This is a special episode for Gary Pinkerton as Jason Hartman and Pat Donohoe, his two biggest mentors, share their thoughts on technological changes. They discuss the possible impact of converging technologies, the effect of robotics on our economic future, and the forces that affect real estate prices. They also recommend books and other mediums that can be used to stay plugged in, networked, and prepared for the upcoming changes.
Jason Hartman 0:04
Welcome to the heroic investing show. As first responders we risk our lives every day our financial security is under attack. Our pensions are in a state of emergency. A single on duty incident can alter or erase our earning potential instantly and forever. We are the heroes of society. We are self reliant, and we need to take care of our own financial future. The heroic investing show is our toolkit of business and investing tactics on our mission to financial freedom.
Gary Pinkerton 0:38
Hello, and welcome to Episode 97 of the rogue investing show, where we focus on those challenges faced by members of the armed services, the first responders, and the veterans out there. We also focus on those challenges unique to all of us, we help people figure out how to replace their w two income with passive income. My favorite is money coming from cash flow coming from income producing rental properties, one to four families backed by Fannie Mae, long term fixed rate 30 year loans. But there’s other options, right. And for a lot of my clients that paradigm life, we talk about other alternative investments, alternatives to Wall Street, but not necessarily real estate, you know, we look at things that are perhaps a bit more passive, perhaps being a lender, perhaps owning royalties, it really just comes down to what fits your personality, with your level of involvement, the level of drama associated with having tenants in a property to each their own. But the important thing is that you get back some control of your money, and some control of your time. And once you have that, there’s no limit to where you can go in this world. Today. Well, I don’t know how to say it. These two are my favorite mentors on this planet. Patrick Donahoe from paradigm life is interviewing Jason Hartman. For the wealth standard podcast, Patrick joined the venture Alliance shortly after I did, I was so inspired with what we were starting to do there that I think I talked it up incredibly high to Patrick. And being in the room with both of those gentlemen, Time after time at the venture Alliance, I just can’t tell you what the value is associated with that for me. And I think for most of the other members of that that venture alliance of that mastermind group, I can’t more highly recommend the group nor these two individuals, and I, you know, specifically chose to leave the military to start working with Patrick, because I’m inspired with what he’s doing to help change the lives of the middle class in America. I think if I hadn’t worked with him, I’d be working with with Jason Hartman. So I tried to bridge the gap by running a podcast where I have the opportunity to introduce both gentlemen to work with both of them. I’m certainly inspired by both and you know, the these two share a lot in common. You know, Patrick is a an educated economist, Jason his and an economist by ownership, I think he, he has learned to become a worldly economist with street cred.
He doesn’t have this certificate from my university, but he’s got it from the streets, from operating businesses. And, you know, through numerous market economic cycles, and becoming a student by interviewing people across the spectrum of government of finance, until, you know, he just has this breadth of information that helps him make decisions and analyze trends that are happening out there. And it’s why he has such a big followership with grading well show because he has a solid analysis of it. So when you get these two gentlemen working, they are talking together in a podcast, it’s eye energy, and interesting. So you’re certainly gonna appreciate this one. And I also wanted to I don’t talk a lot about Patrick’s show or even the company. But this is an opportunity to mention that this wealth standard podcast was before his new format started specifically, and just as a special event, kind of for 2018, where he’s going through a three part series, each of them 120 days long, about life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. And that is a little bit different than what you’re used to hearing. But that comes from john Locke, which was really where our founding fathers got life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And they went with happiness, because they thought that pursuit of property would be misunderstood, and they’re probably right. But if you go back and listen to the first episode, maybe the last episode of 2017, and the first one of 2018, as Patrick introduces this three part series of the wealth standard, it’s incredible. I really recommend that podcast, but he talks about the pursuit of property and what that means. And what it means really is more like intellectual property. It’s having a system having a rule of law and a judicial system and rights, so that you can create intellectual property, you can have things like patents that are upheld copyrights, it’s that you can create things in your mind. And that adds value to others that is valuable, meaning that they will exchange money for it in a country where it’s not going to be taken from you. And so people have, they feel inspired to do things like, you know, the Steve Jobs way with iPhones, Bill Gates with Microsoft, I mean, just goes, the list goes on and on, right, it’s where people are inspired to change their world and and change America, the world of others by taking intellectual property, and being able to profit from it. So that’s really what john Locke’s idea of a good society was the elements of a good society. And that’s what Patrick talks about on the west standard radio. So not necessarily what we’re going to talk about here. They get into all kinds of topics.
But this is a great episode and a great insight into the brilliance of these two gentlemen. And one more thing that I love about both of them. And the reason I follow both is, first and foremost, they’re about education. So you go to either one of those sites, either go to Jason hartman.com, or go to paradigm life dotnet. And you will see free education from one end of the spectrum to another, and there are hundreds of hours of education on both sides, because they believe that an educated individual will make a smart decision, and will want to work with them. And that’s what happened to me. In both cases, right. I came from investing in real estate and rental properties, had some bad lessons learned very early on in just a few months. And it drove me to somebody who had a different mentality and some different ethics, which was Jason’s group. And a few months before that, I came across Patrick and his group, and I stopped a 26 year career in the Navy to to go work with Patrick because of how much he inspired me and his approach and his mission. So Patrick talks about playing the infinite game. I think he’s doing it. And I want to follow just like I want to follow the path that Jason is on as well. And I think we’re making a difference in people’s lives. So please enjoy this conversation between two people that I consider to be very valuable and amazing mentors. Thank you.
Patrick Donahoe 7:18
Morning, everybody. This is Patrick Donahoe, welcome to the wealth standard radio. Man, you’re in for a treat today. I know I say that sometimes, quite often. But I mean it I mean it today. So I, so I have a special guest in the in the office in the flesh. Jason Hartman. Jason, you were on a couple, a couple months ago, I think was back end of end of last year. But you have an event here that you’re doing in Salt Lake on Saturday. And, and you stopped by? Yeah, fine hanging out.
Jason Hartman 7:47
Yeah, it’s great to be here. Pat, I got to tell you, I am so impressed with your company and your office and your facilities. Wow, this place is amazing. It’s, you know, it’s good not to do everything virtually all the time, and to actually go out and, and see things and we all want to be efficient and save our time. And so a lot of us are in our home office or in our commercial office, and we’re not out seeing things. So you know, I remember like, in the old days, I used to go out and see people more and now I just try to be more efficient. And so I’m doing a lot of stuff over Skype and with all the great tools we have and you’re super efficient. And well, I don’t know about that. We’ll, we’ll see on that one. But no, it’s really great to meet your staff and your team and you know, just see your operation. I’m very impressed and and you’re so humble. Like it’s ridiculous. You know, here’s here’s Pat folks listeners just so you know. Yeah, I make like half a billion dollars a year whatever. And now I’m struggling. Yeah. That’s not true, but close to 499 million a year. Just kidding.
Pat Donohoe 8:50
No, it’s Yeah, we I love I love our office mean it’s kind of like there’s a there’s an energy here that you know, is really a it energizes me it’s hard for me to like sit in my home office and do stuff by myself. I love being loved being in groups but anyway,
Jason Hartman 9:04
Well, you’re a people person and you’ve got a great team of people. So it’s it’s great to come here and you know, I worked here most of the day yesterday and I’m just kind of being your office drop in today a little bit.
Pat Donohoe 9:15
You brought your you brought your your sidekick.
Jason Hartman 9:17
Well, yeah, I brought my laptop but I brought my dog too. And my dog is having fun because we’re in your office.
Pat Donohoe 9:23
It was funny. Yesterday, she she came in and just like took off and started running around the house. That was amazing. She
Jason Hartman 9:27
was nuts. I was so afraid. She was gonna break something. Everybody I was thinking, Oh my God, that’s gonna kill me. And she didn’t break anything.
Pat Donohoe 9:34
No, she she did awesome. She Great. Well, amazing, amazing dog. Okay, so today we can you and I can talk for probably aeons, which is a curse, which is a curse
Jason Hartman 9:42
We, let’s give some value to your listeners. Let’s talk about. Let’s talk about disruption. I mean, we are at this inflection point in history, I believe. And you know, Pat, maybe everybody thought this before. Maybe everybody thought this back when the steam engine was invented. Or when, you know, when they just I guess this is not an invention, it’s more of a discovery discovered how to make fire. Okay, certainly that’s completely possible. But there are, we are at the convergence of so many technologies right now and attribute this mostly to the internet and the network mellowed. And of course, you know, the concept of the network by the person escapes me who invented the Ethernet. I kept, of course, I know this. I can’t just can’t think of it right now. The Ethernet? Yeah. Which was Al Gore. No, it wasn’t Al Gore. That was the internet. But actually, when, you know, Al Gore invented global warming, and then, and then when that didn’t quite work out. And there were too many skeptics. He invented the internet. Joking, of course. But al gore takes credit for a lot of snow that no kidding just now, but it isn’t quite right.
Pat Donohoe 10:51
I came up. It was the open source idea was one of those things where, you know, I think it was like a, it was a it was a mining company. And they open they gave kind of like their, the land that they own. And they opened everything up so that people with developers can go and they won some even like a million dollar prize wherever but people all over the world taking the data from this mining company and showing like where we’re at as to why right? Yeah, that’s and that and that idea. I mean, look at who it’s worked for, like Salesforce has an open, you know, open back end where you can go in, there’s a lot of other companies are saying like, here it is developed for me, right?
Jason Hartman 11:24
The app stores, right, you know, when Apple opened their app store for the iPhone A long time ago, that was an amazing change. And I recently purchased a Tesla. And I’m not by the way, I should make the disclaimer, I’m not really necessarily a believer in the concept of the electric car. But I am totally a huge believer in the self driving car. So that’s the reason I dropped 110 grand for that car. But the Tesla is is about to open an app store. And so that car is really it’s called a computer on wheels. And so when I look at that screen, in my car, in the console section of the car in the middle, there’s an app store there that they are about to open while I start developing all kinds of third party apps for a car. And this is a totally new concept. And of course, the self driving car is a giant revolution. I mean, I tell you, folks, I don’t think anybody has really come to grips with how big a deal, the self driving car is. And it is around the corner. This is happening so quickly. I recently moved from the Socialist Republic of California, to Arizona, and I flew back to pick up my Tesla. And basically, I want to say I drove back to Arizona with a car but he drove he drove you It’s amazing. I mean, going around windy roads through the mountainous area in the desert at at 85 miles an hour. And the car is literally driving. I mean, it’s freaky, trippy, it’s hard to trust, only three times now, in driving that car, have I taken the wheel away from the computer. It’s It’s driven all the rest of the time. And it’s an amazing time to be alive.
Pat Donohoe 13:06
Mentally do i mean that and that’s so that’s a great point because disruption. I mean, disruption has been a part of human, you know, human existence, right? It’s and there’s all there’s obviously degrees of disruption, but it’s always happening. It always will happen just because of what’s driving human beings. Now, the driving side of things pretty gradually before that now it’s like exponential. Yes, it’s
Jason Hartman 13:24
in the exponential time, as Peter Diamandis says, and it’s, it’s this convergence of all the technologies with the concept of the network. And you know, that saying from the Ethernet inventor was the value of a network increases by like, the square of each node on the network. And each node is a person connected to the internet, right? And so, like you said, the mining company that open sourced its mining operation, and so many things where people are crowdsourcing investment capital, where they’re crowdsourcing ideas, where they’re crowdsourcing, how to, you know, decode the genome. It’s mind boggling. And if you want to read an incredible book, not directly on this subject, but sort of indirectly, but very powerful, and she has a TED talk to Jane mcmoneagle, who wrote reality is broken. And it’s about the gamification of everything. And Pat, I mean, it is an amazing time to be alive. It’s incredible.
Pat Donohoe 14:27
And I look at you know, you know, getting being driven by buyer. Yeah.
Jason Hartman 14:31
And I put a chauffeur out of business.
Pat Donohoe 14:35
The idea I didn’t have a show for me, as you were talking through that I was thinking that you’ve talked this on about this on your podcast, but when you were talking I was like, I don’t know how it would react if something was driving me because you’re, you’ve been so conditioned to drive and be in control now. That’s the thing. So as this disruptive technology becomes a part of society, I mean human beings right now. They don’t like it. Some people like change, some people don’t. But I think if you really want to be able to take advantage of what’s coming down the pipe as far as society is concerned, whether it’s business or any type of wealth building, you need to understand change, you need to be okay with change. Yeah, you
Jason Hartman 15:16
need to be, you really need to embrace change. You know, I mean, we can go so many directions with this, if you want to talk a little bit about the self driving car, it’s interesting, because one of the predictions I have made, and you know, I’m a real estate guy, okay, I help people invest in income properties nationwide, really conservative approach, you know, we’re all about income. If appreciation comes, it’s the icing on the cake. But let me make a prediction on pricing on the valuation of real estate, because this is hugely important for our economy, the impacts are so wide ranging. So the the cardinal rule of real estate since the beginning of time, from the days of prehistoric humans living in caves, was location, location, location, and it still is the driving thing that that drives real estate values. But if transportation becomes the sort of non issue, if if the concept of a commute becomes compressed into it being sort of a meaningless thing that doesn’t really impact you, where you don’t have to drive, or you can sleep while the car drives you, or you can work, you can literally do yoga, while the car drives you, you know, you could do whatever you could play with your dog play with your kids. I’m sure people will drive around making love. There’s all kinds of things that this means, right? So it’s a giant impact. And in the past couple of decades, there’s been this new movement and resurgence in real estate markets around the country, because America is really the founder of the concept of suburbia. Okay, in the post World War Two baby boom generation, the suburbs became this very iconic American ideal Levittown baby boomers coming back from the war, the two bedroom not the three bedroom, usually, but the two bedroom, one bath house, in the suburbs with a white picket fence. Maybe it was in Lakewood, California, maybe it was anywhere in America, anywhere America, you name the American dream, that was the big one. And that’s because of the romance built around the automobile in the 50s. And, you know, fuel was cheap cars, America had the auto industry, you know, the world’s auto industry. In fact, if you go to Cuba, where progress stopped in 1959, it’s like going back to old cars, they have their that are still held together with bubblegum and duct tape. And but the interesting thing is, my prediction is that there will be a renaissance in the other direction in the suburbs. Because living in the suburbs has its benefits, right? You know, you can have a yard and a dog. And, you know, it’s kind of a nice environment in many ways. Now, the three block radius around everybody’s house still really matters. The school districts will still matter to those who have children. Okay, definitely important. But, you know, do you really need to live in an expensive area? If, if commuting is not an issue, why can’t you live 45 minutes or an hour away from your employment? And maybe your employment won’t even be a commute? I mean, for a lot of us, it is literally more we we literally walk across the hallway, our home office. And so this is a big change. I’m telling you. I’m not exactly sure how it will play out. Nobody is, but it’s a big deal. Real estate is the biggest asset class on planet Earth. Okay, and this matters, the self driving car matters. So a lot of things come into play here. Number one, what’s known as packing density of cars on highways and freeways. Because the cars can be packed at a ratio of six times what they are now, when once they’re self driving cars, once they’re well, not just self driving, but network together. Okay, because when the cars start to communicate with each other, then why can’t they drive 90 or 100 miles an hour to feed off each other’s bumper, right? Because if if one stops a mile ahead, all the cars will know to stop. Now this is all great until somebody hacks your car. or god forbid that Microsoft makes software because that would be cheap. I’m obviously an apple fan. But but the packing density matters. So that lessens the need for building new roads and highways. So much for Obama’s shovel ready myth of the jobs you know that he promised eight years ago right in so that that’s a big deal. The whole idea that commute is compressed. That doesn’t become meaningful anymore. You could live in low priced areas like Phoenix, and if you love the beach and love the ocean, you’re car on Friday evening at midnight you can get in your car
Pat Donohoe 20:03
and wake up at the beach next morning.
Jason Hartman 20:05
Yeah, refreshed at 7am. And you can go surfing you can hang out at the beach, you know, maybe it’s a self driving motorhome. It is a game changer. It’s huge.
Pat Donohoe 20:15
Well, I think looking, you know, again, how things are gonna play out, it’s probably not going to be exactly how we how we put it because you have human beings are always behaving reacting and a lot of it’s irrational. So it’s it’s one of those things where paying attention to this type of disruptive technology, whether it’s the self driving car, whether it’s network cars, whether it’s other technology, it is going to, it’s going to change the way that we lives can change, the way that we invest is going to change the way that we ourselves behave. But I think all the points that you’ve made are incredibly valuable. But so looking at you know, I posed this question to you yesterday, because you’re that you’re the real estate guru. But looking at right now, there is a tremendous drive toward living in an urban area, right? I gave you I like that. But
Jason Hartman 20:58
yeah, I like the mixed use idea. I love the walkable communities. Yeah, so I’m a fan of that.
Pat Donohoe 21:03
But you made you made great points, because you know, a lot of what’s driving that as a younger generation, but as the younger generation, right now, they’re be trying to be efficient, right? Because they’re starting out, they’re trying to find their career, they’re paying off a load of student loan debt, trying to be very, you know, cognizant of where money is coming in where money is going. And but looking at as they pay off that debt as they progress in their careers, you made a great point, which is that behavior is going to change, and what are they going to do next. And that’s where suburbia, I mean, they’re be having the convenience, I like this guy that I only live a few minutes from out of out of out of town, or out of the city. But I like that because I’m close to everything. It’s convenient. Okay, if I need to go here, here, here, I can do that. But you made a great point, which
Jason Hartman 21:48
is in a really expensive area. Okay. And so, like take Southern California where I spent most of my life in the Socialist Republic, okay. Love to pass California. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona now, by the way, just so everybody knows, but most of my life paying taxes to the corrupt socialist government of California. And in that area, you know, when I lived in Orange County, California, I lived in Irvine and Newport Beach, two areas there. And the cheap real estate was out in Riverside, San Bernardino comparative is West, right. And a lot of people had to commute, they’d would buy a house out in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and they would commute into Orange County or Los Angeles for jobs. And they would spend their life on that freeway and it would it would be terrible. Now that’s, that’s all gonna change, do you really need to have an expensive home in Newport Beach, when you can have a much less expensive home in Riverside. And that commute issue is largely gone. Now the cost of energy is one of those considerations, but the cost of energy is plummeting. We’ll see. This is a big deal. And I think it’s going to put downward price pressure on expensive real estate that is based on location heavy valuations. And it’s going to put upward price pressure on lower priced real estate where land has historically been less expensive, because it doesn’t have location, location, location going for us, let
Pat Donohoe 23:16
me let me throw maybe a couple of other ideas are wrenches wrench, wrench in my theory, because so looking looking at, you know, again, the improvement of technology, what people are doing, it’s really the it’s, it’s what is driving a person to do it, which is they want to they want more with less, they want better they want progress. They want, you know, the iPhone seven and an eight and nine and 10. And they want the new new new and for less, less cost. So if you look at you know, real estate in general, and specifically real estate prices, what are what are some of the forces right now that are emotion that are driving they’re going to be driving down? Whether it’s construction prices, whether it’s the commodity that go into homes, whether it goes to the energy, what are what are some of those forces, which will affect real estate prices, and maybe even affect rents? Eventually? Yeah, great question.
Jason Hartman 24:06
So we’ve got these conflicting forces going on. Technology is quite obviously deflationary. Okay, it makes things less expensive, and it makes them better. And we all know this, we don’t have to, you know, my first cell phone cost 30 $200. I actually financed it as a 19 year old kid when I bought it, and it weighed 14 pounds, okay, and now you can buy a much better cell phone that does a lot more for a lot less obviously. But the the conflicting force with technology, the countervailing force is government and central banks. And so as great as all this technological innovation is, the governments and the central banks really all around the world are doing their best they can to screw it all out, because they’re, they create lots of inflationary pressure. And so the thing we don’t understand is who will In which force is more powerful? Is it central banks and governments? Or is it technology? And I don’t know the answer. Nobody does. It’s impossible to predict nobody could predict this. Certainly, Janet Yellen at the Federal Reserve doesn’t know either. Nobody knows. But the way the government spends is Ronald Reagan said it was great quote, he says, to say that the government spends like a drunken sailor, is an insult to drunken sailors. So that’s a good quote. So so we’ve got those inflationary forces out there, government spending is inflationary, no question. And then we’ve got the deflationary forces of technology. And, you know, in the cost of housing to directly attack that question. I don’t know, you know, there’s all this stuff about the 3d printed houses, and yes, a few of them have been built, but they’re kind of weird. The thing people don’t understand is, even if the construction becomes easier and faster to build the house, it still uses the commodity of land. And it most definitely still uses the commodity of building materials. Something goes in the 3d printer, like a petroleum based product or wood that, yeah. Wood 3d printed out. Yeah. Tell me about that.
Pat Donohoe 26:15
Well, won’t be all wood. But certain wood can be assembled by a robot, or it could be cut automatically by Well, that’s not 3d printing, well, 3d printing, you can 3d print concrete, you can 3d print, you know, petroleum based composite stuff. But yeah, it’s still the assembly is going to be a lot more efficient, no
Jason Hartman 26:32
question about it can’t
Pat Donohoe 26:33
read, you can’t like create trees out of nothing that
Jason Hartman 26:37
he looked at, we created a meatball in a lab. So who knows? Who knows if we can create, you know, genetically engineered trees, of course, you know, grown out of nothing into something. So we’ll see where this all goes. But that the house still takes materials. And the difference between robotic manufacturing. And the specific robotic manufacturing called 3d printing is that 3d printing is what’s known as additive manufacturing. So it’s ideal for petroleum based products. Because the plastic genre of materials, we mold is very good at additive, you know, where it adds, adds, adds and builds it and adds to it and create something like that. So how’s it still take building materials until the day when we live in a force field? And maybe we come home and push a button or think of thought, and our house appears as a force field around us? And it’s not really made of matter.
Pat Donohoe 27:38
I know, that that’s that’s that
Jason Hartman 27:40
I’m going way off your way. I
Pat Donohoe 27:42
know, but, but again, everything you’re everything, you’re saying, again, what is initiating that, and it’s really that human driving force to get better, to get cheaper and more efficient. But it’s fascinating, because you do have that opposite for us, which is government, right, or just the nature of economy, we’ve had this, you know, conditioned idea that we need growth every year growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, and if we don’t have and growth is all measured in increasing prices, which that doesn’t, that is not the only way to measure growth. But in the end, that’s what their initiative is. And that’s what they’re driving toward.
Jason Hartman 28:14
When you say they you’re talking about government and central bank. Yeah, well, they’re they have a target inflation rate dictated by what’s called the Phillips curve, which is, you know, that the thought that and I’m not explaining this perfectly, but go to Wikipedia and look up Phillips herb. But the idea is that the government wants to target, you know, two or 3% inflation, because if they don’t get that, then the economy doesn’t grow properly, and unemployment increases. But the thing I don’t know that we should talk about another show, because it’s a long subject, is the whole concept of robotics and what that means to employment. I mean, this is giant. And folks, this is not here is the critical thing, listeners. This is closer than you think this is not far off. I’m talking three to five years before you see huge impacts from what we’re talking about. This is not 1015 years away. And it’s not a quarter century away. It is right around the corner. And there’s another big thing that we should also talk about in the future. And that’s I started about a year ago hosting a new show called the longevity and biohacking show, in addition to my popular real estate show called The creating wealth show. But we are on the verge I believe of giant advances in life expectancy. And Pat, that has such a big impact on the economy. Because what happens to Social Security if people live 2530 years longer, social security was designed for people to lose 6567 years old and you have to like live four years after retirement. Okay, and then die, you know, diet 6925,
Pat Donohoe 29:54
not
Jason Hartman 29:56
30 Yeah. And so we already are struggling with that problem. look at Europe. Which is an absolute disaster. I mean, Europe is a messed China’s a mess of for kind of the opposite side of that problem, because they don’t have enough. You know, because they’re one child policy is just route going to ruin China, you’re already seeing a little bit of that, but they sort of got into the second they are
Pat Donohoe 30:15
second child now.
Jason Hartman 30:16
Yeah, I know. But it’s too late. But it’s Yeah, it’s over game over the huge impacts here. And so the question is, what does that mean for unemployment? What does it mean for government budgets? What does it mean for inflation and central banks and monetary policy? The impacts are ginormous, we should tackle that along with robotics on another episode,
Pat Donohoe 30:36
and it’s more of in the I think the reason why we like talking about this is, is as you look, as you look toward the future, first, as I said before, it’s not gonna have it’s not going to be the exact, you know, description that we think it’s going to be right, there’s always going to be different changes in its timeframes, and so forth, right? i, you and i agree on a lot of things. And I agree on I agree, it’s going to be coming very quickly, because the speed at which we’re accelerating toward that is, is, is exponential. And so, but I always look at, okay, why is that going to happen? And what does that mean, for me? What does that mean for business? What does that mean for opportunity? And if I think more people would start to ask themselves that, those questions, now they’re going to read differently, they’re going to, you know, pay attention to certain things differently. And I think that’s very
Jason Hartman 31:18
powerful, bring a different self, to the environment. And when you start thinking about all of these disruptive technologies, you think, how does that impact my business? One of the things you know, one of my very early mentors, fortunately, was Earl Nightingale, along with Jim Rohn, Denis waitley, Zig Ziglar, those guys changed my life at 17 years old. And one of the things Earl Nightingale used to talk about is he used to say, the thing you’ve got to do is every day, ask yourself how your business, your company, your profession, will be done differently in five years, or 10 years. And now that old Earl Nightingale thing in Earl Nightingale died back in 1989. Okay, so this is, you know, old thinking, you know, he was popular in what the 60s, the 70s 50s 50s? Even Yeah, it was way before my time, I’m glad to say, but, you know, I still loved his work and still do. And now that’s just massively compressed. And the impact is massively increased. So it’s not a question of how will this impact your your world in 10 years, it’s how will it impact it next year in the year after, and the impact is so much greater? I mean, this is not a linear change anymore. It is exponential times. And we’ve got to be prepared for that. And so many people are still asking the question, you know, Who Moved My Cheese? Right? When is that famous? I hadn’t come on the show. And, and so you know, that, that that cheese is getting moved around a lot faster?
Pat Donohoe 32:50
Why think? Well, that’s one of the human I mean, one of the deficiencies I think we have as humans is we come to a conclusion. And we are so set in our ways and unwilling to change, it’s got an ego side of thing. So I would say, you know, what I’ve tried to do lately and what I try to observe is not coming to conclusions, not saying this is absolute, this is absolute. This is absolute is just saying, Okay, well, is it absolute? And or could it change? And I think if people thought that way, they’d have much less disappointment, cuz I think people when they come to certain conclusions, and they expect things to be a certain way, and that doesn’t happen, it’s like life, life is over. Right? It’s never There’s hardly been any type of absolutes that have that have occurred in throughout human history. So it’s more of because of where we’re at, in the state of our society. It’s, it’s paying attention, it’s looking for the opportunities, it’s, it’s networking, it’s building on that momentum and not getting stuck in your ways,
Jason Hartman 33:38
no question about it. But I don’t think we should beat ourselves up too much for being that way. Because if you think about it, it served us for all time until really the last couple of decades, when that acceleration of change happens so much faster, because in the old days, thinking in that sort of consistent linear way was the way the world worked. And we that was our survival skill back then. But now because things are changing so quickly, we need a new set of survival skills, and just to not be stuck to the past. And so it’s a it’s a whole new world.
Pat Donohoe 34:17
Well, that’s that’s an under that’s an understatement.
Jason Hartman 34:19
That’s the understatement of the the century maybe but, you know, maybe we’ll wrap this up with a great Yogi Berra quote. And you know, he had such funny, awesomely insightful quotes. And the one one I like a lot is he said, the future ain’t what it used to be.
Pat Donohoe 34:38
That’s short, sweet. To the point where you’re right and I have no I love I love reading. I love seeing what people are thinking but maybe as we end what are what are some ways in which you keep up with with a lot of this where what are books, blogs, people you follow that where you try to get keep plugged in to because you’re obviously you have Multiple podcasts you you’re well networked, you’re well put in what are some of kind of like the top books or the top blogs or feeds or sites that you’re consistently looking at?
Jason Hartman 35:08
Yes. So I think one of the most important things is that you, you want to really consciously choose your relationships, your friendships. And that’s one of the reasons mastermind groups are so powerful, you know, good old Napoleon Hill back in what the 20s or 30s of 1900, by the way, because I better say that, you know, he talked about the power of the mastermind group. And so you want to hang out with people who are maybe thinking more broadly than you doing more than you earning more than you. Don’t be the smartest guy in the room, you know, constantly challenge yourself to be one of the dumbest people in the room, because that means you’re in a really powerful room. It’s stretched, yeah, you’re in, you’re gonna get stretched. So I say that’s the first thing listening to you know, good podcasts are very important, of course, and books. Gosh, I mean, the era of books is changing so much in the era of publishing is changing so much. You know, I love great books. One that I just finished Gosh, I got to look it up on Audible to get you the exact title. This was an audio book I just did and it
Pat Donohoe 36:25
well, you Yeah, and that’s when I remember the one of the first times we we had a pretty lengthy discussion, we were comparing our audible libraries, because that’s sitting down and reading a book. That’s that is difficult for me, me, it’s multitasking, but I find a huge amount of value in being able to be active while listening to books. That’s why audible on two or 3x speed is as powerful
Jason Hartman 36:46
I like to read too. But you know, it’s reading is not a portable activity, listening to audio. Once you have
Pat Donohoe 36:52
like your network self driving cars, then you know that then
Jason Hartman 36:54
you can read again, you can read again, the colonel still bumped around until it meditates. And that’s probably coming to what is the flying car gonna be here. You know, I remember watching the Jetsons and that just hasn’t happened yet. So this book, really interesting. It’s called originals, how non conformists move the world. And it’s by Adam Grant really interesting book, zero to one by Peter Thiel was a recent one. There are just so many great books out there. But the problem again, with books, and I mean, this industry has obviously changed so much is if it goes through the traditional publishing channels and not being self published, by the time you’re getting that book, it’s two years old, if not older, so in a world of that’s why podcasting.
Pat Donohoe 37:41
That’s why podcasting is immediate, right? podcasting? It’s Top of Mind tipitaka. Yeah, it’s it’s the current events. It’s what’s going on right now.
Jason Hartman 37:47
Yeah. What?
Pat Donohoe 37:48
Do you have any any podcasts that you that you like listening to that kind of keep you plugged in and keep you engaged? Keep you stimulated intellectually? Besides your own?
Jason Hartman 37:57
Yeah. Why, like all my own podcast? quite well. I love that I get to ask the questions of all these experts I interview. And so I’ve got 21 different shows, oh, my God, I can just search by name on iTunes or whatever podcast platform, find those so little shameless self promotion there. But I like your podcast because you’re a forward thinker, obviously. And I know your listeners can tell that. And I I like to some of the news sources. You know, like Newser is a great little news app. I like really quick to paragraph news. Business Insider is pretty good, too. But there’s a lot of clickbait out there, too, which, frankly, the title is so compelling, but the article itself is less compelling. I’m not criticizing Business Insider, I just thought of that concept. But they do it to
Pat Donohoe 38:41
do this, for thinking before thinking.
Jason Hartman 38:45
That would be a FWD thinking podcast. I like that one too, because they talk about technology. even talked about that, no,
Pat Donohoe 38:54
have we bought we bought the topic for next time. Next month.
Jason Hartman 38:57
That’s a good podcast. I like that one. Yeah,
Pat Donohoe 38:59
but I think and there’s a lot out there. And sometimes you’ll gravitate toward one person than another. But there are so many out there, it’s just more of finding, finding, you know, what really keeps you engaged keeps you interested, because in the end, I think technology is one of those things that everybody needs to start paying attention to because it could totally throw a industry out of balance, it can throw your career out of balance, it can throw your investing out of balance. So I would say getting plugged into that the disruption that’s going to occur is definitely going to change the world and I’m, I’m excited I’m optimistic that it’s gonna you know, if it’s gonna improve is gonna improve life despite a lot of the naysayers and the doomsayers that are out there that are taking, you know, a lot of what’s going on to the negative extreme and saying how the world is going to implode. I never like to look at that.
Jason Hartman 39:48
Well, look, it’s a mixed bag. I mean, you know, everything is a mixed bag. There are always people that win and lose every time things change. But overall, I agree with you, Pat, I think it’s an amazing time to be alive. That’s kind of my quote for the last couple of years. It’s an amazing time to be alive. Just keep up with it, everybody. And I think you’ll experience some amazing things that you just never even dreamed possible before. So it was great talking with you to do that
Pat Donohoe 40:12
We had like, likewise, we could go on and on and on about this. So we’ll do we’ll definitely do it again. Alright, Jason, thank you. Thanks for being on the show today.
Jason Hartman 40:21
Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss any episodes. Be sure to check out the show’s specific website and our general website Hartman. Mediacom for appropriate disclaimers and Terms of Service. Remember that guest opinions are their own. And if you require specific legal or tax advice, or advice and any other specialized area, please consult an appropriate professional. And we also very much appreciate you reviewing the show. Please go to iTunes or Stitcher Radio or whatever platform you’re using and write a review for the show we would very much appreciate that. And be sure to make it official and subscribe so you do not miss any episodes. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
