218 Uncertainty and Investing in Our Practice • William Green

It’s easy to have beliefs about people we don’t know. Especially if they tick the boxes of our biases, prejudice, ignorance and the opinions of our friends. When you think about successful stock market investors you’re probably not thinking about people with compassion, curiosity, spiritually and a sense of fair play. But for some of the top level investors that he interviews, you’ll find humility, generosity and a deep abiding sense of the ​​ephemeral nature of the world and a habit of “cultivation” that would not be foreign to a Daoist, Buddhist or practitioner of the Kabbalah.

In this discussion with William Green we talk about how top of the game investors lean on morality, responsibility, humility, intelligence and are eccentric in that they are able to face the uncertainty that goes hand in hand with investing and keep their own counsel when the rest of the world is telling them their wrong. We are talking about some high level Gong Fu here.

Listen into this conversation with William Green as we discuss his book Richer, Wiser, Happier and what he has learned about spiritually, generosity and self-cultivation from Masters of the Dow.

In This Conversation We Discuss:

• The fantasy of making money without getting your hands dirty
• Importance of our thought and being swamped by negative emotion
• The importance of being able to question orthodoxy
• If you have a sense of abundance, you’ll life will be happier
• These investors were all deeply eccentric
• Being more moral works better
• Don’t do stupid things
• Caring about others is good business
• Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it can help you avoid some troubles
• The value of being knowing your flaws and being aware of the game
• ​​ Kabbalah, receive to share, receive more to share more

You can save yourself a lot of grief by not being close minded

William Green is the author of Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life (Scribner/Simon & Schuster). It’s currently being translated into 16 languages. Over the last quarter of a century, Green has interviewed many of the world’s best investors, exploring in depth the question of what qualities and insights enable them to achieve enduring success.

Green has written for many leading publications, including The New Yorker, Time, Fortune, Forbes, Barron’s, and The Economist. He has reported in places as diverse as China, India, Japan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the US, Mexico, England, France, Monaco, Poland, Italy, and Russia. He has interviewed presidents and prime ministers, inventors, criminals, prize-winning authors, the CEOs of some of the world’s largest companies, and countless billionaires. While living in London, Green edited the European, Middle Eastern, and African editions of Time. Before that, he lived in Hong Kong, where he edited the Asian edition of Time.

Born and raised in London, Green was educated at Eton College, studied English literature at Oxford University, and received a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Links and Resources

Visit William's website for more of his writing
And get your own copy of Richer, Wiser, Happier  
William also recommends the work of David Hawkins

Share this podcast with your friends!