Today’s episode has a bit of everything. My guest is Benj Gallander. Benj is one of Canada’s most successful contrarian investors. Benj started investing in the 1970s and in 1995 with his friend Ben Stadelmann, he co-founded Contra The Herd, an investment newsletter that has achieved an astonishing annualised return of 19.6%. Benj is the author of three best-selling books, including The Contrarian Investors’ 13 and The Uncommon Investor III – How to Earn Superior Returns in the Stock Market. He writes a column in the Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, is a regular speaker in the investment media, and is on the board of two companies.
Now, I thought this was going to be a conversation about contrarian investing but it turned out to be so much more. Benj has a wide array of interests and experiences and the conversation reflects that. I think it also reflects the big lesson of this episode – curiosity and diversity of interests and thoughts are fundamental to enduring, sustainable success – and I think they most certainly have played a big role in Benj’s success.
This also comes through throughout the episode – from when Benj describes his investment philosophy, co-founding Contra the Herd, discussing learning from mistakes, the importance of reading and learning, cryptocurrencies, Benj’s take on fear, doing uncomfortable things, and so much more.
Show notes:
The Uncommon Investor III – How to Earn Superior Returns in the Stock Market
Ron Meisels on technical analysis
Books and authors mentioned:
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
My Stockbroker is a Bum: Or, Where are all the Customers’ Yachts by Charles D’Ambrosio
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
How to Decide by Annie Duke
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Like what you heard?
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Drop us a note: allthingsrisk@gmail.com
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Our free course module “How to Set Up Any Decision for Success” from our upcoming course How to Make Decisions With Calm and Confidence
Today, we look at how and why some ideas take off and others don’t – in other words, how and why things scale. I am delighted to bring to you my conversation with John List. John has been described as a ‘master economist’ and a ‘revolutionary experimenter’. He is certainly a pioneer in combining economic theory with field experiments. John is currently the Chief Economist at Walmart and has held the same role at Lyft and Uber. He is also the Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago’s Department of Economics and has been an economic advisor to the Bush White House.
For the purposes of this episode, John discusses his latest and fabulous book The Voltage Effect – How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale. In it, John argues that scalability is critical to just about everything from medical breakthroughs to social movements. John shares a number of insights from the book, including the conditions necessary for something to scale and the secrets to high voltage scaling.
We also spend some time on a topic I consider fascinating – when and how to quit something that is not serving us. This is one of the secrets to high voltage scaling. It’s a fascinating conversation!
Show notes:
John’s University of Chicago page
John’s piece in the Wall Street Journal on quitting
The quitting ‘coin flip’ experiment
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Like what you heard?
Subscribe and/or leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/1PjLmK
Subscribe on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/all-things-risk/the-all-things-risk-podcast
Subscribe on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ben-cattaneo
Follow the podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RiskThings
Drop us a note: allthingsrisk@gmail.com
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Our free course module “How to Set Up Any Decision for Success” from our upcoming course How to Make Decisions With Calm and Confidence