Transcription
Anyone listening wants to say okay? The world seems uncertain. And yeah, I have five kids and five grandkids. And so I look at my grandkids especially, and my youngest daughter, and I think 40% of the jobs—if you believe the studies—are going to be gone because of AI, because of robotics, because of nanotechnology, and so forth. So how do I arm them to do well in the future?
The answer is: there’s three skills everybody needs. And they’re so simple. And they’re the skills that make anybody masterful and made you successful in your insurance business; it’s what’s made you successful in this business. The first thing is pattern recognition. If you start recognizing patterns, fear disappears. Cuz like right now, people say, “Oh, we’ve never been so divided,” or, “Now we’re, you know, the country has a little more optimism,” but, “We’ve never been so divided.” That’s total BS. I can show you the letters that are put out that were posted between Jefferson and Adams, and if you read what they wrote, it makes anything the left or right has said about each other look calm compared to that. We go in cycles. So when you recognize a pattern, you no longer react. Losers react; leaders anticipate. Anticipation is power. So when you know the pattern—and that’s what makes anybody great—they see the pattern. But what makes them really great is the second skill: when you learn to use the patterns.
So if you and I look at anybody—you see somebody that’s great in investing—I’ve invested in, interviewed 50 of the very—more than 50 of the very best in the world: the Ray Dalio’s, the Carl Icans, the Warren Buffets, all the best in private equity—and what you begin to see is there are certain patterns, even though they go about it differently, that are universal. If you sow the same seeds, you reap the same rewards. But they know how to use it. If you see somebody great in music, or dance, or a movie maker, they know where to move the camera to move your emotion; they bring it in close, when to bring the music up, how to—to do it. They know it; that’s makes them masterful. But the third-level skill is pattern creation. That’s what you’ve begun to do; that’s what I’ve begun to do. It’s like when you learn to play a piano: most people learn someone else’s patterns; you learn to see the patterns, recognize them, then you learn to use them. But if you do enough other music, then now you get to come out and you start creating things. So I’m standing on the shoulders of all the people before me, as are you, because I learned so many things from them. But now, at this stage of my life, the last 15, 20 years, I’ve been able to create things because I know what those patterns are. So those skill sets—that’s how my kids will do well. Cuz if you can learn rapidly and recognize patterns, there’s nothing you can’t do well at. Noting the patterns of where we are in history, the pattern of where you are in your own life.
I’ll give you a simple example: what made human beings go from survival, living in fear, where we’re hunter-gatherers, to where we could stay in one place, build communities, build cities, build countries, have homes, have the educa—what made that possible was one pattern recognition that changed humanity. Do you know what it was? Pattern recognition. You’re not talking fire; you’re not talking pattern recognition community that we need each other; what—what is it? Seasons. Until we understood seasons, we had to constantly move from place to place and hope we could find our food. But once we understood seasons, we knew: if you do the right thing at the wrong time, there is zero reward. But if you do the right thing at the right time, the rewards are immense. So if you plant in the winter, I don’t care how hard you work or the summer, you get nothing. It’s like recognizing the seasons changed humanity.
Well, there’s a season in your own life. Some of your viewers are younger, maybe 0 to 21. Think of that at springtime. When it’s springtime, what does spring have? Everything grows easily. If it’s a springtime in business, you think you’re a genius, cuz your business grows; everybody’s business grows because it’s a time of tremendous optimism and immense growth. The environment’s different; people’s attitudes are different. But these cycles go through 18- to 20-year cycles. If you study a thousand years of Roman history—which I’ve done—or 500 years of Anglo-American history, you see about every 18 to 20 years there’s a shift. It’s kind of like we exhaust an emotion. Do you ever smile so much your face hurt? Yes. You need to change; sure. Well, after springtime, the easy time, comes a summertime. And a summer is always a testing time; it’s tougher. A lot of people plant in the spring and they go, “Where’s my—you know, where’s my crop?” Are you new? You have to get through all the seasons, right? So summer tests people. And then you go to another reaping time; you go to the fall, where it’s easy again, where now things flow, economies go crazy, people want to give you a mortgage even though you barely have a pulse and not a job. You remember those days? Of course. No income, no assets, and boom, just give it to—anyway. And markets go through the roof. But again, what follows that is winter. And the great thing about life is you never skip from the fall to spring; you always go through winter. Some are short, some are long, some are hard, some are easy, but we go through them. They have a purpose; they weed out the weak; they make us, if we push through it, stronger; they make everything better going forward. So there’s a purpose in every season.
So 0 to 21, you could call the springtime of most people’s lives. Some of us had to go to work at 7, 8 years old to support our family, but still, you are still protected. If there’s a war, you’re not going to war; someone’s protecting you; someone’s mostly providing for—for you, usually providing for you. You’re being fed information; you’re learning. 22 to 42, that’s the summertime; that’s the testing time; that’s when most people come out and go, “I know I was taught all this, but I—I’m going to test what I believe.” And you’re very optimistic; in fact, you think you’re invincible. At 22, 23, 24, you go like, “I’m going to be president of the United States; I’m going to be a multi-billionaire; and I’m have 100 relationships simultaneously, and everyone’s going to be happy.” And then you’re 30 and you’re going, “I can’t even keep one relationship happy, and I’m burnt to the ground.” So you go through the phase. But think of 22 to 42 as being like the soldier of society. In fact, if we go to war, you’re the ones going to war: 22 to 42. In business, you’re the soldier; you’re learning; you’re growing; you’re grunting it out; you’re hustling. If you work hard during that time, and you’ve done well during spring, you come to the fall. You know, you look at 43 to 63, that’s your power period, right? That’s the period where you had explosive growth in your business, as an example; that’s when you became who you are, where your name became known; that’s where all of a sudden you can do probably more today with your pinky than when you work 20 hours a day. And now if you work 20 hours a day, you produce gen—you know, generational impact, much greater than that. So that period of time—by the way, 22 to 42 of people are in that stage of life right now; it’s statistically the most unhappy period because people are trying; they thought it was going to be easy; it’s not so easy. Eventually learned, usually the—yeah. And what they learned is we’re not as easy as I thought; I’m not as invincible as I thought; and they have to figure things out, and they’re trying to prove them—to themselves and others; they haven’t figured it all out yet. Now some people do these seasons earlier, some later, but it’s a good—good range. In that power period, that’s when you have greatest economic growth; that’s when you start having long-term relationships. But the ultimate time—and I say this as a brother who’s heading in that direction, cuz I never would have believed it—is really when you get to 63 to 83, or 63 to 103, or 63 to 120, which is the oldest humans; the final season, the winter season. But that’s the season in which you’re the elder of society. And if you’ve done your job up front, you’ve reaped so much, all you want to do is give back. And you don’t worry about what people think about you, because you sure like to make everybody happy, but you know—you know, unless you got holes, you know, Jesus couldn’t pull it off, so I don’t know if you’re going to do that, right? So it’s like, I’m here to help the people that are interested; I’m not here to say I’m the right thing for everybody. And you own yourself at a different level, and you really can move a pinky and make things happen.
So you know, I remember you had the gentleman from—for turning on, and we had him on as well; very interesting guy to talk to. And they wrote that book on December 31st of ’97, the fact that we’re going to go through these four turnings: Neil Howe and—what’s the co-authors? And William Strauss. But you know, I interviewed them in ’97; I remember that. Say, “Trust me; I know that’s—that’s why I’m bringing it up.” Yeah. So you know, with you, Tony, this is very helpful, but I want to transition into the next—but I want to mention one thing: if I—the same thing happens in history. So just for a second, if you’re born in 1910—you don’t have to be a historian to think about this—and those first 20 years are protected. People born in 1910 were born at a time when World War I was going on, but then we went and solved the war, won the war, came—came back and had the Roaring 20s, had this incredible economy, right? So when they’re 10 years old, the economy is going crazy; we got all this new technology; we got cars; we got planes; we got radio; we got television. And that generation was called Flappers because they were looked down on, like a lot of, let’s say, Z generation or Millennials are by X Generation people or sometimes baby boomers, because they didn’t have to go through the tough times. But what happened to that kid born in 1910, in 1929, when he’s thinking he’s going to go get a car and he’s going to go get party? The whole world turned upside down: the Depression, people jumping out of buildings, the Dust Bowl, people standing in line for bread. And by the way, they made it through; 10 years; 10 years of Depression. Now that doesn’t mean every day is dark; you know, you can be winter and have beautiful days; ’31, ’32 were nice times, but the overall thing was testing, and they became strong cuz they had to be. Then, right when they turned 29—1939—what happens? World War II. You and I weren’t alive then, but anybody was alive then, it looked like the world was—Hitler was taking over countries in days; Blitzkrieg everywhere. And so what happened is that generation volunteered and went to war, and they won the war, and they came back the heroes; they’re now known as The Greatest Generation. And they were known as Flappers and losers. What made them strong was pushing through winter. Everybody goes through winter; if they live 80 years plus, you don’t have a choice; it just—which season are you going to do it in? The early stage, the middle stage, late stage; it’s coming. But—but watch this. Think about those people: they come home and think how the world changes when—and after winter—it’s now springtime. And the vets are now moving out to the suburbs, and they got a basically free down payment on the home, and we have all these new technologies. Think about the 50s and early 60s, until Kennedy is killed; there’s a level of optimism in this country that’s amazing: springtime. After Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, it’s a different world; it’s a testing summer where young and old fight each other; happens every 80 years: generational fights. “I’m not going to war.” It was a completely different mindset. Those people raised kids differently than they did, and so their kids became latchkey kids, kids that were let themselves in the house and watch the television, have fun for themselves. So they developed different values as a generation: the X generation, more pragmatic. If you ask people during the 60s and 70s—which they did in the universities—“What’s more important: a philosophy of life that will make you happy, or the pragmatic skills to make you financially secure or free?” 82% said philosophy of life. Wow. 60s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, they asked the same question: complete reversal; 80, 81% saying, “No, pragmatic skills to be financially free.” And what season are we in now? Winter. And when it’s winter, everything’s exaggerated: it’s World War III; we’re all going to die. Some of the same things were happening before; you don’t have that mindset; it’s a fear time. We’re about 3/4 the way through it. If you study historians, Four Turnings guys, various people will tell you that we still have to go through some more economic challenges; we still have to go through probably some form of war, even a cyber war with China or something. But on the other side of it is another springtime. What I want people to get is you got to know where you are in your—your life and where you are in history, and you got to learn to take advantage of it. You can’t complain that it’s winter during winter. If you start a business in winter and you succeed—60% of all Fortune 1000 companies that are alive today, the biggest, some successful companies—could have been born in any one of those four seasons; they’re all born in winter; wow, in a recession or depression. To love it—from FedEx to Disney. Disney was Depression; FedEx was a recession. I can walk you through the mall. So that process makes you strong; sure. And that is why—here’s the history of the world in four sentences, and I’ll shut up: good times create weak people; they’re not bad people, they’re just weak cuz they haven’t been challenged. Weak people create bad times. Bad times create strong people. Strong people create great times. Millennials and Z’s are the next heroes, and they’re already starting it because they’ve starting to go through winter; we’re not done with it; they’re going to open up things up. I—I’m very excited about what the future will have; I’m very optimistic about it because studying history shows you patterns. There’s no guarantees, but there’s patterns. And when you understand the patterns, fear disappears; you’re able to figure out how to maximize anything you’re involved with. And so I think it’s important and understand these patterns. And I help people see the patterns. Whatever stage of life you’re in, there’s predictable problems and there’s predictable opportunities. I see the stage—you’re 46? 46. Yeah, 46. So I’m 65; I can remember 46 so vividly; what was going through—you know, you and I are different in lots of different ways, but there’s certain patterns that are immutable. And so if I can help in some time for someone to say, “Hey, here’s some opportunity; here’s the challenge you can face,” so you can anticipate the challenge, then I can help you have a lot less suffering, a lot more joy. That’s my mission.