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Haverford Trust and Hank Smith are nationally recognized investment leaders committed to informing and inspiring people to build better financial futures for their families. In his chats with authors, influencers and industry experts, Hank helps bring a sense of clarity and calm to the complexity and stress of personal finance. Topics range from quality investing, retirement resilience, market trends and behavioral psychology.
Season 2; Episode 2 – Sam Hankin
Transcript
Maxine Cuffe 00:06
You're listening to Speaking of Quality, Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith, a podcast by the Haverford Trust Company. On Speaking of Quality, Hank chats with authors, influencers and wealth management experts to bring a sense of clarity and calm the complexity and stress of personal finance. And now here's your host, Hank Smith.
Hank Smith 00:26
Welcome to another episode of Speaking of Quality, Wealth Management Insights. I'm your host, Hank Smith, Director and Head of Investment Strategy at Haverford Trust Company. In this podcast, we explore topics ranging from quality investing, retirement resilience, stock market trends, estate planning, small business ownership, behavioral psychology and more. On today's episode, I'm interviewing Sam Hankin, founder and owner of the award-winning Wellington Square Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Exton, Pennsylvania.
Sam is also the host of the Avid Reader Show, a podcast for book lovers featuring interviews, recommendations, and insider news. Sam, thanks for joining me today and welcoming me to your bookstore to record this podcast. I have to say this is the most unique and intriguing bookstore I've ever been in and it's more than a bookstore. Tell us a little bit about the genesis of this store and what you're trying to achieve.
Sam Hankin 1:31
Well, first, thanks for having me on. I don't know how much I know about quality investing, but I can give it a try. So, your question about the bookstore. I've loved books since my Aunt Jean gave me Rockets in Space Travel when I was recuperating from tonsillitis. And then you know, it just continued on and on. And as we've talked about in the past, my mother has a library, named after her, my father has a library named after him and my brother has been head of the Chester County Library Board for a long time. So, it seems only natural that I have a bookstore. I started in 2005, and it has gradually morphed into the bookstore you see today.
Hank Smith 2:15
But, you're also a trained lawyer and a practicing lawyer today as well?
Sam Hankin 2:18
I've practiced in Florida, primarily with medical negligence and product liability. And part of the reason I did it was because you read a lot. And it's not routine, like real estate work. Each case is different, whether you're learning about the superior mesenteric artery, or you're learning about safety shields on circular saws, but you end up getting a lot of knowledge. And granted, there's an injury that’s maybe catastrophic, but it’s also really fun to learn as much as you can about a specific topic.
Hank Smith 2:50
So, is it true, you have read most of the titles, if not all the titles in this bookstore?
Sam Hankin 2:55
Not the new ones, because I really don’t read that much popular fiction anymore. But the books over there, that’s how the bookstore started. My whole house was full of books, so I thought, oh, I’ll bring them down here. And then when I went back home, ’here they were, again, it was like coat hangers multiplying in your closet.
Hank Smith 3:12
That’s terrific. Now, you have a gift, you are a speed reader. How did you develop that skill?
Sam Hankin 3:21
I don’t know how much of it I retained. But I took the Evelyn Woods speed reading course when I was, I guess, 13 or 14. And we read The Pearl by John Steinbeck and Sink the Bismarck, and I read each in 17 minutes with 85% comprehension. I’ve slowed down because I would rather have 100% comprehension.
Hank Smith 3:42
So, that leads me to two different related questions. One is, do you read electronically, like off of iPads, Kindles, or do you always have a physical book?
Sam Hankin 3:57
I like the physical book, and every single person who comes in here doesn’t use a Kindle or iPad because they usually say, I feel like I’m holding the author in my hands. When I’m traveling, however, I’m not going to travel with 10 pounds of books like Bill Gates does. I’m going to put them all on my iPad, and I can basically have the entire library of the world on that device.
Hank Smith 4:20
I have a colleague, our Chief Investment Officer, who’s a prodigious reader, but I learned he really isn’t reading; he's listening to books on tapes. Do you consider that reading?
Sam Hankin 4:31
I would do it, except when I'm driving listening to books on tape, I generally miss my exit. It's caused me some consternation, so I've given up on that.
Hank Smith 4:42
Well, if it's a lengthy book on tape, that's okay.
Sam Hankin 4:44
Yeah, but I might end up in New Jersey.
Hank Smith 4:49
Wellington Bookstore is, as I mentioned, much more than a bookstore. It's a gift shop, a candy store, a cafe. Was that your original intent when you started this 19 years ago?
Sam Hankin 5:08
No, I was looking to do a minimalist type of bookstore. Gradually, it's gotten more and more cluttered, like Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. But the cafe, well, you know, I was telling you before, I make people happy every day, and I make people laugh. And I really can't think of anything else that you'd rather do in the world, and how much that is helpful to people, makes a difference in their life.
Hank Smith 5:36
Obviously, the community here is very important to you, and this seems like a wonderful community gathering spot. It must mean a lot to the people in this area.
Sam Hankin 5:51
In Eagleview, I think it’s definitely a value-added proposition. And some people like to escape their lives in here because they feel much more comfortable. And you know, we have tons of book clubs, we have all kinds of gatherings and author readings. And that makes a big difference, too.
Hank Smith 6:10
So tell us a little bit about your podcast, the Avid Reader. How long have you been doing it, and how often do you interview authors?
Sam Hankin 6:20
Well, I've had it for about 12 years. I’ve interviewed about 1,000 authors. As I said, I started with things like Gone Girl, Jojo Moyes, Eric Larson, who’s a great guy, David Mitchell. But now I’ve kind of turned towards science and nonfiction books about the cosmos, Nobel Prize winners about things like time crystals and cosmology, the seat of human consciousness and that’s really begun to intrigue me. Sometimes I interview one author a week. Depending on my producer, sometimes I interview three authors a week, which is really difficult to do and sometimes it may be longer. But the interesting thing is, post-Covid – and I call them “Covid paradoxes” – authors used to go from town to town, and they get to talk to maybe 100 people and sell their book. But now they realize on Zoom, the world is their audience. They can be sitting in their living room. Paul Harding was folding towels while he was talking to me, which is probably more important.
Hank Smith 7:29
While Covid was a disaster, in many ways, the technology that came out of it has helped with productivity. While I don't think Zoom is preferable to face to face meetings, you can do four or five client meetings a day, where, you know, traveling to Eagleview or traveling further west to Harrisburg, you might only be able to do one client meeting for the day. Tell me how Covid affected this business, both initially, and then subsequently today?
Sam Hankin 8:17
Well, obviously, we retained all of our team, because I said earlier, you know, you want to make people happy, you want to make your employees happy, and you want to do a good job. And during COVID, we delivered books, people could come outside and get them. And as I said, when you're talking about Zoom, it's a paradox, authors want to be interviewed on Zoom. The only problem I have is like in the legal profession, everyone wants to do depositions by Zoom. I can't tell if a person's telling the truth or not, without them being here, that I can eyeball them. And that I don't like at all, but I'm a dinosaur.
Hank Smith 8:53
I gave a presentation a week ago on our 2024 economic outlook, and I asked one of my colleagues to ask a ChatGPT to do a 20-minute 2024 economic outlook. So, I read it. It was reasonable, had all the right words, made sense. And I said, what's missing is I need data points. So, I said, “ChatGPT, give me some data points,” and about 50% or more were terribly wrong. So, it reminded me of the New York City attorney that had to give a deposition or write a brief right and asked GPT to do it, and it was beautifully written, except for the cases were all made up.
Sam Hankin 9:51
Yeah, every citation was wrong, and he's probably the most embarrassed person in the world. He felt horrible afterwards, he felt as if he was doing a good job. And you know, the problem is with students in schools now. I mean, I think it's a great resource, but just like anything else, you know, if you copy it or you cheat on the SATs, it's your moral compass, that's deciding what happens.
Hank Smith 10:13
And that will ultimately catch up to you in the real world, get away with it, academia.
Sam Hankin 10:18
Just depends on how AI eventually changes us, and it's going to be dramatic.
Hank Smith 10:27
You can't slow down technology, that's our view. But there are two different points of view on that.
Sam Hankin 10:34
Right, the candle makers were afraid of the light bulb. They said it wasn't safe.
Hank Smith 10:42
That's a good analogy. What do you want to say about your legacy in the community, and beyond Sam Hankin?
Sam Hankin 10:59
That's a good question. When a kid comes in here and wants to buy War and Peace, he's going to read it, and he's never going to forget that he came in here to get it. It’s especially true with kids. When they come in here and find a book, whether it's a Harry Potter book that leads them to Lord of the Rings that leads them further. That's what I'm looking for. Like I said, if you're honest, and if you do a good job, you make your clients happy, you make your team happy. And if you do all those things, and not worry about money, as my father said, the money generally will come. And the legacy I want – I might put this whole thing in trust so that my team stays here. The legacy I want to leave is that life is about gathering information, and what better place to gather than here.
Hank Smith 11:56
And in a beautiful place to spend some time for us for sure. Tell us about the different types and categories of books that you have here?
Sam Hankin 12:11
When I originally started the bookstore, I had a collection, even a special room that I locked, for rare and collectible books. They're difficult to sell. Now, you know, you sell them online. But gradually, from a collection of used books, we went to the current best sellers, and then that morphed into retail. And then we began to branch it to nonfiction. And now we have pretty much every genre, and because I like science fiction so much, I have the luxury of painting the back wall where science fiction books are. It's nice to have the luxury to be able to do what you want, and I don't take it for granted.
Hank Smith 12:49
Do you have business books, for example?
Sam Hankin 12:53
Yeah, we do. And it's funny, you know, given your vast expertise in wealth and accumulation of the same, I find that books like Freakonomics and books like The Big Short are for certain people. But, every time I see you on NBC, you're talking about investors, you're not talking about speculators or day traders. So, I prefer to go back to David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill, (John Maynard) Keynes, even moving forward to Milton Friedman. And those are the kinds of economic books I like, and so I stocked them.
Hank Smith 13:37
That's great. Well, it's your store, you can do exactly what you want. I was here last year, and I can vouch that your section on cookbooks is very intriguing, and I walked away with a couple myself. I will check out your business and economic section after this podcast.
Sam Hankin 14:01
So yeah, I know you're a great chef and I'm not, but we're looking at those cookbooks over there. And we have a really good selection. You know, that is the other thing, I can't curate popular fiction, but part of the idea of having this team that's excellent is they curate it perfectly. Someone comes in and asked me what's a good beach reader? I have no idea.
Hank Smith 14:22
You're not stocking John Clancy?
Sam Hankin 14:25
No, there are certain authors who are very popular. I'm not saying they're not good, but they're not coming through the window. I'm not going to have Prince Harry's book in here.
Hank Smith 14:36
This is not a train depot bookstore.
Sam Hankin 14:40
No.
Hank Smith 14:42
Airport bookstore.
Sam Hankin 14:43
No.
Hank Smith 14:45
That's terrific, so I'm sure you get this question from customers: tell us about some of your favorite books?
Sam Hankin 14:59
When I was a kid, the reason I started it was because of science fiction writers like Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, Isaac Asimov and that led me into the science. And what's really amazing is those guys were so predictive. So much of what's happening now was predicted say, like, in Neuromancer by William Gibson. This is a guy that never looked at a hard drive. But everything he said is exactly what's happening today. So what I do is like, I follow that train of thought and so people like David Mitchell, lots of when I interview Nobel laureates who have discovered time crystals, or worked with Richard Fineman, my hero, those are the kinds of people I'm looking for granted, it's a narrow scope, but it's the one I love.
Hank Smith 15:47
So long the same lines, you've done 1,000 interviews, tell us about some of the better ones and some of the duds?
Sam Hankin 16:00
I'm not going to mention names, but there was one guy, very famous author. And I simply asked him to tell us a little bit about what your books about and he just paused and had a stop, and he looked at me, he goes, what exactly is my book about? So, I had to tell him, he had forgotten exactly what the theme of his book was. But for the most part, everybody's comfortable, everybody's very natural and everybody likes to be interviewed by a close reader. And I don't think it's fair to not read the book before your interview. It's not like Good Morning America, where someone says, “What's your book about?” And that's the question. I need to read it closely in order to ask the questions I want to, it's not like I'm praising myself, it just seems like a duty and, you know, an opportunity as well as an obligation.
Hank Smith 16:50
It makes for a better interview.
Sam Hankin 16:52
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Hank Smith 16:53
For sure, well, maybe that author who you did not want to mention the name, maybe he was using AI?
Sam Hankin 17:01
Oh, no, he would, he would kill you for that. Because I asked him, you know, it was historical fiction. And I asked him, you know, so you make up some of this dialogue? He goes, No, it was said, I have a footnote for everything that everybody said, so he did his research. I like the guys who do their research who have notes and bibliographies, at the end of the books they relied on, because then you go down the rabbit hole, which I don't like that expression. But then you go to Wikipedia, you drill down, you find other authors. That's what's really great about this job.
Hank Smith 17:33
So, Sam, when you started the Wellington Bookstore, did you think of yourself as an entrepreneur, and this is an entrepreneurial endeavor?
Sam Hankin 17:43
I couldn't take away from the fact that I started as a law, student practice law, I was a developer in Florida here in Pennsylvania, kind of had serial careers, which I think is a good way to live. But I realized that entrepreneurship is and I hate to use the word scalable. If you do this, you can also move on to something else, you can move on to something bigger. And if you keep the precepts that we discussed earlier, do a good job, keep your nose to the grindstone, make people happy and if you're a lawyer, give them if you can, using your zealous representation, the result that they want it. And that's what this is all result-oriented till. And so I think you can lay this template on pretty much anything. As long as you follow, basically, it's the golden rule. You follow the golden rule, you're probably going work out, okay.
Hank Smith 18:39
And this has brought you much happiness. Wat a way to live your life being happy and giving back as well. It's a bad life being miserable, 8-10 hours a day at your job.
Sam Hankin 18:54
To quote my father, again. He said, “If you wake up wanting to go to work, you have a pretty good life.”
Hank Smith 19:01
And it's a seven-day weekend.
Sam Hankin 19:03
He wanted to he wanted to work on Sunday, yes, that was horrible for us.
Hank Smith 19:10
It worked out fine in the end.
Sam Hankin 19:11
It did, it definitely did.
Hank Smith 19:14
Sam, I can't thank you enough for having us here at your unique bookstore and thank you for your time. This has been a wonderful podcast.
Sam Hankin 19:22
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for having me on and thank you even more for deciding to take the trek out here to the bookstore and have this here it means the world to me. So thanks a lot, Hank.
Hank Smith 19:23
It was a beautiful ride and greatly appreciated.
To our listeners. If you're interested in learning more about Wellington Square bookshop, please visit Wellingtonsquarebooks.com or visit in-person at 549 Wellington Square in Exton, Pennsylvania. Also, make sure to tune in to the Avid Reader Podcast available on your favorite podcast player.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality, Wealth Management Insights, our next episode will be released shortly. In the meantime, please send suggestions or questions for me, or the Haverford Trust team to marketing@Haverfordquality.com. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, review and share this podcast. Until next time, I'm Hank Smith, Stay Bullish.
Maxine Cuffe 20:28
Thanks for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality, Wealth Management insights with Hank Smith. To hear future episodes of Speaking of Quality, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
To learn more about the Haverford Trust Company, please visit www.HaverfordQuality.com. This podcast is provided as general commentary and market overview and should not be relied upon as research a forecast or investment advice and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt an investment strategy. Any opinions expressed are as of the date this podcast was recorded and may change at any time and are the opinions of that commentator not Haverford's. Any opinion or information provided are believed by Haverford to be reliable at the time of this podcast recording, but are not necessarily all inclusive or guaranteed for accuracy. Before making any financial decisions, please consult with an investment professional.