AI transcript
0:00:02 This is an ad by BetterHelp.
0:00:05 What are your self-care non-negotiables?
0:00:07 It’s hard to make time for the things that keep you healthy,
0:00:11 but being consistent with self-care is like working a muscle.
0:00:14 And when life gets crazy, that muscle keeps you strong.
0:00:16 Therapy is the ultimate self-care,
0:00:18 and BetterHelp makes it easy to get started
0:00:21 with affordable online sessions you can do from anywhere.
0:00:24 Never skip Therapy Day with BetterHelp.
0:00:26 Visit betterhelp.com to learn more.
0:00:29 That’s better, H-E-L-P, dot com.
0:00:33 Your mom hates it when you leave six half-full glasses
0:00:34 on your nightstand.
0:00:37 It’s a good thing mom lives on the other side of the country.
0:00:39 And it’s an even better thing that you can get
0:00:43 six Ikea 365+ glasses for just $9.99.
0:00:45 So go ahead, you can afford to hoard,
0:00:47 because Ikea is priced for student life.
0:00:50 Shop everything you need for back to school at Ikea today.
0:00:56 I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:00:59 Josh Brown, the CMBC commentator and hedge fund manager
0:01:01 has become one of our favorite people.
0:01:03 We asked him to do a guest post.
0:01:05 This is adapted from his forthcoming book,
0:01:07 You Weren’t Supposed to See That,
0:01:09 coming out September 4th.
0:01:12 Optimism as a Default Setting, as read by George Hahn.
0:01:18 At the turn of the 20th century,
0:01:22 banker J.P. Morgan was the most powerful man on Wall Street,
0:01:25 perhaps the most powerful man in the world.
0:01:28 Finance in those days was still the wild west,
0:01:32 largely unregulated and prone to boom and bust cycles,
0:01:35 much more violent than anything we see today.
0:01:39 On several occasions, Morgan personally orchestrated
0:01:41 emergency measures to stop bank runs
0:01:44 that might have otherwise taken down the financial system,
0:01:47 typically increasing his own wealth in the process.
0:01:53 Shortly after one of those near misses, the Panic of 1907,
0:01:57 an old friend of Morgan’s from Chicago came for a visit.
0:02:00 The friend was, in the phrase of Mark Scousen,
0:02:04 from whom I got this story, a perma bear.
0:02:07 No matter what the market did,
0:02:09 his outcome was always pessimistic.
0:02:14 As usual, he and Morgan got to talking about the markets,
0:02:18 and as usual, Morgan’s friend saw poor omens
0:02:20 in every market indicator,
0:02:24 while Morgan saw only buying opportunities.
0:02:27 Eventually they headed out for lunch,
0:02:30 and walking up Broadway, Morgan’s friend
0:02:32 was admiring the towering skyscrapers
0:02:36 that were starting to define the Manhattan skyline.
0:02:37 Impressed, he acknowledged
0:02:40 they had nothing like them in Chicago.
0:02:44 Eventually, Morgan stopped, turned to his friend.
0:02:49 Funny thing about these skyscrapers, he said,
0:02:51 not a single one was built by a bear.
0:02:57 Six years before that conversation,
0:02:58 Morgan had completed his purchase
0:03:02 of Andrew Carnegie’s entire steel operation
0:03:06 for the unheard of sum of $480 million,
0:03:09 hundreds of billions in today’s dollars.
0:03:14 You don’t do that deal and amass that kind of wealth
0:03:16 with a persistently negative outlook.
0:03:21 Count the perma bears on the Forbes 400 list
0:03:23 or the amount of pessimists who run companies
0:03:25 in the Fortune 500.
0:03:28 You will find none.
0:03:32 Winners and men and women of foresight and ambition
0:03:35 do monumental things.
0:03:38 Pessimists watch them from the sidelines,
0:03:42 making a list of all the reasons things won’t work out.
0:03:45 The losers do get to win sometimes too,
0:03:49 but their victories tend to be pyrrhic,
0:03:52 as every calamity ultimately leads to opportunity
0:03:54 when the dust clears.
0:04:00 In 2009, deep in the depths of the great financial crisis,
0:04:03 I saw Sam Zell speak to an audience
0:04:06 of real estate investors and developers.
0:04:11 He told us that kings will be made in that moment.
0:04:14 He had nothing left to sell anyone,
0:04:17 having blown out of his massive real estate holdings
0:04:20 just three years earlier in a time of optimism.
0:04:24 Old Sam had seen too many of these cycles.
0:04:27 He knew that you always bet on positive outcomes
0:04:29 and you bet heavily when you’re alone
0:04:32 on that side of the trade.
0:04:35 It doesn’t always work, but it mostly does.
0:04:39 Pessimism is intellectually seductive
0:04:42 and the arguments always sound smarter,
0:04:45 especially when they dovetail with our own worries.
0:04:49 In the early years of the recovery from that crash,
0:04:52 Sam’s advice, which Morgan would have echoed,
0:04:54 was hard to follow.
0:04:57 Even four years later in 2013,
0:05:00 when the stock market finally made it back
0:05:04 over the 2007 high, optimism was scarce.
0:05:09 I remembered distinctly how hesitant investors were
0:05:12 to think positively about the future back then.
0:05:15 On financial social media,
0:05:17 saying things might work out okay
0:05:21 was practically an invitation to be mercilessly ridiculed.
0:05:25 There were all sorts of reasons not to trust the recovery
0:05:27 and if you know anything about the media,
0:05:30 then you know they had been relaying these reasons
0:05:33 to us morning, noon, and night,
0:05:38 repeatedly admonishing us lest we get too optimistic.
0:05:41 Valuations were high, they said,
0:05:44 while earnings would surely disappoint.
0:05:46 Interest rates would rise.
0:05:49 Various debt crises would ensue.
0:05:51 Demographics were unfavorable.
0:05:55 Obama’s healthcare plan surely meant the end of America.
0:05:57 A looming government shutdown that fall
0:06:01 would surely be the nail in the coffin.
0:06:05 And yet, somehow none of those things would sink us.
0:06:10 2013 turned out to have been the best year for stocks
0:06:14 since the Halcyon days of the late 1990s.
0:06:17 The Dow Jones industrial average finished the year
0:06:22 up 26.5%, its best finish in 18 years.
0:06:28 The S&P 500 had its best annual return in 16 years,
0:06:32 capping out the year with an almost 30% return,
0:06:36 ending December at a new record level.
0:06:40 The NASDAQ soared 38.2%,
0:06:45 led by an emerging group of biotechnology and solar stocks
0:06:47 that put on an extraordinary show
0:06:50 for a new generation of growth stock enthusiasts.
0:06:55 According to S&P Dow Jones’ indices,
0:07:00 457 of the S&P 500’s large cap stock,
0:07:04 roughly 90% of the index components, were up on the year.
0:07:10 More than two thirds of them had gains of 20% or more.
0:07:15 A new car company came out of the woodwork that year,
0:07:18 and its relatively unknown CEO, Elon Musk,
0:07:21 appeared on the cover of Fortune Magazine
0:07:24 as businessperson of the year in December.
0:07:30 Tesla’s stock was up over 350% in 2013,
0:07:33 kicking down the door to a new era
0:07:38 while clearing the cobwebs of the Aught’s decade crisis away.
0:07:42 Tesla’s rise and Musk’s wholly unorthodox approach
0:07:45 to building his business represented the start
0:07:47 of something entirely different
0:07:48 from what we were accustomed to.
0:07:52 This brought out as many haters and doubters
0:07:55 as it did fans and acolytes.
0:07:58 What was clear to both sides, however,
0:08:00 was that something was changing.
0:08:04 Netflix had made its transformation
0:08:07 from the company that mailed you physical DVDs
0:08:09 to a streaming platform that changed
0:08:14 the way we watched television and movies forever.
0:08:17 Its stock rose 300% that year,
0:08:21 becoming one of the hottest growth stories in the market.
0:08:25 Best Buy mounted a notable comeback that year,
0:08:28 notching a 240% return for investors
0:08:31 who hadn’t given up on the company.
0:08:35 BlackRock shares returned more than 50%
0:08:39 as the stock market recovered and the company surpassed
0:08:42 all others in terms of assets under management
0:08:47 with the ETF giant breaking above $4 trillion.
0:08:50 For every negative you could have cited
0:08:54 about the environment of 2013 as stocks reached new heights
0:08:58 and smashed through a wall of skepticism.
0:09:01 There were plenty of reasons for optimism.
0:09:04 You just had to work a little harder to find them.
0:09:09 This was true then and it is true now.
0:09:11 It will always be true.
0:09:14 And despite all that we were worried about
0:09:16 and all of the unimaginable things
0:09:19 that have befallen us since then,
0:09:21 the stock market has been just fine.
0:09:26 Over the last 10 years, the S&P 500,
0:09:29 assuming the reinvestment of dividends,
0:09:34 has returned over 230% or roughly 12% per year.
0:09:39 Today, we are once again contending with all sorts
0:09:42 of other threats to our future wellbeing.
0:09:45 Earnings expectations, we are told,
0:09:49 must ultimately revert lower once companies run out
0:09:51 of price hikes they can put forth,
0:09:53 while the cost of employing people
0:09:57 and running a business will surely increase.
0:09:59 Profits are too high and must come down.
0:10:05 There’s the 2024 presidential election to be fearful of too.
0:10:09 As of this writing, the contest features, quote,
0:10:11 an unhinged insurrectionist criminal tyrant
0:10:16 who wants to wipe his ass with the constitution, unquote,
0:10:19 and a vice president who’s been thrust into the role
0:10:23 after her party chased the bumbling old man out
0:10:25 after having spent the last 18 months
0:10:30 telling us he was perfectly healthy and up to the job.
0:10:34 Surely, a nation of 350 million people could do better.
0:10:37 Somebody has to win,
0:10:38 despite the fact that millions of people
0:10:42 wish their choices were someone, anyone else.
0:10:47 So we’ll vote and live with the consequences.
0:10:50 A few people on the winning side will be elated.
0:10:54 Most of us will simply be relieved that it’s over
0:10:58 or possibly terrified by the prospect of what comes next.
0:10:59 There is more.
0:11:04 We’re surely on the precipice of World War III
0:11:07 with China, Iran, and Russia
0:11:11 allying themselves against Ukraine, Israel,
0:11:13 and the rest of the free world,
0:11:15 which the United States represents
0:11:18 and supports both financially and militarily.
0:11:22 We’ve got thousands of gas-lit students
0:11:27 and their mendacious professors openly supporting terrorism,
0:11:29 kidnapping, mutilation, rape,
0:11:32 and murder on college campuses across America.
0:11:37 TikTok’s China-controlled algorithms gleefully pump
0:11:40 the most divisive content they can surface
0:11:42 directly into the national bloodstream.
0:11:46 Higher interest rates have put the housing market
0:11:49 into a deep freeze.
0:11:52 You can’t buy and you most certainly can’t sell,
0:11:55 risking a 100% increase in your mortgage rate.
0:12:00 The national debt is ballooning by trillions of dollars
0:12:03 as the cost of servicing it all threatens to become
0:12:07 our budget’s single biggest annual line item,
0:12:09 potentially supplanting social security
0:12:11 and defense spending.
0:12:14 Gas prices are high.
0:12:15 The rents are even higher.
0:12:17 Food prices are outrageous.
0:12:20 Hotel rooms and flights are egregious.
0:12:22 And despite the fact that nearly everyone
0:12:24 has gotten a wage hike in recent years,
0:12:29 the cost of living still seems to have outpaced it.
0:12:33 Talk to the average person on the street
0:12:36 and there’s almost nothing good worth saying.
0:12:39 The polls are nearly unanimously negative.
0:12:42 It’s bad and likely to get worse.
0:12:44 What is bad?
0:12:47 What is likely to get worse?
0:12:49 I don’t know, it, everything.
0:12:52 Okay, nice talking to you.
0:12:58 My point is that it’s easy to make lists of the problems,
0:13:02 of everything that could go wrong or get worse.
0:13:05 I could do it with my eyes closed and so could you.
0:13:09 It’s much harder to have the imagination
0:13:14 and the courage to talk openly about what might go right.
0:13:17 What might improve?
0:13:20 What unexpected thing could have a remarkable impact
0:13:23 on how we work and live and change things for the better?
0:13:27 Paradoxically, these types of improvements
0:13:29 come along all the time.
0:13:32 Given the long-term trend toward progress
0:13:36 and convenience and lengthening lifespans,
0:13:37 we ought to be more comfortable
0:13:39 discussing the positives than we are.
0:13:44 But the bad stuff lands like a thud,
0:13:47 generating headlines and invoking worst case scenarios
0:13:50 that drown out the sound of anything else.
0:13:53 The good stuff creeps up on us,
0:13:57 occurring slowly and quietly in the background
0:14:00 as we gradually and unobservantly
0:14:03 grow acclimated to it without even realizing.
0:14:10 It’s rare for us to feel it or remark upon it in real time.
0:14:14 The media has no vested interest in reminding us of it.
0:14:19 But the optimists are eventually proven right,
0:14:24 not every day, but always and eventually, indisputably.
0:14:29 It just takes a while to be able to see it play out.
0:14:31 Even if you don’t believe me,
0:14:33 make your investment in the future anyway,
0:14:37 just in case I end up being right again.
0:14:39 Plant your seed regardless.
0:14:41 If you end up being right in your pessimism
0:14:43 many years from now,
0:14:45 we will all have bigger problems
0:14:48 than what our investments are worth.
0:14:52 Being optimistic all the time is difficult.
0:14:57 But having any other disposition as a default setting
0:15:00 makes little sense when you’re investing for a future
0:15:02 far out in front of us.
0:15:07 – Life is so rich.
0:15:09 (gentle music)
0:15:12 (gentle music)
0:15:16 (gentle music)
0:15:18 you
0:00:05 What are your self-care non-negotiables?
0:00:07 It’s hard to make time for the things that keep you healthy,
0:00:11 but being consistent with self-care is like working a muscle.
0:00:14 And when life gets crazy, that muscle keeps you strong.
0:00:16 Therapy is the ultimate self-care,
0:00:18 and BetterHelp makes it easy to get started
0:00:21 with affordable online sessions you can do from anywhere.
0:00:24 Never skip Therapy Day with BetterHelp.
0:00:26 Visit betterhelp.com to learn more.
0:00:29 That’s better, H-E-L-P, dot com.
0:00:33 Your mom hates it when you leave six half-full glasses
0:00:34 on your nightstand.
0:00:37 It’s a good thing mom lives on the other side of the country.
0:00:39 And it’s an even better thing that you can get
0:00:43 six Ikea 365+ glasses for just $9.99.
0:00:45 So go ahead, you can afford to hoard,
0:00:47 because Ikea is priced for student life.
0:00:50 Shop everything you need for back to school at Ikea today.
0:00:56 I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:00:59 Josh Brown, the CMBC commentator and hedge fund manager
0:01:01 has become one of our favorite people.
0:01:03 We asked him to do a guest post.
0:01:05 This is adapted from his forthcoming book,
0:01:07 You Weren’t Supposed to See That,
0:01:09 coming out September 4th.
0:01:12 Optimism as a Default Setting, as read by George Hahn.
0:01:18 At the turn of the 20th century,
0:01:22 banker J.P. Morgan was the most powerful man on Wall Street,
0:01:25 perhaps the most powerful man in the world.
0:01:28 Finance in those days was still the wild west,
0:01:32 largely unregulated and prone to boom and bust cycles,
0:01:35 much more violent than anything we see today.
0:01:39 On several occasions, Morgan personally orchestrated
0:01:41 emergency measures to stop bank runs
0:01:44 that might have otherwise taken down the financial system,
0:01:47 typically increasing his own wealth in the process.
0:01:53 Shortly after one of those near misses, the Panic of 1907,
0:01:57 an old friend of Morgan’s from Chicago came for a visit.
0:02:00 The friend was, in the phrase of Mark Scousen,
0:02:04 from whom I got this story, a perma bear.
0:02:07 No matter what the market did,
0:02:09 his outcome was always pessimistic.
0:02:14 As usual, he and Morgan got to talking about the markets,
0:02:18 and as usual, Morgan’s friend saw poor omens
0:02:20 in every market indicator,
0:02:24 while Morgan saw only buying opportunities.
0:02:27 Eventually they headed out for lunch,
0:02:30 and walking up Broadway, Morgan’s friend
0:02:32 was admiring the towering skyscrapers
0:02:36 that were starting to define the Manhattan skyline.
0:02:37 Impressed, he acknowledged
0:02:40 they had nothing like them in Chicago.
0:02:44 Eventually, Morgan stopped, turned to his friend.
0:02:49 Funny thing about these skyscrapers, he said,
0:02:51 not a single one was built by a bear.
0:02:57 Six years before that conversation,
0:02:58 Morgan had completed his purchase
0:03:02 of Andrew Carnegie’s entire steel operation
0:03:06 for the unheard of sum of $480 million,
0:03:09 hundreds of billions in today’s dollars.
0:03:14 You don’t do that deal and amass that kind of wealth
0:03:16 with a persistently negative outlook.
0:03:21 Count the perma bears on the Forbes 400 list
0:03:23 or the amount of pessimists who run companies
0:03:25 in the Fortune 500.
0:03:28 You will find none.
0:03:32 Winners and men and women of foresight and ambition
0:03:35 do monumental things.
0:03:38 Pessimists watch them from the sidelines,
0:03:42 making a list of all the reasons things won’t work out.
0:03:45 The losers do get to win sometimes too,
0:03:49 but their victories tend to be pyrrhic,
0:03:52 as every calamity ultimately leads to opportunity
0:03:54 when the dust clears.
0:04:00 In 2009, deep in the depths of the great financial crisis,
0:04:03 I saw Sam Zell speak to an audience
0:04:06 of real estate investors and developers.
0:04:11 He told us that kings will be made in that moment.
0:04:14 He had nothing left to sell anyone,
0:04:17 having blown out of his massive real estate holdings
0:04:20 just three years earlier in a time of optimism.
0:04:24 Old Sam had seen too many of these cycles.
0:04:27 He knew that you always bet on positive outcomes
0:04:29 and you bet heavily when you’re alone
0:04:32 on that side of the trade.
0:04:35 It doesn’t always work, but it mostly does.
0:04:39 Pessimism is intellectually seductive
0:04:42 and the arguments always sound smarter,
0:04:45 especially when they dovetail with our own worries.
0:04:49 In the early years of the recovery from that crash,
0:04:52 Sam’s advice, which Morgan would have echoed,
0:04:54 was hard to follow.
0:04:57 Even four years later in 2013,
0:05:00 when the stock market finally made it back
0:05:04 over the 2007 high, optimism was scarce.
0:05:09 I remembered distinctly how hesitant investors were
0:05:12 to think positively about the future back then.
0:05:15 On financial social media,
0:05:17 saying things might work out okay
0:05:21 was practically an invitation to be mercilessly ridiculed.
0:05:25 There were all sorts of reasons not to trust the recovery
0:05:27 and if you know anything about the media,
0:05:30 then you know they had been relaying these reasons
0:05:33 to us morning, noon, and night,
0:05:38 repeatedly admonishing us lest we get too optimistic.
0:05:41 Valuations were high, they said,
0:05:44 while earnings would surely disappoint.
0:05:46 Interest rates would rise.
0:05:49 Various debt crises would ensue.
0:05:51 Demographics were unfavorable.
0:05:55 Obama’s healthcare plan surely meant the end of America.
0:05:57 A looming government shutdown that fall
0:06:01 would surely be the nail in the coffin.
0:06:05 And yet, somehow none of those things would sink us.
0:06:10 2013 turned out to have been the best year for stocks
0:06:14 since the Halcyon days of the late 1990s.
0:06:17 The Dow Jones industrial average finished the year
0:06:22 up 26.5%, its best finish in 18 years.
0:06:28 The S&P 500 had its best annual return in 16 years,
0:06:32 capping out the year with an almost 30% return,
0:06:36 ending December at a new record level.
0:06:40 The NASDAQ soared 38.2%,
0:06:45 led by an emerging group of biotechnology and solar stocks
0:06:47 that put on an extraordinary show
0:06:50 for a new generation of growth stock enthusiasts.
0:06:55 According to S&P Dow Jones’ indices,
0:07:00 457 of the S&P 500’s large cap stock,
0:07:04 roughly 90% of the index components, were up on the year.
0:07:10 More than two thirds of them had gains of 20% or more.
0:07:15 A new car company came out of the woodwork that year,
0:07:18 and its relatively unknown CEO, Elon Musk,
0:07:21 appeared on the cover of Fortune Magazine
0:07:24 as businessperson of the year in December.
0:07:30 Tesla’s stock was up over 350% in 2013,
0:07:33 kicking down the door to a new era
0:07:38 while clearing the cobwebs of the Aught’s decade crisis away.
0:07:42 Tesla’s rise and Musk’s wholly unorthodox approach
0:07:45 to building his business represented the start
0:07:47 of something entirely different
0:07:48 from what we were accustomed to.
0:07:52 This brought out as many haters and doubters
0:07:55 as it did fans and acolytes.
0:07:58 What was clear to both sides, however,
0:08:00 was that something was changing.
0:08:04 Netflix had made its transformation
0:08:07 from the company that mailed you physical DVDs
0:08:09 to a streaming platform that changed
0:08:14 the way we watched television and movies forever.
0:08:17 Its stock rose 300% that year,
0:08:21 becoming one of the hottest growth stories in the market.
0:08:25 Best Buy mounted a notable comeback that year,
0:08:28 notching a 240% return for investors
0:08:31 who hadn’t given up on the company.
0:08:35 BlackRock shares returned more than 50%
0:08:39 as the stock market recovered and the company surpassed
0:08:42 all others in terms of assets under management
0:08:47 with the ETF giant breaking above $4 trillion.
0:08:50 For every negative you could have cited
0:08:54 about the environment of 2013 as stocks reached new heights
0:08:58 and smashed through a wall of skepticism.
0:09:01 There were plenty of reasons for optimism.
0:09:04 You just had to work a little harder to find them.
0:09:09 This was true then and it is true now.
0:09:11 It will always be true.
0:09:14 And despite all that we were worried about
0:09:16 and all of the unimaginable things
0:09:19 that have befallen us since then,
0:09:21 the stock market has been just fine.
0:09:26 Over the last 10 years, the S&P 500,
0:09:29 assuming the reinvestment of dividends,
0:09:34 has returned over 230% or roughly 12% per year.
0:09:39 Today, we are once again contending with all sorts
0:09:42 of other threats to our future wellbeing.
0:09:45 Earnings expectations, we are told,
0:09:49 must ultimately revert lower once companies run out
0:09:51 of price hikes they can put forth,
0:09:53 while the cost of employing people
0:09:57 and running a business will surely increase.
0:09:59 Profits are too high and must come down.
0:10:05 There’s the 2024 presidential election to be fearful of too.
0:10:09 As of this writing, the contest features, quote,
0:10:11 an unhinged insurrectionist criminal tyrant
0:10:16 who wants to wipe his ass with the constitution, unquote,
0:10:19 and a vice president who’s been thrust into the role
0:10:23 after her party chased the bumbling old man out
0:10:25 after having spent the last 18 months
0:10:30 telling us he was perfectly healthy and up to the job.
0:10:34 Surely, a nation of 350 million people could do better.
0:10:37 Somebody has to win,
0:10:38 despite the fact that millions of people
0:10:42 wish their choices were someone, anyone else.
0:10:47 So we’ll vote and live with the consequences.
0:10:50 A few people on the winning side will be elated.
0:10:54 Most of us will simply be relieved that it’s over
0:10:58 or possibly terrified by the prospect of what comes next.
0:10:59 There is more.
0:11:04 We’re surely on the precipice of World War III
0:11:07 with China, Iran, and Russia
0:11:11 allying themselves against Ukraine, Israel,
0:11:13 and the rest of the free world,
0:11:15 which the United States represents
0:11:18 and supports both financially and militarily.
0:11:22 We’ve got thousands of gas-lit students
0:11:27 and their mendacious professors openly supporting terrorism,
0:11:29 kidnapping, mutilation, rape,
0:11:32 and murder on college campuses across America.
0:11:37 TikTok’s China-controlled algorithms gleefully pump
0:11:40 the most divisive content they can surface
0:11:42 directly into the national bloodstream.
0:11:46 Higher interest rates have put the housing market
0:11:49 into a deep freeze.
0:11:52 You can’t buy and you most certainly can’t sell,
0:11:55 risking a 100% increase in your mortgage rate.
0:12:00 The national debt is ballooning by trillions of dollars
0:12:03 as the cost of servicing it all threatens to become
0:12:07 our budget’s single biggest annual line item,
0:12:09 potentially supplanting social security
0:12:11 and defense spending.
0:12:14 Gas prices are high.
0:12:15 The rents are even higher.
0:12:17 Food prices are outrageous.
0:12:20 Hotel rooms and flights are egregious.
0:12:22 And despite the fact that nearly everyone
0:12:24 has gotten a wage hike in recent years,
0:12:29 the cost of living still seems to have outpaced it.
0:12:33 Talk to the average person on the street
0:12:36 and there’s almost nothing good worth saying.
0:12:39 The polls are nearly unanimously negative.
0:12:42 It’s bad and likely to get worse.
0:12:44 What is bad?
0:12:47 What is likely to get worse?
0:12:49 I don’t know, it, everything.
0:12:52 Okay, nice talking to you.
0:12:58 My point is that it’s easy to make lists of the problems,
0:13:02 of everything that could go wrong or get worse.
0:13:05 I could do it with my eyes closed and so could you.
0:13:09 It’s much harder to have the imagination
0:13:14 and the courage to talk openly about what might go right.
0:13:17 What might improve?
0:13:20 What unexpected thing could have a remarkable impact
0:13:23 on how we work and live and change things for the better?
0:13:27 Paradoxically, these types of improvements
0:13:29 come along all the time.
0:13:32 Given the long-term trend toward progress
0:13:36 and convenience and lengthening lifespans,
0:13:37 we ought to be more comfortable
0:13:39 discussing the positives than we are.
0:13:44 But the bad stuff lands like a thud,
0:13:47 generating headlines and invoking worst case scenarios
0:13:50 that drown out the sound of anything else.
0:13:53 The good stuff creeps up on us,
0:13:57 occurring slowly and quietly in the background
0:14:00 as we gradually and unobservantly
0:14:03 grow acclimated to it without even realizing.
0:14:10 It’s rare for us to feel it or remark upon it in real time.
0:14:14 The media has no vested interest in reminding us of it.
0:14:19 But the optimists are eventually proven right,
0:14:24 not every day, but always and eventually, indisputably.
0:14:29 It just takes a while to be able to see it play out.
0:14:31 Even if you don’t believe me,
0:14:33 make your investment in the future anyway,
0:14:37 just in case I end up being right again.
0:14:39 Plant your seed regardless.
0:14:41 If you end up being right in your pessimism
0:14:43 many years from now,
0:14:45 we will all have bigger problems
0:14:48 than what our investments are worth.
0:14:52 Being optimistic all the time is difficult.
0:14:57 But having any other disposition as a default setting
0:15:00 makes little sense when you’re investing for a future
0:15:02 far out in front of us.
0:15:07 – Life is so rich.
0:15:09 (gentle music)
0:15:12 (gentle music)
0:15:16 (gentle music)
0:15:18 you
As read by George Hahn.
Optimism as a Default Setting
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