Masterclass: Money Wisdom from Shaan

for the past ten years i've been keeping this little notebook with a scratch pad that i call you see that money wisdom reminders to self and these are basically just anytime i heard something i read something or i learned something that was wise about wealth i would write it down and i put all the notes here and i'm today i'm gonna read you a bunch of other things that are in this notebook i you know i feel like i do that because in most places you can't really talk about money money is sort of this tacky taboo thing you're not supposed everybody has to pretend they don't care about money but we all do which is weird that you just have to treat it like this silent part in the room you have pretend pretend you didn't care about it if pretend it's not there but it's there and this channel luckily is different this is a channel will rec come we talk about business talk about money you're talking about my mindset we're talking about a bunch of different things that are interesting to us and really the only people who click on this channel are people that care about those things and so it's like when you go to the gym you can flex and talk about your pe because the other people there care about that sort of stuff so you know it's interested so this is the money wisdom channel i think in the next fifteen minutes i don't think this will be long i'll be able to go through a bunch of the nuggets i call called golden nuggets that i had written down in the first one i'll start with this the rich aren't just lucky so pretend we took all the money that existed and we red distributed it out everybody got same you know let's say a hundred thousand dollars to start with ten years later i think that most of the rich people would be rich again because well building is a skill and it can be learned for most people you wanna learn this skill but you don't know really know where to start and i'll give the i write down these sort of three shifts these big big small shifts that you can make what is a big small shift so i'll i'll give you a quick story a man wants to learn golf so he goes out and he buys you know set of golf clubs and he goes to the driving range starts hitting the balls and you know it's going left it's going right somebody going to the center he can't really control it doesn't know how to doesn't how to do it just started and so he's like okay i need to build the skill but i don't know how you know i don't know what i'm doing to be honest and so he sees like you know in the in the right next time in the driving range there's a coach teaching a kid so he walks over he tells the coach hey i'd love to learn coach has happy to work with you first lessons tomorrow morning okay so he shows up again tomorrow morning you know this coach teaches him a few another coach you know he's sort of a you know he's maybe twenty four years old he's he himself just graduated from college you know he's not the best of the world he's just the guy standing next to him but still it helps he's heading it a bit better but not much the ball still going left and right and you know the man thinks to himself this coach sucks i i don't want this crappy this guy's a kids coach i need a real coach it's so he says you know what i'm gonna hire the best who's the best coach it goes and finds a professional golfer to be his coach and this coach gives us some instructions within a few minutes he's hitting the ball straight it's going great and so he says alright i'm ready to go play tomorrow i'm playing a full eighteen holes of golf let's do this shows up the next day and he's ready to hit the ball straight again but today things are going different today it's slicing one left to slicing right and he's getting frustrated and the worst part the thing it's frustrating him the most is that the coach is not saying anything he sort of expects the coach to jump in and and fix it but he coach is just watching so finally turns around he says hey coach or are you gonna you're gonna do something you're just gonna stand there alright like look at i'm way off i gotta do gotta change something and the coach smiles and coach says you know you think you're way off but you're really only two millimeters off coach no offense i know you're the expert here but pretty sure i'm off by more than two millimeters the ball's gone a hundred yards into the lake here and coach yeah yeah yeah i understand that the outcome might be far off but all you you're only off by two millimeters you you just need a two millimeter shift you see because when your golf club hits the ball if it's two millimeters angle to in the wrong direction it will completely change the trajectory of where a ball is going right a small shift in the angle here it's gonna take us in a completely different direction and so he just shows him a couple tweaks watch where you're where you're hitting the ball look at the face of the of the club so he makes the adjustment takes a swing nails it no i heard the story first from tony robbins and i don't know i don't know if it's real or fake or whatever but i love the idea because it really rain true to me most things in life even if you're far off in your outcome you're actually just only a small shift in your approach away because that's what changes your trajectory and so here's the small two millimeter shifts that i think most people need to make this is after all the money wisdom that i collected they all kind of bucket into these three shifts that you can make shift number one hard work to smart work growing up we're all pretty much told hard work is the key to success our teachers tell us this our parents tell us this but we gotta ask is this really true because i look outside i see the lawn guy mow the lawn and working in the the the summer heat he's working hard or are you going into any restaurant go to the back of the kitchen look at the line cooks those guys are working hard they're working crazy hours it's hot out there it's difficult they're on their feet all day they work you know saturdays and sundays because the restaurant doesn't stop they work hard and you know you sort of think about it like well if hard work equals success then why isn't it i jan driving a bentley right because what you work on and who you work with is what matters it matters a lot more than how hard you work so again what you work on thing you actually choose to do and who you work with will make a far bigger impact in your trajectory than just hard work in fact there is hard work does help but it's maybe the fifth or sixth most important factor in my opinion i do think there's sort of a minimum like you need to work hard enough but beyond hard enough there's not really like a maximum you should be chasing the goal is not to work as hard as you possibly can okay so what should you actually work on right i said that's the most important thing well neville ra says a best he says you wanna find the thing that feels like play to you and work to others and you should keep dabbling until you find that because at first you might say well well feels like play to me is watching a netflix okay cool that feels like play to but it doesn't look like work to others and so you have to find the thing that is play to you work to others for me for example it's business stuff so i am a nerd i love reading out learning about businesses i like to go you know if a stock is if a company is gonna go public i'll go read the s one i wanna read all inner workings of the business to most people they see this hundred page pdf it's like you're digging through to find the balance sheet or the the p and l statement for for what you your is your boss telling you to do this no i actually enjoy doing that but to others it would seem like work and so that's a kind of a sweet spot you wanna identify and really lean into those types of moments or this podcast some people get really nervous about public speaking or it seems like a lot of work or wow you gotta you gotta come up with something you know an hour worth of stuff to say every two days about business and don't you feel a lot of pressure no no this feels like play to me and so if it feels like work to others but it feels like play to you those are the the that's the sweet spot that's what you're looking for for some people that's programming programming could be you know a a joy to some people and it's a pain to others for some people it's writing like i love writing other people hate writing they think writing is as they still have trauma from school they hate they can't stand writing you know for my trainer it's exercise after he trains me and you know four other people he's been in the gym for six hours straight where does he go when he's done to the gym because he wants to get his work on it it's crazy like the you know for him exercise and being in the gym feels like play whereas to others it would feel exhausting i feel like work hell marie con loves cleaning she made that her thing she loves cleaning but that feels like work to to me and many others so you gotta find that thing why does this matter because when it feels like play you'll do it a lot not just nine to five you'll do it from five to nine two you'll just do it all the time any available moment you have your brain will go in that direction because it's something you enjoy doing so much and because you enjoy doing it you'll keep doing it you can do it for a long period of time even if you're not getting immediate results right there's many things that we will do if we get immediate results it's the things you're willing to do even without immediate results that lead to these big wins in the end and you know you know what they call the guy who practices all the time and never gives up right so somebody who does it all the time and could do it for for a long period of time the best that's what they call the guy call him the best and the best always gets paid in any field the best plumber gets paid the best then he gets paid the best whatever you are gets paid and so you wanna find the thing that feels like i play to you because it will help you become the best shift number two so we've gone from hard work to smart work and that's finding the thing that feels like play to you and work to others now shift number two is you wanna go from being far away from money to hanging out with money so let's pretend you wanna get a six pack to get a six pack to get ads you need to start thinking and acting like somebody who already has a six pack right like they make certain choices about how they eat they make certain choices about with like you know if you travel with somebody who's fit they got in their bags some protein powder resistance bands they'll pick a hotel based on the gym they make decisions you don't make because they have a certain set of priorities and habits that you don't have so you have to sort of think like a fit person to act like a fit person then you become a fit person same goes for wealth you gotta think like a wealthy person act like a wealthy person and then you become a wealthy person most people get this wrong they laugh about this like oh so i should just think rich guys buy you know ferrari so i should go by a ferrari not really you wanna find their habits not their extra right not their indulge is you wanna find their habits you wanna hang around with them so that you understand what their habits are the the small things they do on a day to day basis that make them who they are and you need to start doing them so you need to shift your way of thinking to match the type of person that you wanna become alright so how do you how do you start thinking like a wealthy person well you gotta hang out with them but how do you hang out with them right like you know you they they may not be around you you know what if you don't know anybody so there's three ways the first is peers so you wanna find you know five people with the same dream as you right do you know five people who have the same dream as you who are taking it as seriously as you or more seriously you wanna find those people you need to create a group chat you need to create a weekly dinner help move into a house together do whatever it takes when i wanted to get good at poker i literally lived with a bunch of other people who trying to get good at poker and all day we're all playing poker we're all talking poker over our meals we're thinking about poker we're asking each other for questions we're getting inspired by somebody else's success we're getting better about that guy's success but it makes us work harder you wanna immerse yourself in an immersive environment where you're gonna get better and so get as close to it as you can living together is the best if you can't do live together get you get or you get a group chat together do whatever it takes the second one is mentor so you got your peers now you want your mentors this is somebody's already done it you can learn from them the trick here is really simple what mo will do wrong is they go and ask for you to be their mentor here's what you actually wanna do you wanna find somebody's who's already done you wanna ask them on a specific question hey i'm dealing with this situation right now i need to i need to decide to do an a and b here's what i'm thinking could you give me any you know advice on the this decision between a and b how would you think about this then whatever they say you go take massive action on it and then you follow you say hey you told me that thing here's how here's what happened you know either it really worked or really didn't work here's what i'm doing next did you repeat it you do that three times to somebody they're kind of informally your mentor anyways you never need to ask them to sort of like you know be in a relationship with you it'll just happen naturally by being somebody who asked ask specific questions so don't ask them for their time ask them for their specific advice then actually take action on it and then the key follow up if you repeat that you'll have mentors okay the next way you hang out with money you gotta change your information diet so if you're already listened to this podcast or watching this video on youtube congratulations you're already doing it but you need to ask people who have achieved what you want what do you listen to what do you follow what do you read and what are your favorite youtube channels you know my greatest teachers are people i've never met this is people that i follow from twitter and books and podcasts and youtube they've made the biggest impact on me you don't you don't need to actually physically necessarily hang out with everybody for them to make an impact but like let's say you listen to this podcast we release two maybe three episodes a week each episodes about an hour so you're hearing us for two or three hours a week that's more of the most people talk to their mom that's more the most people talk to their friends that's more than most people talk to anybody so you bringing this conversation into your world is changing the type of conversations that you're having you start to change your conversations it'll change your thinking change your thinking until change your actions change your actions you change your results that's how it goes so these are the three ways that you can hang out start to hang out with wealth there's one other one that i didn't mention here which is when you hang out with wealth literally you get around people who've have done with shit it gives your imagination more food so when you like i remember the first time i went to a really rich person's house and i'm like he's got a chef and he's got like oh the this guy just came over just did that for them oh interesting oh they're saying that they travel once a month to go do this thing and this charity thing that they do that sounds really fulfilling that you know those stories sounded awesome it taught me like how to how to figure out what to even want and what's possible what's achievable because when you see it it's a lot more realistic than just thinking about it or hearing about it like you know beliefs are good but an experience is always better and so just hanging out with people who already have wealth gives you a sort of these all these like subconscious cues it makes things feel more realistic it gives you different things that you dream about maybe you don't care about a car like for me i never cared about cars but maybe i wanted to like i always thought i wanted court tight seats at an nba game then i saw a rich person with a chef and i was like screw the game i wanna a chef that seems awesome right healthy tasty food that's being made by somebody else saves you time that's that's unbelievable so that's you know that's the one other thing about hanging out with money alright shift number three going from small swings to fat pitches i love saying fat pitches alright so common mistake most people will make they take small swings like but they take the first good offer that comes their way the first good job or the first good deal they start too many projects at once i've definitely been guilty of that before they chase shiny so i'm doing this thing oh there's anything go over there you can do anything but you just can't do everything this is a hard lesson to learn life you can do anything but you can't do everything and the beauty of this is you don't have to do everything so warren buffett one of the wealthiest men in of the world one of the best investors in the world he missed whole internet wave like the last twenty years base been dominated by the tech industry they missed it that's alright he's still ended up doing great why because he understands coke and geico his fat pitch was companies like that that were in his zone of competence things he understood that he was able to act on and he you can get rich anyway right the beauty of it is you only gotta get rich one way you don't have to get everything right just gotta get one thing right to be rich ted williams one of the greatest baseball hit ever he was famous for waiting for the fat pitch he would sort to map out the strike zone he said alright all of these are strikes but you noticed that you know when it's dead center i hit four hundred but if i try to hit on the edge of the strike zone i'm only hitting two thirty and so what made the difference between ted the greatest hit or ever and you know the average or even above average hit was that they would swing at the you know the the the pitches where they would average two thirty whereas he would only swing at the pitches where you'd average four hundred right that was his attempt a two to wait for the fat pitch and only focus on hitting those and warren buffett takes us even further for investing so he says unlike baseball there's no called strikes in investing and you can literally sit there and pass on fifty opportunity straight just waiting for your fat pitch and you know somebody asked you know what does a fat pitch look like here's what here's what warren had to say about that he says if you look at the stock exchange it's high you know for the last twelve months will be you know maybe hundred fifty percent higher than the low low you know the low the part of the stock market he says all you have to do is sit there and wait until there's something really attractive that you understand and you could forget about everything else that's a wonderful game to play in there's almost nothing where the game is stacked in your favor like the stock market but the problem is people start listening to on tv or whatever talking or they may read the paper whatever and they take this advantage that you can wait for something you really like that you really understand and pounce and they turn it into a disadvantage there's no easier game than stocks but you just have to be sure you don't play it too often and that's the mistake that people make they play too often they they swing too many times they don't wait for the fat pitch and that's why their returns go down you know the first ten years of your career you probably don't even know what a fat pitch looks like even if it was to hit you in the face so my advice for most people is the first ten years just go work the with the smartest highest energy most resourceful people you can find go into emerging markets or exciting fields and just try to do exciting worth work with exciting people because doing that is what's gonna train your gut to actually notice fat pitches if you're doing that you're reflecting consistently you're looking back you're alright what did i learned last year what looking back what should i actually been focused on last year you'll start to learn oh wow there all these like opportunities that were coming my way that i actually didn't recognize to be as good of an opportunities as they were and so you gotta spend those first ten years like that to hone your gut and then after that you'll be able to notice those fat pages some common things about like what is a fat pitch what does that mean so like a platform shift like when the iphone first came out there's an app store all of a sudden there was this new computer in everyone's pocket and nobody had built apps yet that was a fat pitch waiting to happen anybody who jumped on that like instagram back then they are do very well law changes there's a rule of regulatory change that creates opportunity if there's a new tech you know technological breakthrough like ai right now you know what what people are doing building on top of chat gp or a gp four that's a fat pitch market panic so anytime the market just panic and sells everything well everything on sale that's a good opportunity to buy great companies another one is working at a generational company early on so if you saw facebook in two thousand four to two thousand eight you could go in and be like look it doesn't even matter that this is you know how much i'm gonna make off this you just wanna be on that rocket ship and so there's one of these you know in one or two of these every decade and big a part of them is you know that's a fat bitch the other one is when somebody owns something but they don't realize what it's worth you know they they they have an asset but they don't really understand it fully or they don't have the right lens but you do you know what you could do it this happens on real estate all the time somebody sitting on a building it's only rents down for this much so they still at at a fair price for what it's worth but another guy comes in and it says i know that i can get a new permit to zone this for multi family and i can build more units on top and so he's selling it at what he thinks is a fair price but to me it's actually a steal because i have asymmetric information it that word asymmetric matters asymmetric information is when you know things that others don't asymmetric upside is when let's say you invest in a startup and a start you know you invest a hundred dollars the most it can lose is your hundred dollars but startups when they win they could be hundred extra thousand returns that's asymmetric upside you can win a lot more than you can lose and so you wanna look for opportunities where you have either asymmetric information or asymmetric upside as a general rule of thumb for how you how you invest now of course the likelihood of success matters right like every startup not gonna a hundred extra thousand x so you wanna find those where the probability of them working and the upside make it worth doing okay the other part about fat pitches you gotta swing hard most people take week half swings and they make a couple of calls or they you know they they were they send you one email but they don't follow up or you even give them an opportunity they don't follow through you know don't just sit there and just look or just bun right you gotta really swing and so winners follow up winners double down on what's working winners get on the next flight out to go meet you in person and the way i say it is intensity is the strategy most people want the magic strategy the magic formula but unfortunately the hard thing to understand is actually intensity is the strategy most of the time the strategy is pretty obvious it's pretty cut and clear it's the intensity you take to it that makes a big difference and so once you find a good strategy you wanna execute it just violently versus trying to wait for the the perfect magic formula perfect magic solution a perfect strategy that that doesn't exist here's an example of a hard swing so or was just a guy taylor off i don't know why it comes to mind but this first one i came to mind taylor he's the founder of a clothing company called feet now but back then he had a a merch business i think he was trying to sell socks or something and it was gonna okay but he wanted to double down so turns up the intensity he's like i'm selling merch i need distribution what if i had the distribution of some of the most famous fine in the youtube stars that existed and the top vine in youtube stars at the time where guys like logan paul and the king batch and stuff like that he says how do i get them to work with me right i don't even know these guys how do get them to work with me so he's watching their videos and he notices that all the doors in the background of their videos like the the apartment doors had the same handle and he's like three of the vine at the same they must live in the same building so he hunts down he finds the building moves across the country moves into the building and he knows that they like to work out so he starts just working out twice a day he's like this increases my odds of crossing paths of them and they do cross paths he tells him what he's doing they get to know each other eventually they become friends they partner with him he becomes the first guy to do merch with logan paul said sells millions of dollars merch you know right off the bat he basically leap frog to where he would have been with lower intensity without being willing to double down and and so i love that story because just it's a it's example of of all the things i mentioned right working smarter not harder of moving towards the people you want being near the people you want versus being far away and when you see if fat pitch double down swing hard at that thing so if you remember one thing from this section its intensity is a strategy winners don't usually have a better strategy is that they do the obvious things with more intensity than you do and the reality is you don't even know what max intensity looks like until you see it you need to go work with people who are real winners just to see oh that's how they attack when they see an opportunity or they have a problem how they how they go and approach things you gotta kinda sell what i say i always say is like you think the knob of the volume goes only up to ten and then you beat somebody and they actually at the volume theirs is turned up to fifteen and you're like oh shit now i know what level fifteen looks like as you have to see it once and then it'll let's imprint in your brain and so those are the three shifts find what feels like play to you and looks like work to others find a way to hang out with people who either have what you want or chasing it as hard as you are and then take a simple strategy and turn up the intensity you know this book probably has fifty other nuggets like that but that's all for today if you like this on youtube leave a comment i love to read them i'll respond to all of them every single one from this video and yeah that's it that's all for the the wealth the wealth wisdom or the money wisdom masterclass class for today thanks i feel like i could rule the world to i know why i could be what i want to put at all in it like a days all on a less travel never looking back but