How to Improve at Anything & The Truth About Owning Nothing-SYSK Choice

Walking is great exercise. However, the speed you walk at can make a big difference. The right pace can offer health benefits and can have a surprising impact on how long you live. Source: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/people-who-walk-faster-tend-to-live-longer How do top performers get to be the best at what they do? Many people assume it’s all about experience or endless practice, but there’s a more effective approach. Eduardo Briceño joins me to explain how. He delivered a popular TED Talk called How to Get Better At The Things You Care About https://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about and is the author of The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action (https://amzn.to/45Hs4NY). Eduardo reveals a powerful strategy you can apply to improve at anything you want to master. A growing movement suggests that our future may involve owning less—or even nothing at all. Advocates claim it offers freedom from responsibility, but critics warn that it threatens the traditional path to wealth creation. One of those critics is Carol Roth, author of You Will Own Nothing (https://amzn.to/44wDGCr). Carol explains who is behind this movement, what it means for you, and why it could have big implications for the future. Let’s talk about chewing gum. It won’t cure diseases or transform your health, but it turns out gum has a few surprising benefits you might not know about. Source: https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/the-surprising-benefits-of-chewing-gum#google_vignette PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now! QUINCE: Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from Quince! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns! HERS: Whether you want to lose weight, grow thicker, fuller hair, or find relief for anxiety, Hers has you covered. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://forhers.com/something⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you! SHOPIFY: Shopify is the commerce platform for millions of businesses around the world! To start selling today, sign up for your $1 per month trial at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:28Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:44Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, next time you walk, walk a little faster. I'll tell you why. Then, if you want to get good at something, experience isn't everything.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  There's research out of Harvard to see how much medical doctors improve their patient outcomes the more years of experience that they had on the job. And what they found is that, on average, patient outcomes of doctors go down the more years of experience.

• 2:12Mike Carruthers?

  Also, are there health benefits to chewing gum? And there's a growing movement to get people to own less: fewer homes, fewer cars, everything. And that has a lot of folks concerned.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  There is one thing that I know more than anything to be true, and that's wealth comes from ownership. So the idea that people wouldn't have ownership was very concerning to me.

• 2:38Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 2:44Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:28Mike Carruthers?

  and track your orders all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing. But with a thousand chances to win $1,000, I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 4:09Mike Carruthers?

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life today. Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. I know a lot of people listen to this podcast, or any podcast, while they're walking. I do the same thing. And if you're walking into work, or down the hall, or around the block, or whatever, you might want to pick up the pace. A study says that people who walk faster live longer. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh looked at 35,000 people over the age of 65, and determined that the faster they walked, the lower their risk of death. The results were significant. The fast walkers lived up to 10 years longer than those who just shoveled along slowly.

• 5:02Mike Carruthers?

  Another study from Harvard found that women who walked regularly at a brisk pace could reduce their risk of stroke by 40%. And that is something you should know. Have you ever wished that you were better at something than you are? Maybe it's a sport, or a musical instrument, or something you do at work, or public speaking, or baking, or whatever it is. I suspect all of us wish we were better at something. But, you know, you reach a ceiling. It's frustrating. You can't quite get better. Yet other people get better. If this has ever happened to you, you need to understand something called the performance paradox.

• 5:45Mike Carruthers?

  And here to explain it is Eduardo Brucino. He is a speaker and writer who has a great TEDx talk called "How to Get Better at the Things You Care About." And he's author of a book called "The Performance Paradox." Hi Eduardo, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Thank you, Mike. It's great to be here.

• 6:03Mike Carruthers?

  So, explain briefly what the performance paradox is.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Sure. The performance paradox is a counterintuitive phenomenon that if we focus only on performing, our performance suffers. So if we focus only on getting things done as best as we know how, trying to minimize mistakes, we stagnate.

• 6:22Mike Carruthers?

  And what would be a good example of that?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  An example that's easy to understand is if we look at world-class performers in domains where performance can be objectively measured. So if you look at a world-class athlete, when we look at them, they are in a tournament, playing a match. They are in what I call the performance zone, which is where they're trying to win. They're trying to do the things they know how to do best, trying to minimize mistakes. And the mistake that we make is that we tend to think that the reason they become so good at what they do is that they spend a lot of time doing what we see. But actually, the reason they become so good is because they have spent a lot of time doing something very different from what we see. During the match, if they're having trouble with a particular move,

• 7:09Speaker 01

  they will avoid that move. But then after the game, they'll go to their coach and they'll say, "Coach, I have to work on this particular move." And that's a very different activity than what we see during the match. And this, when they're focused on improvement, on increasing their skills and their capabilities, that's what I call the learning zone. And that's what enables us to build our skills and to raise our performance over time.

• 7:31Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I guess there is that sense that, for example, you know, if you want to be a better guitar player, you keep playing. You play the songs you know. You play them over and over and over again. Try to play them better. But you're saying that's not what helps.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  That's right. And that's actually how I used to play the guitar growing up. I used to play the guitar. And I would practice by playing the songs that I liked best and that I did best, and over and over. And I was a pretty mediocre guitar player as a result of that. So if you look at research, the way that people become better at playing the guitar is by taking a little piece of a song, like a little piece of something that you're struggling with or that you could do better, and focusing on that skill, trying it, seeing how it sounds, getting feedback, making an adjustment, trying again, making an adjustment again. That's what's called deliberate practice. And that's what enables people to become better at the guitar.

• 8:26Mike Carruthers?

  In your TED Talk, you tell the story. You have a great example of someone who uses the learning zone the way you describe it so well, or did, you know, hundreds of years ago. But tell that story.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Yes, so a very skilled orator, like Greek orator, by the name of Demosthenes. You know, he became great at what he did. And he's a great example of what the learning zone looks like. Because he was a fantastic lawyer. And you would think, again, that he became so good because he has so much experience. You had so many years of experience practicing law and giving speeches. But actually, the way he improved was very different from the way that he performed. So he did some very unconventional things. He would, he had a lisp. And so he would put rocks inside of his mouth to make it harder to talk, to be able to enunciate more clearly and speak more clearly.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  He had a weird thing where he would lift one of his shoulders. So he went to his basement and put a sword hanging from the ceiling. So that whenever, and he would practice in front of the mirror and under the sword. So that when he lifted his shoulder, it would hurt. And so he would stop doing that. The courtrooms were filled with people making kinds of noises. You know, if they disliked you or they disliked what you were saying. And so he would go to the shore by the ocean where it was really loud and windy. And he would practice speaking then. And so these are examples of how, you know, engaging in activities to improve is very different from engaging in the courtroom conversation, just trying to do your best as best as you know how.

• 10:09Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, and you use the word experience. And I think that's, that's so important. Because people think the experience of doing it, whatever it is, guitar playing, writing, speaking, that just doing it is what makes you better. And clearly, it's not just doing it. It's getting in the learning zone and doing all the things you talk about.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I think a lot of us are confused about the difference between experience and expertise. There's research out of Harvard that looked at 62 different research studies to see how much medical doctors improve their patient outcomes the more years of experience that they had on the job. And what they found is that on average, the patient outcomes of doctors goes down the more years of experience. And of course, that's not true for all doctors. You know, there are doctors who continue to get better over time, but those are the doctors that understand the learning zone and figure out ways to develop learning zone habits as opposed to being so busy, right?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Just seeing patients, diagnosing, treating, prescribing, that they're just trying their best they can with each patient. As a result of that, they forget information that's relevant to infrequent diagnosis. They might not stay up to date with kind of the newer technologies and techniques, and their performance decreases over time. As opposed to somebody like, for example, Nandi Bushel, who is like a 10-year-old drums player, who is fantastic at the drums, world-class. She has played with the Foo Fighters, and she has very little experience, but she has great expertise because she has engaged in the learning zone effectively.

• 11:54Mike Carruthers?

  And she's 10?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  And she's now 12, but she was 10 when she started doing drum battles with the head of the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl, over Twitter. And it was just incredible to see them playing the drums together.

• 12:08Mike Carruthers?

  But so what about something like writing? Where you think, well, the only way to be a better writer is to write more and write more and write more, but that defies what you're talking about.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  When we are novices, when we don't know how to do something, if we just try to do it, then we will become better because we're so bad, we don't need great learning strategies. We also need to get a sense of what the activity feels like. So just kind of trying to write is not a bad thing to do if you're just starting out. But then, once you become proficient, you won't become better as a writer. Example, Benjamin Franklin, when he wanted to become a better writer, what he would do is he would take great writing that he thought was fantastic writing. One of the things he would do is he would split the sentences and scramble them. And then he would reconstruct the sentences, he would leave them there for a couple of days,

• 13:01Speaker 01

  and then reconstruct them in a way that he thought would make for a great article. And then he would compare what he did with the original article and see, you know, what worked better. So that's an example of something that was deliberate in order to better figure out how to structure articles in ways that work better.

• 13:19Mike Carruthers?

  And you you claim that this basically works for everything, at any skill or talent or thing that you're trying to get better at.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Different learning zone strategies work for different skills, but they all involve the learning zone, which means leaping beyond the known, you know, focused on improvement, not just on getting things done. And for most of us, you know, we're really busy, we have a lot of things to do. So deliberate practice might not be the best thing for each of us, but it is the best opportunity for all of us to improve is to embed the learning zone into our performance zone. That is to shift the way we do things so that our goal is not only to get things done, but also to get things done while improving at the same time. And that's different than the way most of us are working.

• 14:10Mike Carruthers?

  But wait, then you're doing both things at the same time. You're performing and learning, but I thought you had to be in either the learning zone or the performing zone, that you couldn't be in both at the same time. But you say you can.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So the greatest opportunity is not to devote large blocks of time to the learning zone, like deliberate practice, because we're really busy, we have a lot of things to do. And for most of us, the biggest opportunity is in shifting the way we work so that we work not only with the sole goal of getting things done, but with two goals, the goal of getting things done and to get better over time. And so in order to do that, we have to kind of shift the way we work. We can't be doing the Same thing today than we did yesterday and last week because without change, we can't improve. Sometimes we like the idea of improvement, but we don't like the idea of change. But of course, we can't improve without change.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  We have to solicit feedback. That's probably the most effective strategy in the workplace to learn is to get information from our colleagues, from the people we're trying to serve. We need to examine mistakes and think about them and talk about them. So we can extract the lessons and figure out what we'll do differently going forward, not just kind of disregard mistakes. We have to share with each other what we're seeking to improve and how, so that they know to give us information along the way. And those things are different than the way most of us are working most of the time.

• 15:33Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about how to get better at whatever you want to get better at. And my guest is Eduardo Brucino. He's a speaker and writer and author of the book, The Performance Paradox.

• 15:46Speaker 03

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• 16:17Speaker 04

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• 16:43Mike Carruthers?

  So Eduardo, you said to get feedback input from your colleagues, but how do you know that your colleagues have any valuable input to give? I mean, they certainly may have opinions, but that doesn't make them right, doesn't make their advice good.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Feedback is information about what's in other people's minds, what they're perceiving. And as social beings, we are doing so much of what we do is to make an impact on other people, whether it is our colleagues, our boss, you know, our partner, our kids, our friends. And so when we get information about how we're coming across and what we're doing that's helpful or not helpful, you know, it doesn't mean that we have to do whatever they say, but the information that they share is always very, very helpful to inform, you know, how we can continue to do things better and so that we can have the impact we want to have on other people.

• 17:39Mike Carruthers?

  It seems, though, that just the experience of doing something over and over again can make you better, make you more proficient. I can speak for myself that, you know, we're on episode 900 and something of this podcast. If you go back and listen to the early episodes, they were nowhere near as good as they are now in a lot of ways. And it isn't because I spent a lot of time deliberately trying to figure out how do I do it better so much as I just kept doing it and honing it and making it a little better each time. Just the experience of doing it made it better.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  First of all, the experience of doing it does make a big difference in improvement when we're novices. So I'm not surprised that from episode one to episode 100, you know, you became significantly better from just doing it. But I wonder whether from episode 500 to 900, you've become significantly better. Maybe yes, maybe no. And if it's yes, then maybe to your question, you started asking, do you think some people intuitively know this? And the answer is yes. You know, some people, when they're doing things, they're doing things in a way that they're going to improve along the way. And an example of this is there is research study where they looked at people who believed that they could get smarter. That's what we call a growth mindset versus people who believe they can't get smarter,

• 19:01Speaker 01

  which is what we call a fixed mindset. And they put them in a brain scan machine and they looked at how their brains worked while they were Solving problems in the brain scan machine. And what they found is for the people who believe they couldn't get smarter. Their brain was most active and more most interested. When they were getting information about whether they they got his problem right or or wrong. But their brain was not active at all at a different time. Which is the time when the people in a growth mindset's brains was most active. So the people in a growth mindset also paid attention to what they got right or wrong. But they got they paid even more attention. To the mistakes that they made and the information that they could learn from those mistakes.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  And as a result of that, they became better problem solvers and they were more successful in the subsequent problems. And so they were, if you look at them, they're just solving problems, all of them. But some of them were paying attention to their mistakes or what surprised them and thinking about those things and others weren't. So in your case, when you're doing podcasts, you might be paying attention to what surprises you, paying attention to the things that. Uh, where where they might not go as well as you would like, or to things that work well. Uh, versus other people doing the podcast, you know, might not pay attention to those things. So yes, for some people, it becomes more intuitive. But the more we can all continue to improve by becoming clear.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  On how performance is different from learning and how we can get better at learning and get better at getting better in whatever we do.

• 20:30Mike Carruthers?

  Well, there is that, I get that, that's really a good explanation, but there's also the the issue, I think of you don't know what you don't know. So it's hard to get better at something if you don't know what better looks like or. Or what mistakes look like and how to fix them. And if you don't know what what's better, doesn't make any difference.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And so there's models of excellence are really great. So, you know, listening to other people who are fantastic at what they do and observing them and emulating them is helpful. Having a coach, you know, if you can, like, it's super, super helpful because they can guide you along the way. Uh, so absolutely, we don't know what we don't know, uh, like, learning from experts, right? Like, listening to this podcast, uh, like, listeners can get ideas. About things that they they don't know, right? If they so they need something that they should know. Uh, and and and there's content that can help them see that, see those things that they don't know.

• 21:30Mike Carruthers?

  What about? Time, just the amount of time spent at anything does seem to help, right? I mean, if you if you practice the guitar for 10,000 hours, you're going to be better than the someone who practices for 1,000 hours. Yes?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely, if the practice is effective. And so, but there are some surprising things about that. So first, like, you know, 10,000 hours playing on stage is very different than 10,000 hours on deliberate practice. But also, you would think that the best violinists in the world are those that spend the most hours every day engaging in deliberate practice or on playing the violin. And that's not the case. The very best violinists in the world engage in deliberate practice or in the learning zone anywhere between two and five hours each day. It's not 10 hours, it's not 12 hours. And the reason is that engaging in the learning zone takes a lot of mental effort and concentration,

• 22:33Speaker 01

  and quality is really important, not just quantity. And so it's helpful to kind of work at something and then take a break or, you know, rest. It actually, it's actually the case that these people sleep more than other people, than other violinists and the general public. And they tend to also take naps because they need more rest because their brain is working hard. Or, you know, Einstein would work on his theories, but then he would take a break and play the violin. So alternating mental and emotional states is helpful both for learning and performing.

• 23:06Mike Carruthers?

  You said you have some some learning strategies. Are they applicable to it doesn't matter what you're trying to get better at? And if so, could you share some of them?

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So, for example, experimentation is something that we sometimes try to experiment, but sometimes we confuse the the goal of the experiment. So we need to be clear about is the experiment, the goal of the experiment to learn or also to perform? And sometimes we try to kind of experiment in a way that's too much about making progress and scale. And growing and then that leads us into trouble because it's harder to iterate between each attempt and to change things. So we we become slower and that hurts our performance. Feedback is the most effective learning zone strategy, I think, in work and in life, just because we're social beings.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  So getting information from other people is super helpful. We spoke about deliberate practice. So there's also kind of the, in the age of the internet and artificial intelligence. Sometimes we think that knowledge is not that important because we can always search for it or ask the artificial intelligence engine. But it's actually really helpful to like develop our integrated knowledge, which I call our air sense. Because then when we're going about life and something relevant comes up, then we can, you know, bring it up at that moment. Rather than, you know, needing to go into the internet to try to find out what might be relevant.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Something that's that to think about is that sometimes when we come across relevant content or relevant insights. We think that we're going to remember them because we tend to overestimate how much we'll remember things. But when there's something important that we think would be really useful for us to know and to be able to retrieve at any point in time. Then, you know, we can think about developing a system to make sure that that happens. So for me, I find it really helpful to have like a digital flashcard app. Because generating the ideas is really much more powerful than trying to recognize them. So if you just highlight something and and read it every day, for example, is much less powerful than putting a cue

• 25:27Speaker 01

  that prompts you to generate that idea from your brain and then checking whether you generated the right idea. So digital flashcards are an example of a very effective learning zone strategy to develop our knowledge of things that we deem important.

• 25:40Mike Carruthers?

  Well, this has been really enlightening. You've explained really well that things like experience and repetition and doing the same thing over and over again doesn't really help you get better at something and there are better ways to do it. He's a speaker and writer, and if you'd like to watch his TEDx talk called "How to Get Better at the Things You Care About," there's a link to that in the show notes. And he is author of a book called "The Performance Paradox," and there's a link to that at Amazon in the show notes as well. Appreciate it. Thank you, Eduardo. You have a wonderful voice and a wonderful podcast. Thank you, Mike, for having me in it.

• 26:15Speaker 05

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• 26:46Speaker 04

  Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 27:16Mike Carruthers?

  It's always been part of the American dream to own a home, to own things, that pride of ownership. But perhaps you've noticed, that's changing. There seems to be a movement of sorts to get people to own less and feel good about it, to rent instead of own a home, and then you don't have all the hassles of dealing with repairs and things because you don't own it. There are car companies that install seat warmers in their cars. But you have to subscribe to get them to activate the seat warmers or they won't work. So you don't really own them, even though you may have purchased the car. There are actually people who are advocating that we should own less and feel good about it.

• 28:00Mike Carruthers?

  But that kind of begs the question, if you don't own something, if you don't own your home, who does? And some people are very concerned about this trend or movement or whatever it is exactly. And one of those people who is concerned is Carol Roth. She's worked in a variety of capacities in the corporate world and she is a bestselling author whose latest book is called "You Will Own Nothing." Hi Carol, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  Hi Mike, so nice to be with you.

• 28:30Mike Carruthers?

  So I can't say I've heard a whole lot about this before and I don't think many people have this idea that you will own nothing and feel good about it. So where did this start?

• 28:40Speaker 02

  I think the first time I stumbled into the phrase "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy" was probably on Twitter several years ago. And as I come across things on social media, my usual reaction is, okay, that sounds a little bananas, especially since it was associated with the World Economic Forum, which is littered with the business and political elite. How could this group be predicting the end of private property? Someone must have gotten this wrong, this must be out of context. And I found their video, which is still on their Twitter stream, eight predictions for the world in 2030.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  And there it was, right there, with a smiling handsome young gentleman, the phrase "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy." And as somebody who has advocated for wealth creation opportunities for everybody for more than a quarter of a century, there is one thing that I know more than anything to be true, and that's wealth comes from ownership. So the idea that people wouldn't have ownership, that they wouldn't have assets with the opportunity to retain their value or to appreciate value was very concerning to me. And that set me on this journey.

• 30:01Mike Carruthers?

  So do you think this is some kind of intentional organized plot to get people to own less? Or is this just, you know, things are different, some things are expensive. It's easier to rent them, subscribe to them rather than buy them or what?

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Something that I found, you know, as relates to this concept of a new world order, a new financial world order, is that this is simply something that happens very often in history. We in the United States have been at the global center of the financial universe for about 80 years now. But before our time in that pole position, it was the British. And before the British, it was the Dutch and cycles change. And so, you know, if you are somebody who is wealthy and well-connected and you see that financial stakes are shifting and you recognize these trends throughout history and then you're wealthy and you're powerful, you can say to yourself, well, gee, things are going to change. I hope it works out for me.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Or you can use all of those connections and resources and get everyone together and go, we really probably need to figure something out and make sure that we come out on top, that we're controlling as much as possible. I don't think there is an intentional push to stop on freedoms or to get people, you know, away from wealth creation. But if that's something that happens in the process, then that's something that's okay.

• 31:31Mike Carruthers?

  But so what is the benefit to these people? These new world order, financial order people? If everybody owns nothing.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  You know, there's two important pieces to that. One is you will own nothing. It's not we'll own nothing. So the people who are sharing this prediction don't necessarily think that they're part of that group that owns nothing. And they're also telling you that you'll be happy. And so there's this psychological push to say, come on board. You'll love this carefree lifestyle where you don't have to worry about anything and we'll take care of everything because it's so much easier if people go along with it than if somebody has to force that upon you to effect this kind of change.

• 32:16Mike Carruthers?

  So give me some examples that people would recognize of this already happening because we've talked about you will own nothing in the abstract, but specifically things like what?

• 32:27Speaker 02

  So the one that stands out to me the most from my research is the housing situation in the United States. We're in a place where many first time home buyers can't afford a home. Young people feel despondent about this, that they think they're never going to own a home. And there are some things that have shifted pretty substantially over the last decade and a half or so. And prior to 2010, there was no material institutional or corporate investor capital in the single family home market. Now, if you fast forward to the end of 2022, according to CoreLogic, more than one in

• 33:10Speaker 02

  every five homes in the United States was purchased during that year by a corporate investor. So now you have Wall Street competing with Main Street for the asset that is the biggest wealth builder for families. The house is the largest asset on a dollar value basis on household balance sheets across the US. And so this is the way that Americans, you know, The way that they seize the American dream. When you think of the American dream, you think of the home. And now they're taking these homes, they're competing with you, they're buying them up by the tens of thousands. And they're not trying to fix them up and then let you take them over and have more

• 33:55Speaker 02

  of a wealth appreciation opportunity. They're trying to rent you the American dream and to make you feel good about it, like that's something you actually want to do. So that's really, I think, you know, sort of the prototypical, you will own nothing. And if you go to the, the financial statements of the companies who are engaging in this, they'll say, they're trying to, to sell it as convenience and happiness, but clearly targeting the middle and working class.

• 34:27Mike Carruthers?

  And when you say market it as convenience, the it is what, renting rather than buying?

• 34:33Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 34:34Mike Carruthers?

  Besides real estate, homeownership, besides that, how else is this you will own nothing philosophy showing up?

• 34:44Speaker 02

  So there's sort of a range of ways that your life is getting rented back to you as a subscription or a service. And I think that some people would say, well, maybe some of these smaller things are more convenient. You know, the bigger things are the things that actually impact your wealth creation opportunities. But along the way, you know, one of the examples is BMW. They had a subscription service in South Korea and some other car companies have been emulating this in other places that basically said, okay, we're going to put a heater in your seat, but you don't actually own that.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  So if you want the heat turned on, you have to subscribe to it, which is completely insane. The mechanism is already there, but they want to continue to extract those rents on an ongoing basis from you. And so even if you go to sell the car, then the person who takes it over also doesn't own the heated seats and they have to get the mechanism. And you're the amount that you may pay in terms of, you know, whether it's you or a group of people who own this car for heated seats far exceeds the, the, what we would probably all agree is the value of having heated seats because they're turning it into a subscription.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  I would also say that when you think of something like your cellphone, smartphone, what is it that you actually own? You own some glass and some plastic and some microchips, but if you don't have access to the operating system, or you don't have access to the different apps, you can't really participate in modern society as a digital human being. Right now, there are two companies, Alphabet, the parent company of what used to be Google, and Apple, whose operating systems cover 99-plus percent of not just the US but the entire world.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  So, Apple, for example, has been great on privacy thus far, but they could have personnel change, or they could be bullied or coerced into a shift. And if they decide to not let you have access to that operating system, you now have a fairly worthless brick in your hands, and it doesn't do the things that you need it to do. And you can go down the line, whether it's accessing your email, or social media, or a payment service.

• 37:18Mike Carruthers?

  But I think people have this sense that if companies get so big and so powerful, the government's supposed to step in antitrust, you're too big, you need to break this up.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that would be lovely, but we are in a scenario of cronyism instead of free markets and capitalism, and that's why we need to look at these companies. And I am a free marketeer. I'm somebody who prefers that level of competition, but if there are only two operating systems that cover 99% of the planet, that becomes infrastructure, that's not a free market. And so, I highly doubt they're going to break those companies up, or break up anything that's going to shift the operating system. So, absent that, we need to have those rights protected.

• 38:07Mike Carruthers?

  If you were to, and maybe people have, sat down and asked those people who are controlling all this wealth and expressed concern, what do they say?

• 38:20Speaker 02

  So, you know, it's basic human nature to, you know, want to consolidate power, to want to consolidate wealth. I think it really depends on the person. I think there are people who've been so successful and who've ran out of things to do and ideas, and they have a god complex. I think that there are other individuals who just kind of believe their own BS, that, you know, they're here to serve other people and what they're doing is right and good. And, you know, I think there's sort of a, well, this is just sort of the way of the world, the way that it is. So, I don't think it's a

• 39:02Speaker 02

  one-size-fits-all scenario, but I don't think it's particularly complicated either. And it's why we have this history that rhymes, why we see the same things happen over and over again. When you look at, you know, the Roman Empire versus the United States, when you look at the changes in financial orders, when you look at the way certain economic systems don't work and have never worked at any point in time throughout history, it's because while technology evolves, Mike, human nature remains very much constant. And so I know people want really big, exciting reasons as why things have shifted in this

• 39:42Speaker 02

  new kind of technological age, but at the end of the day, human beings are human beings. They have the same flaws that they always have and probably always will. And so these are just battles that we consistently have to fight.

• 39:57Mike Carruthers?

  And yet, the way it seems to work is that it's so incremental, that it kind of goes by unnoticed, that, and so, and then you get used to the new normal, and then, and it just creeps in, and then all of a sudden, it's, you know, you can't buy a house anymore.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  It's true. I think it's really difficult when you're living in the middle of it to see what's happening. You know, we can look back, you know, several hundreds or even thousands of years and look at a 20-year period and go, "Well, that was a relatively short period of time and we can see the changes." But when you're living in the middle of that, 20 years seems forever, right? It's a big chunk of your lifetime. So, you know, when you're in the middle of a scenario, I think it's really hard to see the forest for the trees and to notice the changes. And I also think it goes back to human nature because for those of us who have noticed the shifts and have been warning about them, I think

• 40:58Speaker 02

  humans are not particularly proactive about things. They don't like to prevent things as much as they like to fix broken things once they have already broken, in fact.

• 41:11Mike Carruthers?

  What I'm trying to figure out here is like, is there like a political philosophy behind this? Or if you sit these people down and say, "Well, you're trying to make homeownership impossible for a lot of people." Explain to me how that's a good thing. What would they say?

• 41:29Speaker 02

  I think they would tell you exactly what I reprinted from their 10Ks and annual reports. "Oh, no, it's actually a good thing. It makes their lives easy and carefree. They don't have to worry about calling the plumber. They can take that money and invest it elsewhere. You know, they don't have to worry about the crazy costs and the maintenance and the property taxes. You know, we're doing this really for their benefit. We're here to help them out." And, you know, it's really just out of the goodness of their heart. But at the end of the day, it's, you know, it's about human nature. It's about greed. It's about making money. It's about seeing it as an investment opportunity and not really

• 42:10Speaker 02

  caring that at the end of the day, you're pulling that money away from a family and taking away their biggest opportunity to grow legacy wealth. And unfortunately, and I come from Wall Street, and I'm a recovering investment banker. So I've seen this happen over decades is that Wall Street has a big issue with short-termism, that they really think in quarters to quarters because that's how the market rewards them. You know, oh, did we make this quarter? Are we growing? Nobody thinks three or five years down the road. And I've had CEOs, current and former of publicly traded companies, tell me that and that it's bad for companies because, you know, they

• 42:54Speaker 02

  can't make these longer-term strategic investments in the same way for many of the companies because they are penalized by the short-termism of Wall Street. And, you know, I just think that that is, you know, an unfortunate myopia that hopefully, you know, we can bring some more attention to and maybe that's what needs to be rethought instead of some of these other, you know, outrageous ideas that they've been implementing.

• 43:22Mike Carruthers?

  So it's not like it's socialism and we're end of private property rights. It's more, it's not that, right?

• 43:30Speaker 02

  It's literally the financial stakes shifting, the status quo is being disrupted, the people who are connected having to get, you know, trying to preserve what's theirs and everybody else just being cannon fodder.

• 43:45Mike Carruthers?

  Do you see that this argument of, you know, you'll be better off not owning and we'll take care of everything, is that getting traction with people?

• 43:54Speaker 02

  It is because the young people have, one, been trained in that way, right? They live in these digital worlds. They don't have the same kind of stuff that we grew up with to begin with. Younger people are, you know, foregoing driver's licenses or getting them at later points in time. So they've been trained that you don't need to own things and that, you know, Uber is always just going to show up for you or whatnot. And then there's also, I think, some level of protection with young people because they have been saddled, you know, with this insane amount of college debt, this, you know, crazy transfer of wealth

• 44:37Speaker 02

  from young people to colleges and their administrators without getting an appropriate return on investment. For the, you know, for their college educations, um, that they have these, you know, really disrupted balance sheets and then they see how expensive homes and things like that are, are out there. And they don't think the American dream is attainable. And so that's why we're seeing more young people saying basically, oh, I didn't want this anyway, as a protection mechanism, because they don't think they can participate in the American dream, the way that the generations that preceded them did.

• 45:20Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I've noticed, it seems to me anyway, that especially with young people, that you hear a lot of that, you know, I don't need a car, Uber's fine, that kind of thing. But once they get a taste of it, of ownership, like owning a car or some, that, that, that things start to change. There is something magical about owning something that I guess you don't know until you own it.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  Bingo. Exactly what, you know, when you understand the freedom and the sovereignty and the wealth creation opportunities and that, you know, this is my domain. And also when you tell them it's achievable, I think a lot of these young kids have heard, you're a victim, you can't do this, everybody's against you. Uh, and when you tell them the opposite and they step into that and they realize it, then they go, okay, yeah, I like this and I want more of it. And so I think that's, that's the message here. I don't, you know, I don't want to bum everyone out, you know, that, that this is heavy, but the elite may want you to own nothing, but I want people to own everything. Like, it sounds like you want people to, to do that as well. So, you know, let's give them more hope and more opportunities and, and help them understand

• 46:28Speaker 02

  what those barriers are so that they can overcome them and do so in a financially savvy way and really fortify that American dream.

• 46:37Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it just seems so strange to me. There is an assumption that owning things, or at least I thought there was an assumption, that owning things can have real benefit, that as you say, it's the way to wealth creation. And for people to imply or to suggest that you will own nothing and you're really gonna like that, it's a little beyond me, but here it is. I've been speaking with Carol Roth, and she is author of a book called, "You Will Own Nothing." And if you'd like to read the book, you can find it at Amazon, and there's a link to it in our show notes. Thank you, Carol.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  All right, Mike, thanks so much for taking the time.

• 47:16Mike Carruthers?

  I'm not a big gum chewer, but I know people who are, and sometimes people will say, you know, that there are real health benefits to chewing gum. Well, there are some health benefits, they're not profound, but they are health benefits. For one thing, chewing gum can slightly curb your cravings, which may help you make better eating choices. In one study, on average, gum chewers ate 36 fewer calories than those people who did not chew gum. And chewing gum just by itself burns about 11 calories an hour, which is not a lot, but it can add up. Chewing gum can help keep your teeth healthy, as long as it's sugarless.

• 47:59Mike Carruthers?

  If you chew gum for 20 minutes after you eat, you can protect your teeth by removing food debris and increasing saliva flow, as saliva helps to strengthen your tooth enamel. Chewing gum may also increase blood flow to the brain, which has a lot of positive effects, including improving your memory. In one study, short-term memory improved by 35% for people chewing a stick of gum. It can also fight drowsiness, chewing gum can, especially if you chew mint-flavored gum. Chewing gum also reduces heartburn. Following up a meal with a stick of gum can lower the acid levels in your esophagus, which may help reduce acid reflux and heartburn.

• 48:42Mike Carruthers?

  And chewing gum can also fight depression. Chewing gum twice daily for two weeks reduced anxiety, depression, fatigue, and other mental illnesses in patients in one study. And that is something you should know. It takes just a moment to tell somebody you know about this podcast, and it helps us a lot. It helps us get new listeners, and we really appreciate it. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 49:09Speaker 03

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• 49:40Speaker 04

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