The Morgan Housel Podcast

This episode digs into one of my favorite books of all time: The Big Change by Frederick Lewis Allen. Written in 1952, it's a remarkable look at how quickly the world can change, with so many profound insights that I find relevant today. 

Special thanks to my friends at Readwise.io/morgan for making this happen. 

There's a Russian saying that I love: "The past is more unpredictable than the future." It explains so much about nostalgia, and the twisted ways we all view the economic past.

This episode is brought to you by my friends at 10 East – an investment platform for sophisticated investors to access private markets. To learn more visit 10east.co.

A lot of mistakes in life come when you think risk is something caused by external forces, when in fact the weight of your own success is enough to pull you down without any outside help.

This episode is brought to you by my friends at 10 East – an investment platform for sophisticated investors to access private markets. To learn more visit 10east.co.

The ultimate success metric is whether you get what you want out of life. But that’s harder than it sounds because it’s easy to try to copy someone who wants something you don’t.

This episode is brought to you by my friends at 10 East – an investment platform for sophisticated investors to access private markets. To learn more visit 10east.co.

Some of the most interesting stuff I've come across lately. 

In some fields our knowledge is seamlessly passed down across generations. In others, it’s fleeting. To paraphrase investor Jim Grant: Knowledge in some fields is cumulative. In other fields it’s cyclical (at best).

Jeff Bezos once said there are different kinds of smart. Distinguishing the various flavors is important because if you think smarts comes in just one form, you’ll miss dozens of other nuanced varieties.

BS is the same. It comes in countless forms, some harder to spot than others. False modesty, projecting, double standards, hypocrisy, tugging at heartstrings – these aren’t lies; they’re subtle forms of BS which is why they’re so prevalent.

A few important money and life topics to make you ponder. 

"Nature is not in a hurry, yet everything is accomplished,” said Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.

Giant sequoias, advanced organisms, towering mountains – it builds the most jaw-dropping features of the universe. And it does so silently, where growth is almost never visible right now but staggering over long periods of time.

It’s quiet compounding, and it’s a wonder to see.

I like the idea of quietly compounding your money. Just like in nature, it’s where you’ll find the most impressive results.

My deepest forecasting belief is that you can better understand the future if you focus on the behaviors that never change instead of the events that might.

And those behaviors have a common denominator: They follow the path of least resistance of people trying to simplify a complex world into a few stories that make sense and make them feel good about themselves.

Simple stories, feel-good stories. Those are some of history’s most seductive beliefs, and they always will be.

Here are a few that stick out.