Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: But that's surprising to me, Patrick. This is why this freaking Bruce Springsteen book is messing with me so much. It's because I'm seeing this, he's 66, when he writes it, 67, something like that, and now he's 76, and I heard him on another interview talking about it. Where the first half of the book is like, this guy has one of the most insane work ethics that you've ever seen. And it's channeled into one thing and he has no doubt since he was 15 that this is what he's going to do. And he realizes that he does not have the skill set, or he has all these things that he has not developed the skill set to handle. I'm just going to try to explain this. I mean, I just recorded a whole podcast about it so maybe this'll hopefully make sense. It was surprising to me that this man, who is psychopathically obsessed with professional achievement, and fame, and stardom, and all the stuff that he was very upfront about what he wanted from a young age, okay? He gets it, which I'll get to in a minute. And his final realization is, life is more important. Work is a part of life, it is not my full life. Life is life. It is important. And his biggest struggle was, he becomes famous as I... This is what Jimmy Iovine told me because I got to meet him, and right when I was leaving his house, he's like, "You need to go watch the new Bruce Springsteen movie." And it's called Deliver Me from Nowhere. And I thought it was going to be like a biography of his life. That's not what it's about at all. It is like a dark... I was shocked… dark movie. This is the key to understanding. Unbelievable, like, terrible environment he was born into. There's going to be two actions there. You're just like, "This is what life is, I'm going to accept it," or you're going to have this like maniacal will to change things. He has the maniacal will. And he's like, "I don't want to live like that." His dad was one of the worst human beings to him. He takes all that pain, channels it into a work ethic that gets him exactly what he wanted. Gets what he wants, which is now everybody knows who he is, he's worldwide famous, he's rich, everything. And then immediately drops in his mid-30s into the deepest depression of his life. And what he realizes is, "That's not what I actually wanted." And this is what it goes by, I think I told you this upstairs, or maybe we mentioned this.
· David Senra
It's like, we had a very interesting conversation at dinner last night, and it started with, "What is the lie that you're telling yourself?" And me and another person going around that for quite a while. And it was very fascinating. And the lie that Bruce was telling himself was that work was the most important, that becoming a rock star was the most important, fame was the most important. And when he realized that his parents had so messed up his emotional well-being, he was incapable of doing the thing that he wanted. In his case, he wanted, desperately wanted, to have kids, to be married, to break the chain, like we mentioned earlier, of like, "My kids will not experience what he experienced." And he was even writing... He has a whole album fantasizing about this before he's able to do it. And he would run into the same thing, where it's going to be such a crazy juxtaposition of like, he's on stage in front of 40,000 people, they all love him. And yet, in his case, he talks a lot about women in the book. He would get close to a woman, he'd have some kind of feelings for her, she'd have feelings for him back, okay? Then he immediately goes, "Why do you love me? Like, I am so f***** up and undeserving, so the fact that you love me means there's something wrong with you, and I'm going to hurt you because you love me." And then he'd run away, and then he'd get into another relationship, and it'd go over and over and over again. And he didn't realize the source of his depression was he didn't know what he actually wanted, and he didn't have the skill set. And then he winds up meeting the woman – he's married, by the way, he winds up meeting another woman who was in his band and getting divorced because he realizes, like, this is the person that can... I'm willing to do the work necessary to fix, which is a crazy thing. And then he goes through 25 years of therapy, and in some cases, he has to get on antidepressants and he's unbelievably honest about what took place in his life from 35 until 67 when he's writing his book. And so, I think there's all kinds of lessons in there from personal, like, what do you actually want in your personal life? The kind of relationships you want, with friends, romantic partners, whatever the case is.
· David Senra, Patrick O'Shaughnessy
But this is what I meant about, I want to make sure I develop the skill set not just to stay where I am, and you've pushed me in this direction a million times. You're like, "Stop doing everything yourself." We have a million conversations where you're just, like, "Why don't you have a team? Why don't you do all this?" It's like, it makes sense why I don't have a team, because I don't f**** trust anybody. That's obvious why that is. And I do think I'm getting better and better and better, even with the stuff me and you talk about, like, 10 years ago, there's a zero chance I would've let that come out of my mouth. Zero. [00:00:00] S0: I mean, you tell Bruce's story, but I think you're talking about yourself to a large degree. [00:00:00] S1: I know. [00:00:00] S0: And maybe my arrival at the aspiration, I'm by no means perfect, to be more service-oriented. My grandmother who just passed away, she was 99, banged on me. Every time she'd see me, this would be the topic of conversation. She's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, congratulations on all the success. Who gives a shit? What are you doing for other people? That's what I want to know." And I'm convinced that's the way out. That I think, I, like you, and so many listening have their set of demons that they've struggled with, and the path out is others. Simple as that. And it sounds like Bruce… I don't know Bruce, I'm not a huge Springsteen fan, I'd love to... I need to read the book obviously, but that seems like a tale as old as time.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, David Senra
[00:00:00] S0: And maybe my arrival at the aspiration, I'm by no means perfect, to be more service-oriented. My grandmother who just passed away, she was 99, banged on me. Every time she'd see me, this would be the topic of conversation. She's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, congratulations on all the success. Who gives a shit? What are you doing for other people? That's what I want to know." And I'm convinced that's the way out. That I think, I, like you, and so many listening have their set of demons that they've struggled with, and the path out is others. Simple as that. And it sounds like Bruce… I don't know Bruce, I'm not a huge Springsteen fan, I'd love to... I need to read the book obviously, but that seems like a tale as old as time. [00:00:00] S1: But this is something I learned from you, this idea of making sure that your source of fuel and energy and ambition is generative and not negative. And I do think the conversations I've had with you, with Sam Hinkie, it's really important. It's like I'm getting to the point where I push myself because I love it. I'm way nicer to myself than I have ever been because I'm like, "Oh, this doesn't serve me anymore." I'm not going like, I will be successful because I love it, and if I love it, I'll do it all the time, and if I do it all the time, I'll get really good at it. And if I get really good at it, money will come as a result because it's an act of service, right?
· David Senra, Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S1: But this is something I learned from you, this idea of making sure that your source of fuel and energy and ambition is generative and not negative. And I do think the conversations I've had with you, with Sam Hinkie, it's really important. It's like I'm getting to the point where I push myself because I love it. I'm way nicer to myself than I have ever been because I'm like, "Oh, this doesn't serve me anymore." I'm not going like, I will be successful because I love it, and if I love it, I'll do it all the time, and if I do it all the time, I'll get really good at it. And if I get really good at it, money will come as a result because it's an act of service, right? [00:00:00] S0: Yeah. The clean fuel/dirty fuel debate is really interesting. And look, a lot of, most or nearly all of the books that you've read were people that were fueled by dirty fuel. Dirty fuel works really well, but it consumes the person in a way that I would far rather die, you know, nobody knowing who I am with no worldly success. But having people that could count on me, rely on me, I was faithful to, that I was loyal to. That's what I want at the end. So, if you can work backwards from that… that's another cool way to think about it, working backwards from what you hope is true is a simple heuristic for finding what to do well. And yeah, I think I can't wait to read the book.
· David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: This is why I think reading a bunch at the same time, or not the same time, but having a lot to pull from… it’s like, I'm reading the Bruce Springsteen book, but then you realize another person with like superhero work ethic and drive and ambition was LBJ, which Robert Caro brilliantly writes about. And you realize Bruce is generative. It took him a while to figure it out, but he got out on the other side of that, whereas LBJ never did. And even though their source is very similar, there's a great story that Robert Caro tells in one of his books, where LBJ finally gets to Washington. I think he's like an intern. I don't even remember what job he has. He has no money, it's cold, and it'd be like the sun would be coming up at 5:30, and this woman that worked with him would always see him running everywhere. And they just assumed, "Oh, he's got no coat, he got no money. He's running to warm himself up." And then the summer comes, and he's still running. And obviously Robert Caro's a master with words and storytelling, and his whole point was like, of course he was running. He finally made it to the spot, because he was talking about he wanted to be president since he was in third grade or something. He's like, he finally made it to the city, to the spot of where all his dreams are, and he was going to run after his dreams. There's so much in between these two stories. One guy's a rock star, one guy becomes the President of the United States, and it's the same thing. One is generative, one is unbelievably manipulative and probably not a guy that you'd want in your life.