The Morgan Housel Podcast

The Morgan Housel Podcast episodes:

• 04.25.2024

  Realistic Personal Finance Hacks

  Hacks are hard because shortcuts rarely exist. Prizes take time and effort. The personal finance industry – filled with advice that sounds and feels good without moving the needle – needs to recognize this. These aren’t fun hacks, but no...

  
• 04.11.2024

  Lucky vs. Repeatable

  Luck plays such a big role in the world. But few people want to talk about it. If I say you got lucky, I look jealous. If I tell myself that I got lucky, I feel diminished. Maybe a better way...

  
• 04.05.2024

  No One Is Crazy

  The fun part of behavioral finance is learning about how flawed other people can be. The hard part is trying to figure out how flawed you are, and what stories make sense to you but would seem crazy to others.

  
• 03.28.2024

  Smart Things Smart People Have Said

  A few of the best and most insightful things I've read lately. 

  
• 03.18.2024

  Accountable to Darwin vs. Accountable to Newton

  Woodrow Wilson was the only president with a Ph.D. in political science. He came to office having thought more about how a government functions than most before him or since. One of his complaints was that too many people in...

  
• 03.08.2024

  The Dumber Side of Smart People

  Mae West said, “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” That might be true for some things – health, happiness, golden retrievers, maybe. But in so many cases the thing that helps you can be taken to a...

  
• 02.28.2024

  How to Engage With History

  This episode discusses my take on what you should pay attention to when reading history.  There’s a quote I love from writer Kelly Hayes who says, “Everything feels unprecedented when you haven’t engaged with history.” It’s so true. History’s cast of...

  
• 02.14.2024

  Compounding Optimism

  Let me share a little theory I have about optimism, and why progress is so easy to underestimate. I’ll explain it in four parts.

  
• 02.01.2024

  A Few Thoughts on Spending Money

  Behavioral finance is now well documented. But most of the attention goes to how people invest. But the study of how you spend money might be far more interesting -- and practical. How you spend money can reveal an existential...

  
• 01.17.2024

  Information That Would Get Your Attention

  There’s obviously a hierarchy of information. It ranges from life-changing good to life-changing disastrous. That got me thinking: What would be the most interesting and useful information anyone could get their hands on? Years ago I asked that question to...

  
• 01.05.2024

  Active vs. Passive Learning

  There are two big ways to learn:  Active learning: Someone tells you what to learn, how to learn it, on a set schedule, on pre-selected standardized topics. Passive learning: You let your mind wander with no intended destination. You read and...

  
• 12.22.2023

  Respect Each Others’ Delusions

  One sentence that knocked me off my feet when I read Will and Ariel Durant’s The Lessons of History was: "Learn enough from history to bear reality patiently, and respect one another’s delusions." I love that so much. The key...

  
• 12.12.2023

  The 10 Most Important Financial Skills

  My wife recently bought me an old book. It's called The Mathematical Theory of Investment. It was written in 1913 and it's as dry and boring as it sounds (but the old weathered cover looks awesome on a bookshelf).  I flipped...

  
• 11.17.2023

  Expiring vs. Permanent Skills

  Expiring skills tend to get more attention. They’re more likely to be the cool new thing, and a key driver of an industry’s short-term performance. They’re what employers value and employees flaunt. Permanent skills are different. They’ve been around a...

  
• 11.07.2023

  My New Book, Same As Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

  My new book, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes, is out today.  Books are hard, a multi-year slog from start to finish. But I’m excited for you to read this. I think it’s the best writing I’ve...

  
• 10.30.2023

  Justifying Optimism

  All optimistic beliefs can be dangerous because they’re so comforting, so easy to accept without asking further questions. Hope often masquerades as optimism when you think things will improve only because the alternative is too scary to contemplate.  Every optimist needs...

  
• 10.21.2023

  Little Flaws

  Daniel Kahneman says, "The long-term success of a relationship depends far more on avoiding the negative than on seeking the positive." It's like that in so many areas of life.  Most people know what they're good at, or at least they think...

  
• 10.12.2023

  A Few Laws of Getting Rich

  Measuring wealth is easy. You just count it up. Measuring some of the downsides of wealth is so much harder and more nuanced. They can be so nuanced and hard to measure that many people won’t even believe they exist....

  
• 10.06.2023

  Death, Taxes, and a Few Other Things

  My new book, Same As Ever, comes out in a month.  It's about things that never change -- what's always happened in the world, and will keep repeating again and again? This episode shares five examples. 

  
• 09.27.2023

  Respect and Admiration

  Just after my son was born I wrote a few things I thought he’d find helpful as an adult. One of them was: "You might think you want an expensive car, a fancy watch, and a huge house. But I’m telling...

  
• 09.18.2023

  Trying Too Hard

  A truth that applies to almost every field is that it’s possible to try too hard, and when doing so you can get worse results than those who knew less, cared less, and put in less effort than you did. There...

  
• 08.31.2023

  The Lifecycle of Greed and Fear

  All greed starts with an innocent idea: that you are right, deserve to be right, and are owed something for the efforts you put into establishing your beliefs and opinions.  It’s a reasonable feeling. But it sets off a chain reaction...

  
• 08.22.2023

  Intelligence vs. Smarts

  This episode is about the difference between intelligence and smarts, and why one is valued more than the other despite being less useful in the world. The core here is realizing that people are not spreadsheets. They are emotional, hormonal,...

  
• 08.10.2023

  Fluke -- A Story About How Fragile The World Can Be

  This is a short personal story about a fluke event 16 years ago that changed everything in my life. You probably have a similar story, and there is so much to learn about how everything can change from an event...

  
• 08.04.2023

  A Few Ideas That Changed My Life

  You spend years trying to learn tons of new stuff, but then look back and realize that just a few big ideas truly changed how you think and influenced most of what you believe. Let me share a couple that had...

  
• 07.21.2023

  Rich and Anonymous

  I think there’s an “ideal” net worth for everyone, when money not only stops bringing pleasure but becomes a social liability. And that number is probably lower than most people think. A subtle problem with money is that assets are easy...

  
• 06.29.2023

  The Spectrum of Wealth

  Chris Rock joked that Bill Gates would jump out the window if he woke up with Oprah’s money. Like most comedy, it’s funny because it contains a nugget of truth. There is no objective level of wealth -- everything is just...

  
• 06.22.2023

  What Makes You Happy

  A weird thing in life is that everyone strives for a good life because they think it will make them happy. But what actually brings happiness is the contrast between what you have now and whatever you were just doing....

  
• 06.14.2023

  Low Expectations

  The knee-jerk way to set expectations is to anchor to what everyone else has right now. But imagine the tragedy of there being unbelievable progress throughout your life and you enjoy none of it because you expected all of it....

  
• 06.05.2023

  A Few Short Stories

  Sometimes the best you can do when learning about any topic is to memorize a few short stories -- quick, direct, and to the point, that you're likely to remember forever. This episode shares 15 short stories that have stuck...

  
• 05.23.2023

  The Power of Staying Put

  There are so many times in life where what you do is less important than how long you've been doing it for.  It's true in careers.  It's true in relationships.  It's true in sports.  And it's true with money.  This episode is about compounding --...

  
• 05.08.2023

  A Few Things I'm Pretty Sure About

  If you can explain something important in just a few words, it's a double win: You've probably found something that's obviously true, without needing further explanation or detail. And it's probably something you'll remember for a long time, easy to...

  
• 04.26.2023

  Little Ways The World Works

  This episode has little to do with money. But in some ways it has everything to do with money.  That's the riddle I want to unpack.  I want to share a bunch of examples of what one field can teach us about...

  
• 04.20.2023

  Your Money and Your Family

  One of the most complicated topics in money: How it impacts your family. Your spouse. Your kids.  How do you avoid spoiling kids?  How do you and your spouse learn to agree about the best way to spend?  There are no easy answers...

  
• 04.13.2023

  The Highest Form of Wealth

  The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, “I can do whatever I want today.” People want to become wealthier to make them happier. Happiness is a complicated subject because everyone’s different.  But...

  
• 04.06.2023

  Play Your Own Game

  There is no world where two equally smart and informed people should agree on the best way to save, spend, and invest money.  Everyone is different.  What you want might not be what I want. What’s fun to you might be miserable...

  
• 03.30.2023

  Everything You Can't Have

  This episode covers a hard topic about money: What you want more than anything is everything you can't have. Your brain doesn’t want stuff. It doesn’t even want new stuff. It wants to engage in the process and anticipation of...

  
• 03.23.2023

  Getting Rich vs. Staying Rich

  Getting rich and staying rich are two different skills. They are often conflicting skills, so many people focus on one or the other.  But you need both to do well over time.  This episode tells a 100-year-old story of two investors, neither...

  
• 03.15.2023

  Rules of the Money Game

  There are only a handful of financial rules, ideas, and observations that really move the needle -- and explain the majority of what you need to know to do better with your money.  I could have narrowed this down to 10,...

  
• 03.06.2023

  Lifestyles

  Episode 2: A look at the lifestyles we all choose to live, with an old story I came across that might be my favorite example of living for the approval and applause of other people vs. doing things just because...

  
• 03.02.2023

  The Art of Spending Money

  The first episode -- who knows where this will go? There is a science to spending money – how to find a bargain, how to make a budget, things like that. But there’s also an art to spending. A part that...