Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, David Senra
[00:00:00] S0: I wouldn't put it past you. [00:00:00] S1: And so I was like, "No." And, you know, he's like, "Yeah, I listened to a bunch of them, but, like, that first song," he's like, "That's obviously like a sign from God. You should consider it a sign from God." I'm like, "What? What is this?" And we were on the phone, I was like, "What are you talking about?" The reason that came to mind is because in that song, I guess I talked about, I think it was on your show, where I was just like, you know, this choice by this man I don't remember and I never met... I met him, but I don't remember him. Which is my grandfather, who was 30 years old, living in Cuba, no education, doesn't speak English, doesn't have money, has two jobs, works in a shoe factory, and is a butcher, somehow realized, "Oh, Fidel Castro. This is probably bad. I have to go to a country that, like, I don't know anybody." [00:00:00] S0: "I'm outta here." [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, didn't speak the language. And like, that's just one choice. You know, three decades later, whatever, I'm going to be born, and now I'm born in, you know, a capitalistic, greatest country, in my opinion, greatest country in the world, as opposed to that. Like, that one decision by somebody I don't remember, like, ripples through the entire generations. Which I think is a very interesting thing to contemplate when you're trying to make your decisions. The last thing on his list was grandfather. What was the last thing on yours?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S0: The story was so overwhelming, I honestly don't remember. It was probably husband or father, one of those two. To me, those are the most interesting roles in life. You know, you and I have talked... You know how I feel about those two things. And so it was probably one of those two, or I probably cheated and said, "Can I have both?" And, you know, I hope it's that until it's grandfather, I guess. But the available... I said something like this earlier, but the depths available in those relationships are crazy to me. I can't believe that every couple years, I find a new level of those things. I just can't believe it. Every time it happens, I'm like, "I can't believe this is happening again." And in terms of, like, a place that can yield rewards, those are the most interesting to me. But more generally, like, maybe this is the theme of our conversation today, the small set of relationships with people for whom I would do anything. And that's how I'm wired. Like, there is a certain category of person, you're one of them, that... whatever you need. You don't need to explain it, I'll do it. And getting to that point with people, I don't think it... life's too short, and, you know, there's only so much energy in a day, and so you can't do this for a thousand people. But you can do it for 10 or 15. You know, follow Dunbar's number or something, you could probably do it for 15, and that is my prized possession. That list of people for whom I would do anything is my prized possession. And I think that that can probably be true for just about anybody. And so I try, hope, to act in a certain way to deserve that group of people, and even if they don't feel the same way about me, that's okay. If I'm in their list of 50 and not 15, it's fine. Yeah, I think that that role game is quite fun because I think it pulls out of you, like, where you have the most energy.
· David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: I think this, exactly what we talked about today is, like, why I'm so obsessed with having conversations with, you know, people I find interesting, obviously people I have, like, deep relationships with because this is why I'm going to keep holding onto this idea that I'm not interviewing people, I'm having conversations, because we talk all the time. I had no idea where this conversation was going, and it went in places... Like, I had learned stuff about you that I did not know. And so I really appreciate you saying yes to me and coming kicking and screaming on. I want to end by turning it around on you. What is the kindest thing someone's ever done for you?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S0: One is... they're related. So, I'll tell them in order. The first was, I had a cousin. I come from an Irish Catholic family where, when you go to the family reunion, you get a sheet that looks like one of those maps from the '90s where you just have to, like, keep unfolding it because there's just so goddamn many people. And so I have cousins who are technically my, like, third or fourth cousins that feel, in my family, more like a first cousin. One of my third cousins was a guy named Tim O'Shaughnessy, and when I... I was a bad student in high school. I was, like, a very good student as a young kid. I went to this giant high school in Connecticut, like 4,000 students, and I just partied way too hard and didn't get good grades and didn't take it seriously. And so, there was a day... I remember it very distinctly. I was at a friend's house, having stayed up too late the night before, and my dad called me and said, "Hey, you know, you should probably come home. There's a whole bunch of very small envelopes here from colleges." So, I actually got rejected from every college I applied to the first time I applied to colleges, and I got all the rejection letters on the same day. It was a bad day. So, then I reapplied to some other schools. I had wanted to go to the University of Notre Dame, and I called them, and I said, "Where are some schools that have a compatible curriculum with yours? Because I would really love to work hard and then transfer." So, they gave me a list, I went to one of those schools, I got very good grades, I transferred to Notre Dame. So, now I'm a sophomore at Notre Dame. And I didn't know anybody. It's not like freshman year, where you have all this amazing orientation. You're a transfer student, they're like, "Here's your room number. Like, see you later." So, I met, like, a couple of other transfer students, and that was it. And back to being shy, like, I wasn't at the time good at navigating a new social situation. I just wasn't good at it. So, Tim, who I had met, like, maybe... I didn't know Tim well. You know, Tim was from the Midwest. I didn't know him that well growing up. He took it upon himself to come meet me, find me. I remember very distinctly he brought me a fake ID. He went so out of his way for, like, the first six months to, like, organ transplant me into his social circle.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy
And maybe Tim owed me a beer or two, you know, a couple nights out and a beer was his obligation as a family member. But instead, he would call ahead to his friends, saying like, "I'm sick, I can't go out, but Patrick's coming out. Can you just, like, show him a good time?" Just, like, over and over and over again. Like, literally, he just injected me into this community. sTim is the reason that I met my wife, which I'm going to come back to in a second, met my best man, met the only other groomsman in my wedding that wasn't a family member. So, you know, through this act of over-the-top kindness, of just, there was nothing in it for him, he was just doing the right thing, it sort of set me up for the rest of my life. Which brings me to the second thing. So, my first night at Notre Dame, Tim shows up with this fake ID that says I'm five foot four with blonde hair and blue eyes, and we go to a place called Boat Club, which let me in with this fake ID, and was shut down for letting people in with this sort of fake ID, like, three weeks later. Permanently – may it rest in peace. And I walked into Boat Club, and the story of meeting Lauren, my wife, was that was my first night in Notre Dame, the first bar I walked into, and she was the first girl that I talked to. And so that is a crazy stroke of divine luck or something, but it was lucky because I was 19 when I met her, she was 20, and, you know, we've been together and married and had kids ever since. And the true answer to kindness is her, because for 20 years now, we just crossed the point of our lives where I've been with her more than I haven't in my life, which is so crazy. I'm not young anymore. I'm 40, but I'm not old. And to have been with her for more than half my life and to have grown up as an adult, whatever they say your prefrontal cortex, like, matures when you're 25 or something, so, like, six years with her where I didn't even have a fully developed brain... It's by far the number one blessing, is that she... yeah, we have created this life together in a way that... I mean, the 1,000 things, the 10,000 things that she's done that add up to that 20 years is, like, the very clear true answer. Tim tragically died very young, which was awful, but I think about him all the time because without him, none of this would've happened, and this life wouldn't exist.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, David Senra
And so I love this story, and I love this question, because whole lives are downstream of simple, quick acts of kindness. And without Tim, my life doesn't look anything like what it looks like today. All the things I care the most about don't exist, probably. And so I remind myself of that every day, which is why I love asking this question. [00:00:00] S1: That was awesome. Now everybody else gets to see what I get to see in private, and this is why you should do more podcasts. Thanks, Patrick. [00:00:00] S0: Thanks, buddy.