[00:00:00] Hala Taha:Morgan, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

Thanks

[00:01:58] Morgan Housel: so much for having me. Happy to be here.

[00:02:00] Hala Taha: I am very excited for today's episode. We've been trying to get on this conversation for like a year now. So I'm going to cut straight to the chase. You are a master of many trades. You're a best selling author, investor, you're even a podcaster.

So how do you define what you do

[00:02:16] Morgan Housel: today? It's such a good question. I would say I don't, I've never tried to put myself in a box and I think I've, I've moved around over the years. I think if you asked me that question 10 years ago, I would have said, I'm an investor who writes and maybe if you asked me today, I would say I'm a writer who invests, like I've just switched around what I enjoy doing.

And it used to be that all of my emphasis and research and enjoyment was investing. I want to scour the world and study investing history and whatnot. And I still love that. I'll always do that. The art of storytelling really bit me 10 or 15 years ago, and that's what I really find joy in doing now. And that's the craft that I want to hone.

And I think jumping around like that has been really important. If you just put yourself in a box and say, I am a blank, you're cutting off so much of the world that you might find enjoyment in and have some talent in doing.

[00:03:09] Hala Taha: Yeah, and

When did you first get interested in finances as a young man?

[00:03:14] Morgan Housel: I think I was 19 when I, uh, first stumbled across investing. I've told this story before, but it'll, it'll always stick with me. When I was 18, my grandparents gave me 1, 000 and I put it in a CD at the bank, Certificate of Deposit, where it earned interest.

And I think I intuitively knew what interest was, but I didn't, I didn't really

get it. And I remember I logged into my account the next day and the balance had grown from 1, 000 to 1, 000. 03. I earned three cents of interest and I remember jaw hitting the floor being completely stunned that I just earned money for doing nothing.

Just for waking up in the morning, somebody paid me. I knew at that moment, I was like, this is the thing. This is what I love doing. And so all throughout college, I wanted to be a hedge fund manager or an investment banker. I think in that era, like the mid 2000s, that's what everybody wanted to do in that field.

And then I kind of stumbled haphazardly across writing. It was never part of the plan. I never wanted to become a writer. And even when I started doing it, I was a senior in college when I got a job at the Motley Fool writing about stocks and I didn't want to do it. I just needed a job, but I fell in love with it.

So I think that in itself is a lesson, particularly for people in college. You might think you know what you want to do and you have a goal and you have a path in front of you. But so many people, including myself, probably you, stumble into what they actually love and want to do serendipitously. So I think it was great that I did not follow the path that I thought I had paved for myself and just stumbled into something else.

Yeah.

[00:04:46] Hala Taha: And it sounds like you had an open mind to explore different skills and see what you were good at. And then. Then you were able to merge finance and writing, which you didn't expect to actually do, into a career as an author, a best selling author at that.

[00:05:00] Morgan Housel: Well, here's what's really interesting. I would not say I had an open mind about it.

I graduated college in 2008 when the world was on fire and everything was burning down. The economy, like no one in finance was hiring. Everybody was laying people off. So I found a job at The Motley Fool as a writer. And I took it because I had to, I had, I had rent to pay. That was why I took it. I didn't do it because I was like, Oh, maybe I like writing.

That'll be fun. I took it because I was like, I need a paycheck today. And they were like the only people in finance who were hiring. And so for the first six months, not only did I not really like it, I was kind of ashamed of it. I was like, I want to be a hedge fund manager. And now I'm a blogger. What is this?

After about a year, I started to really enjoy it and just love the craft of writing.

[00:05:40] Hala Taha: Yeah, and that makes sense because usually if you don't have experience, you're bad at that thing. And then you feel demotivated because you're not that good at it. But over time, if you get better, you can enjoy it and find motivation, I'm sure, in what you're doing.

[00:05:52] Morgan Housel: I think if there's one thing that has really helped me in my career, it's a combination of For the first two or three years, I had to do that job because nobody else was hiring. And then after that, I think I've just been stubborn. I don't know if it's patience or stubbornness or a mix of the two, but I've been writing about behavioral finance every day for 17 years.

And if you do anything for that long, you'll gain some proficiency, no matter what it is. Anybody in any field, if they do it every day for 20 years, will get good at it. And so I think that's been just like sticking with it has been what's helped me the most. Yeah. And I think

[00:06:25] Hala Taha: something that also changed the way that you think about the world is actually an accident that happened when you were younger on ski slopes.

It severely impacted you. It's really, really traumatic and tragic what happened. Can you tell us about that and how it shaped the way that you view the world?

[00:06:40] Morgan Housel: Yeah. So I grew up as a competitive ski racer in Lake Tahoe, California. I was on the Squad Valley Ski Team and that was my life from my childhood and my teenage years.

Skied six days a week, 10 months a year, all over the world racing. It was great. It was like such a cool experience. And there were about 12 of us on the Squaw Valley ski team. We were all best friends. We had been together since we were children, skiing six days a week all over the world. And so one day in, uh, February of 2001, I was 17 years old, and I was skiing with my two best friends.

We had grown up together. They were 17 as well. And we would ski down the backside of Squaw Valley, which is out of bounds, which you're not supposed to do. You duck under the ropes that say, do not cross. But we did this because we were young and rebellious and that's where the best skiing is. It's untracked, you have the place to yourself.

Now when you ski out of bounds like that, when you get to the bottom, there's no chairlift because you went out of bounds. So it would spit us out on this backcountry road and we would hitchhike back. We loved doing this, it was kind of a thrill, like we got to hitchhike, it was all very rebellious, something that 17 year olds do.

So the three of us ski this run. And as we're skiing down, I very vividly remember we triggered a small avalanche. And it's like, it's a feeling that you will never forget because rather than pushing on the ground with your skis to gain traction and control, all of a sudden the ground is pushing you. And avalanches are very powerful.

you'll be skiing down and then all of a sudden you have no control and it'll push you 20 feet this way and then jolt you 30 feet that way. But it was pretty small and it ended pretty quickly and three of us ski down and we like high fived about it at the bottom. We were like, Whoa, did you see that avalanche?

It was so cool. We hitchhike back and Brendan and Brian, my two friends were with me. They said, Hey, let's do it again. That was great. Let's go ski that run again. For whatever reason, I don't really know. I said, I don't want to do it again, but how about this? How about you guys go do it again? And rather than hitchhiking back, I'll drive around to the side of the mountain and I'll pick you up in my truck so you don't have to hitchhike.

They said, great, let's do it. We made that plan. We went our separate ways. They went skiing. I went back to get my truck to go get them. 20 minutes later, I drive around to meet them at the pickup spot where I was going to meet them and they weren't there. And I really didn't think anything of it. I thought that they had priority hitchhiked back and maybe I was late.

It didn't really bother me. And I went back to our locker room where I expected to find them, and they were not there either. And nobody had seen them. At that point, I started to wonder what happened, but I really wasn't worried at that point. Several hours later, Brian's mom called me at home, and she said, Hey, Brian didn't show up for work today.

Do you know where he is? And I told her the truth. I said, Yeah, we skied down the backside out of bounds, and I was going to pick them up, but they never showed up. And I think at that moment, she and I pieced together what probably happened here. Later that day, several hours later, we got the police involved, missing persons report.

eventually turned into, we got search and rescue involved. Search and rescue went on the hill at about midnight to start looking for them. They had these giant portable floodlights and a team of search dogs, search and rescue dogs. And then later the next morning, after about nine hours of searching, when the search and rescue workers got to the area, the out of bounds area where I told them we'd skied, they said it looked like half the mountain had been torn away from what was clearly a very fresh, just massive, enormous avalanche.

And avalanches can be the equivalent of like a tsunami, just unbelievable amount of power. They can snap giant trees with their force. And it had clearly just been a massive avalanche here. The search dogs eventually homed in on a spot in the avalanche field where rescuers who had these giant probe poles found Brendan and Brian dead in the avalanche.

They were buried about six feet under. So of course, I always have to say when I tell this story, I think you and everyone else listening has, has lost somebody dear to them. It's not unique in that sense. I don't want to pretend like it was unique that I had a friend who died. Most people have experienced some version of that.

Of course, it had a really profound impact on me. And one of the reasons why And it took me a while to really piece this together was if I had gone with them on that second run, 100 percent chance I would be dead. It was such a massive, it took out everything in its path. And so then I look back on it and it's like the most important decision that I ever made in my life, by far, was not going on the second run.

And I didn't put any thought into that decision. I didn't weigh the pros and cons. I didn't do a risk analysis. It was just a brainless, dumb decision. Why don't you guys go do it? I'll do something else. And nothing in my life has mattered more. And I think a lot of things in life are like that, where in hindsight, and only in hindsight, do you look back and you're like, the worst or the best thing that ever happened to me came about because of this dumb, brainless decision.

And maybe people listening to this today, If you left your house for work at 8. 53 instead of 8. 54, you may have died in a car accident. You know, I'm making this up, but there's all these just random, like, you understand how the world hangs by a thread of these decisions. And when you come to terms with that, I think it makes you much more humble in your ability and willingness to predict what's going to happen in the future.

When you see how fragile it is, you just realize you have no idea what's coming next.

[00:11:50] Hala Taha: Yeah, and so you accomplished a lot at a young age. Like I said, I hopped on the call and was like, most people I interview are like 50, 60 years old or whatever. You're definitely not that old, right? So you accomplished a lot in your life.

Do you feel like it's because you had this experience at 17 years old, losing your two best friends and realizing how fragile life is, like you better get at it?

[00:12:11] Morgan Housel: I think that would be a small part of it. I think in a broader sense, ski racing was so important because We were independent and treated as adults since we were like 14 and we would travel around with the coaches skiing But the coaches god bless them would just go to bars and then like we were out being adults for better or worse But I think that created an incredible sense of independence and like forced you to grow up very fast That had a big impact on me, but certainly losing my friends at that age Made me realize how fragile life can be.

And I think my perception of risk changed dramatically after that. And after that, I would not take risks that I would have before that, because you see the consequences of your actions.

[00:12:54] Hala Taha: Well, yeah, when you're that young, it's inevitable. A lot of people at like 18, 19, 20, that's when you're doing the most drugs and like all this kind of stuff.

Cause you just think you're invincible. So I have a feeling you probably didn't really do much of that at

[00:13:07] Morgan Housel: all. I think even before that happened, I was always kind of, I had friends who were doing it more than I, I'm not, I'm not going to sit here and say I, I did none of it, but okay, I'll give you a specific example.

I was telling my wife the other day, I remember when I was 18, one of my friends had cocaine and I was like, absolutely not, like not even in the slightest in a million years would I touch that stuff, never. But all my other friends are like, yeah, let's give it a whirl. Let's, let's see how this works. So even at that age, I think just naturally, I had a risk assessment that was different from my friends.

[00:13:37] Hala Taha: So you worked at Motley Fool, like you were saying, you got a job right out of college at Motley Fool, and you actually thought you were going to stay there and work there forever. You bought a house near the headquarters and you thought you'd never leave. So what actually changed your mind to pivot your career a bit?

[00:13:52] Morgan Housel: Yeah, it was one of the hardest decisions of my career because I was really happy and comfortable at the Motley Fool. It's a great place to work, still is, filled with great people. I was happy there. Yeah. Guy named Craig Shapiro, who runs a private equity firm called The Collaborative Fund, reached out to me in 2015.

And he just said, Hey, I like your work. Why don't you come to Collaborative Fund and just keep doing it? Keep doing exactly what you're doing, but just do it here. And I said, Hey, I'm flattered, but I'm really happy here. No, thanks. My wife and I had just had our first kid who was two months old at the time.

I was not prepared to just throw my career upside down, but he kept pushing and kept pushing and kept pushing. And I think what the decision for me eventually became was If I stay at The Motley Fool forever, from the time I was in college until I retire in my 60s, will I regret never trying something different?

And I think after a while I realized that the answer was, was, yeah, I think I might wonder what else was out there. So I, I finally joined Collaborative Fund in 2016. And it's been amazing. You know, that was before I had written books or done anything like that. And Craig was one of the only people, I think, in the world who would say, Morgan, just go do your thing.

I'm not going to tell you what to write or when to write. And I don't write about what Collaborative Fund does. I just, I feel like it's just my own canvas to write about anything that I'm interested in. And so that was a really rare opportunity. Almost every professional writer at an organization, if you write for the Wall Street Journal or Reuters or CNN or something, You have an editor telling you what to write, how to write it, when to turn it in.

And I think that just strips away the art of writing. It just turns it into a job instead of an art. So I really enjoy the artistic side of it. At

[00:15:27] Hala Taha: what point did you decide, hey, I want to write actual books, not just for a blog? Was that a conscious decision? Or was that when you went to this new fund, they told you, hey, we want you to write books?

[00:15:39] Morgan Housel: No, definitely not the latter. And it was a conscious decision for a long time to not write books. I never saw the point in it. And I would always say, look, I blog twice a week. Why does it matter if it's stuffed in between two pieces of cardboard? It's the same thing. It's the same words. Like I'm not, I'm still writing.

So who cares? So that was why I pushed off writing books for years. A publisher came to me in 2014, maybe 2013 and said, hey, like we want you to write a book. And I was absolutely not. I'm not ready. Like I don't want to do it. Sounds hard. And so in hindsight, I'm so glad that I waited because I became a better writer.

I had more content to use for the books. So the fact that I was so stubborn about doing it, it was so beneficial to me. In 2018, I wrote a very long blog post called the psychology of money. It was a 10, 000 word blog post, which is very, very long. Most books are about 50, 000 words. So it was one fifth of a book in a blog.

It was the biggest blog post that I have ever written. It did really well. It was well received. And so that was when I was like, oh, people like this style and format and this substance. And it's not going to take me that much effort to expand what I already have into a book. And so that was when it was like, okay, like I'm finally going to do this.

My wife had convinced me. I don't think I've ever told this story before, but I'll, I'll tell it here. Yeah. Tell me. An author named James Clear, who wrote a book called Atomic Habits. It's the best selling and one of the best books of the last generation. It's just an absolute gem of a book.

And he published his book in 2018. And I think it was seeing the success of Atomic Habits that I was like, I want that. It was not jealousy, it was not envy, it was motivation. What James has, I want to chase it. And James, as you will see when he comes on, is the nicest, most humble. politest guy you'll ever meet.

So the fact that not only had James had success in a book, but I was like, I want to be James. I'm not like, not just a success. I want to be him was like a big motivator for me to be like, okay, like I really want to write a book now. And James and I have become friends since then. It's actually interesting in the summer of 2018, I was in Omaha, Nebraska for the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting.

And we rented a house with like 10 friends and this random guy came over to have dinner. I don't know who invited him. No idea who he was. And he introduced himself. He said, hi, I'm James clear. I'm writing a book called Atomic Habits. It's going to come out in a couple months. And so we had no idea, but like in hindsight, looking back, it's so funny to piece all that together.

[00:18:04] Hala Taha: Yeah, that book is huge. I think to this day, it's still like on all the bestseller lists. So, like you were saying, you wanted to become an author because you saw the opportunity and you were like, I want what James Clear has. How has being an author actually transformed your career? Like, what opportunities have come about?

I'm sure you, like, weren't doing podcasts before you had a book, is that right? I'd

[00:18:26] Morgan Housel: say, in some ways, nothing has changed and in some ways, everything has changed. Nothing has changed because I still write about the same topics. I still read the same topics.

I still sit in the same chair and think the same way. My wife and kids don't treat me any differently. In most ways, nothing has changed. What the book did to me, and it's a very real thing, is it gave me independence, which is a big topic in psychology of money. What you want to use money and wealth for is to gain control over your time.

And if I'm being honest with you, I feel like I'm really opening myself up in this podcast here. Before the book, I was always filled with career anxiety. What happens if I get laid off? What happens if this doesn't work? And it really scared me, particularly as I became a father. I got mouths to feed. What happens if this doesn't work?

That's the one thing that's changed post books. A greater sense of financial independence that means the world to me. And I also, my wife has pointed this out too. I think I've been in a better mental state post books that I have in my life. It didn't make me happier, but I think it removed anxiety from my life.

It's interesting that in a way that was what the book was about. But then because of writing the book, I got to experience it myself, which has been the cool thing. And

[00:19:38] Hala Taha: why do you think that freedom has come about? Is it because you're getting speaking engagements that you're like pulling in extra revenue streams?

Obviously book sales has some revenue streams, but book sales these days. Don't really move the needle, right? Maybe your books do. But what do you think changed in terms of you feeling like you have more freedom?

[00:19:55] Morgan Housel: It's all of the above. It's book royalties. It's speaking. It's all of the above. And we haven't really changed our lifestyle to any meaningful degree.

We live in the same house and drive the same car and whatnot. A lot of that is just accrued to net worth. This is what I write about in Psychology of Money too. Wealth is what you don't see. It's not the cars that you buy. It's not the house that you buy. Wealth is the money that you've saved that gives you independence, that allows you to do whatever the heck you want to do.

And so that's what it's been for us. It's like we've saved the vast, vast majority of it. And because of that, the anxiety that I had of what if back then has largely been stripped away. Now, you will never get rid of what if because what if you get hit by a car, you're never going to remove risk. But a lot of the tangible career risks that I had five years ago has dissipated.

Okay. So your book, Psychology of Money, came out in 2020. It was a huge hit. And you say in the book that money has little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. So let's start there. I think it's a good foundation of the book. Can you shed some more color on that and give us examples of how behavior can actually trump smarts?

[00:21:09] Morgan Housel: Well, here's how I always define it. If you are the smartest financial mind in the world. You have a PhD in finance from Harvard. You know, all the numbers, you won the Nobel prize in economics, but you don't have control over your behavior. You don't have a control over your greed and fear or patience or temper.

You can, and very likely will go broke. And the flip side of that is if you have no financial education, you don't know anything, you didn't graduate high school. You're a country bumpkin who knows nothing. You do have control over your greed and fear and patience and temper. You have everything you need to become wealthy.

Just yesterday, there was a news story that came out about this guy who lived in the middle of West Virginia or something like that and lived in a trailer. I heard this. He recently died and he left four million dollars to his town. Yeah. That's the perfect example. He does not have the pedigree. He does not have the degree from Harvard.

He did not work at Goldman Sachs, but he was clearly patient. Not greedy, et cetera, et cetera. And because of that, he became very wealthy. So there are very few fields in which that's the case. If you did not go to medical school, you do not know how to perform open heart surgery, full stop, but it's not like that in finance, you don't need the education to do well, as long as you have the behaviors because it's one of the few fields that's like that.

It's easy to overlook what you need. And most people, if they're like, I want to become a good investor, I'm going to go get a degree in finance. I'm going to memorize all the formulas and by and large, that's not what you need. What you need is the behavior. Now, for a lot of people, that behavior is nature instead of nurture.

They're born understanding their brain is wired in a way that lets them do it. And some people are the opposite of that. But just understanding what you need and what you don't is I think the most important thing of doing well with money. And just to

[00:23:01] Hala Taha: dig in on what you said, you also say in your book that We learn traditionally about finance, like it's physics, right?

It's rules, there's laws, but you say we should look at it more like psychology with emotion and nuance. Can you dig deeper

[00:23:15] Morgan Housel: on that? In math and in physics, there's one right answer for everybody. So if I say, what is two plus two? It's four, no matter who you are or where you're from or where you live or how old you are.

But in finance, it's not like that. Because if I say, how should you invest your money? Well, what works for me might not work for you and vice versa, everyone listening, we're all going to come to a different conclusion because our risk tolerance is different. Our social aspirations are different. Our time horizons are different.

Everything is different. So it's much closer to like taste in music. And if I said, what's the best music, there's no one answer for that. It just depends who you are and what you like and how old you are. Music that I liked when I was 15 would be atrocious to me now. So you're going to change throughout time.

That's most of the nuance in finance is just realizing that there is not one right answer. And I think the majority of the time in finance, when people are arguing with each other about how should you spend your money? How should you invest your money? They're not actually arguing. They're not actually debating.

It's just people with different experiences and different risk tolerances talking over each other. And it's the equivalent. If I think X and X is good for me, you might think X is terrible because it would be bad for you. That's the biggest issue with financial debates.

[00:24:29] Hala Taha: So this reminds me of something that you were just mentioning.

The fact that you and your wife have basically stayed at the same goalposts all these years, you know, you drive the same car, you live in the same house. You haven't really increased the amount of money that it costs to live your life, but you've both increased your income. So you're able to save more.

Talk to us about this importance of knowing what your own goalposts is and why that matters.

[00:24:54] Morgan Housel: The first thing I think is important is like we live a great life. We live in a great house in a great neighborhood and we take great vacations. We are not the kind of people Like the guy who's living in the trailer and is like leaving all this money.

There is obviously some balance to it. I think the idea that if your expectations grow faster than your income, you will never ever be happy with your money is one of the most important and powerful realizations in finance. That there are hedge fund managers who make 100 million a year and feel like they're falling behind because their buddies make 200 million a year.

There is no cap to that. Elon Musk displaced Jeff Bezos as the richest man in the world. I don't know this to be the case, but maybe that bothered Jeff Bezos because now he's only worth a quarter of a trillion dollars while Musk was worth a third of a trillion dollars. There's no end to financial comparison.

And so, yes, it's important if you want to do well with money to grow your income, invest your money, grow your net worth. But it is equally important and very easy to overlook that you also need to go out of your way to manage your expectations. And just be happy with what you have knowing that if you get the bigger house or the nicer car It's going to feel cool for like four minutes and then you're going to get used to it And it's not going to feel any different And so look we live in a nice house in a safe neighborhood all of that checks all the boxes But there is this thing of Yeah, but if we got a bigger house, we wouldn't be any happier and we might actually spoil the expectations of our kids who think that that bigger house is now the norm.

So this is something that like we always battle with because even for us who believe this and live it, the expectation of, ah, maybe we should get a Range Rover. It's always there. That feeling, that drive is always there. But then just taking a step back and be like, well, is there something else we could do with our money?

Would the vacation make us happier? Would donating it make us happier? That battle is always there, but whenever we've experienced it, and when you go out of your way to keep your expectations low too, then your drive for a better life moves away from what's the next car, what's the next house. Actually, what makes us happier is spending more time with our kids, going for walks with my wife.

So like, hey, can we use our money to do that? Use our money to free up our time so that we can spend more time with our kids and with each other? Because that's definitely going to make us happier, but the Range Rover probably won't. That's the debate that we always have in our heads.

[00:27:15] Hala Taha: Yeah, and as I get older and make more money, I feel like I'm actually becoming smarter about the way that I spend my money because I realized how much I have to work for a certain amount of things.

This reminds me, it was Thanksgiving yesterday, so I saw my family and my sister in law has never worked a day in her life just carrying a 6, 000 bag. Meanwhile, my company made 5 million last year and my most expensive bag is like 3, 000. It made me realize how much different people's priorities are and how people, like, spend their money and, and manage their money is so varied in terms of what people believe success looks like, in terms of how much they want to save, and it's so, so varied across the spectrum.

[00:28:01] Morgan Housel: It's so varied. And this is one thing that I've kind of tweaked my views on in the last couple of years is that the 6, 000 bag for your sister in law, maybe that is the best use of her money. Maybe it's not. But for some people it would be, even if for my wife and I, or maybe you, it would not be to each their own.

And there are a lot of people who will look at how my wife and I spend our money, particularly the few of our friends who would know our income and then look at how we spend would be like, what are you guys doing? Like you are missing out on so much. And I don't think we are. I think we're pretty cognizant of what we're doing and how we spend it and we're doing the best thing for us, which to me, all that matters.

I've never wanted to become the mansion Lamborghini guy. I've always wanted to become the independent guy who can just do whatever he wants any day and no one's going to tell me what to do or when to do it. I'm not like a, I reject all authority kind of guy. I'm not like a hardcore libertarian, but for money stuff, for work stuff, I'm going to have the most fun and do the best work if it's on my own terms.

So the fact that I can write what I want, when I want, and the reason I can do that is because I have some sense of financial independence. I don't need to work for the salaried company. That is the best use of money for me by far. I want to

[00:29:14] Hala Taha: talk a little bit more about the purpose of money. You've been alluding to it.

But talk to us about why independence and autonomy is really the purpose of gaining wealth.

[00:29:24] Morgan Housel: I think back to what we said of everyone's different and maybe the 6, 000 handbag is right for you but not for me. But if there is one common denominator of which almost everybody from every culture and every age is going to get benefit from, it's independence.

People, by and large, do not enjoy being told when to work, how to work, and what work to do. They do that because they have to. They need the paycheck, and that's the way to do it. But when most people, the first taste of independence they have, they're like, Oh, that's good. That's the one I like. And even if you are working for a salaried company, if you have a boss and in a position that gives you independence and autonomy, not only is it more enjoyable, you're going to do better work.

The quality of your work is going to go up if you're doing it on your own terms. It's such a universal driver of happiness. And maybe that's actually the wrong word because independence doesn't necessarily make you happy, but it removes unhappiness. That's an important nuance, but it's really important.

People who are wealthier by and large do not wake up happier. Happy in the sense that they wake up smiling every morning. It's not that, but I think they have fewer bad days. And that is a huge life advantage to remove uncertainty and misery from your life is massive. It's one of the few things in money that tends to be universal.

And it's also very easy to overlook because particularly for young people and particularly young men, the knee jerk reaction of why do you want to become rich is so I can have nice stuff. So I can have a big house and a fancy car. And it's easy to overlook what's actually going to bring you the most joy is using it to give yourself independence.

I

[00:30:59] Hala Taha: love that. So let's talk about emotions and money. What are some of the common emotional pitfalls that a lot of us fall under when it comes to handling our finances?

[00:31:09] Morgan Housel: The two biggest that come to mind, one from personal finance and one from investing. In personal finance, it's social comparison. And there is no such thing as an objective measure of wealth.

Everything is just relative to what other people have. You look at your house, your car, your bank account, and you say, what do I have compared to that person? That person is usually your friends, your neighbors, your co workers, but also just people on social media. That is the fuel to move the goalpost.

Because even if you are doing well, you're going to start looking at people who are doing better than you, and you're always going to feel inadequate. And it's very hard to break that cycle. Social media makes this so ridiculously difficult because now the people who you are comparing yourself to is like the curated algorithmic reel on TikTok and Instagram that knows exactly what's going to make you anxious.

They know exactly which posts are going to make you feel inadequate because that's what's going to get you to stare at it the longest and be like, why don't I have what he or she has? That's like a really difficult trap to break. In investing, the pitfall is FOMO, it's fear of missing out. It's similar to social comparison.

That person is getting richer than me, and therefore I need to take more risks or try to copy that person in order to catch up to him. And the danger in that is that just like in gambling, everyone on social media talks about their wins, never their losses. So the people who look like they are getting so much richer than you, A, probably are not.

Like it's probably some sort of mirage. But because you don't know that you're going to start taking risks that you shouldn't and can't afford to take in 2021, when there was like the Robin Hood explosion in investing, it went supernova at that point, because you had all these 19 year old people who are like, I just made 20, 000 on Robin Hood, and you should be able to double your money every week.

A most of that was bullshit. And B, the people who looked at that said I need to go start trading options too. And you know how that ended for the vast majority of them. It ended in tears and losses And so all of that is driven by FOMO. The idea that someone else is getting richer than you and you need to catch up.

And so if you can break away from that and realize that there are always people who are either look like or actually are getting richer than you. And that's fine. That's totally fine. It's unavoidable. You don't need to catch them. You just need to play your own game and do what works for you is really important.

Yeah.

[00:33:32] Hala Taha: I feel like everything you're saying is reminding me of this bag story from yesterday. That's kind of why I brought it up is because At first I felt bad. I was like, man, she's got a 6, 000 bag. I work so hard. I don't have a 6, 000 bag. And then I realized, well, I could have a 6, 000 bag. These are just not my priorities.

So to your point, everybody has different goalposts. And just because somebody looks like they have a lot of money doesn't mean like behind the curtain that they actually have much going on at

[00:33:57] Morgan Housel: all. I would actually take it a step further with nothing to do with your sister in law. Yeah, nothing.

[00:34:02] Hala Taha: I love my sister in law.

I'm sure she's wonderful. Yeah. It's just the example. Yeah.

[00:34:07] Morgan Housel: When you see somebody driving a 100, 000 car, the only thing you know about their finances is that they have 100, 000 less than they did before they bought the car. You have no idea how much money they have. And I learned about this when I was in college.

I was a valet at a nice hotel in Los Angeles. And these people would come in driving Porsches and Ferraris and Lamborghinis. And then if you get to know them and talk to them, you realize they're actually not that successful. They just spent half of their salary on a Lamborghini lease payment. The vision that they had, the identity of, Oh, this guy's driving a Lambo.

He's clearly super successful. No, you actually don't know that at all. And it's the classic millionaire next door of like, a lot of the people who are very successful are actually driving F 150s. They're actually driving Toyota 4Runners and you would never know it because that's why they're rich is because they actually invested their money.

Instead of spending it on a car they couldn't afford.

[00:34:58] Hala Taha: Yeah, I love it. So related to this, you say that keeping money and getting money are two very different skills. You actually say that if you could summarize money success in a single word, it would be survival. So talk to us about how we can actually keep our money and the main ways that people tend to lose their wealth.

[00:35:17] Morgan Housel: It's just this idea that getting rich and staying rich are two different skills, and they're often conflicting skills, which means it's hard for people to do them at the same time. Getting rich requires. Taking a risk, being optimistic about yourself, being optimistic about the economy and the stock market.

That's what you need to get rich. And staying rich is almost like the exact opposite. You have to be a little bit paranoid, a little bit conservative, scared of risk, cognizant of risk in order to make sure that you're not taking enough risks to throw yourself over the edge. I think one way to summarize it is save your money like a pessimist and invest your money like an optimist.

Save your money with the idea that the world is risky and dangerous and fragile. And there are always recessions and bear markets and pandemics and terrorist attacks and wars and political mess ups that you need to be able to endure financially. But if you can, if you can keep your head on straight during those periods, the rewards for those who stick around are incredible.

I've been investing for 20 years. 2004 is about when I started investing. During that time, there has never been a single moment. In which you couldn't point to a dozen things going catastrophically wrong in the economy. Every single moment, stock market's overvalued. Companies aren't doing very well.

Unemployment's too high. Inflation's too high. Interest rates are too low. At any moment, you could have pointed to a dozen things. And during those 20 years, the stock market is up fourfold. That's how investing works. You have to save like a pessimist to endure all of those dozen things to point at. But if you can stick around, you look back over a 20 year period and you're like, man, I made four times my money during this period.

It's incredible. That's always how it works. Saving like a pessimist, investing like an optimist.

[00:36:59] Hala Taha: So Bill Gates started Microsoft and Bill Gates actually is more of a pessimist. Talk to us about how he's used his pessimism to set up Microsoft for success, because even in 2023, Microsoft is a huge company that's growing and leading the AI charge and everything

[00:37:13] Morgan Housel: like that.

Well, I think Bill Gates is the best example of someone who has gotten optimism and pessimism to coexist. Because when he started Microsoft in the 70s, he took the most optimistic swing that any entrepreneur has ever taken. When in the seventies, he said, every desk in the world needs a computer on it.

That was the craziest idea in the world. Crazy optimism at the same time, from the day he started Microsoft to the day he left in 2000, he ran it as conservatively as you possibly could. He said he always wanted enough cash in the bank so that he could run Microsoft for one year with no revenue, like the most pessimistic way to run a business.

I think that's why they've done so well. It's not that they're always optimistic or they're always pessimistic. They realize that if you can survive all the uncertainty and all the upheaval, then you have a fighting chance to actually compound for 50 years as they have. And very few businesses are actually like that.

If you have a very optimistic CEO, they're like, let's bury ourselves in debt and invest every penny that we have and swing for the fences. And nine out of 10 of those businesses are eventually going to go bankrupt, probably pretty soon. But also, if you're too pessimistic, then those businesses become obsolete.

So, it's getting both of those at the same time that is so rare, but that's really the key to doing well over your entire career, over an entire lifetime, is getting optimism and pessimism to coexist.

[00:38:41] Hala Taha: And I know that you are a strong proponent of having patience and in your book you've got a chapter called Tales You Win and you talk about how sometimes it's that one Picasso painting that an art investor acquires that makes up for all the ones that they don't.

So can you give us some examples of long tail strategy and why

[00:38:58] Morgan Housel: that's important? The painting example is one that I love. It's There were all these art collectors in the last 50 years and a very small number of families ended up with these ridiculous art portfolios. They had Picassos and Monets and like Renoir, like the top paintings ended up in the hands of very few number of people.

How did those art collectors know what was going to become valuable? Because when Picasso was alive and painting, he was not the Picasso who he is today. Most artists become famous after they die. How did these people know what was going to be big? And they looked at their art portfolio and the explanation was those collectors did not know who was going to be big.

What they did is you had a couple of collectors would go out and buy every painting they could possibly get their hands off of. If any painting was for sale, they scooped it up and they ended up with thousands or tens of thousands of paintings. And within that portfolio ended up by chance some Picasso's and some Monet's and some Renoir's, but they didn't know in hindsight what it was going to be or in with foresight, they didn't know.

It was only in hindsight that because they collected so many, a couple of them ended up being worth a zillion dollars. And investing is exactly the same. You have no idea which companies are going to be the next Tesla, the next Apple, the next Amazon. Nobody knows. And people who say they do know are fooling you.

If you own an index fund that owns 3, 000 companies in it, then you know that whatever is going to be the next Tesla is in there, whatever it might be. Always in investing, if you own an index of a hundred companies. Over a 10 year period, you're going to earn most of your returns from five of them. A very small portion is going to return most of them.

And since you don't know what those five are going to be with foresight, the best idea is just own all of them, knowing full well that whatever is going to be the winner is going to be in your portfolio. And that's why you have the statistics about what percentage of active stock pickers outperform index funds.

It's very, very low, particularly if you adjust it for fees and for taxes. Over a 10 or 20 year period, it rounds to zero. Warren Buffett recently said that in his life, he's met 10 people who he thinks can consistently outperform the stock market, consistently pick the right stocks, 10 people that he's ever met in his entire life.

And everyone listening to this podcast, you are not one of them. I'm sorry to say good luck. And so that I think that's the only anecdote to that. And it's the easiest, cheapest anecdote to that. It's just own all of them knowing that you're going to have the winners in there. And speaking

[00:41:30] Hala Taha: of Warren Buffett in your book, you say if he had retired at 60 years old, he might not be the Warren Buffett that we know today.

That's like such like everybody thinks of him as like the most successful investors because he's been investing for 60 years or whatever

[00:41:44] Morgan Housel: it's been. Yeah. If you look at his net worth, 99 percent of his net worth, Was accumulated after his 60th birthday. So he's 93, I think he is now. And 99 percent of that money came after he was 60, which means that if he had retired when he was 60, like a normal person may have, he was a billionaire when he was 60, you would have never heard of him.

The whole reason he's so successful and the whole reason he's now a household name is because he's been, yes, he is a good investor, but the secret is that he's been a good investor for 80 years. And it's just the amount of time he's been doing it for that generates all of that money. He also started investing when he was 11 years old.

That's why he's so successful, because he's been doing it nonstop from 11 to 93. That's actually the biggest takeaway that ordinary people can take from him. Because I and you and anyone else cannot pick stocks like Warren Buffett. But can we try to emulate his patience? Is that something that we could maybe copy from him?

You have a fighting chance of replicating his patience than you do replicating his intelligence. Just understanding why he's wealthy and using that as a takeaway of what we can do and copy him at is, is really important.

[00:42:52] Hala Taha: So this is a concept that I think is from your next book that we're going to talk about.

But what we're talking about is reminding me of this. I know that you actually don't really pay attention to daily news when it comes to changing your stock strategy or picking your stocks. You don't just follow like here, something's hot and then buy it. Right. So talk to us about how you actually decide what stocks you're going to invest in for the

[00:43:14] Morgan Housel: longterm.

So your last point, I keep it as simple as I can. I own Vanguard index funds. I've owned for a long time. It's probably all I will own for a long time. I'm not recommending other people exactly do that. You have to figure out what works for you. And as we talked about earlier, they're definitely people for whom picking stocks is the right strategy for them.

Even if it's not the best for my wife and I, one little quirk I would say is I actually do follow financial news every day, every day. I know what the market did. I read the wall street journal every day because I think it's intellectually interesting. I think it's a fascinating window into how people behave.

But the important thing is that I don't read the Wall Street Journal and then say, I need to go out and buy and sell these specific stocks. It doesn't influence my behavior. I just think it's a fascinating window into how people behave. My personal investing strategy is as, simple and basic as you could possibly be.

My entire net worth is this house, a checking account, Vanguard funds, and shares of Markel where I'm on the board of directors. And that's pretty much it.

[00:44:15] Hala Taha: And where do you park your cash? What's your strategy for cash?

[00:44:18] Morgan Housel: It's spread out over many different Accounts and actually quite a bit of it is now in treasuries because you can earn a great return there spread out over different bank accounts, different brokerages accounts.

Yeah. You know, and the money that I have in short term treasuries, I consider that cash. That's cash like to me. Mmm,

[00:44:35] Hala Taha: got it. Okay, let's move on to your new book. It's called Same as Ever. It covers a lot of the ideas that we've been discussing and much more. So talk to us about why you wrote this book and how it expands on your first book, The Psychology

[00:44:47] Morgan Housel: of Money.

So Same as Ever is about what never changes over time. I think in many ways, Psychology of Money is about the behavior of you, the individual. And same as ever is about the behavior of us, the collective, like what do we, the collective society keep doing over and over and over again? And I've always been a student of, I think, two things.

One is investing and the other is history. I like the intersection of that, like investing history and economic history. I've always been so fascinated in. And one of the things that will really stick out when you're studying any kind of history is. It's really interesting to see what has changed over time.

What do people used to do that they don't anymore? That's interesting. But to me, way more interesting and way more common is when you see what has not changed at all. And when you're studying the history of Americans 100 years ago, or Europeans 1000 years ago, or Chinese 5000 years ago, you see all these kinds of behaviors that would fit in perfectly today.

That have not changed whatsoever. So how people respond to greed and fear and uncertainty and opportunity, that is the same today in the United States as it was in any culture, a thousand years ago, and it hasn't changed at all. And because of that, we know that it's going to be part of our future for the rest of our lives.

And a lot of why I wrote this book was because I kind of got disgruntled at how bad we were as an industry at predicting what's going to happen next. Predicting the next recession, the next bear market, nobody can do it. Nobody has any ability to do it. And so with that, you can either say, nobody knows anything.

Don't even try to predict. No one has a clue. Just kind of become a cynic about it. Or you can say, okay, we don't know what's going to change, but we do know what's not going to change. We do know what behaviors are going to be part of our future, regardless of where the future goes. So let's put all of our emphasis on that.

And so same as ever is 23, very short little stories. About little facets of human behavior that I think have always been with us and always will be and no matter where your future goes or where society's future goes, you know that these little bits that I write about are going to be part of the story.

I

[00:46:54] Hala Taha: love you have it in your book that you say if you travel 500 years back or 500 years forward, the world will look much different in terms of technology and medicine and even language, but human behavior doesn't change much over time. It's so fascinating. It's so true. It takes time. I think thousands and thousands of years for us to like our brain biologically to actually change or evolve.

So we're the same human that we were thousands of years ago, even though so much has changed. And one of the things that doesn't go away for humans is risk, right? This is something that we're going to enjoy to the end of time is this concept of risk. And we touched about risk a little bit earlier, but in your book, you write, the biggest risk is always what nobody sees coming.

So talk to us about these blind risks.

[00:47:40] Morgan Housel: There's a great financial advisor named Carl Richards who has this quote, one of those quotes that just knocked me off my feet. The quote is, risk is what is left over when you think you've thought of everything. So you can spend all day trying to predict the next risk in your personal life or in the economy and for society.

And that's great. You should do that. But then when you are done with that exercise, the thing that is not on the list is what's actually the biggest risk that you're going to face. Think about what the biggest risks we've dealt with in the United States over the past couple generations, Pearl Harbor, September 11th and COVID are probably the three biggest societal shocks that we've dealt with in America.

And the common denominator of all three of those is that nobody, certainly no ordinary Americans saw those coming until the day that they happened. In all those situations, there was no economic outlook, there was no analyst forecast, there's nobody on the news warning you about these things. That in one day utterly transformed the world that you lived in.

And so the biggest risk is what you didn't see coming. And the fact that people didn't see coming is what made it dangerous because they were not prepared emotionally, financially, logistically, they were not prepared for these things to happen. So when they hit, it was like red alert, what do we do now?

And it's always like that. I think in any given year, it is like that. What is the biggest worldwide news story in 2023? It's probably, I hope it's going to end up, hopefully nothing bigger than it happens, will be Israel and Hamas, will be the biggest story of 2023. Of course, there has been tensions, to say the least, in that region for literally thousands of years, but how many people in January of 2023 predicted that that would be the biggest news story?

Maybe there were some people who were on the ground and had a greater sense, but by and large, ordinary people watching the news, it was not on their radar whatsoever. Same with in 2019, if you were looking at the biggest risk for 2020, nobody said a viral pandemic, that's going to close down the schools.

Nobody said that 2001, nobody sees nine 11 coming. You can play that game all day long. And so because of that, you can stay with. A lot of confidence that the biggest risk over the next year and over the next 10 years is something that you and I and none of us are even thinking about because it's always been like that.

To your

[00:49:51] Hala Taha: point, I'm Palestinian and I didn't even see it coming. I was just like, wait, what happened? These big stories, they blow you away. By surprise, how can we prepare for these risks if we don't know what they're going to be? How can we prepare accordingly?

[00:50:06] Morgan Housel: By definition, you can't. That in itself, that realization and that mindset is really powerful in itself because you stop pretending that you can predict.

There's a great quote from Nassim Taleb where he says, invest in preparedness and not in prediction. So one way that I think about that is Think about earthquakes in California. California knows that there is going to be a major earthquake in the future. But everybody also knows that you can't predict when it's going to come.

It's impossible to predict what day it's going to happen or what year it's going to happen. So because of that, you're just always prepared. They build buildings that can withstand it no matter when it comes. They don't like, you know, oh, an earthquake is going to come in December. So let's retrofit the buildings then.

You're always prepared for it. And I think that's how you should think about economic risks, recessions and bear markets and job losses. You have no idea when it's going to come. So don't try to think, Oh, once you see a recession coming, then you'll start to save money. No, it could happen tomorrow. So always be prepared for it.

I think that idea of having expectations instead of forecasts. It's the only way to really survive in that world where risk is what you don't see.

[00:51:11] Hala Taha: Yeah. That makes sense. And another key concept that you talk about in terms of human behavior is pushing too far too fast. Now you say that this is something people do in investing.

You say it's also something people do with their companies. So can you talk to us about that?

[00:51:25] Morgan Housel: Yeah. Whenever you have something good, you have an investing strategy that works or a company that's going well. The very normal knee jerk reaction is Great. Let's make it go faster. Let's make it bigger. Let's milk it.

Let's push it as hard as you can. You do it with noble intentions. You're like, I don't want to leave money on the table. If I have this golden goose, let's keep milking the goose. It happens all the time. Like in investing people who are doing well, start using leverage where they start making bigger bets, more concentrated bets in businesses.

When it's going well, it's like, let's raise more money and grow faster, faster, faster, faster. And it is such a common story that those investors, those entrepreneurs, or even in your own individual career. You eventually realize that there was a natural speed limit to what you're doing. And if you go over the speed limit, you're going to get in trouble.

And you only know where that speed limit is in hindsight when you've gone past it and you get a speeding ticket, so to speak. And so you see this with every successful business. The example I use in the book was Starbucks 15 years ago. And maybe most people don't remember this now, but there was a period in the early and mid 2000s where Starbucks was opening a new store on every street corner, like every couple of hours.

It was just like this absolute proliferation of Starbucks stores. And because of it, the quality of the coffee and of the food plunged. The company's only goal was to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And the quality of the stores just disintegrated. And Starbucks had a really rough period because of that. And in hindsight, they talked about, they're like, look, the natural growth rate.

That we could sustain the quality of the product. We way exceeded. We pushed it way too hard. And because of that the business broke for a period of time. There's so many examples of that of like you have a good legitimate business That is working and customers love you and they will pay you But if you try to take that and just say let's try to make it go twice as fast It's probably going to break so understanding the natural speed limit and size of whatever you're doing Is a really critical aspect of what you are doing any

[00:53:22] Hala Taha: guidance for us to understand like hey This is a red flag that I'm pushing too hard and that I should just calm down a bit with what I'm

[00:53:30] Morgan Housel: doing.

Let's use the Starbucks example. The reason people love Starbucks was not necessarily because it was on every corner. It was because they liked the quality, the food, they liked the taste. And once your ability to scale takes precedence over that, then you know exactly what's going to happen. So understanding, I think this is such a basic comment, but it's so easy to overlook.

Understanding why you are successful is the key to doing this. And a lot of people. They don't actually understand why consumers like them or why their boss appreciates them. And because of that, they overlook what is actually needed to keep this going. And once you have an honest assessment of customers like me because of X, then you realize any deviation away from that.

And of course, you're going to lose what made you special to begin with. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

[00:54:16] Hala Taha: Yeah, I think that's great advice for all the entrepreneurs tuning in. So something else that you talk about in the book is stress. You say that stress focuses your attention in ways that good times can't.

Talk to us about why stress sometimes can be a good thing.

[00:54:30] Morgan Housel: We look back historically, the biggest periods of innovation and new technology and productivity growth without exception happened during periods when the world was. On fire, so to speak. Like the most productive economic decade that's ever occurred is the 1930s during the Great Depression, when the economy was the biggest train wreck it had ever been.

Because every business in America woke up and they're like, if we don't find ways to get more productive and get our act together, we're going to go out of business tomorrow. And that as a motivator, that fear as a motivator creates the biggest productivity boom we've ever had. The other was World War II and the Cold War.

The incentive to figure things out was so extreme because if we didn't figure things out, Adolf Hitler was going to control the world next year. And that kind of incentive created this technology boom of the likes the world has never seen. What do we get out of world war II? We got nuclear energy, rockets, jets, penicillin, microwaves, radar, eventually with the cold war satellites, all of these things that benefit you and I today that happens specifically because of the stress and anxiety of the war, and you can maybe able to say this with COVID in hindsight too, like it's tragic and deadly as it is.

If it unleashes the scientific boom as it has, that maybe 20 years from now is going to benefit us in ways that we can't even fathom today. Using the phrase silver lining, To COVID is a step too far because it's killed like 10 million people, not say like, Oh, that's a great thing, but it's always the case that you look back and you're like, Hey, despite that tragedy, we got this incredible new innovation because of it.

That's making life so much better today. So everybody wants a world in which everything goes great and there's no uncertainty. There's no bad times. Of course, that that sounds like a great world, but in that world, the incentive to improve would diminish greatly, and it's always the stress that creates the biggest improvements.

I

[00:56:33] Hala Taha: love this concept because it's so true. Constraints, deadlines, even if you think about your own self, if you know that you have a deadline tomorrow. your procrastination releases and you can just get your shit done because you know the deadline is tomorrow. It really helps you become more creative, helps you step on the gas in terms of completing whatever you need to complete.

So what you're saying totally makes sense in terms of big disasters in the world and how it can actually foster lots of innovation and creativity because our backs are against the wall. We basically have no choice but to get it done now.

[00:57:05] Morgan Housel: Yeah, I think for writing books, one of the biggest benefits that a publisher provides is a deadline.

It's not necessarily that they're going to help you write the book, so to speak, but they're going to tell you, you have to turn in your manuscript on this date and that, that'll get your ass in gear.

[00:57:19] Hala Taha: Okay, so one of the last ones I'm going to ask you about this book is incentives. So you've got a chapter in it, in your book, where you quote Benjamin Franklin, who once said if you would persuade, appeal to interest and not to reason.

So talk to us about incentives, what we need to watch out for in terms of how incentives can trick us into doing things that we already know are wrong.

[00:57:40] Morgan Housel: I think there are, it's very often the case, not always, this is not black and white, but it's often the case that if you see somebody doing something that you find morally wrong, Or just something that you disagree with.

You are probably underestimating the odds that you would do that exact same thing if you had their incentives. And I saw this first hand during the financial crisis of 2008 when a lot of Americans rightly pointed at Wall Street bankers and said those greedy bastard bankers will ruin the economy. And maybe like that was not necessarily the wrong criticism, but I think what people overlooked is that if you worked at Bear Stearns in 2006 And they said, Hey, package these subprime bonds and we'll give you a 6 million bonus.

You would have done it too. You would have done the exact same thing if you had that incentive dangled in front of your face. And so I think we underestimate the boundaries of our morality when we don't understand the power of our incentives. Everyone thinks, Oh, my moral boundaries are right here. But if you had different incentives, you'd be like, Oh, maybe I can shift them out a little bit.

And you don't even know you're doing it. It's subconscious. Everyone is so influenced by these incentives. And at every level. When you're looking at World War II, how could the Germans possibly have acted like this? I think when you look into what the 1930s were like for them, the incentives, the incentives to go along with it, the incentives to not want to be an outsider, the incentives to do what you're told, it's not to justify anything in the slightest.

But if you're looking for an answer of how can people do that thing, whatever that thing would be, in business, in wars, whatever it'd be, the answer is usually some sort of incentives. And it's not even a financial incentive. There are social incentives. There are tribal incentives. There are political incentives to do things that you would otherwise find repugnant, but you do it because the incentives push you to do it.

That's

[00:59:24] Hala Taha: super insightful. The last question I'm going to ask you about your book in terms of a concept is you talk about permanent and expiring information. And I love the distinction that you draw between these two. And I hope today's interview is going to be permanent information for our listeners, but can you explain what you mean between the difference of the two?

I

[00:59:42] Morgan Housel: mean, one, one way as someone who writes books and say, one of the best advice that I've ever heard is if you want to write a book that people will read 20 years from now, write a book that people would have read 20 years ago. Make sure that what you're writing about is timeless. And I think we can say that about this podcast.

I think if we had a time machine and someone listened to this podcast in 2003. 99 percent of what we said would be relevant. So you have to understand what kind of information is expiring if you're watching the stock market Oh microsoft missed quarterly earnings by one penny per share like that's a expiring information I'm, not going to say it's irrelevant, but it's expiring as a shelf life But if you're talking about how people respond to greed and fear that's permanent that never changes and that will be as relevant 20 years from now as it is today.

So you should put more of your emphasis in learning permanent skills Knowing that they're going to stick around rather than drowning yourself in expiring information that might be relevant for a week or maybe even a year, but it has the shelf life of something that's going to expire.

[01:00:43] Hala Taha: I totally agree with that. Well, Morgan, thank you so much for your time today. I feel like this podcast was filled with so much timeless wisdom about finances.

So I end my show with two questions that we ask all of our guests. The first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to be more profitable tomorrow.

[01:01:01] Morgan Housel: Go out of your way to define your game and realizing that your game might be very different from your co workers game, even your co founders game, your siblings game, everyone is different.

And don't assume that because society tells you that you should have X, that that's actually what you should be chasing. Mm.

[01:01:18] Hala Taha: Back to the goalposts we were talking about before. What is your goalpost, Young and Profiters? And what is your secret to profiting in life? And this can go beyond business and finance.

[01:01:28] Morgan Housel: Realizing that there are probably 10 people in life who I want to love me. My wife, my kids, my parents, maybe three friends. And it's not that I don't care about the opinions of anyone else, but I think it's really helpful to have people in your life who you don't want to disappoint just a few people who are, it's like, it's, that's, that's your North star.

I'm like, am I doing this for the benefit of those 10 people? would they be proud of me? Is this going to help my relationship with them? I think it's just a very strong guiding light. What really matters. And if you're on your deathbed, are you going to care about your net worth or the square footage of your house, or are you going to be proud that?

You are a good spouse. You were a good parent. You were a good friend. You helped your community. Like it's obvious what's going to be more important to you. So like, let's keep that as the focus.

[01:02:15] Hala Taha: I love that. That's great advice. Well, Morgan, thank you so much for joining us on young and profiting podcast.

[01:02:20] Morgan Housel: Thanks so much for having me. You know, young improfiters, this conversation got me thinking about how our finances are so much more about our emotions than we like to think that they are. Understanding how our own psychology impacts our approach to money can keep us from making some huge mistakes down the line. And there's nobody better at showing us how to do this than Morgan Housel.

[01:02:47] Hala Taha: Morgan argues that finance is a lot more like psychology than physics. There's not a single right answer for everybody and every problem, and a strategy that works for somebody else might not work for you at all. We each have our own unique risk tolerances, ambitions, and time horizons. But there are some common emotional pitfalls that a lot of us fall under when it comes to handling our finances.

One huge one, according to Morgan, is social comparison. Even if we're doing well, we just can't help but look over our shoulder at other people who are doing better than us. And if you do that, it's hard not to feel inadequate. A related trap in investing is FOMO, fear of missing out. If you see somebody else getting richer from what they're doing with their investments, you're going to think that you need to start taking similar risks to try to catch up.

But there will always be others doing better than you. You don't need to catch them. You just need to play your own game, like Morgan says, and do what works for you. That's what worked for Warren Buffett, for example. He accumulated 99 percent of his net worth after his 60th birthday. Slow and steady can win the race.

And even if we can't pick investments like Buffett, we can try to copy his patience. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting podcast. If you would like to keep your friends and family from a little FOMO, be sure to share this episode with them. And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something new, then drop us a five star review on Apple podcast.

And if you like to watch your podcast episodes, you can find all of our episodes on YouTube. If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. Before we go, I want to thank my production team, Jason, Amelia, Hashim, Furkan, Ambika, Kriti, Aaron, everybody on the team.

You guys are amazing. Thank you for all that you do. This is your host, Halataha, signing off.

[00:00:00] Hala Taha:Morgan, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

Thanks

[00:01:58] Morgan Housel: so much for having me. Happy to be here.

[00:02:00] Hala Taha: I am very excited for today's episode. We've been trying to get on this conversation for like a year now. So I'm going to cut straight to the chase. You are a master of many trades. You're a best selling author, investor, you're even a podcaster.

So how do you define what you do

[00:02:16] Morgan Housel: today? It's such a good question. I would say I don't, I've never tried to put myself in a box and I think I've, I've moved around over the years. I think if you asked me that question 10 years ago, I would have said, I'm an investor who writes and maybe if you asked me today, I would say I'm a writer who invests, like I've just switched around what I enjoy doing.

And it used to be that all of my emphasis and research and enjoyment was investing. I want to scour the world and study investing history and whatnot. And I still love that. I'll always do that. The art of storytelling really bit me 10 or 15 years ago, and that's what I really find joy in doing now. And that's the craft that I want to hone.

And I think jumping around like that has been really important. If you just put yourself in a box and say, I am a blank, you're cutting off so much of the world that you might find enjoyment in and have some talent in doing.

[00:03:09] Hala Taha: Yeah, and

When did you first get interested in finances as a young man?

[00:03:14] Morgan Housel: I think I was 19 when I, uh, first stumbled across investing. I've told this story before, but it'll, it'll always stick with me. When I was 18, my grandparents gave me 1, 000 and I put it in a CD at the bank, Certificate of Deposit, where it earned interest.

And I think I intuitively knew what interest was, but I didn't, I didn't really

get it. And I remember I logged into my account the next day and the balance had grown from 1, 000 to 1, 000. 03. I earned three cents of interest and I remember jaw hitting the floor being completely stunned that I just earned money for doing nothing.

Just for waking up in the morning, somebody paid me. I knew at that moment, I was like, this is the thing. This is what I love doing. And so all throughout college, I wanted to be a hedge fund manager or an investment banker. I think in that era, like the mid 2000s, that's what everybody wanted to do in that field.

And then I kind of stumbled haphazardly across writing. It was never part of the plan. I never wanted to become a writer. And even when I started doing it, I was a senior in college when I got a job at the Motley Fool writing about stocks and I didn't want to do it. I just needed a job, but I fell in love with it.

So I think that in itself is a lesson, particularly for people in college. You might think you know what you want to do and you have a goal and you have a path in front of you. But so many people, including myself, probably you, stumble into what they actually love and want to do serendipitously. So I think it was great that I did not follow the path that I thought I had paved for myself and just stumbled into something else.

Yeah.

[00:04:46] Hala Taha: And it sounds like you had an open mind to explore different skills and see what you were good at. And then. Then you were able to merge finance and writing, which you didn't expect to actually do, into a career as an author, a best selling author at that.

[00:05:00] Morgan Housel: Well, here's what's really interesting. I would not say I had an open mind about it.

I graduated college in 2008 when the world was on fire and everything was burning down. The economy, like no one in finance was hiring. Everybody was laying people off. So I found a job at The Motley Fool as a writer. And I took it because I had to, I had, I had rent to pay. That was why I took it. I didn't do it because I was like, Oh, maybe I like writing.

That'll be fun. I took it because I was like, I need a paycheck today. And they were like the only people in finance who were hiring. And so for the first six months, not only did I not really like it, I was kind of ashamed of it. I was like, I want to be a hedge fund manager. And now I'm a blogger. What is this?

After about a year, I started to really enjoy it and just love the craft of writing.

[00:05:40] Hala Taha: Yeah, and that makes sense because usually if you don't have experience, you're bad at that thing. And then you feel demotivated because you're not that good at it. But over time, if you get better, you can enjoy it and find motivation, I'm sure, in what you're doing.

[00:05:52] Morgan Housel: I think if there's one thing that has really helped me in my career, it's a combination of For the first two or three years, I had to do that job because nobody else was hiring. And then after that, I think I've just been stubborn. I don't know if it's patience or stubbornness or a mix of the two, but I've been writing about behavioral finance every day for 17 years.

And if you do anything for that long, you'll gain some proficiency, no matter what it is. Anybody in any field, if they do it every day for 20 years, will get good at it. And so I think that's been just like sticking with it has been what's helped me the most. Yeah. And I think

[00:06:25] Hala Taha: something that also changed the way that you think about the world is actually an accident that happened when you were younger on ski slopes.

It severely impacted you. It's really, really traumatic and tragic what happened. Can you tell us about that and how it shaped the way that you view the world?

[00:06:40] Morgan Housel: Yeah. So I grew up as a competitive ski racer in Lake Tahoe, California. I was on the Squad Valley Ski Team and that was my life from my childhood and my teenage years.

Skied six days a week, 10 months a year, all over the world racing. It was great. It was like such a cool experience. And there were about 12 of us on the Squaw Valley ski team. We were all best friends. We had been together since we were children, skiing six days a week all over the world. And so one day in, uh, February of 2001, I was 17 years old, and I was skiing with my two best friends.

We had grown up together. They were 17 as well. And we would ski down the backside of Squaw Valley, which is out of bounds, which you're not supposed to do. You duck under the ropes that say, do not cross. But we did this because we were young and rebellious and that's where the best skiing is. It's untracked, you have the place to yourself.

Now when you ski out of bounds like that, when you get to the bottom, there's no chairlift because you went out of bounds. So it would spit us out on this backcountry road and we would hitchhike back. We loved doing this, it was kind of a thrill, like we got to hitchhike, it was all very rebellious, something that 17 year olds do.

So the three of us ski this run. And as we're skiing down, I very vividly remember we triggered a small avalanche. And it's like, it's a feeling that you will never forget because rather than pushing on the ground with your skis to gain traction and control, all of a sudden the ground is pushing you. And avalanches are very powerful.

you'll be skiing down and then all of a sudden you have no control and it'll push you 20 feet this way and then jolt you 30 feet that way. But it was pretty small and it ended pretty quickly and three of us ski down and we like high fived about it at the bottom. We were like, Whoa, did you see that avalanche?

It was so cool. We hitchhike back and Brendan and Brian, my two friends were with me. They said, Hey, let's do it again. That was great. Let's go ski that run again. For whatever reason, I don't really know. I said, I don't want to do it again, but how about this? How about you guys go do it again? And rather than hitchhiking back, I'll drive around to the side of the mountain and I'll pick you up in my truck so you don't have to hitchhike.

They said, great, let's do it. We made that plan. We went our separate ways. They went skiing. I went back to get my truck to go get them. 20 minutes later, I drive around to meet them at the pickup spot where I was going to meet them and they weren't there. And I really didn't think anything of it. I thought that they had priority hitchhiked back and maybe I was late.

It didn't really bother me. And I went back to our locker room where I expected to find them, and they were not there either. And nobody had seen them. At that point, I started to wonder what happened, but I really wasn't worried at that point. Several hours later, Brian's mom called me at home, and she said, Hey, Brian didn't show up for work today.

Do you know where he is? And I told her the truth. I said, Yeah, we skied down the backside out of bounds, and I was going to pick them up, but they never showed up. And I think at that moment, she and I pieced together what probably happened here. Later that day, several hours later, we got the police involved, missing persons report.

eventually turned into, we got search and rescue involved. Search and rescue went on the hill at about midnight to start looking for them. They had these giant portable floodlights and a team of search dogs, search and rescue dogs. And then later the next morning, after about nine hours of searching, when the search and rescue workers got to the area, the out of bounds area where I told them we'd skied, they said it looked like half the mountain had been torn away from what was clearly a very fresh, just massive, enormous avalanche.

And avalanches can be the equivalent of like a tsunami, just unbelievable amount of power. They can snap giant trees with their force. And it had clearly just been a massive avalanche here. The search dogs eventually homed in on a spot in the avalanche field where rescuers who had these giant probe poles found Brendan and Brian dead in the avalanche.

They were buried about six feet under. So of course, I always have to say when I tell this story, I think you and everyone else listening has, has lost somebody dear to them. It's not unique in that sense. I don't want to pretend like it was unique that I had a friend who died. Most people have experienced some version of that.

Of course, it had a really profound impact on me. And one of the reasons why And it took me a while to really piece this together was if I had gone with them on that second run, 100 percent chance I would be dead. It was such a massive, it took out everything in its path. And so then I look back on it and it's like the most important decision that I ever made in my life, by far, was not going on the second run.

And I didn't put any thought into that decision. I didn't weigh the pros and cons. I didn't do a risk analysis. It was just a brainless, dumb decision. Why don't you guys go do it? I'll do something else. And nothing in my life has mattered more. And I think a lot of things in life are like that, where in hindsight, and only in hindsight, do you look back and you're like, the worst or the best thing that ever happened to me came about because of this dumb, brainless decision.

And maybe people listening to this today, If you left your house for work at 8. 53 instead of 8. 54, you may have died in a car accident. You know, I'm making this up, but there's all these just random, like, you understand how the world hangs by a thread of these decisions. And when you come to terms with that, I think it makes you much more humble in your ability and willingness to predict what's going to happen in the future.

When you see how fragile it is, you just realize you have no idea what's coming next.

[00:11:50] Hala Taha: Yeah, and so you accomplished a lot at a young age. Like I said, I hopped on the call and was like, most people I interview are like 50, 60 years old or whatever. You're definitely not that old, right? So you accomplished a lot in your life.

Do you feel like it's because you had this experience at 17 years old, losing your two best friends and realizing how fragile life is, like you better get at it?

[00:12:11] Morgan Housel: I think that would be a small part of it. I think in a broader sense, ski racing was so important because We were independent and treated as adults since we were like 14 and we would travel around with the coaches skiing But the coaches god bless them would just go to bars and then like we were out being adults for better or worse But I think that created an incredible sense of independence and like forced you to grow up very fast That had a big impact on me, but certainly losing my friends at that age Made me realize how fragile life can be.

And I think my perception of risk changed dramatically after that. And after that, I would not take risks that I would have before that, because you see the consequences of your actions.

[00:12:54] Hala Taha: Well, yeah, when you're that young, it's inevitable. A lot of people at like 18, 19, 20, that's when you're doing the most drugs and like all this kind of stuff.

Cause you just think you're invincible. So I have a feeling you probably didn't really do much of that at

[00:13:07] Morgan Housel: all. I think even before that happened, I was always kind of, I had friends who were doing it more than I, I'm not, I'm not going to sit here and say I, I did none of it, but okay, I'll give you a specific example.

I was telling my wife the other day, I remember when I was 18, one of my friends had cocaine and I was like, absolutely not, like not even in the slightest in a million years would I touch that stuff, never. But all my other friends are like, yeah, let's give it a whirl. Let's, let's see how this works. So even at that age, I think just naturally, I had a risk assessment that was different from my friends.

[00:13:37] Hala Taha: So you worked at Motley Fool, like you were saying, you got a job right out of college at Motley Fool, and you actually thought you were going to stay there and work there forever. You bought a house near the headquarters and you thought you'd never leave. So what actually changed your mind to pivot your career a bit?

[00:13:52] Morgan Housel: Yeah, it was one of the hardest decisions of my career because I was really happy and comfortable at the Motley Fool. It's a great place to work, still is, filled with great people. I was happy there. Yeah. Guy named Craig Shapiro, who runs a private equity firm called The Collaborative Fund, reached out to me in 2015.

And he just said, Hey, I like your work. Why don't you come to Collaborative Fund and just keep doing it? Keep doing exactly what you're doing, but just do it here. And I said, Hey, I'm flattered, but I'm really happy here. No, thanks. My wife and I had just had our first kid who was two months old at the time.

I was not prepared to just throw my career upside down, but he kept pushing and kept pushing and kept pushing. And I think what the decision for me eventually became was If I stay at The Motley Fool forever, from the time I was in college until I retire in my 60s, will I regret never trying something different?

And I think after a while I realized that the answer was, was, yeah, I think I might wonder what else was out there. So I, I finally joined Collaborative Fund in 2016. And it's been amazing. You know, that was before I had written books or done anything like that. And Craig was one of the only people, I think, in the world who would say, Morgan, just go do your thing.

I'm not going to tell you what to write or when to write. And I don't write about what Collaborative Fund does. I just, I feel like it's just my own canvas to write about anything that I'm interested in. And so that was a really rare opportunity. Almost every professional writer at an organization, if you write for the Wall Street Journal or Reuters or CNN or something, You have an editor telling you what to write, how to write it, when to turn it in.

And I think that just strips away the art of writing. It just turns it into a job instead of an art. So I really enjoy the artistic side of it. At

[00:15:27] Hala Taha: what point did you decide, hey, I want to write actual books, not just for a blog? Was that a conscious decision? Or was that when you went to this new fund, they told you, hey, we want you to write books?

[00:15:39] Morgan Housel: No, definitely not the latter. And it was a conscious decision for a long time to not write books. I never saw the point in it. And I would always say, look, I blog twice a week. Why does it matter if it's stuffed in between two pieces of cardboard? It's the same thing. It's the same words. Like I'm not, I'm still writing.

So who cares? So that was why I pushed off writing books for years. A publisher came to me in 2014, maybe 2013 and said, hey, like we want you to write a book. And I was absolutely not. I'm not ready. Like I don't want to do it. Sounds hard. And so in hindsight, I'm so glad that I waited because I became a better writer.

I had more content to use for the books. So the fact that I was so stubborn about doing it, it was so beneficial to me. In 2018, I wrote a very long blog post called the psychology of money. It was a 10, 000 word blog post, which is very, very long. Most books are about 50, 000 words. So it was one fifth of a book in a blog.

It was the biggest blog post that I have ever written. It did really well. It was well received. And so that was when I was like, oh, people like this style and format and this substance. And it's not going to take me that much effort to expand what I already have into a book. And so that was when it was like, okay, like I'm finally going to do this.

My wife had convinced me. I don't think I've ever told this story before, but I'll, I'll tell it here. Yeah. Tell me. An author named James Clear, who wrote a book called Atomic Habits. It's the best selling and one of the best books of the last generation. It's just an absolute gem of a book.

And he published his book in 2018. And I think it was seeing the success of Atomic Habits that I was like, I want that. It was not jealousy, it was not envy, it was motivation. What James has, I want to chase it. And James, as you will see when he comes on, is the nicest, most humble. politest guy you'll ever meet.

So the fact that not only had James had success in a book, but I was like, I want to be James. I'm not like, not just a success. I want to be him was like a big motivator for me to be like, okay, like I really want to write a book now. And James and I have become friends since then. It's actually interesting in the summer of 2018, I was in Omaha, Nebraska for the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting.

And we rented a house with like 10 friends and this random guy came over to have dinner. I don't know who invited him. No idea who he was. And he introduced himself. He said, hi, I'm James clear. I'm writing a book called Atomic Habits. It's going to come out in a couple months. And so we had no idea, but like in hindsight, looking back, it's so funny to piece all that together.

[00:18:04] Hala Taha: Yeah, that book is huge. I think to this day, it's still like on all the bestseller lists. So, like you were saying, you wanted to become an author because you saw the opportunity and you were like, I want what James Clear has. How has being an author actually transformed your career? Like, what opportunities have come about?

I'm sure you, like, weren't doing podcasts before you had a book, is that right? I'd

[00:18:26] Morgan Housel: say, in some ways, nothing has changed and in some ways, everything has changed. Nothing has changed because I still write about the same topics. I still read the same topics.

I still sit in the same chair and think the same way. My wife and kids don't treat me any differently. In most ways, nothing has changed. What the book did to me, and it's a very real thing, is it gave me independence, which is a big topic in psychology of money. What you want to use money and wealth for is to gain control over your time.

And if I'm being honest with you, I feel like I'm really opening myself up in this podcast here. Before the book, I was always filled with career anxiety. What happens if I get laid off? What happens if this doesn't work? And it really scared me, particularly as I became a father. I got mouths to feed. What happens if this doesn't work?

That's the one thing that's changed post books. A greater sense of financial independence that means the world to me. And I also, my wife has pointed this out too. I think I've been in a better mental state post books that I have in my life. It didn't make me happier, but I think it removed anxiety from my life.

It's interesting that in a way that was what the book was about. But then because of writing the book, I got to experience it myself, which has been the cool thing. And

[00:19:38] Hala Taha: why do you think that freedom has come about? Is it because you're getting speaking engagements that you're like pulling in extra revenue streams?

Obviously book sales has some revenue streams, but book sales these days. Don't really move the needle, right? Maybe your books do. But what do you think changed in terms of you feeling like you have more freedom?

[00:19:55] Morgan Housel: It's all of the above. It's book royalties. It's speaking. It's all of the above. And we haven't really changed our lifestyle to any meaningful degree.

We live in the same house and drive the same car and whatnot. A lot of that is just accrued to net worth. This is what I write about in Psychology of Money too. Wealth is what you don't see. It's not the cars that you buy. It's not the house that you buy. Wealth is the money that you've saved that gives you independence, that allows you to do whatever the heck you want to do.

And so that's what it's been for us. It's like we've saved the vast, vast majority of it. And because of that, the anxiety that I had of what if back then has largely been stripped away. Now, you will never get rid of what if because what if you get hit by a car, you're never going to remove risk. But a lot of the tangible career risks that I had five years ago has dissipated.

Okay. So your book, Psychology of Money, came out in 2020. It was a huge hit. And you say in the book that money has little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. So let's start there. I think it's a good foundation of the book. Can you shed some more color on that and give us examples of how behavior can actually trump smarts?

[00:21:09] Morgan Housel: Well, here's how I always define it. If you are the smartest financial mind in the world. You have a PhD in finance from Harvard. You know, all the numbers, you won the Nobel prize in economics, but you don't have control over your behavior. You don't have a control over your greed and fear or patience or temper.

You can, and very likely will go broke. And the flip side of that is if you have no financial education, you don't know anything, you didn't graduate high school. You're a country bumpkin who knows nothing. You do have control over your greed and fear and patience and temper. You have everything you need to become wealthy.

Just yesterday, there was a news story that came out about this guy who lived in the middle of West Virginia or something like that and lived in a trailer. I heard this. He recently died and he left four million dollars to his town. Yeah. That's the perfect example. He does not have the pedigree. He does not have the degree from Harvard.

He did not work at Goldman Sachs, but he was clearly patient. Not greedy, et cetera, et cetera. And because of that, he became very wealthy. So there are very few fields in which that's the case. If you did not go to medical school, you do not know how to perform open heart surgery, full stop, but it's not like that in finance, you don't need the education to do well, as long as you have the behaviors because it's one of the few fields that's like that.

It's easy to overlook what you need. And most people, if they're like, I want to become a good investor, I'm going to go get a degree in finance. I'm going to memorize all the formulas and by and large, that's not what you need. What you need is the behavior. Now, for a lot of people, that behavior is nature instead of nurture.

They're born understanding their brain is wired in a way that lets them do it. And some people are the opposite of that. But just understanding what you need and what you don't is I think the most important thing of doing well with money. And just to

[00:23:01] Hala Taha: dig in on what you said, you also say in your book that We learn traditionally about finance, like it's physics, right?

It's rules, there's laws, but you say we should look at it more like psychology with emotion and nuance. Can you dig deeper

[00:23:15] Morgan Housel: on that? In math and in physics, there's one right answer for everybody. So if I say, what is two plus two? It's four, no matter who you are or where you're from or where you live or how old you are.

But in finance, it's not like that. Because if I say, how should you invest your money? Well, what works for me might not work for you and vice versa, everyone listening, we're all going to come to a different conclusion because our risk tolerance is different. Our social aspirations are different. Our time horizons are different.

Everything is different. So it's much closer to like taste in music. And if I said, what's the best music, there's no one answer for that. It just depends who you are and what you like and how old you are. Music that I liked when I was 15 would be atrocious to me now. So you're going to change throughout time.

That's most of the nuance in finance is just realizing that there is not one right answer. And I think the majority of the time in finance, when people are arguing with each other about how should you spend your money? How should you invest your money? They're not actually arguing. They're not actually debating.

It's just people with different experiences and different risk tolerances talking over each other. And it's the equivalent. If I think X and X is good for me, you might think X is terrible because it would be bad for you. That's the biggest issue with financial debates.

[00:24:29] Hala Taha: So this reminds me of something that you were just mentioning.

The fact that you and your wife have basically stayed at the same goalposts all these years, you know, you drive the same car, you live in the same house. You haven't really increased the amount of money that it costs to live your life, but you've both increased your income. So you're able to save more.

Talk to us about this importance of knowing what your own goalposts is and why that matters.

[00:24:54] Morgan Housel: The first thing I think is important is like we live a great life. We live in a great house in a great neighborhood and we take great vacations. We are not the kind of people Like the guy who's living in the trailer and is like leaving all this money.

There is obviously some balance to it. I think the idea that if your expectations grow faster than your income, you will never ever be happy with your money is one of the most important and powerful realizations in finance. That there are hedge fund managers who make 100 million a year and feel like they're falling behind because their buddies make 200 million a year.

There is no cap to that. Elon Musk displaced Jeff Bezos as the richest man in the world. I don't know this to be the case, but maybe that bothered Jeff Bezos because now he's only worth a quarter of a trillion dollars while Musk was worth a third of a trillion dollars. There's no end to financial comparison.

And so, yes, it's important if you want to do well with money to grow your income, invest your money, grow your net worth. But it is equally important and very easy to overlook that you also need to go out of your way to manage your expectations. And just be happy with what you have knowing that if you get the bigger house or the nicer car It's going to feel cool for like four minutes and then you're going to get used to it And it's not going to feel any different And so look we live in a nice house in a safe neighborhood all of that checks all the boxes But there is this thing of Yeah, but if we got a bigger house, we wouldn't be any happier and we might actually spoil the expectations of our kids who think that that bigger house is now the norm.

So this is something that like we always battle with because even for us who believe this and live it, the expectation of, ah, maybe we should get a Range Rover. It's always there. That feeling, that drive is always there. But then just taking a step back and be like, well, is there something else we could do with our money?

Would the vacation make us happier? Would donating it make us happier? That battle is always there, but whenever we've experienced it, and when you go out of your way to keep your expectations low too, then your drive for a better life moves away from what's the next car, what's the next house. Actually, what makes us happier is spending more time with our kids, going for walks with my wife.

So like, hey, can we use our money to do that? Use our money to free up our time so that we can spend more time with our kids and with each other? Because that's definitely going to make us happier, but the Range Rover probably won't. That's the debate that we always have in our heads.

[00:27:15] Hala Taha: Yeah, and as I get older and make more money, I feel like I'm actually becoming smarter about the way that I spend my money because I realized how much I have to work for a certain amount of things.

This reminds me, it was Thanksgiving yesterday, so I saw my family and my sister in law has never worked a day in her life just carrying a 6, 000 bag. Meanwhile, my company made 5 million last year and my most expensive bag is like 3, 000. It made me realize how much different people's priorities are and how people, like, spend their money and, and manage their money is so varied in terms of what people believe success looks like, in terms of how much they want to save, and it's so, so varied across the spectrum.

[00:28:01] Morgan Housel: It's so varied. And this is one thing that I've kind of tweaked my views on in the last couple of years is that the 6, 000 bag for your sister in law, maybe that is the best use of her money. Maybe it's not. But for some people it would be, even if for my wife and I, or maybe you, it would not be to each their own.

And there are a lot of people who will look at how my wife and I spend our money, particularly the few of our friends who would know our income and then look at how we spend would be like, what are you guys doing? Like you are missing out on so much. And I don't think we are. I think we're pretty cognizant of what we're doing and how we spend it and we're doing the best thing for us, which to me, all that matters.

I've never wanted to become the mansion Lamborghini guy. I've always wanted to become the independent guy who can just do whatever he wants any day and no one's going to tell me what to do or when to do it. I'm not like a, I reject all authority kind of guy. I'm not like a hardcore libertarian, but for money stuff, for work stuff, I'm going to have the most fun and do the best work if it's on my own terms.

So the fact that I can write what I want, when I want, and the reason I can do that is because I have some sense of financial independence. I don't need to work for the salaried company. That is the best use of money for me by far. I want to

[00:29:14] Hala Taha: talk a little bit more about the purpose of money. You've been alluding to it.

But talk to us about why independence and autonomy is really the purpose of gaining wealth.

[00:29:24] Morgan Housel: I think back to what we said of everyone's different and maybe the 6, 000 handbag is right for you but not for me. But if there is one common denominator of which almost everybody from every culture and every age is going to get benefit from, it's independence.

People, by and large, do not enjoy being told when to work, how to work, and what work to do. They do that because they have to. They need the paycheck, and that's the way to do it. But when most people, the first taste of independence they have, they're like, Oh, that's good. That's the one I like. And even if you are working for a salaried company, if you have a boss and in a position that gives you independence and autonomy, not only is it more enjoyable, you're going to do better work.

The quality of your work is going to go up if you're doing it on your own terms. It's such a universal driver of happiness. And maybe that's actually the wrong word because independence doesn't necessarily make you happy, but it removes unhappiness. That's an important nuance, but it's really important.

People who are wealthier by and large do not wake up happier. Happy in the sense that they wake up smiling every morning. It's not that, but I think they have fewer bad days. And that is a huge life advantage to remove uncertainty and misery from your life is massive. It's one of the few things in money that tends to be universal.

And it's also very easy to overlook because particularly for young people and particularly young men, the knee jerk reaction of why do you want to become rich is so I can have nice stuff. So I can have a big house and a fancy car. And it's easy to overlook what's actually going to bring you the most joy is using it to give yourself independence.

I

[00:30:59] Hala Taha: love that. So let's talk about emotions and money. What are some of the common emotional pitfalls that a lot of us fall under when it comes to handling our finances?

[00:31:09] Morgan Housel: The two biggest that come to mind, one from personal finance and one from investing. In personal finance, it's social comparison. And there is no such thing as an objective measure of wealth.

Everything is just relative to what other people have. You look at your house, your car, your bank account, and you say, what do I have compared to that person? That person is usually your friends, your neighbors, your co workers, but also just people on social media. That is the fuel to move the goalpost.

Because even if you are doing well, you're going to start looking at people who are doing better than you, and you're always going to feel inadequate. And it's very hard to break that cycle. Social media makes this so ridiculously difficult because now the people who you are comparing yourself to is like the curated algorithmic reel on TikTok and Instagram that knows exactly what's going to make you anxious.

They know exactly which posts are going to make you feel inadequate because that's what's going to get you to stare at it the longest and be like, why don't I have what he or she has? That's like a really difficult trap to break. In investing, the pitfall is FOMO, it's fear of missing out. It's similar to social comparison.

That person is getting richer than me, and therefore I need to take more risks or try to copy that person in order to catch up to him. And the danger in that is that just like in gambling, everyone on social media talks about their wins, never their losses. So the people who look like they are getting so much richer than you, A, probably are not.

Like it's probably some sort of mirage. But because you don't know that you're going to start taking risks that you shouldn't and can't afford to take in 2021, when there was like the Robin Hood explosion in investing, it went supernova at that point, because you had all these 19 year old people who are like, I just made 20, 000 on Robin Hood, and you should be able to double your money every week.

A most of that was bullshit. And B, the people who looked at that said I need to go start trading options too. And you know how that ended for the vast majority of them. It ended in tears and losses And so all of that is driven by FOMO. The idea that someone else is getting richer than you and you need to catch up.

And so if you can break away from that and realize that there are always people who are either look like or actually are getting richer than you. And that's fine. That's totally fine. It's unavoidable. You don't need to catch them. You just need to play your own game and do what works for you is really important.

Yeah.

[00:33:32] Hala Taha: I feel like everything you're saying is reminding me of this bag story from yesterday. That's kind of why I brought it up is because At first I felt bad. I was like, man, she's got a 6, 000 bag. I work so hard. I don't have a 6, 000 bag. And then I realized, well, I could have a 6, 000 bag. These are just not my priorities.

So to your point, everybody has different goalposts. And just because somebody looks like they have a lot of money doesn't mean like behind the curtain that they actually have much going on at

[00:33:57] Morgan Housel: all. I would actually take it a step further with nothing to do with your sister in law. Yeah, nothing.

[00:34:02] Hala Taha: I love my sister in law.

I'm sure she's wonderful. Yeah. It's just the example. Yeah.

[00:34:07] Morgan Housel: When you see somebody driving a 100, 000 car, the only thing you know about their finances is that they have 100, 000 less than they did before they bought the car. You have no idea how much money they have. And I learned about this when I was in college.

I was a valet at a nice hotel in Los Angeles. And these people would come in driving Porsches and Ferraris and Lamborghinis. And then if you get to know them and talk to them, you realize they're actually not that successful. They just spent half of their salary on a Lamborghini lease payment. The vision that they had, the identity of, Oh, this guy's driving a Lambo.

He's clearly super successful. No, you actually don't know that at all. And it's the classic millionaire next door of like, a lot of the people who are very successful are actually driving F 150s. They're actually driving Toyota 4Runners and you would never know it because that's why they're rich is because they actually invested their money.

Instead of spending it on a car they couldn't afford.

[00:34:58] Hala Taha: Yeah, I love it. So related to this, you say that keeping money and getting money are two very different skills. You actually say that if you could summarize money success in a single word, it would be survival. So talk to us about how we can actually keep our money and the main ways that people tend to lose their wealth.

[00:35:17] Morgan Housel: It's just this idea that getting rich and staying rich are two different skills, and they're often conflicting skills, which means it's hard for people to do them at the same time. Getting rich requires. Taking a risk, being optimistic about yourself, being optimistic about the economy and the stock market.

That's what you need to get rich. And staying rich is almost like the exact opposite. You have to be a little bit paranoid, a little bit conservative, scared of risk, cognizant of risk in order to make sure that you're not taking enough risks to throw yourself over the edge. I think one way to summarize it is save your money like a pessimist and invest your money like an optimist.

Save your money with the idea that the world is risky and dangerous and fragile. And there are always recessions and bear markets and pandemics and terrorist attacks and wars and political mess ups that you need to be able to endure financially. But if you can, if you can keep your head on straight during those periods, the rewards for those who stick around are incredible.

I've been investing for 20 years. 2004 is about when I started investing. During that time, there has never been a single moment. In which you couldn't point to a dozen things going catastrophically wrong in the economy. Every single moment, stock market's overvalued. Companies aren't doing very well.

Unemployment's too high. Inflation's too high. Interest rates are too low. At any moment, you could have pointed to a dozen things. And during those 20 years, the stock market is up fourfold. That's how investing works. You have to save like a pessimist to endure all of those dozen things to point at. But if you can stick around, you look back over a 20 year period and you're like, man, I made four times my money during this period.

It's incredible. That's always how it works. Saving like a pessimist, investing like an optimist.

[00:36:59] Hala Taha: So Bill Gates started Microsoft and Bill Gates actually is more of a pessimist. Talk to us about how he's used his pessimism to set up Microsoft for success, because even in 2023, Microsoft is a huge company that's growing and leading the AI charge and everything

[00:37:13] Morgan Housel: like that.

Well, I think Bill Gates is the best example of someone who has gotten optimism and pessimism to coexist. Because when he started Microsoft in the 70s, he took the most optimistic swing that any entrepreneur has ever taken. When in the seventies, he said, every desk in the world needs a computer on it.

That was the craziest idea in the world. Crazy optimism at the same time, from the day he started Microsoft to the day he left in 2000, he ran it as conservatively as you possibly could. He said he always wanted enough cash in the bank so that he could run Microsoft for one year with no revenue, like the most pessimistic way to run a business.

I think that's why they've done so well. It's not that they're always optimistic or they're always pessimistic. They realize that if you can survive all the uncertainty and all the upheaval, then you have a fighting chance to actually compound for 50 years as they have. And very few businesses are actually like that.

If you have a very optimistic CEO, they're like, let's bury ourselves in debt and invest every penny that we have and swing for the fences. And nine out of 10 of those businesses are eventually going to go bankrupt, probably pretty soon. But also, if you're too pessimistic, then those businesses become obsolete.

So, it's getting both of those at the same time that is so rare, but that's really the key to doing well over your entire career, over an entire lifetime, is getting optimism and pessimism to coexist.

[00:38:41] Hala Taha: And I know that you are a strong proponent of having patience and in your book you've got a chapter called Tales You Win and you talk about how sometimes it's that one Picasso painting that an art investor acquires that makes up for all the ones that they don't.

So can you give us some examples of long tail strategy and why

[00:38:58] Morgan Housel: that's important? The painting example is one that I love. It's There were all these art collectors in the last 50 years and a very small number of families ended up with these ridiculous art portfolios. They had Picassos and Monets and like Renoir, like the top paintings ended up in the hands of very few number of people.

How did those art collectors know what was going to become valuable? Because when Picasso was alive and painting, he was not the Picasso who he is today. Most artists become famous after they die. How did these people know what was going to be big? And they looked at their art portfolio and the explanation was those collectors did not know who was going to be big.

What they did is you had a couple of collectors would go out and buy every painting they could possibly get their hands off of. If any painting was for sale, they scooped it up and they ended up with thousands or tens of thousands of paintings. And within that portfolio ended up by chance some Picasso's and some Monet's and some Renoir's, but they didn't know in hindsight what it was going to be or in with foresight, they didn't know.

It was only in hindsight that because they collected so many, a couple of them ended up being worth a zillion dollars. And investing is exactly the same. You have no idea which companies are going to be the next Tesla, the next Apple, the next Amazon. Nobody knows. And people who say they do know are fooling you.

If you own an index fund that owns 3, 000 companies in it, then you know that whatever is going to be the next Tesla is in there, whatever it might be. Always in investing, if you own an index of a hundred companies. Over a 10 year period, you're going to earn most of your returns from five of them. A very small portion is going to return most of them.

And since you don't know what those five are going to be with foresight, the best idea is just own all of them, knowing full well that whatever is going to be the winner is going to be in your portfolio. And that's why you have the statistics about what percentage of active stock pickers outperform index funds.

It's very, very low, particularly if you adjust it for fees and for taxes. Over a 10 or 20 year period, it rounds to zero. Warren Buffett recently said that in his life, he's met 10 people who he thinks can consistently outperform the stock market, consistently pick the right stocks, 10 people that he's ever met in his entire life.

And everyone listening to this podcast, you are not one of them. I'm sorry to say good luck. And so that I think that's the only anecdote to that. And it's the easiest, cheapest anecdote to that. It's just own all of them knowing that you're going to have the winners in there. And speaking

[00:41:30] Hala Taha: of Warren Buffett in your book, you say if he had retired at 60 years old, he might not be the Warren Buffett that we know today.

That's like such like everybody thinks of him as like the most successful investors because he's been investing for 60 years or whatever

[00:41:44] Morgan Housel: it's been. Yeah. If you look at his net worth, 99 percent of his net worth, Was accumulated after his 60th birthday. So he's 93, I think he is now. And 99 percent of that money came after he was 60, which means that if he had retired when he was 60, like a normal person may have, he was a billionaire when he was 60, you would have never heard of him.

The whole reason he's so successful and the whole reason he's now a household name is because he's been, yes, he is a good investor, but the secret is that he's been a good investor for 80 years. And it's just the amount of time he's been doing it for that generates all of that money. He also started investing when he was 11 years old.

That's why he's so successful, because he's been doing it nonstop from 11 to 93. That's actually the biggest takeaway that ordinary people can take from him. Because I and you and anyone else cannot pick stocks like Warren Buffett. But can we try to emulate his patience? Is that something that we could maybe copy from him?

You have a fighting chance of replicating his patience than you do replicating his intelligence. Just understanding why he's wealthy and using that as a takeaway of what we can do and copy him at is, is really important.

[00:42:52] Hala Taha: So this is a concept that I think is from your next book that we're going to talk about.

But what we're talking about is reminding me of this. I know that you actually don't really pay attention to daily news when it comes to changing your stock strategy or picking your stocks. You don't just follow like here, something's hot and then buy it. Right. So talk to us about how you actually decide what stocks you're going to invest in for the

[00:43:14] Morgan Housel: longterm.

So your last point, I keep it as simple as I can. I own Vanguard index funds. I've owned for a long time. It's probably all I will own for a long time. I'm not recommending other people exactly do that. You have to figure out what works for you. And as we talked about earlier, they're definitely people for whom picking stocks is the right strategy for them.

Even if it's not the best for my wife and I, one little quirk I would say is I actually do follow financial news every day, every day. I know what the market did. I read the wall street journal every day because I think it's intellectually interesting. I think it's a fascinating window into how people behave.

But the important thing is that I don't read the Wall Street Journal and then say, I need to go out and buy and sell these specific stocks. It doesn't influence my behavior. I just think it's a fascinating window into how people behave. My personal investing strategy is as, simple and basic as you could possibly be.

My entire net worth is this house, a checking account, Vanguard funds, and shares of Markel where I'm on the board of directors. And that's pretty much it.

[00:44:15] Hala Taha: And where do you park your cash? What's your strategy for cash?

[00:44:18] Morgan Housel: It's spread out over many different Accounts and actually quite a bit of it is now in treasuries because you can earn a great return there spread out over different bank accounts, different brokerages accounts.

Yeah. You know, and the money that I have in short term treasuries, I consider that cash. That's cash like to me. Mmm,

[00:44:35] Hala Taha: got it. Okay, let's move on to your new book. It's called Same as Ever. It covers a lot of the ideas that we've been discussing and much more. So talk to us about why you wrote this book and how it expands on your first book, The Psychology

[00:44:47] Morgan Housel: of Money.

So Same as Ever is about what never changes over time. I think in many ways, Psychology of Money is about the behavior of you, the individual. And same as ever is about the behavior of us, the collective, like what do we, the collective society keep doing over and over and over again? And I've always been a student of, I think, two things.

One is investing and the other is history. I like the intersection of that, like investing history and economic history. I've always been so fascinated in. And one of the things that will really stick out when you're studying any kind of history is. It's really interesting to see what has changed over time.

What do people used to do that they don't anymore? That's interesting. But to me, way more interesting and way more common is when you see what has not changed at all. And when you're studying the history of Americans 100 years ago, or Europeans 1000 years ago, or Chinese 5000 years ago, you see all these kinds of behaviors that would fit in perfectly today.

That have not changed whatsoever. So how people respond to greed and fear and uncertainty and opportunity, that is the same today in the United States as it was in any culture, a thousand years ago, and it hasn't changed at all. And because of that, we know that it's going to be part of our future for the rest of our lives.

And a lot of why I wrote this book was because I kind of got disgruntled at how bad we were as an industry at predicting what's going to happen next. Predicting the next recession, the next bear market, nobody can do it. Nobody has any ability to do it. And so with that, you can either say, nobody knows anything.

Don't even try to predict. No one has a clue. Just kind of become a cynic about it. Or you can say, okay, we don't know what's going to change, but we do know what's not going to change. We do know what behaviors are going to be part of our future, regardless of where the future goes. So let's put all of our emphasis on that.

And so same as ever is 23, very short little stories. About little facets of human behavior that I think have always been with us and always will be and no matter where your future goes or where society's future goes, you know that these little bits that I write about are going to be part of the story.

I

[00:46:54] Hala Taha: love you have it in your book that you say if you travel 500 years back or 500 years forward, the world will look much different in terms of technology and medicine and even language, but human behavior doesn't change much over time. It's so fascinating. It's so true. It takes time. I think thousands and thousands of years for us to like our brain biologically to actually change or evolve.

So we're the same human that we were thousands of years ago, even though so much has changed. And one of the things that doesn't go away for humans is risk, right? This is something that we're going to enjoy to the end of time is this concept of risk. And we touched about risk a little bit earlier, but in your book, you write, the biggest risk is always what nobody sees coming.

So talk to us about these blind risks.

[00:47:40] Morgan Housel: There's a great financial advisor named Carl Richards who has this quote, one of those quotes that just knocked me off my feet. The quote is, risk is what is left over when you think you've thought of everything. So you can spend all day trying to predict the next risk in your personal life or in the economy and for society.

And that's great. You should do that. But then when you are done with that exercise, the thing that is not on the list is what's actually the biggest risk that you're going to face. Think about what the biggest risks we've dealt with in the United States over the past couple generations, Pearl Harbor, September 11th and COVID are probably the three biggest societal shocks that we've dealt with in America.

And the common denominator of all three of those is that nobody, certainly no ordinary Americans saw those coming until the day that they happened. In all those situations, there was no economic outlook, there was no analyst forecast, there's nobody on the news warning you about these things. That in one day utterly transformed the world that you lived in.

And so the biggest risk is what you didn't see coming. And the fact that people didn't see coming is what made it dangerous because they were not prepared emotionally, financially, logistically, they were not prepared for these things to happen. So when they hit, it was like red alert, what do we do now?

And it's always like that. I think in any given year, it is like that. What is the biggest worldwide news story in 2023? It's probably, I hope it's going to end up, hopefully nothing bigger than it happens, will be Israel and Hamas, will be the biggest story of 2023. Of course, there has been tensions, to say the least, in that region for literally thousands of years, but how many people in January of 2023 predicted that that would be the biggest news story?

Maybe there were some people who were on the ground and had a greater sense, but by and large, ordinary people watching the news, it was not on their radar whatsoever. Same with in 2019, if you were looking at the biggest risk for 2020, nobody said a viral pandemic, that's going to close down the schools.

Nobody said that 2001, nobody sees nine 11 coming. You can play that game all day long. And so because of that, you can stay with. A lot of confidence that the biggest risk over the next year and over the next 10 years is something that you and I and none of us are even thinking about because it's always been like that.

To your

[00:49:51] Hala Taha: point, I'm Palestinian and I didn't even see it coming. I was just like, wait, what happened? These big stories, they blow you away. By surprise, how can we prepare for these risks if we don't know what they're going to be? How can we prepare accordingly?

[00:50:06] Morgan Housel: By definition, you can't. That in itself, that realization and that mindset is really powerful in itself because you stop pretending that you can predict.

There's a great quote from Nassim Taleb where he says, invest in preparedness and not in prediction. So one way that I think about that is Think about earthquakes in California. California knows that there is going to be a major earthquake in the future. But everybody also knows that you can't predict when it's going to come.

It's impossible to predict what day it's going to happen or what year it's going to happen. So because of that, you're just always prepared. They build buildings that can withstand it no matter when it comes. They don't like, you know, oh, an earthquake is going to come in December. So let's retrofit the buildings then.

You're always prepared for it. And I think that's how you should think about economic risks, recessions and bear markets and job losses. You have no idea when it's going to come. So don't try to think, Oh, once you see a recession coming, then you'll start to save money. No, it could happen tomorrow. So always be prepared for it.

I think that idea of having expectations instead of forecasts. It's the only way to really survive in that world where risk is what you don't see.

[00:51:11] Hala Taha: Yeah. That makes sense. And another key concept that you talk about in terms of human behavior is pushing too far too fast. Now you say that this is something people do in investing.

You say it's also something people do with their companies. So can you talk to us about that?

[00:51:25] Morgan Housel: Yeah. Whenever you have something good, you have an investing strategy that works or a company that's going well. The very normal knee jerk reaction is Great. Let's make it go faster. Let's make it bigger. Let's milk it.

Let's push it as hard as you can. You do it with noble intentions. You're like, I don't want to leave money on the table. If I have this golden goose, let's keep milking the goose. It happens all the time. Like in investing people who are doing well, start using leverage where they start making bigger bets, more concentrated bets in businesses.

When it's going well, it's like, let's raise more money and grow faster, faster, faster, faster. And it is such a common story that those investors, those entrepreneurs, or even in your own individual career. You eventually realize that there was a natural speed limit to what you're doing. And if you go over the speed limit, you're going to get in trouble.

And you only know where that speed limit is in hindsight when you've gone past it and you get a speeding ticket, so to speak. And so you see this with every successful business. The example I use in the book was Starbucks 15 years ago. And maybe most people don't remember this now, but there was a period in the early and mid 2000s where Starbucks was opening a new store on every street corner, like every couple of hours.

It was just like this absolute proliferation of Starbucks stores. And because of it, the quality of the coffee and of the food plunged. The company's only goal was to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And the quality of the stores just disintegrated. And Starbucks had a really rough period because of that. And in hindsight, they talked about, they're like, look, the natural growth rate.

That we could sustain the quality of the product. We way exceeded. We pushed it way too hard. And because of that the business broke for a period of time. There's so many examples of that of like you have a good legitimate business That is working and customers love you and they will pay you But if you try to take that and just say let's try to make it go twice as fast It's probably going to break so understanding the natural speed limit and size of whatever you're doing Is a really critical aspect of what you are doing any

[00:53:22] Hala Taha: guidance for us to understand like hey This is a red flag that I'm pushing too hard and that I should just calm down a bit with what I'm

[00:53:30] Morgan Housel: doing.

Let's use the Starbucks example. The reason people love Starbucks was not necessarily because it was on every corner. It was because they liked the quality, the food, they liked the taste. And once your ability to scale takes precedence over that, then you know exactly what's going to happen. So understanding, I think this is such a basic comment, but it's so easy to overlook.

Understanding why you are successful is the key to doing this. And a lot of people. They don't actually understand why consumers like them or why their boss appreciates them. And because of that, they overlook what is actually needed to keep this going. And once you have an honest assessment of customers like me because of X, then you realize any deviation away from that.

And of course, you're going to lose what made you special to begin with. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

[00:54:16] Hala Taha: Yeah, I think that's great advice for all the entrepreneurs tuning in. So something else that you talk about in the book is stress. You say that stress focuses your attention in ways that good times can't.

Talk to us about why stress sometimes can be a good thing.

[00:54:30] Morgan Housel: We look back historically, the biggest periods of innovation and new technology and productivity growth without exception happened during periods when the world was. On fire, so to speak. Like the most productive economic decade that's ever occurred is the 1930s during the Great Depression, when the economy was the biggest train wreck it had ever been.

Because every business in America woke up and they're like, if we don't find ways to get more productive and get our act together, we're going to go out of business tomorrow. And that as a motivator, that fear as a motivator creates the biggest productivity boom we've ever had. The other was World War II and the Cold War.

The incentive to figure things out was so extreme because if we didn't figure things out, Adolf Hitler was going to control the world next year. And that kind of incentive created this technology boom of the likes the world has never seen. What do we get out of world war II? We got nuclear energy, rockets, jets, penicillin, microwaves, radar, eventually with the cold war satellites, all of these things that benefit you and I today that happens specifically because of the stress and anxiety of the war, and you can maybe able to say this with COVID in hindsight too, like it's tragic and deadly as it is.

If it unleashes the scientific boom as it has, that maybe 20 years from now is going to benefit us in ways that we can't even fathom today. Using the phrase silver lining, To COVID is a step too far because it's killed like 10 million people, not say like, Oh, that's a great thing, but it's always the case that you look back and you're like, Hey, despite that tragedy, we got this incredible new innovation because of it.

That's making life so much better today. So everybody wants a world in which everything goes great and there's no uncertainty. There's no bad times. Of course, that that sounds like a great world, but in that world, the incentive to improve would diminish greatly, and it's always the stress that creates the biggest improvements.

I

[00:56:33] Hala Taha: love this concept because it's so true. Constraints, deadlines, even if you think about your own self, if you know that you have a deadline tomorrow. your procrastination releases and you can just get your shit done because you know the deadline is tomorrow. It really helps you become more creative, helps you step on the gas in terms of completing whatever you need to complete.

So what you're saying totally makes sense in terms of big disasters in the world and how it can actually foster lots of innovation and creativity because our backs are against the wall. We basically have no choice but to get it done now.

[00:57:05] Morgan Housel: Yeah, I think for writing books, one of the biggest benefits that a publisher provides is a deadline.

It's not necessarily that they're going to help you write the book, so to speak, but they're going to tell you, you have to turn in your manuscript on this date and that, that'll get your ass in gear.

[00:57:19] Hala Taha: Okay, so one of the last ones I'm going to ask you about this book is incentives. So you've got a chapter in it, in your book, where you quote Benjamin Franklin, who once said if you would persuade, appeal to interest and not to reason.

So talk to us about incentives, what we need to watch out for in terms of how incentives can trick us into doing things that we already know are wrong.

[00:57:40] Morgan Housel: I think there are, it's very often the case, not always, this is not black and white, but it's often the case that if you see somebody doing something that you find morally wrong, Or just something that you disagree with.

You are probably underestimating the odds that you would do that exact same thing if you had their incentives. And I saw this first hand during the financial crisis of 2008 when a lot of Americans rightly pointed at Wall Street bankers and said those greedy bastard bankers will ruin the economy. And maybe like that was not necessarily the wrong criticism, but I think what people overlooked is that if you worked at Bear Stearns in 2006 And they said, Hey, package these subprime bonds and we'll give you a 6 million bonus.

You would have done it too. You would have done the exact same thing if you had that incentive dangled in front of your face. And so I think we underestimate the boundaries of our morality when we don't understand the power of our incentives. Everyone thinks, Oh, my moral boundaries are right here. But if you had different incentives, you'd be like, Oh, maybe I can shift them out a little bit.

And you don't even know you're doing it. It's subconscious. Everyone is so influenced by these incentives. And at every level. When you're looking at World War II, how could the Germans possibly have acted like this? I think when you look into what the 1930s were like for them, the incentives, the incentives to go along with it, the incentives to not want to be an outsider, the incentives to do what you're told, it's not to justify anything in the slightest.

But if you're looking for an answer of how can people do that thing, whatever that thing would be, in business, in wars, whatever it'd be, the answer is usually some sort of incentives. And it's not even a financial incentive. There are social incentives. There are tribal incentives. There are political incentives to do things that you would otherwise find repugnant, but you do it because the incentives push you to do it.

That's

[00:59:24] Hala Taha: super insightful. The last question I'm going to ask you about your book in terms of a concept is you talk about permanent and expiring information. And I love the distinction that you draw between these two. And I hope today's interview is going to be permanent information for our listeners, but can you explain what you mean between the difference of the two?

I

[00:59:42] Morgan Housel: mean, one, one way as someone who writes books and say, one of the best advice that I've ever heard is if you want to write a book that people will read 20 years from now, write a book that people would have read 20 years ago. Make sure that what you're writing about is timeless. And I think we can say that about this podcast.

I think if we had a time machine and someone listened to this podcast in 2003. 99 percent of what we said would be relevant. So you have to understand what kind of information is expiring if you're watching the stock market Oh microsoft missed quarterly earnings by one penny per share like that's a expiring information I'm, not going to say it's irrelevant, but it's expiring as a shelf life But if you're talking about how people respond to greed and fear that's permanent that never changes and that will be as relevant 20 years from now as it is today.

So you should put more of your emphasis in learning permanent skills Knowing that they're going to stick around rather than drowning yourself in expiring information that might be relevant for a week or maybe even a year, but it has the shelf life of something that's going to expire.

[01:00:43] Hala Taha: I totally agree with that. Well, Morgan, thank you so much for your time today. I feel like this podcast was filled with so much timeless wisdom about finances.

So I end my show with two questions that we ask all of our guests. The first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to be more profitable tomorrow.

[01:01:01] Morgan Housel: Go out of your way to define your game and realizing that your game might be very different from your co workers game, even your co founders game, your siblings game, everyone is different.

And don't assume that because society tells you that you should have X, that that's actually what you should be chasing. Mm.

[01:01:18] Hala Taha: Back to the goalposts we were talking about before. What is your goalpost, Young and Profiters? And what is your secret to profiting in life? And this can go beyond business and finance.

[01:01:28] Morgan Housel: Realizing that there are probably 10 people in life who I want to love me. My wife, my kids, my parents, maybe three friends. And it's not that I don't care about the opinions of anyone else, but I think it's really helpful to have people in your life who you don't want to disappoint just a few people who are, it's like, it's, that's, that's your North star.

I'm like, am I doing this for the benefit of those 10 people? would they be proud of me? Is this going to help my relationship with them? I think it's just a very strong guiding light. What really matters. And if you're on your deathbed, are you going to care about your net worth or the square footage of your house, or are you going to be proud that?

You are a good spouse. You were a good parent. You were a good friend. You helped your community. Like it's obvious what's going to be more important to you. So like, let's keep that as the focus.

[01:02:15] Hala Taha: I love that. That's great advice. Well, Morgan, thank you so much for joining us on young and profiting podcast.

[01:02:20] Morgan Housel: Thanks so much for having me. You know, young improfiters, this conversation got me thinking about how our finances are so much more about our emotions than we like to think that they are. Understanding how our own psychology impacts our approach to money can keep us from making some huge mistakes down the line. And there's nobody better at showing us how to do this than Morgan Housel.

[01:02:47] Hala Taha: Morgan argues that finance is a lot more like psychology than physics. There's not a single right answer for everybody and every problem, and a strategy that works for somebody else might not work for you at all. We each have our own unique risk tolerances, ambitions, and time horizons. But there are some common emotional pitfalls that a lot of us fall under when it comes to handling our finances.

One huge one, according to Morgan, is social comparison. Even if we're doing well, we just can't help but look over our shoulder at other people who are doing better than us. And if you do that, it's hard not to feel inadequate. A related trap in investing is FOMO, fear of missing out. If you see somebody else getting richer from what they're doing with their investments, you're going to think that you need to start taking similar risks to try to catch up.

But there will always be others doing better than you. You don't need to catch them. You just need to play your own game, like Morgan says, and do what works for you. That's what worked for Warren Buffett, for example. He accumulated 99 percent of his net worth after his 60th birthday. Slow and steady can win the race.

And even if we can't pick investments like Buffett, we can try to copy his patience. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting podcast. If you would like to keep your friends and family from a little FOMO, be sure to share this episode with them. And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something new, then drop us a five star review on Apple podcast.

And if you like to watch your podcast episodes, you can find all of our episodes on YouTube. If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. Before we go, I want to thank my production team, Jason, Amelia, Hashim, Furkan, Ambika, Kriti, Aaron, everybody on the team.

You guys are amazing. Thank you for all that you do. This is your host, Halataha, signing off.

Hala: Yeah. Haley, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

Haley: I'm so excited to be here.

Hala: I'm so happy that you're here and that we get to hang out in person. And before we get into finance, budgeting, investing, you say that a lot of people are getting financial advice for an America that, like, doesn't really exist anymore.

You say that the American dream is dead, and you also say that long live the new American dream. So let's start there. What is the new American dream to you? Paint that picture for us.

Haley: The new American dream is owning your time and having freedom.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: For our parents' generation, it was so much about being locked into these corporate jobs for, you know, 30 to 40 years.

Mm-hmm. You get your pension, and then there's sort of this- Yeah ... light at the end of the tunnel where you're gonna have that retirement and your life's really gonna start when you're, like, [00:01:00] 65 or whatever. But what I think is that with Gen Z and millennials, we want to enjoy our time now.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: We don't wanna be beholden to a corporation because we know that they're not loyal to us.

Mm-hmm. Um, and we want freedom.

Hala: Yes. Yeah, you talk about something called a freedom fund- Yes ... which I think is, like, a really cool. It's the ability to have money so that you can say no to things.

Haley: Yeah.

Hala: Talk to us about the freedom fund. Why is it so important to you as, like, a principle?

Haley: Well, I actually call it an, a freedom fund, but also F-you money.

Hala: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Haley: Yeah. Which is, and I'm sure you feel like that too- Mm-hmm ... 'cause it's, you know, like, you're rich, where, you know, the more money that you have, the more power you have, which is why I'm also so passionate about financial literacy- Mm-hmm ... and, uh, you know, empowerment for women- Yeah

because for our, for women, like, for, we couldn't have our own credit cards till 1974.

Hala: I know. I- that's crazy. [00:02:00] Like, it really wasn't that long ago.

Haley: It really wasn't. When the Knicks... I'm a New Yorker, so- Mm-hmm ... when the Knicks won the championship, uh, this past year, the last time that they had won an NBA championship, women couldn't have credit cards- Wow

which is so crazy. I was like, that was, like, a weird marker for me.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, but yeah, the, I think it's so important to have money because it allows you to walk away from things that aren't serving you, whether that is a job that you absolutely hate, or a partner that you, you know, can't stand- Mm ... but you feel trapped by.

Yeah. I have a story in my book, Future Rich Person. I asked her if I could include this. Yeah. One of my best friends, Elizabeth, was in a relationship with this guy, Charlie, who's horrible. Mm. And he, but they lived together and- He's, like,

Hala: a horrible boyf- like-

Haley: Horrible boyfriend. Okay. Like, actually physically pushed her around a bit.

Like- Oh my

Hala: God ...

Haley: just, like, bad news. Kept her really down. Like, she just, she lost her sparkle 100%, but- Mm ... [00:03:00] they lived together, and they had a dog, and he was tall, which I feel for women- Yeah ... can really get you where you're like- Yeah ... "Okay, on paper, though, he's got a lot of these things that I want- Mm-hmm ... and also, like, what do I do if I leave?"

Like, I can't afford a new mattress. Yeah. I can't afford a down payment. But she realized, like, the urgency of the situation, and then started to put money away in that freedom fund, and got what she calls her freedom apartment- Mm ... which she is still in to this day. And it- Good

Hala: for her.

Haley: Yeah. It's above a gas station.

It's so small, but it's the best because it's hers, and she left and, you know, that was, like, a huge moment in her life where she was able to choose herself- Yeah ... and to me, a moment of such financial empowerment that shows you that, like, when you have money, it really does give you the ability to choose.

Hala: Yeah, and I feel like it's important to say, it's important to have that even if you're in a healthy relationship. Even if things are going amazing, you should also have your own money. How do you think about, like, finances within relationships?

Haley: Well, I mean, it's [00:04:00] interesting 'cause I'm in a relationship, and we live together.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, and but, you know, what's interesting about our situation is that we actually make similar amounts- Mm-hmm ... which I feel is very uncommon.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: You never really make the same amount as your spouse, so because we make the same amount of money, we split rent 50/50.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, and I always say you should always split rent based on income versus just a s- you know, percentage- Yeah

50/50 because one person might be crying into their ramen on the first of the month, and the other- Mm-hmm ... feels rich just because money is so relative to how much you have coming in.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: So for us, it works well, but I think the biggest thing is, A, to make money non-emotional in the relationship. Mm-hmm. So it's something that you can bring up in the same way where it's like, "Did you take out the trash?"

Yeah. "What, what are you doing tomorrow?" Mm-hmm. "Should we go to that wedding we just got an invite to? Did you pay your half of the rent?" Like, it shouldn't be this thing that we're so scared of and emotional to talk [00:05:00] about.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: That, I think, gives it this weird power to control us, and that's a bad thing.

Hala: Is he your boyfriend?

Haley: Yeah.

Hala: So do you guys already have, like, a shared bank account or anything like that? Bless you. Bless you.

Haley: So sorry. Um, no, we don't have a shared bank account. Um, but I think when we... You know, the moment that we are legally tied-

Hala: Yeah ...

Haley: where it is marriage-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Haley: then we'll get one, and that's what I believe in, is having a shared account for shared expenses and then having separate accounts for your expenses because I will never, you'll never catch me dead- Yeah

sharing money 100% with someone. I always have to have money that allows me to leave-

Hala: Yep ...

Haley: that allows me to do whatever I want. I don't wanna ask for permission. I love my financial freedom- Mm-hmm ... and that's something that I guard with my life, and I think he does too.

Hala: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So my boyfriend's [00:06:00] actually six years younger than me, so I make more money than him right now, but I, he's gonna be really rich.

Yeah. So he's an entrepreneur as well. And so, um- Uh, it's funny to me because when I think about, uh, finances, it's like I also want to have, like, financial freedom. But I have friends where, for me, like, we're about to move in and we're gonna split rent 50/50, and like, that's okay for me. I have a lot of girlfriends that, like, they'll be like, "That is crazy.

I would never split the rent. Like, the man has to pay rent." I know. But they're not making, those women are not making as much money as me. Yeah. So I just feel like they don't understand that it's like, well, like, when, when you're a woman who's, like, m- the breadwinner making a lot of money, I'm okay to split the rent 50/50.

Haley: It's interesting 'cause there's all of these articles coming out and data coming out about Gen Z women who are making so much more money than their partners and pulling them along.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: And [00:07:00] I actually have an adverse reaction to when women take care of men versus when a man takes care- I know ... of a woman.

Hala: It was hard for me, like, to, like, be like, well, like, a part of me was like, "Well, I worked so hard. I wanna, like, stock up my money. I don't want to pay rent." But at the same time, it's like that's not really fair.

Haley: Well, I always... The way that I look at it is people get into relationships for a lot of different reasons.

Like, I have friends who really are solving for a rich guy, and I don't shame them for it because that's what they need to feel safe. You know? A lot of them have come from a lot of financial instability. They're not in careers where they are going to make a lot of money, and in order for them to actually be in a healthy relationship, for them, healthy looks like the g- guy really taking care of them.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: And even though that maybe is uncouth and, you know, every... I believe, you know, every woman should have their own money, all these things, I also know that there are exceptions to that rule.

Hala: [00:08:00] Yeah.

Haley: Be- when you have financial freedom in the way that I have or you have, we're not solving for anyone to take care of us.

We're solving for one thing, and that's love. Yeah. And that is a privilege.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: And it's something that I take really seriously and I talk about a lot with my partner, and it's really cool that it's like- Mm-hmm ... we're not looking for anything from the other person except for just to be that emotionally supportive- Mm-hmm

partner, my best friend, person I wanna build a life with, but I'm not looking for them to take care of me.

Hala: Totally.

Haley: And that... But that's something that is unique to our situation.

Hala: Yeah. And it's an advantage 'cause we can kind of pick somebody who really matches our personality- Mm-hmm ... who we really enjoy their time.

Yeah. And not really have to worry about their bank accounts too much.

Haley: Yeah, which I'm telling you, like, not... That's not what everyone... But I also like, that's not what everyone looks for.

Hala: Yeah. It's not what everybody wants.

Haley: Yeah. And that's okay to, if you're looking for something else. Yeah. But in, you know, when you really prioritize your financial freedom, I think that that is an advantage.

Hala: Mm-hmm. Speaking of that, like, this tradwife trend-

Haley: Mm-hmm ...

Hala: [00:09:00] is so popular, and this, this trend of, like, being dependent on your husband and kind of glamorizing it. How do you feel about that?

Haley: I talk a lot about stay-at-home spouses.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: I think it's really interesting because- Being a mother obviously is such a big job.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: And I, you know, it, y- a lot of women, I think they have so much on their plates when they're taking care of kids, that if they have a partner who then says, "I'll take care of the money," it feels like, "Great. One less thing off my plate." Yeah. I'm taking care of the groceries. I've gotta figure out the soccer practice.

Like, you know, little Sam is sick. Mm-hmm. You know, all these things that I have on my plate. He's gonna do the finances. What a gift. But that's the one thing that you should never give up control of. Um, and I think that with tradwives, it's really interesting because they make so much money. [00:10:00] Mm. So it's this glamorization of a lifestyle that actually is a business.

Hala: You're saying like the tradwife

Haley: influencers. The tradwife influencers.

Hala: Yeah. Yeah. It's like they're actually making money by- Mm-hmm ... being a housewife, but a normal person not filming their life-

Haley: Is

Hala: it- ... is not making money like that.

Haley: And I don't think that it's wrong to stay home with your kids, but I think that you need to have a spousal IRA, which allows you to put money away for your retirement even if you don't have taxable income, which is so- Mm

important. You need to make sure that your name is on all of the assets. Um, and you need to make sure that you're a part of the money situation and that you also have your own money even if you are, like, not the, the earner.

Hala: Yep.

Haley: That you still have money on the side that allows you to leave and to do what you want with no questions.

Hala: Totally.

Haley: Um, yeah.

Hala: I love that. Uh, another trend that I see online a lot, and it's been around for a long time, is girl math, right?

Haley: Like- Oh, I hate girl... I'm like the number-one hater.

Hala: Oh, you hate girl math?

Haley: Actually, like I've never bullied anyone online.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: But I did [00:11:00] come after girl math and then I felt bad 'cause the girl who started it was like, "I didn't mean to."

Like, in my DMs. And I was like, "Girl, like, love you to death, but also, like, this was bad. Like, we do have to talk about it."

Hala: Yeah, because it kind of makes, like, financial irresponsibility, like- Mm-hmm ... um, cute. Exactly. You know? And like, like, it's not a big deal to be dumb with your money, and also makes women look dumb.

Haley: Makes them look dumb, but it also is this feminization of being stupid.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Where it's, like, considered this feminine attribute- Mm-hmm ... to be stupid with your finances that really just keeps us so stuck.

Hala: Yep.

Haley: Um, and you, I see it a lot on Instagram- In reels, and I often will post them and be like, "What is this content?"

Yeah. Where it's like, you know, a woman pranking her husband by telling him that she's gonna pay the mortgage. Mm. Or, you know, going to Target and spending [00:12:00] $200 but meaning to have just bought toothpaste, and like making a reel about that 'cause it's, she thinks it's so funny and so relatable. Just like these moments where it's clear that the per- the woman is not in financial power-

Hala: Yeah

Haley: and that she doesn't want to be.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: And that it's like cute to not be. Yeah. And I just really don't think that we should glamorize it.

Hala: Yeah. And also, it's like boys also make financial mistakes. There's boy math, too.

Haley: Yeah. I mean, even, and if you look at sports betting and prediction markets, people are getting into so much debt, specifically men from that, and it's never looked at the same way as when women spend.

You know, women, they, we tell, they tell us that we're so frivolous with money. Mm-hmm. That, you know, we can't hold onto a dollar, we're buying lattes, we're online shopping, and you know, we're so shamed. Yeah. But then men will go and, you know, spend $30,000 betting on a parlay.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: And it's [00:13:00] just totally normalized.

Hala: It's so true. It's, it's like really unfair to think about it that like women can spend money and then for us it's like a waste. For men who spend money on their cars and whatever it is, it's like seen as like normal.

Haley: Well, it's just crazy how much we're socialized to stand in our own way with our finances.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: I think that definitely happened to me. Um, and it wasn't until what I call like my aha money moment- Mm ... that I really was like, "Oh, this isn't that hard. I can do it." Tell

Hala: us about that.

Haley: Well, I think that we all ha- you either have it or you can really manufacture it, and that's why I love money books and why I wrote Future Rich Person because I really believe in the power of re- I really believe in the power of reading.

Wow. Brilliant, Haley. But it's like I read so much and it's changed my whole life.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Um, and you know, it's like a way to really shift your mindset. So if you're someone who feels stuck in your finances and you can't really find that oomph and that motivation- Yeah ... read a money book. Try Future Rich Person.

If it doesn't work for you, there's so many other great ones out [00:14:00] there. Um, but mine's like really personable and funny. I'm a comedian. Yeah. And so I, you know, it's definitely a page-turner. Like, people always message me like they read it in one day. So it's... I don't think there is like another money book like that where you would- Mm-hmm

binge read it. Um, but I really think that it's important... So what it leads to is having that money a- that aha money moment.

Hala: Okay.

Haley: And for me, that happened when I had my first full-time job and I was working for Lorne Michaels, who started SNL. Mm. And the first day, they asked me about 401s and health insurance, and up until that point, I had been sort of like Girl Mathy, not taking my finances so seriously, assuming that, you know, my dad or- Mm-hmm

a boyfriend was gonna take care of it and it wasn't for me. And then, but I took my career seriously. Mm. And so when I realized that there was a tie between how I would be perceived at work and my lack of financial literacy, it gave me the motivation to then actually [00:15:00] understand these topics-

Hala: Yeah ...

Haley: which then led to me realizing that I could totally understand them, they weren't hard at all- Mm-hmm

that I had been 100% catfished by the whole thing, and that, you know, financial literacy really just requires like sixth or seventh grade math and some automation, you could be a millionaire.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: And I became Mrs. Dow Jones, which I- Yeah ... obviously took it really far. But you know, it can come from- You know, when you lose your job and you have to, and you run through your savings and you realize that you have to figure things out.

Or a lot of people have their money, their aha money moment when they're at a big life s- moment. Mm-hmm. So like maybe you're having a baby. Yeah. I see that a lot, where it's like it suddenly snaps you into gear and you're like, "I'm an adult. There's gonna be another kid, another person relying on me. I need to get it together."

Yeah. Just that moment where you sort of face yourself in the mirror and you realize you can't run from it anymore.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Um, and even if, like I said, even if you don't have that mo- motivation, you can manufacture it just by taking in good financial content.

Hala: Mm. I wanna double tap on something that you just mentioned.

Mm-hmm. You felt like you were being [00:16:00] catfished. Yeah. Like what are the ways that you feel like the financial system doesn't set us up for success?

Haley: Oh my gosh. I mean, well, first of all- The financial system is profits off of your ignorance. Mm. So they're not motivated for you to understand things.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: There's no incentive for a bank- Mm-hmm ... or for a credit card company to teach you. Because the less that you know, the more that you're gonna pay in fees, and fees are what keep the whole financial system going.

Hala: Yep.

Haley: Be- and fees really come from a lack of understanding. Mm-hmm. So it's like you're paying, uh, you know, financial manager fees to manage your finances.

Yeah. 'Cause you- Late

Hala: fees for credit card

Haley: debt. Late fees for credit card debt, fees for banks, fees for this, fees for that, and they really add up.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, and that all just comes from, you know, a lack of understanding that, of [00:17:00] course, the financial services industry could work on. Yeah. But instead, they mask everything in so much jargon and, you know, vests and, you know, this allure of Wall Street, and it just feels, you feel so othered from the system-

Hala: Yeah

Haley: that you assume you couldn't possibly be trusted to take control, and so then you hand over the reins to someone else, or you ignore it.

Hala: Mm. You've got this structural barrier quiz- Mm-hmm ... in your book. What are some of the questions that you ask people to kind of unpack whether there's, like, a real barrier?

Haley: Um, well, you know, I start the book going through your money mindset. Mm-hmm. Because I've worked with tens of thousands of people on their finances, and what I've realized is, you know, I can tell you anything about emergency funds- Mm-hmm ... and how to invest in the stock market, and it all sounds great, but you're never actually going to make a change unless you unpack your why.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: And what's holding you back, and what are the stories that you're [00:18:00] telling yourself about money that are keeping you stuck.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: And it's funny, because I really look at financial wellness, emotional wellness, and physical wellness sort of in the same way.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: Where I think that you need all three to really live a balanced, good life.

But when it comes to emotional wellness, it's so normalized to have a therapist, right? Yeah. You go to lunch. Your girlfriend's like, "Oh, my therapist said this." Mm-hmm. I know all my friends' therapist names. It's like Barbara, Hillary, this, that. I'm like, okay, that was a good take that she had this week. Then when it comes to physical wellness, you know, we have trainers.

Yeah. You go on YouTube, you watch videos, you hire someone, you go to a class, whatever it is. Mm-hmm. You have people who are, you know, teaching you.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: But when it comes to money, we don't have any of that. Yeah,

Hala: nobody wants to talk about it.

Haley: No one wants to talk about it, and we are all so stuck with our own shame from not knowing.

But what I like to remind people is every person that you admire financially- Oprah, Warren Buffett, Rihanna, any of these people. Mm-hmm. First of all, they've definitely made money [00:19:00] mistakes.

Hala: Yep.

Haley: And I could name so many from celebrities. You know I'm like an encyclopedia of that. So we can get into that. But they also started the same place that you did, which was at zero.

Mm. And the only difference between you and them is that they took the time and they believed in themselves enough to learn.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: And isn't that sort of cool?

Hala: It is cool. It's cool that, like, you can actually make a change- Mm-hmm ... and, like, make a difference. Um, so one of the things that I'm noticing online is that a lot of people are, like, showing off, of course, right?

Yeah, of course. Peacocking. Like, social media's a place where people are showing their new bag, their new watch, their new car. Everybody looks a lot richer than they really are. Mm-hmm. And you've got this really great story in your book. I think the girl's name is, like, Vera?

Haley: Vera, yeah.

Hala: Vera. Uh, tell us the story of Vera and how, you know, she looked really rich but, you know, her bank account said another story.

Haley: Yeah, so I was speaking [00:20:00] at Harvard, and after I did a meetup with some followers, and this girl showed up and I remember noticing her because she just... Well, I totally fell for it, by the way, all of her peacocking. Really? I was like, I loved her outfit. She had, like, a Row bag. She had a stack of Cartier bracelets.

Mm. You know, she had a fabulous, like, matching set on. She had designer sneakers. I was like, damn, who is this baddie? Yeah. Like, this is crazy. And then after the, you know, meetup ended, she was like, "Can I steal you for a second? Can we just get a drink? I, like, really need to talk to you." So I was like, "Okay." So then we sat down and she proceeded to tell me all about her debt and how she had just been laid off- Mm

and her student loans, and how she was just basically staring down the bottom of the barrel. And it was, like, this really dark moment in her life financially. And I looked at her, and I was, like, so confused because on, you know, if you'd seen her on the street, you would have thought, [00:21:00] "That's someone who has so much money."

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: But it was all a disguise to distract you from what was actually going on with her finances, which I think is sort of the whole theme on social media, is this needing of more to look like you have m- like, to basically compete with others instead of focusing on actually winning your own game.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: And the only way that you grow wealth is to spend less than you make, and to invest that difference.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: And I call that in the book action money. Mm-hmm. And so if you d- take action with your money and put it in the stock market, you're gonna grow a lot of money. Yeah. But if you take action with that money and go on Revolve or, you know go- That's

Hala: my guilty pleasure.

Haley: go on Mytheresa or whatever it is, and just buy stuff that makes it look like you have money, you're never gonna actually grow wealth.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: Um, uh, but it's really hard because- When you are online, you see 5,000 ads a day. 20% of what you see on Instagram is an ad. Our parents saw 500 ads a day, which is also [00:22:00] why I talk about the American dream being dead.

Yeah. Because we're also in this hyper-competitive- Yeah ... capitalist environment where we're constantly being fought over for our dollars. Mm-hmm. And then you add in this, like, Apple Pay, like Apple Be Paying, and it's never been easier to buy something. And I fall victim to it too. I, um, bought a dress on Poshmark.

I... Like, a Roberta Cavalli dress- Mm-hmm ... for $200 last night at, like, 11:30 PM. And Poshmark is so... You can't return, so I'm screwed. Yeah. And it's like, I hope it's cute, but it's like, did I need the dress? No.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: Why did I buy it? But it was within two... I- I usually can stop myself, but it was late at night.

Hala: I'm the

Haley: worst late at night.

I was just... Yeah, it's so... And then I- I'm really good at printing the label, sending it back, and I always say to people, like, it's not, you're not gonna ever be perfect with the purchasing. Yeah. But it really, you just have to be on top of, you know, getting the money back. And don't be girl math about it, though.

Mm. When you got the money back, then you're like, "Oh, that's free money." Yeah. [00:23:00] Like, just take the money. Um, but yeah, it's so difficult to hold onto your dollars.

Hala: It is. There's so much to unpack there. Why don't we-

Haley: And by the way, as women too, when you look better, you make more money. Yeah. So there's also this incentive as...

Like, both of us are on camera all the time. We're in media. Exactly. You need to have nice hair. You need to have nice nails. You need to have cute outfits. And like, it's part of the gig, but in the same way, it's so expensive- It is ... and time-consuming and addictive. I find it really addictive.

Hala: It's super addictive, especially for people like us that are, like, influencers- Mm

in this space that always have to be on camera. I don't wanna have... Like, I've so much clothes, and yet I feel like it always looks like I'm wearing the same thing- I know ... 'cause it's like something goes viral, and then you're in the same outfit. Yeah. So it's, it is really hard, but pretty privilege is a thing.

So do we have to spend a lot of money to take advantage of pretty privilege?

Haley: I think there's obviously ways around it. Like, I have a friend, Anna Laura, who's so good at doing her own nails. She has the gel kit at home. She does her own microneedling. She's, like, [00:24:00] just so on top of her at-home beauty. But I think that you don't have to spend on it necessarily.

Hala: It doesn't have to be designer. It

Haley: doesn't have to be designer. I think it... But I think it is important to look put together.

Hala: Yes.

Haley: Uh, you know, my publicist, Katie, is here, and I always use her as an example. She's definitely listening and rolling her eyes. But she always looks really put together, but she does it in a way where it is very discreet.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: So you would never be able to say, "Oh, Katie was wearing this thing." You're just with Katie, and, like, she looks like she's polished.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: So I think that's really, if you have a lower budget, the way to do it, is to go to the stores like Zara or Mingo or these, like, Marshalls has great stuff- Mm-hmm ... like lower priced stores, and find things that aren't trendy, and then build a wardrobe around that-

Hala: Mm-hmm

Haley: is really the key.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: But you can't really get around the power of being well-groomed.

Hala: It's true. [00:25:00] But s- people like us, I think it's more of a problem of, like, this, like, for me, and this is, like, horrible, but, like, sometimes, like, I'd rather go on Revolve and buy stuff instead of looking in my closet and seeing like, "What do I have?"

No, I agree. But like

Haley: Well, the new tab

Hala: feeling ... it's like I'd rather just look on my computer and be like, "I want this new thing," instead of realizing that, like, I've got a big closet of all this stuff that I could just, like, be creative and put together an outfit.

Haley: Oh, I would like to wear something new every day.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: That would be the dream. I think about that, like, I have all these fantasies about if I was uber, uber wealthy, like if I was Lauren Sanchez rich- Mm-hmm ... like, who would my stylist be? Yeah. What would I be wearing? What beauty treatments would I get if there was no- Mm-hmm ... ceiling, you know? And it's, like, sorta blows your mind when you let your mind go there.

Yeah.

Hala: Well, the good news is that you could buy what you want when you work hard, and- Yeah ... you're an entrepreneur, to be honest. Like, I just feel like for me it's not about saving or not spending on what I love. I just think about, like, how do I [00:26:00] make more sales, how do I get more clients, how to grow my network bigger.

Haley: Well, that's really the key. I love that you bring that up, because I talk- I have a whole chapter dedicated to that in the book called Secure the Damn Bag.

Hala: Mm-hmm. '

Haley: Cause I'm so sick of the advice, especially for women, being how to save more.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: I hate saving. Like, I love sa- I ha- I love having savings- Yeah

but I feel really oppressed by the couponing culture. Mm-hmm. I remember when I first started my financial journey, when I had that aha money moment, and I didn't really know where to look, finding myself on a blog that was talking about rewashing paper towels. And there's- Oh my

Hala: God.

Haley: Yeah. There's, like, this intense- form of deprivation that was so not glamorous.

And that's sort of why I started Mrs. Dow Jones, because I wanted it to feel aspirational- Mm-hmm ... to grow wealth. Mm-hmm. But I really think that for women especially, we need to focus on making more versus cutting down less. Of course, you can't outwork a bad diet, you can't- Yeah ... [00:27:00] outwork a bad budget. Like, there's limits to it.

But overall, I think women are severely underpaid. We don't ask for enough, and that focusing on having more money is so much better than putting all your energy into scrimping.

Hala: I totally agree, and I think it's for men, too. I think the key is, like, how do you actually release the ceiling that you have? In my opinion, I feel like if you have the personality for it, everyone should be an entrepreneur- Mm-hmm

and start their own business, and figure out how to make more money, and not just figure out how to, you know, penny pinch. Because I don't think it's gonna be $5 coffees or, like you said in your book, skipping the avocado toast that's gonna get us

Haley: rich. No. No, not at all. It really isn't. And even you know with your journey in media where it really came down to you owning, ownership.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Where it was owning your show, owning other people's shows. Like, that's really what put you in a position of financial [00:28:00] power.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: And I think, Jen, that is part of the new American dream.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Is that it's not that people wanna not work. Of course there are people like that of cor- but it's really about being able to work from anywhere, having the flexibility- Yep

having your time back, and then also being in control.

Hala: Mm-hmm. And with AI, to be honest, the traditional job is gonna go away anyway. Yeah. So you better start getting used to selling your skills and figuring it out on your own.

Haley: Yeah. I agree with that. And I do think that there is this- intense moment that we're going through right now of self-reliance, where it used to be that you could sort of hide under the cloak of a company for all those years- Mm-hmm

and they would protect you. And I remember this from my own life. Yeah. That, so I was working for Lorne Michaels- Mm-hmm ... and I thought, sort of in that old American dream way, that, like, I was gonna be in this system, in this company forever.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: Um, and that I was safe. It was this huge sense of relief, because up until that point I had been grinding- Yeah

had been working for myself, and it felt like this, you know, quantum leap to have gotten this opportunity. [00:29:00] And I, you know, then six months in I got laid off.

Hala: Oh, wow. Um- I

Haley: didn't

Hala: know that.

Haley: Yeah. And before that I had been making a lot of content, but I'd been working at a Pilates studio. Mm-hmm. I was a babysitter for a kid named Winthrop.

Yeah. I was, you know, making videos for brands. Like, I was really doing anything that I could to just, like, put the dollars together. Yeah. But, like, nothing had really hit yet, but I was just, I was in my early 20s, I was grinding. And I remember after that moment thinking, "Okay, I can either..." I was working for, you know, in comedy, so I thought, I can, I can go and, you know, the, get on my knees and beg for a job at, like, a Comedy Central or something- Yeah

that's similar. And at that point I think I was making $40,000 a year. It would've been the same amount there. They would've owned all my IP.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: Um, and I would've had to work really hard for no guarantees so that someone else could give me permission to do what I wanted to do. Or I, let me take a [00:30:00] year and see what I can do on my own.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: And so I got a job- Where I was writing videos for the music, uh, company Fuse.

Hala: Okay.

Haley: Yeah. Like, and I-

Hala: I once got a job at Fuse too when

Haley: I was- They were giving them out, girl ... yeah, yeah. Like, they were the best. They were really... I'm like, God, like, thank gosh. Yeah, where'd they

Hala: go?

Haley: I know. Like, but they really had my back.

Like, it was the best. Yeah. And it was only like three days a week, and I'd go... And I didn't really know that much about music, but I'd be, like, writing for all these, like, rappers and, you know- Mm-hmm ... punk artists and whatever, and just, like, making viral videos for them, which, you know, was my bread and butter.

And then working religiously on Mrs. Dow Jones as well, every day posting, waking up. Like, I couldn't go to sleep every day, I remember, until, like, I had done my work for it. Like, I was so focused on the grind. And then by the end of that year, I was in The New York Times- Wow ... which then shifted everything.

Yeah. And then a few months after that, the pandemic started, which was this other boom time for digital media, and so then the career, you know, really started to take off. But [00:31:00] it was because I bet on myself- Yes ... instead of going back into that corporate structure. Mm. And it's not to say that everyone can be an entrepreneur, but I do think that part of the new American dream really is-

Hala: Yeah

Haley: working for yourself- And I feel like- ... 'cause there's no ceiling to how much you can make.

Hala: I was just interviewing... I have another series called How We Profit, where basically I, I interview, like, people who aren't famous but have big businesses- Mm ... and kind of unpack their business models. Cool. And I was interviewing this guy, Ramy, and he said something that was really interesting.

When he decided to be an entrepreneur, he was actually in med school, and he drops out of med school, and he was like, "All of my doctor friends are taking, like, low-paying, free fello- or like, I guess it's low-paying, but, like, fellowships."

Haley: Ooh, my sister's a surgeon, and everyone that... They're so broke.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: It's so crazy.

Hala: And so he's just like, "People are okay when they're, they're gonna be a doctor or a lawyer or, like, whatever to take, like, a free internship, uh, a low-paying fellowship. But nobody's okay with, like- Working for free for a year for yourself

Haley: Yeah, so true. So he- That's such a good point ...

Hala: yeah, so he made- I [00:32:00] love that

this reframe, "I'm gonna do a fellowship of entrepreneurship."

Haley: I love

Hala: that. And that I'm just gonna see what happens and give myself three years, 'cause fellowships in med school are three years. Yeah. I'm gonna give myself three years to figure it out, and if I don't figure out in three years- I'll

Haley: go back

I'll go back. That's so genius.

Hala: Right?

Haley: I love

Hala: that. Yeah, and so, like, having this reframe, especially if you're young, you know, 20s, even 30s, 35, like, you've got some time. Go-

Haley: Yeah ...

Hala: try to figure it out and see what you can sell- Girl, it's like it's not age-dependent ...

Haley: see

Hala: what you're good at. Yeah. Like it- It's not age-dependent

Haley: yeah, 'cause it's, you have one life.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: So if you're miserable, like, and you have that dog in you, go get it.

Hala: Yeah. So, um, I wanna s- go back to your story. I'm, I'm writing my first book.

Haley: Oh,

Hala: congratulations. And thank you.

Haley: It's hard, right?

Hala: It is so hard. It's hard to find the time. Oh my God, it's so hard to find ti- I'm actually hiring a lot so that I actually have time to just work on content.

I'm building offices and studios, writing this book. That's so exciting. It's so much. It's, it's exciting.

Haley: I was so bad with my time during it. Like, I had to do it all on the weekends.

Hala: I'm [00:33:00] already delay- like, I was supposed to have my proposal done this month. It's not gonna be till the end of the year. Like, I'm- It's

Haley: okay

Hala: I'm t- ta- I don't know, whatever. But hopefully it comes together, 'cause it's a long process.

Haley: It'll come together. You just, it's like a compounding thing where you have to do some every day- Yeah ... and it's like running a marathon or something like that- Mm-hmm ... where it's like, feels so great at the end- Yeah

but when you're in it, you're dying.

Hala: I'm excited, 'cause I feel like it'll be, like, so big for my brand. But one of the main things that I talk about and that I've talked about for years is this idea of skill stacking.

Haley: Oh, I love this.

Hala: So I, when I first started my career, I worked for, uh, I actually, I'm actually from this area too.

So I used to work at Hot 97.

Haley: Oh, I love that. And I- I love Hot 97. That's my freaking jam.

Hala: Really? Yeah. Yes, girl. So I was Angie Martinez's assistant- Oh, I love

Haley: Angie ... for three years.

Hala: Yeah. And so it's like I was her, like, right hand. I did all her research and, like, was, like, following her around for three years.

And then I went into marketing and corporate and I started my podcast eight years ago, like, as a side hustle. Oh, cool. And then, like, quit my job, started my business, all this stuff. And, um, I look back at, like, why am I top 100 podcaster? How am I [00:34:00] running a top network? And it's all the past experiences that, like, accumulated.

And I feel like y- when I was reading your story, I was like, "Oh my God, she's like the perfect s- another great skill-stacking example." 'Cause it's like you wanted to be in entertainment and comedy. Mm-hmm. And now, like, you're a social media personality, author, like, all these things, talking about finance. But still kind of doing what you always wanted to do, but just in a different way.

Haley: Well, I'm so glad you brought that up, Hal, because it, so many people, the first thing they ask me is, "Oh, did you work in finance?"

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: And I would never have been able to build Mrs. Dow Jones had I left school and then gone into banking or something like that. I needed to have had, A, so much rejection, 'cause I was a comedian, and so you're doing stand-up, I'm doing improv.

You know, when you're an entrepreneur, when you're on social media, you get rejected every day. It's basically getting a report card-

Hala: Yeah ...

Haley: every time that you push out a video. Mm-hmm. [00:35:00] And it's like, "Did I do well? Did I not do well?" And you have to be okay with it and be able to put out another one tomorrow.

Um, and then I also think it's like the money part of it was actually the easiest part to learn- Mm-hmm ... and to, you know, grasp. The rest of it was, was, were the skills that I really had to build- Hmm ... which was, you know, digital media, learning how to package content, learning how to be on camera, learning about hooks and, you know, uh, the pacing of things- Yeah

and subtitles and all these. When you just watch videos, you don't see everything behind the scenes, but it's very sophisticated to make videos at the level that I do.

Hala: Hmm.

Haley: Um, and so, you know, that all came with skill stacking 100%.

Hala: Yeah, and- and how do you feel comedy has helped you? Oh, man,

Haley: so much.

Hala: Talk to me about that.

Haley: Well, I think that, okay, I think that I was- I had a natural born really deep interest in pop culture and money. And so that's like my secret sauce because, and [00:36:00] that's also what my audience loves the most from me.

Hala: Yeah. 'Cause you, so much has gone viral of like you talking about the Kardashians.

Haley: Yeah.

Hala: And it's just, okay, I love that.

Haley: Which is sort of cool when what people like from you is what you like to do.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, and so I'm really passionate about that too, so I love that that pops off and I'm like leaning more into it. Mm-hmm. 'Cause I think for a while I was like, "Oh, to be like a serious financial expert, I shouldn't talk so much about celebrities," even though I love celebrities.

Yeah. But then I was like, "Who cares? This is spinach in a brownie." Like I, you know, as we... When is this going out?

Hala: Six weeks or something like that.

Haley: Oh. Well, I mean, as we talk there's like breaking news that Harry and Meghan are moving back to the UK. Yeah, I heard about that. Yeah. Yes. And so, which will be like old by the time people listen to this- Yeah

but you know, there's always a financial angle to any of these big stories that then I can use to teach people. Mm-hmm. So you know, for them, people are wondering, "Oh, are they gonna keep their house in Montecito?" And with a little bit of research, I learn that they have this mortgage that's under 3%. And so then I can use that story that already has legs- Mm

where people are [00:37:00] interested in why they're moving back, and talk about, "Are they gonna sell their house? Here's why they shouldn't." Yeah. Because when you can borrow money at a lower interest rate than you can make investing it, then that's called good debt. Yeah. And like some debt is good, a lot of it is bad.

You know, and explain it through that lens. And so I'm still teaching you a really smart thing- Yeah ... but it's just I'm doing it in a way that I'm interested and you're interested.

Hala: Passion is contagious. Yeah. Like that is a great rule for social media. Mm-hmm. Being knowledgeable is super important. And I think the future of everything is gonna be like what is the intersection of your passions, and how do you- I love that

create something, sell something that is the intersection of all your different passions. So you're also really funny in your videos. Thank you.

Haley: I feel like I'm not being funny at all today. But like you're like serious, so I'm like being vibes with you, you know what I

Hala: mean? You feel like, "I am a little serious."

Haley: You are. You're like- ... "Okay, we're like being like real." And so I'm like, okay, I'm being... Uh, but it's like funny when I'm not being funny, and then I'm like, "I'm a comedian." 'Cause like I feel like, prove it. But yeah. But I was always so jokes, like so ham, whatever. Yeah. And, [00:38:00] uh, and yeah, it was really f- it's, that's like, I feel like the secret sauce of it is- Yeah

just being funny. And also, I learned so much from my comedy training. 'Cause I did do training of, I was in UCB, like writing so much, all, like I did so many years of understanding joke structure and, uh, how to write sketches and all these things, which I bring back to the videos now. Mm-hmm. So it was all full circle, and it was all those skills that came together to make this unique thing.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, which I feel so lucky for because, uh- It's so much work, but it is so fulfilling, and it's something that springs me out of bed. And I know the goal for everyone is retirement- Yeah ... but I'm like, I'm down to be Mrs. Dow Jones forever.

Hala: Yeah, I heard that you wanna be Mrs. Dow Jones forever.

Haley: Yeah. I know.

I'm like, well, we'll s- like, I really do. Like, I love doing it. I love my audience. Mm-hmm. And I feel like so much of financial advice is focused around where you're at in life. And so, like, even, you know, I'm in this really serious relationship. When I think about we're [00:39:00] gonna, you know, we're a- we're buying a car, we're, we're, we'll get married, we're gonna have kids.

Like, all these things where then it's taking the audience arou- you know- Mm-hmm ... on that ride.

Hala: Evolving with you.

Haley: Yeah. Although, I will never put my man on social media.

Hala: Why? I

Haley: mean, I just, it's not... Like, maybe for, like, my wedding if we're in Vogue or something that chic. Like, I'm, like, worth it for Vogue, but- You don't

Hala: ever wanna do couples content or anything?

Haley: No. I understand that people really like it, but I also think, like, I have a very private partner, and so, uh, it's not part of our relationship.

Hala: Yeah. That's understandable.

Haley: Yeah. That's understandable. Until, but if it was, if I was dating an influencer, it would definitely be a different story. Mm-hmm. But, uh, I think it's complicated to date.

Uh, my partner's not on social media.

Hala: Oh, wow.

Haley: Which is sort of amazing, too, 'cause, like, there's no perception of me.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: You know? Like, which I sort of like, where I've dated

Hala: people- Yeah, you get to just be, like, your real self.

Haley: Yeah. And I've dated people in the past where, you know, you're always looking, did they look at my Instagram story?

Mm-hmm. How do I look in that video? Da, da, da. Yeah. But I sort of, I feel like I create really without the male gaze. Mm-hmm. Like, I'm always just being like, bloop, like, my hair's [00:40:00] messy. Like, who cares? Yeah. Like, I'm gonna just, like, I gotta get this thing out, and it's a relief.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: You know?

Hala: Yeah. That's so good.

Yeah. I

Haley: love

Hala: that for you. I

Haley: mean, it's hard, of course. Like, I s- I always have eyebrow gel, but, like- ... you gotta do

Hala: something. Yeah, let me ask you that. Now, this is, I wasn't planning on asking you this, but so, so you like to hop on camera and not... Like, how do you get out

Haley: of your- No, like, a lot of times I do, like, I'd say, like, two, two days, two or three days a week I put a lot of effort into looking good.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: But then it's like, two days a week maybe. But then it's like the other two days, I can't, girl. Like, I'm tired. I'm like- And- ... I'm working, I'm writing. I'm like, but then it's like, if you gotta do something, you gotta do it.

Hala: Yeah. And I mean, like, your followers are following you because they love your personality.

Yeah. They love your advice. Do you feel like you have mostly female followers?

Haley: I have a mix. So I actually started, because I think I started, I started talking about crypto and stocks, and then it became more, like, personal finance, holistic advice. Mm. Um, it started, uh, it started with a more male audience, but now it's definitely more female skewing.

Hala: Yeah. How long ago did you start everything? Like, y-

Haley: [00:41:00] 27, 2017, 2018. A-

Hala: and what platform did you start on?

Haley: Instagram So 2017,

Hala: 20... Okay, we started around the... I also started- Yeah ... everything 2018. So- And I'm

Haley: like, it was not an overnight success, girl.

Hala: No. Like, no. Yours was not? When do you, when did you start getting traction?

How many, how

Haley: long- Well, it was steady.

Hala: Yeah. It's like you got some q- wins along the way.

Haley: Yeah, like it was clear that I was on the right track, and I loved doing it, which I still do. Like, I have such a thirst for financial knowl- which is like the same thirst that I have for pop culture-

Hala: Yeah ...

Haley: I have for financial knowledge and advice and, like, news.

Mm-hmm. And so it keeps... That's what it's like, what you were saying about passion being contagious. Yeah. I really am addicted to all of that. Yeah. And I read so much. I read every personal finance book that comes out. Like, I just like... I'm obsessed with teaching people about money and how people teach people about money and then like- Yeah

breaking down the form and, like, trying to do it better.

Hala: Now I realize that, like, you were the first one out of- I was ... all these girls- Yeah ... that came up. No, I was. So it's like you were before Tori Dunlap. Yeah. You were before Vivian Tu. Yeah, yeah. That [00:42:00] Erica girl. How does it feel? Because before that, the, the financial influencers were Dave Ramsey and, and- Mm

Suze Orman. Yeah. Been on

Haley: my show. But I was, but I was more social media first.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: So, like, when I started, no one was making videos. There were no, there were no... Influencer wasn't a job.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Financial influencer certain was, it certainly wasn't a thing. Yeah. So I was just, like, doing it because I wanted to learn about money, and I was like, "I don't like this financial advice that I'm getting, but I love pop culture.

If you can explain 401s versus IRAs to me using Kardashians, I'll listen."

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: So then I made that content thinking, "Okay, there's gotta be someone out there who also feels like that." Mm-hmm. And there was. Yeah. But it wasn't like, "Oh, I'm making a brand. I'm gonna be a mogul." Like, d- like, no. Mm-hmm. None of that.

Hala: Do you ever get a feeling of like, not jealousy, but like somebody like Vivian Tu, who feels like she blew up-

Haley: Mm ...

Hala: three years, like, just so fast. She was so fast. It was so quick. I

Haley: know.

Hala: And now she's just [00:43:00] everywhere. Mm-hmm. And it's like, do you ever feel like, "Damn," like, "I've been working so hard?" Like, do you ever feel, like, any sort of like- I don't know.

Like, how do you deal with feelings like that, I guess is my question?

Haley: I think it's really normal to compare yourself to other people, but I also... My goal, and the goal of anyone in my space I think who's doing it right, is to help people with money.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: And so I look at it like if you are working out, say you're on the Peloton app- Mm-hmm

and you're choosing an instructor, one instructor might work really well for you, one instructor might work really well for me-

Hala: Mm ...

Haley: but we're both working out. Yeah. And so I'm so just happy that there are other people out there who are helping people- Mm-hmm ... and that are connecting to people. I think that's amazing.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: And I also just love seeing female wealth being built. Like, you know, seeing these women make so much money off of these platforms is thrilling. Yeah. I'm like, "Go girl, get that [00:44:00] bag, make that money." Mm-hmm. Like, let's build that business. Yeah. And you know, there's room for everyone at the top. I don't think that one person's success- Yeah

takes away from anyone else's success. Um, and I don't believe in blaming others for why you're, things aren't working for you.

Hala: Exactly.

Haley: So like, even like if a video flops, you'll never catch me being like, "The algorithm. What's going on?" Mm-hmm. Like, "There's a change." Yeah. I'm like, "No, the content sucked."

Hala: Accountability.

Haley: Yeah. Yep. Like, it's like, oh, like I did a bad job. Like, I need to like work harder. I need to find a better topic. Yeah. I need to change my hook, whatever it is. Like, I just, uh, it's always, impetus is always on me.

Hala: Yeah. And every journey has a different timeline.

Haley: Totally. And um, yeah, every journey has a different timeline, and I think it's like when people are really good at what they do, like I think Vivian's amazing at what she does.

She's so good

Hala: at content.

Haley: She's incredible, so it's like inspiring to see. Mm-hmm. And you know, I think that it pushes me to, you know, work harder.

Hala: Yeah. Um, okay. So I want to play a [00:45:00] game with you. Let me just scroll to it. And basically, we're talking about new influencers, financial advice, the, the new gurus.

But there's also a lot of legacy money rules out there. Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna say a legacy money rule, and you give me your take on it.

Haley: Okay.

Hala: Okay? All right. This one actually went viral. I asked it to Dave Ramsey, and it went viral so many times on my page, where he says, "No credit card debt ever."

Haley: Mm-hmm.

Hala: What are your thoughts?

Haley: I also agree, no credit card debt ever. I think that... But, I mean, that's sort of complicated because what if you have credit card debt? Like, it's like, you know. Yeah. Like, you shouldn't spend outside of your means if you can handle that.

Hala: What about no credit cards ever?

Haley: No, I love credit cards. You need to have credit cards because that builds your credit score, which is basically your financial GPA.

I also love using points to get [00:46:00] r- you know, free flights and things like that.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: But you should never spend money just to get points.

Hala: I'm gonna say that one again.

Haley: Okay.

Hala: And I'll do it, I'll just say no credits,

Haley: credit cards ever. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 'Cause no credit card, yeah, debt is like- It's more

Hala: confusing

obviously no. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna give you one, uh, from Dave Ramsey. Mm-hmm. It actually went super viral. He said, "No credit card ever."

Haley: I completely disagree, and I disagree with a lot of his advice. You absolutely should have credit cards. Having a credit card and paying it off on time is how you build your credit score.

Mm. And that allows you to lease cars and, you know, get a good interest rate and, you know, get mortgages and, you know, open new credit cards that will give you rewards, and then you can use those rewards to, you know, get perks like free flights. Mm. I think it's so important to have a credit card. That being said, if you're someone who struggles to stay within the bounds of your credit limit, there are ones with lower credit limits that you can get to just sort of build [00:47:00] that skill set so that you don't overspend and accrue credit card debt- Mm-hmm

which of course is not something that I ever stand by.

Hala: Yeah. I actually fell into the trap of no credit cards ever. Um, I had credit cards when I was younger, and then when I started my company, I didn't have any personal credit cards. All my credit cards were in my company's name. And I remember I was already making, this was like y- five years ago, I was already making like $400,000 a year, $500,000 a year, and I remember I went to go get like a nice apartment in Manhattan, and they wouldn't give me the apartment- Give it, yeah

because I had no credit. I know. I know. And then that's when I was like, oh my God, I, like I need to open up credit cards. I thought I was being financially savvy and smart, and it was not smart at all.

Haley: 100%. Yeah, you definitely should have credit cards.

Hala: Okay. Buying a home is always smarter than renting.

Haley: Disagree. I'm a millionaire. I rent. I think that it's very dependent on your financial [00:48:00] situation and also where you're going to buy. So like in a place like Manhattan, if I rent an apartment-

Hala: Yeah ...

Haley: and I invest that down payment money in the stock market, I'm gonna make much more than if I buy an apartment and then try and resell it for profit, which by the way, what profit?

By the time that you take out the dishwasher that you had to replace, and the HVAC, and all the maintenance, and the r- decorating, and the renovation- Yeah ... and the this and the that, when you actually sell the place It's not much money left over. Mm-hmm. So I really, really believe in renting. I think you get amazing flexibility.

I don't think that it sacrifices this idea of home. I think a lot of people think that in order to be an adult, you have to own your home. That's not true. You're... Yeah.

Hala: What about the psychological safety of owning a home? Like, especially, like for me, like I feel like when I'm 65 or 70 or, I really wanna make sure that like I have a home that's paid for, so like if anything happens, like at least I have shelter.[00:49:00]

Haley: I- Something that I think about a lot with money is, you know, that's when I talk, in the book, I talk about like your money relationship from when you're a child. Mm-hmm. Like, that's the first part of it, and yes, you can heal that, but we're also all carrying things that make us feel safe or not safe. And so if owning a home really makes you feel safe, even if it's maybe not the right financial situation, you should do it.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: You do have to make sure that you're also investing in the stock market, because you can't look at your domicile as your ticket to financial freedom and retirement.

Hala: Yes.

Haley: You can own a home, but then you also need to be investing because that is what is actually going to pay for your retirement.

Hala: Yeah. It's like be ready to put down a down payment while you still have money- Yeah ... available for investing and saving. It's like maybe j- you don't need to buy a home at 30 years old. Maybe you could buy a home at 40 years old.

Haley: Yeah. And like there's this book called The Psychology of Money that I feel like a lot of people talk about, and the whole book is financial advice, and then in the last [00:50:00] chapter, he explains how he doesn't take all the advice.

Mm. Because actually what makes him feel safe is having a bit more money in savings and, you know, keeping more in cash than you're supposed to, and like that's what helps him sleep at night. And I think that's really important is to sort of take your own financial litmus test- Yep ... and say, "Okay, this is right and that's wrong, but what about for me?"

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Mm-hmm.

Hala: For me, uh, something I have never boughten a home yet, but I'm actually gonna be buying commercial real estate-

Haley: Oh,

Hala: awesome ... in Austin. That's awesome. So I'm buying like a building that's gonna have- Oh, cool ... tenants- Cool ... where I like rent out like the office downstairs to somebody else, build out my studios and office upstairs.

And it's like I could easily just lease a place, but I'm like, you know what? I can have my company pay me rent instead of me paying another company rent- Yeah ... and like build my wealth through my organization. Totally.

Haley: And like- And own an asset.

Hala: Yeah. And it's like I'm not really excited about buying a home 'cause I can't do the same thing.

Yeah. But with a c- with, with my business, I feel like it's [00:51:00] really interesting to me to buy commercial real estate.

Haley: I lo- and especially in a place like Austin where- Yeah ... that's what I'm saying, where it's all about where you're

Hala: at. Up and coming and everything like

Haley: that. Yeah. Like I couldn't do that in Brooklyn.

Hala: No.

Haley: But- Yeah ... you know, Au-

Hala: It's one of the reasons why I moved, to be

Haley: honest. Yeah, tota- and better taxes.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Yeah. For me, like there's so much opportunity in New York, so I stay here. But like I get it, like it's, you know, awesome to move to a no tax state.

Hala: Yeah. Speaking of- I'm jealous ... taxes. Um, how do you feel about, um...

Well, actually, I'll wait until the game's over. I really wanna ask you about that, but I'll wait until the game's over. Okay. College is always a good investment

Haley: I don't think this is true at all.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, I think that trade school is a great investment where you're, you know, going to learn something specific that's going to pay you money.

But we see these private colleges charging over $100,000 a year for tuition, and I just can't in my right mind tell someone to take out $400,000 in student [00:52:00] loans for a degree that you don't even know how useful it's going to be.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: That being said, I think that when you're a young adult, it's so amazing to be around other young adults- Yes

who are figuring things out. There's such an opportunity there in terms of your growth. There's a small percentage of people who maybe reach 17 or 18 and they're ready to go out in the world. Yeah. And they should. But otherwise, I think that it's great to look at a college that is less expensive.

Hala: Yep.

Haley: Um, go in state, do that for a few years, and then if you wanna get that fancy degree, try and get good grades and transfer to the college where then you're gonna graduate with that degree, but you didn't have to pay for all four years.

Yep,

Hala: that's so smart.

Haley: Yeah. And see if you can get, you know, scholarships and things like this. But, uh, you shoot yourself so in the foot by just automatically thinking that you need to pay that much for college.

Hala: Yeah. I think it's more about thinking about colleges as, like, the experience- [00:53:00] Mm-hmm ... of college, not necessarily, like, the degree that comes out of college.

'Cause that degree, for the most part, unless you're like, you know, gonna be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer, it's not gonna really do anything- Mm-hmm ... for you. Like, that's not really how the real world works anymore.

Haley: Yeah, 100%.

Hala: Okay, so let's talk about taxes.

Haley: Yeah, I'm really good at them.

Hala: Are you really?

Haley: Yeah.

Hala: I'm so bad at ta- I, like, I hate... I, honestly, my podcast is called Young and Profiting, and, and some people who don't follow my work, they don't understand that it's like, it's really an entrepreneurship podcast. Mm-hmm. And, like, I hate finances actually. Mm-hmm. Um, and finances and taxes, like, to me are like one bucket.

Haley: They are. Well, 'cause, you know, making money is one thing, but preserving your wealth- Yeah ... is a whole other thing, and it's so important to focus on both.

Hala: So let's, like, do a deep dive on, like, you're an entrepreneur. Mm-hmm. Taxes. What are some of the things that you feel like every entrepreneur needs to know about taxes?

Haley: Well, one thing I will say is that you shouldn't be writing off clothing. I think there's this idea that, oh my God, I'm an entrepreneur, I can just write off everything. This is a [00:54:00] write-off, that's a write-off. Yeah. And there's certain write-offs that make you more susceptible to be audited. Mm-hmm. And clothing is one of them.

Um, I think it's really important to get a great CPA and to understand how your business is set up, you know? Like, I recently switched to being an S corp-

Hala: Yep ...

Haley: which is, has, you know, saved me a lot of money. But also what's really important too with taxes as an entrepreneur is understanding the tax advantage retirement accounts that you have at your disposal.

Because it's very expensive to run a business in this country. Yes. They take a lot from us. So

Hala: much.

Haley: It's crazy. But one thing that they do give us, it's not much but are these tax advantage retirement accounts that you can actually put more into than if you had a 401. Mm-hmm. So like the SEP IRA-

Hala: Yep ...

Haley: can put over $70,000 into it.

Hala: Every year or-

Haley: Yeah ...

Hala: every year?

Haley: Yeah.

Hala: And what does that mean? That means that like you don't get taxed on 70K a year.

Haley: That means that you're putting money [00:55:00] away that then you are able to take out tax-free.

Hala: Okay, so you put that money away and you can take it out tax-free whenever you ... Like, I don't get it. Let me

Haley: make sure that I'm right.

Okay. 'Cause I forget

Hala: if it's something you

Haley: put it in tax-free or not. I would wanna get it sure. I'm

Hala: so dumb at taxes.

Haley: My God. Sorry, I opened my phone and I got a picture of my nephew.

Hala: That's cute.

Haley: Um, okay. SEP IRA, taxes

To go Yeah, they're 100% tax deductible. Yeah. Okay,

Hala: so- So, okay, so what does that mean exactly?

Haley: So what that means is say you make $500,000. If you put in $70,000 to your SEP IRA, you are only going to have $430,000 of taxable income.

Hala: Got it. So basically it, it removes that taxable income. Mm-hmm. And then you can pull that money out whenever you want.

Haley: [00:56:00] When you're in retirement.

Hala: But you'd get a tax when you pull it out.

Haley: It'll be taxed as ordinary income, yeah. Okay. So it will be taxed then, but it's growing that whole time. And if you're smart, when you pull it out, hopefully you have a good CPA, again, who will help you get into a lower tax bracket-

Hala: Mm ...

Haley: in retirement- Yeah

so that you're not paying so much on it.

Hala: Yeah. I feel like I have that, but I don't th- I don't think I... I feel like I would know, 'cause I would know if I'm putting in 70K.

Haley: There's all these... I mean, I was looking at a tax hack yesterday that lets me put 156K in through the s- through the SEPA, through the, um, the new structure of the S corp.

Hala: Oh.

Haley: So, so there's all these. You just need a good CPA, I would say is what it's saying. Yeah. I have a,

Hala: I have a good... I actually was just literally was Slacking my team today, like, 'cause I haven't been meeting with my CPA on my team. I said, I'm like, "I need to meet with the CPA and ask some questions." I

Haley: know.

You try and o- but that's the thing is, like, you try- You can't ... an offhand thing. You

Hala: can't.

Haley: But with your finances, you always have to. And even if it's annoying, you still have to do it.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: [00:57:00] And just do it for f- and also get a CPA that you don't hate. Like, the first CPA that I had, I hated. Like, she- So you didn't

Hala: wanna ever take calls?

Haley: She was the worst. Like, it was, freaking hated her. I can't even tell you how. And so I just woke up one day and I was like, "This is my choice. Why am I working with someone that I don't like? Like, this- Yeah ... is holding me back." So find a CPA that you can actually vibe with. I know it sounds crazy 'cause accountants are dry, but-

Hala: Yeah

Haley: you know, they exist.

Hala: Yeah. So let's go back to write-offs. So as an influencer- Yeah ... what do you feel comfortable writing off? Like, can you write off clothes for being an influencer, or you're saying no, never?

Haley: You can to a certain extent, but I just, I think there's other write-offs that are better to focus on, like, uh, subscriptions and electronics and your rent- Mm-hmm

and things like that. Mm-hmm. Versus clothing is a bit harder to prove. There's this famous, um, tax story about this woman called Chesty Love, and she was a exotic dancer.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: And she [00:58:00] got implants to become, I think, like a 34FFF. Like, her- Oh my God ... boobs were huge. And when tax season came around, she was like, "Okay, yeah, I'm, wanna write these off."

And, you know, they r- I think accountants and everyone were like, "What? No, that's not a write-off." And it went all the way up in the courts, and they decided that it actually was a write-off because- Wow ... her implants were not usable in everyday li- life, right? Like they were a costume for her job. And so the same thing would be s- true if I was a pilot and I bought a pilot outfit.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: You know? 'Cause I'm not wearing that every day. That's- or I'm a, a clown. Yeah. And I buy a big red nose. That's a costume. That- Mm ... you know, that makes sense. But if you're an influencer and you're buying that dress, who's to say they-

Hala: That you won't wear it to dinner

Haley: or something You're definitely wearing [00:59:00] it to dinner.

Yeah. And so I think it's just a little bit more of a gray area.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, but again, it is dependent on your CPA. I prefer to focus on other write-offs besides clothing. Yeah. I, of course, write some clothing off, but-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Haley: I don't wanna be audited. And so, um, I would rather use those other deductions.

Hala: Yeah.

When you say that you can write off rent, do you mean, like, a portion of your house- Mm-hmm ... for, like, your home office? Or like-

Haley: Yeah, home office.

Hala: Okay. That's

Haley: what you

Hala: were referring. 100%.

Haley: Okay. So I have an actual office, and so that's obviously a write-off.

Hala: Okay.

Haley: And then-

Hala: Outside of your home.

Haley: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And next door.

And then I have my office at home, which then is also tax deductible.

Hala: What are other, what are some other things that people should think about regarding taxes? Like, and, and-

Haley: I think the biggest thing- Be smart ... with taxes really is- The tax advantage accounts. Like understanding how to put money aside so that it brings down your taxable income.

Mm-hmm. That's like the biggest hack. When it comes to the deductions, that's assuming, I'm assuming you have a lot of entrepreneurs, [01:00:00] so they're taking itemized deductions, so that's, you know, its own beast.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: But I, I would also say to be wary of spending money as a write-off.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Never let that influence your spending.

Spend in the way that's appropriate for your business, and then afterwards you let the chips fall where they may.

Hala: Yeah, you don't wanna spend $100,000 to save $25,000.

Haley: No, not at all. Which a lot of people do. I mean, when you look at, like, charity galas, you know, like the Met Gala is a- Mm-hmm ... charity gala, and people are like, "Oh my God, yeah, it's a tax write-off for people to do that."

But you are o- the only write-off is after the fair price of the ticket.

Hala: Mm.

Haley: So, you know, between renting the Met and the entertainment and the cost of your plate, maybe it's a, you know, $20,0000 ticket at fair market value, but then they just charge it for 30,000, so you're still spending 20K. Maybe you got a 10, for $10,000 write-off- Yeah

but you're still spending 20K.

Hala: Yeah. [01:01:00] As an entrepreneur, something that I think about, so, like, um, I take out a good salary. My, my business partner Kate takes out a salary. We've got employees. Mm-hmm. Um, and then, like, whatever cash that we have left over in the business at the end of the year gets massively taxed.

One of the reasons why I left New York is because I lost f- literally 50% of my money in 2024 after my b- and I, we had such a good year. We made so much money, and then I had to hand over so much money to the government- Mm-hmm ... and it made me sick.

Haley: Yeah.

Hala: And I was like, gosh, like, I should've spent that money.

Haley: Mm-hmm.

Hala: And so now I'm always thinking about before the end of the year, what can I spend in marketing-

Haley: Mm-hmm ...

Hala: to grow my business? Yeah. So for example, like I have a podcast network. I grow and monetize 50 other podcasts.

Haley: Great.

Hala: So I think about, like, well, for a long time I wasn't giving out, like, advances. Uh, now if I want a podcaster I'm like, "Fuck it, I'll give them an advance," because it just helps me, like, kind of like- Add value

spend money. Yeah. Add value. [01:02:00] I know I'm gonna make money off that- Mm-hmm ... podcaster and then I kind of, like, keep, like, delaying when I get that money- Mm-hmm ... but I know it's coming. Mm-hmm. And so I'll think about, like, what conferences can I sponsor, what, like, what marketing can I spend- Yeah ... so that I'm not left over with all this cash that just goes to the government at the end of the year.

Do you think that's a smart way to go about it? I

Haley: think that's so smart.

Hala: Okay. '

Haley: Cause you're adding value to your bottom line.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: I think the smartest thing that you did was moving.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Like, that's- Definitely ... genius

Hala: Do you ever think about moving?

Haley: I do, but it's hard now 'cause I, like I think I'll stay in New York.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, and it's a big cost to pay.

Hala: And Dow Jones is like in New York, right? Or-

Haley: Yeah, but I have not affiliated with them. But they are here. I have to stay close. I know,

Hala: but like I just feel like you're like s- your

Haley: brand- I have to be close ... is so New York.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: I know. But it's, um, it's a big cost to pay, and I- I hate it, but it's, uh, it is what makes sense for me right now.

Like I- Yeah ... pay a hefty price to be here. Yeah. But like I grew up here. I think [01:03:00] there's so much value in your social network.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: And I have such a big network here. Yeah. And so that would be hard to give up. Um, but I think a lot about living like half-time in Miami, but I think it's just different now 'cause I have a partner.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: Um, I was single for so long. I probably should've done it then. Yeah. But now I'm like screwed because, uh, I- my partner wants to be here too.

Hala: Yeah, and s- so the same point we were talking about before, like just you gotta make, like you gotta make more money. Like, you know what I mean? Like you could just make more money to live the lifestyle that you want, no matter what city you live in.

Like there's plenty of really wealthy, successful people who live in New York and make it work.

Haley: Yeah, but it does suck. Like I- Whenever I look at my bank account- You're like, "It does suck" ... after they take out the quarterlies, oh my God, I'm like-

Hala: It does suck. It's been awesome. Like I've been able to... That's why I can buy an office now.

So cool. Like buy like a huge building.

Haley: So happy for you.

Hala: Thank you. Um, okay. This has been such an awesome interview. Um, before we go, something that I wanna ask you is like for everybody [01:04:00] tuning in, um, what do you want them to do in the next 24 hours to level up their finances?

Haley: I want you in the next 24 hours to drop an anchor and have a money date, 'cause I guarantee the majority of people listening to this, especially it will be six weeks from now, so summer will be over.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: And they probably have a summer spending hangover, and they don't really know where they're at. They haven't looked at their bank statements and their credit card statements for the last, you know, how kn- I don't know how long.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: So look at the last three months, and that will give you so much momentum.

It'll take, you know, 15, 20 minutes. Look at, you know, subscriptions you can cancel. What are your big spending categories? Where are you at? Where are you bleeding? And then that'll gives you the information to know where you wanna go.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Haley: But what you measure will never grow.

Hala: Hmm.

Haley: So it's so important to drop an anchor and actually understand where you're at if you want to grow wealth.

Hala: Hmm. And what are the [01:05:00] ways that people can implement more friction in their lives so that they don't like... We're, it's so easy to just spend. Like we were just- Yeah ... talking about like-

Haley: Apple Pay.

Hala: Well, yeah, like one of the- Revolve ... one of the things that I do is like I'll be scrolling at night, and like I'm so susceptible to ads that I get at night.

I know.

Haley: Uh,

Hala: so- Night,

Haley: night is so bad ...

Hala: two clicks and I just buy what I want. Like I just buy whatever, or like I'll find myself like doom scrolling on Revolve.

Haley: Oh, yeah, I did, was doing

Hala: that last night. You know what I mean? Like so-

Haley: I'm like I've already looked at all the new in, and I'm not buying any of this.

What am I doing?

Hala: Yeah, and it's so funny that like if for some reason like it asks for my like CVC code and I don't know it, it's like fucking- You stop ... I'm not gonna buy

Haley: this. Then you forget it.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: I know. It's so crazy. Uh, well, so what I do a lot, I didn't do it obviously with the Poshmark dress, but- ... uh, they, they got me good.

Hala: Hopefully f- fits.

Haley: Hopefully it fits. I think it will. Um, but what I do is, A, remove my cards from Apple Pay. That helps a lot, [01:06:00] but I also wait, try and wait three days before I make a purchase. So-

Hala: Mm.

Haley: There's actually this app in Asia Where you can buy things, scroll, buy, add to cart, and then check out, and then it just, like, never charges you, and you never, uh, get sent anything.

And I'm like, I sort of get that because I love-

Hala: Wait, say that again.

Haley: Like, it's like, it, it simulates shopping.

Hala: Oh.

Haley: But it's not you're actually paying for anything. 'Cause I feel like- Oh, so you

Hala: can, like, pretend shop? '

Haley: Cause shopping is so fun. It is. I love shopping. Yeah. Like, I'm going to Greece tomorrow with my best friend, and we're going to Amorgos, which is a little, this little island, but we're going to Athens for a few days before.

Mm. And it's, like, what I'm most... Like, one of my favorite things in the world is, like, having a day where I'm off work and I'm with one of my best friends, and they have good style, and then we just, like, leisurely bop into stores. Mm. Yeah. You, like, hope for that special moment where you find that dress or that pair of sunglasses.

Yeah. And it's just like you've made your own money and you can buy that thing for yourself. Totally. It's the best freaking feeling. But then sometimes you get home and you're like, "Why did I buy a [01:07:00] hairbrush?" Like, I know it's, like, a cool hairbrush, but I have four other hairbrushes. Yeah. Like, but it's like, no, I just wanted that feeling.

So, um, I would say wait three days before you pay. Remove the Apple Pay. Um, I... Mute so many freaking influencers, and also try and train your algorithm. Like, that's a lot of what I do online with, like, my likes- Yeah ... is I'm sending them places where it's gonna send me more business content versus, like, shopping or food content.

Mm. And sometimes I actually go on Instagram and, like, customize it if it's too much because, A, I don't cook that much, so why- Yeah ... am I seeing so many food videos? And, B, like, I don't need to see, like, all these girls with insane style who, like, are as good at dressing as I am at, you know, being Mrs. Dow Jones, so you're seeing the best of the best.

Yeah. And it's like, makes me feel bad, and then I wanna dress and be like them, but I'm never gonna even get close to it.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: So I, yeah, unfollow a lot of people.

Hala: I feel like you can also, like, go into... I know for, like, especially my, like, business credit [01:08:00] cards, you can go in and, like, set a limit.

Haley: Yeah, setting

Hala: limits is good.

Like, 'cause, 'cause they might give you a really big limit, but you can set your own limit. And then if it declines, you're like, "Oh, shit, I spent way too much money this month."

Haley: Yeah, it's all about just having a goalie. And then you know what the best thing is?

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Buy a printer.

Hala: A printer.

Haley: Buy a printer and print the freaking label.

Print it the moment that it... Like, that's my secret- Oh,

Hala: like to return?

Haley: Yeah, return. I'm doing returns all the time- Me too ... because it's like-

Hala: That's, like, my assistant's number one job is to return

Haley: my stuff. Yeah. But it's like that, but that's okay. Like, as long as it's going back. Yeah, you're- Like, it's like obviously it would be better if you weren't buying in the first place- Yeah

you hear. But it's like get it out. If it's not perfect or whatever, get it out.

Hala: Yeah.

Haley: Um, yeah.

Hala: Love that. Okay, um, I end my show with two questions I ask all of my guests.

Haley: Okay, love that.

Hala: What is one actionable thing our Young and Profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

Haley: I would say the best thing you can do to be more profitable tomorrow is ask for more.

Hala: Like, [01:09:00] tell me more.

Haley: Like, raise your prices.

Hala: Raise your prices,

Haley: yeah. Raise your prices. Uh, cut clients who are sucking you dry and not- Yeah ... paying you enough. Like, audit your time so you're actually being paid what you deserve for what you're putting in.

Hala: Yeah. I totally agree. And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is?

This can go beyond finance. I know you're Miss Dow Jones. Mm. You love talking finance. But what is your secret to profiting in life? And it can, it could be finance related, actually.

Haley: I think it all comes down to my relationship with myself.

Hala: Ooh.

Haley: Like, it really is that I have a good relationship with myself, I bet on myself, and I, you know, work on improving myself and loving myself, and, like, that has built so much equity in who I am, and allow me to go out in the world and chase my dreams.

Mm. And nothing, for me, like we said, has happened overnight. Yeah. Not my business, not my book, not my relationship. Nothing has happened overnight. [01:10:00] Everything has taken me through so much darkness first. Yeah. And so I think that, you know, we always see those images of, like, the root of a tree, and it's, they go so deep, and then finally you see it spring up and be this beautiful thing.

Yeah. And when you're on social media or whatever, you just see the beautiful thing, but you don't see the root. So work on your root, and even if it doesn't feel like you're getting anywhere, just make little bits of progress, and bet on yourself, and nurture yourself.

Hala: That's so beautiful. And you are just such a great example of that, that, like, it wasn't a overnight success.

Yeah. It took 10 years to get to where you are.

Haley: Yeah, totally.

Hala: Help us understand, like, what-

Haley: And I'm still learning every day. Yeah. Like, it's like I'm not, like, it's not a, you know, like, all, I'm sure you feel like that, too. That's why entrepreneurship is so addicting and fun, because it just keeps you guessing, and you're always trying to turn a trick.

Hala: And it's so crazy, because it's like, I, I came across to you only recently.

Haley: Oh, wow.

Hala: Yeah, like, I, and, and, like, it's like, I, for, for me, I [01:11:00] thought you were, like, somebody new who popped up.

Haley: Oh, no.

Hala: Yeah, girl. You know? And it's- I've been

Haley: here ...

Hala: you've been here. Yeah. And it's like, so, it's just, it's, it just goes to show that it's, like, everybody has their own journey.

Haley: Yeah.

Hala: And it's like, you have, like, an incredible book that came out. Mm-hmm. You've got so many social media followers. Mm-hmm. What a, like, and do you have another business as well?

Haley: Yeah, I have my podcast as well, which is great. Very

Hala: cool.

Haley: And yeah, it's like-

Hala: Amazing. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

Haley: Um, go to missessaojones.com. Uh, everything is there, the book, you'll find my podcast, my social media. I post daily financial clips on social media where I use pop culture to teach you about money. Mm. So if you like pop culture, I'm your girl, and you wanna be rich. And yeah, my podcast is called Financial Tea, and it's out every Thursday.

Hala: Amazing. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Haley.

Haley: Have a good one.

Hala: You did so good. Thank you. Thank

Haley: you. I appreciate it. That was so fun.

Hala: Good.

Shelby, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you today because I love sales. I feel like I'm a natural salesperson. Everything I do at my company right now, the main focus is sales. I've been selling since I was 10 years old, I would say. But many people think that sales are scary, and Jeremy Minor came on my show.

I know you talked to him recently and he says that nobody is born a salesperson and you've gotta work at it. [00:03:00] So that's my first question to you. What kind of person do you think is cut out for sales? Do you think everybody is cut out for sales?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: You would never guess who's gonna be good at sales. Is what I've learned and that's coming from my sales trainer background from different industries, is I would put money on like this guy that would come out and do door to door, top of the football team, super extravagant, extroverted guy.

I'm like, you're gonna do so good. He doesn't at all. But then like the shy person that just. Studies, knows the scripts, works hard, doesn't sit down, that person completely outsells the other one. So you really just never know. But I think the main trait of like what makes somebody good is intrinsic motivation.

And I think at the end of the day, no matter your personality type, shy, extroverted, outgoing, if you know that you are so motivated that nothing else is gonna stop you, that's what's gonna make you good. Because at the end of the day you can teach anybody sales, right? But it's like [00:04:00] the work ethic. And when you're so down, going for that extra call, rolling that extra objection, you can't really teach somebody that.

So I always look for that in the girls that are in my academy and really try to instill the intrinsic motivation in them.

Hala Taha: And speaking of like mindset, motivation, what kind of limiting beliefs do you feel like people usually have that's holding them back from actually being good at selling?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I would say that people are scary. People are not scary at all. Especially I teach a lot of women, the men, they're like so scared to sell these alpha males and it's like those guys are more than often the teddy bears and they kind of respect when you are a little bit pushy with them. Like they're like, okay, like I respect this girl.

I respect the hustle. So just kind of knowing that other people aren't as scary as they seem and they have no idea what you're saying, so you can just have fun with it. Bring back the human [00:05:00] connection to sales rather than just like selling with a script.

Hala Taha: So you're like blowing up on social media. You're doing really well on Instagram and TikTok, and I saw one of your videos and you were talking about how you need to be a sales psychopath.

Oh yes, you do. Talk to me about that.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I like to say you have to be a complete literal psychopath in sales because a lot of people think, you know, sales is super cool, the shiny thing, you can make a lot of money. It's like, yes, but you don't get paid to show up. You get paid to go the extra mile. And sales is something to where it's a direct reflection of your work ethic.

So if you really wanna make it worth it, and to be that top 1% cream of the crop, you have to be a little bit of a psycho, not only in your work ethic, but also in your ability to just know how to regulate your emotions throughout the day. Like for example, you're gonna go call, call, call, door, door, door of no, no, no, no.[00:06:00]

But you have to go into every single encounter thinking this is the sale. This is the person that's gonna buy from me. When maybe the last 10 people told you to. Yourself. So to me that's so psychotic because that's not normal. That's not normal human behavior. You have to trick yourself into being this psychopathic mentality in order to really reap, in my opinion, the true benefits of sales.

'cause that really does come from the top of the top, the best of the best.

Hala Taha: It's so true because like nobody really knows like what your track record is. Nobody knows how many sales you made before that day. The customer knows nothing about you. They don't know your ranking, they don't know anything about you.

So you can come there with good energy and just have the confidence and know your stuff, and they have no idea how well you've done in the past.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Exactly, and it sounds so simple, but it's really not because having that conviction in your voice and that sure tone and that confidence and that energy and the aura when you just got [00:07:00] demolished by every single person before is so hard.

But like you said, they really have no clue. So you almost have to like brainwash yourself into being like, this is the client that's gonna buy and that one client that buys that commission is gonna make up for all of the nos that you had that day. So all it takes is the one you can't let the other people get to.

You're one.

Hala Taha: I feel like before I get on any big sales calls, I literally am telling myself like, holla, you're the number one person at this. You've crushed so andSo. Like I always like give myself like a little pep talk. Like, listen, you've got this. You're the best expert at this. And when I don't come with that kind of energy, like if I'm having a bad day or just like tired or sick, I feel like totally go the other way.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I always say your energy's your currency and being sad will literally make you poor no matter what you do. Especially in sales though. And that's not saying you can't be sad. We're all sad sometimes, [00:08:00] but you do have to almost just fake it sometimes. And that's the psycho is I like, it doesn't matter.

Sales does not matter what's going on in your life, what emotions you're going through, if you're having a bad day, if you're down, if your boyfriend broke up with you, like the client has no idea, they don't care. So it's like, do you wanna make money or not? You can either turn it on or off.

Hala Taha: So I know that you spent a lot of your time focused on selling to women, and there's been a lot of recent reporting saying that women are betting better at selling than men.

And you've really built your whole brand around female sales reps, and I got some stats. Female reps are 11% more likely to win deals than men. So talk to us about why women are so good at selling.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So this is what I've found is one women get a little bit underestimated when they hop onto a sales call.

And this can be either a really good or a really bad thing. Because if you don't know how to run the call, if you don't know how to establish your authority, your credibility, your respect, then you're just gonna get walked all [00:09:00] over. And then that's why some women think, oh, well I'm just, I'm just not good because they don't respect me.

It's like you didn't demand the respect. So that's kind of like the way it could go negatively if you don't know how to use your advantages to your advantage. But the best way is you get a little bit underestimated in the beginning, but then you kind of like. Take charge and put your foot down almost in the sale.

That way they're like, oh, this girl knows her stuff. Like I respect that. So then it kind of almost becomes a positive, and that's what I train my girls on, is how to use like, yes, we're gonna have a little bit of a stereotype no matter who you're talking to. Older women might look down on you, younger women might look up to you.

Older men might be like, oh, she has no idea what she's talking about. So using those different stereotypes as a way to actually be a plus side in sales. Also, men, I've trained a lot of men specifically more in door-to-door. They have that credibility. Like as soon as they hop on a call, they have that [00:10:00] authority.

They have a little bit more respect. And so for them it's more about building the softer side throughout the sales process versus girls. I teach them to do a little bit of the opposite because people already wanna open up to you.

Hala Taha: That makes sense. So it's like women already have natural empathy and the men, you actually teach 'em how to have better empathy so that they can be more like women in the sales process.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So it's kind of like a blend of the soft side, but also like maintaining that respect and credibility, because that's what sales is, is it's perfectly teetering the line between let's get the deal done. This is what makes sense, like the business side, the logical side of your brain, but then the other side of your brain is emotions.

And I always tell my students that I teach, you can't sell with logic because then a buyer's gonna make a logical decision. They're gonna take your logical pitch and they're gonna make a logical decision, which is, this sounds great. Send it over and we'll talk about it later. That's the logical thing to do, right?

Is not [00:11:00] to spend thousands of dollars on a 30 minute call, but what creates that buying atmosphere is using the logical side, but also pulling that emotion in order to create the buying atmosphere. So both sides,

Hala Taha: I love that. I'm gonna get into the emotion part of it later with you, but first I wanna stick on this like hot girl concept, right?

So like you call your sales girls, hot girls, you yourself, very beautiful, blonde, skinny, young. So do you think that looks, has anything to do with your success in sales?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I think it would be stupid to say that Like looks have nothing to do with it, but I think that it can go, like I said, a good way or a negative way.

I think you can be taken not as seriously if you're a pretty girl and you don't know your stuff, people just assume like, oh, she's just another pretty face. Like I'm not gonna trust her with my business. Because what I found, especially with a lot of the girls that I would train, oh my gosh, back in my door to door days, I would recruit all of my best friends [00:12:00] from my sorority.

All pretty girls. They would, some of them did terrible and it's because like pretty girls haven't had a lot of rejection before, so it's like people would waste their time and if you don't know how to do it right, it's kind of a negative. So the looks things, I think everybody has advantages and disadvantages.

You just have to know what to use.

but

the hot girl mentality that I always talk about in my content has nothing to do with looks. It also has nothing to do with being a girl. There's so many guys that I'm like, you are a hot girl. What it is, is this. I tell people that. I want them to imagine like the hottest girl they know walks into a room.

How does she walk in? Is she hunched over looking at her phone? Kind of like, oh my gosh, who should I talk to? Should I go stand in the corner? Or is she the girl that walks in? Her energy is just so infectious, and other people are like, oh, I wanna figure out what she's about. I wanna go ask her questions.

So it's more about the aura and the energy that you have that [00:13:00] you carry into every single conversation.

Hala Taha: So do you ever get people telling you like, you know, what do you know you're 23 years old, why are you teaching sales?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: All the time. And it's so funny because I like to say I've lived 30 years in the last probably four years, so I feel like I am like 60 years old. But I do get that. And what I like to say is I don't have kids, I don't have like, this is my thing. This is every single piece of my energy goes into this. And I also bring a different layer of I know what works to sales training and sales changes every single day.

Especially with online, how people perceive things. A lot of the sales techniques that a lot of the older sales trainers use, when I was like a sales rep, I would listen to that, try it and get the door slammed in my face. So it's like there's a lot of little things that you just have to know, like realistically, would that work or not?

And I think that's kind [00:14:00] of where a lot of my content people see it and they're like, oh, that would actually work.

Hala Taha: Yeah, and You have a track record. You've done great in sales. And here's the thing, you're a good teacher. So when I hear feedback about, or if I've seen stuff when people are like kind of hating on you, I'm like, she's saying I'm a salesperson.

She's talking the right stuff, and she's doing good job teaching. And like she's, she's able to teach it. And I think that's really the difference, right? So kudos to you. I'm really proud of everything that you've done and I think you're awesome.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Thank you.

Hala Taha: I remember I was talking to somebody and I couldn't, for the life of me remember who the person was.

So if you guys are tuning in and you remember this conversation on the podcast, let me know. But I remember I was telling a story on this podcast and I was talking to somebody super credible and I was telling them how when I worked at Disney and corporate, everybody, I looked much younger than I am. And so everybody used to think I was like 10 years younger than I was, and I was treated like an intern.

Even though I had all this experience. And I ended up leaving corporate to be an entrepreneur. One of the reasons why [00:15:00] is because I looked too young to be taken seriously. And the guy told me that in business, the age you wanna look like is 35.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I agree.

Hala Taha: Whether you're older or younger. And to me, like I always like remember that I was like, okay, I just need to look like 30, 35 forever.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: That is so funny because I always tell my friends, I'm like, I feel like girls want to look younger. I, I make myself try to look older, you know, like I put my hair up glasses on, red nails, like I'm trying to make myself look a little bit more older. 'cause you're so right. I feel like that's like the perfect age for respect, but also still being like somebody that people really are like, oh my gosh, like I really wanna talk to her.

Hala Taha: Exactly. You've got experience, but you're still young enough to be like hungry and tech savvy and so like 35 is the age that you wanna emulate. And I like never forgot that. So when it comes to sales, I personally feel like my femininity wearing makeup, dressing, [00:16:00] nice grooming. Helps me close deals. When I was saying before, like if I'm ever like sick, tired or like don't have time to do my makeup or hair and I get on a sales call, I'm like, 50% chance this is not gonna close because like I don't feel my best, I don't look my best.

Maybe the lighting is bad, I'm like in a hotel or something. And so I wanted to get your thoughts on that. Like grooming men and women. What do you think matters?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: 100%. So the majority of the sales that I teach are like face to face. So like you can see the other person and I straight up tell, well, I told my girls or my guys when I was doing door to door, and I tell my girls Now you need to look good.

Like looks do matter in a sales process. They make people want to talk to you, hear you out a little bit more. But also like yourself, when you look and feel your best self, you're gonna be more open with people. You're gonna have just a better energy. And that kind of comes back to the hot girl mentality of I am [00:17:00] that girl and when I show up, I'm gonna look my best.

I'm gonna feel my best and I'm gonna act my best.

Hala Taha: Cody Sanchez has been on the show a couple times and she told me that women who wear makeup make 30% more on average. Men who have better grooming make 15% more, so it's worth it. It's not about your looks. It's not about like how actually like symmetrical your face is.

It's really about the grooming, a good haircut, nice clothes, white teeth, like all that kind of stuff really matters. Okay, so let's get into some more tactical stuff. I wanna stick on the gender topic a bit. Talk to me about how a woman should sell to a man versus a man. Sell to a woman, and I'll give you some other scenarios.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: the biggest difference is a woman really needs to establish frames super early on or else she'll lose it. And so what that basically means is you need to establish your credibility as somebody that knows her stuff, knows exactly why they're on the call, isn't getting on the call and saying, [00:18:00] oh, where are you based out of?

Oh my gosh, I love your outfit. Where's it from? It's like, no, just get to the actual point of the call first. Or else the rapport can actually have a negative effect on you. I like to teach my girls to really establish that credibility early on into the pitch. And then you open up the rapport for the question-based selling.

And for women, this is the biggest part to let the other person talk a little bit more. So asking really good questions in order to get somebody to open up. And then also being super simple when it comes to closing. A lot of women try to talk a lot when it comes to the close and almost like justify why the prices are there when somebody didn't even ask, you know, they could have been able to a hundred percent afford it, and they're like, yo, so this is the price.

You know, it's because there's a lot that goes into it and blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, this is the price. Shut up. I always say kiss 'em, keep it simple, stupid, just shut up. [00:19:00] So that's more for the women is really leading with that respect, getting them to open up to you, and then ending with the respect.

It's like a little sandwich for the men. I like to have men be a little bit more warm in the beginning and then leading with the credibility, and then a little bit more warm at the end. So it's almost a flip flop just because I think, especially if they're selling to another woman, if there's a man on the other side of the screen, they're almost like, oh, sales rep.

So they have the stigma of like, oh, this is just another sales bro, sales guy. So when they kind of drop that boundary and they're a little bit more human in the beginning, it's a plus side for the men.

Hala Taha: And how about a woman selling to a woman?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So women selling to a woman. A lot of the girls that I trained in the beginning, they're like, oh girl.

Like they try to go the bestie route too soon and it comes off a little fake. And women buyers have such good intuition. So it's really good to connect, but making sure that it's not a fake connection. So I always [00:20:00] like to lead with like the business first, and then if I genuinely like love her shirt, or I genuinely love the way she carries herself or talks, I'm gonna say that.

But I'm not just gonna try to be all bestie bestie with her when it comes off fake, because they can sniff that and as soon as that happens, it's completely, completely done.

Hala Taha: Okay. How about selling to an alpha male versus a beta male?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I love this one. So selling to an alpha male, you have to make him think that it's his decision.

You can never tell him like, okay, yeah, this is your problem. This is the solution. Like this is how much it's gonna be. Let's go. He's gonna be like, no, I think that it should be done this way. Or in the back of his head, he's gonna be like, well, we've tried that before, or I need to look at this competitor first.

It's his decision. So I always like to say things. Kinda like, okay, well I mean you're the one that's been dealing with this for so long. Like why do you think this is happening? Or, I mean, I'm sure you guys have tried so many things. I mean, you've been in business for quite some time. Like what else have you guys tried and like, why didn't that work out?[00:21:00]

And they, this is the point where they yap, yap, yap. And they're like, oh my gosh. Well Stacey tried to do this and that didn't work and then we tried this and blah, blah blah. And then it's perfect. You're giving me so much ammo that I'm gonna use later on when I'm more of just the helper and the problem solver rather than a sales rep at the end.

So the alpha males yet you have to like put them up on a pedestal and make them feel all good about themselves in order to really let them be super comfortable buying from you. Beta mail's also some of my favorite sales ever. I have a lot of vivid memories selling beta mails. Very funny. I remember this one time when this was maybe my first.

You're doing door to door sales. I remember sitting down on a curb at a grown man's house for him with 45 minutes going over everything, every question, he just can't make a decision. And I just told him, I'm like, okay, Ben, like it's eight 30, what's your last name? And he was like, let's just say Blanco.

He's like, [00:22:00] Blanco, but why? And I'm like, we're signing you up. That's it. We've been talking for way too long. I'm going home. Like we're just signing you up. You need it. And he was like, okay, if you're gonna make me do it. So betas not that extreme of a case, but they like when you outline a game plan. So they like when you listen to what they're saying, you really get that problem.

And then you say, okay, a lot of people similar to that. What we've done with them is this, this, this, and this. And then they've gotten this and this result. So as soon as they know the game plan and the results that other people have, it makes it an easy yes for them. 'cause they're like, okay, I like being told what to do a little bit more.

And how can you tell if they're alpha or beta to begin with? Like right at the start of the call, like what's your signals?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So I feel like it is kind of an intuition thing, but a little bit more of alpha males, especially with a woman selling [00:23:00] to them will interrupt you a little bit or they'll kind of like dominate the conversation.

So it's not like one specific cue or another. It's just like, okay, this guy needs to have his input in pretty much everything. Or they almost try to steer the call or just super loud. I hate when people call me like little lady. I feel like that's like a big cue that I get. So sometimes, and then beta males, they are a little bit more timid, a little bit like they let you completely steer the call and with that person, I'm gonna maintain that control outline, that control, and then they're gonna follow that control the whole way through.

Hala Taha: Is it the same thing with selling to women? Can there be alpha women and beta women? Is it just basically the same? For sure. Yeah.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: It's just the Women on Women dynamic. You have to make sure that you're being like genuine and relatable to this girl and not super like unrelatable or try to be fake besties with her.

Hala Taha: Do you feel like as a woman you should tone down your hair and makeup if you're [00:24:00] gonna sell to a woman?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yes. So I have had a couple girls experiment with this and we had a little thread on it in my community. Yes. And I think that this makes you a little bit more relatable, but also like you want the client to feel like the superstar the whole time.

You never wanna be the one that's like shiny, wearing all these fancy jewelry. Like, no, nobody wants to buy from somebody that looks like that. So people wanna buy from somebody that like makes them feel good. It's the same thing with dating. I always relate a lot of sales stuff. Back to dating is like, you could go on a date with a guy and you're like, oh my God, this guy is so cool.

He's amazing, he's done all these things. That's so cool. Or he could go on a date with a guy and you walk away and you're like, he made me feel so cool. Like, he made me feel like the shining star. And what, what you're gonna do is you're probably gonna go on a date with the guy that made you feel amazing more than the other guy.

So that's how I always like to treat that dynamic with my clients is I want you [00:25:00] to feel like. That girl.

Hala Taha: And I feel like especially after you close them, like let's say you have some sort of an agency, you have to keep continuing to see that person. You really don't always wanna be like so dolled up.

So they're like, oh, here you are coming on the call again. Like, so dolled up and we're just having a business meeting, you know? So I try to be very casual in those situations. Okay, last one, young versus old.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Okay, so young people, so you can either sell with pain or pleasure, and everybody knows selling with pain is way better just because people buy with pain more than they buy with pleasure.

People sell painkillers a lot easier than they sell vitamins, basically. So you always wanna look for the pain and pleasure with every single person. So every single person's gonna be different. You might be on a call with a young person who has a lot of pain, you're gonna sell with that, but for the most part, generalization, young people are buying the dream and older people are buying a pain point.

So you're selling a little bit more with dream state questions with young people of like. [00:26:00] You have so much potential, like where do you want to get to? I could see that for you versus older people. It's a lot of past stuff that you're bringing up, which is going to be more provoking questions, emotional pain.

And then I always like to say with old people, you need to let them talk about their life. Maybe their deceased wife or their grandkids or like whatever's going on in their life, but make sure that they're not wasting your time and like bring them back into the sale periodically. That way you're not stuck there talking about little Jimmy's football game last Sunday and you're like, okay, like I'm here for a sales call.

So like let's go.

Hala Taha: I feel like older people, and I'm talking about like 60 and up, you know, like they tend to ask a lot of questions and I feel like the sales process just takes longer. They ask a lot of questions. They're scared of salespeople, and they don't, they're not as trustworthy and they seem to have a million questions.

That's my [00:27:00] experience.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: A million questions. They like to know every single scenario. And old people. Yes. That's also a lot of the beta people too, and a lot of women too, women love to know. They buy comfort, so they like to know every single detail. Exactly what happens when you purchase all the next steps and everything.

So if somebody needs a little bit more comfort, I always say you sit there with them and you give them the comfort and those people will be your best customers because they ask every single question in the book. They won't come to you later being like, oh, well I didn't know this, I didn't know this, I didn't know this.

You're gonna be like, you asked me every single question. You know, like we went over everything. So in my experience, they're actually some of my favorite customers 'cause they know what they're buying.

Hala Taha: Yeah, I totally agree. So Shelby, you started your sales career with door to door selling and I honestly couldn't think of a better sales training to get thicker skin, get comfortable with rejection.

So first off, tell us about your door, door to door selling experience and what kind of [00:28:00] skip sales skills did you learn?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Everything under the sun. Oh my gosh. So I started doing door-to-door sales when I was 18 years old. I was working like all these different jobs in college and I just remember thinking, I'm gonna be successful.

I just don't know how. I was so scared of sales because that was the one like business internship that I haven't dabbled in. And so I remember talking to one of my mentors and he's like, yeah, I did door to door sales. Great skillset, made a lot of money and I'm like, okay, cool. So I'll, I'll go out and try it.

I went out there, first of all, I almost quit before I went out there. Thank God I didn't quit because I wouldn't be here. But my first summer it was amazing. I was the only girl and I really kind of like what you were saying when you, what you felt at your corporate job. That's kinda what I felt is like no matter how much I sold, no matter how top of the leaderboards I was, every single week, there's just a level of like respect that's hard to get when you work with either older people in a corporate setting or all guys, all sales bros.

But I loved it. I just [00:29:00] loved being able to walk up to a door and somebody opened the door and they're like, oh my gosh, how do I get this girl off of my door? I'm cooking dinner right now, like I just put my kid to bed. And then you say the right words and kinda like disarm them and then they're giving you their Amex like 10 minutes later.

It's the most. Confident building activity you could possibly do and that skillset carries over so well. I always like to say door-to-door sales is like the number one sales skillset that you could possibly get. It's the hardest because you have to go out to a market, obviously be in person, a lot more rejection.

There's a lot better opportunities than door to door. But like starting out that skillset you'll learn is insane.

Hala Taha: Yeah, because it's like kind of like cold calling, but in real life. And nobody invited you to their house. No. So it's not like in a store, like I got my sales skills. Like I worked in so many clothing stores.

And that gave me a lot of experience. But people were coming into my house. You are [00:30:00] like going to a like, they're like, we're like busy right now. Go away.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Busy right now. Sometimes like you even have to get 'em out of the house. So like everybody has the ring cameras now, so a lot of people see a door-to-door sales rep and they're like, oh, they don't even answer the door.

So a lot of it is like the art of trying to get somebody out of the house and peaking their curiosity within the first like five seconds. That way they just at least listen like a, A big thing with that industry is just getting people to listen to your sales pitch versus like what you're saying, warm leads.

This is why like my academy is for high ticket sales because it's all warm leads and I try to tell the girls, I'm like, you have no idea how good you have it. Like somebody's actively coming to you. I would've killed for that. I know. So it's great skillset.

Hala Taha: Well now you know how to handle rejection, and I know that you say we need to love rejection, not just like we need to love it.

We need to make sure not, we're not being soft girls. So what do you mean by that? [00:31:00]

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Okay. There's a couple things with that. Number one, the rejection thing. I always. Train people, especially with mindset. 'cause sales is a big, with mindset is it's pretty much a math equation. So if you're closing ratios, let's say 40%, that means every 10 people you talk to, you're gonna close four of them.

If the first six that you talk to are just, no, no, no, no, no, you should be so excited because literally mathematically, the next four are gonna buy from you. They have to, and so you know that not every single person's gonna say no to you forever. So the more nos you get, I look at it like you're just sifting through the, the non-qualified buyers and getting to the qualified buyers that are actually going to buy from you.

So it's more like every time I get a no, I'm like, okay, for sure. Like thank you. Like I'll never call you again. Well, that's false because I'll be blowing up your phone. But it's like, okay, done, done, done, done. And then I wait for the person that's like actually sitting down serious, ready to go. So yeah.

Old saying of every nose closer to yes is so true, but it's more of like the [00:32:00] mathematical reasoning behind it is true. So that, and then the soft girl, I have a problem with the soft girl. I can't do it. It's a big trend right now and I. It's like the soft girl, demure life, sitting back, relaxing, letting a man pay for your whole life, not really working too hard, letting everything come to you.

Attracting, which I'm all here for. A lot of the things that I do with my girls is mindset, spirituality, law of attraction, being delusional, manifestation. So I get that. But you can't just do that. You have to do that, and then you have to put your actions behind that. You have to put your money where your mouth is and actually show up.

Like you can't show up to a sales call and be like. I'm gonna manifest this person to buy. And then you get hit with one objection and you're like, yeah, for sure. I'll follow up with you tomorrow. It's like, no, you're gonna sit there and you're gonna, it's gonna be uncomfortable and it's gonna be require a lot of effort.

But you're gonna sit there, you're gonna roll objection after objection after [00:33:00] objection until they either buy from you or literally wanna kill you. No, I'm kidding. But I always tell my girls like, yes, you can be soft girl, but when it comes to sales and when it comes to like work, you're a hard girl, so you can like turn it on and off, but if you wanna make money, there's literally no way around it when it comes to sales.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You gotta just go after. You gotta make sure that they know that you know your stuff. And that's not a passive thing. That's like an alpha attitude that you have to have.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: It is. Yeah. So I see that trend. I'm like, I don't know about that.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And not to mention those girls that just get their lives paid for, they have no control over their lives at the end of the day.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: And that's the thing is like money's energy. And so I totally get like you're marrying somebody and they wanna take care of you. I love that because that's like a protective energy of like, you're good, I got you. But it shouldn't be the be all end all because what if said person leaves, which is a true reality.

Nobody ever [00:34:00] thinks they're gonna leave in the beginning. So it's always knowing that you either have a skillset that you could turn into money at any point in time, which in my opinion, I could sell anything. You could sell anything. So it's like learning skill sets that can never be taken away from you.

Or having a business that can never be taken away from you is always just the most confident building thing with a woman to know that she could if she wanted to, but also just the smartest.

Hala Taha: So you were bringing up objections before, and I know there's like a limited number of things that people can really say.

Like you can actually think through all the objections that somebody's gonna have for your product or service. So I'm gonna rattle off an objection and then I want you to tell me how to respond. Okay?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Okay. For sure. I love that.

Hala Taha: Okay, I need more time.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: How much time do you need?

Hala Taha: I dunno. Maybe a couple months.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Couple months. Okay, let's double it. I'll give you, um, you said you want one month. I'll give you two months just because if we were to move forward, I would wanna make sure that you are super sure, a hundred percent confident, because in this program, these people are [00:35:00] confident, these people are ready to go.

And a big part of my job is making sure that everybody's good to go when they get in. That way we have proper testimonials. So if you're not there yet, let's just not make a decision. And in the meantime, while you're doing your job and kind of thinking about it, I'll do my job and send you over all of the information in order to make sure that when you do think about it, you'll have a really good educated decision.

So what are two things you would want me to include in those email flows? That way you can make an educated decision.

Hala Taha: I love that you're taking it away and people want what they can't have. So suddenly they're like, oh, no, no. I, I really only need, maybe I only need a week. You're taking it away now. They can't have it.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: That's what I say as like the hot girl is when it comes to a point, and normally this I need to think about an objection is just a smoke screen. So I handled it as it was a real objection, but most of the time it's a smoke screen. So it's just kind of like, no, for sure. And kinda like brush over it because people are just scared at the end of the day.

But when it's a true, like you've done it a couple times and they're like, no, I need to think about it. It's like, okay, [00:36:00] give them the time then. But you give 'em fake time, the illusion of that, and then you can just get back into the sales pitch by giving 'em what they want, disarming them, and then getting back into the pitch.

Hala Taha: So you're saying by asking them like what do you need to see in the proposal, you feel like that's gonna shorten up the time that they actually wanted or just like they didn't really want the time, they wanted the information.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yes, that was my point with that is you would then say, oh, well can you send me over some reviews?

Can you send me over some testimonials? Can you send me over everything that's included, all the package options? And then as you're like typing up the email, you're like, oh my God, for sure. Like I actually have all the testimonials pulled up here. Let me just show you. And then you're just right back into the sales pitch and you're showing them.

If that doesn't work. Another angle I like to use is convenience, and this is something that you tie back in from earlier, is. If you're a busy mom or you're a business owner, whatever you're doing, I always like to say, you can always think about it, but to be honest, like do you wanna think about it? Like you're a busy [00:37:00] mom, you're a business owner, you're never gonna have intentional time like we do right now to make a decision.

And when it comes with a decision, maybe you need time, but what you need is more information in order to make a great decision. So we have the time and we have the information, which is me. So what are two things? Yeah.

Hala Taha: And depending on the solution, if they say they need more time, it could be like, well, how much time have you wasted not making a decision?

Or how much time and money are you gonna lose if you wait two months to implement X, Y, Z? Right.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: One of my favorite things too is um, when people are like, let me sleep on it. I always like to say, well, don't you get the best sleep when you already made a decision? It's already good to go. Like, you're gonna get the best sleep ever once we make that decision.

So do you wanna wait a while and be thinking about this every night? Oh, should I do this or do you wanna just do it? We've been talking for like an hour. Let's just do it. You'll get the best sleep tonight. Let's go. Okay. How about it's too expensive? I mean, you get what you pay for, depends on what you're selling.

But I always position myself as the most expensive person. So I'm telling this person like, for sure there's 40 other people lined down the street. That'll [00:38:00] take your business in a heartbeat. But when it comes to a service-based business or when it comes to a fitness program, a health program, whatever you're selling, if you're gonna do it, you might as well do it right?

And so if you want cheap, that's definitely not us. There's other people. But if what you want is a great product, a great service, and a good reputation behind that, that's actually gonna get you the results, then that's what we do.

Hala Taha: I love that.

So I know with me, like I have two businesses. I have my podcast network, I have my social media agency, and if somebody tells me my social media services are too expensive, we're like the number one LinkedIn marketing agency.

We, we charge $10,000 a month for LinkedIn. So a lot of people are like, whoa, that's expensive. And I'll be like, well, are you selling right now? Yes. If I made you an influencer on LinkedIn and you got 10 x to a hundred x more leads every month, you would make that $10,000 back right away.

Right, exactly. Give them the track record of who stayed with you. I'm like, you know, I've had these clients that have been with me for six years and they're happily paying the 10 k.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I also like to do the inverse, so you can do the [00:39:00] positive of like, obviously like it costs this much a month, but I mean, let's say we get you two clients to make that back and this whatever.

So that's the positive, but also the negative, which is the opportunity cost of like, okay, so you're right here. What's the cost of you not doing this? Let's say we can get you here and you're here. You're actually losing all of this over the next two months. So you can take that positive, which I love. And then you can also do the negative if you wanna get more mathematical and more granular about it in like a make money offer.

So I love that.

Hala Taha: And it's really important to actually ask questions so that like for example, I know how much they're charging for their offer, how they get leads, what are their typical way of getting leads, do they close deals on their own? So it's important to know like whatever your business is, what questions do you need to ask the person so that if they do give you the objection, you're like, well no.

If you get two clients that pays for the service, I'm gonna get you a hundred clients a month. You know?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Well, that's the biggest thing with these objections that I try to teach my girls is in door-to-door it was like, objection central, but in high ticket. And anything that's more [00:40:00] warm leads than anything you can do so much front end work to where these objections.

Shouldn't even really be that big of a deal towards the end. I call this shutting doors. So I basically say there's about six different doors that are open. You know, time, price, anything that they've done before, fear priority money, and you need to shut every single door. That way they can't open it back up later in its sales pitch.

So like for example, the objection that, you know, you just gave me the first one of I need to think about it, or it's not the right time. I would ask a question in the beginning of the sale saying something like, okay, well, I mean, you've been in this business for quite some time. Like, why haven't you done this before?

Or on a scale from one to 10, how ready are you in order to get real results with this? And they'll say maybe seven. Okay, seven's really high, but why not a 10? What would make you a 10? And so those kind of like shutting the doors in the beginning will prevent them from saying, I need to think about it.

And even if they do, you can use the ammo that you [00:41:00] got to the objection to like tailor it to that person.

Hala Taha: So smart.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yeah. So it's a little bit of a different way to train every industry, but I prefer the warm lead one all the way because these coldhearted objections, it's like if you do it right, you'll have so much ammo to where you are actually excited to hear an objection.

So you're like, girl, you just told me you were a nine. Like come on, let's be fucking for real, you know? Yeah. Basically like the front end work of the sale. Everybody's like, when they see me, they're like, oh, well how do I roll this objection? What do I say when they say this? How do I close somebody? It's like, okay, the end should be the easiest part.

The beginning is the part that everybody overlooks. Everybody just hops on is like, oh, nice to meet you ba blah. Let me show you a little bit about what we do. Price. Oh, I need to think about it. It's expensive. I've already done something like this before. And it's like, because you didn't do the front part.

Right,

Hala Taha: exactly. Like if you get them to tell you what their objections are or to like dismantle these objections in the beginning with those doors that you mentioned, [00:42:00] they're not gonna wanna go back on their word. They're not gonna wanna contradict themselves because people always wanna be right.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Well, that's what I always say is people believe 0% of the words that come out of a salesperson's mouth because duh, you're a sales rep, but they believe a hundred percent of the words that come out of their own mouth.

So a lot of my job is asking the right questions and getting them to say the words that they can't go back on later because it would feel so unnatural and it would make them, like you said, not right, and to go back on their word. Also, I know a lot of the people watching are males, so I have a little analogy that I like to relate to a lot of the guys, but a lot of people underestimate the front end of the sale.

But if you think about it, I always like to relate it back to dating. It's like when you take a girl out on a date, you know you're gonna do, you're gonna set the date up, right? You're gonna butter her up, open up her chair, pay for the meal, tell her what to wear, all this stuff, like send her a car. That way the close at the end of the day is so much easier, right?

If you don't do the whole date right, then you're just gonna be digging yourself out of a hole when you go to [00:43:00] kisser at the end of the night.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Good analogy. Okay, a couple more. I tried something similar and it didn't work out.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Are you married?

Hala Taha: No.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Do you wanna be married?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Have you had an ex-boyfriend before?

Hala Taha: Yes. Many.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Do we hate him?

Hala Taha: No. I don't hate anyone.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I know that was funny, but my point is, you know, if your goal is still the same, it doesn't matter what else you've tried before, that shouldn't stop you from still reaching that goal. So same like, I hate my ex-boyfriends as well, but I still want to get married, have that family and everything.

So that doesn't stop me from going on dates. So what should stop you from trying out with different avenue in order to get to X, Y, Z, whatever you're selling. One of my favorite ones just because as soon as I ask that, they're like, I mean, yes, or I mean no, like it doesn't matter what they say. And then I like to use analogies to sell a lot just because it makes things come in people's brains.

So pretty much, no matter what objection, you can use an analogy like one with prices like organic groceries. You can do costs [00:44:00] seg with different Starbucks drinks or gas tanks, but I always like to bring it back to something that they know to where they're like, oh my God. Yeah, I get it. And so the marriage one is easy 'cause it's like, okay, well do you still want to get leads for your business?

Do you still want to blah blah blah?

Hala Taha: Yeah. The problem hasn't gone away.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Right. You can also ask 'em like, and this is something that I would ask in the beginning of the pitch, is, what else have you tried before? Why didn't you like that? What are you looking for? That way when they're like at the end of the pitch, they're not gonna tell me, oh, I've done something else.

I was like, we already talked about that girl! We're already good on that.

Hala Taha: I love what you say. You say like an objection is like an infection. If you don't resolve it, it just gets worse and worse down the down the pipeline.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: and like the infection starts in the beginning. So that would start, for example, like if you're on a call with a girl and she has a like fat rock, she's obviously married.

And if you don't ask the proper questions and shut the door of the spouse objection in the beginning, you're gonna get it at the end. Like nine times out of [00:45:00] 10. And so you can either one save an hour of your time asking Stacy about, oh, like has your husband, have you guys ever talked about this before?

What does he think about this? Does he even know that you're on this call? Do you guys have a budget set aside for this that if she's like, oh yeah, no, he handles everything. He doesn't even know I'm on this call. I would just be like, okay, no problem. You go grab your husband and we'll schedule a follow-up call with your husband.

'cause I want everybody to be in on the same position because you can just waste. So much time if you don't resolve the spouse Objection in the beginning.

Hala Taha: But you wanna be careful not to assume that the guy is bringing in all the money.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: You would be surprised how many times the guys would give the spouse objections.

It's pretty 50 50 and the the worst thing that all the guys that I would train a door to door is they would always assume that the husbands would do it. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. Like a lot of the guys need their wife's approval. So you really do never know. So that's why it's important to ask those questions in the beginning.

[00:46:00]

Hala Taha: Do you feel like today's buyers are different than the past? Like how has today's buyers changed over time?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Today's buyers are super turned off by like scripts and salesy sales pitches. And I think today's sales process doesn't even start with the sales call. I think it starts with content of whatever you're selling and those first points of contact.

So everything's a sale. It's not just a sales call, it's not just a sales pitch. It's if you're selling a program for a coach and they're putting content out, that's part of the sale. And so a lot of the times when you know, we work with offers, I like to look at the offers content. It's like, okay, are you using the marketing agencies that are just doing like the big neon text and you sound like you're scripted?

It's like, okay, this, a lead from that is probably not gonna be as good of a lead as somebody that's. Just raw, genuine, real with their audience that's [00:47:00] super upfront with what they sell and they know exactly what they're getting into before they get onto a sales call. And so a lot of the training that we do with my girls is like, okay, once you finish my training, we also coach you on like how to find the high ticket offers to sell for.

And so the girls, it's like, okay, how do you evaluate how good the online coach is doing with the sales? It's like, okay, you look at the content, you look at the lead flow, you look at how interactive they are. And so I think the sales starts with that, and then that's why it's like the closing call is closing, makes our job 10 times easier.

Our,

Hala Taha: yeah. I really wanna get into online selling with you and social media, but let's actually talk about clothes, like what's your best guidance for closing a deal?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So I think that soft closing a deal multiple times throughout a sales pitch is the best way to go before you get to a hard close. So I always like to layer in, I do a couple different soft closes, a temperature gauge, and then a hard close.

And this is for, [00:48:00] this is for warmly. It's a lot different than if I were doing like cold calling door to door. Soft closing is essentially any sort of close that makes it a little bit soft, a little bit contingent. So I would say something like if, if we were to even set something up, would you want to do this package or this package?

Would you want to do the calls on this day or this day? What would be a priority for you if you were to be in the program? What would be a commitment level if you were to join the program? So it's, you can kind of tell where somebody's at before you hard close them, rather than just going in for the close and you tell that based off of their responses.

So they can respond one of two ways. Number one is I would definitely wanna do like the whole thing, or they could say like, if we were going to do it, then I would wanna do this. That's the contingent part. And so with that person, you would sit there, build a lot more value before you go in for the close.

'cause the worst thing you can do, my job is all preventing the objections. The worst thing you can do is not know where the customer stands. Go in for the hard close and then they just [00:49:00] tell you some BS of like, yeah, for sure, but I would need to think about it. And then you're just digging yourself out of a hole.

So it's layering the soft closes in kind of getting that temperature gauge of where they're at. And then the close, once you know that this person's like pretty good to go.

Hala Taha: How do you feel about giving the price on the discovery call? Do you like to, to wait to give the price or what's your strategy there?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So I teach my girls, so like for example, like DM setting or D discovery calls, some setters, no price at all. But it's hard because you also wanna make sure that this person's a qualified buyer, that they have some sort of money or else there's no point in getting on a sales call. So the rule of thumb that I always give my girls with their offers is whatever your lowest package is, half of that has to be the minimum.

So because there's payment plans a lot of the time, so let's say your lowest package is $3,000, I would have the setters qualify them with 1500, you have at least $1,500 to get on the sales call because if they have 1500, [00:50:00] then they can sell them the lowest package at a split, but you never give the full price because there's zero value built.

And also this is very, very important with setting up follow-up calls with spouses is I always tell them like, okay, for our sake, just because we built so much value, I don't want your husband to be like, oh, can I join this program for this amount? Obviously he's gonna say no. So let's just do this. We'll go over everything with your husband tomorrow at 5:00 PM Do me a favor, let 'em come the same way that you came, blank state, just kind of to learn.

And then we can go over the packages. So I don't want them to talk about, even though they probably will, but I don't want them to say, oh, marketing agency for $5,000. They'll just be like, wait, what? No, there's no value bill.

Hala Taha: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So basically the initial calls with call setters, not the expert, but once you actually go over everything in detail, what they're getting, ask them questions, whatever you can then give them the price at the end.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yeah, so the price is gonna be in the close at the end, [00:51:00] and the close for high ticket is so simple, it's just in the investment in order to get you to X, Y, Z is gonna be blank. Shut up. It's just a statement. Close. It's easy. Or you could do an option close with packages. Depends.

Hala Taha: Yep. And I love the language that you used.

You didn't say cost, you said the investment, which is way more positive

Shelby Haas-Sapp: investment. And then you add in the goal KPI. So the investment in order to get you to those 10,000 leads a month, the investment in order to get the 10 to 15 pounds loss that you were telling me about. You remind them of what they're buying before you give the cost.

Hala Taha: Okay, last question on sales, then we're gonna get into social media. Talk to me about reverse selling.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So I always say sales isn't a chase, it's a dance. And so Mo, 90% of salespeople are just product pushing, product pushing, objection, super aggressive. And when you chase somebody, they're gonna run away. So a dance is knowing when to push a little bit, but then [00:52:00] when to pull back.

So when you ask me, you know, like, listen, she'll be like, I really need to think about it. It's like, okay, no problem at this point. They would've told me that a couple times. So it's like, okay, no problem. How long do you need? They never really say a month. They normally say like two days, but then that's when you pull back a little bit because you can't give your energy too much.

You need at some point reverse the energy and reverse sell. Another way I love to reverse sell is. What I call the hot potato technique. So most sales reps, they'll go, oh, well, why should I go with you guys? And they'll go, oh, because we have this, we have this, we have this. We're the best here, here, and here.

It's like, no, your, your energy is going like this. You're just selling them. You're chasing them. You're selling yourself. The hot potato sales technique is exactly what it sounds. It's like playing hot potato. You get the potato, it's hot, you throw it right back. Same thing in sales. So I teach my girls to say, okay, well, why should we go with you guys?

Well, what's important to you? Oh, well, this, this, and this. Okay, well, why are those things important to you? [00:53:00] Oh, because in the past we've had this, this, and this. Now they're selling themselves on why they should be a part of your program or whatever you're selling. And it comes back to what you were saying of people believe 0% of the words that come out of your mouth, but they'll believe every word that they say.

So it's about asking the right questions and making the sell themselves.

Hala Taha: Something that I like to do on my sales calls is I try to like disqualify somebody from even being able to work with me, like I'm so exclusive that actually I need to qualify you to be my client. Talk to us about why that works.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yeah, so I actually call it the gatekeeper, and so I tell my girls. This is something that could really only work for warm leads, right? Like I can't, I could never go up to somebody's door and act like I'm interviewing them, the gatekeeper, right? So that's different, but in warm leads, a hundred percent. And I tell them like, you have to have the mindset.

'cause in high ticket, this person's probably been following the creator for quite some time, finally wants to book a call, et cetera. So you need to have the mindset of this person just took an [00:54:00] hour out of their day to sit on a sales call. There's a reason for that. I dunno about you, but I have to have a pretty big pain point in order to take an hour out of my very busy day in order to talk about a sales pitch and getting sold a program.

So having that mindset of this person has a problem. Our program is the best possible solution for this person with this problem. And we only let people in who are going to be good testimonials. I. And so when I was rolling that one objection, I said, and part of my job is to make sure that we're screening the people that we let in the program because we don't want you to not succeed.

So if you're not that committed, take that time for sure. And that kind of makes 'em pull back a little bit, the reverse selling of, oh no, I am committed though. Like I would wanna do this. Yeah. But yeah, so gatekeeper of between this person who has a problem and this. Program that has their solution and you're interviewing them, asking them all the questions to see if they're gonna be a great testimonial.

And when you tell them at the end, you know, more of a sincere [00:55:00] close of, I really do see, see you being one of our next testimonials, or when you're on the testimonial side telling them this will be you. Can you see that for yourself? Can you see yourself being on the side in three months when you X, Y, Z, get all the rental properties, kill it in this whatever.

It comes off a lot more genuine when you treat it like that.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And it's also good to have different programs for people who are at different levels. Like, listen, you're not ready for totally all the services that I can do for you with the whole team. And like, you're not ready for that yet, because I don't want you to spend money and not get your ROI, but why don't you take my course and get started and you know what I mean?

So it's like having different packages is really important.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: For sure.

Hala Taha: Okay, so let's talk about social media. You've done an incredible job building, Instagram and TikTok. What is like your thought process behind building a community, building a brand, like how are you able to just like kind of come outta nowhere in the last year and just dominate the female sales persona?

I.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I always get asked this question and my answer's [00:56:00] very simple. A lot of people try to do social media instead of just actually being the expert in something that people want to watch. Like everybody's always worried about what hashtags, what times should I post, what mar, and it's like, okay, people see through that nowadays, like you said, sit.

Because social media is sales. At the end of the day, people see through that. So I genuinely think the reason why this time last year I had less than 10,000 followers and now I'm almost at 600,000 on Instagram, is because I can pull out my camera and just talk about some random closing tip or throughout my day, it's all I think about.

I'm consumed by it. So when I hear a sales pitch of somebody on the street trying to sell me something, I'm like, oh, that was actually like pretty interesting. I'm gonna make a video about that. So it's actually being the thing before you like put that on social media. That way when people see it, they're like, this girl actually knows what she's talking about and she loves it.

Hala Taha: Yeah, you're like the go-to person for sales. Everybody knows what to [00:57:00] expect when they go to your page. They know the energy. You're gonna bring the vibe. They know you're talking to women primarily, but anybody can learn from your page, which I'm sure you've got a lot of male followers too.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So many males.

Yeah.

They always comment. They're like, I'm not a girl also, I'm not even in sales, but you help me with my confidence. I like, thank you. But yeah, it's funny. And then like the second part about building a brand is super interesting. So I had a video that I posted maybe like nine months ago, went mega viral.

It was all the girls want to live the rich Porsche, Pilates mom lifestyle. They wanna go on walks, Pilates, drive a nice car, and just kind of like have that be their day. You don't have to marry an ugly, bald dude. You can give it to yourself. And the way that I give it to myself is sales. And so that video kind of popped and created this brand of like Porsche Pilates, matcha sales.

Hot girl sales and so it was awesome. It was super fun. And now that's [00:58:00] like all of my girls, they all like wear their hair and ponytails the gold hoops and they post their matcha. So it's, it really is like a huge community and a real brand and it's fun because that's the life I live every single day. So it's fun posting my little matcha in the morning and the girls are like, love it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You have built this, like everybody knows what to expect when they go to your page and you're also showing different elements of you. You're talking about sales, everybody knows you're gonna teach 'em about sales, but then you're into working out, you're into eating healthy and so you've got you, you can be dynamic.

I always get this question like, can I be a dynamic person on social media? And it's like, yeah, people wanna know the real you.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: One of the things people wish I was more dynamic about is my dating life. People are always like, oh, can you do like day in the life, get ready with me, like debriefs about your dates?

I'm like, no. I already, like, guys probably already look at my social media and they're like, oh my gosh, like intimidated this girl's loud. She's gonna try to sell me on a date. So I'm like, I [00:59:00] can't talk too much about my dating life on social media because then nobody's gonna wanna date me, you know?

Hala Taha: Well, let's take a little tangent here.

Two very successful women. How is dating for you? Do are men just really intimidated, especially with your age?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Everybody thinks that everybody, the comments I get are like, oh, it's probably gonna be so hard for her to find a man, blah, blah, blah. Like, I have never had more options and a lot like in the weird, like the least weird way to say that,

Hala Taha: but options aren't great.

'cause I feel the same way, but it's like, it's almost like I can't make a choice.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I agree. And I also don't have the time to go on all these dates. So I always like to say, being a successful woman that makes her own money. It disqualifies all the people. That wouldn't make sense anyways, because like the broke guy is never gonna be like, oh, like that's my wife, you know?

So it's like, but I also don't want somebody that doesn't have goals. So it kinda like disqualifies the people [01:00:00] that wouldn't work out anyways. And then the options that you do have are like, okay, these are actually like great, great guys and I wanna be with somebody that wants their wife to be a badass and have her own thing, and that I can have intellectual conversations with.

So I think it's, it's been going great, but I also just don't have a lot of time, so,

Hala Taha: yeah. I hear you. All right. Well, Shelby is single. If you guys wanna take her out on a date.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yes. You have to live in Miami.

Hala Taha: So on Instagram, what do you

feel like goes most viral?

I.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So B-roll videos do really well, which is just like the five to second videos with text on it.

Those ones do really well with me. I like to say in another life I was the best copywriter on the planet. 'cause I, I do all my social media myself. I don't hire a single soul for it.

Hala Taha: I was gonna ask you, do you do, it looks like it's all you.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yes. I hire, actually, that's false. I have two like intern copywriters that help me out, but I only have them do bullet points for stories and then they [01:01:00] only touch stories.

By the way, nobody touches my like actual videos, contents, broadcast channel. And it's because I've tried it before because it is a lot running the whole social media thing with how much content I put out. But when it's not you, people can tell. And it's also not fun to post for me. I don't know. And when it's me, like it just does so much better.

So I'm like, I'd rather put out less stuff and it actually be me. But yeah, I do literally everything myself. The best stuff that does. Well on Instagram for me, there's like two buckets. One bucket is the B-roll with the funny copy on it, but the other bucket is a really funny sales tip. So I'll start a video by saying something out of pocket, like, you have to be a brat in sales.

And people are like, wait, what? But then I follow it up with a really good sales tactic that's like, okay, well when somebody asks you a question, you ask 'em a question back, that's braddy. But like that's how you get the deal done. And people are like, okay, that makes sense. And those videos get the most amount of followers.

The B-roll ones are [01:02:00] like, no, they're just like for fun. But the sales tip ones are what really grow a page.

Yeah. So it's like kind of shock them with something that they're like, what is she talking about? And then give them a really smart response

and then they're like, okay, that makes sense.

Hala Taha: I'm so excited because I've been like heads down building my company for four years, basically like creating other influencers, monetizing other influencers.

And for my brand, I just like kind of on autopilot. I have a team, I've got reels. It's not me like you were saying. And this year I'm just like trying to get everything off my plate and I'm like gonna just go super hard and just teach and just go back to my roots. 'cause that's how I started is like I blew up on LinkedIn just teaching people I can't wait to get back to it.

And you've been an inspiration. 'cause I'm like, damn, she's so good at her videos. Like I was like, I, I need to just do that.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Oh my, no, you do make that your 2025 because you are such a badass. I'm like, you just flip the camera up and start talking. I guarantee that's [01:03:00] awesome.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I can't wait. Okay. So couple last questions here.

I know you've got a course, I'm sure there's so many people tuning in. I know that you do webinars for your course. You probably got a bunch of different sales funnels. So just walk us through how you actually sell online. What's a good salesy type post? Do you use ManyChat webinars? Like what are you doing to sell?

What are your main ways to sell online?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So it's funny because I guess this is like a sales tactic, but it's. Actually true is we, I don't let people just join. Like you can't book a call from my content, go to the Lincoln bio, get on a call with a team and get onboarded. So I only open my program, which is called, she Sells at the end of masterclasses, at the end of webinars, and I only open it for like 20 minutes.

It's a time where like I have girls that DM me all the time, Hey, can you send me the link? I wanna join. She sells. And we're like, Nope. Gotta come to the masterclass. Two reasons. Number one, women are gonna be successful when they know exactly what's in it, when they're super hot, when they're all going together.

And so I make them sit on a masterclass for an [01:04:00] hour, learn the ins and outs of it for free, and then it's like, okay, now that you know it, join and you only have 20 minutes to join, so you gotta, you gotta

Hala Taha: join now. So you're like condensing their decision time. They can't talk themselves out of it if you only give them 20 minutes.

They only have whatever's fresh in their head. They can't go talk, they can't have their spouse talk them out of it. They gotta decide right then and they have to pay within that 20 minutes. That's genius.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yes. Like the reason is too, it is a sales tactic, but it also is more of a fulfillment reason too, because they all get in at the same time.

The way that I do it is not cohort style, but kind of is. And women love to do things with their girls. Like we don't even go to the bathroom alone. So it's like knowing that you're alone on a call but you're also joining with all of the girls at the same time from across the world is that's how I built my community.

Like my community on social media is cool. Whatever. My community in my program is insane. I will go to war with any other community in [01:05:00] the world because my girls are so like they bleed G cells. It's awesome. I.

Hala Taha: That makes so much sense. So it's like people wanna shared identity, they wanna talk the same language, they wanna feel like they're part of a group.

And so having them make that decision on the call together, it's like they all like kind of got like not hazed in a sorority together at the same time, but kind of it's like that bond. Yeah, I love that

Shelby Haas-Sapp: when I tell them too, like, I mean when you're purchasing anything and especially like getting into sales, that's something that's scary.

And so that's my time to kind of talk to them. And a lot of it is like mental of like, okay, when a decision is scary, that's how you know it's right. Because that's how you know you're growing. And so it's scary for everybody on the call right now, but like if it's calling you, like I do invite you to join.

And it's also just more fun for me because we get to onboard all the girls at the same time. There's not people just trickling in. We can kind of know like, okay, this group is going at this pace and this pace and this pace. So it is nice.

Hala Taha: That's really cool. And are you collecting their [01:06:00] emails and then retargeting them if they don't sign up to join the next webinar?

And like how cohesive is your strategy in that way?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yeah, so I have a whole team, so I have a team of 22, and they handle a lot of like the backend emails, a lot of the sequences and the stuff that I am not an expert on, but a lot of it is retargeting. And what we found is that somebody doesn't just join a class and then join at the end.

A lot of people join a couple classes, and it's funny because it's the same class. You would never think that. But the way I run my webinars is super energetic. I have caffeine, I have mustaches, I do role plays, I handle objections live like it's fun. And so I think people join for the energy, but when they come like a couple times, they're like, okay, okay.

I finally feel like I'm gonna do it now. Okay, let's do it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. It's so true. Some people need to go two, three times and then they'll buy on the webinar. And webinars are so smart people. I've got lots of content on webinars, guys. I interviewed Jason Flatline, Russell Brunson, just on webinars, so [01:07:00] look those up if you're interested because webinars to me are like the hottest way to sell something low to high ticket.

It doesn't even matter. It's just like the best way to sell, in my opinion.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I agree. And people are like, oh, why don't you have sales? You have so many sales girls. Why don't you have them take calls for you? I'm the best sales girl to sell my product. And I just, I lo, I genuinely feel like I was born for webinars.

I was born for it. Like I'm sitting here selling one to many so fun because the way I like to sell during a webinar is I'll take every sort of customer segment, every sort of target market of our girls and overcome the, their objections. So like you have the moms, but then you have the girls that are working part-time, you have the students.

And so you're like, well, if you're a mom, I'm talking to you, handle that. If you're a student, I'm talking to you, handle that. If you're international, I'm talking to you. Handle that. So you kind of get the different angles.

Hala Taha: You know what I think it is that I realize, I think we're just, we love sales so much and like webinar is like the ultimate sales challenge.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: It's, [01:08:00]

Hala Taha: and so it's just like so fun and it's, it's really fun. I love to do web. It's like I look forward to them.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Same. They're my favorite part of the week.

Hala Taha: Okay, so last question. You are living in Miami and you just moved there and you talked about the Miami effect. So what is the Miami effect?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: So the Miami Effect is a pretty known thing, but it's basically when you move to Miami, you get hotter and richer. No argument at all. You just get hotter and richer. And the reason is because everybody that lives in Miami, and when I say Miami, I'm really talking about Brickle, which is where I live.

People are like, no, they're not. And I'm like, where are you from? They're like, little Havana. I'm like, okay, well that's not where I live. So we're talking about like Brickle the city. So where I live in Brickle, I mean the rent is insane. The, you buy a coffee, it's $15. So like you have to make money in order to live there.

So everybody in the elevators, everybody at the coffee shops on your walks. Makes money and [01:09:00] is cool. And in order to make money, you have to have good skill sets. You have to have some sort of business. You have to be a cool person. So it's like you move to Miami, you start meeting all these cool people.

Side note, Miami is the land of the fakers though, so you kind of have to like, there are a lot of people that are like real awesome, but that was one of the things where I first moved here, I thought everybody was like so real. They're really not. But for the most part, like people are making a lot of money.

People are walking outdoors because the weather is awesome. Everybody here is so attractive. So you need to become attractive too. So it's like you just rise to the level of the standard of Miami, which is your Miami effect.

Hala Taha: Environment is so important. People don't realize it. If something's not working out for you, it could just be that you just need to move, meet new people, get inspired.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Well in atomic habits, that's the biggest thing, is you can change your habits like this if you change your surroundings. That's why when somebody goes to rehab, they don't send them right back to the same apartment, same house, because you start [01:10:00] associating your physical surroundings with your every single daily habits.

So the best way to break your habits and literally change your life is to get into a different house, a different apartment, or even better, a bigger city. And I always like to explain it as like a fishbowl. Like you're a little fish in a normal fishbowl, but then when you get a big fishbowl, you grow to fit the size of the bigger fishbowl.

And that's why like a lot of people that have experienced something like this, if you can relate, you go back to your hometown and you feel like a big fish and you're like, oh my gosh, like I don't fit here anymore. I don't fit. So, and that's the best thing to feel.

Hala Taha: So Shelby, this has been such a great conversation.

Honestly, I feel like you spent so much game on sales. I think everybody learns so much. I end my show with two questions. I ask all of my guests, you can answer from the heart. What is one actionable thing our young and profits can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Spirituality 100% every single day.

Spirituality, when you have a why behind what you do, [01:11:00] you'll become more profitable and no matter what you do. And that was the biggest game changer for me. As soon as I moved to Miami. Weirdly enough, I got really into my faith as soon as I moved here. And what happened a year ago, my whole life completely like, and it's not just because, you know, if you want to do that, then get in touch with God.

But I do genuinely think you just take more risks. You know who you are when you truly believe in something that's bigger than yourself. So no matter what that is, like find out what kind of spirituality you like to go into it and make sure that that's the first thing you do in the morning and last thing you do at night.

And don't before that. Don't go on your phone, scroll on TikTok after you pray at night. That's like my biggest thing, because your brain is so in like manifestation mode, dreaming all of this, you're praying and then you go to bed and that's your subconscious mind. So on a granular thing, spirituality, well for sure.

Hala Taha: Love that. And what is your secret to profiting in life

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Energy? I like to explain to people your energy [01:12:00] will make your life better no matter if you're a server, an accountant, if you're in sales, a business owner. People don't wanna be around you if you're just sad and mopey all the time. So the best thing that I do in order to be profitable in no matter what I do, whether that's relationships, business, even friendships, calling my mom, like people have these little interactions with you and that makes up their story with you and their story with you determines what that relationship is gonna be like and how much you love your life because your life is all of your relationships.

So carrying that positive energy and genuine energy too with everything you do in life.

Hala Taha: You are so positive and it kept the whole conversation so engaging. I'd ask you a question and you'd be like, oh my God, I can't wait to answer this question.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: I know. This is so fun. You have such good questions too. I seriously enjoyed this.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Thank you so much, Shelby. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Yeah, so my Instagram is Shelby dos. My TikTok is Diary of a Door-to-Door saleswoman, which I will be changing, so don't go there, [01:13:00] but go to my Instagram and then you can see my website link in my bio.

Hala Taha: Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Shelby Haas-Sapp: Of course. Bye girl.

Hala Taha: Well guys, Shelby offered up such a wealth of great sales tips and strategies today. So many things she said resonated with my own experience. When you are in sales, like Shelby said, energy is your currency and some days you will have to fake it. The customer doesn't care if you are having a bad day or just broke up with your boyfriend, or if you've just received 20 nos in a row before this meeting.

You have to rise above it. And sometimes that means not behaving like a normal emotional human and maybe even acting a bit like a psychopath. And today's buyers are not going to make it easy for you. They have seen and heard it all, and they hate being sold to. So you have to be pretty savvy. And I think Shelby had [01:14:00] some ideas for how to do that.

Here are some of my favorite tips and tactics she shared when selling to an alpha male. Make him think it's his decision. So true. Women on the other hand, like to buy comfort, answer their questions, take them through the details and help them get comfortable. Older people also respond to comfort, but younger buyers respond more to pain or pleasure, especially pain.

Like Shelby said, it's a lot easier to sell them pain killers than vitamins. One more great sales tip, handle potential objections in advance. Shelby calls this shutting doors, and whether your buyer's doors are time, price, fear, or something else, try to learn what they are and shut them down early so they can't open them back up later.

Ask the right questions and get them to make their own declarations. Remember. People may believe nothing that comes out of a salesperson's mouth, but they [01:15:00] do believe what they say themselves.

Well, thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting. If this conversation resonated with you today, be sure to share it with somebody who could use a little extra light in their day.

And if you did enjoy this show, make sure you subscribe. And if you learn something new, drop us a five star review on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. In fact,

if you guys like to watch your podcast as videos, I've been doing a lot more in person content,

We've got more videos on YouTube than ever. You can find all of our videos on Young and Profiting on YouTube. Just search it. You'll find it. You can also find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. Of course, I gotta shout out my Yap team. I've got the best production team.

I appreciate your hard work. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka the podcast princess.

Hala:All right Sinead, welcome to Young and Profiting [00:01:00] podcast.

Sinéad: Thanks for having me.

Hala: I am really looking forward to this conversation because you've got such an awesome perspective on AI, and you talk about a lot of things that people aren't really talking about right now.

So the conversation is how does AI make me smarter and make me faster? We're outsour- outsourcing our reading, our writing, and everybody's asking the question of how can AI enhance my productivity? How can AI make me smarter? But nobody is asking, is this actually going to hurt the way that I think?

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: And so my first question to you is what do you think we're, we're not asking in terms of AI, in terms of, uh, how we think cognitively?

Sinéad: Yeah, I think, um, I mean, we, we tend to think about things quite linearly. So okay, so now I have this technology that can allow me to operate much faster, uh, can allow me to be much more productive.

But we don't think, what is the second [00:02:00] order impact of that trade-off? So I'm obviously bullish on AI. I think it's a technology that's here to stay. But you have to think about the whole ecosystem. So if AI is making you a bit more productive, what are you replacing with that time?

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And if that is nothing that stimulated your brain in a similar way or allowed you to nourish the cognitive capacities that you expect to have- Mm-hmm

attention, memory, judgment- Mm-hmm ... making decisions on your own, then you're making a pretty risky bet by giving everything that you, you know, used for your critical thinking to this technology. Yeah. So it's about figuring out that, that optimal balance, and I don't think we do because we're in such a producti- productivity-centric- Yeah

society. And that's all we think about. And that's also how AI is marketed and pitched a lot. This is gonna drive productivity- Mm-hmm ... drive productivity. But we have to think about the entire system we operate in.

Hala: Yeah. So I'll give you an example with myself. So one of the main ways that I use AI is to help me prep for [00:03:00] interviews.

Mm-hmm. And so I have a Replit app where I, like, upload transcripts and, you know, viral reel c- clips and, and all these different, like, raw material, and it gives me a brief. And then I also do the same thing on ChatGPT and, like, Claude, and see what I get and kind of mix it all together, and I'm jumping from AI app to AI app.

And I remember, I, I've been doing this for, like, a year.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: And I remember, like, last month I was interviewing Jim Kwik, and, like, nothing was working. None of my AIs would, like, let me upload anything. And I st- started to panic. And I was like- Hmm ... "Oh my gosh, how am I gonna prep for this interview?" And, like, I had to push back the interview because I was like, "I'm not gonna have time to do this.

I have to do this- Right ... manually." And then I realized- Yeah ... I was like, "Whoa, I've been podcasting for eight years." Yeah. And it was never an issue-

Sinéad: Yeah ...

Hala: to study for... And then suddenly I felt like I was, like, completely handicapped and, like, I can't do this interview. Yeah. And so I, I started changing the way that I actually [00:04:00] research for a podcast 'cause I realized that, like, I can't just, like, outsource everything to AI.

Sinéad: That's the scary part, right? When you- catch yourself in a moment where you feel like, "Oh, I can't make a decision or do the task without this technology." Yeah. And there's certain points where it's reasonable. I mean, I really can't navigate too well without Google Maps, and I'm just, that's just- Yeah ... a trade-off that we've made.

But when it's something that you should be familiar in, this is your game, this is your sport-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: and then you suddenly feel not confident. And then it's one thing to do that in the day-to-day, but imagine, like, really big decision makers and critical stakeholders, and they're in that position too, where like, "Wow, I have to make a big call that's gonna impact a million people, and I can't do it without this technology."

Yeah. So we have to think a bit wider about it.

Hala: Yeah. Talk to us about why it's so important to, like, create friction-

Sinéad: Mm ...

Hala: with, with the way that we learn a- and, like, our decision-making and, and, like, our [00:05:00] experiences when it co- So, like, we can make sure that, like, we're not actually getting dumber by using AI.

Sinéad: You have to foster the mental capacities that you expect yourself to have. So if you expect yourself to have strong judgment skills, strong critical thinking skills, to be able to follow a complex argument over time, those capacities don't just exist out of nowhere in a silo. They exist because we foster them, we cultivate them.

Mm. So if you're not able to continue to practice that, uh, and you practice that, sometimes it's, you know, it can seem burdensome. Reading is not an activity that everybody loves to do. Yeah. But you do know that it can help you follow an argument over time. It can nourish things like imagination. So by doing things that your brain is forced to engage in, then you're going to create, sometimes it's cognitive friction, um, but at the same time you're, you're gaining or at least preserving some of the mental capacities that you expect yourself to have.

And that's one thing that I ask people, "What skills do [00:06:00] you think you, you possess right now?" Mm. "And then how are you continuing to build them?" Because your cognitive capacity, it's kind of like going to the gym, where you don't just build these faculties by hoping to manifest them. You actually have to engage- Yeah

and do e- productive exercises. Mm-hmm. And there's many different ways that, I mean, for me reading is a source of friction, and so I force myself to do it. But there's puzzles, there's mental math, there's just different things that you can do.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and it's tricky because everything about our modern world, or especially the, the most recent era of digital software, is designed to take that friction out, to do it on our behalf.

So we don't really even have to think about what we wanna eat. Mm. Because not only could you order it to your doorstep, the algorithm has already selected the things that it knows you're probably going to pick. Yeah. And that's not an existential crisis that now you're outsourcing to eat pasta or burritos.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, but it's those types of tiny decisions all day.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Every day.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, and, and over time it's what else are [00:07:00] we losing as we outsource all of that?

Hala: Yeah. So in terms of like how my process changed with AI is from that point on, I was like, "Okay, like, I can't do this all in AI anymore." And it worked, but I also, like, didn't feel as prepared for my interviews as I used to.

Mm. And I realized, like, this seems faster, but, like, I'm actually not retaining anything. So I made some changes. Number one is I have, like, a separate doc, like, and I actually have my final brief, like, outside of my AI. Mm-hmm. And so it's like I'm actually, like, deciding what questions I want and, like, pulling ideas from AI, but into my final doc.

Also, I'm, instead of just transcribing interviews and uploading them to AI, I do that, but I also listen to, like, the key ones- Mm-hmm ... and, like, write my own notes- Right ... and my own questions. And I feel, like, way more prepared. The, the other thing that I do is, like, once I get any sort of, like, reading material from AI, I listen to it-

Sinéad: Mm

Hala: so that I can, like, really absorb it in multiple ways, 'cause [00:08:00] sometimes, like, just, like, spits out stuff, and, like, you actually don't really absorb it. Right. For me, I, I l- I learn more when I hear it.

Sinéad: It's so interesting, because I'm trying to name this phenomenon that I'm... I feel, I don't know if anybody else does, but sometimes when I'm reading something from AI, I'm in this, like, cognitive haze.

Yeah. It's the only way I can describe it. 'Cause

Hala: there's so much coming at

Sinéad: you. It's so much com- And so I'm like, "I retained some of that, but what did I just read?" And it's kind of like when you, when you watch a video on social media, and then you don't really know what you just watched three videos before.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Sometimes when I engage with AI, I can f- I feel that way. I read something, and it's not necessarily clicking. So I always say that AI has to be an input into your decision-making, and it can't be the decision.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: And again, it's one thing if it's the pasta or the burrito, but if it's a, something that's material in your life, uh, treat it much more like an input.

Yeah. And, and can you operate without it? I mean, I do so much writing in my notebook. Mm-hmm. If I go to a conference and it's something that I really need to pay attention to, I'm writing- Yep ... physical notes constantly. My, my notebooks are [00:09:00] filled. Mm. And if I'm writing something that's important to me, it starts with a pen and paper.

It takes a lot longer. Yeah. And then I'll transcribe to technology. So there's just many different ways that you can continue to create some friction in your life- Mm-hmm ... and it's so important.

Hala: I, I heard you, you say that you use it as a sparring partner.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm, to point out the gaps in my thinking.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: So I do a lot of writing and I do op-eds. And so sometimes I'll give AI a persona and say, "You are this type of character, so maybe you have this type of background or this type of a belief system. What assumptions am I making that this profile will catch?"

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Uh, or, "Who might I not be including or seeing in this perspective?"

Or just point holes in my argument.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And how much that is ex- It's like having a, a private editor.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And how much that has expanded my thinking has been awesome, and that's just one of the ways that I'll use this brain partner. Yeah, but

Hala: to your point, you're doing the initial- Mm-hmm ... thinking. Like, so, so when you think about first drafts-

Sinéad: Mm-hmm

Hala: do you like to do the first draft of everything?

Sinéad: I do. [00:10:00] I mean, I like to... What are... I, I think really deeply about what am I bringing to artificial intelligence in the first place? Mm. Is it just a very half-thought-out idea, and I'm using AI strictly as a creative brainstorming partner, and why? And if I can't justify the decision as to why I think it may be, uh, the perfect match for what I need to kinda fill in that gap, and it's more because I don't wanna think through this choice, then that's a problem.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and I try to complete the problem or the question that I'm bringing to AI before I just ask it.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And I think another thing that people don't necessarily think about with AI is, what does a good outcome look like?

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: So people will just get AI's answer and then try to evaluate it, but before AI spits out an answer, do you have an idea of what would qualify as a good outcome to begin with?

Yeah. Or else you're more susceptible just to trusting something that sounds really smart-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: but may not be factually correct.

Hala: Yeah. I th- I think you call this, like, the aura of authority.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm, this kind of illusion of the oracle-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: and this aura of authority, 'cause it [00:11:00] can sound really competent. Uh, and in many ways it, it can get things right or expand your thinking, uh, but it's not necess- it's not built as a fact-finding machine.

It may not be trained on data that's relevant for the specific thing that you're, uh, asking of it. Mm. So if you don't know about, you know, what is its distribution of data, are you going to ask something from this AI system that it's not even the appropriate type of system to be asking?

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and, and I do worry about this kinda aura of authority.

Yeah. Because something that can sound really intelligent-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: we're much more susceptible to falling for it.

Hala: And, and it feels so human, when in reality it's not a human. It's, it's not actually, like- Making decisions or, or fact-finding or anything like that

Sinéad: Yeah, and it, and it doesn't have your best interest, and not because it has a malintent, it just has no interest.

And I think that can be hard to see, right? Mm. Because up until [00:12:00] this point, any system that is u- that uses language has been a human, and we're much more wired to try to decipher, is this person on my side? Mm-hmm. Are they an ally? Are they looking at me in a strange way? We miss all of those cues with artificial intelligence, and all we get is language in a box.

Yeah. Uh, and it's been designed to, to flatter you and to not offend you. So all of it seems like these are the cues of something that you can trust But you can't. Mm-hmm. And again, it's not because it's a bad system or it was programmed to be malicious, it just has no interest at all.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So not to just take what it says and think, "Yes, this, this agrees with me, it's probably right."

Hala: So how should we use it? Because you say AI is not your friend.

Sinéad: No, it's definitely not your friend. Um, 'cause it's a, it's an, a really sophisticated, um, I mean, this is ... It, it's a really incredible technology, but I mean, it's ... Define what a friend is.

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: And to me, I think friendship requires reciprocity.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: Uh, it requires empathy-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: [00:13:00] understanding, sometimes there's conflict.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: Uh, and those things are just not present in the systems that we have today.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: So I think if you treat it like a friend, I mean, you're much more susceptible to trust it in ways that you probably shouldn't. And we've already seen, I mean, there's been many different cases of examples of people that trust these systems because they believe them-

Hala: Yeah

Sinéad: um, and they think that they have their best interest. And then they, they act in really damaging ways. I mean, people losing their job because they believe the AI is alive-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: and, you know, leaving marriages and all sorts of things. Um, I mean-

Hala: We're about to get into like a crazy world because, to your point, I think the lines are really blurring- Mm-hmm

and people feel like AI is human. Even when I talk to my AI, I talk to it like it's like a, a human.

Sinéad: Right.

Hala: Like, "Can you read through this?" Or like, you know?

Sinéad: And there's all these little, um, I mean, strange little design kind of tricks. Why does AI say I? Mm-hmm. What does it mean when it says [00:14:00] I? I who? What? The data center?

Who is I in that conversation? Yeah. But those are all sort ... Versus if AI said, you know, replied as it or the machine.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: But because it says I, that is again another biological cue that you are talking to something that has a mind similar to yours.

Hala: Yeah. And in the past, only humans could talk and write-

Sinéad: Yeah.

Yeah ... and

Hala: think.

Sinéad: Yeah. So we have to decouple aspects of cognitive capabilities from consciousness and understanding, because now they are just fundamentally different things.

Hala: Hmm. So I was, like, you know, perusing your podcast. Mm-hmm. And I came across this episode where you were saying you think that we're about to approach a post-literate world.

Hmm. And you think that we might lose the ability to read.

Sinéad: Yeah, the post-literate society. Um, and it's not even just gonna me pontificating about this. There are many different psychologists, academics, [00:15:00] uh, that see that it is possible that reading is just a chapter in human history. Mm. Uh, and the data, I mean, the trend lines already point to us reading less and less, and it's not...

Technology's a big part of it.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: It's not the only part. Since the '70s, schools have moved away from long-form reading and towards short ex- excerpts and passageways, and that's easier to mark, it's easier to standardize. Uh, so we've been slowly, uh, unwinding the muscle of reading as a pastime- Mm ... or reading as something that's a part of academia.

And so when you look at the data, it's quite stunning of h- you know, how less, how little we read compared to decades ago.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And then when you throw in technology on top of that, we're kind of being surrounded by systems that can do what would've required the reading for us. Uh, and then the final trend on that, and, you know, as a futurist, my whole job is to, to look at the frontier- Yeah

um, is right now we're still in the smartphone-based [00:16:00] economy, uh, the computer-based, the, the hardware around us does require some reading. But we aren't going to stay here.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: We're moving to much more of a voiced f- voice first digital era, and that's what's in the pipeline. Uh, so and I mean, when you think about what's the easiest way to converse with someone?

Conversation. Yeah. Where you're just chatting. And AI is a conversation-based technology. So the devices that are coming are going to be not really screen-based.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: They'll just be a voice assistant. Uh, and the same even with using AI on your smartphone. It's much easier just to kind of pick it up and chat to it.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So all of these kind of micro ways that we start to remove reading from our world. Uh, and I'm personally conflicted about this- Yeah ... because I, I read a lot, multiple books at once. Um, and again, I, I don't necess- I love it, but then I also don't- Mm-hmm ... because it's hard.

Hala: Cognitive

Sinéad: friction, right? It's friction for me.

Yeah. So I force myself to do it, and w- when young parents ask, you know, "What should my kids study? What should they do? They're 10 years old." I s- Just have them read. [00:17:00] That's a g- that's a great set of skills that they're gonna build just from that. I don't know, is reading going to become like Latin, where reading and writing were so foundational to society- Mm

and then yet somehow we're no longer connected to it? And is it because it could go one of two ways? We have figured out the next step that we can take-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: uh, the same way when writing was invented, and Plato and Socrates thought, "This is gonna be the end of our memory. We're gonna outsource everything to the book.

No one's- everyone's gonna appear wise and know nothing." And it turned out to be okay.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Is AI in this next kind of voice first chapter going to lead us to something that's actually surprisingly better? Maybe, if we can figure it out, and we can make school and learning more rigorous. Or are we going to lose a lot?

Um, and I'm not sure. So I think the safest bet is to continue to, to read, or to continue... And it- reading's not for [00:18:00] everyone. Some people can get friction in different ways.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: It works for me. Um, but so that's why I always advise, you know, I think it's important that we hold onto this, that maybe I turn out to be wrong in a decade.

Hala: It's so crazy to think about the fact that, like, books were controversial at one point. Really

Sinéad: controversial.

Hala: That the printing press was controversial.

Sinéad: Yeah. And they were somewhat controversial for different reasons. I think, um, the printing press was because it was a monopoly on knowledge- Mm ... and monopoly on intelligence and who could know what.

Mm. And then when you democratize that, suddenly, you know, people have access to different, um, methods of knowing. People can know things that pr- previously only certain powers- Mm ... could hold. Um, and so that just created- So that's

Hala: kind of a good... That was

Sinéad: a good thing-

Hala: That was a good thing ... for, for the masses.

Sinéad: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. There was a bit of chaos in the, in the onset of it. A few, you know, years of war. But eventually we figured it out.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And then writing was very controversial for a different reason, reading and writing, because books... And it's similar, uh, arguments we hear with AI. You're, are you going to learn anything, or are you just going to parrot what somebody else has [00:19:00] written?

And what's that going to do to, to memory? 'Cause prior to having access to a book, you had to write out everything that you learned, and what you wrote was what you knew. Uh, and now you could just read somebody else's. So these arguments are very similar, and we figured it out, and we... Books actually made, and the printing press, learning much more rigorous because now knowledge could compound-

Hala: Mm-hmm

Sinéad: and it became more complex. So you can't just kind of make up some chemistry formula, because somebody else had printed something a year ago that already showed that that was false. Yeah. So now your idea has to build on top. Mm. So we figured it out as a society, and we got through it, and academic, academia got more rigorous.

Can we do it now? Um, do we have the patience? Do we have the right mindset of what we need and who's making these decisions? I'm not sure.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: But we're definitely at a pivotal moment.

Hala: I know, like, a hot topic that you talk about is how AI should be used in schools- Mm-hmm ... and how AI should be, like, monitored with students.

Um, and I think [00:20:00] you have a really cool perspective on this. I'd love for you to share it.

Sinéad: Yeah, I think, uh, AI in education, and it depends on the age. Mm-hmm. So I don't think that there's any need for a young child to be engaging with a chatbot as a- Yeah ... I don't think that that's just helpful, so we don't really need to be doing that.

It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be educating kids on chatbots so they can use them safely, or if they enga- if they encounter one, they know what it isn't- Mm-hmm ... and what it is. Mm-hmm. So it's like you can talk about these sorts of things with them without actually having kids on chatbots. That's one thing.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: But when it comes to, uh, academic rigor and academic integrity, um, and people are saying, you know, we should probably ban artificial intelligence- Mm-hmm ... or still a s- Lots of

Hala: kids, like, getting, like, expelled for using AI and so.

Sinéad: Yeah, and, and my stance on that is we can't pretend that this technology doesn't exist at home.

It does. Yeah. So maybe what you can control in the classroom is if you think it's better to have oral exams and do that, or written exams, let's go back to that, that's probably harder, [00:21:00] the Socratic method. But you can't assign a- an assignment home that looks the exact same as it did pre-AI, and expect somebody just to not use artificial intelligence.

You'll have a few outlier students that maybe will do that.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: But we are biologically wired to take the path of least resistance- Yeah ... to minimize and conserve energy. So people are, of course, are going to use that technology. Uh, so instead of hoping everything stays the same, and we just ignore this AI thing, I think this is a moment to raise the bar on what we're even asking from students.

So in a world with super computers, what- how does school become harder? Hmm. What different skills do we need to be able to cultivate? Like, raise the bar

Hala: a bit.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so that means maybe where curricula gets har- more challenging at younger ages because we have these technologies, and maybe it, sometimes it doesn't even mean we're engaging with AI at all.

Uh, maybe it's interdisciplinary thinking. Imagine walking into your English class, and you have to debate the climate policies that you learned in civics based on the chemistry you learned in science, all oral, no AI [00:22:00] involved.

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: But somebody who's able to do that well can also use AI probably well because they have strong communication and judgment skills.

But school does need to look different.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: The school system we have today, uh, was largely designed in an industrial era that has come and gone.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Careers are different. The world we're preparing for is different.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So you can't have everything about a society change, and one system stay the same.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and that goes for many of our institutions. Mm-hmm. Like, everything, nobody's immune, and we can all understand, oh, the accountant's job's going to change. Yeah. And oh, probably this person's job. Um, but why not our institutions? They, everybody, no one's immune to- I feel like it's- ... these transformations

Hala: it's been too late. Mm-hmm. It's been too late, and we've been here before- Mm-hmm ... with calculators.

Sinéad: Yes. So, and calculators, it's an interesting example because, of course, it's not the complexity of an AI system, but what did we do when we got this technology? We all got stuck with harder mathematics- Yeah ... at younger ages because [00:23:00] now we had this device.

Mm-hmm. So we all got calculus dragged into high school- Mm-hmm ... because now you have this, this launch, this kinda springboard called- Mm-hmm ... the calculator. To, if we were to use that as an analogy, and it's not a perfect one, but what would it mean for if AI is now... If what AI can do is the baseline, that is the bare minimum, how do you teach people to think beyond a machine?

Mm-hmm. To think past it? Mm-hmm. What does it mean to outsmart, uh, or to think differently alongside this technology? So I think it's, it's, it's a rewrite for everyone, many industries, education as well. If we get this right, it will be amazing.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, it's a big if, but if we, if we do figure this out, uh, then it could look great.

Hala: Yeah. We could, we could advance-

Sinéad: Mm-hmm ...

Hala: just like all the other technology before, uh, before AI helped advanced humans. Mm-hmm. Um, okay, so let's talk about careers. Uh, you talk about this, uh, I think era of independence. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How [00:24:00] traditional careers and job titles are going to essentially go away, and we're gonna all act more like entrepreneurs.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the independence era. The independence era. And this has been in the works for some time, where the tasks within a role s- have started to change much more rapidly that the initial title that that role was supposed to contain no longer makes sense for the tasks that happen within it. Uh, and AI is just going to accelerate this, where what, uh, this technology can do today will be different in six months.

Uh, and it's not just what the person in that role has to do will change. A company's business model is also gonna continue to, to evolve. So this idea of the sticky job container, that is just gonna be a chapter of history-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: where you had one job at one time, and you moved linearly up a career ladder, and the career ladder only made sense because we could stack the container that we called jobs.

And it, and if you were to be in a position for two years, you probably know more than somebody who's [00:25:00] been there for six months, therefore you could probably be more senior than them.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: In a world where you have AI changing the types of problems people solve, seniority doesn't necessarily guarantee you're the best person to solve a certain problem at a certain time.

Um, roles are gonna start to be much more fluid. So the whole structure of work starts to change.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Why I do think we'll probably see more independent based work, and we already are because of the internet- Yeah ... so the internet did decouple, uh, many professions from this kind of linear career path.

Hala: Mm-hmm

Sinéad: But what AI does today will be different in, in seven months, in 20 months, and so what a business needs is going to continue to change. Uh, so what you need from different people will change. I may need a marketer with these skills today, but a totally different set of skills in a year. It's gonna be challenging to hire for that full time when I might need an entirely different thing s- 12 months from now.

So

Hala: if- Let, let's make this practical. So like the w- as you're describing it, what I imagine is it's like, kinda like a freelancer [00:26:00] that works on Upwork that has like digital skills. Maybe they're good at video editing, copywriting, graphic design, and they're like, they put up the fact that they're good at these skills, and then people can hire them based on different skills that they have.

Is that kind of what you're imagining?

Sinéad: Yeah. So I'd say a, a way to think about it is if you, whatever you do in your work right now, forget the job title, what are the skills that you perform under it? Now if you were to think about those skills as a company, that is what you offer. So these are the skills that you are endowed with.

These are the skills that you've cultivated. If you were to offer those to a few different companies at once, so maybe you're really good at understanding where markets are going, uh, in terms of reaching consumers on social media and, you know, whatever comes next. You will probably work for a few different types of companies offering those skills.

And so yeah, you can think about it kind of like the Upworks of the world- Mm ... but with much more knowledge work inside of that. Uh, so a lot of us will be offering our skills to a few different places at any one [00:27:00] time- Mm ... um, and much more of an independent kind of entrepreneurship box.

Hala: Yeah, I mean, we've been hearing about this like job apocalypse for like a really long time, right?

Like since AI came on the scene, like let's say three years ago, everybody's saying jobs are gonna go away. Like not much has changed. Mm. So how has your thoughts evolved in terms of like job disruption? Where do you see it in three years versus like 10 years from now?

Sinéad: Yeah, so I think, um, it's probably not going to be as stark as suddenly we wake up and nobody has a job.

Uh, that doesn't really make sense to me.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Um, and neither does the idea that an economy goes away. Economies don't disappear, they reconfigure. So I think, I mean, the jobs that you and I do today are comp- were completely unpredictable to somebody 80 years ago.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Would've made zero sense trying to explain any of it.

So I think we're going to transition [00:28:00] again into something very new and very different. And so maybe in 15 years from now, again, the jobs are just as unrecognizable as they were 100 years ago. The transition does concern me of how do we get from where we are today to what work looks like in 10 to 15 years from now.

Mm-hmm. We'll probably work less, and that's been the trend for the last 150 years. We've worked less and less. Now we have five days. It'll probably go to four or for three. I don't think there's going to be no work. I think it's just going to look different.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And then I think how we go from today to that chapter, it doesn't have to be bumpy like the Industrial Revolution, but if we aren't making the right decisions about this transition, it will be.

Hala: Yeah. Talk to us about how job disruption isn't necessarily linear.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: Like, let's take, like, lawyers and doctors, for example. Like, how do you think that a, a doctor's job and a lawyer's job will get disrupted? Um, what kind of jobs do you think will go? What kind of opportunities do you think will be [00:29:00] created?

Sinéad: I mean, it de- 'cause this pulls on a lot of economics, so it depends on what part of the lawyer's job, for example, gets automated. So if AI is really good at doing most of the, not just admin, but something that doesn't require fierce judgment, a lawyer powered by artificial intelligence can just do a lot more, so we'll need far fewer of them.

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: Um, and y- maybe what they charge i- is cheaper, but they can do a lot more things. If society reconfigures enough to where the system ... I mean, law is kind of built into the infrastructure of what we do embedded in AI, then that kind of changes the n- the needs of the profession.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: But I, I think ... I mean, the, the data is really interesting on, on something like a, a physician.

Hala: Okay.

Sinéad: Because let's say AI gets really good at medical diagnostics. What happens to the role of the doctor? So it pro- it [00:30:00] could branch into two different things. So the doctor becomes something else, so diagnostics goes to maybe AI and the nurse, so that role becomes interesting. And then the doctor can do something much more complex.

So if AI is getting our basic things, predicting our basic illnesses beforehand, the only thing that would reach a doctor is something very complex and very strange because AI has started to get good at the small signals, and maybe it connects to your wearable so you don't get those types of diseases that we maybe have today.

But I don't think the doctor goes away entirely. I think it just transforms into something very different and strange. Yeah. And maybe the doctor is part computer scientist, part synthetic biologist working with quantum computers to model your cells- Mm-hmm ... and then helping you with urgent healthcare needs.

Mm-hmm.

Hala: And, like, maybe people get more, like, private doctors, and private doctors become more accessible.

Sinéad: I think it will probably look more similar to, uh, concierge medicine, where people used to have a doctor that came to you.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, I think now as, as wear- as you start to wear more of your technologies and things are catching [00:31:00] things earlier, I think just the whole system is going to look different.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And I think that's something that we're, we're bad at as a species. We see the future as a linear extension of the present. So we hold everything the same, and then we ask, "Okay, well, how will AI make this faster or different?" Mm-hmm. But sometimes the whole system changes. So medicine might be an industry where everything just comes to you.

And that is what the future of medicine looks like. It's just part device-based and part physician that comes to your house- Yeah ... and just does things.

Hala: It's so interesting. Uh, a really great example that I heard on your podcast with lawyers actually is that AI might make it really easy for people to make contracts.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: And so there might be a lot more contracts and a lot more volume of contracts, but we still need that, like, last check of somebody to, like, validate and make sure this contract is good. And so there might be, like, a new role where, like, there needs to be more lawyers who are doing that, like, fact, that last step of- Yeah

fact-checking a contract before it goes out. Yeah. And so jobs can also just, like, [00:32:00] change, or, or the needs change.

Sinéad: The... Totally. The tasks within a job, and, and the legal services is, it's a great one. Because maybe there's also a new type of job where it's someone who can review a contract that isn't a lawyer in how we think about it today- Mm-hmm

but powered by AI, they can learn a certain set of skills, and that's something different and new. Uh, and then the lawyer goes on to do maybe just the highest, most complex style cases, uh, that are just unforeseen, and it's really hard to prepare for them- Mm ... and that's what we ask for from lawyers. So jobs can change, and I think that's...

Nothing is fixed about a role, right? You know, businesses hire people to solve certain problems at a certain point of time. Problems change. Technology changes. Yeah. So the roles that fall in them also change.

Hala: Yeah. And industries can be created, entire industries. So let's take marketing, for example, right?

Yeah. Marketing was created because of, like, digital essentially.

Sinéad: Well, marketing, yeah, the origins- Well,

Hala: maybe not digital, but, like, why was marketing

Sinéad: created? Mar- yeah, and this is one of my favorite examples. Um, and this is when, when people say- [00:33:00] AI is gonna be able to do absolutely everything, and there's no jobs left for anyone.

It's always really interesting because the industries that we do t- that we exist in today were so unforeseeable, and it was only because the invention of certain technologies that then that industry made sense. So marketing is an example of that. With the second industrial revolution, we now have assembly lines.

We're manufacturing all of these goods much cheaply, much more cheap. So now, well, how am I going to sell all of this? I have to generate demand. Before you only just needed a sales rep to try to push the few products that you had. Mm-hmm. Well, now you have 10,000 canned goods, and before you had five.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Where are those demand signals coming from? I'm gonna need to create something called a brand-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: to actually have an identity. The first brand managers were in the 1930s, and I think it was P&G that, uh, created that role. And the first marketing classes didn't exist until the early 1900s. Wow. And marketing isn't just sales, right?

It's a cross between you have to work with the finance department. You have to work with [00:34:00] advertising. It only happened post-industrial- Yeah ... second industrial revolution. So and that's an entire industry. So I think we're going to see more of those really strange things that it is impossible to predict-

Hala: Yeah

Sinéad: because of where we are today.

Hala: It's, it's, like, super fascinating to think about even just how marketing is going- Mm-hmm ... to evolve in the future. So in the future, there might not even be an internet anymore because AI is going to be doing a lot of tasks that we humans traditionally have done on the internet, where maybe the internet as we know it now isn't gonna be the same.

Maybe there won't be websites anymore. Mm-hmm. And AIs use APIs to get the information that they need, and then suddenly who are we marketing to? The AI agents? And it's like how, how do we actually create brands or create desires?

Sinéad: Yeah. The... It will just have to evolve. How do you reach people, uh, when the...

You don't reach them directly. You probably reach their team of AI systems. Mm-hmm. And so it will probably [00:35:00] require a different type of skill, uh, and a different type of domain, and we probably won't even call it marketing. It will probably be something entirely different.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: In the same way we had to figure it out with websites and the world of social media, and then we realized, oh, we can reach people a different way through influencers.

And so all of these different things that we kind of originated based on the technologies at the time. But yeah, the internet is gonna look very different, if we're even gonna be on it-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: in a decade.

Hala: I feel like this is a good place to transition to a game. Actually, this is a game that I played with Gary Vee yesterday.

Okay. I interviewed Gary Vee, and he's big on AI too, and he's great at predictions. So I was like, "Let's do some AI predictions." So I'm gonna throw out one word, and you tell me what is your prediction for this- Okay ... in the next 5, 10 years. How do you think this is gonna evolve, okay?

Sinéad: Okay.

Hala: Uh, the first one is preferences.

Sinéad: How will our preferences evolve? That's a great- Question [00:36:00]

Hala: Like, will AI know what we want better than we know ourselves?

Sinéad: It will, uh, unfortunately, it's possible. I mean, algorithms already have a scary amount of data on us. So hopefully we can figure out the data crisis in a way that's privacy centered. But I think preferences, our preferences may actually get more complex-

Hala: Mm

Sinéad: because AI can handle a lot more of that complexity. So an example is, let's say I want really good skincare.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And I just know that I want it to be clean, um, and I want it to be a certain price. I only have a certain amount of time that I can look for that, and I only have a certain amount of understanding of ingredients.

But AI has unlimited time-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: and unlimited access to ingredients. So our preferences may actually be able to become much more nuanced. Mm. And for that price, and for that ingredient, clean, whatever it is that matters to you, you'll have an AI that works 24/7 all day to find that and source it from a particular place.

So I think our [00:37:00] preferences will evolve in really interesting ways.

Hala: That's so interesting. I, I didn't even think about it from that point. I could even imagine where, like, you've got all this health data, and, like, you've got all this data about your skin and what your skin needs. And AI is, like, constantly, like, reflecting that, ordering you new stuff.

Like,

Sinéad: yeah. Yeah. It will be... Like, our preferences will be informed by different types of data. Our internal microbiome, maybe how we slept, and we'll have systems. And again, hopefully we can do this in a way that makes sense with privacy.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: But your preferences are now much more informed, uh, and hopefully accurate or aligned with the goals that you have or the person you're trying to be.

Hala: Mm. Materialism, how do you think that's gonna evolve?

Sinéad: Oof. How might materialism evolve? It depends. So this could go in one of two ways. There's a world in which AI makes access to personalized products, fashion, design clo- whatever it [00:38:00] is, furniture. So you're, so what you think you need or want is less influenced by mass consumerism because it's much cheaper to produce-

Hala: Mm

Sinéad: and manufacture and design. So then, in a world where we're less influenced by just the masses- Yeah ... or how few people we seek influence from, maybe we might not be as material because there's no core person who's everyone's trying to emulate.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: Or everyone seeks

Hala: to for certain. And also, like, no, not a lot of adver- if we're not on the internet, like, there's, there's not a lot of ads, there's not a lot of, like, screen t- like scrolling and- Yep

like keeping up with the Joneses, to your

Sinéad: point. So that could... Yes, and I don't think we'll be on social media the way we are or at, on it at all, for that matter. So I think that there's a world in which it can go w- I don't need to compare myself. Like, I truly can manufacture this for 10 bucks on my own.

I don't know what you're wearing. I'm gonna wear what I like. Mm-hmm. There's that world. But then there's also a world in which it depends on what happens with kinda advertising laws and data laws, [00:39:00] that if an AI knows us better than we know ourselves and it's not controlled properly, you're constantly bombarded with advertisements and it knows your insecurities, so it knows the things that you're gonna be susceptible to, then maybe we end up shopping and buying more because we constantly feel like, "Oh, I could be better," and there's more for me to do and to how to evolve.

Mm-hmm. So it can go one of two ways. Yeah. And probably a myriad in between.

Hala: So interesting. Okay, the next one is really, uh, I'd love to get your perspective. Love and relationships

Sinéad: Goodness. Oof. I mean, I don't think We're in the best spot with... I think dating apps had the right intention.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And it was o- when they first came out, I think when you look at the, the early data of how they transformed love, and people met that would have never met, and all of these interesting things, and then we really went full speed in the gamified economy, and the way you [00:40:00] shop for a dress, food- Yep

makeup, TikTok, and a partner. Yeah. And it all looks the same, uh, in the exact same ecosystem. So I feel like, uh, if we can reroute a different way, then maybe love and relationships... I mean, people are starting to do more things offline- Mm-hmm ... running clubs-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: and craving more human connection. I hope we can step out of this kind of digital vortex that we're in and do more things in person, and therefore remain connected to one another.

I am really concerned about the companionship with these AI systems, and AI systems filling these kind of superficial-

Hala: Yep ... needs.

Sinéad: Back to

Hala: that, that AI is, is not your friend.

Sinéad: Well, and can it be even more than that? Yeah. Like, people may see it as, I mean, it's flattering me, I can talk to it all night. Mm-hmm.

And if you think about, you know, the dream charact- ch- characteristics of certain, a partner, they understand me, they can laugh at my jokes, we have similar humor, they maybe- I'm intellectually [00:41:00] inspired by them, they don't bother me too mu- Mm-hmm. You can superficially think that that's what an AI can give you.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So I'm, I am worried that some people are going to just end up in some kind of AI companion ecosystem.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um...

Hala: I mean, that's already happening. It

Sinéad: definitely is.

Hala: I think somebody, like, in Asia got married to an-

Sinéad: People all over the world are- ... an AI ... people are leaving marriages for their AI. But maybe it's also a way we could boomerang into a different direction, where people are going back to restaurants and run clubs and doing things- Mm-hmm

and meeting people with common interests in different ways. So I'm curious to see how that nets out. And when you bring the data down to, for example, Gen Alpha, that are engaging with social media in very different ways than Gen Z, or Zed, 'cause I'm Canadian- Yeah ... um, and Millennials, where they're, some of them are on social media even though they're very young, but they're not necessarily contributing to it.

Uh, we're seeing one in 50 phones that are sold is a dumb phone, just some form of a flip phone.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: So some of those cords to this hyper-digital [00:42:00] world, your life, your boy- boyfriend, your job, everything is in this device, are getting cut.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So we might again kind of boomerang into a different way- Mm-hmm

which could be great.

Hala: Yeah, it'd be awesome if AI and technology actually made us more human.

Sinéad: Made us more human, yeah. And I think the linear, again, I really hope... And I think dating apps are already starting to do this, but I hope they don't, where they see, "Okay, how can AI help the dating environment? Oh, AI should just go on dates for you, and then it can do some kind of concierge thing, and then by the time you go to the date, it's already been vetted."

But to me, that's still a linear way of thinking about the future.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: It, it, it's just an extreme ex- automated extension of what we already do that already doesn't work, so you're just kind of piling- another technology on top of something that wasn't working to begin with. I hope people figure out much more innovative ways- Mm

that maybe AI can help, uh, in a way that doesn't make us, yeah, at the gambling store looking for partners.

Hala: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I remember when I, when I was single, um, and I was using dating apps for the first time. It, it's like a [00:43:00] struggle. It's, it's a struggle. It's, it- ... it really, like, will crush your soul. Um, okay, let's, let's talk about taste.

How do you think taste is gonna evolve?

Sinéad: Oof. In a world with AI, what does taste look

Hala: like? Mm-hmm. Is taste gonna be more important?

Sinéad: I mean, I, I hope people can become more creative because they can see so many different types of designs. Mm-hmm. I think taste as a competitive advantage becomes really interesting, somebody who has really great taste.

Mm-hmm. Because when you can... And just from an economics perspective, if things are very cheap to manufacture, cheap to design, and cheap to make, whether that's content, whether that's clothes, whatever it is, uh, if everyone can do that, what becomes scarce? And if it is your, your eye and the way you push thing- put things together in a, in an abundant, kind of a good society, then I do think taste becomes interesting.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and people who have taste could have [00:44:00] some form of a competitive advantage in the future.

Hala: Yeah. Especially because I feel like AI is kind of just, like, spitting out what it gets fed in, and if you're somebody who's creative- Yeah ... that's kind of bringing a new perspective-

Sinéad: Yeah ...

Hala: I think that could be really valuable.

Sinéad: And AI, I mean, it's just kind of the average of all of us, right? Mm-hmm. So it's been trained on all of our stuff, and it's just kind of the average, middle of the road. Just somebody who has a really different way to look at something- Yeah, out of the box thinking or, yeah ...

Hala: mm-hmm,

Sinéad: I think could be really interesting.

Hala: Hm. Purpose, how do you think purpose is going to evolve?

Sinéad: Goodness, I think, um, I think purpose is going to have to evolve. I think we've spent the last 130 years wiring ourselves into a society where you are what you do.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And we ingrain that in childhood. As young as you can start to put sentences together- Mm

people ask you, "What do you want to be when-" Yeah ... "you grow up?" And it's asked with the best intention, and it can be a [00:45:00] really fun question to ask and to be asked. But then we also tell people, "You are what you do, and your dreams should be tethered to the job you wanna do, not the person you wanna be."

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and that worked for a certain type of economy and workforce where, unfortunately or fortunately, work became your life and a part of your identity. I think AI's going to force us to decouple it, and again, not because no one's eventually going to work, I'm not in that department, but because we're gonna transition out of this chapter.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And work will look very different.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, and I don't know if it would be as coupled with identity.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Um, or m- and maybe we're closer to work in ways that we enjoy more, and then that's a good thing. But I think, yeah, we've kind of backed ourselves into this world where you are your job. Yeah. And we all know we hate going to a party and the first thing somebody asks is, "So what do you do?"

Mm-hmm. We... It never has sat right with any of us.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, so I think AI is gonna decouple some of those strings.

Hala: Yeah. Hopefully not... Hopefully, uh, in the near [00:46:00] term, like I'm thinking the next 20, 30 years, there's still gonna be a lot of problems for us to solve, don't you think? Y-

Sinéad: yeah. I mean, I think we're, we're great at generating problems- Yeah.

and then giving ourselves problems to solve-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: especially generationally. So I think, yeah, and that's one thing that I, I do say when it comes to kids. I mean, they're very creative and imaginative. Mm-hmm. What problems do, would they wanna solve in the world? What would they wanna bring to life and make possible- Yeah

versus what is some job that you hope to do? Because that job probably won't exist- Mm-hmm ... if we're going to be real.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And the concept of a job may not even make sense.

Hala: Mm. Okay, last one is trust. How do you think trust will change?

Sinéad: I mean, trust in an AI first environment, it could go again one of two ways. So one, we recognize that a society that has no trust, that can't believe anything, is just gonna be entirely dysfunctional. And we're kinda close to that in the social [00:47:00] media age. Things aren't going so well from a trust capacity- Yeah

from a trust standpoint. Uh, but there is a lot of resources, or there are a lot of resources being poured into, um, something like Provenance where you can see how information moves throughout a digital system. So we might end up in a world where people have built the solutions to solve these trust problems, and then it looks great.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Or we end up in a world where if we don't figure that out, and is what I'm looking at real or is it not? Is the thing that I'm talking to real or is it not? Uh, then we're in this complete trust deficit. So again, it kind of depends, and I know I, I give us a lot of different types of scenarios- Yeah

but that's what the future is. It's not one way or the other. Mm-hmm. It's decisions that we make that take us to different futures. Mm-hmm. Uh, so it's, you know, what choices are we making today? And I hope we build a world where we can trust things more, but-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: right now it's, um, kind of a free for all.

Hala: It is.

So something that I wanna get your [00:48:00] perspective on is as we start communicating with AI more and AI really becomes more of our thought partner and maybe the internet becomes less of a thing, and like you mentioned, there might not be, like, physical devices that we're scrolling. And so we don't have social media echo chambers anymore, but we're, we're talking with our AI all the time, and AI is giving us information about the world.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: And maybe even filtering that information based on our preferences, our moods, whatever it is. What kind of a reality- will that end up being? Like, what it, like paint that picture for us.

Sinéad: Yeah, I call this the, the post-reality era. Right now I think we're in a post-truth era where you- but depending on which social media ecosystem you inhabit, you're going to see a slightly different set of facts and, you know, different s- scenarios in the world and so forth.

But at least [00:49:00] theoretically, I could see if you fell into an echo chamber of something, I could probably find the Facebook group or the Twitter group, whatever it is.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: In a world where if the future looks like a world where I just ask my AI, you know, "Tell me about the latest geopolitical crisis in X," or, "Tell me, is the economy, or is the economy going well?"

And AI generates that answer and that reality for me, well, reality becomes something that is AI generated and I decide if it's real or not. And that, and your reality would be very different from my reality- Mm-hmm ... depending on what you ask and depending what the AI knows about you and depending on your data and so forth.

And there's genuinely no overlap because in a world where even if you and I believed very different things about the world, you could theoretically see where somebody, where a post originated and who's saying what when. It's hard, but we can do it.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: In an AI first environment, if we don't have the right type of transparency or the right kind of ground rules, we could end up in an entirely AI generated [00:50:00] reality.

And I actually think this is really important-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: that, I mean, I talk to national security officials about it because the signals that I see that show we're already moving towards a post-reality era, uh, some people have different perspectives on AI generated music. Mm. So for some people it's, "This is atrocious, this is diabolical.

Where are we heading?" Yeah. And for others it's, "You know what? This song made me feel something though. I felt it saw me as a mom, it saw me as a divorcee," whatever it is. Uh, and so that, that reality, it, it, even if it's AI generated, it worked for me. So when you scale that up and we say, we turn to AI and we say, "Here are my medical records, what does this mean for me?"

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Imagine that times what does this economy mean for me? What does this vice president mean for me if they're to run? Yeah. All of these things become this kind of AI ecosystem. Uh, and so it's something I'm, I'm, I really talk a lot about in national security rooms- Mm-hmm ... because we could just be in complete la la [00:51:00] land.

Hala: And- Private companies own this AI, so they can theoretically be feeding it w- the answers that they want people to hear.

Sinéad: Yeah, and we're already seeing, um, different countries kind of data poison the environment. So AI learns from the data that it's trained on. A lot comes from the internet. And we're already seeing different countries start to pu- kind of produce a bunch of content and blog posts that align with their views, knowing that AI is gonna learn from it- Mm

and then will parrot it. So that's already happening. Uh, and yeah, so some of it, some of these are private companies, so you can't really even inspect where is AI pulling information from, how is it making decisions and trade-offs, uh, and these are questions that we're gonna have to get to the bottom of.

We missed it with social media, and now we're all trying to figure out where did democracy go wrong.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: We don't have to with AI, but we have to be forward-looking Uh, and that's why it's important to, to kind of engage with these scenarios.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, and it doesn't mean we have to experience them, but if you don't, [00:52:00] if you only wanna see that it's gonna go well, it doesn't actually help society in any way not engaging with, well, what's the worst-case scenario that we don't want?

Yeah. And are we doing anything today? Are we making any decisions that are s- steering towards that?

Hala: Yeah. What are, what do we as individuals do now so that we make sure that, like, we're getting, like, a, a really, like, full worldview and that we're not, like, leaning on AI too heavily for information? Like, what should we be doing?

Sinéad: I mean, I think, um, it depends on the questions that you're asking about AI and how consequential they are to you. So I mean, journalists, I know that there's a, a lack of trust in information for myriad reasons, but there still is some form of rigor that a journalist has to uphold when they report- Yeah

on a story. So if something, if you're trying to learn about something that's really important to you, uh, and you're asking AI for it, maybe it's sufficient, but can you at least double-check it with, uh, maybe a, a institution of [00:53:00] journalism in some way, shape, or form? Mm-hmm. Uh, can you triple-check different sources?

So if AI tells you one answer, can you also k- pull up where did it pull that answer from?

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and just at least go that, that next step. Uh, and do you have a diversified information environment to begin with? Um, that's why I watch various news stations, not because I agree with all of them. I try to understand, how are different people seeing this, this mess-

Hala: Yeah

Sinéad: so I can understand why we may be in it to begin with.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Um, and so I think that there's just various different things, and then always just think critically about information. What incentive does this platform d- or does this AI system or the, you know, the company behind this have? What is motivating them?

Is it profit? Is it information integrity? Those incentive systems really do matter.

Hala: Yeah, I think it's scary because I think people think that AI, like, truly has all the right answers. Mm-hmm. And they're trying to use AI as, like, a, a f- like-

Sinéad: A fact-checking tool, yeah ... a fa-

Hala: yeah, fact-checking. And they're like, "Well, no, this is the answer.

AI said it's [00:54:00] the answer."

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: But if AI is scanning YouTube Shorts to get its answer- Mm-hmm, Reddit ... anybody can upload a YouTube Short.

Sinéad: Totally. And so people should just know that this is not a fact-finding machine-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: at all, and that's just not what it's been designed to do. It can solve really cool problems.

It can be creative with you, but it's not there to solve and find facts for you.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And we're, we're just gonna have to have some form of skepticism with what it shares with us. And until we can figure out some of that data provenance and we can figure out a way to have much more reliability in AI, and I think that's possible and there are a lot- Mm

of smart computer scientists working on it. But for now, um- Sometimes the answer will be as good as some random blog on, on Reddit. Yeah. And if you're about to change your entire life over, over that random Re- Like, would you change your life, your marriage, your everything over a, a Reddit thread? Probably not.

Hala: No.

Sinéad: So have that air of skepticism with AI.

Hala: Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about some of the challenges that we think AI is [00:55:00] going to bring. You say that you're neither, like, an optimist- No, yeah ... or a pessimist, right? Um, but let's, let's go to the pessimistic- Okay ... side of things. Uh, one of the things that I've really gotten a lot of pushback, so I've been talking about AI since, like, things started to get more popular and trying to teach about it.

Sinéad: Yeah.

Hala: And generally, like, I'm bullish on it. I think entrepreneurs should use AI. I try to teach people how to use AI effectively. And in the last six months, I've gotten a ton of pushback on my social media posts. People are feel- fearful of- Yeah ... their jobs, and then people are also really angry about the environmental impact- Mm-hmm

of AI. So what are your thoughts around energy consumption, water consumption, um, and like, do you see it, like, being a long-term problem, or do you feel like this is something that's gonna get solved?

Sinéad: I mean, I think we need to be much harder on AI companies and the choices they're making to power these data centers.

[00:56:00] Uh, it does not have to be powered by methane gas or, uh, the, any of the types of... Coal. Wh- Mm ... whatever energy that people are finding to, to power artificial intelligence systems. And I get that there's kind of an, an energy shortage, um, but that is a choice people are making. You could also power it with solar, hydropower.

There's many clean energy options. Mm. Sure, it's going to take a little bit longer, uh, but I think if you have the billions of dollars, um, in funding to build this data center in the first place, you probably have the funds to fund it in a, in... Or to, to build it in a much cleaner way. Yeah. So I do think that we need to be harder on the AI companies and the choices that they're making to build, uh, these AI systems.

And, and, and it is a choice, right? Because I, I mean, America often points to the con- the, the race with China, and China's building a lot of solar-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: and a lot of nuclear plants. Uh, of course, they, they pollute in many different ways, but they're still building out green energy solutions. So I think [00:57:00] we sh- uh, people are right to press the, the gas pedal on, "No, no, no, we need to do this differently."

Hala: Yeah, for

Sinéad: sure. Um, and I'm of course, uh, I do think AI's gonna be a part of our future. Mm-hmm. I mean, this technology, it's, it's here. It's been here for years. Um, so that's happening. But how it gets built is not inevitable, uh, and it's not too late to figure out the environmental impact of it, uh, and I hope we do.

I d- we, I, I We don't want to build a future at the cost of the planet-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: um, and the planetary health. So I, I think it's possible that we can get both.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: I really do.

Hala: When you think about AI, like, what's the worst that, that could happen? Like, in terms of, like, what is the most dystopian future that you could imagine if, like, everything goes wrong?

Sinéad: Oh, goodness. The worst-case scenario with AI, there are quite a few. Um, maybe [00:58:00] some biology, bio event, some kind of bio weapon-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: event, and that's becoming less and less implausible. More and more plausible- Yeah ... uh, the more sophisticated AI gets at, at creating different novel viruses that can be used for many wa- many things.

Sometimes they're being used to, uh, figure out antibiotic, to solve antibiotic resistance. Great, but you can also take that technology and design a bio weapon for a specific person based on their microbiome.

Hala: My God.

Sinéad: Um, yeah. So that can, it can be really scary. Or hooking AI up to critical infrastructure like water, a water treatment plant, uh, and having it not only just cut off water, but maybe change the chemical balance of water.

Hala: And are you thinking, like, a company would be behind this? Or, like, AI would do it on its own?

Sinéad: I'm ... Okay, so probably not a, not necessarily a company. I'm not worried about a company intentionally doing that. Companies un- for better or for worse, are incentivized to make money.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, [00:59:00] so that's usually w- you know, what they're trying to do, not necessarily, like, take down a nation.

Yeah. So f- I would say it'd be much more of probably some form of a foreign adversary- Yeah ... group- Terrorist

Hala: group or- ...

Sinéad: that's trying to- ...

Hala: hacker.

Sinéad: Yeah. And then in terms of AI doing something on its own, the challenge is that I don't, I don't really subscribe to the AI is gonna one day rise up for no reason and just turn on everybody.

Uh, maybe there are a few scientists working on that scenario. Great, I'm glad that they're funded. I don't think that's the thing that all of us need to try to solve together, everybody in humanity. But it isn't entirely implausible- That AI goes about achieving a goal in a way that's not aligned to how we would achieve that goal.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And the second order impact of it is something that is a worst case scenario. Um, an example that I like to give is maybe you ask AI to book you a reservation at a restaurant.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And if you were to ask your assistant and the reservation was full, your assistant would probably come back and say, "Sorry, it's full.

I probably should've [01:00:00] done it earlier, but it's full. Where else do you wanna go?" And AI might think, "Okay, well, the goal was to book you a spot, so maybe I'll either hack the restaurant and get you a spot, and there you go, goal complete, or I'll try to convince you to go somewhere else so I don't have to tell you that I failed the goal."

And so that's just the kind of easy way to understand when AI- Mm ... is misaligned, but if it's something much more significant-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: um, that would probably be a scenario that I wouldn't wanna be a part of.

Hala: Yeah. How do you feel like government needs to... Like, what are the immediate things that you think government should try to implement now to help regulate AI?

Oof,

Sinéad: that's a great one. I think, um- There's so, and it's so complex with government- Yeah ... because there's so many governments that need to actually be working together.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, AI can, is not just going to be a national project. It has to be an international one. AI does not walk around with a passport so, uh, we do need governments talking and [01:01:00] working together.

Um, I think, I mean Maybe not releasing at this point in time the most advanced AI systems that are capable of all of this cy- cybersecurity threats and, 'cause that could have many economic impacts. You don't wanna crash the stock market. So many different things could go wrong, hacking a hospital. So maybe government could step in and say, "I don't think we need to be re- if we cannot control AI right now- Yeah

or we don't have the cybersecurity infrastructure to protect against it, we're just not ready for this latest version of this model. Mm-hmm. You need to be able to hold that.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Um, I think pressuring companies to invest much more in safety with their systems, reliability, explainability. Uh, if we can follow AI's reasoning better, um, if we can ensure that it's much more reliable, we're much less likely to end up in these kind of strange scenarios that we don't want.

So I think that there's a lot that can be done.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, are people doing it? Who's incentivized to do what is a whole other [01:02:00] nightmare.

Hala: And what are you most optimistic about when it comes to AI? Like, how do you feel like it's going to help... Like, what are the big things that you see it doing in terms of improving our world?

Sinéad: I mean, I think healthcare is one I think a lot of people are very excited about, myself included. Uh, AI is wired to handle a lot more complexity than the human brain and, and the human body is one whole system, but because it's so complex, we've branched it out, out into specialties. So somebody is a specialist of, you know, the stomach, of this, of that.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, I think AI is going to do some really interesting things of kind of allowing us to see the body in a whole system.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: Um, and if you can bring diagnostics into the home, if we can get it right and reliability right, being able to catch stuff before it turns into a crisis, I don't know anyone who doesn't want that.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So if we can figure out how to get that right and safe, I think that's going to be awesome. And even something like legal services, uh, so many people [01:03:00] just don't have the ability to, the financial means, to go and have their real estate contract reviewed by a lawyer, or they wanna start a small business- Mm-hmm

and they sign some shammy property agreement because they just didn't have the funds to do that. If we can have AI systems that are much more reliable and people can pass that to an AI for 25 cents, and it lowers the barriers to starting your own business or making different decisions, I think that's going to be awesome.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: Um, I think that's something that's, that's really interesting.

Hala: Mm-hmm. I'm not a futurist, of course. I don't have your credentials, but when I think about the future of AI, uh, the fact that we'll have a lot more free time, hopefully. Uh, there might be universal base income where, like, people just might have more abundance.

I think we'll become more human, and I think that will... I don't think all parts of the world will get there as fast, right? So I feel like in the US and, like, UK, like, we'll be more advanced. But I think that will give us an opportunity to go help [01:04:00] people that are struggling or solve world hunger and, and like we'll be able to use our capacity that we used to use for our regular job to actually, like, help humanity and make sure that, like, nobody goes hungry.

And like, I just feel like charity work will- Mm ... become a lot more popular.

Sinéad: Community based-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: work could be. And that could be something, yeah, I mean, if there's things that we're able to automate that, and that also nobody wanted to do to begin with- Mm-hmm ... and people are, have the, the means and the teammates now to be able to go to different world projects or local community projects- Mm-hmm

because now they have a team that's gonna hi- handle the finances, their AIs handle the legal contracts, their AIs, and they wanna deal with, you know, animal fosters or- Mm-hmm ... doing something globally. That's gonna be really cool if we can unlock that potential for people. Yeah. I think we are going to work less no matter what.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, no matter how fast AI moves or doesn't move, we've always been working less. I think a three-day work week is absolutely in the cards.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, and I [01:05:00] think it's important that people know about that because, so let's say AI can shave off a lot of time for an organization and they are much more productive.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Do you get to bank that time back, or do they just cash it in in terms of making more money?

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: So I think a world in which we can work less and we're also kind of reaping the benefits of it I think will be great.

Hala: Yeah, let's stick on that. So you're basically talking about, like, how people actually get compensated moving forward.

Sinéad: Yeah, so I think there will be a stretch where we'll probably start to work less after the dust has settled in this transition. And so maybe that looks like a three-day, a three-day work week. Um, and again, if that seems fantastical, so was the idea of a five-day work week, so was the idea of working every day for somebody else.

Mm. Like you had a factory with a steam engine. So all of these things were just kind of strange, um, technological transitions. So a world in which we could work three days because we're much- Yeah ... more productive or much more efficient would, is absolutely in the cards.

Hala: Yeah. I was [01:06:00] talking to Gary Vee about this yesterday, and he, his perspective, at least in the short term, was really interesting.

So he was basically saying, like, when it comes to head count, he doesn't believe... Like, for him, he, like, he thinks of his employees as like an army. Mm-hmm. And AI is a better weapon If he's competing against a company that has 2,000 employees, he's got 2,000 employees. Uh, if he cuts his employees in half but everybody has the same weapons, like he's gonna lose.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: So for him, he's like, "Well, I'm not cutting my employees because, uh, it just builds more capacity." It's not really necessarily about like reducing head count. Yeah. It's like, how do we make this bigger and do more? And better. Yeah.

Sinéad: Yeah. The myth is that AI is there to cut people and replace people with AIs.

That's a really short-term and short-sighted way to think about it. Mm-hmm. I see it much more as a top-line technology. Yeah. It should be there to drive revenue. What new markets can you now play in-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: much more fiercely that you couldn't play in before?

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and so who, [01:07:00] who is your, your... If your, your staff are powered by supercomputers, what can they do now?

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: Um, and I think that's a much longer term way to view it than just kind of trimming your organization. And now the whole eco- the whole environment that you're competing in also looks different, and now you have no people to operate in it. So yeah, I'm much more on Gary's side there.

Hala: Cool. All right.

I'm gonna end this conversation with another game.

Sinéad: Okay.

Hala: Are you, are you up for it?

Sinéad: I'm up for it.

Hala: Okay, cool. It's called Bet On It. All right? So I'm gonna give you two choices, some of it we've talked about today, but I want you to basically bet on what scenario is actually gonna happen.

Sinéad: Okay.

Hala: Okay? All right.

Bet one, AI makes the average person smarter versus AI makes the average person less capable of thinking independently.

Sinéad: I have to bet on one.

Hala: You have to bet on one?

Sinéad: I have to. Goodness, I have to hitch my, hitch my aspirations, uh- ... to number one.

Hala: So AI makes the average person smarter. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what's happened in the past, right?

Sinéad: Yeah. I [01:08:00] h- I feel like if we design towards that, then hopefully we steer towards it.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Um, so that c- one could be much more aspirational than probable, but I have to bet on one.

Hala: Okay. Bet number two, we were just talking about this, AI gives us more free time versus AI simply raises the expected output of every worker.

Sinéad: So short term, I think it's two. It raises the output, and we're actually just busier and doing busy, busier nonsense. Long term, I think we'll have more, more free time.

Hala: Hmm. Bet three, a one-person billion-dollar company versus mass adoption of AI agents inside traditional companies. Do you feel like it's gonna be, like, companies of one, or do you just feel like companies are gonna have their employees adopt AI?

Sinéad: I, I would bet on the, the newer companies that are gonna be AI first, and maybe that's one person, maybe that's two people-

Hala: Hmm ...

Sinéad: and they're designed with AI from the beginning. Um, and sure, they could be worth billions.

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, I think smaller companies are gonna be the future, for sure. Hmm. So I, I would bet...[01:09:00]

I mean, I'd have to see the person.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, but yeah, I think that if they're super capable and they know the industry well, that would be an interesting bet to make.

Hala: Okay, bet four: smart glasses replace smartphones versus smartphones remain dominant through 2035.

Sinéad: Hmm, 2035. Okay. So in nine years, will we likely be on our smartphones, or we will be using smart glasses?

The reason why I might go with smartphones- Hmm ... is because I don't think it's going to be glasses.

Hala: Yeah. I don't think it's gonna be glasses either.

Sinéad: I think that there'll be a subset of people that use them, and I think that they'll be functional in certain ways. Uh, and maybe I'm entirely wrong about this, but I think it's gonna be a different type of device that makes more sense- Mm

for this technology. Mm-hmm. So I, I would go with the smartphone.

Hala: Yeah. Or some other device, I guess.

Sinéad: Yes. Some o- if there was another d- if there was an option three- Let's

Hala: see. Yeah ...

Sinéad: I would go with that.

Hala: Another device. [01:10:00] Okay. Bet five: AI creates more jobs than it destroys versus- Ooh ... AI destroys more jobs than it creates.

Oof.

Sinéad: Hmm. Let's see It's such a hard one because I don't... Depends on the timeline. Probably, we'll probably have maybe, maybe less jobs, like- Mm ... but more work. Mm. 'Cause I think it's not going to look like jobs. So I think it's going to look like, like how you, how our days are so varied.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: What part of it is your job?

And what is the one job? So I think it's people, like, the idea of jobs will start to make less sense.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And people will work, but it won't be considered just a job for an employer, and so it will just look very different. Yeah.

Hala: It seems like the whole world is gonna look very different. Okay, [01:11:00] bet six. This is the last one.

AI assistants becoming trusted purchasing agents versus humans keeping wanting to browse and choose for themselves.

Sinéad: I don't think we're gonna be browsing anywhere.

Hala: Really? You think it's done? What if you enjoy shopping?

Sinéad: Sure. I don't think shopping's going to go away. Browsing on the internet will.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: We'll, we'll shop in different ways. So yes, I, I enjoy making final decisions and... But I think the idea of br- a browser-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: um, we probably won't even use that word in a decade.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Uh, and I think it's going to be similar to when everyone said, "There's no way I am shopping online." Like, if there's no way I'm buy- how am I gonna buy a shirt online- Yeah

I haven't even tried it on, and my whole outfit's from online. I think eventually whatever comes next won't be browsing-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: on the internet. Uh, but it will just be shopping in a different way.

Hala: Totally. It's also super inefficient. Like, right now we're shopping, we're ordering things in two sizes. We're returning the other stuff.

Oh, my [01:12:00] goodness. It's just, like, such a waste.

Sinéad: And you're going through a row af- page one. Oh,

Hala: my gosh.

Sinéad: Page two. Page five.

Hala: How much time have I spent doing that? S-

Sinéad: and got nowhere.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Didn't e- yeah, and just looking at the same things.

Hala: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sinéad: Yeah.

Hala: Okay. This was an awesome conversation. I feel like we covered so much ground.

We did cover a

Sinéad: lot.

Hala: Uh, before we go, you're speaking to hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs right now. Mm-hmm. What do you want them to know?

Sinéad: What do I want... So if you're, uh... I mean, this is such an important moment for entrepreneurs. The skills you've built as an entrepreneur, you're self-directed, right?

You're self-motivated. This is such an awesome moment for you. Uh, if there was ever a time to take that additional bet-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: uh, or even if you're thinking of stepping into an entrepreneurship game, t- I think now is the time, uh, to lean into this technology in terms of, a- as a springboard. Uh, and if there's ever [01:13:00] ambitious goals that you wanted to add to your, to your dreams or to your pipeline, uh, go after it now.

Hala: Mm. Beautiful. Sinead, thank you so much for joining us- Thanks for- ... on Young and Profiting podcast.

Sinéad: Thanks for having me.

Hala: Cool.

Sinéad: Great job. Awesome. Thank you. Yay. But I'm like, am I drenched in sweat in this? At one point I was like- It's

Hala: so hot in

Sinéad: here ... holding my- Yeah.

Hala: Isn't it kinda hot

Sinéad: in here? It's pretty hot, I know.

Thank you.

Hala: That was great. Yeah, it was really

Sinéad: good. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you.

Hala: You have some really interesting stuff. You've got such interesting stuff. Thank you. Yeah, it can be a bit of a

Okay. Thanks, Kate. Uh, this show is mostly entrepreneurs, so it's like an entrepreneurship show. Uh, so we'll s- talk about it from that angle. Entrepreneurs, high achievers. Yeah.

Sinéad: It's got it.

Hala: Any questions for me? I'm an entrepreneur myself.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know the ropes. All right, y'all. Thank you. Great time to be an entrepreneur.

Hala: It is. And this, this mic is not too [01:14:00] high, it's not blocking my face, right?

Sinéad: You know, I think mine's a little high too.

Hala: Yeah, I feel like they're high. Can we lower the mics a bit so they're not so high? I don't want us to get our faces blocked

Down, but they still just gotta stay directional Yeah. When we plant it on the base. Yeah. I don't wanna knock the sign over either. It's okay. No, I'm just gonna move-

Cool.

Sinéad: Awesome.

Hala: All right. Thank you, guys. You're set. All right Sinead, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

Sinéad: Thanks for having me.

Hala: I am really looking forward to this conversation because you've got such an awesome perspective on AI, and you talk about a lot of things that people aren't really talking about right now.

So the conversation is how does AI make me smarter and make me faster? We're outsour- outsourcing our reading, our writing, and everybody's asking the question of how can AI enhance my productivity? How can AI [01:15:00] make me smarter? But nobody is asking, is this actually going to hurt the way that I think?

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: And so my first question to you is what do you think we're, we're not asking in terms of AI, in terms of, uh, how we think cognitively?

Sinéad: Yeah, I think, um, I mean, we, we tend to think about things quite linearly. So okay, so now I have this technology that can allow me to operate much faster, uh, can allow me to be much more productive.

But we don't think, what is the second order impact of that trade-off? So I'm obviously bullish on AI. I think it's a technology that's here to stay. But you have to think about the whole ecosystem. So if AI is making you a bit more productive, what are you replacing with that time?

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And if that is nothing that stimulated your brain in a similar way or allowed you to nourish the cognitive capacities that you expect to have- Mm-hmm

attention, [01:16:00] memory, judgment- Mm-hmm ... making decisions on your own, then you're making a pretty risky bet by giving everything that you, you know, used for your critical thinking to this technology. Yeah. So it's about figuring out that, that optimal balance, and I don't think we do because we're in such a producti- productivity-centric- Yeah

society. And that's all we think about. And that's also how AI is marketed and pitched a lot. This is gonna drive productivity- Mm-hmm ... drive productivity. But we have to think about the entire system we operate in.

Hala: Yeah. So I'll give you an example with myself. So one of the main ways that I use AI is to help me prep for interviews.

Mm-hmm. And so I have a Replit app where I, like, upload transcripts and, you know, viral reel c- clips and, and all these different, like, raw material, and it gives me a brief. And then I also do the same thing on ChatGPT and, like, Claude, and see what I get and kind of mix it all together, and I'm jumping from AI app to AI app.

And I remember, I, I've been doing this for, like, a year.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: And I remember, like, last month I was interviewing Jim [01:17:00] Kwik, and, like, nothing was working. None of my AIs would, like, let me upload anything. And I st- started to panic. And I was like- Hmm ... "Oh my gosh, how am I gonna prep for this interview?" And, like, I had to push back the interview because I was like, "I'm not gonna have time to do this.

I have to do this- Right ... manually." And then I realized- Yeah ... I was like, "Whoa, I've been podcasting for eight years." Yeah. And it was never an issue-

Sinéad: Yeah ...

Hala: to study for... And then suddenly I felt like I was, like, completely handicapped and, like, I can't do this interview. Yeah. And so I, I started changing the way that I actually research for a podcast 'cause I realized that, like, I can't just, like, outsource everything to AI.

Sinéad: That's the scary part, right? When you- catch yourself in a moment where you feel like, "Oh, I can't make a decision or do the task without this technology." Yeah. And there's certain points where it's reasonable. I mean, I really can't navigate too well without Google Maps, and I'm just, that's just- Yeah ... a trade-off that we've made.

But when it's something that you should be familiar in, this is your game, this is your sport-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: and [01:18:00] then you suddenly feel not confident. And then it's one thing to do that in the day-to-day, but imagine, like, really big decision makers and critical stakeholders, and they're in that position too, where like, "Wow, I have to make a big call that's gonna impact a million people, and I can't do it without this technology."

Yeah. So we have to think a bit wider about it.

Hala: Yeah. Talk to us about why it's so important to, like, create friction-

Sinéad: Mm ...

Hala: with, with the way that we learn a- and, like, our decision-making and, and, like, our experiences when it co- So, like, we can make sure that, like, we're not actually getting dumber by using AI.

Sinéad: You have to foster the mental capacities that you expect yourself to have. So if you expect yourself to have strong judgment skills, strong critical thinking skills, to be able to follow a complex argument over time, those capacities don't just exist out of nowhere in a silo. They exist because we foster them, we [01:19:00] cultivate them.

Mm. So if you're not able to continue to practice that, uh, and you practice that, sometimes it's, you know, it can seem burdensome. Reading is not an activity that everybody loves to do. Yeah. But you do know that it can help you follow an argument over time. It can nourish things like imagination. So by doing things that your brain is forced to engage in, then you're going to create, sometimes it's cognitive friction, um, but at the same time you're, you're gaining or at least preserving some of the mental capacities that you expect yourself to have.

And that's one thing that I ask people, "What skills do you think you, you possess right now?" Mm. "And then how are you continuing to build them?" Because your cognitive capacity, it's kind of like going to the gym, where you don't just build these faculties by hoping to manifest them. You actually have to engage- Yeah

and do e- productive exercises. Mm-hmm. And there's many different ways that, I mean, for me reading is a source of friction, and so I force myself to do it. But there's puzzles, there's mental math, there's just different things that you can do.

Hala: Yeah. [01:20:00]

Sinéad: Uh, and it's tricky because everything about our modern world, or especially the, the most recent era of digital software, is designed to take that friction out, to do it on our behalf.

So we don't really even have to think about what we wanna eat. Mm. Because not only could you order it to your doorstep, the algorithm has already selected the things that it knows you're probably going to pick. Yeah. And that's not an existential crisis that now you're outsourcing to eat pasta or burritos.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, but it's those types of tiny decisions all day.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Every day.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, and, and over time it's what else are we losing as we outsource all of that?

Hala: Yeah. So in terms of like how my process changed with AI is from that point on, I was like, "Okay, like, I can't do this all in AI anymore." And it worked, but I also, like, didn't feel as prepared for my interviews as I used to.

Mm. And I realized, like, this seems faster, but, like, I'm actually not retaining anything. So I made some changes. Number one is I have, like, a separate doc, like, and I [01:21:00] actually have my final brief, like, outside of my AI. Mm-hmm. And so it's like I'm actually, like, deciding what questions I want and, like, pulling ideas from AI, but into my final doc.

Also, I'm, instead of just transcribing interviews and uploading them to AI, I do that, but I also listen to, like, the key ones- Mm-hmm ... and, like, write my own notes- Right ... and my own questions. And I feel, like, way more prepared. The, the other thing that I do is, like, once I get any sort of, like, reading material from AI, I listen to it-

Sinéad: Mm

Hala: so that I can, like, really absorb it in multiple ways, 'cause sometimes, like, just, like, spits out stuff, and, like, you actually don't really absorb it. Right. For me, I, I l- I learn more when I hear it.

Sinéad: It's so interesting, because I'm trying to name this phenomenon that I'm... I feel, I don't know if anybody else does, but sometimes when I'm reading something from AI, I'm in this, like, cognitive haze.

Yeah. It's the only way I can describe it. 'Cause

Hala: there's so much coming at

Sinéad: you. It's so much com- And so I'm like, "I retained some of that, but what did I just read?" And it's kind of like when you, when you watch a video on social media, [01:22:00] and then you don't really know what you just watched three videos before.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Sometimes when I engage with AI, I can f- I feel that way. I read something, and it's not necessarily clicking. So I always say that AI has to be an input into your decision-making, and it can't be the decision.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: And again, it's one thing if it's the pasta or the burrito, but if it's a, something that's material in your life, uh, treat it much more like an input.

Yeah. And, and can you operate without it? I mean, I do so much writing in my notebook. Mm-hmm. If I go to a conference and it's something that I really need to pay attention to, I'm writing- Yep ... physical notes constantly. My, my notebooks are filled. Mm. And if I'm writing something that's important to me, it starts with a pen and paper.

It takes a lot longer. Yeah. And then I'll transcribe to technology. So there's just many different ways that you can continue to create some friction in your life- Mm-hmm ... and it's so important.

Hala: I, I heard you, you say that you use it as a sparring partner.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm, to point out the gaps in my thinking.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: So I do a lot of writing and I do op-eds. And so sometimes I'll give AI a persona and say, "You are this type of [01:23:00] character, so maybe you have this type of background or this type of a belief system. What assumptions am I making that this profile will catch?"

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Uh, or, "Who might I not be including or seeing in this perspective?"

Or just point holes in my argument.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And how much that is ex- It's like having a, a private editor.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And how much that has expanded my thinking has been awesome, and that's just one of the ways that I'll use this brain partner. Yeah, but

Hala: to your point, you're doing the initial- Mm-hmm ... thinking. Like, so, so when you think about first drafts-

Sinéad: Mm-hmm

Hala: do you like to do the first draft of everything?

Sinéad: I do. I mean, I like to... What are... I, I think really deeply about what am I bringing to artificial intelligence in the first place? Mm. Is it just a very half-thought-out idea, and I'm using AI strictly as a creative brainstorming partner, and why? And if I can't justify the decision as to why I think it may be, uh, the perfect match for what I need to kinda fill in that gap, and it's more because I don't wanna think through this choice, then that's a problem.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and I try to complete the problem [01:24:00] or the question that I'm bringing to AI before I just ask it.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And I think another thing that people don't necessarily think about with AI is, what does a good outcome look like?

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: So people will just get AI's answer and then try to evaluate it, but before AI spits out an answer, do you have an idea of what would qualify as a good outcome to begin with?

Yeah. Or else you're more susceptible just to trusting something that sounds really smart-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: but may not be factually correct.

Hala: Yeah. I th- I think you call this, like, the aura of authority.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm, this kind of illusion of the oracle-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: and this aura of authority, 'cause it can sound really competent. Uh, and in many ways it, it can get things right or expand your thinking, uh, but it's not necess- it's not built as a fact-finding machine.

It may not be trained on data that's relevant for the specific thing that you're, uh, asking of it. Mm. So if you don't know about, you know, what is its distribution of data, are you going to ask something from this AI system that it's not even the appropriate type of system to be asking?

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and, and I [01:25:00] do worry about this kinda aura of authority.

Yeah. Because something that can sound really intelligent-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: we're much more susceptible to falling for it.

Hala: And, and it feels so human, when in reality it's not a human. It's, it's not actually, like- Making decisions or, or fact-finding or anything like that

Sinéad: Yeah, and it, and it doesn't have your best interest, and not because it has a malintent, it just has no interest.

And I think that can be hard to see, right? Mm. Because up until this point, any system that is u- that uses language has been a human, and we're much more wired to try to decipher, is this person on my side? Mm-hmm. Are they an ally? Are they looking at me in a strange way? We miss all of those cues with artificial intelligence, and all we get is language in a box.

Yeah. Uh, and it's been designed to, to flatter you and to not offend you. So all of it seems like these are the cues of something that you can trust But you can't. Mm-hmm. [01:26:00] And again, it's not because it's a bad system or it was programmed to be malicious, it just has no interest at all.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So not to just take what it says and think, "Yes, this, this agrees with me, it's probably right."

Hala: So how should we use it? Because you say AI is not your friend.

Sinéad: No, it's definitely not your friend. Um, 'cause it's a, it's an, a really sophisticated, um, I mean, this is ... It, it's a really incredible technology, but I mean, it's ... Define what a friend is.

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: And to me, I think friendship requires reciprocity.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: Uh, it requires empathy-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: understanding, sometimes there's conflict.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: Uh, and those things are just not present in the systems that we have today.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: So I think if you treat it like a friend, I mean, you're much more susceptible to trust it in ways that you probably shouldn't. And we've already seen, I mean, there's been many different cases of examples of people that trust these systems because they believe them-

Hala: Yeah

Sinéad: um, and they think that they have their best interest. And then they, [01:27:00] they act in really damaging ways. I mean, people losing their job because they believe the AI is alive-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: and, you know, leaving marriages and all sorts of things. Um, I mean-

Hala: We're about to get into like a crazy world because, to your point, I think the lines are really blurring- Mm-hmm

and people feel like AI is human. Even when I talk to my AI, I talk to it like it's like a, a human.

Sinéad: Right.

Hala: Like, "Can you read through this?" Or like, you know?

Sinéad: And there's all these little, um, I mean, strange little design kind of tricks. Why does AI say I? Mm-hmm. What does it mean when it says I? I who? What? The data center?

Who is I in that conversation? Yeah. But those are all sort ... Versus if AI said, you know, replied as it or the machine.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: But because it says I, that is again another biological cue that you are talking to something that has a mind similar to yours.

Hala: Yeah. And in the past, only humans could talk and write-

Sinéad: Yeah.

Yeah ... and

Hala: think.

Sinéad: Yeah. So we have to decouple aspects of [01:28:00] cognitive capabilities from consciousness and understanding, because now they are just fundamentally different things.

Hala: Hmm. So I was, like, you know, perusing your podcast. Mm-hmm. And I came across this episode where you were saying you think that we're about to approach a post-literate world.

Hmm. And you think that we might lose the ability to read.

Sinéad: Yeah, the post-literate society. Um, and it's not even just gonna me pontificating about this. There are many different psychologists, academics, uh, that see that it is possible that reading is just a chapter in human history. Mm. Uh, and the data, I mean, the trend lines already point to us reading less and less, and it's not...

Technology's a big part of it.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: It's not the only part. Since the '70s, schools have moved away from long-form reading and towards short ex- excerpts and passageways, and that's easier to mark, it's easier to standardize. Uh, so we've been slowly, uh, [01:29:00] unwinding the muscle of reading as a pastime- Mm ... or reading as something that's a part of academia.

And so when you look at the data, it's quite stunning of h- you know, how less, how little we read compared to decades ago.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And then when you throw in technology on top of that, we're kind of being surrounded by systems that can do what would've required the reading for us. Uh, and then the final trend on that, and, you know, as a futurist, my whole job is to, to look at the frontier- Yeah

um, is right now we're still in the smartphone-based economy, uh, the computer-based, the, the hardware around us does require some reading. But we aren't going to stay here.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: We're moving to much more of a voiced f- voice first digital era, and that's what's in the pipeline. Uh, so and I mean, when you think about what's the easiest way to converse with someone?

Conversation. Yeah. Where you're just chatting. And AI is a conversation-based technology. So the devices that are coming are going to be not really [01:30:00] screen-based.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: They'll just be a voice assistant. Uh, and the same even with using AI on your smartphone. It's much easier just to kind of pick it up and chat to it.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So all of these kind of micro ways that we start to remove reading from our world. Uh, and I'm personally conflicted about this- Yeah ... because I, I read a lot, multiple books at once. Um, and again, I, I don't necess- I love it, but then I also don't- Mm-hmm ... because it's hard.

Hala: Cognitive

Sinéad: friction, right? It's friction for me.

Yeah. So I force myself to do it, and w- when young parents ask, you know, "What should my kids study? What should they do? They're 10 years old." I s- Just have them read. That's a g- that's a great set of skills that they're gonna build just from that. I don't know, is reading going to become like Latin, where reading and writing were so foundational to society- Mm

and then yet somehow we're no longer connected to it? And is it because it could go one of two ways? We have figured out the next step that we can take-

Hala: [01:31:00] Yeah ...

Sinéad: uh, the same way when writing was invented, and Plato and Socrates thought, "This is gonna be the end of our memory. We're gonna outsource everything to the book.

No one's- everyone's gonna appear wise and know nothing." And it turned out to be okay.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Is AI in this next kind of voice first chapter going to lead us to something that's actually surprisingly better? Maybe, if we can figure it out, and we can make school and learning more rigorous. Or are we going to lose a lot?

Um, and I'm not sure. So I think the safest bet is to continue to, to read, or to continue... And it- reading's not for everyone. Some people can get friction in different ways.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: It works for me. Um, but so that's why I always advise, you know, I think it's important that we hold onto this, that maybe I turn out to be wrong in a decade.

Hala: It's so crazy to think about the fact that, like, books were controversial at one point. Really

Sinéad: controversial.

Hala: That the printing press was controversial.

Sinéad: Yeah. And they were somewhat controversial for different reasons. I think, um, the printing press was because it was a monopoly on knowledge- Mm ... and monopoly [01:32:00] on intelligence and who could know what.

Mm. And then when you democratize that, suddenly, you know, people have access to different, um, methods of knowing. People can know things that pr- previously only certain powers- Mm ... could hold. Um, and so that just created- So that's

Hala: kind of a good... That was

Sinéad: a good thing-

Hala: That was a good thing ... for, for the masses.

Sinéad: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. There was a bit of chaos in the, in the onset of it. A few, you know, years of war. But eventually we figured it out.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And then writing was very controversial for a different reason, reading and writing, because books... And it's similar, uh, arguments we hear with AI. You're, are you going to learn anything, or are you just going to parrot what somebody else has written?

And what's that going to do to, to memory? 'Cause prior to having access to a book, you had to write out everything that you learned, and what you wrote was what you knew. Uh, and now you could just read somebody else's. So these arguments are very similar, and we figured it out, and we... Books actually made, and the printing press, learning much more rigorous because now knowledge could compound-

Hala: Mm-hmm

Sinéad: and it became more complex. So you can't just kind of make up some chemistry formula, because somebody [01:33:00] else had printed something a year ago that already showed that that was false. Yeah. So now your idea has to build on top. Mm. So we figured it out as a society, and we got through it, and academic, academia got more rigorous.

Can we do it now? Um, do we have the patience? Do we have the right mindset of what we need and who's making these decisions? I'm not sure.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: But we're definitely at a pivotal moment.

Hala: I know, like, a hot topic that you talk about is how AI should be used in schools- Mm-hmm ... and how AI should be, like, monitored with students.

Um, and I think you have a really cool perspective on this. I'd love for you to share it.

Sinéad: Yeah, I think, uh, AI in education, and it depends on the age. Mm-hmm. So I don't think that there's any need for a young child to be engaging with a chatbot as a- Yeah ... I don't think that that's just helpful, so we don't really need to be doing that.

It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be educating kids on chatbots so they can use them safely, or if they enga- if they encounter one, they know what it isn't- Mm-hmm ... and what it is. Mm-hmm. So [01:34:00] it's like you can talk about these sorts of things with them without actually having kids on chatbots. That's one thing.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: But when it comes to, uh, academic rigor and academic integrity, um, and people are saying, you know, we should probably ban artificial intelligence- Mm-hmm ... or still a s- Lots of

Hala: kids, like, getting, like, expelled for using AI and so.

Sinéad: Yeah, and, and my stance on that is we can't pretend that this technology doesn't exist at home.

It does. Yeah. So maybe what you can control in the classroom is if you think it's better to have oral exams and do that, or written exams, let's go back to that, that's probably harder, the Socratic method. But you can't assign a- an assignment home that looks the exact same as it did pre-AI, and expect somebody just to not use artificial intelligence.

You'll have a few outlier students that maybe will do that.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: But we are biologically wired to take the path of least resistance- Yeah ... to minimize and conserve energy. So people are, of course, are going to use that technology. Uh, so instead of hoping everything stays the same, and we just ignore this AI thing, [01:35:00] I think this is a moment to raise the bar on what we're even asking from students.

So in a world with super computers, what- how does school become harder? Hmm. What different skills do we need to be able to cultivate? Like, raise the bar

Hala: a bit.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so that means maybe where curricula gets har- more challenging at younger ages because we have these technologies, and maybe it, sometimes it doesn't even mean we're engaging with AI at all.

Uh, maybe it's interdisciplinary thinking. Imagine walking into your English class, and you have to debate the climate policies that you learned in civics based on the chemistry you learned in science, all oral, no AI involved.

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: But somebody who's able to do that well can also use AI probably well because they have strong communication and judgment skills.

But school does need to look different.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: The school system we have today, uh, was largely designed in an industrial era that has come and gone.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Careers are different. The world we're preparing for is different.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So you can't have everything about a society change, and one system stay the same.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: [01:36:00] Uh, and that goes for many of our institutions. Mm-hmm. Like, everything, nobody's immune, and we can all understand, oh, the accountant's job's going to change. Yeah. And oh, probably this person's job. Um, but why not our institutions? They, everybody, no one's immune to- I feel like it's- ... these transformations

Hala: it's been too late. Mm-hmm. It's been too late, and we've been here before- Mm-hmm ... with calculators.

Sinéad: Yes. So, and calculators, it's an interesting example because, of course, it's not the complexity of an AI system, but what did we do when we got this technology? We all got stuck with harder mathematics- Yeah ... at younger ages because now we had this device.

Mm-hmm. So we all got calculus dragged into high school- Mm-hmm ... because now you have this, this launch, this kinda springboard called- Mm-hmm ... the calculator. To, if we were to use that as an analogy, and it's not a perfect one, but what would it mean for if AI is now... If what AI can do is the baseline, that is the bare minimum, how do you teach people to think beyond a machine?

Mm-hmm. To think past it? Mm-hmm. What does it mean to outsmart, uh, or to think differently alongside this technology? [01:37:00] So I think it's, it's, it's a rewrite for everyone, many industries, education as well. If we get this right, it will be amazing.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, it's a big if, but if we, if we do figure this out, uh, then it could look great.

Hala: Yeah. We could, we could advance-

Sinéad: Mm-hmm ...

Hala: just like all the other technology before, uh, before AI helped advanced humans. Mm-hmm. Um, okay, so let's talk about careers. Uh, you talk about this, uh, I think era of independence. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How traditional careers and job titles are going to essentially go away, and we're gonna all act more like entrepreneurs.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the independence era. The independence era. And this has been in the works for some time, where the tasks within a role s- have started to change much more rapidly that the initial title that that role was supposed to contain no longer makes sense for the tasks that happen within it. [01:38:00] Uh, and AI is just going to accelerate this, where what, uh, this technology can do today will be different in six months.

Uh, and it's not just what the person in that role has to do will change. A company's business model is also gonna continue to, to evolve. So this idea of the sticky job container, that is just gonna be a chapter of history-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: where you had one job at one time, and you moved linearly up a career ladder, and the career ladder only made sense because we could stack the container that we called jobs.

And it, and if you were to be in a position for two years, you probably know more than somebody who's been there for six months, therefore you could probably be more senior than them.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: In a world where you have AI changing the types of problems people solve, seniority doesn't necessarily guarantee you're the best person to solve a certain problem at a certain time.

Um, roles are gonna start to be much more fluid. So the whole structure of work starts to change.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Why I do think we'll probably see more independent based work, and we already are because of the internet- Yeah ... so the internet did decouple, [01:39:00] uh, many professions from this kind of linear career path.

Hala: Mm-hmm

Sinéad: But what AI does today will be different in, in seven months, in 20 months, and so what a business needs is going to continue to change. Uh, so what you need from different people will change. I may need a marketer with these skills today, but a totally different set of skills in a year. It's gonna be challenging to hire for that full time when I might need an entirely different thing s- 12 months from now.

So

Hala: if- Let, let's make this practical. So like the w- as you're describing it, what I imagine is it's like, kinda like a freelancer that works on Upwork that has like digital skills. Maybe they're good at video editing, copywriting, graphic design, and they're like, they put up the fact that they're good at these skills, and then people can hire them based on different skills that they have.

Is that kind of what you're imagining?

Sinéad: Yeah. So I'd say a, a way to think about it is if you, whatever you do in your work right now, forget the job title, what are the skills that you perform under it? Now if you were to think about those skills as a company, that is what you offer. So these are the skills that [01:40:00] you are endowed with.

These are the skills that you've cultivated. If you were to offer those to a few different companies at once, so maybe you're really good at understanding where markets are going, uh, in terms of reaching consumers on social media and, you know, whatever comes next. You will probably work for a few different types of companies offering those skills.

And so yeah, you can think about it kind of like the Upworks of the world- Mm ... but with much more knowledge work inside of that. Uh, so a lot of us will be offering our skills to a few different places at any one time- Mm ... um, and much more of an independent kind of entrepreneurship box.

Hala: Yeah, I mean, we've been hearing about this like job apocalypse for like a really long time, right?

Like since AI came on the scene, like let's say three years ago, everybody's saying jobs are gonna go away. Like not much has changed. Mm. So how has your thoughts evolved in terms of like job disruption? Where do you see it in three years versus like 10 years from now?

Sinéad: [01:41:00] Yeah, so I think, um, it's probably not going to be as stark as suddenly we wake up and nobody has a job.

Uh, that doesn't really make sense to me.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Um, and neither does the idea that an economy goes away. Economies don't disappear, they reconfigure. So I think, I mean, the jobs that you and I do today are comp- were completely unpredictable to somebody 80 years ago.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Would've made zero sense trying to explain any of it.

So I think we're going to transition again into something very new and very different. And so maybe in 15 years from now, again, the jobs are just as unrecognizable as they were 100 years ago. The transition does concern me of how do we get from where we are today to what work looks like in 10 to 15 years from now.

Mm-hmm. We'll probably work less, and that's been the trend for the last 150 years. We've worked less and less. Now we have five days. It'll probably go to four or for three. I don't think there's going [01:42:00] to be no work. I think it's just going to look different.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And then I think how we go from today to that chapter, it doesn't have to be bumpy like the Industrial Revolution, but if we aren't making the right decisions about this transition, it will be.

Hala: Yeah. Talk to us about how job disruption isn't necessarily linear.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: Like, let's take, like, lawyers and doctors, for example. Like, how do you think that a, a doctor's job and a lawyer's job will get disrupted? Um, what kind of jobs do you think will go? What kind of opportunities do you think will be created?

Sinéad: I mean, it de- 'cause this pulls on a lot of economics, so it depends on what part of the lawyer's job, for example, gets automated. So if AI is really good at doing most of the, not just admin, but something that doesn't require fierce judgment, a lawyer powered by artificial intelligence can just do a lot more, so we'll need far fewer of [01:43:00] them.

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: Um, and y- maybe what they charge i- is cheaper, but they can do a lot more things. If society reconfigures enough to where the system ... I mean, law is kind of built into the infrastructure of what we do embedded in AI, then that kind of changes the n- the needs of the profession.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: But I, I think ... I mean, the, the data is really interesting on, on something like a, a physician.

Hala: Okay.

Sinéad: Because let's say AI gets really good at medical diagnostics. What happens to the role of the doctor? So it pro- it could branch into two different things. So the doctor becomes something else, so diagnostics goes to maybe AI and the nurse, so that role becomes interesting. And then the doctor can do something much more complex.

So if AI is getting our basic things, predicting our basic illnesses beforehand, the only thing that would reach a doctor is something very complex and very strange because AI has started to get good at the small signals, and maybe it connects to your wearable so you don't get those [01:44:00] types of diseases that we maybe have today.

But I don't think the doctor goes away entirely. I think it just transforms into something very different and strange. Yeah. And maybe the doctor is part computer scientist, part synthetic biologist working with quantum computers to model your cells- Mm-hmm ... and then helping you with urgent healthcare needs.

Mm-hmm.

Hala: And, like, maybe people get more, like, private doctors, and private doctors become more accessible.

Sinéad: I think it will probably look more similar to, uh, concierge medicine, where people used to have a doctor that came to you.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, I think now as, as wear- as you start to wear more of your technologies and things are catching things earlier, I think just the whole system is going to look different.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And I think that's something that we're, we're bad at as a species. We see the future as a linear extension of the present. So we hold everything the same, and then we ask, "Okay, well, how will AI make this faster or different?" Mm-hmm. But sometimes the whole system changes. So medicine might be an industry where everything just comes to you.

And that is what the future of medicine looks like. It's just part device-based and [01:45:00] part physician that comes to your house- Yeah ... and just does things.

Hala: It's so interesting. Uh, a really great example that I heard on your podcast with lawyers actually is that AI might make it really easy for people to make contracts.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: And so there might be a lot more contracts and a lot more volume of contracts, but we still need that, like, last check of somebody to, like, validate and make sure this contract is good. And so there might be, like, a new role where, like, there needs to be more lawyers who are doing that, like, fact, that last step of- Yeah

fact-checking a contract before it goes out. Yeah. And so jobs can also just, like, change, or, or the needs change.

Sinéad: The... Totally. The tasks within a job, and, and the legal services is, it's a great one. Because maybe there's also a new type of job where it's someone who can review a contract that isn't a lawyer in how we think about it today- Mm-hmm

but powered by AI, they can learn a certain set of skills, and that's something different and new. Uh, and then the lawyer goes on to do maybe just the highest, most complex style cases, uh, that are just unforeseen, and it's really hard to [01:46:00] prepare for them- Mm ... and that's what we ask for from lawyers. So jobs can change, and I think that's...

Nothing is fixed about a role, right? You know, businesses hire people to solve certain problems at a certain point of time. Problems change. Technology changes. Yeah. So the roles that fall in them also change.

Hala: Yeah. And industries can be created, entire industries. So let's take marketing, for example, right?

Yeah. Marketing was created because of, like, digital essentially.

Sinéad: Well, marketing, yeah, the origins- Well,

Hala: maybe not digital, but, like, why was marketing

Sinéad: created? Mar- yeah, and this is one of my favorite examples. Um, and this is when, when people say- AI is gonna be able to do absolutely everything, and there's no jobs left for anyone.

It's always really interesting because the industries that we do t- that we exist in today were so unforeseeable, and it was only because the invention of certain technologies that then that industry made sense. So marketing is an example of that. With the second industrial revolution, we now have assembly lines.

We're manufacturing all of these goods much cheaply, much more cheap. So now, [01:47:00] well, how am I going to sell all of this? I have to generate demand. Before you only just needed a sales rep to try to push the few products that you had. Mm-hmm. Well, now you have 10,000 canned goods, and before you had five.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Where are those demand signals coming from? I'm gonna need to create something called a brand-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: to actually have an identity. The first brand managers were in the 1930s, and I think it was P&G that, uh, created that role. And the first marketing classes didn't exist until the early 1900s. Wow. And marketing isn't just sales, right?

It's a cross between you have to work with the finance department. You have to work with advertising. It only happened post-industrial- Yeah ... second industrial revolution. So and that's an entire industry. So I think we're going to see more of those really strange things that it is impossible to predict-

Hala: Yeah

Sinéad: because of where we are today.

Hala: It's, it's, like, super fascinating to think about even just how marketing is going- Mm-hmm ... to evolve in the future. So in the future, there might not even be an internet anymore because AI is going to be doing a lot of tasks that [01:48:00] we humans traditionally have done on the internet, where maybe the internet as we know it now isn't gonna be the same.

Maybe there won't be websites anymore. Mm-hmm. And AIs use APIs to get the information that they need, and then suddenly who are we marketing to? The AI agents? And it's like how, how do we actually create brands or create desires?

Sinéad: Yeah. The... It will just have to evolve. How do you reach people, uh, when the...

You don't reach them directly. You probably reach their team of AI systems. Mm-hmm. And so it will probably require a different type of skill, uh, and a different type of domain, and we probably won't even call it marketing. It will probably be something entirely different.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: In the same way we had to figure it out with websites and the world of social media, and then we realized, oh, we can reach people a different way through influencers.

And so all of these different things that we kind of originated based on the technologies at the time. But yeah, the internet is gonna look very different, if we're even gonna be on it-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: in a decade.

Hala: I feel like this is [01:49:00] a good place to transition to a game. Actually, this is a game that I played with Gary Vee yesterday.

Okay. I interviewed Gary Vee, and he's big on AI too, and he's great at predictions. So I was like, "Let's do some AI predictions." So I'm gonna throw out one word, and you tell me what is your prediction for this- Okay ... in the next 5, 10 years. How do you think this is gonna evolve, okay?

Sinéad: Okay.

Hala: Uh, the first one is preferences.

Sinéad: How will our preferences evolve? That's a great- Question

Hala: Like, will AI know what we want better than we know ourselves?

Sinéad: It will, uh, unfortunately, it's possible. I mean, algorithms already have a scary amount of data on us. So hopefully we can figure out the data crisis in a way that's privacy centered. But I think preferences, our preferences may actually get more complex-

Hala: Mm

Sinéad: because AI can handle a lot more of that complexity. [01:50:00] So an example is, let's say I want really good skincare.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And I just know that I want it to be clean, um, and I want it to be a certain price. I only have a certain amount of time that I can look for that, and I only have a certain amount of understanding of ingredients.

But AI has unlimited time-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: and unlimited access to ingredients. So our preferences may actually be able to become much more nuanced. Mm. And for that price, and for that ingredient, clean, whatever it is that matters to you, you'll have an AI that works 24/7 all day to find that and source it from a particular place.

So I think our preferences will evolve in really interesting ways.

Hala: That's so interesting. I, I didn't even think about it from that point. I could even imagine where, like, you've got all this health data, and, like, you've got all this data about your skin and what your skin needs. And AI is, like, constantly, like, reflecting that, ordering you new stuff.

Like,

Sinéad: yeah. Yeah. It will be... Like, our preferences will be informed by different types of data. Our internal microbiome, maybe how we slept, and we'll have systems. And again, hopefully we can do this in a way that makes sense with [01:51:00] privacy.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: But your preferences are now much more informed, uh, and hopefully accurate or aligned with the goals that you have or the person you're trying to be.

Hala: Mm. Materialism, how do you think that's gonna evolve?

Sinéad: Oof. How might materialism evolve? It depends. So this could go in one of two ways. There's a world in which AI makes access to personalized products, fashion, design clo- whatever it is, furniture. So you're, so what you think you need or want is less influenced by mass consumerism because it's much cheaper to produce-

Hala: Mm

Sinéad: and manufacture and design. So then, in a world where we're less influenced by just the masses- Yeah ... or how few people we seek influence from, maybe we might not be as material because there's no core person who's everyone's trying to emulate.

Hala: [01:52:00] Yep.

Sinéad: Or everyone seeks

Hala: to for certain. And also, like, no, not a lot of adver- if we're not on the internet, like, there's, there's not a lot of ads, there's not a lot of, like, screen t- like scrolling and- Yep

like keeping up with the Joneses, to your

Sinéad: point. So that could... Yes, and I don't think we'll be on social media the way we are or at, on it at all, for that matter. So I think that there's a world in which it can go w- I don't need to compare myself. Like, I truly can manufacture this for 10 bucks on my own.

I don't know what you're wearing. I'm gonna wear what I like. Mm-hmm. There's that world. But then there's also a world in which it depends on what happens with kinda advertising laws and data laws, that if an AI knows us better than we know ourselves and it's not controlled properly, you're constantly bombarded with advertisements and it knows your insecurities, so it knows the things that you're gonna be susceptible to, then maybe we end up shopping and buying more because we constantly feel like, "Oh, I could be better," and there's more for me to do and to how to evolve.

Mm-hmm. So it can go one of two ways. Yeah. And probably a myriad in between.

Hala: So interesting. Okay, the [01:53:00] next one is really, uh, I'd love to get your perspective. Love and relationships

Sinéad: Goodness. Oof. I mean, I don't think We're in the best spot with... I think dating apps had the right intention.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And it was o- when they first came out, I think when you look at the, the early data of how they transformed love, and people met that would have never met, and all of these interesting things, and then we really went full speed in the gamified economy, and the way you shop for a dress, food- Yep

makeup, TikTok, and a partner. Yeah. And it all looks the same, uh, in the exact same ecosystem. So I feel like, uh, if we can reroute a different way, then maybe love and relationships... I mean, people are starting to do more things offline- Mm-hmm ... running clubs-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: and craving more human connection. I hope we can step out of this kind of digital vortex that we're [01:54:00] in and do more things in person, and therefore remain connected to one another.

I am really concerned about the companionship with these AI systems, and AI systems filling these kind of superficial-

Hala: Yep ... needs.

Sinéad: Back to

Hala: that, that AI is, is not your friend.

Sinéad: Well, and can it be even more than that? Yeah. Like, people may see it as, I mean, it's flattering me, I can talk to it all night. Mm-hmm.

And if you think about, you know, the dream charact- ch- characteristics of certain, a partner, they understand me, they can laugh at my jokes, we have similar humor, they maybe- I'm intellectually inspired by them, they don't bother me too mu- Mm-hmm. You can superficially think that that's what an AI can give you.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So I'm, I am worried that some people are going to just end up in some kind of AI companion ecosystem.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um...

Hala: I mean, that's already happening. It

Sinéad: definitely is.

Hala: I think somebody, like, in Asia got married to an-

Sinéad: People all over the world are- ... an AI ... people are leaving marriages for their AI. But maybe it's also a way we could boomerang into a different direction, where [01:55:00] people are going back to restaurants and run clubs and doing things- Mm-hmm

and meeting people with common interests in different ways. So I'm curious to see how that nets out. And when you bring the data down to, for example, Gen Alpha, that are engaging with social media in very different ways than Gen Z, or Zed, 'cause I'm Canadian- Yeah ... um, and Millennials, where they're, some of them are on social media even though they're very young, but they're not necessarily contributing to it.

Uh, we're seeing one in 50 phones that are sold is a dumb phone, just some form of a flip phone.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: So some of those cords to this hyper-digital world, your life, your boy- boyfriend, your job, everything is in this device, are getting cut.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So we might again kind of boomerang into a different way- Mm-hmm

which could be great.

Hala: Yeah, it'd be awesome if AI and technology actually made us more human.

Sinéad: Made us more human, yeah. And I think the linear, again, I really hope... And I think dating apps are already starting to do this, but I hope they don't, where they see, "Okay, how can AI help the dating environment? Oh, AI should just go on dates for you, and then it can do some kind of concierge [01:56:00] thing, and then by the time you go to the date, it's already been vetted."

But to me, that's still a linear way of thinking about the future.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: It, it, it's just an extreme ex- automated extension of what we already do that already doesn't work, so you're just kind of piling- another technology on top of something that wasn't working to begin with. I hope people figure out much more innovative ways- Mm

that maybe AI can help, uh, in a way that doesn't make us, yeah, at the gambling store looking for partners.

Hala: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I remember when I, when I was single, um, and I was using dating apps for the first time. It, it's like a struggle. It's, it's a struggle. It's, it- ... it really, like, will crush your soul. Um, okay, let's, let's talk about taste.

How do you think taste is gonna evolve?

Sinéad: Oof. In a world with AI, what does taste look

Hala: like? Mm-hmm. Is taste gonna be more important?

Sinéad: I mean, I, I hope people can become more creative because they [01:57:00] can see so many different types of designs. Mm-hmm. I think taste as a competitive advantage becomes really interesting, somebody who has really great taste.

Mm-hmm. Because when you can... And just from an economics perspective, if things are very cheap to manufacture, cheap to design, and cheap to make, whether that's content, whether that's clothes, whatever it is, uh, if everyone can do that, what becomes scarce? And if it is your, your eye and the way you push thing- put things together in a, in an abundant, kind of a good society, then I do think taste becomes interesting.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and people who have taste could have some form of a competitive advantage in the future.

Hala: Yeah. Especially because I feel like AI is kind of just, like, spitting out what it gets fed in, and if you're somebody who's creative- Yeah ... that's kind of bringing a new perspective-

Sinéad: Yeah ...

Hala: I think that could be really valuable.

Sinéad: And AI, I mean, it's just kind of the average of all of us, right? Mm-hmm. So it's been trained on all of our stuff, and it's just kind of the average, middle of the road. Just somebody who has a really different way to look at something- Yeah, out of the box thinking or, yeah ...

Hala: mm-hmm,

Sinéad: I think could be really interesting.

Hala: Hm. [01:58:00] Purpose, how do you think purpose is going to evolve?

Sinéad: Goodness, I think, um, I think purpose is going to have to evolve. I think we've spent the last 130 years wiring ourselves into a society where you are what you do.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And we ingrain that in childhood. As young as you can start to put sentences together- Mm

people ask you, "What do you want to be when-" Yeah ... "you grow up?" And it's asked with the best intention, and it can be a really fun question to ask and to be asked. But then we also tell people, "You are what you do, and your dreams should be tethered to the job you wanna do, not the person you wanna be."

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and that worked for a certain type of economy and workforce where, unfortunately or fortunately, work became your life and a part of your identity. I think AI's going to force us to decouple it, and again, not because no one's eventually going to work, I'm not in that [01:59:00] department, but because we're gonna transition out of this chapter.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: And work will look very different.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, and I don't know if it would be as coupled with identity.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Um, or m- and maybe we're closer to work in ways that we enjoy more, and then that's a good thing. But I think, yeah, we've kind of backed ourselves into this world where you are your job. Yeah. And we all know we hate going to a party and the first thing somebody asks is, "So what do you do?"

Mm-hmm. We... It never has sat right with any of us.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, so I think AI is gonna decouple some of those strings.

Hala: Yeah. Hopefully not... Hopefully, uh, in the near term, like I'm thinking the next 20, 30 years, there's still gonna be a lot of problems for us to solve, don't you think? Y-

Sinéad: yeah. I mean, I think we're, we're great at generating problems- Yeah.

and then giving ourselves problems to solve-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: especially generationally. So I think, yeah, and that's one thing that I, I do say when it comes to kids. I mean, they're very creative and imaginative. Mm-hmm. What problems do, would they wanna solve in the world? What would they wanna bring to life and make possible- Yeah

versus what is some [02:00:00] job that you hope to do? Because that job probably won't exist- Mm-hmm ... if we're going to be real.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: And the concept of a job may not even make sense.

Hala: Mm. Okay, last one is trust. How do you think trust will change?

Sinéad: I mean, trust in an AI first environment, it could go again one of two ways. So one, we recognize that a society that has no trust, that can't believe anything, is just gonna be entirely dysfunctional. And we're kinda close to that in the social media age. Things aren't going so well from a trust capacity- Yeah

from a trust standpoint. Uh, but there is a lot of resources, or there are a lot of resources being poured into, um, something like Provenance where you can see how information moves throughout a digital system. So we might end up in a world where people have built the solutions to solve these trust problems, and then it looks great.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Or we end up in a world where if we don't figure that out, and is what I'm looking at [02:01:00] real or is it not? Is the thing that I'm talking to real or is it not? Uh, then we're in this complete trust deficit. So again, it kind of depends, and I know I, I give us a lot of different types of scenarios- Yeah

but that's what the future is. It's not one way or the other. Mm-hmm. It's decisions that we make that take us to different futures. Mm-hmm. Uh, so it's, you know, what choices are we making today? And I hope we build a world where we can trust things more, but-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: right now it's, um, kind of a free for all.

Hala: It is.

So something that I wanna get your perspective on is as we start communicating with AI more and AI really becomes more of our thought partner and maybe the internet becomes less of a thing, and like you mentioned, there might not be, like, physical devices that we're scrolling. And so we don't have social media echo chambers anymore, but we're, we're talking with our AI all the time, and AI is giving us information about the world.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm. [02:02:00]

Hala: And maybe even filtering that information based on our preferences, our moods, whatever it is. What kind of a reality- will that end up being? Like, what it, like paint that picture for us.

Sinéad: Yeah, I call this the, the post-reality era. Right now I think we're in a post-truth era where you- but depending on which social media ecosystem you inhabit, you're going to see a slightly different set of facts and, you know, different s- scenarios in the world and so forth.

But at least theoretically, I could see if you fell into an echo chamber of something, I could probably find the Facebook group or the Twitter group, whatever it is.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: In a world where if the future looks like a world where I just ask my AI, you know, "Tell me about the latest geopolitical crisis in X," or, "Tell me, is the economy, or is the economy going well?"

And AI generates that answer and that reality for me, well, reality becomes something that is [02:03:00] AI generated and I decide if it's real or not. And that, and your reality would be very different from my reality- Mm-hmm ... depending on what you ask and depending what the AI knows about you and depending on your data and so forth.

And there's genuinely no overlap because in a world where even if you and I believed very different things about the world, you could theoretically see where somebody, where a post originated and who's saying what when. It's hard, but we can do it.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: In an AI first environment, if we don't have the right type of transparency or the right kind of ground rules, we could end up in an entirely AI generated reality.

And I actually think this is really important-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: that, I mean, I talk to national security officials about it because the signals that I see that show we're already moving towards a post-reality era, uh, some people have different perspectives on AI generated music. Mm. So for some people it's, "This is atrocious, this is diabolical.

Where are we heading?" Yeah. And for others it's, "You know what? This song made me feel something though. I felt it saw me as a mom, it saw me [02:04:00] as a divorcee," whatever it is. Uh, and so that, that reality, it, it, even if it's AI generated, it worked for me. So when you scale that up and we say, we turn to AI and we say, "Here are my medical records, what does this mean for me?"

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Imagine that times what does this economy mean for me? What does this vice president mean for me if they're to run? Yeah. All of these things become this kind of AI ecosystem. Uh, and so it's something I'm, I'm, I really talk a lot about in national security rooms- Mm-hmm ... because we could just be in complete la la land.

Hala: And- Private companies own this AI, so they can theoretically be feeding it w- the answers that they want people to hear.

Sinéad: Yeah, and we're already seeing, um, different countries kind of data poison the environment. So AI learns from the data that it's trained on. A lot comes from the internet. And we're already seeing different countries start to pu- kind of produce a bunch of content and blog posts that [02:05:00] align with their views, knowing that AI is gonna learn from it- Mm

and then will parrot it. So that's already happening. Uh, and yeah, so some of it, some of these are private companies, so you can't really even inspect where is AI pulling information from, how is it making decisions and trade-offs, uh, and these are questions that we're gonna have to get to the bottom of.

We missed it with social media, and now we're all trying to figure out where did democracy go wrong.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: We don't have to with AI, but we have to be forward-looking Uh, and that's why it's important to, to kind of engage with these scenarios.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, and it doesn't mean we have to experience them, but if you don't, if you only wanna see that it's gonna go well, it doesn't actually help society in any way not engaging with, well, what's the worst-case scenario that we don't want?

Yeah. And are we doing anything today? Are we making any decisions that are s- steering towards that?

Hala: Yeah. What are, what do we as individuals do now so that we make sure that, like, we're getting, like, a, a really, like, full worldview and that we're not, like, leaning on AI too heavily for information? Like, what should we [02:06:00] be doing?

Sinéad: I mean, I think, um, it depends on the questions that you're asking about AI and how consequential they are to you. So I mean, journalists, I know that there's a, a lack of trust in information for myriad reasons, but there still is some form of rigor that a journalist has to uphold when they report- Yeah

on a story. So if something, if you're trying to learn about something that's really important to you, uh, and you're asking AI for it, maybe it's sufficient, but can you at least double-check it with, uh, maybe a, a institution of journalism in some way, shape, or form? Mm-hmm. Uh, can you triple-check different sources?

So if AI tells you one answer, can you also k- pull up where did it pull that answer from?

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and just at least go that, that next step. Uh, and do you have a diversified information environment to begin with? Um, that's why I watch various news stations, not because I agree with all of them. I try to understand, how are different people seeing this, this mess-

Hala: Yeah

Sinéad: so I can understand why we may be in it to begin [02:07:00] with.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Um, and so I think that there's just various different things, and then always just think critically about information. What incentive does this platform d- or does this AI system or the, you know, the company behind this have? What is motivating them?

Is it profit? Is it information integrity? Those incentive systems really do matter.

Hala: Yeah, I think it's scary because I think people think that AI, like, truly has all the right answers. Mm-hmm. And they're trying to use AI as, like, a, a f- like-

Sinéad: A fact-checking tool, yeah ... a fa-

Hala: yeah, fact-checking. And they're like, "Well, no, this is the answer.

AI said it's the answer."

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: But if AI is scanning YouTube Shorts to get its answer- Mm-hmm, Reddit ... anybody can upload a YouTube Short.

Sinéad: Totally. And so people should just know that this is not a fact-finding machine-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: at all, and that's just not what it's been designed to do. It can solve really cool problems.

It can be creative with you, but it's not there to solve and find facts for you.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And we're, we're just gonna have to have some form of skepticism with what it shares with us. [02:08:00] And until we can figure out some of that data provenance and we can figure out a way to have much more reliability in AI, and I think that's possible and there are a lot- Mm

of smart computer scientists working on it. But for now, um- Sometimes the answer will be as good as some random blog on, on Reddit. Yeah. And if you're about to change your entire life over, over that random Re- Like, would you change your life, your marriage, your everything over a, a Reddit thread? Probably not.

Hala: No.

Sinéad: So have that air of skepticism with AI.

Hala: Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about some of the challenges that we think AI is going to bring. You say that you're neither, like, an optimist- No, yeah ... or a pessimist, right? Um, but let's, let's go to the pessimistic- Okay ... side of things. Uh, one of the things that I've really gotten a lot of pushback, so I've been talking about AI since, like, things started to get more popular and trying to teach about it.

Sinéad: Yeah.

Hala: And generally, like, I'm bullish on it. I think entrepreneurs should use AI. I try to teach people how to use AI effectively. And in the last six months, I've gotten a ton of [02:09:00] pushback on my social media posts. People are feel- fearful of- Yeah ... their jobs, and then people are also really angry about the environmental impact- Mm-hmm

of AI. So what are your thoughts around energy consumption, water consumption, um, and like, do you see it, like, being a long-term problem, or do you feel like this is something that's gonna get solved?

Sinéad: I mean, I think we need to be much harder on AI companies and the choices they're making to power these data centers.

Uh, it does not have to be powered by methane gas or, uh, the, any of the types of... Coal. Wh- Mm ... whatever energy that people are finding to, to power artificial intelligence systems. And I get that there's kind of an, an energy shortage, um, but that is a choice people are making. You could also power it with solar, hydropower.

There's many clean energy options. Mm. Sure, it's going to take a little bit longer, uh, but I think if you have the billions [02:10:00] of dollars, um, in funding to build this data center in the first place, you probably have the funds to fund it in a, in... Or to, to build it in a much cleaner way. Yeah. So I do think that we need to be harder on the AI companies and the choices that they're making to build, uh, these AI systems.

And, and, and it is a choice, right? Because I, I mean, America often points to the con- the, the race with China, and China's building a lot of solar-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: and a lot of nuclear plants. Uh, of course, they, they pollute in many different ways, but they're still building out green energy solutions. So I think we sh- uh, people are right to press the, the gas pedal on, "No, no, no, we need to do this differently."

Hala: Yeah, for

Sinéad: sure. Um, and I'm of course, uh, I do think AI's gonna be a part of our future. Mm-hmm. I mean, this technology, it's, it's here. It's been here for years. Um, so that's happening. But how it gets built is not inevitable, uh, and it's not too late to figure out the environmental impact of it, uh, and I hope we do.

I d- we, I, I [02:11:00] We don't want to build a future at the cost of the planet-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: um, and the planetary health. So I, I think it's possible that we can get both.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: I really do.

Hala: When you think about AI, like, what's the worst that, that could happen? Like, in terms of, like, what is the most dystopian future that you could imagine if, like, everything goes wrong?

Sinéad: Oh, goodness. The worst-case scenario with AI, there are quite a few. Um, maybe some biology, bio event, some kind of bio weapon-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: event, and that's becoming less and less implausible. More and more plausible- Yeah ... uh, the more sophisticated AI gets at, at creating different novel viruses that can be used for many wa- many things.

Sometimes they're being used to, uh, figure out antibiotic, to solve antibiotic resistance. Great, but you can also take that technology and design a bio weapon for a [02:12:00] specific person based on their microbiome.

Hala: My God.

Sinéad: Um, yeah. So that can, it can be really scary. Or hooking AI up to critical infrastructure like water, a water treatment plant, uh, and having it not only just cut off water, but maybe change the chemical balance of water.

Hala: And are you thinking, like, a company would be behind this? Or, like, AI would do it on its own?

Sinéad: I'm ... Okay, so probably not a, not necessarily a company. I'm not worried about a company intentionally doing that. Companies un- for better or for worse, are incentivized to make money.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, so that's usually w- you know, what they're trying to do, not necessarily, like, take down a nation.

Yeah. So f- I would say it'd be much more of probably some form of a foreign adversary- Yeah ... group- Terrorist

Hala: group or- ...

Sinéad: that's trying to- ...

Hala: hacker.

Sinéad: Yeah. And then in terms of AI doing something on its own, the challenge is that I don't, I don't really subscribe to the AI is gonna one day rise up for no reason and just turn on everybody.

Uh, maybe there are a few scientists working on that scenario. [02:13:00] Great, I'm glad that they're funded. I don't think that's the thing that all of us need to try to solve together, everybody in humanity. But it isn't entirely implausible- That AI goes about achieving a goal in a way that's not aligned to how we would achieve that goal.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And the second order impact of it is something that is a worst case scenario. Um, an example that I like to give is maybe you ask AI to book you a reservation at a restaurant.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And if you were to ask your assistant and the reservation was full, your assistant would probably come back and say, "Sorry, it's full.

I probably should've done it earlier, but it's full. Where else do you wanna go?" And AI might think, "Okay, well, the goal was to book you a spot, so maybe I'll either hack the restaurant and get you a spot, and there you go, goal complete, or I'll try to convince you to go somewhere else so I don't have to tell you that I failed the goal."

And so that's just the kind of easy way to understand when AI- Mm ... is misaligned, but if it's something much more significant-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: um, that would probably be a scenario that I wouldn't [02:14:00] wanna be a part of.

Hala: Yeah. How do you feel like government needs to... Like, what are the immediate things that you think government should try to implement now to help regulate AI?

Oof,

Sinéad: that's a great one. I think, um- There's so, and it's so complex with government- Yeah ... because there's so many governments that need to actually be working together.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, AI can, is not just going to be a national project. It has to be an international one. AI does not walk around with a passport so, uh, we do need governments talking and working together.

Um, I think, I mean Maybe not releasing at this point in time the most advanced AI systems that are capable of all of this cy- cybersecurity threats and, 'cause that could have many economic impacts. You don't wanna crash the stock market. So many different things could go wrong, hacking a hospital. So maybe government could step in and say, "I don't think we need to be re- if we cannot control AI right now- Yeah

or we don't [02:15:00] have the cybersecurity infrastructure to protect against it, we're just not ready for this latest version of this model. Mm-hmm. You need to be able to hold that.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Um, I think pressuring companies to invest much more in safety with their systems, reliability, explainability. Uh, if we can follow AI's reasoning better, um, if we can ensure that it's much more reliable, we're much less likely to end up in these kind of strange scenarios that we don't want.

So I think that there's a lot that can be done.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, are people doing it? Who's incentivized to do what is a whole other nightmare.

Hala: And what are you most optimistic about when it comes to AI? Like, how do you feel like it's going to help... Like, what are the big things that you see it doing in terms of improving our world?

Sinéad: I mean, I think healthcare is one I think a lot of people are very excited about, myself included. Uh, AI is wired to handle a lot more complexity than the human brain and, and the human body is one whole system, but because [02:16:00] it's so complex, we've branched it out, out into specialties. So somebody is a specialist of, you know, the stomach, of this, of that.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, I think AI is going to do some really interesting things of kind of allowing us to see the body in a whole system.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: Um, and if you can bring diagnostics into the home, if we can get it right and reliability right, being able to catch stuff before it turns into a crisis, I don't know anyone who doesn't want that.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: So if we can figure out how to get that right and safe, I think that's going to be awesome. And even something like legal services, uh, so many people just don't have the ability to, the financial means, to go and have their real estate contract reviewed by a lawyer, or they wanna start a small business- Mm-hmm

and they sign some shammy property agreement because they just didn't have the funds to do that. If we can have AI systems that are much more reliable and people can pass that to an AI for 25 cents, and it lowers the barriers to starting your own business or making different decisions, I think that's going to be awesome.

Hala: Yep.

Sinéad: [02:17:00] Um, I think that's something that's, that's really interesting.

Hala: Mm-hmm. I'm not a futurist, of course. I don't have your credentials, but when I think about the future of AI, uh, the fact that we'll have a lot more free time, hopefully. Uh, there might be universal base income where, like, people just might have more abundance.

I think we'll become more human, and I think that will... I don't think all parts of the world will get there as fast, right? So I feel like in the US and, like, UK, like, we'll be more advanced. But I think that will give us an opportunity to go help people that are struggling or solve world hunger and, and like we'll be able to use our capacity that we used to use for our regular job to actually, like, help humanity and make sure that, like, nobody goes hungry.

And like, I just feel like charity work will- Mm ... become a lot more popular.

Sinéad: Community based-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: work could be. And that could be something, yeah, I mean, if there's things that we're able to automate that, and that also nobody wanted to do to begin [02:18:00] with- Mm-hmm ... and people are, have the, the means and the teammates now to be able to go to different world projects or local community projects- Mm-hmm

because now they have a team that's gonna hi- handle the finances, their AIs handle the legal contracts, their AIs, and they wanna deal with, you know, animal fosters or- Mm-hmm ... doing something globally. That's gonna be really cool if we can unlock that potential for people. Yeah. I think we are going to work less no matter what.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, no matter how fast AI moves or doesn't move, we've always been working less. I think a three-day work week is absolutely in the cards.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, and I think it's important that people know about that because, so let's say AI can shave off a lot of time for an organization and they are much more productive.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Do you get to bank that time back, or do they just cash it in in terms of making more money?

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: So I think a world in which we can work less and we're also kind of reaping the benefits of it I think will be great.

Hala: Yeah, let's stick on that. So you're basically talking about, like, how people actually get compensated [02:19:00] moving forward.

Sinéad: Yeah, so I think there will be a stretch where we'll probably start to work less after the dust has settled in this transition. And so maybe that looks like a three-day, a three-day work week. Um, and again, if that seems fantastical, so was the idea of a five-day work week, so was the idea of working every day for somebody else.

Mm. Like you had a factory with a steam engine. So all of these things were just kind of strange, um, technological transitions. So a world in which we could work three days because we're much- Yeah ... more productive or much more efficient would, is absolutely in the cards.

Hala: Yeah. I was talking to Gary Vee about this yesterday, and he, his perspective, at least in the short term, was really interesting.

So he was basically saying, like, when it comes to head count, he doesn't believe... Like, for him, he, like, he thinks of his employees as like an army. Mm-hmm. And AI is a better weapon If he's competing against a company that has 2,000 employees, he's got 2,000 employees. Uh, if he cuts his employees in half but everybody [02:20:00] has the same weapons, like he's gonna lose.

Sinéad: Mm-hmm.

Hala: So for him, he's like, "Well, I'm not cutting my employees because, uh, it just builds more capacity." It's not really necessarily about like reducing head count. Yeah. It's like, how do we make this bigger and do more? And better. Yeah.

Sinéad: Yeah. The myth is that AI is there to cut people and replace people with AIs.

That's a really short-term and short-sighted way to think about it. Mm-hmm. I see it much more as a top-line technology. Yeah. It should be there to drive revenue. What new markets can you now play in-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

Sinéad: much more fiercely that you couldn't play in before?

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Uh, and so who, who is your, your... If your, your staff are powered by supercomputers, what can they do now?

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: Um, and I think that's a much longer term way to view it than just kind of trimming your organization. And now the whole eco- the whole environment that you're competing in also looks different, and now you have no people to operate in it. So yeah, I'm much more on Gary's side there.

Hala: Cool. All right.

I'm gonna end this conversation with another game.

Sinéad: Okay.

Hala: Are you, are you up for it?

Sinéad: I'm up for it.

Hala: Okay, cool. It's called Bet On It. All right? So I'm gonna give you two choices, [02:21:00] some of it we've talked about today, but I want you to basically bet on what scenario is actually gonna happen.

Sinéad: Okay.

Hala: Okay? All right.

Bet one, AI makes the average person smarter versus AI makes the average person less capable of thinking independently.

Sinéad: I have to bet on one.

Hala: You have to bet on one?

Sinéad: I have to. Goodness, I have to hitch my, hitch my aspirations, uh- ... to number one.

Hala: So AI makes the average person smarter. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what's happened in the past, right?

Sinéad: Yeah. I h- I feel like if we design towards that, then hopefully we steer towards it.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

Sinéad: Um, so that c- one could be much more aspirational than probable, but I have to bet on one.

Hala: Okay. Bet number two, we were just talking about this, AI gives us more free time versus AI simply raises the expected output of every worker.

Sinéad: So short term, I think it's two. It raises the output, and we're actually just busier and doing busy, busier nonsense. Long term, I think we'll have more, [02:22:00] more free time.

Hala: Hmm. Bet three, a one-person billion-dollar company versus mass adoption of AI agents inside traditional companies. Do you feel like it's gonna be, like, companies of one, or do you just feel like companies are gonna have their employees adopt AI?

Sinéad: I, I would bet on the, the newer companies that are gonna be AI first, and maybe that's one person, maybe that's two people-

Hala: Hmm ...

Sinéad: and they're designed with AI from the beginning. Um, and sure, they could be worth billions.

Hala: Hmm.

Sinéad: Uh, I think smaller companies are gonna be the future, for sure. Hmm. So I, I would bet...

I mean, I'd have to see the person.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Um, but yeah, I think that if they're super capable and they know the industry well, that would be an interesting bet to make.

Hala: Okay, bet four: smart glasses replace smartphones versus smartphones remain dominant through 2035.

Sinéad: Hmm, 2035. Okay. So in nine years, will we likely be on our smartphones, or we will be using smart glasses?[02:23:00]

The reason why I might go with smartphones- Hmm ... is because I don't think it's going to be glasses.

Hala: Yeah. I don't think it's gonna be glasses either.

Sinéad: I think that there'll be a subset of people that use them, and I think that they'll be functional in certain ways. Uh, and maybe I'm entirely wrong about this, but I think it's gonna be a different type of device that makes more sense- Mm

for this technology. Mm-hmm. So I, I would go with the smartphone.

Hala: Yeah. Or some other device, I guess.

Sinéad: Yes. Some o- if there was another d- if there was an option three- Let's

Hala: see. Yeah ...

Sinéad: I would go with that.

Hala: Another device. Okay. Bet five: AI creates more jobs than it destroys versus- Ooh ... AI destroys more jobs than it creates.

Oof.

Sinéad: Hmm. Let's see It's such a hard one because I don't... Depends on the timeline. Probably, we'll probably have [02:24:00] maybe, maybe less jobs, like- Mm ... but more work. Mm. 'Cause I think it's not going to look like jobs. So I think it's going to look like, like how you, how our days are so varied.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: What part of it is your job?

And what is the one job? So I think it's people, like, the idea of jobs will start to make less sense.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: And people will work, but it won't be considered just a job for an employer, and so it will just look very different. Yeah.

Hala: It seems like the whole world is gonna look very different. Okay, bet six. This is the last one.

AI assistants becoming trusted purchasing agents versus humans keeping wanting to browse and choose for themselves.

Sinéad: I don't think we're gonna be browsing anywhere.

Hala: Really? You think it's done? What if you enjoy shopping?

Sinéad: Sure. I don't think shopping's going to go away. Browsing on the internet will.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: We'll, we'll shop in different ways. So yes, I, I enjoy making final decisions and... But I [02:25:00] think the idea of br- a browser-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: um, we probably won't even use that word in a decade.

Hala: Mm.

Sinéad: Uh, and I think it's going to be similar to when everyone said, "There's no way I am shopping online." Like, if there's no way I'm buy- how am I gonna buy a shirt online- Yeah

I haven't even tried it on, and my whole outfit's from online. I think eventually whatever comes next won't be browsing-

Hala: Yeah ...

Sinéad: on the internet. Uh, but it will just be shopping in a different way.

Hala: Totally. It's also super inefficient. Like, right now we're shopping, we're ordering things in two sizes. We're returning the other stuff.

Oh, my goodness. It's just, like, such a waste.

Sinéad: And you're going through a row af- page one. Oh,

Hala: my gosh.

Sinéad: Page two. Page five.

Hala: How much time have I spent doing that? S-

Sinéad: and got nowhere.

Hala: Yeah.

Sinéad: Didn't e- yeah, and just looking at the same things.

Hala: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sinéad: Yeah.

Hala: Okay. This was an awesome conversation. I feel like we covered so much ground.

We did cover a

Sinéad: lot.

Hala: Uh, before we go, you're speaking to hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs right now. Mm-hmm. What do you want them to know? [02:26:00]

Sinéad: What do I want... So if you're, uh... I mean, this is such an important moment for entrepreneurs. The skills you've built as an entrepreneur, you're self-directed, right?

You're self-motivated. This is such an awesome moment for you. Uh, if there was ever a time to take that additional bet-

Hala: Mm ...

Sinéad: uh, or even if you're thinking of stepping into an entrepreneurship game, t- I think now is the time, uh, to lean into this technology in terms of, a- as a springboard. Uh, and if there's ever ambitious goals that you wanted to add to your, to your dreams or to your pipeline, uh, go after it now.

Hala: Mm. Beautiful. Sinead, thank you so much for joining us- Thanks for- ... on Young and Profiting podcast.

Sinéad: Thanks for having me.

Hala: Cool.

Sinéad: Great job. Awesome. Thank you. Yay. But I'm like, am I drenched in sweat in this? At one point I was like- It's

Hala: so hot in

Sinéad: here ... holding my- Yeah.

Hala: Isn't it kinda hot

Sinéad: in here? It's pretty hot, I know.

Thank you.

Hala: That was great. Yeah, it was really

Sinéad: good. Thank you so much. [02:27:00] Awesome. Thank you.

Hala: You have some really interesting stuff. You've got such interesting stuff. Thank you. Yeah, it can be a bit of a

[00:01:35] Ashley is an expert on grief and trauma recovery and has devoted her life to helping others reignite the light within themselves. Today, she's going to teach us how we can all learn to shine even through some of life's darkest moments. Ashley, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

[00:01:51] Ashley Lemieux: Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

[00:01:55] Hala Taha: Thanks for joining me today. So I'm going to just jump right into it. [00:02:00] For a lot of us entrepreneurs, our businesses grow out of something that we've struggled with in our own lives. And I feel like this has been especially the case for you.

[00:02:08] You've had a bunch of dark moments in your life. So why don't we start off with the first one that I learned about when I was researching your story. It was in your 20s. You unexpectedly became the mother of two children and then you had some traumatic experiences around that. Can you tell us what happened?

[00:02:25] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah. So in our mid 20s, I was actually building my first company also. We were newly married and we didn't have kids at all in our radar at that time. And overnight we became permanent guardians of two kids. And for the next four years, we were a family in every sense of the word and everything that we did revolved around raising the kids, giving them the opportunities that as a parent, you want them to have.

[00:02:57] And. All of us were under the impression that we [00:03:00] would be together forever, for always. And during the final steps of the adoption process, we experienced a very unexpected, contested adoption. And during that time, we ended up being in court for two years. I just remember the life inside of me. It felt like someone had taken a vacuum and just sucked it all out.

[00:03:25] We were in court all the time. Depositions, high stress, no one knew what was going to happen. And we ended up losing the kids. It's, I was actually on the other side of the country for work and it happened fast. I didn't even get to come home and say goodbye to them. And that was almost eight years ago now.

[00:03:47] And it rocked our world in a way that I did not know how to come back from, or if I even wanted to figure out how to come back from it, [00:04:00] to be honest.

[00:04:01] Hala Taha: Can you help us understand how you ended up with these kids in your twenties and then Are they now back in your family or the court took them away and you just never saw them again?

[00:04:11] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, so there's parts of our story that we just don't share all the full details of, but they were placed with us through someone we knew and we have not had contact with them since we lost them almost eight years ago.

[00:04:28] Hala Taha: I'm so sorry to hear that. And I know that you guys decided to move after this happened.

[00:04:35] What did that teach you about grief when you decided to move? Were you able to run away from your grief?

[00:04:41] Ashley Lemieux: I wanted to. We were like, okay, what can we do that will help us not feel this way? This hell, this weight that feels like it has buried every aspect of our life. And it was really hard to be in the home that we had raised the kids in.

[00:04:58] All of our friends were [00:05:00] friends because our kids were friends from school. We're doing things in the community all together or sports teams and whatever. And my husband and I were like, if there's any shot of us making after this, we got to get away for a little while. So. We ended up moving to Nashville, Tennessee.

[00:05:18] I actually had had some employees there and everything about Nashville is very different than it is in Phoenix. And so we just said, peace out. Let's go. But then once we got to Nashville and settled in the adrenaline, you know, of a new city of new opportunities of the excitement of, okay, what are we going to explore?

[00:05:40] What is waiting for us here? Once that started to kind of wear off and the grief was still there, we were then like, okay, how much farther can we run? So we actually ended up packing carry on suitcases. And we went to Europe with pretty much no plans for almost two months, [00:06:00] hoping maybe that that would help ease the pain in that acute stage of grief when everything is just new and raw, and you don't know how to take your next breath.

[00:06:10] And, um, Again, after a while, that wore off. And so we found ourselves really having to dig deep of answering the questions, what is it that we want from our lives now? And how do we rebuild so that we can participate in our life and not just die? regret not living it because we were too sad.

[00:06:32] Hala Taha: We're going to touch on this much deeper later, but you talk about this concept in your book called clarity mapping.

[00:06:38] So was this one of the first instances of you starting to get clarity around your life and what you wanted?

[00:06:43] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, so what was really hard for me, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, in whatever role you are in. Let's say you identify with your role of motherhood or as a wife or a partner or your role at work or whatever that [00:07:00] thing is that really shapes your identity.

[00:07:03] If that is taken away from you and is no longer a part of your daily world, You don't have to base your decisions around it anymore. Your actions aren't based off of doing that thing because it is gone. The lack of purpose that I felt in my life, no longer being a physical mother, is something that made it really hard for me to get out of bed in the morning.

[00:07:28] I didn't know how to focus my time and my energy anymore. It didn't matter at that point My business was running. It was okay for me to step away for a little bit. It did not matter if I got out of bed or not, there was no one I needed to feed breakfast to or to get to school or to bathe at night or to tuck in.

[00:07:51] And I stayed in bed for a long time until I got to the point where I was like, I have to figure out what my intention for my life is [00:08:00] now. And so I started with one simple question every single morning. And that question was, what is my intention today? Because today right now in this moment was all I could focus on.

[00:08:13] So that's when the concept of clarity mapping really started. I became a series of five questions that I answered every single day to help give me purpose and direction and clarity on who I was and what it is that I wanted to be rebuilding so that I could create tangible steps forward to start building that thing.

[00:08:37] Hala Taha: And one of those tangible steps was that you decided to have your own children. And so you and your husband started to try. for a baby and that led to another traumatic experience. Are you comfortable to share that with us?

[00:08:50] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, we waited, I think it was about four years after the loss of the older two kiddos.

[00:08:58] to feel like we were at a [00:09:00] place where we were ready to continue to try to grow our family. I didn't want to go back into motherhood feeling as broken as I felt because I knew that that would impact the next child that we were to bring into our family, and I had so much healing that I needed to do in order to be ready for that.

[00:09:19] So, We were so intentional about what the next steps of growing our family look like. And we decided the end of 2019 that it was time to grow our family. So that is when we moved from Nashville back to Phoenix. We were like, okay, We're ready to go back home. We want to be by my family. We want solid roots there so that when we have more kids, we're close to family and they get that experience of growing up around cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

[00:09:49] So we moved home and right when we moved home, we found out that we were pregnant and obviously we were so excited and it just felt like for the first [00:10:00] time in several years, we were going That there was this new breath of life being breathed into our lives again and that there was forward movement and the grief was still there, but also now there was joy and hope and an opportunity to keep living our lives.

[00:10:21] And I know no one likes to talk about this time, but I feel like 2020 was a great equalizer for all of us because we can say 2020 and everyone's like, yeah, that year freaking sucked for me. Right. And it sucked for all of us for various reasons. And for us, we moved into our home in March of 2020, the same week that the pandemic had shut everything down.

[00:10:44] And so that also meant that doctors. appointments when you were pregnant, everything kind of changed. And so it kind of felt scary for a moment to leave the house being pregnant. I got really sick one day [00:11:00] and we couldn't figure out what was wrong because I had felt fine. But then by the end of the night, I was screaming in pain.

[00:11:07] I couldn't get out of bed. I spiked a fever. I'd never felt anything like that. So my husband called the ambulance. They took me to the hospital. And immediately they check the baby, baby was okay, and I'm like, okay, I can get through anything if my baby's okay. And we found out that I had gone septic. I didn't really know what that meant, but I now know sepsis is a blood infection.

[00:11:31] So whatever infection you have enters your bloodstream. And it started causing kidney failure for me. So that had to be treated immediately because it's very life threatening. And in that moment, they told us, you're going to be admitted to the hospital for an indefinite amount of time. But today's also the first day that we are shutting down outside visitors.

[00:11:55] So your husband cannot come with you. You're going to have to come by [00:12:00] yourself. And I just remember feeling, that was the loneliest I think I have ever felt. And I remember being wheeled back, just like sobbing, saying goodbye to my husband, neither of us knowing what was going to happen. Later the next day, there was a moment where they called.

[00:12:15] a rapid response, which means like a whole team of doctors was surrounding me because I was really struggling breathing and everything felt like all the pain had just spiked and I remember looking at a tech who was giving a scan on my heart, an EKG, and I remember asking him, am I going to die right now?

[00:12:35] Because I felt like I was going to. And I knew that whatever was happening in my body, there was no way it was going to keep me and my baby alive. I just felt it in my gut that something was drastically changing right then. So after I was stable a couple hours later, I had them give me another ultrasound, and that's when they found out that we had lost our [00:13:00] baby boy.

[00:13:01] And I ended up delivering him alone the next morning. And it sent me again into this part of life where you're like, Well, I thought that. We had gone through the hard thing, right? Like I thought that this was our first step back of trusting life again. And now what am I supposed to do? And so that entered the next journey of really finding clarity again in my life for what does this look like now to move forward?

[00:13:35] Hala Taha: Well, thank you for sharing that with us. I know that's probably very difficult to relive. For other people who are in the moment feeling really stuck, that they've gone through a lot of pain, they had a lot of traumatic experience, maybe a loss. What advice do you have for them in terms of the steps to take next?

[00:13:56] Ashley Lemieux: I

[00:13:57] think this is such a good question because [00:14:00] when we are in those moments, it really feels like we are the only one in those moments. Grief and trauma can feel so isolating and so the very first thing that I would say is that I'm so sorry and I want you to be able to know that. what you've been through, it can't be fixed.

[00:14:20] It's not supposed to be fixed. There's not a band aid that can be put on it. I think that there's platitudes that people like to say, everything happens for a reason or time heals all wounds. And I'm going to be the first one to say that none of those things are true. And so it's okay to feel exactly how you feel.

[00:14:39] The one thing that we know about grief and trauma is that most people spend their entire lives. avoiding the reality of the pain. And the one thing that if all of us did in this area of our life where we feel grief, that would change the trajectory of what we're able to do next. is acknowledgement. [00:15:00] We have to acknowledge what we've been through and also what it feels like inside of us.

[00:15:05] And it might sound so simple to say that. Having it be simple doesn't mean it's easy, which is why the majority of people never get to this place where they're able to acknowledge it. So if we can start there, then that allows us to have more freedom in acknowledging what has happened and the hurt it has caused us so that we can stop avoiding it and then create a plan that feels safe for us to heal and to be able to experience the world again in a way that feels safe so that we can create forward steps.

[00:15:43] Hala Taha: And I know that for you, you've shared your story on podcasts like this, on your own podcast, you wrote a memoir. How did actually sharing, like you were just alluding to it now, how did actually sharing your story help you heal?

[00:15:58] Ashley Lemieux: I think that [00:16:00] for so many of us, we carry these stories. Sometimes they're so shame attached to it.

[00:16:06] Sometimes there's so much pain attached to it. What we know is that when our pain can leave our bodies, whether it's writing our story down and no one else even reads it, we know that that helps facilitate healing. So many of us suffer in darkness and our stories just need to be brought to light, to be acknowledged, to be received, to be validated.

[00:16:32] And as I've been able to share my story, what has been so beautiful and I think is the greatest privilege of the work that I do is that it helps give other people permission to share and acknowledge their stories. So I get so many stories sent to me by other women who have gone through really hard things.

[00:16:54] who are like, I've seen your story and it's given me courage now to be able to share [00:17:00] mine and walk through what that means for me. And what we know is that healing happens fastest in community. And so when we can create communities that understand each other and have shared respect and validation for the pain that other people go through, we're able to heal faster.

[00:17:20]

[00:17:28] Hala Taha: you have created a whole business. around helping people with their grief. And as entrepreneurs, one of the best ways that we can start businesses is by actually solving the pains that we once had and providing those solutions to people who are in the place that we once were. So what steps did you take to become more qualified and become more prepared to take on the role to help other people with their trauma and grief?

[00:17:56] Ashley Lemieux: I love this question because part of my journey is [00:18:00] started even before I stepped into helping people more in their grief. I've had a personal brand online for, oh my gosh, it's probably been 14 years now before Instagram even existed and I had a blogspot. com. I've always wanted to be a writer. I've always wanted to help.

[00:18:20] move people through their emotions. So I was doing that even before these life experiences. But after these life experiences, you know, I wrote my first book and I was in the middle of my edits for my most recent book, I Am Here, when we lost our son, Jace. And after that, I really felt like my next steps in finding clarity for my life.

[00:18:45] I didn't know exactly what it was going to look like, but I knew that I needed to go back to school to get my master's degree. specifically in mental health and wellness with an emphasis in grief and bereavement. And that's probably the least sexy thing that [00:19:00] you could tell someone that you are an expert in.

[00:19:02] It's like, what do you study, Ashley? What do you teach on? Well, I teach on grief and bereavement. And everyone's like, there's nothing sexy about talking about that. But it is the one thing that I do. every single person in this world is going to experience at some point in their life. And my life experiences, I felt very much qualified me to help others.

[00:19:29] And I then wanted the paper, the education behind it so that I could take everything I had already learned and really just propel myself forward. So at the age of What was I, 34? I went back to school to get my master's degree, and what's funny about it is that about four weeks later after starting this intensive program, we got pregnant again.

[00:19:56] I ended up graduating and finishing with a [00:20:00] four month old. I was pumping at my graduation. It was the first time I had left my baby for any amount of time. And it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I knew that I needed that for myself and then to be able to help other people.

[00:20:16] Hala Taha: I love that for you.

[00:20:17] I love the fact that you were able to do that even with a young child. You've been able to grow your career so successfully. Your podcast is very popular now. You've got two books. So it's awesome. And you actually started as an entrepreneur even before you started teaching other people about grief and being an author.

[00:20:38] You had a successful jewelry business, but then you pivoted and you decided you wanted Become an expert on grief. So how did you decide to make that change? What was the thought process behind that? You know, I've got a lot of entrepreneurs tuning in who are probably product based entrepreneurs and what kind of differences did you see between having a product based business to now having [00:21:00] more of like a personal brand?

[00:21:02] Business in an audience based business.

[00:21:04] Ashley Lemieux: I had an audience during the time of my jewelry company. And I still was writing to them through blog posts, through Instagram. We would do meetups in person. I was speaking a lot. And something that all product entrepreneurs know is that it is a freaking grind. You are grinding so hard to meet your bottom line.

[00:21:28] We were doing shows all the time, wholesale trade shows, holiday trade shows. And when we moved to Nashville, I reached this point where I was like, this is isn't how I want to be spending the rest of my life. I want to be writing. And it's really hard to be founder CEO of a product based company that was on the trajectory that we were on, and then also be able to do the other work that I really wanted to do.

[00:21:56] And so I had to make some really difficult decisions. [00:22:00] But at the end of the day, what I've always wanted is to help people. So whether that was through jewelry or now through writing and podcasting and my personal brand. I knew that I had to make a pivot, so I started writing more, and my first step was getting a book agent, which, and I'm such a believer in when you are in alignment with that next step, sometimes things happen to help facilitate that step, so once I made that decision, I literally opened my inbox the next day.

[00:22:33] And I had a email from one of the top literary agents in the country asking me if I'd ever thought about writing a book before. And I was like, okay, if this isn't my sign for the next step, I don't know what it's going to be. But there also was this grief of closing the chapter on my jewelry business.

[00:22:58] We were sold in [00:23:00] large department stores like Hallmark and we had a large headquarters in downtown Phoenix. And so that also meant I felt like I had to let other people down because my course was changing. But looking back, I can't imagine not making that decision.

[00:23:20] Hala Taha: That was going to be my next question because there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there tuning in that might not have a business that either fits their life goals, where they're feeling burnt out, they don't even like working on their business anymore, or their business is just not successful.

[00:23:35] It's not taking off, you know, 99 percent of startups fail, but a lot of entrepreneurs, we've got an ego where we feel like, well, we already put it out to the world. Everybody knows me for this. What are people going to think if I shut it down? I had a blog in my twenties that became really popular and I shut it down because I wanted to change paths.

[00:23:53] I wanted to go into marketing and all this other stuff. I wanted to go into corporate for a period of time and I'm an entrepreneur again, I have a [00:24:00] media company. But I shut down my company and everybody who worked for me, well, at the time I had volunteers, it was kind of a blog that I basically trained bloggers and we were all just young, just doing it for fun, you know, and so they were all mad at me and I lost all my friends and I felt a little ashamed, but I could imagine being older and having a real company with customers and products.

[00:24:23] That would be really hard. So I guess, how did you get over the shame of starting a company and shutting it down?

[00:24:32] Ashley Lemieux: You know what's interesting? Is that when you hit rock bottom in your life, which for me was losing the kids. There's nowhere else to go but up. And so I think that I was in a place in my life where I was at such rock bottom that I just freaking didn't care anymore.

[00:24:52] And I had to do things to get the life back inside of me. I had to. I describe it as feeling like I [00:25:00] was dead, but I was alive. I was just a zombie through my life. And so at that point, honestly, I don't know if it's a good thing, but for that moment it was, because I don't know what else would have forced me to do this, but it was the only way for me and I had nothing to lose.

[00:25:18] And I think a lot of times we get afraid of hitting rock bottom or what if it doesn't work out or what will I do? And honestly, sometimes. It's the best thing because you finally make decisions off of what you actually want because you can't lose anything more than you already have. So that's what that looked like for me and And like I said, there was grief, there was sadness to it, and I also started to feel excited about something again for the first time in a long time, and so I just kept following that feeling.

[00:25:58] Hala Taha: And I feel like for other people [00:26:00] tuning in, what I want them to understand is that nobody really cares that much. We put all this pressure about what is everybody else going to think, what are my friends going to think, what is my family going to think, even people who are lawyers and doctors and who don't want to be lawyers and doctors anymore who are so afraid of making a change.

[00:26:17] It's like, yes, it's going to be hard in the moment. But as soon as you figure out the next thing and you've got the next thing to talk about and feel proud of, no one's even going to remember or care if anything, people are going to be inspired from you. And it's just getting over that initial hump.

[00:26:33] Ashley Lemieux: Absolutely. And I think we get scared of this idea of starting over. I've put in so much time, I've put in so much money, so much resources, I don't want to start over. But that destroys our next step when we look at things. like that. You're not starting over. You can't. You have so much knowledge now that has gotten you to this place.

[00:26:53] And so you get to now apply all of that into the next thing. And I think the place where we fail the most as [00:27:00] entrepreneurs is we stay in the wrong place for too long because our ego gets in the way of it. And we miss out on really what could take off for us and feel in just such alignment that would.

[00:27:13] Not only help us, but other people to be able to serve others more because we are on a path that actually is working. And so that's something now I actually help women in their own clarity maps in high level entrepreneurs, because this is one of the things I love so much is how do we help you pivot?

[00:27:33] When you are in this season of having no idea what to do next, how do you find that clarity and the confidence and the strategy to support it so that you can move forward?

[00:27:45] Hala Taha: This is a great segue to talk about your latest book. So your first book was a memoir. It was called Born to Shine. And your next book is called I Am Here, and that's more designed to help others navigate their own experiences of grief and trauma.

[00:27:57] Clarity mapping is a big part of that, we're hopefully going to [00:28:00] dive deep into that later on in the conversation. But first, you say the biggest life lesson that has come to your life has been the phrase of three simple words, I am here, which is the title of your book. Why are those words so meaningful to you?

[00:28:15] Ashley Lemieux: They're meaningful to me because for so long, I didn't want to be here. And I did everything to try to avoid the feeling of being here, whether that was numbing out with social media or food or traveling or spending money or working too much or being in bad relationships, whatever that thing was to distract me from the other pain is what I latched onto.

[00:28:42] Once I got to this point, we were actually in Europe on one of our runaway escapades of trying to escape it. And I remember being in Milan and next to me sat a mom and a daughter and she had just lost her tooth. And she was about the age of the daughter [00:29:00] who we had lost in the contested adoption. And I remember watching the joy between the mother and the over this lost tooth.

[00:29:08] And I just started sobbing. Any composure I had left, it was gone. I wanted those own moments with this human that I loved so much that I knew I was never going to have again. And so I remember I got up from my spot and I started running towards this little apartment that we were staying at. And And it was as if someone put a brick wall in front of me and was like, stop, you can't keep running like this.

[00:29:38] You can't, you have to face these feelings. And I probably look like a crazy American tourist, which I totally was, but in the middle of this square there, I threw up my arms and I yelled, I am here. I am here. And I just started crying. And I just, that became this mantra for me that I still hold onto [00:30:00] of. I don't want to run away anymore.

[00:30:02] I want to be here. I am here. And so now what does that look like? And how can I support myself to be able to get through these things so that I don't keep running away from this life that I've been given?

[00:30:16] Hala Taha: That's a really powerful story. I can just imagine you in the street just having that moment. And then now, years later, you've written a book with that title to try to help other people.

[00:30:27] Do you feel like entrepreneurs? deal with grief and stress differently than other people? Or do they have certain personality types that enable them to get over things more quickly, potentially?

[00:30:42] Ashley Lemieux: something that is very common among entrepreneurs is that they're very high achieving people.

[00:30:49] They want to achieve. And one of the ways that we can cope with grief is called a maladaptive coping mechanism. So there's two types of mechanisms that we can use to cope. [00:31:00] Adaptive, which adaptive is something that is positive that actually helps. your grief, and the other is maladaptive, meaning it's not good for you, but we do it anyway because we don't know what else to do.

[00:31:10] One of the maladaptive coping mechanisms that a lot of us have, and a lot of entrepreneurs have, is work, and working too much. And so I see a lot of entrepreneurs who throw themselves even deeper into work to avoid their feelings, and they can become really successful from doing that, and it's something that the world praises, and we look at as a huge success, while meanwhile there can be these layers of emotions that are hurting them, that's driving this.

[00:31:43] really unsustainable work, but that can make it really, really hard to get to this healing place. Something else that's really interesting that we know is the difference between men and women, the way that we move through grief. So a lot [00:32:00] of men, and obviously when I say this, right, I'm not saying every man and every woman.

[00:32:05] This is just an average across the board. There's going to be people who don't fit into these buckets, of course. But what we know about men is that men often throw themselves into work. They talk less about how they are feeling and they want to spend more time in the action of staying busy. Whereas women, we want to talk about it.

[00:32:29] We want you to sit and listen and we want to talk about it because that's our way of processing, of retelling the story, trying to help ourselves understand what has happened. And so then if you are in a relationship where both of you are grieving so differently from the other, we can see a lot of marital or partnership conflict because of that.

[00:32:52] So I don't know if entrepreneurs, if there's a specific grief [00:33:00] style for entrepreneurs, but men and women for sure. But then for the group of entrepreneurs who we know just. love the work and the achievements, I would base my best guess on what I know about grief on they are probably a lot of them throwing themselves even deeper into work, meaning that they're not facing what is actually going on in their life.

[00:33:25] It's a dangerous combination.

[00:33:27] Hala Taha: Yeah, and I can relate to that even for myself. When I started my business, I started it in 2020 and I started it while my dad was in the hospital battling COVID and I wasn't allowed to visit him and he passed away after a month in the hospital. It was the most devastating thing.

[00:33:45] I literally watched him die on Zoom and wasn't able to even see him until he passed away. And it was very traumatic. He was buried with his clothes on and his shoes on and his cell phone. It was like just the most traumatic thing. [00:34:00] And for years I just worked and worked and worked. So I'm better now because I actually hired my business partner, Jason.

[00:34:11] And now I'm able to just have a life and everything like that. But for years, I really did just throw myself into work.

[00:34:18] Ashley Lemieux: I'm so sorry to hear that. I didn't know about your father and. You opening up about that is so beautiful and so hard. And I think that where we are at now, going into 2025, a lot of people aren't realizing what happens around the fifth year of grief.

[00:34:37] So if we go back to 2020, we all had these moments where we're in a pandemic, but then we're all also experiencing these personal losses, the loss of your father, the loss of my baby, the loss of what other people have gone through, right? So then the past couple of years were like, I don't know how to cope and no one is teaching me how to cope.

[00:34:59] So I'm [00:35:00] going to do what I think is going to help me best. And because of my personality, because of what I want to build, I'm going to throw myself into work. And then you're like, Oh my gosh, this company I just started is doing well. It's growing, it's great, and you can kind of run on that adrenaline high for a moment until you start reaching these achievements that once the novelty of it starts wearing off, you can find yourself in this place of, I accomplished what I wanted to.

[00:35:30] I thought that this was going to feel differently than it does. And that is a very common feeling that a lot of entrepreneurs find themselves in is I won the award, I hit the financial goal, I have the growth of the company. I thought that I was going to feel differently than this. What is wrong? And what is wrong is, is that we have this grief that can't be pacified by these [00:36:00] external validations in our lives that we think are going to pacify them.

[00:36:04] And so now as we head into 2025, which is five years after this major traumatic event for most people in the world, year five is the year where you take a pause and you start really looking around and being like, where do I fit into life right now? And how do I want it to go moving forward? It's One of the first years that you really begin to take a breath because there's a little more time and space between now and then, but as a result of that, a lot of emotions can start coming up as you realize that your life has continued to move on.

[00:36:44] But emotionally, parts of you still feel like they are stuck in the past. And so, so many people right now are burnt out. They're burnt out on work. They don't know what to do next. And it's because we never gave ourselves the opportunity to [00:37:00] slow down and sit with our grief for as long as we needed to.

[00:37:05] Hala Taha: It's so true. And it's like so bittersweet because I'm so happy that I did all this. My company is going to hit eight figures next year. You know, like I built this crazy company. Yeah. Thank you. Like I built this awesome company and I have an awesome team and I love my life. To your point, there was a period of time where I was like, I can't just keep running on fumes and I need help.

[00:37:29] I need a business partner. I need to kind of delegate and have some balance. Cause you just can't do that forever. And I do think sacrifice is important, but you can't do it forever.

[00:37:40] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, it's not sustainable. So then how do we create a sustainable way? where we can build what we want and love it while also acknowledging what it is that we've been through.

[00:37:53] And what does that dance look like for my life? And what is it that I'm needing? And part of that, part of your gift of [00:38:00] grief that probably came was your ability to grow this company to what it is now. But now part of what might come next is, okay, I've built this. And so does that mean that there's a little bit more of a buffer for me to have some space and some resources to really make sure that I'm filled up inside so that my insides match all of my external accomplishments.

[00:38:28] And that's something that was really hard for me. Over the past couple of years, I remember I would tell my therapist, I'm a huge advocate for therapy. I'm like, everyone should have a therapist. So I love talking about it to just help people know it is so normal to go to therapy. But something that I would often tell my therapist is My insides don't match my outsides.

[00:38:49] Like what is happening around me, what I have in my life is so beautiful, but inside I feel like there's this just chaotic exhaustion [00:39:00] that never goes away. And it feels so out of alignment with everything that I see externally in my life. And I need those to start matching up with each other. And so my hope is that going into 2025, a lot of entrepreneurs are going to kind of hit this pause button where we can all get a little bit more in alignment.

[00:39:21] So that our insides match our outsides, but when that happens, moving forward, we are able to serve and grow even exponentially from what we've gotten to, to this point, because we're going to have the sustainability, the internal resources to be able to do so.

[00:39:38]

[00:39:46] Hala Taha: So one of the things that you talk about in your book is that we need to reframe our thoughts First, I want to get clarity on what thoughts actually are. Do you mean our current beliefs and like current thoughts or are you talking about memories or those two different things? [00:40:00]

[00:40:00] Ashley Lemieux: Talking about our current thoughts.

[00:40:02] So what we know about our thoughts is we have somewhere around 90, 000 thoughts a day. And out of those thoughts, it's somewhere around 80, 85%. are negative. And the majority of those negative thoughts are reoccurring. So then these negative reoccurring thoughts that we have every single day are creating this belief system, this internal world, where if we say, I'm not good enough, or I'm never going to get out of this situation, or man, I make stupid decisions, or I don't like how I look in the mirror.

[00:40:39] Whatever those stories are, become truly what we believe about ourselves and the world around us. Now, of course, It is impossible to live in an internal world where we don't have negative thoughts. We're human. That's part of how our brain works is we assess danger and we try to figure out where we [00:41:00] fit into things and how we feel about things to try to keep ourselves safe.

[00:41:03] But what we can do is start acknowledging those thoughts. And then start reframing them so that we can create different habits and thought patterns that allow us to have a different internal world. So for me, that's one of the reasons I started using, I am here. And because I was just conditioned to be like, I want to leave.

[00:41:25] How do I get out of here? I want to escape. I want to escape. So then my belief had to be Come, I'm here. I'm here right now. I'm safe to be here. That was then. This is now. And really becoming your biggest advocate for helping yourself reframe your thoughts.

[00:41:47] Hala Taha: So walk us through how we can keep tabs on what are the negative thoughts that we actually have.

[00:41:53] And then how do we uncover their positive roots?

[00:41:57] Ashley Lemieux: I love this. One thing that I always [00:42:00] suggest to my clients that I work with is just for even if it's an hour out of your day, a whole day would be amazing. But even if you only had an hour, take out the notes app on your phone or have just a little journal with you.

[00:42:12] And anytime you notice that you have a negative thought come into your head. I just want you to write it down and I don't want you to have any judgment on it. I don't want you to judge your thoughts, right? Because then we can get into this cycle of, Oh my gosh, I'm so dumb for thinking that or what's wrong with me or no, we're just.

[00:42:30] I'm going to be observers of the thoughts that are going through our head. And once we have all of those down, what I like to then do is try to get to the root of where those thoughts came from. A lot of times thoughts that we have right now came from things that we heard when we were little. Things we began to believe about ourselves from when we were really small.

[00:42:54] Sometimes the origin of the thought doesn't even come from us. So if [00:43:00] you're able to sit with it and really be able to go back to the first time that you can remember hearing it or feeling it or thinking it, a lot of times you can bridge that gap and realize that that did not even come from you. So once we do that, being able to sit with, okay, this is what I believe.

[00:43:24] But this is what I would like to believe instead. This is my current thought, but this is what I would like to believe instead. And I keep it as simple as that and as gentle as that as we are working through these. and being able to write down what we would like to believe instead. Then being able to be mindful, whether it's then the next hour after that, after you have the thought come in, whether it's, I'm not good enough, being able to call it out.

[00:43:55] Okay. I understand that right now I'm believing I'm not good [00:44:00] enough. And I acknowledge that, but what I would really like to believe instead is X, Y, and Z. And that helps us create a pattern where we can help ourselves get out of this routine of having these thoughts that we don't even realize are happening.

[00:44:18] And we can stop them and call them out. And then we just gently tell ourselves what we would like to believe instead so that that becomes something that we begin to start thinking about. Does it take time? Of course it does. But after those two hours, I promise you, you are going to experience a shift in feelings that you might not have felt for a really long time and uncover thoughts that you might not even know that you have.

[00:44:46] Like you can reach the end of the day sometimes, a lot of my clients be like, I don't know why I feel this bad. I just do. I don't know where it comes from. I don't know. Why I feel so lost in the roles in my [00:45:00] life and we do this exercise and after an hour of them writing down everything they've been thinking, they're like, I didn't realize that I'm so hard on myself.

[00:45:10] I didn't realize that these are the things I'm consistently telling myself. So that's a really good place to start.

[00:45:17] Hala Taha: And are there common thoughts that people have and. What would be the positive reframing? Just so people have examples.

[00:45:27] Ashley Lemieux: One that is really common that I would argue the majority of people struggle with is, I'm not enough or I'm not good enough.

[00:45:38] So for that one, it's really important for us to do some work on where did this come from? When did I start feeling this way? Why did I start feeling this way? Did it come from me? Is this something I picked up on from someone else? And then being able to answer the question, well, what would it even mean to be good enough?[00:46:00]

[00:46:00] In what areas of my life do I feel like I'm not good enough that I can begin to focus on? So one of the ways that I like to reframe I'm not good enough is I am enough for all of the needs that my life has of me in this moment. I am enough to take care of all of the needs that my life has. for me in this moment.

[00:46:24] And again, being able to find evidence, something about our brains that I think is really cool, is that our brains look for evidence that what we are doing is working. That's why journaling can be so powerful, because we need to see something is written down. So when we write down our thoughts and then what we would like to believe instead, but then kind of keep a log to see our progress of, Oh my gosh, today I only thought about this 10 times instead of 20 or whatever that is, it signals to our brain, Hey, this thing is working.

[00:46:55] This is a good path for us to continue to go down, which is another reason why I [00:47:00] recommend writing things down. Another one that's really common is anger and anger can show up in a lot of ways in our lives, especially when you're grieving because. Anger is easier to feel than sadness. A lot of times anger is a mask for sadness because we're too afraid to feel sad or we haven't been taught or culturally as some people aren't allowed to show their emotions or men versus women with gender and what's expected of us in the society.

[00:47:33] Anger can be something that masks a lot of other feelings. So something that I always think about with anger is what do I love so much that I'm trying to protect that is making me so angry right now because I feel like I've lost control of it. So for that one, I think that a lot of times the root for anger is actually [00:48:00] love.

[00:48:01] I'm angry that I lost my kids because I love them so much. I'm angry that this person hurt you because I have deep respect for you as a human being. Whatever that is, a lot of times it goes back to love. So if I can start reframing my anger, allow myself to feel it, but then understand it's coming from a place of love.

[00:48:25] How then can I fuel that love? Anger is needing action. It's signaling to us that there are alarm bells going off. We want to be in control of something that we can't. don't have control of, so then how can we take control to bring action to it? Who do you love? What do you love that's causing the anger?

[00:48:43] And then how can you show up for them? Or how can you be a part of that cause? Or how can you? use your voice to help them. So helping do that can help shift our anger to actually have action behind it.

[00:48:57] Hala Taha: That's so good. So basically, whenever you're [00:49:00] angry, there's actually something that you love and you're really passionate about behind that.

[00:49:05] If you can figure that out and lean into the love part instead of the anger part, that's really great.

[00:49:11] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, and sometimes though, healing requires you to get pissed, right? There are people who probably have wronged you and you have every reason to be upset at it. You have every reason to just be so pissed off.

[00:49:24] And so I say, let yourself be pissed off. But at some point that has to move through you, otherwise the one who becomes the most affected by it is you.

[00:49:36] Hala Taha: And sometimes it's a love for yourself, right? So it might be just pouring into yourself because you love yourself. How about trauma? How do you reframe thoughts and memories related

[00:49:48] to trauma?

[00:49:49] Ashley Lemieux: I want to first explain the difference between grief and trauma, just so that everyone's on the same page. So you can experience grief without experiencing trauma. [00:50:00] So you can have grief, but there's no trauma attached to it. But all trauma has grief attached to it. Does that make sense?

[00:50:08] Hala Taha: Kind of. How do you experience grief with no trauma?

[00:50:10] Like what's an example?

[00:50:11] Ashley Lemieux: So me and you could go through the exact same situation. Let's say we were at the exact same event and something really bad happened. Based off of my life experiences, how I'm wired psychologically, my previous trauma, my previous grief, that event could be something that completely traumatized me.

[00:50:34] Whereas perhaps that event didn't traumatize you at all, but just gave you grief. So a person can go through the same exact thing. but not have trauma while the other person does have trauma. And so there's no definition of, well, this is what trauma is. This is what it isn't. It's your reaction. Trauma is your reaction to an event.

[00:50:59] So, as [00:51:00] you're trying to process through trauma, we all need different things. And this is where I say, you need the help of a professional. Because so often, our brains are like, if you broke your arm right now, where would you go?

[00:51:14] Hala Taha: The hospital.

[00:51:15] Ashley Lemieux: You go to the hospital. Like, no question. I'm going to go to the hospital.

[00:51:19] Well, if your brain is feeling this brokenness because of trauma. So often we feel shame and we don't get help, but we should also be going to a professional that knows how to help us be able to heal our brains. So there's things like EMDR, which literally helps you heal your brain. There's psychiatrists, there's support groups, there's places where you can feel safe to go get that help because it is really difficult to get through trauma on your own and a lot of times it's so hard to that [00:52:00] it carries with you throughout your whole life.

[00:52:02] I think right now a lot of people on, at least online, have been starting to talk more about generational trauma. and why things are passed down from one generation to the next. And it's because trauma literally physically changes your DNA. And when no one is taking a breath to be like, I want this to end with me, or how do I heal?

[00:52:25] Continues to be passed down through habits, through our reactions. Through what we then teach our children, how we teach, how we treat them. And so I always recommend professional help for trauma.

[00:52:39] Hala Taha: Makes sense. And I agree. I think it's really important for everyone to try to heal themselves, especially in this fifth year.

[00:52:46] Like you were saying, we all went through stuff in 2020. And. By the time this airs, it's going to be right at the start of the year. So it's a perfect time to start thinking about this. So something else that you talk about in your [00:53:00] book is fear. Fear is something that I think a lot of entrepreneurs go through, especially we work in very uncertain areas most of the time, we don't really know what's going to happen next.

[00:53:12] So how do we reframe fear? What do we need to know about that?

[00:53:16] Ashley Lemieux: I don't know about you, but for me, in entrepreneurship. Fear can show up in so many different ways, but I realize I'm not actually afraid of that thing happening. I'm afraid of something totally unrelated, but I have attached fear as the label to the current problem because it's masking something else that I just haven't dealt with.

[00:53:41] One of the ways, though, that can help us reframe fear is by doing the thing that we're afraid of. Our anxiety doesn't go away when we avoid the things that we're anxious about. Our fear doesn't go away when we avoid doing the things that we are [00:54:00] fearful of. In fact, it just continues to feed it, right? So a lot of times, we need proof, our brains need proof that it's not something we need to be afraid of.

[00:54:11] And we need confidence that it's something that we can handle or walk through or that if things really do go south, I have confidence in myself that I'm still going to be able to figure it out because that's what life is, right? No one's life goes exactly according to plan. That's not what life is. It's what we want it to be.

[00:54:32] But then when we find ourselves shying away from doing what we really want to be doing or really leaning into the areas of our lives that we know would light us up, but we are afraid of it not working out or us doing it wrong or losing everything, that fear just keeps getting bigger. So the only way that we can start reframing that is by taking action on the things that we're [00:55:00] afraid of.

[00:55:01] Hala Taha: And when it comes to action, a lot of people are afraid of failure, but as we all know, failure and growth kind of go hand in hand. You have this awesome quote, you talk about dirt as a fine place to start growing. I love that. So can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

[00:55:17] Ashley Lemieux: I think that so many of us, we're afraid of getting knocked down.

[00:55:21] We're afraid of falling flat on our faces, but it is in that dirt when your nose hits the ground. The only way back is up, and a lot of times that is the best place for us to be able to really start our growing journey. I cannot think of one entrepreneur who has not experienced a significant setback or failure that then also helped them lead to the next steps of their career.

[00:55:56] How could you expect to [00:56:00] know exactly what to do if you never learned what not to do or if you never learned what didn't work? Of course, we have to fail and no one wants to feel it. But it's also in those moments where we can really get a jump start on, okay, I figured this out the hard way, and now I'm going to do X, Y, and Z and have a clearer path forward this way.

[00:56:27] Hala Taha: Honestly, I feel like people who are willing to fail, they're just so much smarter. I meet so many people and the most successful people that I know just go for things and they do it and it fails and it works and it doesn't work and they just keep trying and trying and trying and then they just get so much experience and they're such a well rounded, skilled person.

[00:56:47] And then you've got other people who are just They're afraid of making any sort of change. They stay in the same sort of mundane job where they don't learn anything new and then they're stuck and they don't really move in [00:57:00] life.

[00:57:00] Ashley Lemieux: And they stay stuck and then the next year. Cause I hear from a lot of women who are like, I feel stuck here, but I don't know what to do.

[00:57:10] So I'm just going to stay here. And then a year goes by and you still feel that feeling. And to me, that's way more uncomfortable than trying something that doesn't work out so that then I can find something that does rather than feeling like I'm on this hamster wheel that's not getting me anywhere.

[00:57:28] And I know it's not getting me anywhere. I would much rather be the person that fails a million times. to figure out where I actually really want to be than the one who just feels like I'm stuck on Groundhog's Day every day that I wake up. Totally.

[00:57:47] Hala Taha: And so I think a great way to close out this interview, which also ties to what we're just saying, which is figuring out what you want to do with your life, is learning how to do a clarity map, which you talk about in your book.

[00:57:57] So first off, tell us about the [00:58:00] five daily questions. You mentioned that you have five questions that you came up with years ago. What are these questions and how do they help us identify what matters before we move on to the next step?

[00:58:11] Ashley Lemieux: So the five questions you can do in as little amount of time or as much time as you want every single morning.

[00:58:16] So the very first one is what is my intention today? The second one is why am I worthy? There are so many of us who, when things are going good in our lives. we can start sabotaging ourselves because we feel like we're not deserving of it. We are afraid of life feeling good again. We're not good enough to receive it.

[00:58:37] And so being able to sit with why am I worthy for this is actually really helpful to allow yourself to keep moving forward in a positive way in your life. The third question is, who can I serve today? Sometimes it's going to be yourself. This is a really good place to check in of, are there needs that I'm not meeting for myself?

[00:58:56] Or, how are my employees today? How is that stranger [00:59:00] behind me in the grocery store doing? What about my partner? When's the last time that we had a check in? That's a really beautiful place. to figure that out. The next one is what can I set down today or what can I let go of? You guys, we carry so much heaviness throughout our day, whether that's the fear, whether that's a responsibility for something that is completely off out of our hands, whether that's sadness for something that we can't control, but what can you just set down for that day so that you have energy?

[00:59:33] to do these other things. And then the very last question is, how does the truest version of me show up today? I used to ask myself, how does the best version of me show up today? But then I realized I would change my answer based off of, well, what is the best version of me? A version of a mom, or what's the best version of an employer, or what's the best version of a partner?

[00:59:56] And I realized my answers were based off of what I thought [01:00:00] other people needed and wanted from me. So I changed it and I now ask, who is the truest version of me today so that I can show up as her and lead from that place of authenticity? and give the world who I am instead of letting the world dictate who I am.

[01:00:19] So those are the five questions I start with.

[01:00:23] Hala Taha: Love that. So as we close out this interview, What should we be doing when it comes to making lasting change and working through grief, depression, trauma, loneliness?

[01:00:33] Ashley Lemieux: I love this. This is one of my very favorite things. I set intentions and I base my year and how I'm going to move forward based off of how I want to feel inside.

[01:00:44] And a lot of us haven't checked in internally for a long time. Like, how do I actually want to feel? Do I want more peace in my life? Do I want more clarity? Do I want to feel like love is driving my decisions? What is that feeling? And I write that on a [01:01:00] piece of paper. And then around that I draw four boxes for the different areas of my life for emotional development, spiritual development, finances, or business, and then my relationships.

[01:01:15] And in those four boxes, I then set intentions for each of those four categories that match my overall life intention. So that I can have a strategy in those four life areas to move forward in a way that's going to support how I am feeling right now in my life. And if that's something you want more of, we do a challenge about it.

[01:01:37] I talk more about it in my book and in my podcast, but check in with your feelings and then map out a life that supports your feelings instead of starting with your goals and that will help you feel more fulfilled once you bring everything to life.

[01:01:53] Hala Taha: That's great advice. I think that's fantastic. So really just focusing on your intentions, not your [01:02:00] goals.

[01:02:00] So Ashley, I had such a great conversation with you today. I end my show with two questions that I ask all of my guests. The first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

[01:02:13] Ashley Lemieux: Ooh, this is such a good one. I would say invest in your mental health.

[01:02:18] There's that return of being able to really understand who you are and why you are how you are is going to profit you more than anything else in the long run and help you build a sustainable business.

[01:02:34] Hala Taha: And this one can go beyond business and finance. What is your secret to profiting in life?

[01:02:39] Ashley Lemieux: Oh, wow.

[01:02:41] This is a good one. Okay. I'm like, what is my secret to profiting in life? My secret is to create peace as my priority.

[01:02:53] Hala Taha: We didn't get to talk about this. This is so important.

[01:02:55] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, being able to live with peace as my decision [01:03:00] maker and as the feeling that surrounds me, that has allowed me to profit in every area of my life more than anything else that I have ever tried to do.

[01:03:11] And so I base every decision off of, is this going to invite peace in my life, or is it going to be something that prevents me from feeling peace? And that's the thing, is pursuing peace to have a profitable life in all of the areas that you want to feel it in.

[01:03:31] Hala Taha: And when you say peace, because I didn't get a chance to ask you about this, and I actually really love this.

[01:03:36] When you say peace, What is peace to you?

[01:03:39] Ashley Lemieux: Peace to me is the feeling that can't be bought. It can't be mimicked by anything else. It can't be something that someone else gives you. Peace is this internal feeling that comes when you are in alignment with your life, with who you [01:04:00] believe your higher power to be and When you are able to make decisions that invite in more peace, whether that is setting types of boundaries, or whether that is letting things go that make you kind of feel chained, peace to me feels a lot like freedom, and there's a lot of things that can chain us that make us lose it, whether that's we feel chained to our job or to social media or to comparison or to toxic relationships or to these habits we just can't get out of the cycle of doing because they've just become a part of who we are because that's what helped us cope for a long time but now it's not serving us anymore.

[01:04:45] There's so many chains in our life that we can have that prevent us from experiencing more peace and so to me peace is something that you cannot receive from any other outside [01:05:00] source or thing.

[01:05:01] Hala Taha: So good. I feel like that's my favorite advice from the whole episode. The whole conversation was amazing, but that really spoke to me in terms of making decisions based on what brings you peace and not.

[01:05:13] Is this going to bring me peace or is this going to make me feel unaligned? And it's so simple.

[01:05:20] Ashley Lemieux: It's so simple. And honestly, you can make faster decisions and decisions that support you more based off of that answer of doing the gut check of, is this going to bring me peace or not? And that's how I base every decision now.

[01:05:35] And it's changed my life and my business and my family's life.

[01:05:39] Hala Taha: Yeah, I love that. Ashley, this has been amazing. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

[01:05:45] Ashley Lemieux: Gosh, thank you so much, first of all, for having me. And I would love to meet all of your young and profiters. you can come find me on Instagram at Ashley K.

[01:05:53] Lemieux. We love hanging out over there every day. You can also come and listen to my podcast. It's called Healing [01:06:00] Her. And if you are wanting, you know, more support on your journey, you can go to my website to see what that looks like at ashleylemieux. com.

[01:06:08] Hala Taha: Amazing. Ashley, thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast.

[01:06:13] Ashley Lemieux: Thanks for having me.

[01:06:18] Hala Taha: Yeah, bam. Well, that was such a deep and therapeutic episode with Ashley. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, including yours truly, handle grief and stress by sinking our energies deeper into our work. And it might work for a while. You may even grow your company, hit your targets, achieve some great things.

[01:06:38] But still, such a strategy is not sustainable. We all know that. And we are really only delaying coming to terms with our pain and fear. As Ashley put it, grief can only be pacified by work or achievement. And at some point, you're going to have to confront that grief and give yourself the space to sit with it.

[01:06:57] You can't run a business on fumes or by [01:07:00] running away from your own problems. But one of the good things about success is that it can be a wonderful buffer. Having resources should give you the time and space you need to ensure that your internal development matches your external achievements. You just need to eventually take that time.

[01:07:16] And once you do take that time, you can start observing your own thoughts and reframing the negative ones to be less impactful. You can be open about your own anger and frustrations and even find a silver lining there. Remember that a lot of our anger comes from a place of passion and love, and you just have to figure out how to lean into the more constructive power of that passion.

[01:07:38] And sometimes this also means coming to terms with our failures, realizing that we've hit rock bottom and need to start over. I really believe that the best entrepreneurs have to fall flat on our faces from time to time in order to really succeed. But when you do, just remember that, like Ashley said, The dirt is a fine place to start growing.

[01:07:58] Thanks for listening to this episode [01:08:00] of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation with the insightful Ashley Lemieux, then please help us grow it by sharing with somebody that you know.

[01:08:10] And if you enjoyed the show and you learned something, then drop us a five star review on Apple, Spotify, CastBox, wherever you listen to the show.

[01:08:17] I want to hear from you. I love to read your reviews. I read them every single day and it makes me so happy to see them. So drop us a review. If you listen to the show, if you're new to the show, maybe you found me. from Funnel Hacking Live and now you're following the show. Welcome to the yap bam. I'm so happy to have you guys as new subscribers.

[01:08:36] And if you prefer to watch your podcast and you like watching your podcast on YouTube, all of our videos are on YouTube. I do everything on video. I've got a lot more in person content.

[01:08:45] I just interviewed Mel Robbins in person, Gary Vee in person, so all that is on there. You can also find me on Instagram, at Yap with Hala, or LinkedIn. Just search my name, Hala Taha. I of course want to give a big shout out to my Yap production team. I have [01:09:00] an agency, Yap Media, and I've got the best team in the world.

[01:09:03] Thank you guys for all your hard work. This is your host, Hala Taha, a. k. a. the Podcast Princess, signing off.

Hala Taha: [00:00:00] Ron, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

Ron Johnson: I am so excited to be here. Nice to meet you, Hala.

Hala Taha: Nice to meet you as well. Thank you for flying out, being here in person. You've got such incredible experience. Mm-hmm. You've been with Apple, Target, JCPenney, in the C-suite.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: And you've done such an incredible job transforming these stores, especially Apple and Target.

So I wanna start with Apple.

Ron Johnson: Sure.

Hala Taha: I learned that you convinced Steve Jobs to put in Apple stores before they were even a thing in really expensive malls when Apple only had 4% of the PC market share. Or was it 4%? Did I mess it up? 5% of the- Yeah ... PC market share and four products.

Ron Johnson: Right.

Hala Taha: How is that, how is that not a completely insane idea at the time?

Ron Johnson: Well, most people thought it was insane that Apple- ... was gonna open stores, including a couple of the board members. But I didn't convince Steve. Steve wanted to open stores.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: [00:01:00] Steve had come back to Apple in 1997, launched that cult hit, the iMac.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Which had rave reviews, even made the cover of Time Magazine.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Ron Johnson: But it didn't change the game for Apple. It sold to the Mac faithful.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And Steve believed, after that experience, that if Apple is gonna win, it had to control the customer experience.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So it wanted to open stores. So he called me to come out and talk to him about stores.

Hala Taha: Mm, so he poached you from Target.

Ron Johnson: He recruited me from Target. But during that first conversation, interestingly, I said, "So who's the customer? How big can this be?"

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: He said, "Ron, we've got 5% market share." Which it turns out it was 2 or 3, but he said 5. And he said, "If we go after the creative consumer, you know, Apple does a great job with creative apps for pros."

Mm-hmm. "We have high market share." Mm-hmm. "In the marketing departments, the creative departments, but not as much in the business side. I think we can double our market share- Mm ... and get to [00:02:00] 10%." And later he told me the board wasn't supportive. And I said, "Well, you know, the board might be right, if all you want to do is double your market share."

Because the reality, Dell's done pretty well selling computers over the internet.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And Gateway selling PCs is closing its stores.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: So maybe the board is right.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "But I don't know why you wanna sell to the creative pro only." And I had come from Minneapolis, where, where I was living, working with Target.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And in Minneapolis, very few p- people had computers.

Hala Taha: Mm. And

Ron Johnson: it turns out only 50% of American households had a computer.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "You think you've lost the PC war to Microsoft. There's half the market to go."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "Now if you wanna go after everybody, that'd be interesting." And I had that idea because I had just brought design to Target-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: which became design for all, and people loved it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, once I told Steve that, he got real excited. And he said, [00:03:00] "No, I could do that, but where would we put stores?" And I said, "Well, we go where they shop, where people shop." Mm-hmm. "That's the mall."

Hala Taha: And he hated the mall, right?

Ron Johnson: And he goes, "I hate malls."

Hala Taha: Why did

Ron Johnson: he hate them?

He hate- he said, "They're filled with crappy stores, and they're crowded."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And I think for him it was a little bit back to Steve had become a celebrity-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: at age 24 when he launched the personal computer-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: and founded Apple and s- Pixar, and it was hard for him to be in a public space.

Hala Taha: Yeah, so he didn't do it.

Ron Johnson: And, and, but it was pretty clear. I said, "Look, Steve, you know, if you wanna find your customer, you gotta be more convenient than a remote parking lot where all the computer stores have been located."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Because they're bought every four or five years, so why would you pay for expensive mall traffic was common wisdom.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Um, and the next time I met Steve a couple weeks later-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: the first thing he said to me is, "Ron, I'm gonna offer you the job." I thought, "Wow, that's pretty [00:04:00] good." Yeah. You know, one discussion.

Hala Taha: Uh-huh.

Ron Johnson: But I said... he said, "But you're right about malls. We should put stores in malls."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: Uh, so I didn't really have to convince him.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: It was pretty obvious once we decided we're going after everybody, that the only way to do that would be in a mall.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But Steve said to me, he goes, "I realized I might not be able to get someone to get in their car and drive 10 miles to check out a Mac."

Hala Taha: Hmm. "

Ron Johnson: But I could get them to get, walk 10 feet out of their way."

Hala Taha: Yeah. "

Ron Johnson: And that's all we have to do in a mall." Mm-hmm. And he was right.

Hala Taha: Yeah. It's, it's so interesting that there was some initial pushback, but he, he said that he was gonna give you a billion dollars basically to build these stores. Is that right?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. What he said is... Yeah, so Steve offered me the job. I came out two weeks l- later with my wife, Karen, to kinda just talk to him one more time.

He took me to a MacWorld. Mm-hmm. Super exciting. You see just how interesting Apple is as a company, how strong [00:05:00] Steve is as a leader. Mm-hmm. Um, and we went and toured Stanford Shopping Center, and at the end he said, "So any other objections?" I said, "Steve, you said the board has approved a test, that we should open four stores and see how it goes."

I said, "Unfortunately, I won't come for a test."

Hala Taha: Hmm. Not gonna change your whole life just, just for

Ron Johnson: a test. Well, I said, "I'm not gonna give up the career I have at Target for a test, but more importantly, I won't be able to recruit any A players to come for a test. If you believe in something, you need to be all in."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Well, that's Steve's nature. He's always been all in. Everything he's done, he's been all in.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And he quickly just looked at me, and he said, "Ron, we have $4 billion in the bank. If I could write a check for a billion dollars today and

have 100 stores, I'd be happy." Well, I knew it wouldn't cost $100 million to build out 100 stores.

Hala Taha: Yeah, 100 billion. You

Ron Johnson: know? S- or 100 [00:06:00] billion, I'm sorry. Or 100

Hala Taha: billion,

Ron Johnson: yeah. Um, yeah, 100 million. And so he... Did I say... Oh, yeah.

Hala Taha: No, you were right. No,

Ron Johnson: yeah.

Hala Taha: You were right. I was wrong. I- 100 million.

Ron Johnson: But anyway, he quickly, uh...

And then I said, "Okay, let's go do this."

Hala Taha: Yeah. You

Ron Johnson: know?

Hala Taha: Very cool. So let's talk about some of the principles that you used- Mm-hmm ... uh, when designing these stores. Sure. You really wanted the store to be a place of belonging. Mm-hmm. You really wanted to be h- to be more about relationships than transactions.

Talk to us about what your philosophy was.

Ron Johnson: Yeah, it was... Well, it's pretty obvious. This is 2000. When we're talking about the stores, we're at the height of the dot com bubble. Mm-hmm. It bursts like four months later. We're in the middle of designing stores. But people, there were literally smart people who thought stores were gonna go away.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: People, some people still believe that today-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: even though it couldn't be further from the truth. But when you're designing a store in the midst of the internet, which is taking off, you have to think through, "What could [00:07:00] I do that the internet could never do?"

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And that's essentially create a place to belong, to deliver an experience.

So we had to design a store that had so many advantages to shopping online that everyone would prefer to come to a store.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, the beauty is because Apple had such a small product lineup- Four total products.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Computers only, two portables, two desktops. That's it.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: We could present the entire product line in 30 square feet.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: But we built stores that were 6,000 square feet big.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Ron Johnson: And we did that because that was the size, basically, of a great space in the mall.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: That's what the Gap had, and they were, like, the leading specialty store. Mm-hmm. And Steve agreed that how you present yourself-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: has a big impact on how people perceive you.

Hala Taha: And we wanted to be a- It

Ron Johnson: was like

Hala Taha: the dominance of the mall, basically.

Ron Johnson: Yeah, we wanted to be a brand that was like a Gap.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, 'cause he said, "We're [00:08:00] much bigger than the Gap."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And that enabled us to have the space to create experiences.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: So we devoted very simply, first rule, half goes to new customers, the ones we're trying to attract.

Mm-hmm. That'd be the front of the store, and everyone could try every product. Up until then, you couldn't try products in a physical store.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: They were just things on display.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: We had to connect them to the internet to figure out how to keep them current with software.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, et cetera, et cetera.

But the half went to the products, and the other half went to owners. Assuming people buy, how do we help them get over, overcome their fear of technology?

Hala Taha: Yeah. '

Ron Johnson: Cause that was the enemy.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: The reason people didn't own computers, they were too complicated. They were scared. They'd buy this and never use it.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So we put in theaters where you could take classes, and tables where you could get training one-to-one, eventually. Mm. And a genius bar where you could get face-to-face help. So we put in all of these services along with the thing, and the stores became, immediately, [00:09:00] one of the most popular stores in the mall.

Hala Taha: Yeah, and, and when you first launched the stores, you actually had basically, like, designed the stores, and then last minute, you realized that you had designed them wrong.

Ron Johnson: Well, that was the instinct I had, yeah.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: No, Steve and I had spent a long time designing, and Steve had spent a lot of time.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, Steve's obviously a really busy person. Yeah. He's running two companies at the time.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: CEO of Pixar and Apple. You know, leading Apple, and we got this new initiative called retail, and he had come over every Tuesday for four hours in a warehouse to help design the store with me and the team.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Put a lot of energy into it. Steve called me every night the first year at 8:00 for me to get to know him- Mm ... so he could delegate and trust.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: He put a lot of energy into it.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And then one day, I was flying back. I was coming in from Minneapolis, and my wife had just completed another beautiful scrapbook of [00:10:00] my two-year-old son and four-year-old daughter.

Hala Taha: Uh-huh.

Ron Johnson: And it hit me that I live in an analog world. On the weekends-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: when I'm with my family in Minnesota. But in Cupertino I'm in a digital world where we're inventing all these apps to like get rid of the scrapbook. And I talked to Steve one night on a Thursday and I said, "Steve, have you ever thought about this?

You know, the Mac, if we succeed, it'll be the center of someone's digital life."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, where I am my wife makes, takes pictures. We go to the grocery store, we get the film developed. She cuts them up, puts them in a scrapbook, and it's wonderful.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And I come to Cupertino and we're making digital scrapbooks.

And that's true with movies, that's true with music. And I said, "The Mac's kind of the center of your digital life." And Steve said, "Can you write me an email on that?" And I said, "Sure," and I wrote him a little note the next day. And then Monday he bounces into ET, and I think my conversation's probably crystallizing thoughts he had from [00:11:00] many other conversations, so I'm not taking credit for this.

Mm-hmm. But he walks in, he doesn't sit down like he always does, hardly says good morning. And he goes up to the whiteboard and he goes, "I've got the future of the Mac." He said, "We're gonna call it the digital hub."

Hala Taha: I love that.

Ron Johnson: The hub. And he said, "The Mac will be in the center."

Hala Taha: Mm. "

Ron Johnson: You'll have your devices like your Canon camera-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: or your Sony camcorder, and we'll create a layer of software in the middle, and we'll be able to take your da- your content from your camera, you know- Mm-hmm ... into the Mac and through our applications like iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes. We will do things you couldn't do before."

Hala Taha: Mm. "

Ron Johnson: And that's how we'll position the Mac."

And so we talked about that at ET, and then that night I woke up about 2:00 in the morning, I couldn't sleep. I said, "Well, if Steve really believes in the digital hub, we've designed our store around products."

Hala Taha: Mm. "

Ron Johnson: They should be designed about, around the digital hub, about what people can do."

Hala Taha: [00:12:00] Yeah.

Ron Johnson: So the next morning, uh, it was Tuesday, which is when we have our retail meeting.

And Steve used to like me to go to the main building, you know, at Infinite Loop in Cupertino and ride with him to the store.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Um, just so we could catch up and chat about what we're gonna do that day. And I got there and he said, "You look..." He goes, "You look tired." I said, "Well, I was up." And I said, "You know, I've been thinking about the store and if you love the digital hub, you know, I think the store's wrong."

Hala Taha: Mm. And

Ron Johnson: he looked at me, he said, "Tell me more." And I told him what I just told you. And he said, "God, Ron- You know, you might be right But do you know how much work I put into the store?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Let's go... I don't want you to talk about this today. Let's work on what we're gonna work on 'cause you might be right, but I don't know if I have the energy to design an entirely new store.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: I said, "Okay." And we got in the car and quiet. You know, usually we chatted the whole way there. It's, you know, eight to 10 minutes depending on traffic lights. Yeah. And, [00:13:00] uh, we got there and we walk in. He hasn't said a word yet since I talked to him.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: We meet, there's a group, about 15 people there waiting.

You know, Steve's coming. Who's gonna get to go first? You know, there's all that-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: pressure of now Steve's in the room. And Steve looks at everyone, he goes, "Well, Ron just told me-" that our store is all wrong.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And he's right, and so we're gonna start over. But I'm gonna leave now and leave it up to you guys to figure it out."

You

Hala Taha: guys figure it out.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. But he, he told the story then really affectionately to the group. Mm-hmm. That every great thing he'd done, there became a moment in the project when you'd had the courage to do a U-turn-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: or to start over. And he told a story about Toy Story, you know, one of the great movies, first great movie with Pixar.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And he said, "You know, we gotta have the courage to do it right." And that delayed the first store about six months, [00:14:00] but it allowed us to create a place that really became the Apple store we still see today.

Hala Taha: Yeah. What a cool story. Hmm. I love that story. What did that teach you about decision-making and being flexible enough to, to change direction while also being, like, firm in your original decisions?

Like, what did that teach you about decision-making?

Ron Johnson: Well, what it, it became a lesson that I really learned from Steve. Uh, Steve used to say, "If you think through any problem hard enough, you'll come to the inevitable only answer."

Hala Taha: Hmm. "

Ron Johnson: And everyone'll agree with you." Super counterintuitive to what companies like Facebook do today, where let's just get stuff out there and test it, and the customer will tell...

will evolve.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Steve believed in thinking things through with a small group of people, and putting your best, best foot forward.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: That's how he designed products. That's how he created movies.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: That's how he created [00:15:00] this store, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And Steve was never in a hurry. You know, he wasn't driven by product timelines.

Hala Taha: Hmm. You

Ron Johnson: know, there were a lot of products we thought, "Is it ever gonna come out?"

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: The phone was actually quite a bit beyond when we initially thought-

Hala Taha: Hmm ...

Ron Johnson: we could bring out a phone at Apple, right? So the lesson I learned from that was, you get one chance to launch a store. You get one chance to launch a product.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: Do it great. If you have a better idea, have the courage to make a change.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Yeah. So you came up with the concept of Genius Bar- Mm-hmm ... correct?

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Hala Taha: What was your initial reason for it? I know-

Ron Johnson: Sure ...

Hala Taha: I know that people were not familiar with computers, so obviously to educate, but what else beyond that?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Well, at first, you know, I get credit for the Genius Bar. But I wouldn't take ownership. Everything is done by groups of people.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And so I had been in a meeting at Offsite, which was really [00:16:00] fun, with 18 people talking about, "How do we build the store? What's the service philosophy?"

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, in that conversation it became very clear that people felt like they get sold at s- sold to at stores.

Mm. But great service is in hotels, especially five-star hotels. So we asked the question, I said right away, "Okay, let's just spend two days designing the Apple Store service as if we were a five-star hotel. What do we do?"

Hala Taha: What a great activity.

Ron Johnson: It was really fun. Yeah. And, and it led to ... And, and the reason we decided, you know, stores, once you leave, we don't know you're coming back.

So stores tend to try to close, uh, these commissions and things to get someone to buy today.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Hotels, you've already booked the hotel. You're not leaving.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? They depend on you coming back same time next year or telling a friend. So they're truly in the service business. And, and I knew at the time that people would take four or five visits to buy a Mac.[00:17:00]

So in many ways we were gonna be like a hotel.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You're not gonna sell anybody on the first visit. So why would not do that? And as we looked at the hotel, uh, the ... We ended the first day, had a great day, and I said, "Tomorrow we're gonna talk about customer service," you know. It's something that most people hide in a technology store because you don't want the customer to fear tech- They're already scared of technology.

You don't want them to say, "Well, this thing's not gonna work. Look at that big service counter you have," right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, that night I was sitting there thinking about it. I said, "So what is there in a hotel?" That could be a metaphor for service. And I said, "Well, they, every hotel has a great bar."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And you know, the thing about bartenders, they're really friendly.

And if I wanna learn about what I can do for dinner, bartenders tend to know- Mm-hmm ... 'cause they talk to people all the time. And, you know, they dispense alcohol. What if we dispensed advice?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And I said, came in the next day, I said, "What if we build a [00:18:00] bar for service, and let's make it the most important part of the store.

Let's stick it out," you know? Yeah. And, you know, people kind of reacted pretty well to the idea. And I called Steve and told him about it. He said, "That sounds like a great idea. What are you gonna call it?" I said, "I don't know." He goes, "Well, tell me when you have a name." I said, "Okay." And a few days later, I was, uh, kind of watching, like I love to do...

I was, for some reason, I turned on the old Apple "Think Different" ad-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm,

Ron Johnson: mm-hmm ... which we all know.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: That Steve used when he came back to Apple to motivate the teams. And the last line said, "While some people da, da, da, we see genius."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "Genius Bar." It just seemed to make sense. And so I called Steve and I said, "Steve, I got the name.

I'm gonna call it the Genius Bar," and I explained why. And he said, "You can't do that." And I assumed it was because, you know, you didn't wanna leverage the [00:19:00] Genius branding.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: He said, "No, because anybody you find who can talk about technology is a geek. So if you wanna call it The Geek Bar, maybe that would work, but you should think about another name."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, and this was during the day sometime, and Steve, as I said, would call every night at 8:00. Mm-hmm. We had a agreement to do that for a year. And he called that night and I was prepared, and I said, "Steve, I wanna talk to you about the name again." And I said, "The main reason I want that name is I wanna be in a position where we have everyone in every city we put a store fighting to be one of the Geniuses."

Hala Taha: Mm. '

Ron Johnson: Cause who wouldn't wanna be the smartest Apple person in Minneapolis, the smartest Apple person in New York City?

Hala Taha: Mm. '

Ron Johnson: Cause that's what the Genius is. And I said, "Then we won't have any trouble getting people who can serve-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and help with technology." Steve said, "Interesting." And the [00:20:00] next morning, I went into work, and I, uh, was going up to my office and I walked by our general counsel, Nancy Heinen, and Nancy said, "Ron, what's a Genius Bar?"

"Steve asked me to trademark that name," you know? So Steve, you know, quickly, as always, yeah, if you had a good idea, he was the first to get behind it.

Hala Taha: It's really cool that he was able to kind of change his mind- Mm-hmm ... and, and that you guys actually had a relationship where you could challenge him, and then- Yeah

end up getting your way too. But

Ron Johnson: everyone did on

Hala Taha: the ET. Hmm. What's ET?

Ron Johnson: This, uh, the, uh, executive team at Apple.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, this isn't unique to me. If you were talking to Jony Ive or Phil Schiller or Tim Cook, they'd all say the same thing. Steve wanted the best ideas to win, and he loved having a vigorous debate, a conversation with people that were really smart and passionate like him to get to the right answer.

Nothing, you know, I think, uh, [00:21:00] uh, uh, I don't, wanna use turned him on- ... but got him excited. You know, l- than a good debate-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: about something that hadn't been done before.

Hala Taha: So Genius Bar was really innovative. The way that you guys laid out the Apple Stores were- Mm-hmm ... really innovative. Uh, and you talk a lot about, like, what is, what does it truly mean to be- Mm-hmm

innovative?

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: Help us understand your, your opinion on that.

Ron Johnson: Yeah, to me, uh, this is the big mistake people make, is they don't understand the difference between improvement-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: and innovation. In my mind, innovation always is doing something that has never been done before, right? And things that have never been done come out of someone's imagination, and that's what makes them disruptive.

Most people, you know, are comfortable. They pay attention to what's going on in the world, especially at their competitors.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And they take an idea a competitor's done, and it's new to their [00:22:00] company But it's mere improvement.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Right? And there's nothing wrong with that. We should be doing that all the time.

Paying attention to what our competitors are doing, shamelessly taking their best ideas and using them. Apple's done that-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: many times, right? Uh, Facebook does that all the time, right? There's nothing wrong with that. That's competition. But it's not improvement.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: It's not innovation. Because everyone's doing that, so the real question when you're trying to improve is can I improve faster than somebody else?

Right? Innovation starts in the imagination.

Hala Taha: Mm. And

Ron Johnson: it takes a whole different level of courage, uh, and a whole different level of skills to pull it off. And some companies are great and some aren't, as I learned when I went to JCPenney.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, and I definitely wanna talk to you about how to test innovative ideas- Mm-hmm

and what the right approach is. Mm-hmm. Uh, but first let's talk about your time at Target. So you worked at Target before Apple.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: And you were really responsible [00:23:00] for, like, the whole, like, Tarjay movement, right? Mm-hmm. Where Target became sort of like the fancier Walmart, the, the more, like, design-forward, uh, version of Walmart.

Um, and I remember growing up, we used to call it Tarjay and, like- Yeah ... it was like a nicer store.

Ron Johnson: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Um, so when you first started at Target- Mm-hmm ... like, what was your initiative? Like, what were you charged to do?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Uh, again, let me not just be humble, let me be really honest. I didn't come with, up with Tarjay.

You know, I think if you read the Target history, someone in Duluth or Minnesota in the third store called it Tarjay. You know, it's just kind of the French pronunciation of that word. Yeah. And it kinda stuck below the surface. In the '90s when Target really took off as a company, I was there from '90 to 2000, the stock went up 12 times because Target really got its footing and [00:24:00] emerged.

Mm-hmm. Filled that gap between what people thought they could find at a discount store-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and what they were finding at the specialty stores in the mall or department stores, which were really the leaders in where you go to find new ideas.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And Target took that over. Um, when I got there, you know, the CEO, Bob Ulrich, a great CEO, said, "Let's differentiate from Walmart."

Because Walmart now was making this move from rural America.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Target and Walmart started the same year in 1961.

Hala Taha: Oh, wow. I thought Target started later.

Ron Johnson: No, 1961. 20 years later- You know, they were the two leading discount stores. There were still 10. You know, Kmart, and Venture, and Hills- Mm-hmm ... and every region had a discounter, right?

'Cause the only way to grow, there wasn't an internet, you had to open stores.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And it was good to put your stores in one area so your marketing got, you know-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: leveraged. Um, but Target owned suburbs, [00:25:00] Walmart owned rural.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Well, Walmart was coming to the suburbs, 'cause they had pretty much done all the rural stores they thought they could.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But Walmart had a lot lower cost structure. Part, they designed, you know, less expensive stores, but they were also better at systems and different things. Mm. So they were

Hala Taha: a

Ron Johnson: big competitor. So the only way Target could win was by being different than Walmart. And different probably had a little higher price point.

But a lot of times different wasn't better, it was just different.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So the buyers at Target would take something like a high-volume toothpaste by Crest, and Walmart was so low on price, they'd get some other ounces and assume the customer couldn't calculate and just charge a different price.

Hala Taha: Mm. '

Ron Johnson: Cause different- It'd

Hala Taha: be like a smaller toothpaste basically

Ron Johnson: smaller or bigger- Mm ... but it was more ounce.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: But they got away with it because there wasn't a direct competitive SKU or stock keeping unit, right?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So I came up with the idea that what if we could be [00:26:00] different and better, and I called it preferred.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, if something's preferred, you'd probably say it's different and it means more to me.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And for the home area that I had at the time, I started in toys, then I hit all kids, and then I went into home. Uh, the home was emerging in the late '90s as the category.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: People were buying homes and moving even more aggressively to the suburbs. But the retailers that had d- not ... dominated the '80s, like the Gap and The Limited, were now being dominated by people like Crate & Barrel, and Pottery Barn- Mm

Hala Taha: and,

Ron Johnson: you know, Williams-Sonoma, and Restoration Hardware. And so the home area was becoming a hot area. And at the same time, design was becoming a thing in the world. Um, I... Tom Peters called it the decade of design. Volkswagen did their Beetle. Steve and Johnny were working on the new iMac.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, just on and on.

Hala Taha: [00:27:00] Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "What if Target won on design?" Instead of carrying a tea kettle at $9.99, what if we had a tea kettle that was special, that didn't just, you know, boil water, it lifted your spirits every time you looked at it? And so I had this idea to, you know, do design, and I thought home was the perfect place to do it.

And, uh, coincidentally met a guy named Michael Graves, who had been a great architect in the '80s. Mm-hmm. And had done home products for companies like Alessi, Italian-made leader in design. And I was introduced to Michael, and I quickly became friends, and I said, "How would you like to design for Target?"

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: "You design, we build. We'll go make them, 'cause we've got great sourcing." And he said, "Ron, I'm the head of the architecture practice at Princeton, and not a single one of my students can afford one of my products. I would love to do that."

Hala Taha: Oh, I would have expected him to be like, "I don't wanna water [00:28:00] down my brand," or- Well,

Ron Johnson: that's what his team said.

Hmm. His team didn't want him to do it. But Michael, I don't know, he w- we, we just got along great. But he had no objection. And I remember the first time we toured a Target store together, I came with a pack of the yellow Pad, yellow, yellow stickies, you know, from 3M in Minnesota nearby. Mm-hmm. I said, "Just put one of these on any product you think you could do better."

He said, "Ron, you didn't bring enough stickies." And so he went through and, you know, just ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Mm-hmm. And then we launched with 140 items. Uh, it was probably Doing design at Target was as much fun as creating the Apple Store.

Hala Taha: Really?

Ron Johnson: It really was. It was hard. Uh, no one thought it would work. I'll never forget, you know, we- Michael used to say, "You get 10 great days in your life."

You know, and he told me about several of them. And I think the day we launched Michael [00:29:00] Graves was one of my great days.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: We were in New York. Target didn't have stores in the Northeast yet. And we had taken over the Whit- we had the courage to take over the Whitney Museum, the first floor, for like a week.

But for the night of the launch, we invited all the press and influencers from New York.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And the press people said, "Nobody's gonna come, and if you're gonna say any remarks, do 'em in the first 15 minutes, 'cause they'll stop by and leave."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, we took over the floor. We took all the items, some of the items that were coming in, like the teakettle and the clock, and we treated 'em like museum pieces.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: We had, like, 50 clocks that made the Target bullseye at the entrance. We had chandeliers with stainless steel kitchen tools. Did all these beautiful things. That's

Hala Taha: really cool.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, you know, people came in, and you could just feel the energy. It was packed. We didn't talk for an hour and a half 'cause people were too busy-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: wandering around. And there was alcohol, which maybe helped too. [00:30:00] But, you know, the thing started about 7:00. When Michael got up, he was really funny, and he said a few things. And when he was done, we had given everyone a whistle. I don't know, I... 'Cause the whistle's on the teakettle. Mm. You know? And all of a sudden everyone starts blowing whistles.

It was this moment where you knew, you knew it was gonna work.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You knew it was

Ron Johnson: gonna be a success. And everyone was shocked. People s- we finally kicked people out, turned the lights on about 10:00. But it was like an event. It was a moment. Mm. And it's kinda like the first Apple Store when we opened.

You kinda had a sense it was gonna work, and I've been lucky to be a part of some great moments in my career.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And that was one of 'em.

Hala Taha: Really cool. So, so you decided you were gonna do home goods. Um, fashion, from what I read in your book, like, it, like, the trends change too quickly. But you did innovate-

Ron Johnson: Well, now here's what I've tried to, in the book, I've- Yeah

the point I was trying to make in the book.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And this was the business case [00:31:00] for design. Because when you do something innovative, you're in the business to make money. You've gotta think, "Why does this make sense?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: So Target had, in their business model, two categories of merchandise. We'd say we had basics.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And basics, you had to price with the market. Whatever Walmart charged, we'd charge.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: And therefore, the prices, the margin tends to be low, but they drive a lot of volume.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Then you have fashion, and we had, you know, 30% of the store in things like apparel for kids and family and men's and women.

That you can take a high markup. But you gotta mark it down every season.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, unfortunately, summer goes away.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Ron Johnson: You know? Then we have fall, and then we have holiday.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So fashion for a, a store like Target, you know, it's not a luxury brand that gets 80-point markups-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: would, you know, make a little higher margin than basics, but not a lot.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: I viewed design, you could get the markup of fashion, because it's got that same [00:32:00] appeal, but a great item would be in the assortment 10 years from now. You'd never have to mark it down.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? So whereas- Really smart ... we were making, if you fuzz your eyes, 30 points on basics-

Hala Taha: Yep ...

Ron Johnson: 40 points on fashion-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: we could make 50 points on design. So if design became 10% of our volume- That would add one and a half points of margin to Target's bottom line, and we could fit that in-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: and grab a new customer. So it was a good business case.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Um, but convincing people at Target to do that was hard because they saw our big co- cus- competitor being-

Hala Taha: Cheaper, yeah

Ron Johnson: cheaper, Walmart. Mm. And now we're going up further?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: This is gonna change the image of Target if you're successful to where no one from Walmart's coming.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: But we did it. And Target, what it really did is it reinforced the idea of Target.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You

Ron Johnson: know, and then people

Hala Taha: were all- And premium.

Ron Johnson: All that, yeah

just, you know, a l- we got the customer who was shopping at the mall-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: to come to Target and buy [00:33:00] home and more apparel and more discretionary purchases.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Uh, you did something pretty innovative with children's fashion too. Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: I did.

Hala Taha: What, um, the, the story goes from what I understand is that, uh, s- the f- sizes were really off, and people were having trouble finding the right size of clothes for their kids.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. I guess, let me try to-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: if I could. And this goes back to, it's... 'cause this is an example where I'd say we improved Target's kids department.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But it was a radical change.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: So I had admired The Gap from the '80s. I mean, Mickey Drexler was, you know, if you're a young retailer, he was it.

I remember one time I was in Hong Kong at the Regent Hotel, and he walked through the lobby, and it's kinda like I later would see Steve walking into Macworld. Mm-hmm. You know, Mickey was pretty, the guy.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And they had launched Gap Kids. Most beautiful kid store you'll ever see. But what they [00:34:00] did is they made every product from size two, a toddler size two-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: to size 20, which is big for a boys or boy or girl-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: end of the range. Every product was available in every size. Well, that let them have clean presentation.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: They didn't have to break the Gap Kids store into a little toddler area, a little kids area, a big kids area, and that's how every department store and discount store was

Hala Taha: merchandised.

Mm.

Ron Johnson: So when I took over kids, we had a toddler section. We had boys. We had girls. We actually had little boys and big boys.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And little boy got s- character T-shirts, and big boys got things that were closer to, like, juniors.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Um, but kids weren't naturally that. There's big kids, and they didn't wanna have characters on.

They're a little kid. It was just a mess.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And so I figured Target had a pretty s- small children's floor, and I said, "If we had the courage to do what the Gap did-" We could double our [00:35:00] assortment.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Instead of offering all these things for little kids and big kids, let's have one kids. And let's have the courage to take our sizes and collapse them, so instead of having a four and a five, we had a four or five.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Instead of a six, seven, seven, eight, we had a six, seven, eight. They're a little big, but kids could grow into them.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: But doing that let us double our assortment, right? But to do this, I got a lot of pushback at Target.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Uh, because we would have to redo every pattern, everything we're doing-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: you know, to create that consistency. So it was a shockingly hard amount of work to do that, but it worked.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And Target's kids area ran well ahead of the other apparel areas. After the first six months or so were tough, for the next probably decade, you know, because we fundamentally changed, gave Target a benefit that nobody else had.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And no one else really did it [00:36:00] because they didn't understand it.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? And that's what I call, you know, that was improvement. I found the idea at the Gap. It was pretty innovative for discount stores and department stores to do that.

Hala Taha: How did you get your, your ideas, like all these different ideas that you had for the stores that you worked for, the brands that you worked for?

How did you generate your ideas? What was your process?

Ron Johnson: Well, I don't... There isn't really a process. You just, you love what you do, you know? If you love what you do, you're immersed in it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, I probably have visited as many stores in my lifetime as anybody my age.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? I still do that.

When I came to see you, I had a chance to walk through the stores in front of us. And, uh, so when you're in stores a lot, you learn to become a student-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: of stores. And if you have a mind that's always looking for what's next, but wanting to do it now- You pick up a newness

Hala Taha: Yeah

Ron Johnson: You know, and you get an eye for it.

And then [00:37:00] when I used to take over areas, I used to ask myself, "How can I do something in the time I'm gonna be here," like in toys, "What can I do in my maybe two years I'll be in toys that will permanently improve Target's position in toys?" So that forced me to think not about, you know, what should I carry in aisle three, what can I do at a higher level that will endure?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: That's what sizing was. It wasn't about, you know, getting great colors and basic T-shirts, and getting a great fashion statement, and getting that new dress. Start at the higher level. What if we sized our merchandise different?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: That was design and home. It wasn't about, okay, let's make sure we're picking the right things from the vendors and fighting for allocation, which are all good things to do.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: But the next person who takes over will try to do the same thing. They might not be as good at it-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: as whoever had it before. Design was a permanent change in how Target competed [00:38:00] that no one else was doing.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Right? So I think it's more how you frame the problem that leads to the, the innovation.

Okay? So being loving what I did-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: being in stores, combined with how I frame the problem Plus courage. You know, I just always have had courage-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: you know, to do things.

Hala Taha: And I think it's y- you've been in retail for a really long time, so it's- Yeah ... it's the expertise in retail. So-

Ron Johnson: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: I'm an expert in podcasting, and similarly- Mm-hmm

I can, like, easily spot the trends. Well, that's

Ron Johnson: why you have a network.

Hala Taha: You know? Yeah. So to easily be able to like- Yeah ... spot the trends because I'm always reading about it. I'm always- Yeah ... curious about how to grow, how to do this, how to do that, and like will s- find things that, like, people wouldn't notice.

But it's probably very similar where you're just such an expert in retail that- Exactly ... you walk into a store and you're like, "Oh, that's interesting."

Ron Johnson: Well, that's what, you know, you probably get asked all the time by friends, "Could you talk to my daughter or son- Yeah ... who are thinking about a career?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And my [00:39:00] advice to people all the time is, "You know, when you're thinking of what to do, pick an industry you can love for a lifetime-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and become an expert."

Hala Taha: That's great advice.

Ron Johnson: You'll never get bored.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So you, you were at Target. Y- we talked about your experience at Apple.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: And after Apple, you got an offer to be the CEO of- Mm-hmm

JCPenney.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: And when you first initially got that offer, how did you feel about it?

Ron Johnson: Well, I wasn't... I was open for a change.

Hala Taha: Okay. '

Ron Johnson: Cause I was turning 50. I'd been at Apple for 12 years, 11 years when I started to think about it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And I kind of was thinking, you know, most things I've done have been in 10-year cycles, and if I'm gonna do something other than stay at Apple, now would be a time to think about it.

And a couple of guys from New York, a guy named Bill Ackman- Mm-hmm ... who's a well-known investor.

Hala Taha: I think I interviewed him.

Ron Johnson: I think s- You probably have ... I think so. Yeah. Bill's a very smart [00:40:00] guy.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Risk-taker. And a guy named Steve Roth, who was CEO of Vornado, one of the big, uh, real estate firms. They had taken a, an activist position in JCPenney.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And as part of their investment, uh, Penney said they could join the board and add one more board member. So I got a call out of the blue, "Would you like to talk to Steve and Bill about joining the Penney's board?" And so on one of my trips to New York to visit a new Apple store, we were opening a store on the Upper West Side, um, I stopped over, spent time at Steve, with Steve and Bill at their apartment.

At Steve's apartment. They didn't live together. And, uh, Bill walked me home, and he was excited to have me join the board. And I thought, "You know, why not?" I, I've known Penney's forever. I used to work at Mervyn's and Target and Kids. I know the company, how it competes. I've watched it. Um, and I went out and met all the board members, and they were ready to bring me on as a board [00:41:00] member.

But then the CEO, who'd been there six, seven years, was probably 66 at the time- Unfortunately, had a car accident.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And it was pretty bad. And he survived it, which was great, but it made the board think about succession planning. And I don't know where it came from, but I get a call, "Well, Ron, how would you think of...

how would you like to think about becoming CEO instead of a board member?" And I just thought about it. I said, "Well, that'd be interesting." I wanted to do something really hard, and I loved the department store, 'cause I grew up, they were the king.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, in the '60s when I grew up, they were the king.

And I always thought they had, you know, inadvertently lost their way 'cause they hadn't competed well enough.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And traveling around the world as I did with Apple stores, there were great department stores. Harrods and Selfridges in London, Printemps- Mm-hmm ... Galeries Lafayette in Paris. [00:42:00] Hong Kong. You know, the department store isn't dead, it was kinda dying in the United States.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: I thought that'd be a big challenge. So I decided, oh, why not? So I did.

Hala Taha: And, and your... I think your dad talked to you about that and, and basically was like, "How, how much success do you need?"

Ron Johnson: That's, uh, good. You've read the book. I'm impressed. No, my dad's attitude was, "Why are you doing this, Ron? You've got a young family," and my kids were in, uh, I think they were 12 and 14, 13 and 15, going into their most important years of their young life or the years that Karen and I would...

they'd be living with us.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And, you know, Apple's doing great. I... it was kind of a hobby for me, 'cause the store, everything we opened worked, and we had built a great team.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And the team was doing the work. I was kinda leading and having fun designing new stores and stuff. Um, but I wanted to take on a challenge, and my dad thought it was more pride than [00:43:00] purpose.

Hala Taha: Yeah, like the, the prize of being CEO. Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Prove what you can do. Yeah. Not, not even being CEO, just proving you can turn around the department store.

Hala Taha: Mm. You

Ron Johnson: know, you helped make Target, Target. Yeah. You created the Apple Store. No one thought it'd work. Here's another one.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Another-

Ron Johnson: You know, this

Hala Taha: is-

challenge ...

Ron Johnson: and, you know, looking back, there was some truth to that. Even though I didn't wanna face it, there always is. And you can create in your own head, you know, "No, I'm doing this because, you know, I'd like to take a new challenge. I'd like to help all those employees in Texas compete for another century," you know?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Um, you can always talk yourself into it, but you gotta be really thoughtful what's really motivating you.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Just,

Hala Taha: you know? So you, so you went to JCPenney and you wanted to help turn around the stores, 'cause like you're saying, department stores still are kind of a dying breed in the US.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: Um, w- what were some of the things that you wanted to change about JCPenney?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Well, it's [00:44:00] interesting. The department store is actually having a good little period right now.

Hala Taha: They are?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Macy's is, you know, they got a new team in place, and they've got their bold new chapter. Mm.

Hala Taha: And

Ron Johnson: their stock's up maybe double from the floor-

Hala Taha: Oh, okay ...

Ron Johnson: couple years ago. They're competing better.

It doesn't mean they're winning-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: but they're starting to make more money. Even Kohl's has gone up a little bit-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: of late. Um, Nordstrom is taking the company private. They're doing a little better, you know. So they're coming back. Um, but they're a lot smaller than they were when I joined JCPenney years ago.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: They're about half the number of stores in that group. Oh, wow.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Um, but, you know, I just felt that if we had the courage to reimagine the store, to get at what we needed, a younger family customer- We could have another day. You know, because the reality is, like Penney's had 600 great stores. They were pretty productive.

They just had a aged customer. You know, the customer was [00:45:00] 55 to 65 years old.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ron Johnson: When I was at Target, they were 25 to 35. And you get a young customer, they're gonna have families, and they're gonna live with you- Yeah ... for the next few decades. Where the Penney's customer was going away, and that's why market share was going down.

You know, so how do you get a younger customer? Well, we had basically free stores, 'cause we're an anchor in the mall.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Right? And they're 30-year leases. So all we have to do is redo everything about the store, but we could create something quite compelling.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So number one, okay? Pricing. You know?

Everything we sold was 60% off. We ran 13 ads a week.

Hala Taha: So many coup- so many

Ron Johnson: discounts-

Hala Taha: Coupons ... and coupons

Ron Johnson: at JCPenney. There were sales and coupons, and nobody else was shopping that way. If you walked through the specialty stores, it was all full price, and you'd have clearance when it didn't sell.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? Starbucks, everything you do. But the department [00:46:00] store had this reliance on coupons. Well, imagine instead of s- telling someone it's worth $40 and selling it for 10, just make it $10 every day.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Make every day a great day to shop. Now I've restored my brand credibility on pricing That would allow me to attract all these people to Penney's, new brands from all around the world, but most importantly direct to consumer.

You know, back in 2011, that's when people like Warby Parker-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: went online with glasses. Yep. That's when, you know, mattresses, and everyone was creating these, Bonobos, all these things. Well, they'd need a place to put stores, and we're in the mall. But we could offer 1,000 square feet to each of them at much better prices, 'cause we pay...

We're free. The mall being 100 feet down the road, it's gonna be $60 a square foot.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, so we could reimagine the interior [00:47:00] of the store. Instead of having, you know, 60,000 square feet of racks, 100 unique specialty stores. The best of the Penney's brands plus others-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and reinvent how you shop.

So now you got great pricing every day. We got a whole new environment inside. We've got new merchandise that you can't find somewhere else. Mm. And suddenly shopping at Penney's is like an adventure. You know, it's like the Apple Store. It's a place to belong. And in the center, in that, we're not putting a Genius Bar, we'll put a town square, a place where we'll run fashion shows and-

Hala Taha: Mm

Ron Johnson: do things for kids and families and, you know, we can make this an experience. And so I wanted to do that.

Hala Taha: It sounds like a great idea.

Ron Johnson: Well, I think most people thought it was a good idea. However, I learned a lot of lessons, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: So I went to Penney's and I basically asked them to implement my idea of America's Favorite Store.

It wasn't their idea.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know? And if you're gonna [00:48:00] make a change, you gotta get people to buy in. It starts with trusting you as a leader. They didn't know me. They saw me as the Apple guy.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Even though I'd spent more time in apparel than technology, they never knew about my working before Apple.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? And I'm a new guy, and I'm well-to-do and know-it-all-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and, and, and they just didn't buy into it. And I didn't have the courage to let people go. I don't like firing people.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, I said, "I'll convince them," you know? And so the, the, the, the, the big mistake happened my first month on the job.

I was at a board meeting and I asked the board a really important question. One little question. You know, if you're gonna make a major change to your retail strategy, the time to do it is February, March. Because you've gone through Christmas, you have your most clearance, you have time to get people ready for [00:49:00] the next year.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: If we're gonna do it, we either have to do it this February or we wait a year and do it a year from now.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: If we wait a year, we can focus on our teams, getting the inventory right, and making sure everyone understands it, da, da, da, da.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? But if we went now, we're not gonna go through another year of, you know, kinda tough business.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And the CEO, Mike Ullman, who I replaced, just said, "Ron, from my perspective, what do we have to lose? It sounds great." And the board all kinda nodded, and I made the decision. I made the decision. Let's go.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And I told the team, "We're gonna go. In six weeks, we're changing everything."

Hala Taha: Oh my gosh. That's not a lot of time.

Ron Johnson: But, but the team did a phenomenal job. I mean- Mm-hmm ... they ... We had to go through and figure out prices on thousands and thousands of items, and change price tags, and figure out signing and how to communicate this, and create advertisements. And, but the reality, we went way too fast.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And so the team [00:50:00] didn't understand it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: The board didn't truly understand what we were doing. Uh, investors didn't understand it, you know? And most importantly, customers didn't

Hala Taha: understand

Ron Johnson: it. Yeah. And so we alienated that coupon customer.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And, you know, in many ways we fired our customer.

Hala Taha: Your most loyal customer.

Ron Johnson: Our most loyal customer.

Now, the one that's not gonna carry us to the future, but we had thought sales would be down 15%. They were down 20% right away.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? But outside investors didn't know what the plan was, 'cause we didn't really communicate as well as we could.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And they thought, "Who's this idiot running JCPenney?

How are you as a board letting him do this?"

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And all the board members get called by their friends, "What are you doing?" And it was a really tough year. Now, the NPS was through the roof.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: So sales are down 20% That means 80% of the people are buying, or new customers are coming.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: And they were loving it, 'cause [00:51:00] they found all these beautiful new shops.

We had put in maybe 20 shops as we went through the year. There was a Levi's shop. It was the best place to buy Levi's in the country by far.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And sales in Levi's were up 40% year over year, you know? But it was early, but the overall picture was things are going down.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And I had real personal trouble with it, 'cause I had had 25 years of success.

Hala Taha: Yeah, you just had

Ron Johnson: great success up to then. But I had never gone through what I went through that year. Mm. And eventually, a year later, I said to the board, "Look, I'm not having fun. If you're not having fun, you think we're doing the wrong thing here, the sooner you make a change and go back, the better.

You know, because every month that goes by with this strategy would be harder to go back to your old strategy." 'Cause that's what some of the team wanted to do.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And after three months, they said, "Ron, we're gonna go back." And they actually brought back Mike Ullman to do

Hala Taha: it. Mm.

Ron Johnson: And they tried to do a U-turn.

Unfortunately, that didn't work either. [00:52:00] You know, when Mike left two years later, the stock was down another 50%. And then they brought in Marvin, and after he left two years later to go to Lowe's, stock was down another 50%.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, so Penney's was having trouble when I came in. The failed transformation took it down.

The U-turn took it down. So we really missed an opportunity, I think, to save JCPenney.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Uh, and I think the lesson is, you know, if you're gonna make a change- You gotta, you gotta stick it out.

Hala Taha: You gotta stick it out?

Ron Johnson: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Was there any sort of, like, testing you wish you did or talking more to the customer?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. You know, I do. I... You know, it's funny. At the time I told people I don't believe in tests.

Hala Taha: Mm. '

Ron Johnson: Cause by and large, I, I don't. We didn't test sizing at Target. We didn't.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Sometimes the customer doesn't even know what they want.

Ron Johnson: They don't. That was Steve's approach, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: But I look back. Steve changed his [00:53:00] mind a few times.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? Like the iPod, he said, "I'm not gonna bring that to Windows. Hell will freeze over before I make a Windows iPod." And three years later he did, and that's what made the iPod. It's what really made Apple. That catapulted our ability to get Windows customers.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: So Steve changed his mind.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know what I mean? And so I was pretty darn stubborn on the pricing in particular. That was the real difficult

Hala Taha: part. The, the, the no discounts.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. And, uh, and if I had done it over, and we had a year, I would've at least tested the marketing messages. Mm-hmm. You know, you can do that without testing with the customer.

That would've been helpful.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. There are a lot of ways we could've rolled out. I was worried about the cost of having two teams, one doing the new pennies, one managing the old. I thought it'd be too much work for the buyers to do both. So I thought of it as an either/or. But the big thing, you know, quite honestly, I was arrogant.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: I was situationally arrogant. [00:54:00] Everything I'd done for 25 years had worked.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Ron Johnson: You know? And because I had the courage to make change. And so when the board said go, I said, "Let's go." You know? Yeah. And on the hindsight, we should've tested a lot of things.

Hala Taha: How did that impact your ego? Like, did you feel- down or like that you were a failure because you had failed this- No, I,

Ron Johnson: I-

transformation with chasing money? ... was a, I was a failure. Make no mistake about it.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: When you're the CEO of a company and you do something, you know, that fails in everyone's mind, and you walk away from it-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: you failed.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know? We fail every day. But when you come back to work, you know, you have, you fail, have not a great podcast, you come back, you do another podcast.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: When you lose the chance to keep going, and when it's over-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: that's when you fail, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And so I did, I failed. And it was hard. Um, I think even today [00:55:00] there'll be times I wake up and my stomach churns about, what could I have done different? Mm. And why did I go there? Why did I listen to people?

Why did I go so fast?

Hala Taha: Why didn't you fire who you wanted to fire?

Ron Johnson: What could I have done different, you know?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You agonize over those things. You, they never leave you.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, that's part of life. Now, I've been lucky. I, I got lucky too.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, the Apple stores worked, you know? Yep. And Target did pretty well.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You know,

Ron Johnson: so I- You've

Hala Taha: got a great, you've got a great legacy ...

Ron Johnson: I've had, well, I've had, no, I've had, I guess if anything I've, I've tried.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, I've tried.

Hala Taha: Okay, let's play a game. Sure. So I was, when I was reading your stuff, I thought that you had a lot of quotes. Now, not every quote comes from you, but I thought we could play a game called Quote GOAT.

Do you know what GOAT means? Greatest of all time.

Ron Johnson: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay? So I'm gonna say a quote, you tell us what this quote- Are these

Ron Johnson: my quotes? The ones

Hala Taha: that- Some of them are your quotes, some of them are quotes that you say.

Ron Johnson: Yep.

Hala Taha: It's all quotes that you're familiar with.

Ron Johnson: Sure.

Hala Taha: Um, if there's a [00:56:00] story about the quote, tell us that.

Ron Johnson: Sure.

Hala Taha: Or tell us the meaning behind it. Whatever comes to your mind, okay?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. "

Hala Taha: Good things happen when people come to the store."

Ron Johnson: That's absolutely true. That's absolutely true, and that's the Apple store.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, I mean, I just believed in traffic, right? That's why you build stores, to get customers to come in.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And no matter what they're coming for. You know, we ran summer camps for kids, and kids would come in five days a week in the morning. Almost every employee was dedicated to camp.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And customers couldn't buy because the kids were over all the computers. But I knew good things would happen from that.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So good things do happen when you come to the store.

Hala Taha: Every hour has its leader. Every leader has their time

Ron Johnson: Yeah, that's absolutely true. That's from the Talmud. I don't know if you know that.

Hala Taha: Oh, I didn't know that.

Ron Johnson: That's from the Talmud. Um, I read that in a book by Marianne Williamson, A Return to [00:57:00] Love.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: But the idea behind that is really simple, that leadership is something you've gotta give away.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? And whoever's ... Like in this podcast, right now you're leading. You've got this thing about the goat. Right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You're leading, I'm following, right?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: When I'm speaking to you and answering a question, I'm leading.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: That's true in a store. When one of our employees or the customer, they're the most important person in the store.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: It's not the manager, right? They're leading that conversation. And so I think we have to all recognize that we are leaders and we're followers all day long.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? And you gotta be willing to give away leadership.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, and that's a really good life lesson.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, I'll ask you about that again later. Make love visual.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. That's the ... I really think when you see two people smiling, [00:58:00] when you see brain cells multiplying like you do in an Apple store, that's an act of love because together you're improving each other's lives.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And when you see that in a store, you're making love visual. So I used to tell my friends, the thing I love about the Apple store, you see love everywhere.

Hala Taha: And I think that's true. Like people helping each other

Ron Johnson: and- Helping each other, and it's, and it, and it's a beautiful thing. You know, you see, you know, uh, like when I go to the grocery store, and I do this too, but you see a customer getting out of their car and taking shopping carts that were left-

Hala Taha: Mm

Ron Johnson: in the parking lot, and you're walking into the store, just return them and put them where they belong. When I see that, that's an act of love.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And it's visual. That person didn't have to do it. He's securing the good for the store.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But it's just the right thing to do.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: When someone stops down to pick up a piece of [00:59:00] paper that's on the floor and put it in a trash can, that's making love visual.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? When you walk an old lady across the street, that's making love visual.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And great stores do that.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I really like this one. The conversational nature of reality.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. No, that's not mine. That's from David Whyte.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: David Whyte's a poet. Um, but he had this philosophy that everything in life-

comes from a conversation, and the most important conversation is the one you have with yourself. So think about that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, every day you're thinking.

Hala Taha: Yes.

Ron Johnson: Well, what are you thinking? You're going, "Okay, like, uh, I've got to go to the airport later today." I'm going, "Well, if I leave at what time?" I look at Uber.

If I leave at this time, I'll probably be on time. I'm having a conversation with myself and making a decision I'll leave at this time. When I thought about the Genius Bar before talking to Steve on the phone, [01:00:00] I had a conversation with myself, which led to a conversation with Steve, which then led to a decision.

So the reality is the world's about a conversation. Now, the best conversations are the ones that have no end in mind.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: The conversation will reveal knowledge that you didn't come into the conversation with, you know?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Too often, unfortunately, we go into a conversation, "Okay, I wanna convince my spouse, I wanna convince my kids-

Hala Taha: Mm

Ron Johnson: that this is the way to do it," so I don't go in and seek to understand and then maybe be understood, as Stephen Covey would say. Yeah, that's another great quote.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, but the idea, I think life is a conversation, and we've got to become better conversationalists. And unfortunately, with all this screen time and social media, we're spending less time connecting.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And we need to spend more time convening, and convening is really ... You know, [01:01:00] it's interesting the word convene, the root word is of is, it's the root of the word convenience, right? And that's the opposite of what we do when things are convenient. We tend to not convene. You know, we got to go back to convening more, having conversations, and being aware of how that reveals knowledge.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: ChatGPT can't reveal knowledge, right? It can reveal what the world knows, but it doesn't reveal new knowledge.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: That's gonna come through conversation.

Hala Taha: Okay, last one. People want to do significant things

Ron Johnson: Yeah, we all do. We're born to have meaning, have impact. You know, there's a great little story in the book, and I forget the name of the guy, but years ago, someone ran an experiment, and they, in a infant...

You know, uh, uh, I should know this. I'm a new grandparent. Yeah. But in the, the baby's [01:02:00] crib-

Hala Taha: Okay ...

Ron Johnson: they put one of those mobiles.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: And once that was up there, the little kid would touch it, and they couldn't stop touching it 'cause they loved it. If I touch this, the thing moves.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? By definition, we enjoy having impact.

We like to influence things, right? The bigger the influence we have, the more excited we get, right? And I think everyone wants to do significant things.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And that takes encouragement. That takes kindness. That takes a vision. So I've always practiced with my teams, you know, you know, you gotta set a North Star, and the higher that star, the bigger the vision, the easier it is to accomplish it.

If you have something relatively small, it's just another thing on the to-do list. The thing about a North Star is they're up, which is the direction of values.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But it's also so far out, we're never gonna get there, and that means you have a strategy that will never end.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: The [01:03:00] Apple Store kept innovating.

Even to this day, 25 years later, the Apple Store feels new and vibrant. It's got a heartbeat. If you walk in the store, you feel-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: the soul of the store, right?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: That's because we had a great North Star.

Hala Taha: What was the North Star?

Ron Johnson: It was to enrich lives. Very simple. Enrich the lives of the employees and the customers, and everything was designed around that objective in mind.

Hala Taha: Mm. Uh, so I wanna switch gears a bit. I wanna talk about AI. Sure. So when you started the Apple Store, people thought stores were gonna go extinct- Yeah ... because of the internet.

Ron Johnson: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Now, a lot of people think AI is going to be impacting work in general-

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm ...

Hala Taha: perhaps retail. Yeah. How do you think AI is going to impact retail?

Ron Johnson: It's gonna have a huge impact. Um, it's gonna impact the in-store experience, and it's gonna impact the online experience. However, it's not gonna change where we shop. I [01:04:00] don't think it'll change at all how often you go to stores.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Uh, it's just gonna let both be better, you know?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: The biggest change you'll see will be in online shopping, in my opinion.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, I think the idea of having a website with all these little tiles that you have to s- navigate, you know, through men's, ladies, you know- Mm-hmm ... what's new, what's on sale. It'd be a lot easier to have an agent just say, "Hey, I'm looking for something new and exciting. Uh, I'm a guy. I am willing to take fashion risk," and it comes back with, "Here are the items we have."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, that's gonna happen. Agent commerce will be a really big deal, and that's gonna help online. And it'll be a little bit more like when you walk in a store, 'cause in a store you can talk to an employee- Mm-hmm ... and say, you know, "What do you think? What are the hot items? You know, I've got a party tonight.

What should I wear?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, so I think the online will compete in that way. The ... Most of what the stores do will be things that you can't see as a customer, but that'll make it a lot better.

Hala Taha: Like what?

Ron Johnson: Inventory management.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? [01:05:00] Recommendations to the employees, you know. You know, employees will see, you know, what are the best-selling items in the store-

Hala Taha: Hmm

Ron Johnson: you know, come back with that. And it'll be also, 'cause a lot of customers walk in the store, you know they're there. You know, if, like at the Apple store, you know pretty well, you can flash your thing, you know, your QR code with the employee, and they know everything you own.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And it can recommend, "Oh, you know, you

I see a lot of photos. You know, we got this new camera which has a great camera." You know, you're gonna have improvement everywhere-

Hala Taha: Hmm ...

Ron Johnson: in retail, you know, from AI. I'm a real tech optimist, and I'm a believer in AI. There's downsides, but every new technology we've launched, we've said there are downsides, but they've always been for good.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Well, this has been such an incredible interview. I end my show with two questions I ask all of my guests.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: The first one is, what is one actionable thing our Young and Profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?[01:06:00]

Ron Johnson: Slow down.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your day. You know, so often we're just go, go, go, go. Too much on the plate, we're running behind, we're feeling anxious. We gotta slow down.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, Steve Jobs did one thing at a time. You know? He would only let Pixar make one movie a year 'cause he said, "You know, we can only do one great movie a year.

We wanna do great movies."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, we had the Mac. We had the iPod. Three years later we did a phone. Three years later we did an iPad. It wasn't like Sony that had so many products in its portfolio, or Samsung. We did a few things. Steve was never in a hurry. Never in a hurry. He didn't even carry a cellphone until the iPhone came out.

He didn't wanna be bothered, you know?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Slow down.

Hala Taha: It's, it's crazy to hear that because you think of Steve Jobs as being so [01:07:00] innovative, and you would assume that he's just, like, all about, like, deadlines and targets and next thing- Mm-hmm ... and new thing. And it, it's really interesting to hear that he- Yeah

was not into the-

Ron Johnson: He was all about quality.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? And this can go beyond business and finance, however you wanna take it.

Ron Johnson: Well, I'll just say, you know, I l- I was ... When I came out of Harvard Business School, I was going to ... pretty close to accepting a job with Goldman Sachs I'm in eight part department.

That was one of the, the it jobs. Mm-hmm. You know? You get the status of working on Wall Street, and mergers and acquisition. Mm-hmm. It'd be like now, you know? Right now that segment of the business is really hot, and it was back in '84.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: But a, a, a, a guy who was a CFO at Dayton Hudson said to me, "Ron, the net present value of a life has nothing to do with how much money you have."

He said, "You gotta pick the net present value of your life, not your [01:08:00] career."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And that was interesting to me, and that led me to figure out I'm gonna pick an industry I can love for a lifetime. I'll start at the bottom. I unloaded trucks at a Mervyn's store when I got started.

Hala Taha: And that's a retail store?

Ron Johnson: Retail store, and at the time was very popular. And, yeah, but even, you know, I told Steve, you know, "I'll take the job, but, you know, I'm a parent. I'm gonna coach all my kids' sports teams."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And he said, "I don't care. Just get your job done." But I would leave Apple at 4:00 every day in the spring to go coach my son's Little League baseball team as an example.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? But the net present value of a life is your whole life. It's your work. It's your family. It's your friends. It's the hobbies you love. You know, it could be your faith. I think that's an important thing for most people.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: No matter what faith it is. You know, you gotta find a way to be [01:09:00] fulfilled in all of those things, right?

And that's what I think is the most important thing.

Hala Taha: That's so beautiful. Another quote from the, from the quote G.O.A.T. Well, Ron, where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

Ron Johnson: Well, I actually have a little website called Ron Johnson Shops Different. It's, the name of the book is Shop Different.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Uh, coming out September 22nd. It's really about the Apple store, but it goes back into some of the things we talked about, like my time at Target-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: my time at Penney's, and more. Um, but if you go to ronjohnsonshopsdifferent.com, you can have access to all the little interviews I do, podcasts I do, like this one.

Uh, and that'd be where I go.

Hala Taha: Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

Ron Johnson: Pleasure's mine. Thank you.

Hala Taha: Cool. Great job. Great. I feel like we covered-

Ron Johnson: Oh, it's great ...

Hala Taha: a

Ron Johnson: whole lot of ground. Really fun. So good. Yeah, yeah.

Hala Taha: Great.

Ron Johnson: Were you okay?

Hala Taha: Yeah. Yeah, I think we covered everything.

Ron Johnson: Good. Yeah.

Hala Taha: Well,

Ron Johnson: thank you.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And I loved- Thank you

how you ended it. It was perfect. That was one of my quotes, and [01:10:00] then I didn't r- read it, so I'm happy that you did it. Your quote G.O.A.T. was

Ron Johnson: fun.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: I didn't know if you wanted me to pick, like, who's the greatest of all time-