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.640 manage my emotions better, not only in my personal life, 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:55.439 but also with investing. And then slowly the seeds started 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:59.440 to grow for what I call stoic investing. 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.520 Because I feel like in the personal finance space, I've 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:04.559 seen a pivot in the opposite direction, which is to 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.520 talk about a lot of things that we can't control, 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:12.280 and the problem is that's a really deep thing, like 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.560 there are a lot of things we can't control, and 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.120 it's really we could spend hours and hours and hours 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:21.480 talking about a laundry list of those subjects and the 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:25.160 ways in which we're impacted by things that we can't 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.920 really have any sort of impact on the outcome of. So, yeah, 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.640 talk to me. Stoicism the way you're describing it, and 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:37.320 kind of the historical approach is it's a holistic life, 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.720 the way of approaching life. You talk about it specifically 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.840 about the intersection of stoicism and money. What does stoicism 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.080 have to do with wealth building in particular? 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:52.600 Yeah, So stoicism is a philosophy that really promotes indifference 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.680 to everything that you don't control. And when it comes 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:02.720 to investing and personal finance, you don't control. Like you said, 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.600 like ninety nine percent of what people talk about. We 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:12.240 don't control the economy, we don't control inflation and so forth. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.640 That list is obvious. So basically everything that they talk 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:21.320 about on CNBC. But when you look at our actual 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:25.800 investments that we make, we also don't control the outcomes. 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:28.320 We all know that the S and P. Five hundred 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.800 has annualized returns of around ten percent over the past 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:38.840 fifty years. Everyone who's into personal finance knows this, But 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.760 the thing is that it's not within our control. Maybe 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:47.400 it's eight percent moving forward, but it shouldn't matter to 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:51.840 you as a stoic investor or as a person. I 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:58.080 feel like because the stoic's really promoted indifference towards outcomes. 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:03.600 So when you really applies stoicism to your personal finance 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:08.360 and investing strategy, you'll learn to create some distance between 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.280 yourself and your money. And I feel like that's the 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.960 best thing that you can do for your mental health, 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.520 but also for your career, because when you have some 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:21.160 indifference when it comes to your money, you can just 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:25.080 relax and focus on your career and your family and 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.520 your job and everything else that is important while you 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:34.360 are still doing your best. Because epictetis one of the 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:39.200 most stringent philosophers, said that you should demand the best 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:43.800 of yourself every single day, and to me, that means 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:48.800 that every single day I just need to perform my 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.800 duties as a human being and not complain and try 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.000 to become better not only in my career but as 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.880 a human being. So if I'm so obsessed with money, 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.080 I can't do those things. And that's something that I 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:08.560 personally experienced because I would say my entire life up 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:13.199 until around twenty seventeen when I finally started to apply 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.760 all of these lessons, because I discovered it like twenty 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.399 fourteen fifteen, but it took me a few years to 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:24.639 really apply it in my own life. But when I 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.080 started to apply it, I realized that I was too 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.680 obsessed with money and that caused a lot of friction 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:39.480 and anxiety and mental blocks. And when I resolved those things, 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.440 I could really focus on the act of investing, which 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:47.159 is actually just nothing more than a habit. Just like 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:51.879 we work out and eat healthy, et cetera, investing is 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.600 also a habit. So when you remove all of the friction, 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:59.600 you can just do it. You can invest without wasting 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.280 your time and energy and just focus on living a 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:02.879 good life. 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.280 Yeah, you're talking about cultivating the sense of indifference, and 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.639 I like what you said about creating some distance between 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:11.560 you and your money, but like, how do you practically 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:12.960 go about that. I feel like we're kind of getting 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.960 into more of the meat of the intersection of stoicism 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.840 and investing or your wealth. But like you said, CNBC, 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:23.159 that's all they talk about. 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:24.360 All they're talking. 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:25.920 About is the noise. It's the things that you can't 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.399 really control. So is it as simple as creating like 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.239 an information diet right where you're limiting the inputs that 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.200 are having an impact on your life. 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.440 I'm not a fan of information diets, and I'm also 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:44.760 not a fan of the common investment advice of become 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.879 a passive investor and never look at your portfolio. I 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.840 love John Bogel, and John Bogel, the founder of Vanguard, 0:18:52.920 --> 0:19:01.000 of course, basically made this whole ETF investing possible. And 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:03.080 one of the things that he said was, yeah, just 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.920 invest your entire career and just never open your brokerage account. 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.520 But I feel like you should be able to open 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.639 your account without getting swayed. You should be able to 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.199 look at CNBC. You should be able to read the 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.040 Wall Street Journal without thinking to yourself, oh, okay, what 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.920 should I do? Maybe should I I should sell or 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:27.160 maybe I should buy n Video stock or whatever? Right, 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:31.480 And I think that's the ultimate goal as a stoic investor, 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.080 that you become indifferent to all of the noise and 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:39.280 you can just handle everything that people throw at you 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.879 and the media throws at you, because you have the 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.879 sense of calm and you know what you are doing, 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:51.320 and you've eliminated like ninety nine point nine percent of 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.920 the investment strategies, and you know what you're doing, and 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.760 you're fine with everything that basically is happening because you 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:00.639 don't have to react. 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:02.760 Something you're getting to here, I think is being able 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:07.200 to trust yourself. And like one of the things is, yeah, 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.080 maybe you don't like zone out and watch CNBC for 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.399 like six hours, Like you're probably setting yourself up for failure. 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.520 I'm assuming that a good stoic investor probably isn't doing that. 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.560 But you're also not saying I can't watch at all, 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.040 or I can't even open, you know, the homepage of 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.000 the Wall Street Journal and read a few things without 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.160 without feeling swayed. So how do you You mentioned too, 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.600 that you found stoicism in twenty fourteen but found yourself 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.640 practicing not until like twenty seventeen. What was the gap 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:35.520 there and what does it look like then to incorporate 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:40.320 more of that those stoic approaches into your life. 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:45.040 Yeah, So one of the pieces of advice from the 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.320 stoics is to start small where you want to start 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:54.080 practicing stolicism. So I think also Epicthetis says something like, 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:59.679 start with a cup. Let's say your favorite gup falls 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.480 and bread. You should just say to yourself, oh, okay, 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:07.040 this is just a cup, and then you can slowly 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.879 build it up. So for example, I remember getting in 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:17.399 a fender bender around that time, and I was really 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.480 worked up. While it wasn't that big of a deal, 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.320 but I was just like the emotions and the anger 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:26.720 within me was like starting to get a little bit 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.680 out of control. And later on I realized what am 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:33.480 I doing? Like I have insurance or it's not even 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:35.960 my fault. Why am I getting worked up about this? 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:41.440 And I feel like emotions are normal. I still get angry, 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:46.000 for example, when I injure my back or something. You know, 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.399 that's something that I'm kind of prone to because I 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.639 used to play basketball in college and I have this 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:57.199 lower back issue since then, and every few months or 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.000 sometimes a few years can go by without having issue, 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:02.400 but then it pops up, and then every time it happens, 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:07.200 I get frustrated at first. And the key to stoicism 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:10.760 is that in the beginning, you might be stuck in 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.639 that emotion for a few days. But the more you 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:17.040 practice and the more you build it up from a 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:21.080 cup to a fender bender, to an injury to maybe 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.119 at some point losing your job or losing some money 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:27.480 in the stock market, when you start to build it 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:31.720 up that way and practice shrugging it off, which is 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:35.960 also a classic technique of the Stoics. They literally said, 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:41.560 and this is something Marcus Aurelia said, when bad things happen, 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:46.240 shrug it off. Simply just the act of doing that 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:51.040 will put you more at ease. And after a while 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.840 I noticed that I was able to snap out of 0:22:54.880 --> 0:23:01.800 my negative mindset or anxious mindset quicker. So now my 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:06.520 rule is that I can be stuck in negative emotions 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:11.960 or being frustrated for a few hours, or I can 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:16.280 give you an example. I actually injured my back last week. 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:19.320 This is why this one is fresh in mind, because 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:20.880 you're feeling it right now. 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:24.960 Yeah, I'm feeling it. And it happened on a Tuesday, 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:28.680 And it was like at three after three pm. I 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:33.159 ordered some some some dumbbells for my home gym, and 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:35.520 I picked them up from the box and I felt 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:38.600 it in my lower back and I started cursing, and 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.760 I was angry, and you know, talked to my partner 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:44.239 and she was like, yeah, don't be so worked up. 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.919 And I stayed that emotion for a few hours, and 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:54.560 then by the evening I finally was able to snap 0:23:54.680 --> 0:24:00.440 back by just remembering the stoics. And a misconception about 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:02.879 stoicism is that you shouldn't have emotions or it should 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:06.159 be numb. That's not true at all. The thing is 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:10.239 that you should be able to detect what you are 0:24:10.280 --> 0:24:16.080 feeling and react accordingly. So translating that to investing, it 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:20.960 means that let's say a crash happens, you can look 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:23.080 at it. You don't have to run away from it. 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:27.000 You can maybe even explain it and understand it if 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:30.760 you have some historical context, which I always think helps, 0:24:30.920 --> 0:24:35.359 because let's say you're a writer or a dentist, you 0:24:35.400 --> 0:24:40.400 don't really have to have historical background into your profession, 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:44.120 but as an investor, it really helps. Knowing a little 0:24:44.160 --> 0:24:47.520