B3 Convida Morgan Housel | Entrevista completa na B3

[Music] my name is zenab Bush I'm the vice president for B3 the Brazilian Stock Exchange actually we are much more than a stock exchange but I'll get to that later and today I have the pleasure to have here with me Morgan howo so Morgan it's a really amazing it's amazing to have you here talking to our public and our audience they are willing to hear you talk about investment how we spend money and the psych of money of course so thank you so much for being here with us thanks for having me I'm happy to

be here it's my third time to S Paulo I always love visiting so thank you really do you like s Paulo how do you think about some what do you think it reminds me of the New York of Brazil that's that's what I think it is you know we're no not like San Francisco not like Seattle but like New York it's a business City Es as San Francisco right uh better weather than almost anywhere in the US that's true yes it is true but I have to tell you I love the US and I love

going there and learning from you so thank you it's great having you here so I'm going to hit right away morning so I heard that you say that you have like a half childhood with without luxuries or unnecessary spending what was like growing up in that kind of environment and what was your relationship with money uh as a child I had a very good childhood my father was a doctor my mom was a nurse but they were very frugal they didn't spend a lot of money and we lived in a town that was not very

wealthy a lot of poor people in the city that I grew up in and so I think my expectations were pretty low both because my parents didn't spend a lot of money and my town just there's there's nobody rich in my town and so growing up you know we had everything that we that we needed and some of what we wanted and I actually think that was a great way to raise kids I think my parents did a pretty good job on this if you have everything that you want you don't appreciate anything that you

have and so it it was a pretty healthy relationship with money and I didn't really experience I didn't really know that there were wealthy people in the world until I was a teenager 18 or 19 years old I didn't really know that they existed like like they did I had never seen a Ferrari I'd never seen a big fancy house before and then so when I saw that it was like oh there's this realization there's another world out there of money and at the time I'm very different now but at the time it was like

I want to be that guy I want to be the guy with the Lamborghini in the big house that's not me anymore but when I was 19 that was kind of my first um you know big influence with money was like those people have a lot they they they live this incredible life and I want that I think a lot of the young people in particularly go through this when they are U becoming teenagers and young adults trying to make a name for themselves they have some sort of inspiration that they see and they shoot

straight to the top and because they don't have a lot of job skills personality humor intelligence wisdom they want to gain their attention in the world with their car their house their jewelry that's kind of where it goes so that was definitely me when I was a kid perfect actually touch like you brought two points that I would like to tackle with you today the first of all we have to Value the things that we get so you often mentioned in your podcast that we have to work for that otherwise it won't mean a thing

and the second idea that you often propose is that everything that you're going to get sometimes just filling a gap and not it's not going to make you happy would you mind talking a little bit about those two ideas I think money can definitely make you happier spending money can make you happier I'm not one of these people who says Ah don't even don't even bother you know live for that's that's not how I think I think spending money can be a great thing I do think though that for a lot of people they are

trying to fill a hole in their personality they are uh unhappy with their careers they're unhappy with themselves they might be unhappy with some of their relationships and it's very easy to assume that oh if I had more money and if I spent more money those problems would go away and I think that can be a danger for a lot of people it is very common and very easy that if wake up and you are unhappy with your life that you say if only I had more money I would be happier it's such a tangible

thing and it's such an easy thing to want to Chase and sometimes it might be true money can solve a lot of problems and make things more comfortable but for a lot of people they are trying to fill a hole that cannot be filled with money and therefore I think you have a lot of very wealthy people all over the world who are still not very happy in life because they've been telling themselves their entire life if only I had more money I would be happier and then they get more money and they have just

as many problems in their relationships in their careers in their health those problems didn't go away and then they become really depressed when they realize that there actually is like no hope they they they have all the money they could ever need and they're still unhappy with life and that's a that's a hard realization for them yes it is it is definitely it is and I truly agree with you that money can can sometimes can buy you the freedom to be there's one book that has been written by Edward Louie which is a writer a

French writer it's like very Hy right now and he has written a book called Monique is free he said free and it talks about a woman who finally can get out of a poor marriage because of the money so I agree with you you have to have money to actually have some kind of power over your life but it does not mean everything yeah I think money can um help you live a better life and a happier life but if you were to name the things that make a happier life it would be uh independent

Freedom relationships Health those kind of things money can help those things but money is not one of those things so it can be a tool but it's not going to be the actual thing that makes you happy perfect it can be a toll so write it down people it can be a toll but it's not going to make you actually the happiest person nerve perfect well actually you said and shifting a little bit you said that war buffed sexcess with investment is linked it to the fact that he was a good investor for a tender

age do you believe that the notion of success and the way you approach investment as an adult deres from your experience with money as a child as well and you mentioned that you realized that there was money from 18 or 20 but do you think there's like a relationship in the way that you approach money I remember one time the very first investment I made it was in a certificate of deposit basically a a savings account uh that was earning 1% interest and I put $1,000 in it I think I was maybe 18 something like

that small amount of money earning 1% return and I didn't really understand what interest was I knew that I was supposed to do this I was supposed to save money but I didn't really I didn't really get it and I remember I woke up the next day and the account balance went from $1,000 to $1,000 and3 I made three cents three pennies of Interest I remember sitting there staring at it looking being like you paid me for doing nothing I just went to sleep and I made money even if it was 3 cents and I

think in that moment I was like I I I get it like this you can just get paid for doing nothing I think that will have a different impact on different people but for me it was like oh this is the ticket if you can just get paid for existing just just for waking up that that was that was going to be the ticket to you know you could you could see how that would scale in into something much greater over time so that was my my early experience with it and then that just kind

of delved into the study of investing and whatnot and it's always the case with investing that it doesn't necessarily matter that much what your returns are do you earn big returns or small returns doesn't really matter that much what matters are the returns that you earn for the longest period of time so if you can earn just okay returns just in a bank account even even if you're just doing it in a bank account savings account if you can earn those returns for 50 years and hold on to it for a long period of time

the results can be amazing and most people's attention particularly in the stock market is focused on how can I earn higher returns how can I earn like what stocks are going to go up this month and this year that's where the attention is and most of the money is actually made on people who earn just okay returns but do it for their entire lives so the longer you can do it the better you're always going to do perfect and I love this idea because people like they're kind of they're not willing to make their first

investment because they are afraid of losing money and this is something that I hear a lot here in Brazil oh I'm not going to go to the stock market or I'm not going to do like a more sophisticated kind of investment because I am afraid to risk at all and lose it but you know what we are often making every day every day we are making choices and we are losing money like when you buy something that you're not going to use or when you're buying something just to show off to people and I think

that people do not realize that what make you like a very good investor is like doing doing it with discipline regularly and just waiting because there's no such thing with as high returns in a short period of time this kind of magic h i I think what what's also true in the stock market too is that the volatility which people will say oh I I I lost money this month or this year whatever it might be that's actually why you do well over time if you are willing to put up with that and you're willing

to endure that pain that's why the market goes up over time that's the cost of admission you have to be willing to pay to deal with it so the reason it's not very intuitive to some people but the reason that you will do well over the next 10 years in the stock market is because it's so uncomfortable and volatile this year and over the next couple years that's why you do well over time and that's why you can earn higher returns and something else that might seem safer you know what when you were talking about

is being like able to deal with volatility there's like one number that I often like to say and talk about it that we women in the Brazilian stock marketing represent about 25% of the investors but our ticket when we got into the stock markets like three times the average of a man investing and we often buy and hold whereas men they try to trade all the time because they get uncomfortable so for a woman to do her first investment what we try to do we try to study and get ready and know what we're going

to face when typically a man they like they are of it's similar all over the world really that that this is this how it's getting I think I mean there there are lots of women investors who make mistakes lots of men investors who do it right but I think on average men are much more likely to say I'm really smart and I'm going to use my intelligence to try to outsmart the market I'm just going to keep making different decisions and whatnot rather than just holding tight as long as I can I think it takes

a certain amount of humility to just say I'm going to buy these stocks and hold them for as long as I possibly can it takes a certain amount of humility to to say I I don't know which ones are going to go up this year I don't know what's going to happen over the next five years even some of these stocks that I buy might might not do well over the next 10 years you have to be very humble to say that and to admit that and if you don't have that amount of humility it's

much more tempting to always be trying to trade as much as you can in and out in and out yes because people like to brag a lot you often say as well that people like to brag and talk about the things and they kind of underestimate the luck factor in everything that goes through their life can you talk a little bit about about this well it's if always the case whether it's in in sports or fishing or stock Mark that people talk about their wins and very rarely their losses over time so that's always the

case social media makes this much more difficult because now you have particularly for young like Teenage investors so many people on Tik Tok showing you here's how much money I made trading options sometimes it's accurate sometimes it's completely made up but almost always they're only showing you the wins and never the losses and it gives you a fake view of what investing is this was really true in the United States around 2021 2022 we had a huge explosion in New investors teenage investors in in the stock market on apps like Robin Hood and whatnot and

um I I think a lot of people had very Mis uh had bad expectations of what they should be able to do because they saw people on on Robin Hood and on Tik Tok saying oh you can double your money every month and that set their expectations of what they were likely to earn over time and so when you it's it's always a false view of what you can see over time if you sit down young people in the United States and you say look over time if in the stock market you can earn probably

seven to maybe 10% per year on average they will roll their eyes at you they say 10% a year I'm I'm looking for 50 I'm looking for 300% per year that's what they want so a complete misalignment of expectations of what they're likely to earn over time because of what they see on social media and whatnot but I think the magic in it is if you also sit them down and say if you can earn 10% per year over the next 30 Years you know what that turns into it can it can make you legitimately

Rich over time that's a different argument but it's harder for them to wrap their heads around exactly but I do think that the social media had this has this impact in all fields of life so I think that our role as parents as like people in the stock market is to educate people so they can understand it's not an easy job but I think that we are trying to do our best we're trying we're doing the best but we're right and even when when I was a kid uh you know it was it was so

different because we compared oursel to our neighbors and our friends at school and that was about it and now on social media you compare yourself to everybody all over the entire world and when I was comparing myself to my neighbors when I was a child I saw their good days and their bad days I saw them argu I saw them fight I saw them cry where social media you only see the good side of people that's right you people people put this polished fake view of how good they are how much money they've made or

how happy they are that can really misalign your expectations you're so right and I do think that we have the mentality of one upper like we we're always cha always chasing something like one day after the other and without realizing that we have ups and downs you're so right so right and it's and you see this I'm sure it's true in in most parts of the world teenage anxiety depression and suicide those rates have exploded over the last 20 years because and at least part of it maybe it's not 100% but is who we compare

ourselves to it's much harder it's easier than ever to do well in today's world and it is harder than ever to feel like you are doing well so even if we are earning more money than our parents and the stock market is higher and the economy is stronger than it was 30 years ago you can feel like you're doing worse off because you're comparing yourself to a fake view of everybody else's life that's all right that's all right oh my god let's shift a little bit and talk a little about bat and gambling uh here

in Brazil the platforms of betting they they became legal like two years ago but they exploded this year yeah so you have lots of conflict of interest so you have these platforms sponsoring soccer teams and they are making ads everywhere and the money that they put into it it's like huge it's amazing it's like I don't know I would say like a 100 times larger than I have for one year is what they put in one month so it's a fight that's like it's worth fighting but I don't think we're going to win just trying

to advertiseing and talking to people about about the the very fundamental thing that b and gambling it's not investing how do you see the scenario in the United States and what kind of advice would you give to people who think that bat and gambling is investing well we have the same the same thing you know we legalized Sports gambling just a couple years ago it's exploded it is massive in the United States and there's talk about like did did we go too far should we make it illegal again and ban it i' I've always been

of the view that you can't regulate what these people are going to do it's always been the case that people are going to want to do uh what look like dumb things with their money but it actually makes sense for them in the moment I think most of these people if they weren't betting on a sports game they weren't betting on a football game whatever it might be they would be buying lottery tickets they would be doing something else they would find a different way and I also think we should recognize that some people get

a lot of joy out of doing it it is unquestionable that some people will ruin their lives gambling ruin their marriages go way too far they're addicted to gambling the majority of people though I think genuinely enjoy it and they know they're they're going to lose some money and what not and they have fun doing it so when that's the case if you enjoy doing it and it makes sense to you then maybe it makes sense to that other person and I think think it can be hard for someone like like me or you or

anybody else to say oh you guys are making very dumb decisions well it might make sense to them and if I was in their situation and I didn't feel like I had the chance or the hope to earn more money at work or to invest in the long run then maybe betting on a sports game or buying a lottery ticket would give me my only sense of like hope for the future and it would make me feel good in that day and then so maybe if I look at it and say that's not the best

thing for you to do you should be investing you should be doing this maybe it makes perfect sense for that person so I but you have to mix that with the idea that of course there are compulsive gamblers who are going to go bankrupt and there always have been and whether it's in Las Vegas or in lottery tickets or whatnot that's always been the case and I think always will be very hard to regulate it yes but like most of these people like they really poor they are like in the middle class or like in

the poor class why do do you think that they do that why do they gamble why do you think that they are doing that Daniel Conan who's a great psychologist uh uh he once made this point that when you feel like you don't have any options you become very risk-taking so if you feel like you have lots of options in front of you I can invest in a bank account or bonds or stocks then you might take a lower risk option but when you feel like you're backed in a corner in life and you have

no other options in front of you you're going to take the riskiest option that you possibly can so it the data would definitely show that the people who are most likely to bet on Sports and lottery tickets and gamble like that are people in the most precarious financial position they're the ones who can least afford it but that's always the case psychologically that when you feel like you're backed in a corner you are willing to take the biggest swing to try to get out of that extreme situation that you're in I think that's just a

fundamental part of psychology even if it's easy and tempting for people like us to look at that and say no no no like please don't do that you should save for the future it's always been the case that that is people's standard psychology the fewer options that you have the bigger the risk you're willing to take you know this idea that you propose in your podcast and probably in your books as well like it changed the way that I see people I I have to tell you that because I often put myself in this position

of not judging but thinking wow this person should should be do should been doing like things differently they should be trying things in another way but once you put the context uh thing in the equation it changed the way that I saw things because there might be other people who you are looking at and saying well you should do something different who might be looking at you and saying you should be doing or me it's the same it's always a case that other people's decisions can look wrong if you don't understand their point of view

and it's great that I'm an American you're Brazilian because all over the world I notice this with my books uh I get comments from people in India and China and Brazil who will say Morgan what you wrote might be true in the United States but it's not true in my culture and I I I have to accept that that's the case of course I write it through the lens of of an American because that's the world that I see but so it's hard to understand why people do what they do until you understand the culture

that they live in and the individual circumstances that they have in life perfect there's another example that got my attention that is like the the people who raise from classes when they are playing so a sports player when they are from like a community or a very poor part of the town and then out of the blue they become like this huge guy in sport scenery and actually they are not making the money for themselves but the for the whole group for the whole and it's another thing that's not Prett inuitive for me but would

you mind telling us a little bit more about this yeah we have a big problem in the United States with pro athletes basketball football basketball a lot of them they make millions and millions of dollars and a lot of them go bankrupt once their career is over and how can you look at this someone who's 25 years old making $10 million a year and they blow it all they're broke they they go bankrupt and it's so easy to criticize them how could you be so stupid we had that much money and what happens to a

lot of them not all of them is the reason they go bankrupt is not because they bought themselves a mansion or themselves a Rolls-Royce it's because they felt this obligation to buy every one of their family members a house in a car to take care of their whole Community their neighbor their Barber their pharmacists their teachers they felt an obligation to go buy them a house too because if you grow up in poverty and then when you're 20 years old you're making $10 million a year you can't just look at everyone else in your family

and say good luck to you I got my money I'm going to go live a good life best of luck to all of you and so I term this phrase social debt which is the more money that you have there's a little bit of social debt that comes along with it that changes other people's view of you changes your own expectations changes people's expectations that you will spend money on them and it's very easy to overlook that you know exactly how much money you're making what your salary is but it's very hard it's e very

easy to overlook how much Social debt comes with that and how other people's view of you and their expectations of you is going to change well definitely well I do host a podcast called what's in your wallet which is like a intended pun to what people ask women what's in your what's in your purse so the f is what's in your wallet rather than what's in your purse and once I had the chance to interview a black journalist which she which states exactly what you mentioned she had a social debt to her community and for

her it's really really hard to spend money and this is another thing that to mention a lot that for some people who has been like have been saving all their lives it's really hard to spend money after a while why did that happen I think for a lot of people it becomes part of their identity that they are a person who saves money and then even if they have saved more than enough money that they'll ever need and they're now retired they should start spending it down they can't they can't do it because they've become

so used to seeing the numbers go up every single month and living below their means as part of their identity now that is a good problem to have like you've saved so much money and now you have so much money you don't know what to do with it good problem to have right but for a lot of people at that point money is controlling you like you might you might have a happier life if you could spend it but you can't you can't bring yourself to do it and at that point it's not really an

asset it's like a psychological liability it's psychological debt because you have money and you're too scared to spend it and and so I think that happens to quite a few people in in particularly in wealthier countries and for people who grew up poor and then become wealthy one of two things usually happens either they can't spend it fast enough they go out and spend it as fast as they possibly can or they never spend it they're never able to spend it both of those can be just as damaging psychologically for people and I think it

is it's again it's a good problem to have but people who made a lot of money and cannot spend it and a lot of those people are not very happy with their life because I I think money is controlling them rather than using money as a tool to be happier and live a better life the money is in control of their own identity and is there a magic formula you'll get out of it no not whatsoever so I I think people have to be very careful making sure that money does not become part of your

identity that earning money is not part of your identity that saving that spending is not it that you are always in control over the money rather than it becoming control over you and that can creep into your life very subtly without you knowing it very much and I think this will probably happen to me as well where saving and investing becomes so much of who you are that you can't let go of it and it's going to control who you are so rather than using money as a tool it's using you and that's that's a

tough problem to have it is it is definitely it is so before going to investment let's talk a little bit and close the idea of spending how should people should be spending right now I think it's different for everyone uh and you can't call it a science because there's no formula and what works for me might not work for you and and so everybody's different they have to figure it out for themselves I think the question you want to ask yourself though is what hole am I trying to fill in this and now some holes

are good and some holes are bad some holes are I'm bored and I want to be entertained some BS are some holes are uh I I want to understand how the world works and do some travel and see other things I want to be comfortable I want to be happy I want to laugh I want to those are all things but for a lot of people the hold they're trying to fill with or spending is I need more attention from other people I'm I'm depressed I I want I want this person's attention I want people

to admire me I want my friends and family to like me more and they're desire to spend is filling that and not only will spending not fill those holes but that's like a completely different issue that needs to be attached that that needs to be attacked separately and so I think from the highest level that's what it should be I think the spending that makes most people happy is when you are using it as a tool to make connections with other people and you know it's always it's very cliche to say spend on experiences not

that's I think that's that's overdone I think really what it can be is experiences with other people so I've noticed this that uh if I am playing Legos with my kids on the floor at home I'm on my living room floor playing Legos that is like that's amazing that's so much fun and if I go on a fancy vacation with my kids and I'm building sand castles on the beach that's really great too but it's not that much better than playing Legos with them on the floor if going to like a expensive vacation and building

sand castles with them if that's a 10 playing Legos at home is like an eight or a nine it's pretty close because what I actually enjoy is spending time with my kids and so the idea that I need to spend a lot of money to do that like I I can spend money I do enjoy the vacation cuz it's uninterrupted time with them but what I really enjoy is uninterrupted time with my kids that's what's making me happy and so a lot of people like will the big fancy house make you happier the answer might

be yes but the reason the answer is yes is because it makes it easier to spend time with your friends and family at that big house and that's what's actually making you happy and if you were there alone by yourself without any friends and no to love you would you actually be happy in that big house probably not probably not wow wow that's a lot to think about you know because we again we are always chasing and chasing and chasing and not recognizing what is behind the wishes that we have and for me it worked

the the same way as you've mentioned before I have two kids and like what lacks for me is time to be with them so whenever I have the time to be with them is the best time ever and there's no money which can buy this experience of being with them and I might have everything but if they're not with me it's not worth it doesn't matter I I've always frame it as which of these would you rather be you make a million dollars a year but your kids don't like you your your marriage isn't any

good your friends don't like you everyone kind of you're not well-liked by your community you're not in good health or you make $100,000 per year and you have a great relationship your kids adore you you have tons of friends who like you and like spending time it's obvious which one of those you should want to be But the irony is that the draw for so many people is a singular focus on how can I make more money without recognizing that it's that is at best a tool to getting those other things friends family health that

kind of thing perfect perfect I love it I love it that's great well shifting a little bit now to investment because investment may give you everything that you need for you to have your family and friends around you so in your first first book the psychology of money starts with a basic premise that financial success has more to do with behaviors than number and so how did you get to this conclusion and what did you say about Behavior I think it was watching so many investors over the years and watching how many very smart very

educated very experienced investors do re do very poorly and then at the same hand watching people who had no education no experience just ordinary folks do very well and there's no other field that is like that there's no other field where somebody with no education and no experience can do better than the person who has the best education the best experience uh doesn't happen in any other field and and I think the reason that is is because doing well with money is not about what you know it's not about how smart you are it's not

about where you went to school it's just about how you behave it's just can you manage greed and fear can you take a long-term mindset like how how gullible are you who do you trust to get your information from that's all that matters in something like investing and how smart you are what your IQ is whether or not you went to Harvard Business School makes no difference whatsoever and I I I and I you can even take this to a more extreme end and say some of the people who are very educated use that intelligence

to try to twist the knobs and Fiddle the levers end up doing worse than the person who has enough humility to just say I'm just going to invest every month and leave it alone for my entire life and that's all I'm going to do that person is likely to do very well and some of the people who have the best education the managers are the ones who are most likely to blow themselves up and and earn very poor returns over time and so that's that's where the idea of behavior came in that's so great and

I love that you write in your books about people the narratives of their lives rather than trying to put an algorithm or how we going to get rich and things like that and there's a story in one of your books that tells a situation about a party where like there was like a very wealth person who was an investor with a writer and he was telling and trying to brag that he's was making more money than the writer oh yes yeah yeah and it's like uh like he was making more money in one day than

this auor all his life and then the writer reply that unlike the investor he had uh what the investor would never have that's enough enough money yes exactly and you have also said that you do not see yourself as a rich person but just live with enough what does have enough money mean means to you I think it's different for everybody and I think what's important is to note that having enough does not mean that you don't want more uhhuh I think that I have some version of enough money but I also want more I'm

going to keep working I hope my books keep selling I want more too so it doesn't mean that you reach a point where you say I don't want any more money anymore that's not the point because if people think that's the point then it doesn't make any sense I think what it means is that you need to put as much emphasis on controlling your expectations as you do trying to improve your circumstances as much effort as you put into earning more money investing more money you need to put that much effort into keeping your expectations

properly grounded and appreciating what you have today because if you don't it's never going to feel like it's enough no matter how much money you make no matter how much raises you get or how much you earn in the stock market it will never feel like it's enough and for a lot of those people when it doesn't feel like it's enough they keep on taking more risk and more risk and more risk until it backfires or in their careers they work longer hours and longer hours and longer hours with more ambition until they realize that

their their kids don't know them that they spent too much time away from them so if you don't go out of your way to try to temper those expectations it's not going to feel like it's enough and I get the realization is what act what's actually going to make you happy is the gap between how much money you make and where your expectations are it's the gap between the two that is going to make you happy so if you're making a lot of money but you have high expectations there's there's no Gap and those people

don't feel like they're doing very well at all and you can flip that around and say there's some people who don't make that much money but their expectations are so low that there's a huge gap in between there and they wake up every morning super happy that's right so Morgan we know that there's no set formula for a financial success and that one cannot assume that what works for me will work for you so you mentioned in one of your podcasts that each person plays their own game when it comes with dealing with money and

we have to reckon which game we are playing but can you see any trait that people who are good investors sharing common is there anything that is like a common ground for good investors I think in in life and doing well with money not NE not specifically to investing but doing well with money I think there can actually be a very simple formula and it's different for everybody everyone will have a different version of what this formula leads to but I think the very simple formula is Independence plus purpose so if you're using your money

to gain independence to do what you want when you want with whom you want and then you have some purpose in your life that you are working towards that actually makes you happy those are the two things that you can use money for in your investing in your career to actually give yourself a better life my version of that formula will be a little bit different from yours my definition of independence and purpose will be different from yours everyone has to figure it out for themselves but I think at the highest level that's what tends

to make people happy they are independent to live their own lives and they have some purpose that they are chasing to make them happier that's great there's one like a billionaire here in Brazil which is like a great construct so he's like one of the I think he's the biggest millionaire billionaire in Brazil and what he says that his purpose in life is to give back so he's giving like 60% of his fortune to the others so he thinks that he's accomplishing his mission in life and he says that it's really really hard to make

people do the same of course because everyone has have their purpose in life and it's different for me and for you yes but in the end of the days everything about has everything to do with independency and purpose I love it I love it great well you are a person who holds financial success as a longterm achievement and warns about people about lucrative opportunities that promise big money over a short period of time what tips would you give individual investors to avoid falling into scams or making that dangerous choices when trying to grab an opportunity

there's no such thing as a great excellent return that doesn't come with higher risk that's always the case always keeping that in mind the the better it looks the higher risk it's going to be there are so few exceptions to that rule that you should just assume that it's always the case that if someone is promising you a huge return there's a huge risk embedded in that that's always the case and that does not that that can actually be a pretty positive thing to think about when you think that what you need to do well

over time is not to earn high returns it's to just stick around for as long as you can to be an investor for the next 10 or 20 or 30 years and if you can just earn okay returns just decent returns for 30 years you will do amazing you'll build all the wealth that you need and therefore the super fancy High exciting returns that you might see that almost certainly have more risk in them are things that you don't even need you do not need to earn high returns this year you can just earn pretty

good returns for the next 10 or 20 or 30 years and that will get you everything that you need that's it you just have to sit and wait as you mentioned earlier in our podcast just sit and wait perfect so simple it's simple to say but it's hard to do yes and not everyone will be able to do it which is why it can be so lucrative for those who can do it I don't think we're ever going to live in a world where anybody in any country where everybody is making good financial decisions it

will never be the case because it's not something that you can learn like on a spreadsheet and so we know things about how physics works today that we did not a 100 years ago that everybody knows today but it's never going to be like that with money it's never going to be the case that everyone does well all the the time because it's behavioral and people will be making bad decisions 100 years from now just as it were 100 years ago and so I think part of that window using Finance as a window to how

people think and behave is what always been so interesting to me to watch how people deal with greed and fear and risk and uncertainty it's the same today as it was 100 years ago and will be 100 years from now no and there's another thing that you mentioned that one change that the biggest decision that you have in life is who I if when and with who you going to get married that's that's it and why is that well you're going spend a lot of time with them better enjoy it so that's that that's I

mean that's that's that's really what it is and I think for a lot of this too if you're going to make some investing analogy to this which is maybe a silly thing to do but you know people change over time and grow over time and you change and grow into something different over time and it's always a question of can you grow and adapt together and and a lot of people it's just it's just moving apart so it's a completely different topic but nothing's going to make much more of a difference in your life than

whether when and whom to marry if not whether and when to have children as well those two things move the needle more than anything I swear to you I I thought that you were mentioned like who you're going to get married because it's easier for you to have to be wealthy if you're with someone SE well especially if this person thinks just like you uh when spending and investing money and that's what I thought about right I like it and you know and what we learn as well is like what's going to make you like

poor is going to when you go through a divorce and it's really hard for people when they go through divorce because they're going through an emotional phase and they're like splitting everything that they build in life and their expenditures go like to the roof and that's what I thought there's there's a financial advisor who I really married who says you want the best financial advice you can ever give stay married that's the best now that's that's that's not marriage advice that's Financial advice but it's true it's very very ult to do well over time for

splitting everything by by two exactly exactly especially if you have kids well um let's talk a little bit about the collaborative fund you became a partner of the collaborative Fund in 2016 what challenge did you face in making the transition from from writing to become an entrepreneur and the leader of a company well I've always been a writer and that's what I do at the collaborative fund as well and so for me it was actually you know where was the home for my writing going to be was it going to be at a big media

organization like the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg or did I want to have more of an independent voice and some place that would like let me write anything that I wanted whenever I wanted and that was mainly why I joined the collaborative fund um and and so that's that's that's what's been really appealing to me as a writer as just being able to have the independence in writing to say anything that I want but it's also been very interesting working and being a partner at Adventure Capital firm to see that up close and firsthand and

what you really see in gaining appreciation for is how difficult business is particularly at the early stages of like that the challenges that they go through the uncertainty that they go through and that's why business can be so lucrative is because it's so hard the people who figure it out the rewards are great for those who figure it out because figuring it out is very very difficult and it's also the case you see a lot of entrepreneurs early on who are filled with confidence of where this is going to go and that's great that's the

trait that they should have and then they face the reality of how difficult it's going to be for everybody talking to a friend today about how incredible Facebook was as a product because it worked from the very day that they started when Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in 2004 within two weeks 50% of the students at Harvard were using Facebook took two weeks for half the school to be using it wow and so it just worked from the from day one and that is so rare most businesses virtually every business when you start it it's just

a Non-Stop series of problems and challenges to overcome so it games you it gives you more respect and empathy for uh CEO and Founders going through it exactly and I think that in the Facebook case the adaptation that they've made along the way the business that they bought they took like huge risks Shifting the business so I think that also counts when you are trying to develop a business oh it's it's an amazing success story that is Once in a century kind of story to witness exactly exactly perfect so before you close this interview there's

one gift I would like to give to you since you talking about Investments and being an investor here in Brazil we used to have a trading at the floor before putting everything to electronic trading and we used to use jackets to design and to show that we were Traders so we made sure that we had one for you and espcially done for you so I hope you like it and I hope you wear whenever you're P voting Vine well thank you I I love it we we use these at the New York Stock Exchange as

well and I I love this I'm going to put this on my wall that is that okay my wall I won't I won't wear it around town that that would be kind of silly it would be kind of weird it would be a little bit weird but it would be great on my wall so thank you very much thank you thank you and before we close it you mentioned that people do not remember the whole books that they read or the poducts the podcast that they listen to or the films that they watch it but

they rather remember ideas and things phrases so if by any chance you would like and you had the power to make people remember one thing from our conversation what would be you have to know yourself you have to figure out your own personality your own risks your own Ambitions uh your own social aspirations and recognize that yours are going to be different from other people's and once you view it through that lens I think a lot of money problems come into a more reasonable light you can figure out how to use money as a tool

to make you happy rather than trying to figure out like it's a math problem to solve that's going to work for everybody else wow that's a great advice thank you so much Morgan it's been a pleasure and an honor to be here with you thank you so much thank you happy to be here thank you [Music]