How To Get Smarter and Wealthier - What To Read, Listen To & Watch

Today we're going to talk about how to get smarter and wealthier. So if you think about the wealthiest people in the world, they all have one thing in common. Usually if you go to their homes, they all have a library. And so a lot of them, they read a ton, but they're also watching a lot of stuff too. They're also listening to a lot of stuff, maybe not watching as much, but they might be listening a lot. They could be talking to friends, they could be listening to audiobooks or podcasts. They're just trying to get better all the time. They're just trying to learn learn as much as they can. If that's the case, then one of the biggest shortcuts is you can be kind of emulating what they're listening to, what they're watching. And so I'm going to give you a couple of things that were recommended to my friends, people that are making, you know, anywhere from 7 to 9 figures plus a year, right? So 7 figures would be $1 million a year, 8 figures would be $10 million, and then 9 figures would be $100 million. These are things that my friends read. These are things that I read as well. I'm going to start with podcasts first because podcasts are easier to consume. You can be doing stuff. The first podcast I want to talk about is My First Million. So this is from Sam Parr, who is the co-founder of the newsletter The Hustle, and also Sean Peery. And he founded a company, or I think he was the CEO of a company called Bebo, which then sold to Twitch. And then I think he's with Twitch right now. But both guys are super smart, great operators, and also just very smart when they— when it comes to business trends in general. If you wanna learn how to just think about starting a new business, how to think in general, My First Million is great. And I started with that one too because if you think about what it takes to become quote unquote wealthy, it's really about reprogramming how you think about things. You know, I used to think it was a lot of baloney when people would tell me it's all about mindset. And then you realize as you get a little more older, a little more experienced, that everything is all about mindset. It's really about how you're wired because how you think about things directly correlates with the types of actions that you end up taking. The second one is Invest Like the Best. From Patrick O'Shaughnessy. I believe that's how you pronounce his last name, but just type in Invest Like the Best. It's great because he interviews a lot of amazing people such as the president of Shopify, people from real estate, and just a lot of different perspectives. And when you think about investing, people that have a long-term time horizon, the way they look at life is very different than people— most people, I would argue, look at life from a short-term lens, right? How do I make money today? How do I make money right now? How can I get a Lambo to impress other people? How can I get a big house to impress other people? It's all me, me, me, right? But when you have a long-term mindset on things, and it just causes you to look at life that way and just be able to defer and delay gratification for as long as possible. And you realize, you know, as time goes on, you know, you actually end up winning more than other people that had, you know, short-termism. So, and then the third one would be the All In podcast. This is with David Sacks, who founded Yammer, was on the PayPal team. Chamath Palihapitiya was the VP of Growth at Facebook, and now he's like, he's a billionaire, he's a well-known investor, you see him on TV all the time. Jason Calacanis, well-known angel investor. And then David Friedman. I don't know too much about him though. So the All In podcast is great because you have different perspectives from amazing investors and sometimes they fight each other on it. This is just how these types of people think. Once you've leveled up to be able to think like that, you know, these are the types of conversations that you're having and you be able— you're basically able to listen into these conversations. You're a fly on the wall. So I think that's great. The fourth one here would be the Tim Ferriss podcast. So before you roll your eyes, I mean, you know, I know some people are like, oh, Tim Ferriss doesn't have good— like a good podcast. I think it's great because Some of the people that he brings on, these are pretty powerful people. We're talking about, you know, Vitalik Buterin. I think that's how you pronounce his last name. One of the co-founders of Ethereum. He had him on with a session with Naval Ravikant. I think it was like a 3-hour session or so. He also had the president of Shopify on, just longer form of conversation. Jerry Seinfeld as well. You know, sometimes I like going long form, especially if I'm gonna go on a long trip. So I think the Tim Ferriss podcast is great for that. And then the 5th one will be Starting Greatness from the VC Mike Maples Jr. And he interviews really interesting people. And he's also, he's also got a lot of experience backing some amazing companies. So I just like that type of perspective. And last but not least, the Talks at Goldman Sachs. So Talks at GS, so Talks at Goldman Sachs. You get, you get to hear interviews from the founder of SoftBank, the CEO of Microsoft. I think Bill Gates has been on in the past as well. So just really love hearing it. And a lot of these people that are creating, such as the All-In Podcast, you have kind of, you know, people, these are 9 figures. 10-figure entrepreneurs, right? Billionaires or investors. So they don't need to be doing this stuff, but they're doing it because they're having fun and they want to add more value to the world. I just think that's super, super helpful. So that's the first section on podcasting. Now the second section is going to be a little shorter, but this will be kind of the things I'm reading from a newsletter perspective and also what my friends are reading too. I enjoy reading Morning Brew, and even though Morning Brew directly competes with The Hustle, which is Sam Parr's newsletter, I actually enjoy Morning Brew a little more. I just like how it's set up. What I do is I look at it for the first, you know, 3 to 5 minutes. I read it in the morning and then it gets me kind of at least aware of what's going on in the world. I'll read the Wall Street Journal, the digital version. And then there's also the Economist Espresso, which is an app on iOS. That's kind of a quick summary on what's going on in the world as well. And I also enjoy reading Quill Intelligence. That's Q-U-I-L-L Intelligence. That's from Daniela DiMartino Booth. Great newsletter. She talks about kind of what's going on from a finance perspective around the world. What I would also say too is I subscribe to a lot of different Substack newsletters. It's hard to remember everything right now. Those are kind of the newsletters that I read. To kind of keep me up to date on what's going on in the world. And I also read Wall Street Journal CMO Today just because I'm in marketing and that's what that's what interests me. So that's kind of on the newsletter side of things. I'm not really going to get into books in this episode. I think I'll save that for another one. And then on the YouTube side, so YouTube, I really love watching what Noah Kagan is doing. So Noah Kagan's a good friend, and you know he's innovative. He was an early employee at Facebook, early employee at Mint, founded a company called AppSumo. You know he's trying new things, and he quickly grew his YouTube from about I think he was at maybe I don't know fifty thousand or so subscribers. Last year, now he's maybe 130,000 or so. Spent about 240 grand to get there. How do I know that? It's because he reveals all this stuff in his YouTube videos. He's trying this experiment. Here's how much I spent. Here's what I got back. Here's how much I spent. Here's how much I got back. Trying all these different things, and he's growing very quickly. And I just I think it's really interesting what he's doing, and he's following all the all the YouTube rules here: good headline, good thumbnail, engaging video keeps you hooked. So Noah Kagan's great. I really like George Gavin as well. So George Gammon, the reason why I like him is he does 30 to 45-minute videos. It takes him like 8 hours of preparation. You know, when the pandemic first hit, I really wanted to understand what the heck was going on from a macroeconomics perspective. You know, even though macroeconomics can be really complex, George Gammon really simplifies it. So if you want to understand macroeconomics, watch his stuff. I actually was fortunate enough to get to meet him in person, and I didn't realize that he had actually listened to a lot of my podcasts on the marketing school side. So we actually knew of each other. And funny how online content brings people together. So George Gammon's great. I mean, this is— it's kind of a masterclass on how to do YouTube. He's grown quickly from 0 to 250,000 subscribers or so. Just makes really good content and he just delivers consistently. It's just good stuff and you can tell he's having fun while he's doing it. Again, like the last 2 people I talked about, they're rich enough to not need to work anymore but they're still doing this stuff. Why? Because it's fun to create. And the reason I'm creating this right now is also to hopefully get you in that mindset too. Just think about what can you create, what kind of value you can create around the world. These next 2 are— I like them and you might roll your eyes at them because you might think it's basic content, but you know, I like what Graham Stephan says. And the reason why I like him is because he really quickly grew to a couple million subscribers in the last couple years. He reveals how much he's making, he gives his opinion on what's happening in the stock market, the real estate market. You know, there's 10 to 15 minute videos and they're engaging, they keep you hooked, good headlines. Good thumbnails, the content's good as well. So why not? His friend Meet Kevin, who's also a real estate investor, he has a video with I think over seven figures in terms of subscribers, and they make great money doing it. They make great money investing, and they're just teaching investing as well. They're just having a blast while they're doing it. So I think that's kind of the dream for those of you looking at this right now. Like oh, I want to be wealthy. I think it's a reprogramming how you think about things, but then ultimately look at all these other people, these creators having fun on YouTube. These are people that are already rich making videos, right? You can do it both ways. You can become a creator, become famous, and then you can become rich. You know, do just add more value to the world. You know, create businesses and all that. Or you can start a business first and then you can try to become famous after, right? It doesn't have to be in any specific order. Lex Fridman Clips. So these next two are more more clips channels. So Lex Fridman, I enjoyed the long-form videos that he does, but he he's a deep thinker. He has he has a PhD. I just like that he's very thoughtful with his questions and the types of answers that he gets from people. You can tell you can tell when somebody. Is not very thoughtful about their questions, it's kind of— they're just kind of winging it. He doesn't do that. And then Valuetainment Short Clips, both of these channels, I mean, these clips channels, 5 to 10 minute videos or so but Patrick Bet-David and they're just reacting to things that are happening in society and they're just giving their opinion and their opinion is their opinion. They're not trying to force their views on anybody but they're just discussing what they think is right, what they think is wrong, and I think it's great, right? They could be wrong sometimes, totally fine, I could disagree with them. I just like the fact that they're very articulate with their thoughts and they're debating each other at times on the show as well. These are just a couple things. We talked about podcasts, we talked about newsletters, we talked about YouTube channels as well. These are just ways to get smarter and wealthier. And if you would actually like me to do videos on books to read and also other pieces of content or maybe other courses to consume, things like that, I'm happy to share what's worked well for myself and what's worked well for my friends. Happy to talk about peer groups as well, but maybe this is the very first step Of the How to Get Smarter series. So let me know what you think in the comments. Perhaps I'll make more stuff. Let me know what you think is missing as well. And check out the next video over here. And don't forget to hit the like button because it helps us get more awareness for this video. All right? And we'll catch you later. Bye.