Legendary Investor Ray Dalio Breaks Down Everything You Need to Know About the Current World Economy

[Music] everybody welcome to conversations with Tom I am here with legendary investor Ray Dalio ray thank you so much for joining me today pleasure so I really wish that we were connecting under better circumstances I have made no secret about the fact that I learned more about business from principles I think than virtually any other business book that's completely influenced the way that we build our culture now with what's going on with the economic crisis I find myself once again turning to what you're putting out and all the stuff that you're doing on LinkedIn is is really very insightful taking a historical perspective lovely hear a little bit about just sort of the thinking why are you going back through all the historical stuff right now well as you know the same things happen over and over again through time for basically the same reasons a lot of these things happen once in a lifetime you know and if you don't go back and see how they worked over time then you're in trouble so there's a pattern I could describe the pattern but there's a pattern that happens over and over again and we're in a particular spot in the pattern and then to understand it not just because it happened before but to understand mechanistically how it happens and then one has a sense of how to deal with it so speaking of the mechanisms what's influencing this more when you started looking back into history are you looking for this sort of moment in the death cycle or are you looking for pandemics a collision of the two what do you think influences is more well pandemics come along occasionally but anything that's important let me say the three most important circumstances that existed before we had the downturn which was caused by a pandemic but any downturn would have produced the same results the three most important things that are happening in the world now are that we're at the end late in a long term debt cycle in which central banks cannot control monetary policy the same way they can't lower interest rates they have they can't get money to a lot of people who need the money in the traditional way so just like in 1929 to 1932 there was a debt crisis that came as a result of an excessive amount of debt in the boom years and then when you have that in 1932 we hit zero interest rates and when they had when they hit zero interest rates in 32 like in 2008 central bank prints money and buys financial assets let's talk about financial assets this is one thing that even I found myself a little bit confused by what what is a financial asset well mostly bonds okay central bank is allowed to buy bonds to mostly government bonds so if you were gonna describe what a bond is like what's the easiest way to think about a bond um when someone borrows for a number of years and has to pay back that makes a promise to deliver currency that's a bond and so one man's debts or in other man's assets which we call a bond and that is a promise to deliver currency and so what happens in these cycles is that normally central banks can stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates but when you hit zero interest rates that doesn't work so the last time it hits zero interest rates was 1932 and what they did in 1932 was the same thing they did in 2008 and that is that the central bank's prints a lot of money and buys government bonds and so we're doing that now and just to be clear the reason that they're doing that is so somebody has bought a government bond the government is basically saying hey dear person lend me the money I'm gonna build something roads whatever but I'm gonna pay you back in a year two years ten years whatever plus interest I would assume that makes it worthwhile and the reason that the government is going in and buying those is to get back liquidity to the people that have loaned them that money yes because think of it this way the central government and also companies and individuals don't have the capacity to create money so the central government has the right to determine they could tax people they can get money from people and they can spend money on whatever they want to spend money on but they don't have the right to print money and create money and credit like the central bank does central bankers that are reserved similarly the Federal Reserve does not have the right to spend money and determine how it's spent that's for Congress all right so so before because this can get so confusing and I'll play the role of the layman here and just make sure that we walk through things so the Federal Reserve I think most people think is a Department of the government but they're not are they a private bank no they're they're a part of the government that the government that the system has put into place so to get the creation of money out of the political system okay so it's sort of outside of the political sphere of the government it is within Congress but it has a set of rules like the Supreme Court has a set of rules that means that the president can't control it the Congress can't control it that it's operating in a sense a separate way and so the important thing to know about this crisis and that had happened in the 1930s is that in order to get the checks that we're needing you know a lot of people a lot of companies need checks now where will thou those checks come from so they'll be checks from the government the type of support we're going to receive is two types of support where's this all this money come from so that the government when they say I'm gonna pay more for unemployment insurance or I'm going to give you a loan for a small business or so on they wear their they get the money from well they either tax it but if they tax it that's bad so the government they can borrow it that's what a deficit is the government runs a deficit and then the question is who's going to borrow it when everybody's financially strapped and the Federal Reserve says they have the power to print money and they will say I will borrow it and I will lend you the money so the Federal Reserve is lending the money and it is also lending others the money all right yes when when they print money are they literally sending a Brinks truck with bags full of cash and distributing it through local banks no money is digital okay so they're really just making ledger adjustments in a digital file somewhere right the important thing to know is that all that we think about money is not limited in any way like there's a certain amount of money out there it's all make-believe it's all digital so they could change the digits and then they can create money now that's an important consideration because if they can create money so easily how do we know it's going to be a value when they're creating a lot of it that's one of the considerations that are being faced today but the main thing to know about this yeah stepping back for the big picture is that every individual every company and every government has certain amount of money that comes in in the form of income a certain amount of expenses that and then a certain amount of savings so you do individually and every all your listeners do and it works the same way for everyone so that if there income falls and then gret less to be less than their expenditures they're in trouble unless they have a good savings and then they go to the savings so all around the world there are lots of entities that are in trouble in that way so the government the two parts of the government the US government two parts want to give checks to people now it's difficult to decide who gets it who doesn't get it but if they don't give checks to people or to companies those will go bankrupt because they may not have enough savings so you you saw j.crew went bankrupt just went bankrupt and you'll see others go bankrupt because they don't have enough and so when they go bankrupt and that's a whole other process so in order to prevent that they have to give money and so they print money we call it print there's not even paper much it's digitally create money and then that comes in the form of loans okay so basically they are digitally creating money which they're allocating to the government and then the government is deciding how to disperse those funds yeah the Federal Reserve will buy government bonds so it's a transaction of buying it and that the and they will also buy private thoughts okay they might pick a company and many companies and they'll say I will buy your bonds which is the equivalent I will lend to you and that's what happens okay and that's happened through history so what we're going through is the same process has happened in the 1930 to 1945 period so as I was saying there are three important things that is one the second is large wealth gap third is that we have a rising power in the form of China emerging to compete or challenge United States leadership so when you have these three things together it's it's a challenging mix and it's happened repeatedly less effective monetary and credit system makes it they have to print a lot of money can threaten the value of money second when you have a large wealth gap and you have an economic downturn people are more inclined to have conflict so how that's dealt with we're going to reconsider how we're going to that wealth will be divided and that'll change taxes and relationships and then the third is we're no longer in a world order where the United States is the only dominant power these three things existed and the most important things existed and then we had the downturn terms in terms of the virus so you could think of the virus like being a tsunami that came and if it went and if we had not no more of it it still would have left a lot of economic damage so you in all different ways so the the economic damage has to be understood and dealt with yeah so the understood and dealt with is exactly why I wanted to talk to you so I think that people that are familiar with finance and financial institutions and how the economy works and all that they'll find their way through this but for the average person who doesn't understand a lot of this like when you look at this historical perspective I find a certain level of comfort in that because of the notion of another one of the ease right so we've seen this before maybe we haven't in our lifetime but historically people have so what can the average person take away from that they don't have bonds they don't think like that they may not even understand what their 401k is or they may not even have a 401k so how do they navigate this is it just head down do your best to weather the storm or is there actually something that they can learn from the historical perspective and move on now to make this easier for them yeah it's the it's the same for every individual same for every company you say and you if you understand this then you understand there well there are three things the first is look at your income your expenses and your savings and then do a stress test so that you get yourself secure if you were to lose your income or if the income were to fall beyond a certain level and you play that out maybe that's means you go get unemployment insurance burger or whatever how long can you live in an acceptable lifestyle and do you have a savings that is adequate for that okay so what you do is you calculate if I lived in a simpler lifestyle and I had this amount of earnings um how many months how many months or years could I live acceptable then you look at your what what do you put the money in what do you save it don't you know that there's a level of financial literacy so you're saying the basics right and there's no question like it's your blocking and tackling right before you start trying to get fancy but I Rea I have legitimately started losing sleep over like how we help the average person through this I'm not a guy I don't lose sleep over much but when I stop and think about most people I think the stat is the average American if they're hit with a surprise $500 bill they're not able to make it they are living month-to-month you've got 30 plus million people now out of work it's you know it trying to figure out like definitely basics right you've got make sure that you're spending less and you make austerity first cut cut cut get your expenses down to as low as they can a hundred percent what what I'm hoping for is that there's I don't know there's something that we can see in in this kind of transition where either you've got a new rising power and there's opportunity with that I'm trying to find that sort of ray of hope for people of what they can do to be proactive either to generate more income if they've lost their income or to be more proactive in their 401k I think about personal finance the way I think about health and right now I worry that people are outsourcing everything to somebody else to the government they're they have a wait-and-see approach and what I'm desperately trying to figure out for myself is what level of proactiveness of learning about their health they can do to try to weather this storm because short of just saving and cutting expenses and maybe that's it maybe there there isn't any more that they can do but I guess that's my direct question is there something I mean you know the parts right it's it's income expenses and save base okay now you can go get the money maybe the gun if money comes in and you say okay my unemployment benefits are going to be this or my this is but um those are the parts then the issue is how clever are you at dealing with those well let me ask it another way then who should they be voting for like when you talk about a beautiful deleveraging which one you should probably define that so you've looked at this stuff so many times it's really really quite breathtaking that there are ways to do this well there are ways to do this poorly you know we're in an election year I consider myself like the most a political human being on the planet but when I stop and think about okay well if I'm an average person and let's say that I'm really doing my best I'm doing the blocking and tackling I'm saving what I can save I've cut my expenses back I'm I'm earning you know what I can let's hope that they either have kept their job or we're able to quickly get another job how should they be thinking like what are what is the right way to go through this deleveraging at a a political level maybe politics isn't the right word but like at a higher level well you know I don't know what you want it to say I think that each person should understand there's a certain level of basic understanding first take care of yourself and then you know you hope that you have smart people who I think will most important thing is that they're smart in being able to engineer an economy that will increase the size of the pie as well as divide the pie well and then also that this is done in a non antagonistic way smart people working together in a bipartisan way have the capacity of managing this well so if I was giving political advice and that's not what I do but if I was giving political advice the most important thing I think is who can do this who's got the intelligence to do the engineering plus to do it in a manner that we are not fighting with each other that what history has shown us is that when things get difficult people get stressed and they get they can get angry and they could all fight with each other and that produces the next leg of a terrible economy because the economy won't work efficiently if people are fighting with each other the system doesn't work well so one would have to say you know who's gonna bring the country together behind sensible I would say bipartisan programs because if you don't have that then you have a form of revolution and you don't have good management and that's the greatest risk I would say politically so looking at the historical perspective who has done this well and then what have been mistakes that have led to literal revolution when you say who has done it well what do you mean what countries or what periods of time has going through this kind of crisis been managed well so that we come out the other side with his little sort of pain and suffering as possible well an example of well would be the differences in the way Roosevelt did it so again 1929 232 interest rates hit zero they print money we had a large wealth gap and then they sat down and they figured out how do we keep it orderly and how do we change the circumstances with whether it's taxes or how do you realize it so that the system works well there is a risk also at the same time because the world is going through that there's a risk of conflict so in Germany Hitler came in power in 1933 and he came in power in 1933 because there was a lot of internal fighting as to try to bring produce order because that everybody the left and the right you know the Communists and the fascists and they're all fighting about wealth because everybody's fighting about wealth when you have a downturn and then they need the they were democracies for democracies existed then that chose not to be democracies because they became so disorderly that they wanted some strong leader to take charge and run the country and then of course we had a bunch of straw those types of leaders and then they had a war that's our world war two happened so when you look at that you know that's kind of the political landscape but back to the average man in terms of his finances I would say the important thing is those three elements to have a plan and maybe to have a plan with both your family you know how do you get down when things got tough and and you know and then you have to look at you know what happens in policy well policy is a it depends on the person some people would understand more about policy then other people if if you know so it depends on what they should do depends on what they're able to do well as we sort of step back and start taking a longer view of this what's the role that you see education playing in I'm sort of when I grew up it was just assumed I was going to go to college I did go to college and I would have for a very long time told everybody they should be going to college now I'm sort of cooled off on that in terms of the debt that people are getting into I know you and your wife are working a lot in the school system there in Connecticut how do you how do you think about that what's the importance of education in you know when we start thinking about protecting successive generations how much of that comes down to education I education is is the most important thing I I was raised with the very modest economic background my dad was a jazz musician my mom was a stay-at-home mom and but I was lucky to have parents who cared for me and I went to a public school and I got a good education and I came out to a world of equal opportunity and I believe that those are fundamental necessities that that you have to know how to have an education of you know facts like you have to know how to read write and rithmetic but you also have to know how to behave well with others to be a good citizen is operate in a civil way to be able then to go into jobs and that those took that education can be anything that works I think the big thing is you know three big things on what I think work should be make your work and your passion the same thing and make it economic if it works that you love your work you'll probably be better at your work and then you find the so you you want those things and then the then there's the economics of it and so it could be anything from learning trades whatever it may be education certainly does not have to be college college is over emphasized and having a good productive career when I watch these remarkable people who are on the front lines of dealing with this virus situation and I look at them the grit some of the greatest people are the people who have the capabilities of doing certain things that are not have nothing to do with going to college and they're on the front lines and they're contributing a lot and so we so in education and civility but that means that there has to be equal opportunity so yes what my wife and I have done is we're particularly heartbroken or disenchanted with poverty affecting children in and high school students having the equal opportunity of education so our particular focus in Connecticut we made a donation a large - 100 million dollar donation to the state of Connecticut for them to match and are working to get those students through high school and but it could be trade school and into jobs and to be able to be productive so what you look at all societies and these are the things that matter most the society becomes a fairer society when there's equal opportunity for education and also it becomes a more productive Society because the opportunities when extended throughout the whole population means that you get more people on the basis of merit right now that system is not operating in a good effective way for example people in the top forty percent of income will spend about five times as much money on their children's education than those in the bottom sixty percent and that's not that's that's neither fair nor productive so I think that these types of questions are going to have to be examined by policymakers in a bipartisan way as we go through this but yes you an answer to your question you know it really starts with good total education the good raising of children in terms of their actual formal education and their informal education and then going out and having an environment of equal opportunity so one thing that I know you have leveraged to tremendous effect and this is the very thing I took from principles that changed my life is to stress test your ideas to put him out there to ask how do I know I'm right so like I said I've really been losing sleep over how I can be most helpful in helping people navigate all of what's happening in and I have come to a conclusion that could be pure delusion and I would love to know what you think it's along the lines of education which is why I was asking about that so my obsession is skill acquisition I think that so the advice that I've been giving to people if you've lost your job or not like we have spent probably the last ten years maybe more in an employee ease market they've really had this election they've been able to put a lot of pressure on employers and now you're seeing a flip and you're seeing this is gonna be an employer's market there's gonna be a lot of people obviously there's north of 30 million now it's gonna be a lot of people looking for work and my thing is if you want to get your ideal job you want to make your passion something that you're able to pursue you've got to be able to outperform other people and I would say the same thing to a kid that's coming up somebody that's about to graduate whatever like you've got to be better than the next person you've got to build a skill set that allows you to excel and my thing is like you you are living proof of one simple thing if you can outperform people there really is no cap to how far you can go you put your money where your mouth is when it comes to an investment strategy obviously with Bridgewater you guys have just outperformed people it's really been quite extraordinary and yes people need to save yes they need to focus on where you know they're getting their income from they need to practice austerity measures all of that but ultimately people can propel themselves forward if they're out there learning growing getting better pushing I would go so far as to say even being aggressive to try to continue to move up but it comes down to recognizing that skills have utility they actually let you do something but let you out invest somebody they let you build a better house or a better bridge and so what I want to see people do through this time I just think most people will be obliterated mentally they're going to get scared they're gonna panic they are not going to be able to think clearly and they won't put themselves on a path to excel so wonder what what am I missing it because I know that people don't that is not a popular thing to say right now not something that I get a lot of negative feedback from people it's like basically pull yourself up by your bootstraps so I'd love to understand like where are the flaws and not thinking where when you talk about there not being equal opportunity one what can people do to write that ship at a personal level I get I get at the higher up systemic the way that we address it your policy and things like that but at a personal level is there is there something people can do well I think you're exactly right I think that that though is short of specifics and you know that particular action and the question is who can help them so yes if they're wily and hardworking and clever enough they still need triangulation and help to find out where is the training program what is that skill they they can't do it alone they have to do with the help I and I would recommend you know I did two 30 minute videos one is principles for success at 30 minute YouTube video and it's about an approach to life that a lot of people something like 14 I don't know a lot of people have seen this and I would say it's worth your 30 minutes I think in terms of approach to life and then there's also if you're interested in the economy I did a 30 minute video how the economic machine works in 30 minutes and that had a lot of use more 14 million I think and it was liked so um I can't tell them in this very brief interview how we're going to exactly who will get them that training and that capability but I think you're right skill that you love self that sells is what you need now you go to each person has their own particular way of possibly getting that to some case it might be a start low in an organization and work your way up to some of the cases it may be a government training program to some care in some cases it may be a relative or a friend who can get you going and so on as I said one of my main principles is there is always a path out there you just don't happen to see the path now so you have to find the path if you find that path and you can't find it alone the way you find that path is to speak to other people get many ideas by other people and then you know you have to keep yourself trial and error you've got to keep at it like when you're getting a job or getting the skill it's a lot of trying and so that requires certain amount of discipline and if you have a discipline problem get help with the discipline problem have somebody kick you out of bed or whatever it is that um you can get there there is a path you just don't see the right path at the moment and you can because there are many many paths the most important thing I think is to know your nature what is your nature what is what what are your strengths and weaknesses and your likes and your dislikes and once you know that then you also think what are the fits oh I would like that job and the job could pay me well and then you figure out ok how do you do it how do I get to it but there are different people in different circumstances so I can't answer them all now yeah I agree with you so I want to go back 1 thank you for the feedback that I'm I was being super vague I think that's really helpful so let's start getting really specific as much as we can knowing that people are going to be sort of at very different places as they're hearing this but I think this will be helpful so one the video that you're talking about and I'll speak for you and correct me where I go astray but I watch the video multiple times think it's really extraordinary and basically to put it in a really small nutshell it's basically go out try things fail a lot learn and keep progressing and that that's basically if I remember right you have like this sort of circular ascent and it's from the failing and the learning that you ultimately make the progress but if you put your head down you don't want to see your mistakes you don't want to see the flaws in your thinking you're gonna trap yourself at a plateau and you're never gonna be able to push beyond that so you've got to seek out disconfirming evidence you have to seek out where you're weak and in fact one thing I will I sort of disagree I get what people mean so when you say know your nature I will say by nature but before you get to that second part let me just on the thing yes it's the looping and learning from mistakes but it another part of it is the realization that you don't have to make your decisions in your own head okay that when you start to realize that you know what you're good at and what you're bad at that a power comes to you when you start to know okay who's the best person to give me the advice or who's the best person to lead me through this or when you start to know that you can go beyond what you think and you're opinionated miss so that you can triangulate I call it triangulate with others so that you find three people who are really capable of giving you good advice who will argue with each other and argue with you so you can see all sides of it and you work yourself through so it's not just your eyes looking for the path but it's other people's eyes looking with the path with you knowing that you're going to have successes and failures but that power of that collective learning and triangulate well with humbleness is a great power as you go through that cycle I love that so I'll push that a step further and I will say this so I'm gonna be super blunt to anybody watching right now and Rea if you think that I'm wrong I trust that you will jump in no one is coming to save anybody and that's the hard truth and if I look at history and even if I listen which I've listened to literally every word that you've said on this subject publicly anyway that this is just gonna suck like there is going to be a level of brutality that most of us have not experienced in our lives companies are gonna go under people are gonna lose their jobs they're gonna be people that are going to struggle to find their next meal and what what I want people to understand is just like you just said you can triangulate you can get people to help you think through but I want them to understand that they can do that in a book at a library they can do that online if they still have access to the Internet which as of right now even just going to the library you can get access to being online you changed my life before you and I ever met I read your book I had never I didn't even know who you were at that point and somebody just said hey you've got to read this books got really powerful ideas on trust and creating these hard principles out of all your mistakes I read it immediately recognized that this aligned is what I call the physics of being human it was so in line with removing my blind spots getting people acknowledging that other people are better than me at certain things and so while I take a little bit of an exception because I I think you can't say what your good and bad until you've been at this for a long time you've been trying you've been pushing you learning you're failing because by nature I'm lazy I I am NOT very bright I think there are people that can process raw data far faster than I can but I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong I'm willing to admit that I don't know I'm willing to admit when I make a mistake and because of that because I go in that cycle that you talk about making a mistake looking naked Liat it not pretending I didn't screw up asking people to point out my flaws and then going and now I'm gonna have to do what is called deliberate practice to get better at that thing and I don't just ask and I don't think people can afford right now to just say oh what do I want to do we're for a lot of people this is gonna be Maslow's hierarchy of needs you need safety you need security you need food shelter and I think it's gonna come to that and so recognizing there are people out there right now that know more than you you are going to make a mistake but those mistakes are huge learning opportunities you have to admit that you made one you have to seek people that can help you remove those blind spots and then you have to put in the work to get better does any of that sound crazy oh that's totally totally right and then it comes from once you have a fear that you might be wrong but you have still the audaciousness and courage to go forward you're a lot smarter than the person who thinks they know there's a there's a quote that's Jefferson said he who knows he knows not is closer to the truth then he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and and so when you know that and with and then with your character and your determination you go forward the smartest people I know are the most humble it what the more you learn the more you realize Oh on eager to take in so that's right um but back on your audience I think your audience ranges from you know there's a wide range that you have in your own and I would say that there are many people in your audience who can plan for a simple lifestyle that can be wonderful sometimes we acquire these needs that aren't at anywhere near as big as as we make them out to be and you know do you have a bed to sleep in do you have food to eat do you have basic health care okay if you start to think okay what are my needs that I really need and on okay and how can I make provisions for those needs then once you've got that in your mind you're you're free okay you can go beyond that you know that you may say listen oh I can do that for a year or two years or a month or whatever but you I think we visualize too much the things that we're used to one of the good things about this exercise is that you can bring it brings you back to basics you can be brought to basics and like I'm saying if you have a bed to sleep it and you've got food and so on and you have those basics and good relationships with people who care about you and basic health care so if you budget for that and you figure how do you have it maybe it isn't in the luxurious place you're in maybe it's in the country and so on once you visualize that and you get that down in your head and you say oh I can get that then your stress will disappear because you as you visualize that in many ways that's a happy life it doesn't take a lot to there's stimulation there's nature there's relationships these fundamental wonderful things the most important things can be obtained and so for many of you I think if you look at that and you budget for that I'm seeing a number of people who are going broke and and I've watched this over many years and really it's just the adjustment process one that once they get to that point where ah you know they have they get settled they're fine it's the ambiguity it's the worry it's the stress so if you do that from the beginning and you have that that played out in your head then you know everything from there you can play with and it's your it's icing on the cake you know I want to emphasize you can budget for that you could look at that find that scenario find what that looks like so that you know you got it down then you know you're safe once you've got safe everything beyond that is luxury I forget who the Greek philosopher was maybe you remember that used to go and he would sleep on the street like once a month or something like that in shabby clothing because he wanted to remind himself oh this is what I'm afraid of and this thing isn't that bad I mean I always found that interesting I take a slightly different approach I think that is really powerful and I think that's an important anchor for people so my wife and I always say to each other because look we have been dirt poor and we have now been very wealthy and all along the journey we've always said to each other look man if I have you like everything else I'm good so literally there are only two things I'm legitimately afraid of there are things I don't want but there are two things I am legitimately afraid of brain damage because then I cannot build my way back I can't have the level of fulfillment and joy that I want and losing my wife because a life shared to me is like the the highest importance now having said that I'm gonna set all that aside night I hope people heard you and I hope that they take it to heart to paint a lifestyle that they can love and it's beautiful but it's simple and you know they don't have all this overhead hanging over them but I know thyself as you were saying know what you're good at what you're not I've always told people if you want a calm peaceful life I'm not your guy there there's somebody else for you to go listen to and follow that journey if you want to be aggressive and you want to build something that matters to you I don't need it to be big I don't need to be a business whatever I just people that want to express themselves want to get great they want to become extraordinary at something that's what I'm far more interested in and so the way that I look at it is right now it's a time where economically the chessboard has has been flipped over but in in that moment there's going to be opportunity created and for people that and this my central thesis is what I said earlier panic is the problem people cannot allow themselves to panic which is why I like what you're saying don't don't worry if you're if you lose everything right as long as you have the things that really matter to you and I think that's important so people don't panic so they can be clear-headed so they can figure out where the opportunities are and then they get the skillset that they need to capitalize on that opportunity which for me is like when I and that's why I keep saying I'm losing sleep over like how do we get information out so that I've worked in the inner cities a lot and to get the information to somebody out there that they can triangulate right that that's not a rich upper class exercise that's a the information is out there it's been put in books on a website in a podcast like the the number of the world's greatest thinkers right now that you could be taking this information from but you have to be willing to test it you have to be willing to incorporate it and actually act on it and do something so I'm not clear what's your question about that not so much a question is I'm presenting what I think are ideas that I want people to one with partly I'm hoping if there is a flaw in my thinking I want you to point it out so going back to the need for specificity so we're talking about there is an equal opportunity because there's not equal access to education which I will take as the core of your thesis for generationally moving forward in a useful way true it's it's a core piece yeah okay so what I'm saying is I really hope that that gets addressed and I will certainly do whatever I can you're obviously doing a massive amount there but I also want people to not wait for someone to make that change I want them to realize right now today they can go and learn something they can educate themselves you said that it's not about college it's about getting us that lets you live a fulfilling filling meaningful life with a meaningful career and so I want to see people take action but if there is a flaw in that thinking I don't know no I don't of course I think it's totally right I think then the issue is going to the next step for the particulars of actually helping somebody and and there's a combination of not only what they can do themselves but finding others who will help to take them by the hand and help to provide that guidance to be able to do that so 500 job let's say you know you think okay how do you find a job so you have to be specific so what we could say great find a skill okay great but literally how do you go about finding that skill let's talk so so one thing you get about from an investing standpoint is when this begins to happen in monetary policy begins to break down won't spend a lot of time describing a fiat currency but essentially money that isn't associated to anything like gold so you've broken that so you said it gets reassociate it because gold has intrinsic value or rocks because it's used to build things so what is looking at the historical perspective what are things that are safe that's in terms of this job is going to be here in five years that this is a good place to begin building that skill set you're talking about the skill set not the investment I guess yeah skill set I think that that's maybe more useful for people if they've just lost their job and you know they're sort of just trying to make ends meet at this point well in terms of I think in terms of any environment the lessons that we get over and over again is that you can't be sure what the next environment and twists and turns are what you don't know is greater than anything you do know so if if you were in the airline business or you were in the hospitality business and that was wonderful and you liked it and everything else all of a sudden that changed in important ways so the important thing it more are the more general abilities in terms of investing what that means is you need to know how to diversify well that's the most important thing in terms of any aspect in life to know how to deal with what you don't know is more important than anything you know because the world is so much more surprising than you can really be sure of so in a general same sense for skills I mean I think and skills are part of you what are your environment you know find out those things that are that are self-sufficient and maintain flexibility you have to know how to maintain flexibility and change well if your career is in one area you have to know how this you have to develop the skill for changing a career and that all comes down to knowing how to find the path to know how to triangulate well with others so you've done such an extraordinary job ray I truly stand in awe of being able to go and learn a new area new elements of the world when you announce that you were gonna be taking this historical view and that you were gonna go backwards I mean something like a thousand years or however far you went back how do you begin that research process so for somebody that's like I want to invest my time wisely what is sort of a high-level way that you approach learning in general well for me it's a lot the alignment of the three things that I said before what is my passion then you know knowing my nature what is my passion and can I align my work to my passion and then does it pay adequately for me to take care of my needs and for me on I do that because it's my passion you know and so when you find your passion that's aligned with your work if you can do that but how do you go about learning something new so when you started researching the historical context that what we're going through now is it picking up books is it you see I have been my nature is I'm extremely curious okay and I love my game my game is to learn about the world interact with the world and bet on it and I'm very curious so so it might be whatever your game is like you've got a game okay that's why we're you're interviewing me because that's your passion that's your game and if you can line those three things up but and you know your nature because there if you know your nature you can find your role you want to find the right role for you right it's not just go get a job and you know I might say I would like to be an architect well I mean you have to know your nature and then you can find your role and so on I'm hesitant to say that what is true for me is true for somebody else so when you ask me what you know like okay those are my big things not meaningful work and meaningful relationships like relationships matter a huge amount to me so if I can have a work that feeds my curiosity that I'm passionate about and that pays me adequately and you know and I do that with great people those are the things that feed me and so you have to know those things that feed you like I like the big picture somebody might like details you know that I you know you have to pick those things that are for your nature and and align those things I'm talking about and how did you specifically go about starting this big research project did it start with a book did it start with reaching out to historians no no it's I mean in a sense the journey started out when I was 12 years old and I caddied and I and then I took my caddying money and had newspaper route and I did a number of things like that I took my odds and ends and I put it in the stock market it you know and and then I and and I got hooked on the game do you remember that the nature of questions in that process like that so I think it was Tony Robbins that said if you ask a better question then you're gonna get a better answer and basically questions are gonna control the outcome do you focus on what question you're asking and trying to answer or is this something completely different than that questions questions that's right it's the hunger to know you'll you'll notice a difference in people there will be people who wow you listen good question good question good question then there will be people who can't ask questions that they're just telling you what they think they almost you think they're acting smart they think they're acting smart and they're the stupid ones the smart ones are old question now how do I have to find the answer to the question next question because the questions and the power and the pull to answer those questions and so on is the thing that drags you forward and it's excitement do you have a pull okay what's your pull you know so yeah it's all in questions I think it's all in a journey life is in a journey an adventure that's what I'm trying to say in principles in for success or you can get by the way but principles if any of these principles are also principles in action is an app that's available on the ice store ice or and it's free and it has all of these things in it but yeah so I don't you know because we'll we'll separate think people might like that but you don't have to know your pull and then along the way you're gonna have your adventure and you're gonna learn and then you go through your phases of life and each phase is different like you talked about your phase you're in the middle of your phase in life you talked about your wife and your relationship with her okay that is a phase of life and when you go and by putting it in perspective it's helpful in the back of that book principles for success there's a life arc chart and if you know where you are on that life arc and you know what the next 10 years is typically like and you know what you're the people you care about are on their life arcs you can almost know what's coming at you and then you could start to think about it so it's at that level of knowing yourself and knowing how these things happen over and over again that you can achieve your path don't be surprised most life is this is the same things that happen over and over again you're born you probably have parents to take take care of you maybe you have one maybe F 2 but somebody does they teach you you have your first phase of your life where you're dependent on them and you're learning then you come out to your second phase of your life and then you're working and others are dependent on you and then you have that so these things happen over and over again and and you just have to know that path and know how to approach it so really fast before I let you go you're working on a new book the New World Order which I find very fascinating and you've been publishing some of the chapters on LinkedIn what do you think the odds are just to really go back to the finance side of this what do you think the odds are that America remains the reserve bank and the reserve currency and if it's not us who do you think it will be well all currency is eventually die and all empires eventually diminish and their other empires and the question is essentially the pace what how that happens I think that but for most of your listeners it's most likely going to happen in a way that's tolerable if you can manage it we'll think about the decline of the British Empire and you see a people or a living in London and so on it's not that the world blows up it's that they have to readapt and they know how to readapt and so I think that we're going to come through more difficult times I think the next three to five years will be difficult times in ways that haven't existed in their lifetime but has existed in other periods of time like the 1932 45 period so to be able to adapt well to invent yourself again to adapt and to navigate that maybe with the perspective of knowing what those other times were like is the best thing to do so the reason I'm doing that series on LinkedIn is to help people understand what those times are like and then help them prepare the reason I wrote the book principles is so that it's it's a particular approach because the same things happen over and over again for basically the same reasons and once you get that and you have the self-discipline to know how to play the game well then you'll be fine so one where can people connect with you right now then I have one last question that I want to ask well I'm mom as I say I'm on social media and we and I'll interact with people on social media the standards you know LinkedIn Twitter face Facebook and Instagram by and large but the more and the most valuable stuff is if you go to principals comm you can get the whole pile or I would say that some of those places you know so as this next three to five year part of the cycle hits us what is one thing that people can do that you know from the historical perspective will most insulate them from the probably emotional and maybe financial damage whatever you think is more important well the the things that I thought about some of the things I mentioned earlier the plan for the worst-case scenario and make it terrific is one of the things the understanding how to triangulate well to deal with whatever problems that you're going to face and how to work that through to find the path and find your nature but also one thing that's helped me a lot is meditation that if meditation gives you a calmness an equanimity so that you can almost look at your circumstances and you can navigate it with the clarity of thought without all of that stress it's healthy because it reduces stress and it also makes you smarter to make the decisions well so I would say that that would also be something that I would recommend because if if you have the equanimity that centeredness that calm centeredness and you have your plan and you triangulate well with others so that you can get all the best advice and don't have to approach it in your own head you know you're a long way there I love it right thank you so much for taking the time to hang out today I really really appreciate it man and thank you for everything you're putting out there you have definitely been one of the people that I've used to triangulate my own views and think through all this stuff so I really appreciate it well you're giving a great service to your listeners and I'm happy to be part of that thank you for what you're doing guys if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be a legendary it's fundamental right when you got this and you're not going above it and saying why do you have this or how should this occur then you've got trouble