Stig Brodersen  06:16

It was really young. I was really impressed that he had this drive that young.

Preston Pysh  06:19

Yeah. So he had this enormous drive early on. He started this magazine company, turned it into what I would imagine was a very valuable business just through pure hustle. I mean, he was cold calling people. That’s the one thing that he talks about a lot is the fact that he was cold calling in order to set up purchase orders and just kind of really ran with it for a kid at that age. You typically don’t see that kind of drive until maybe with somebody like in their 30s or something that would have the thought process. And the ability to think so big I think is probably the key takeaway from this is Branson, at age 17, was thinking I can start my own multimillion-dollar company right now. Like I don’t need to be 30 or 40 years old. So he was a big thinker early on. And I think most people, it takes them decades to get to that point where they have the confidence in themselves that hey, I could start a multimillion-dollar company. He was just like, no, I can do that right now. No hesitation whatsoever. So that’s the part I really liked. Go ahead, Stig.

Stig Brodersen  07:21

Yeah, I was really impressed that he had no fear of rejection. And, you know, I just think of Gillian’s book. Yeah, Gillian Zoe Segall, that we had a few shows ago. And he was talking about the same thing. I think that he has no fear of rejection itself, though. But he was always referring to these billionaires that one of the secrets to the success, for instance, Sara Blakely, you know, the founder of Spanx, she would just drive alone throughout the country and trying to sell products and people would just keep saying no to her. And that’s really not fun at all. And I think that you might be able to do that say when you are in your 30s and you have something to show for, but when you’re 17 and you know, have nothing and you know, people just reject you and perhaps even be rude to you. I think that takes a lot of moxie to do that.

Preston Pysh  08:09

Yeah, it takes a lot of courage for sure. But it definitely is one of the separating pieces. And one of the pieces that we see that’s very common amongst all these billionaires is that they just go for it. And if they get rejected, they’re like, “Oh, that’s no, that’s no big deal. I wasn’t meant to be with you anyway. So I’m going over to this other person,” who they already got lined up that they’re, you know, already moving in that direction. So that’s a really common thread and the common theme that we see amongst all these people, and we definitely saw that with Branson, tenfold, you know, he was definitely that type of person.

So then the next chapter was called “Have Fun,” which, if you go to our website, theinvestorspodcast.com and we have two things listed. The first one is “We like to have fun.” So we totally empathize with this chapter big time and we believe that that’s a key ingredient to success. If you’re not having fun in what you’re doing, why in the world are you there? You know, there are things out there, I don’t care who you are, there’s something you enjoy doing. And the faster you’re able to align that with your ability to work and provide value to society, the faster you’re going to find yourself succeeding because when you align those two together, you have no choice but to succeed. You really don’t. It’s not really an option because if you’re doing something you enjoy, you’re going to put in more than eight hours. You’re just going to do 12 hours. I know Mark Cuban in one of his books, he talks about “I just love the fact that I could sit down and computer program for 24 hours straight.” He’s like, “it just went by because I was loving it. I was really enjoying it.” I think that that’s such a key ingredient that he talks about. Stig, what’re your thoughts?

Stig Brodersen  09:48

I think my key takeaway from this chapter was when he talked about how he bought his Island, Necker Island. I just think there was a funny story, but the reason why I thought it was very funny was not long after I read this chapter, I got an email one morning from you, Preston. Do you remember that?

Preston Pysh  10:07

Yeah.

Stig Brodersen  10:09

And it was sent out to me and it was also sent out to the other guys in the Mastermind group. And you know, I can’t remember the topic but it was something like, “Hey, we should rent Branson’s Island.” Something like that. And you found this amazing. Was it like $11,000 or something for a few days?

Preston Pysh  10:29

Yeah for $11K, we could take a group of 30 people to the island for what was it? Five days or seven days or something like that? And we’d have the entire island to ourself and we’d have his whole staff. You know, I think that’s a win. But hey, maybe some other people might disagree.

Stig Brodersen  10:51

We should have The Investor’s Podcast annual meeting on that island, Preston.

Preston Pysh  10:56

Yes, absolutely. So I don’t know when we’re going to do that but I’m sure we probably will do it. So if you are interested in that, shoot me a note and let me know. And we’ll put your name on a list.

But yeah, so Stig is exactly right. So in this chapter, he talks about how he purchased this island, which I thought was a really neat story because he went down… And this is down in the Bahamas Virgin Island area. And the person who was selling the island wanted 3 million pounds for the purchase and Branson offered like, he lowballed them so much that the guy was just totally insulted. And so time went by, he obviously didn’t buy it at that point in time, because Branson talks about how he didn’t even have the money to buy something that expensive at that point in time. And but he kept at it and he kept looking and seeing and watching that that property, that specific island because he really wanted it. And he ended up getting the almost really close to the deal that he originally lowballed it for and with some contingencies that he had to set up, some type of freshwater system on the island and some other contingencies but he eventually did it. If you go online and you look up Necker Island, it is just gorgeous.

In fact, this is a really interesting point. They recently had a Bitcoin conference out at Necker Island, and they brought all the core developers out to Necker Island with Branson, Branson was there. I know he was there because I have a friend that’s a programmer for Bitcoin and he got a picture with Branson. So it’s pretty amazing to see that Richard Branson’s got his hands on some of that stuff. But that’s a side point.

So the whole point of this chapter, I know we got a little bit off on some tangents here, is that you’ve got to have fun at what you do. And when you do and you align that with your work, you’re going to be successful.

12:39

Okay, so in the next chapter, he talks about… the name of this chapter is “Be bold,” which I agree you got to be bold. But he talks about his purchase of Virgin Airlines. And I’m really curious to know Stig’s opinion on Virgin Airlines. I, you know, I just don’t know why anybody would want to own an airline. I just… I don’t get it. But I’m curious to know what Stig thinks about it all.

Stig Brodersen  13:01

Yeah, you know, I guess that you know, I know I’m a different person from Richard Branson, and when I hear airline I’m thinking, “So that’s a lot of capital expenditures.” I mean, that’s the first thing that comes to my mind. And then I read Richard Branson’s purchase and he was like, “Wow, this just sounds awesome.”

Preston Pysh  13:20

Yeah, that seems like that was his reason for doing it, which I think is really quite interesting because I don’t think you see too many billionaires that really think like this where he was, “I just want to do it because I think it’d be awesome to own an airline.” Like, no other reason, like it didn’t really seem the, I mean, he got a sweetheart deal, the way that he set up his first aircraft purchase through Boeing and how he was able to… Basically, Boeing had a surplus of… I forget which type of aircraft it was, but he was able to basically lease the aircraft from them. Like his downside was next to nothing. His upside was pure profit if he was successful, so it was kind of an interesting story of how that all unfolded, but I just could never understand why would you want to get into that line of business where it’s so competitive? The people, your customers are always just looking for the cheapest price. And so it’s really cutthroat. There’s not much margin at all in that line of business. So I was really surprised to see him wanting to do it and when you read the book, and you see that it wasn’t really based on the numbers, it was based on the passion of owning an airline company, you kind of understand why I did it.

Stig Brodersen  14:26

Yeah. And I also think it was because he saw a need for, at least a need for this type of airline that a part of the brand, a part of the Virgin brand. So the reason why I’m saying that is I think Branson’s way of thinking is if there is a need, that’s enough. I mean, that’s enough for me to get started. And from there, I will figure out how I reach that goal. I think that was his process. I mean, me and perhaps also Preston and more will probably you know, have some projections and we want to look at a budget, but it didn’t appear to me that that was Branson’s way of doing things. And you know, I guess that’s why people would rather listen to Branson than us, Preston.

Preston Pysh  15:06

So, this thought just came to my head about this chapter. So he talks about being bold. So he does some crazy stuff. And one of the things that I read in this book that I was just like, this guy is a strange cat, was he was talking about how he was on and I don’t think it was in this chapter. I think it was later in the book, but he talks about how he was out at Necker Island for one of the only hurricanes that kind of came through that area. And because he wanted to be able to feel the strength and the power of the storm, he went out into the swimming pool at Necker Island, which you have to realize this is not a big island. This is like his own private island. It’s not like the emergency crews are going to come and rescue him if something happens. He goes out and he gets inside the swimming pool. As the hurricane is going by so he could keep his body into the water and stick his head out at the top of the water and experience the strength of the hurricane. I read this and I’m thinking to myself, this guy is officially off his rocker. Like, Stig, what did you think when you read it? Like, what were you thinking?

Stig Brodersen  16:13

I was thinking. I don’t know. I mean, I was completely floored about that.

Preston Pysh  16:18

I’m speechless.

Stig Brodersen  16:21

But you know, I think that just shows that he’s the real deal. I mean, he’s in his 60s right now. And now he could do everything he wants to do and like he can live on a resort and just relax. But now he keeps on living 100% or at least his version of living. I’m not sure what my version of living is.

Preston Pysh  16:40

For me, I’m like, you know, he has a family and kids like, “What in the world is he thinking?” You know, like, I guess that’s where my mind goes immediately. Like, I would never do that to my family, to potentially kill myself because I want to experience the wrath of a storming. Come on, man. Get a hairdryer and blow it over your face or something. I don’t know. But now… When I read that I was like, “Oh my gosh.”

The other story that I can’t remember if it was in this chapter or not, but it talks about being bold, is this idea that he wanted to be the fastest boat across the Atlantic, leaving from the United States over to the UK. And so on his first try, he had a boat and they were going and they were almost there. And they ran into this really bad storm, and it basically split the boat in half and they had to be rescued out at sea in the storm. And so you would think, you know, if that was me, I’d be like, “Okay, I’m not doing that again,” would be my thought process. But within a year, he had purchased another boat and he was making another run at it. So he doesn’t seem to really be fazed by anything that could physically kill him. And there’s another story about him in a hot air balloon.

17:52

Okay, so in chapter five of this book, there was a really interesting discussion or story that Branson told about his company and how he was taking it public, meaning that he was going to start issuing shares of the business because up to that point, it had been a private company. And although he had a lot of support to take the company private, he ultimately brought the company back as a… He ultimately brought the company back as a private company that only he held the control of. And I found that to be a really interesting point, I thought it was something that Stig and I could have a good discussion on. So the question I guess I got for you, Stig, and I have my own biased opinions, which I’ll talk about after I hear your opinion is, what do you think, is a better structure for a person to have? A private company or a publicly held company?

Stig Brodersen  18:42

I really think it depends on your own situation because as we all know, the reason why you would go public is really to raise money. But you know, I can easily understand, for instance, the *inaudible, why they’ve not listed their company because it has a lot of benefits and it’s really not about keeping things secret, in my opinion. But it’s really if you are a public company, you just have to follow certain rules. And as I guess we all know, if you have to follow rules sometimes that can, you know, strain you and you know, I’m pretty sure at least for someone like Richard Branson having to follow rules, that is just not at all in his line of business. So I think that was my takeaway there: it was more suited for his personality to have it as a private company.

Preston Pysh  19:31

I totally agree with you. I think it’s really a situation-dependent on what your interests are. So people that have and I love doing this, and my wife and my family think I’m just really quite strange whenever we go into a business, particularly like a restaurant, and it’s just really good service when you go and you can tell that they really don’t have really high margins. And I always say, “Oh this has to be a private company.” And my wife just looks at me like, “What are you even talking about and like, that’s probably the most boring thing I think I’ve ever heard all day?” But I say that because for me whenever I go into a company, and I see that they have really good customer service, and it seems like everything’s about the customer. And it doesn’t seem like they’re more motivated by profit margins, you can typically identify a private company over a public company because you’re not having to feed the shareholders, you’re not having to meet their interest, necessarily.

20:26

So a great example of that in the United States. I’m sorry if you’re not familiar with this company, Stig, but there’s a company called Chick-Fil-A, and what they do, and there’s another one out in California called In and Out Burger… And so these two companies are restaurants, fast food restaurants, and their service is just insane. Like you go to Chick-Fil-A, they’ve actually got real flowers on every single table in the restaurant. And so when you see that you immediately know that it is not a publicly-traded company because that’s profit sitting there on the table, that they’re just making their environment nicer for their customers. So I’m of the opinion that if you’re the type of person that wants to run a business for the long term and you want to continue to hold on to it, I can’t understand for the life of me why you’d want to take that company public and offer up shares of it, unless you’re in a position where you need the money and you need to raise money, and then that’s where you’re giving up control of your business.

So like, myself, I own a holding company, a private company. I have no interest whatsoever in making that a publicly-traded business in the future, offering shares to anybody else, because I want to retain control of that. I want to run that business the way I want to run it. And so I thought this was a really interesting point that Branson brought up in the book was just talking about how he was going to take the company public, and I think it was because he was trying to raise money for his airline. I can’t really remember the reason why.

Stig Brodersen  21:53

Yeah, and I think Branson feels the same way as you present it for him. It’s not about the money or at least money is only a very small part of it, it’s about the game. And again, it’s about having fun. And you can have a lot of fun if you are completely 100% in charge. You can do whatever you want to do. And I think that’s very fitting for someone like Branson, that he can just do what he wants to do. He doesn’t want to wait for a public announcement, he doesn’t want to follow the regulations. So he is just doing what he’s doing with his own company. And so I think that is the driver for most entrepreneurs. So I guess that’s also why you see that private companies are just more entrepreneurial because if you are not that you might have chosen to list your company way sooner.

Preston Pysh  22:38

When I think that a lot of entrepreneurs that own their own private company for a long time and it really kind of grows into something, they have an appreciation for the goodwill and the brand that they build by maybe taking a lower margin on whatever their product or services. I know that that’s not always the case, but I think that you know, you look at a company like Chick-Fil-A, they are much more interested in making sure that their customer is happy. They have an amazing experience when they go to a restaurant. And because of that, they build this goodwill within the customer that they’re going to come back, they’re going to tell their friends and it spills into like this marketing strategy at the same time. So I find that really interesting and I find it completely in contrast to the people that start a business and their whole goal is to take it public so that they can have a share offering and they can make a bunch of money and sell it and get out. I just find that the two different approaches to be, you know, really interesting to dissect and look at the interests of the people running the businesses.

22:39

So one of the things that Branson talks about, and this is mostly I think in chapter six, where he’s talking about live in the moment. I really liked his discussion of when you’re in a certain setting, if I’m with my family, it’s all about being with my family. He’s living in that moment when I’m working, I give it my all into whatever I’m working on. And I think that’s really important because a lot of people find themselves in their head, either thinking about something that’s going to happen tomorrow or in a year from now, or they’re thinking about something that happened a year ago. And they’re not in the present moment enjoying that for what it is.

For me personally, once I had kids, that was, you know, when you look at the pictures as they’re growing, you’re like, “Oh my gosh, where in the world did the time go?” And you really do learn to have this deep appreciation for right now this moment to just like, live it and to just enjoy it and be thankful for it. And I really like this point in the book and I think that it’s such a profound point, that when you’re there sitting with your family, you’re not on your iPhone reading email traffic, you put it off, you turn it off. It’s not what your focus is, your focus is on the moment, right now I’m going to enjoy this meal with my family or whatever it might be. I really like this chapter and I think it adds some real value in my life and for anybody else.

25:01

Okay, so now that I gave Branson some props for that chapter because I really thought it was great. I’m going to talk about something that I thought was kind of ironic and something that I didn’t really necessarily agree with. So, in chapter seven, he talks about the importance of value and your family and friends, which he obviously values his family and his friends tremendously. And there’s nothing that I want to say to contradict that because I don’t know him. I haven’t been around him. But one of the things that I found just totally ironic, and that really didn’t add up and make sense to me was why in the world would you do these, like these hot air adventures where he was in a hot air balloon and the person who was flying with had to jump out and they were in the ocean and he goes off to another. And yet he does it again, or you’re in the boat trying to cross the Atlantic and it cracks in half and you’re stranded at sea, then you do it again.

For me, I’m not saying he did anything right or wrong. I don’t really want to focus on that, but for me, if I was in those circumstances, I would have a very hard time justifying another attempt at something like that with those kinds of probabilities and those kinds of potential outcomes, knowing that I could leave my family behind. It didn’t make any sense to me. And so I appreciate the fact that he talked about how much he values his family and friends in the book. But I guess I’m having a hard time seeing some of his actions back up what he’s saying in the book and I know that’s really bad of me to that judge him that way. But I guess that’s… those were my thoughts as I was reading the book, I think is the best way for me to describe it. I just… it didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t really add up. But go ahead, Stig.

Stig Brodersen  26:40

Yeah, I just think it’s a question of values because that was something that was really surprising for me to read about Branson. But then again, I meet a lot of different people every day and they do very different things than I do. And basically, it all comes down to values. I mean, I think he’s saying, you need to value your family and friends. And when I hear that, you know, I’m thinking about something specific about my family, just as I’m sure when you’re reading this, Preston, you’re thinking about, okay, so valuing family means this. So for Branson, and I just don’t think that these two things are mutually exclusive. I think that he’s really paying close attention to how he can be there for his family. But it’s still so important for him to experience a hurricane or it’s really important for him to fly in the balloon. And so I just think it’s a question of value. So yeah, at least that was my take on it. And another thing I really liked in this chapter was that he says that money is there to create things. And I think that’s the reason why he’s a billionaire.

Preston Pysh  27:48

Yeah, I love that point. I’m really glad you brought that up. Keep going. Tell the people more about that quote, because this is a really, I think, profound point.

Stig Brodersen  27:56

Yeah. So he was, you know, when he was young, he did a lot of I would like to say a lot of silly stuff, I guess, some would say, he kept doing that. But, you know, he was doing a lot of different silly stuff. And one of the things was he was buying this huge real estate and he couldn’t afford it. And I think it was his aunt or his mom or something that loaned him the money to do that. But then he gives this quote that, in his opinion, “Money is there to create things.” And I think that was why he figured out really soon, like when he was 16 or 17, that he needs to be a billionaire. It’s not because he would like to have a lot of money, but he figured out that if you want to realize all of these dreams that he was having and living out his values one way to do that was to get very, very rich. And I think that that was actually his main driver for doing what he’s doing, like it is not to become the Forbes whatever or the wealthiest person on the planet list. That’s just so he has more toys to do funny stuff with.

Preston Pysh  29:00

Yeah, and I totally agree. And if you see some of the things that he was trying to create, even recently, one of the stories I really liked was he was talking about Saddam Hussein. And what he was trying to do was he was trying to use his Virgin Airline to fly down, get Nelson Mandela, to fly up and meet Saddam Hussein with the president of Jordan. He was orchestrating, Richard Branson, was orchestrating this whole thing, to try to get Saddam Hussein to basically step down from his role in Iraq. And I think that that’s what he was really, I think, wanting from a very early age is this ability to create circumstances to be able to have a massive influence. And I think the only way that he knew he could do it was to be able to employ capital at a compounding rate that would allow him to do that later on in his life. So I love this quote, that was it his mother or was it his aunt, did you say? I can’t remember.

Stig Brodersen  29:56

Yeah, one of those two.

Preston Pysh  29:57

Was it his mother his or his aunt… when she loaned him the money, she said, you know, “Money is used to create things.” And I love that. I absolutely love that quote. And I totally agree with it.

So the last thing we’re going to talk about, and this is a pretty common theme on our podcast or anybody that listens that you guys know that we typically hit on this one. The last point in his book was “do some good.” And instead of talking about what he really goes into in the book, I think that I’d rather highlight to everybody, don’t you think it’s ironic that every one of these people that we read about, talks about how they want to do good and how they want to add more value and how they want to give back to society? That is such a common theme. That’s, that is the most prominent theme out of any book we read about billionaires, and I really don’t want to say anything else, because I want that to sit with people. And I want them to say, “Well, you know, why is that? Why do you see that?” And I really think that the goodwill that these people compound upon themselves, whenever they do good for society, it comes back to them. I totally believe that. I don’t know if you would believe it. But that’s up for you to decide.

Stig Brodersen  31:04

Yeah, I think it pretty much comes down to that no one can really be successful all by themselves. So that’s also why you see that these very generous people, they always end on top. And you might think it’s contradictory because they’re giving so much away. But I think, as Preston is saying, that they compound so much goodwill, and that’s the reason why they’re sitting at the top.

Preston Pysh  31:24

Yeah, I like to always say, if in order to receive, you have to give, and it’s not the other way around. And a lot of people think that they have to take, in order to have things but it doesn’t work that way. It works in a manner where the only way you’re going to receive something is you have to give it first. I think whenever people start taking on that approach, they’re going to see a dramatic change in their life.

Preston Pysh  31:44

All right, so here’s the thing. So Stig and I, at the start of the show, we said that we didn’t really particularly care for this book. But you know what, there’s a lot of points in this book that make you think and I’ll tell you there’s a lot of good stories in this book, which I did like. A lot of stories that I didn’t know Richard Branson, definitely keeps your interest. So I’d say those are the high points.

The low points are some of the ironic pieces that we saw and that we talked about in this interview that you heard. But regardless, if you want to read the book, go out and get it. It’s a very short read. This thing is small, looks almost like a little pamphlet. But if you do want the Cliffnotes version of what we typed up in our executive summary, go ahead and sign up on our list on our website, and we’ll mail that to you guys. And you’ll get all of our future executive summaries as well.

Preston Pysh  32:30

Alright, so this is the point in the show where we take a question from our audience and this question comes from Justin Chen.

Justin Chen  32:35

Hi, Preston. Hi, Stig. My name is Justin Chen and I’m a high school senior from San Diego, California. First off, I want to thank you guys for all the contributions that you guys are doing for me as a student who is really interested in a lot of the topics you guys are talking about. I wanted to find out what your thoughts were on saving up for my retirement at an early age. In our government class, we’re learning a lot about IRAs and 401K’s. But I want to get your thoughts on whether or not, as a young person, it would be better for me to invest actively or invest more passively towards my retirement. Thank you.

Preston Pysh  33:17

All right, Justin, fantastic question. And Stig’s going to go ahead and answer this for you.

Stig Brodersen  33:21

You know, Justin, I’m very envious of you. Because you know, when I was your age, I had no clue what to do about retirement. And you know, that was the least thing on my mind. So just that you’re thinking about it right now, that really puts you ahead of the pack. So that’s fantastic. You know, when it comes to investing, and you are probably in your early 20s, something like that. I think that your question about passive or active investing pretty much comes down to how much effort and time do you want to put into this? And I just come to think of some of the recent interviews we have with people that have been interviewing billionaires and even billionaires, they’re saying that unless you really, really know what you’re doing when it comes to individual securities, then you should just, you know, have a passive approach. And I think especially in your situation that you are really young, and perhaps you’re not spending too much time because you’re basically studying, so you won’t have too much time to look into investing. I think that just getting your feet wet and starting with a passive investment vehicle, something like an S&P 500, I think that’s a really good thing. So that’s really one side of it.

And then the other side is now when you’re talking about investing, everybody talks about money, and I know I’ve said this before and I’m just going to repeat myself, for me investing is about accumulating knowledge. And especially when you’re in your early 20s, you have all the resources and all the opportunities in the world to acquire necessary knowledge when it comes to investing and I think that’s the real investing. I don’t know what would your take is, Preston

Preston Pysh  34:57

Yeah, I would agree with Stig. I think that the more you can compound your knowledge and your knowledge base, that is essential. The other piece of that which is basically like the other arm of that knowledge is the ability to actually execute on that knowledge. And that’s what’s going to allow you to create assets that are going to give you a really big return and I think that’s where a lot of people that first start studying investing… Maybe look at a guy like Warren Buffett and be like oh this guy was an investor and he became a billionaire. But I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that at the essence of what Warren Buffett is, he’s a businessman, and he’s running a, you know, billion-dollar corporation. And he has that skill set to manage and to think like a businessman. And I think that that’s extraordinarily important for a person your age to realize that investing in the stock market with the money that you’re making, from, you know, a job that you might hold. That’s a very difficult path to accumulate a lot of wealth, financial wealth.

So what I would tell you is continue to increase your knowledge of business in general, like marketing. You got to understand finance, you got to understand operations: how do I become an operations officer within a business and run the show for products and services? That kind of stuff is what’s going to really separate you from the pack. And what it’s also going to allow you to do later on down the road is you’re going to be able to create your own business or create your own assets. And that’s where you really start getting large returns. So you look at any of these billionaires that we’re reading books on or talking to different people, guess what, they created something, they created their own business. You know, they weren’t just sitting around investing in an IRA account. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, don’t misconstrue anything that I’m saying here. I’m just saying that if you really do want to accumulate large amounts of wealth, financial wealth, you’re really going to have to create something and now what that is, that’s a whole another discussion. But I would tell you to innovate because that’s going to teach you about business. But at the same time, you need to be thinking, how can I hone my skills as a businessman to create something of my own and really run with it? That’s the best advice I could give you.

Stig Brodersen  37:11

Yeah. And I think that’s terrific advice, Preston because you’re really talking about how to get a head start and how to start accumulating. And I think that’s really necessary. And I just want to say the other side of the coin to that is not to incur any debt. And at least that’s something I probably should have listened to myself when I was younger. Now it is such a simple thing but it’s also something that you need to have in your upbringing: spend less than you make, and I know it seems so simple, so and, you know, there’s no reason to elaborate too much on that. But one thing I do want to say about that is if you spend less than you make and you’re just an average investor, and again, you’re not in a hurry, you will become very, very wealthy. So I think the difficult thing, especially in your early 20s, is to think I’ve should probably be a millionaire before I’m 30. So I just need to speed things up and take a lot of risks. I think that’s definitely the wrong way to approach that. And I guess I do speak from experience.

Preston Pysh  38:15

Now, there’s one other thing that I want to highlight about my comment was a lot of people misconstrue the idea of buying an asset or creating an asset. And whenever you are stock investing, guess what? You’re buying an asset, somebody else created an asset, the equity of the business that you were buying as an investor. Okay, so that’s one form. And the other form is you create the asset, there’s a lot more value in the upside. Now, there’s also a lot of risk in doing that, especially if you’re borrowing a lot of capital in order to do it. But if you can find out something that doesn’t require a lot of capital that you can create on your own, I think that you’re going to find that you get a much faster and fruitful return on that investment from a knowledge perspective and from a monetary perspective.

So just think of it in that context, think, “Am I buying an asset? Or am I creating an asset?” Then you got to be able to distinguish between the two and, you know, great investors like Warren Buffett, they’re doing both. They’re creating and buying assets simultaneously. And they’re mixing those two together. So, some interesting things for you to think about.

39:18

Alright, so that’s all we’ve got. Justin, we will send you a free signed copy of the Warren Buffett Accounting Book. And for anybody else out there, if you want to get your question answered on the show, go to asktheinvestors.com and record your question there. So we really want to thank everybody for joining us this week, we’ll be sending out our Richard Branson summary of “Screw it, Let’s Do It” on our email list. So if you want to get that, go ahead and sign up on our email list.

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Outro  41:50

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