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Our Family Office is proud to announce the launch of the Our Family Office Podcast. Throughout the course of the inaugural season, host Adam Fisch speaks to various guests from across our firm, offering insights into the areas of focus for an integrated family office, and the ways that a Shared Family Office™ can help Canada’s wealthiest families.
Welcome back to the Our Family Office podcast. I'm your host, Adam Fisch. This season, we're talking about the rising generation and what makes them unique. For today's episode, I spoke to author and investor Morgan Housel. Morgan is a partner at the Collaborative Fund and the New York Times bestselling author of The Psychology of Money and Same as Ever.
Adam Fisch:His books have sold over 10,000,000 copies and have been translated into more than 60 languages. His new book is called The Art of Spending Money and was released on 10/07/2025. Morgan's books are a staple around our offices. They're some of my favorites that I have ever read. We're so excited to have him in Toronto for a special client event, and I'm grateful I got the chance to record this episode with him.
Adam Fisch:We spoke about how the rising generation can apply the lessons from his writing, his advice for young inheritors in forging their own identity, and passing on empathy to the next generation. This one is very special.
Adam Fisch:Enjoy. Morgan, thank you so much for being here.
Morgan Housel:Thanks for having me.
Adam Fisch:I wanna start with just how accessible your books are, and it's something that I really love about them, and the ideas in them can apply to anybody. If we think about families that have great wealth, how do you think they should be thinking differently about money?
Morgan Housel:I think the behaviors that play the biggest impact in money- Whether how you think about greed and risk and fear and social aspiration- I think impact everyone no matter how much money you make. It tends to be the case that higher net worth people, it's just a magnifying glass on it. But it's the same emotions that you would deal with at lower levels of income.
Adam Fisch:Right.
Morgan Housel:And or sometimes at a lower level of income, the emotion you're dealing with is an aspiration, whereas at a higher income, you're dealing with the actual thing. But even then, it's the same emotion. I always want to be careful with what I write, that it's not specific to a generation, an income bracket, a country. Now, it's impossible to make something that is truly universal, but I think the behaviors that influence how we think about these things absolutely are, even if they are magnified and leveraged at higher net worths.
Adam Fisch:So one idea that I love that you've talked about is the idea of getting the goalpost to stop moving and feeling like you have enough. And so when we do think about those wealthy families, what benefits have you seen for them when they have found a way to have enough?
Morgan Housel:I think what's interesting is that it tends to be the case. This is not black and white. This is some shade of gray, what I'm about to say, but it tends to be the case that it's actually the higher net worth people that have the hardest time getting the goalpost to slow down. Part of that is because their social comparison group gets between higher and higher. So if you are a middle class family and you're earning $50,000 a year, let's say, your neighbor might be earning $53,000 per year.
Morgan Housel:So, they're earning more, but the levels at which you can step to the next chapter, the next level is much lower. Let's say you're a billionaire, maybe the people who you are socializing with are worth $5,000,000,000 $10,000,000,000 It spikes spirals and the growth rate goes exponential at that point. So much at that level too becomes material signaling. And so, if I make $50,000 a year and my neighbor makes 53,000 our cars are probably similar. But if you are a billionaire and your friends are worth $10,000,000,000 then their yacht might be just be exponentially bigger and better than yours.
Morgan Housel:So there's this irony that you would think the higher the money you have, the more money you have, the easier it is to keep your expectations in check. And I think it is more common, even though it's not absolute, it's more common to be the opposite of this. Now, is true that when you find someone who is truly independent, who is just not attaching their social aspirations and their goals to other people, and is not measuring how well they're doing relative to others around them, those regardless of the income, ultra high net worth, middle class, whatever it might be, are almost universally the happiest people. They found a way to detach themselves from the game, the social game of keeping up with the Joneses and keeping up with your neighbors and keeping up with social media even bigger, and just taking it out of that.
Morgan Housel:I think very often too for ultra high net worth people, the goal for many, if not most of them, is to use their money on society or family members, whatever it might be, philanthropy and donations and whatnot. And I think it's very difficult to have a sense of enough until you can turn the mirror outwards and be like, This money is not for me. I have everything that I could possibly need. This is for others. And that can also be one of the highest use cases of money that's going to give you a sense of happiness, fulfillment, contentment.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. So in that sense, looking to give to others can actually be a way to feel like you yourself have enough.
Morgan Housel:Yeah. Exactly. I think it is maybe the ultimate signal to yourself that you have enough, the debt you are giving it to other people. It is very common that even if you are by any standards living a very luxurious life and you have everything that you have, and you have everything that you need and almost everything that you want, that it's hard to have a sense of enough unless you are using it on other people. I think there is a signal inside your head to be like, if I'm not giving it away, then I need this. This is for me. Once again, the mirror turns outwards and you're like, look, already have enough and this is for other people. It makes it easier to fulfill the concept of enough.
Adam Fisch:And I love the idea just as we talk about enough that happiness is the contrast between what you have now and whatever you experienced before. The theme of of our season of the podcast is the rising generation. Right? Those that have grown up in wealth and are coming into their own in the world.
Adam Fisch:So if happiness is a difference between expectations and reality, how can children that are raised in abundance create that contrast in a healthy way?
Morgan Housel:Charlie Munger said this five or ten years ago. One of his very wealthy friends asked him, Charlie, if I give all my kids my money, is that going to ruin their ambition? And Charlie said, Of course it will, but you have to do it. And the friend said, Why do I have to do it? And Charlie said, Because if you don't, they will hate you.
Morgan Housel:And so I always bring that up because part of the answer to this question is the answer that people don't want to hear, which is, there's not a good solution to this question and that if you are fortunate enough and you have worked hard enough and been successful enough to the extent that your children grew up in relative abundance, material abundance, is that going to set their expectation level at a higher level than it would have been if you grew up in a middle class or lower class family? That's inevitable. I had this conversation with somebody last week whose parents were first generation immigrants to The United States, worked their tails off to give their kids food and shelter, basically. Just working one hundred hours a week for the absolute bare minimum to get it done. And now this gentleman is doing fairly well for himself, the child, and he has his own daughter.
Morgan Housel:And he said, I'm worried that my daughter is going to grow up spoiled, certainly relative to what I had. Yeah. And what do I do about that? And I said, look, I bet if we could speak to your parents right now, the immigrant parents who worked so hard, what they would say is that was the goal.
Morgan Housel:The goal was to raise a spoiled grandchild. That was the whole point. Whole point was to raise, to have heirs, and to live a life myself that by the standards of the past appear spoiled.
Morgan Housel:Which by the way, the average middle class family today lives a life that is spoiled rotten relative to previous generations. Yeah. If you had told someone a hundred years ago that we have polio vaccines and antibiotics and Advil and sunscreen, they'd be like, you guys are spoiled rotten.
Adam Fisch:Right.
Morgan Housel:You have no idea how easy life is relative to what we used to do in 1900. But nobody thinks like that today. Like you and I don't wake up this morning being like, oh, so grateful for Advil. You just don't do it. It just becomes the standard. Yep. I I heard this interview, it's maybe ten years ago with Zach Dell, is the son of Michael Dell, one of the richest men in the world now.
Morgan Housel:He's worth $100 billion dollars And Zach Dell, I think he was a teenager at the time. And somebody asked him, they said, what is it like to grow up as one of the richest kids in the entire world? The private jets and the mansions and whatnot. And he had such an astute answer, I'm paraphrasing him, but he said, it's all I've ever known. It doesn't feel like that much because it's all I've known.
Morgan Housel:Back again, if you asked a middle class family, if you said, what is it like to have a private car and your own bedroom? They'd like, What are you talking about? But by the standards of many other people and many other eras, that's luxury. And so I just bring this up that there's no easy answer to this question if you're raising kids who grew up in relative abundance, that that is going to set their expectations high and there's not much anyone can do about it. Other than maybe, the importance of teaching your kids values outside of money is important for everybody. It is most important for higher net worth families because it is too easy for society and for you and for your children to implicitly assume that the measure of my value in your value is our net worth. And I think it takes a little bit more effort to instill in your children no, actually, people's value is their integrity, their honor, their love, their empathy. Let's value those rather than just putting a sticker of what our net worth is and saying that's the final score.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. And you've talked elsewhere about the billionaire family that you had met that you particularly admired the way that they raised their kids
Morgan Housel:Yeah.
Adam Fisch:And how, you know, they'd really work to teach them to be humble, and that by all appearances, those kids were very well adjusted. So what practical strategies did you see that family employ that other wealthy families might learn from?
Morgan Housel:Well, I think this is an extension of the previous answer. I think most the time that you have spoiled children, where that comes from, is because the children and the parents, I think, usually do this inadvertently. It's not that you buy the kids a lot of stuff and they have anything you want. That's not where spoiled kids come from. It comes from when you, usually accidentally, teach the kids that net worth equals self worth.
Morgan Housel:And therefore, people who have a lower net worth are lower than you. And it's usually not explicitly taught. It just kind of rubs off over time that we are better than them because we have more money. We are better than them because our house is bigger. And I think you can, it is again easier said than done, but you can raise kids in a mansion with private jets and yachts and all of that while still teaching the idea that that is not the value between us.
Morgan Housel:Just like I mean, this may maybe this is a flawed example, but if you have your best friend and you've been best friends for life and he's so funny and you love hanging out with each other, but he's shorter than you. But you know that you're like, yeah, but height is not the measure of friendship.
Morgan Housel:Yeah. Know he's three inches shorter than me, I love the guy. He's awesome. Think in a very similar way, you could say like, look, the value of other people and the value of yourself is integrity, honor, honesty, humor, not net worth. And so I think, again, that's I wish it was so easy as just stating that and going out and doing it.
Morgan Housel:It can take a lifetime of practice and context to do it, but I think that's the the direction to head.
Adam Fisch:And, you know, as you talk about it, I try to think of when that would come up. You know, maybe it's how you treat, you know, the server at a restaurant or staff that work for you or those kinds of things. Like, when have you seen families have the opportunity, I guess, to is it just the stories they tell to their kids? Or, you know, how they describe maybe people that work for them or people they work alongside? Or just being out in the world? Like, where have you seen examples of it? Either positively or negatively?
Morgan Housel:Yeah. I think the examples that I can think of, it was usually when the children had very good friends, lifelong friends from different social classes, different income classes. Therefore, the wealthier child could empathize with the other people much more and understand that net worth doesn't equal self worth. That hey, Timmy, my friend who's my best friend and comes over and I love playing with him makes a lot less money than we do, but I love Timmy. And I think that's a very important lesson where I think it's actually more common that you are sort of cocooned within your own socioeconomic group.
Morgan Housel:And therefore, it becomes easier in that sense to be like, hey, Timmy, who I don't hang out with across town, he's poorer than us. He's probably like- so we can't be friends with him. So I think when you have that of social economic classes is when you have you know, you foster the most empathy within children. I think it's not probably dissimilar from a child in The US or in Canada growing up with different cultures and different races. And if they do that from a young age, become you much more empathetic to different cultures. They've been around you forever. Whereas if you are kinda cocooned from other cultures, it's easier to become biased and negative against them.
Adam Fisch:Right. So essentially, what it comes down to is finding opportunities to humanize people that are different from you.
Morgan Housel:That's it. Yeah.
Adam Fisch:Which is really kind of a good lesson in general for for anyone.
Morgan Housel:But it can be it can take a lot of effort because it is extremely normal and natural and maybe obvious that if you get to that level of income, your kids are gonna go school with people of your similar income. You're gonna live in a neighborhood. Your neighbors are gonna have similar income. You're gonna socialize with people who are very similar to you.
Morgan Housel:So it's not an easy thing to do.
Adam Fisch:Right. And I know as you talk about neighbors, maybe one of the lessons for that parents can impart on kids is not comparing themselves to their neighbors.
Morgan Housel:Yeah. So much of this too is that, your neighbors and and whatnot, other people in your group, you can see their house, you can see their car, you can see all everything that's material. You by and large cannot see what's happening inside. And it's not uncommon that if you did, you would say, hey, the Jones is across the street, they got a big house, and they got a Ferrari, they got a nicer car than us and whatnot.
Morgan Housel:But maybe the Joneses are arguing every night and don't get along, and their children despise them and they're sick. So you can it's easy to form a sense of envy materially even if you would never swap places with that family once you get the holistic picture of their life.
Adam Fisch:I love the idea of money as freedom rather than a scoreboard. And I think it's such a useful way to think about what wealth is for or should be for. And you've described wealthiest people as those that can spend their time how they want with whom they want.
Morgan Housel:Yeah.
Adam Fisch:Right? For when, again, we think about the rising generation, and we think about inheritors of wealth, can that freedom almost feel like a burden for them where, you know, you haven't necessarily done the work, the develop the internal drive, the ambition, that sense of purpose? That that freedom that at retirement age can be certainly a real signal of independence and the ability to do what you want and that real wealth. But maybe if you're an inheritor, that can actually almost be too freeing.
Morgan Housel:Yeah. I mean, there's a thing in psychology that's been well documented called the paradox of choice, which is a classic example they give. If you go to the grocery store and there's 45 different kinds of jelly you can buy, it's not a good thing. There's 45 different flavors and you're like, no, can't. What do I do with this?
Morgan Housel:I'm gonna sit here and just stare and like, I don't know. There's too many choices. Much better if there's that you go to Costco and there's one type of jelly. You're like, okay. Let's go and get it.
Morgan Housel:Okay. Easy. And so I think that you can have that paradox of choice in your life if you are fortunate enough to have financial freedom. Because if you don't have financial freedom, then what are you doing tomorrow? It's really clear. You're going to work. You have to. And that's your purpose. And it doesn't matter if it's not particularly enjoyable.
Morgan Housel:You're gonna do it. You might as well do it with a smile on your face because of what you have to do. But if you are fortunate enough to have financial freedom, then the answer of what you can do tomorrow is anything. And that can be wonderful. I think most of the time, that's wonderful.
Morgan Housel:But, of course, there's gonna be people when they wake up and they're like, well, I don't know what to do. Right? There's too many choices. And just like the jelly the the classic example with with the jelly is that there's 45 flavors. You might look at them and say, maybe I don't need jelly this week. It's just too overwhelming
Adam Fisch:You to just can't choose.
Morgan Housel:And I think that can be the case with people who have overwhelming lifestyle freedom of, like, I can do anything, but it's too overwhelming, so maybe I'll just lay in bed and do nothing kind of thing. I think that that is not an uncommon thing. And so I think finding your purpose is really important. So when I say independence, I by and large, I'm financially independent. I can wake up every day and say, can do whatever I want today, but what I want to do almost every day is work. And so it's not that if you have independence like, oh, you just get to go play golf now. Maybe that's what you do and you enjoy it, but whatever your purpose is is important. If golf is your purpose, awesome.
Morgan Housel:If raising kids is your purpose, awesome. If gardening is a purpose, amazing, but you have to have a purpose. I saw my dad go through this a couple years ago. He was an ER doctor for twenty five years.
Morgan Housel:Very stressful job, could not wait to retire, working long shifts and night shifts, just counting down the days to retirement. Retired. Congratulations. You won the game. Six months later, he's like, who am I? Because for twenty five years, he woke up, looked in the mirror and said, I'm a doctor.
Adam Fisch:Yep.
Morgan Housel:And now he wakes up and he looks in the mirror. He's like, what am I now? You know, his kids are long gone and he's like, So he went back to work. Yeah. And he was way happier going back to work.
Adam Fisch:Right.
Morgan Housel:And so I think a lot of people have that experience of like, even some things during the day that are burdens that you might count down the days until you're done were your purpose. And you don't realize how important they were to you until you stop doing them.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. And I think that's a conversation that we often have with members of that rising generation is that idea of, hey. It doesn't matter how much money there is. That's great. It's great that you have that security, and, you know, you'll always be looked after, but that can't replace that sense of purpose. You still need a reason to get up in the morning, and and to your point about your dad, that purpose is a big part of your identity.
Morgan Housel:Yeah. And it's not it's not a small thing. It can be, like, completely existential. And for a lot of very successful families, the reason they're successful is because their business was their purpose. It's been every heartbeat of their entire adult life. It's meant everything. It's been twenty four seven. And the idea of, oh, maybe we can sell and have a liquidity event and move on is very appealing until you do it. Yeah. It's like it's hard to know what your purpose is until you lose it. Like, it's hard to measure it in real time, but once you lose it, you're like, oh, okay. I that's that was a big thing, and I want it back.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. And, of course, when it's a family business, it's even more so because then the family relationships are, in a lot of cases, governed by or largely driven by the family business. So then it's who am I and who are we as a family in relation to each other . When that business isn't you know, you're not getting together to talk about the business. Okay. Well, what do we talk about now? Yeah. Right? What do we have in common now?
Morgan Housel:I mean, two groups of people, a very successful groups of people who deal with this a lot are pro athletes Yeah. And former presidents. Because both of those groups have a period of life where they are on top of the freaking world. Couldn't be better for athletes making a ton of money, every little boy's dream
Adam Fisch:Sure.
Morgan Housel:Everyone's hero signing autographs, people screaming your name. And most pro athletes, their career will be two or three years. And after that, suddenly, like a hammer coming down, they're making no money, and they're coaching the high school baseball team. And that shock of I used to be up here and now I'm way down here can be psychologically devastating. And the other is former US president. Not a very big sample size, but I'm sure this is true in in many other countries as well. You're the most powerful man in the world. You have your private seven forty seven and two hundred assistants, and you're just the most important person in the country, if not the world.
Adam Fisch:Yeah.
Morgan Housel:And by the beauty of democracy, it's a temporary job. Right. And so all of a sudden, you are out after four or eight years and you wake up and you're like, what now? And it can be devastating to your identity. You formed your identity of I'm the most important person in the world and suddenly you're just Bill Clinton. Right? It's a like, it's a tough thing to deal with.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. So, you were speaking a few minutes ago about inheritance potentially interfering with ambition. And I know you've given the example also of Anderson Cooper being the the first Vanderbilt who didn't inherit wealth, and he was kind of grateful for that. So what advice would you give to next generation members of wealthy families about forging their own identity or finding meaning independence of the family's money?
Morgan Housel:One of the things that the Vanderbilt family did so wrong, and I empathize, I don't think there were bad people, I just think they overlooked how difficult this could be, was for the Vanderbilt heirs who got a lot of money, it was eventually more or less exhausted, but for those who got a lot of money, the purpose of the entire family, the identity of the entire family was we're rich. Like, the money controlled everything in the family.
Adam Fisch:Right. And it was almost down to the point of, like, do you have hobbies? Do you have do you have this? And I was like, no. We're just rich. That's the purpose. That's everything. And I think there were if you dig into the biographies of Vanderbilt heirs, there are people who like the money said, this is who you have to be, and this is where you have to live, and this is how you have to dress, and this is who this is who you can marry, this is who you have to socialize with.
Morgan Housel:But for lot of them, that wasn't who they were at all. And so they were unable to form their own personal identities. It was almost like they were in an act. Like they were actors in a play.
Morgan Housel:And the play was called the Vanderbilts.
Adam Fisch:Right.
Morgan Housel:And that's almost what it was like.
Adam Fisch:Right.
Morgan Housel:And it wasn't until you got to the heirs who was like, there's no money, you can go be yourself. That the first one, Anderson Cooper, was like, great. I'm gonna be a really good journalist and be super successful and just be my own. And the fact that his last name is Cooper and not Vanderbilt probably helped because people just treated him like an ordinary guy. And so I think it's an extreme example but I think if your identity is based on the fact that you are rich, and that is an easy thing to do because it's awesome being rich, and it's a unique thing. A lot of your identity is like, how am I different? If And you're very wealthy, you're like, oh, the answer is obvious. That's how I'm different. I'm richer than everyone else in town. And so it's easy to form your identity around that, but it's a very unfulfilling thing. If not completely, like, no fulfillment whatsoever if that becomes your identity.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. You've said rightly, I think, that most of what makes you happy has nothing to do with money. Why do you think that so many wealthy people are surprised that their problems don't disappear when they get money? What's the healthiest way for them to reconcile that dissonance?
Morgan Housel:One of the things that's interesting about money is that because it is so tangible and quantifiable, it's easy to assume that it becomes the solution to everything. And so if I said, I wanna be a 10% better husband. Really good goal. Great goal. How do I track my progress for that? How do I compare my husband's score to yours? Impossible. Even though it's a very noble goal, I'm like, I don't know what to do with this.
Morgan Housel:But if I said I wanna grow my net worth 10%, I can track that in Excel down to the penny. I can compare my net worth to yours and everybody else's very clean. So because it's so quantifiable, it becomes kind of the scorecard for a lot, if not everything in life. And so, it's such an easy assumption to make that if you wake up in the morning feeling a little bit unfulfilled or having problems in your life or anxieties, whatever it be, very easy knee jerk path of least resistance to say in your head, if only I had more money, this would be better.
Adam Fisch:Yep.
Morgan Housel:Like it's just it's so quantifiable. Much harder to wake up and say, if only I were a better husband or father or spouse or citizen, whatever it might be, then things would be better. That's a hard thing to say. Even if that's the truth.
Adam Fisch:Right. Probably more true.
Morgan Housel:Even if it's the truth. Right? So I think it's it's an innocent thing that because literally just because it's so quantifiable, it becomes the benchmark of nearly everything.
Adam Fisch:So how do they work through that? Is it just about being more cognizant of that trap and just saying to themselves, no, I'm gonna think about these other I'm gonna try to measure myself along these other metrics instead even though they're not quantifiable. Like What's the mindset that you feel like could be a useful way to almost talk yourself out of that?
Morgan Housel:I think it's, in a very innocent way because what I'm saying might sound a little bit disparaging, but I think this is always very innocently done. This is an easy trap to make. It's easy to assume that if you are wealthy, that that becomes the barometer for other aspects of your life. So I'm wealthy, therefore I must be a good husband. I'm wealthy, therefore I must be a good dad. I'm wealthy, therefore I must be a good friend and to make that assumption. And the truth is, by and large, those things have no connection whatsoever. You can be wealthy and be a terrible husband, be a terrible father, be a terrible- But because you have this level of success, you're like, oh, I'm great. It becomes this blanket level of I'm great. And that's very difficult.
Morgan Housel:So I think, again, that you can measure your net worth, but you have to go out of your way to detach and think about and measure the other aspects of your identity of whether it's spouse, parent, friend, citizen, coworker, whatever it might be, and measure those independently of your net worth. I'll say it for the twentieth time on this podcast, easier said than done. Yeah. Like, these things are it's easy for me to sit here and say, go do that. I'm not gonna pretend like it's an easy thing to do.
Adam Fisch:I mean, those things, to be fair, are not easy anyway. Like, even independent- you know, someone who's middle class, it's probably still hard to sit down and really think introspectively about am I a good husband, a good father, a good friend, a good coworker. So those things wouldn't be easy anyway. It's just maybe you're a little more blinded to it with the wealth. But, yeah, I think that's that's gonna be a hard thing to do regardless, but I think that's probably the right approach.
Morgan Housel:Yeah. No. It's it's not everyone too. It's people who have very different circumstances, but I tend to think that people who became wealthy later on in life, so they formed their identity as a spouse before they were wealthy, They formed identity as a parent before they are wealthy. Have an easier time doing this. But if you've always been wealthy, then it's easy for that to just take the place of everything.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. Which is one of the reasons why I think a lot of members of the rising generation can struggle because they were that always, you know. And I wonder if maybe members of the rising generation whose parents got wealthy when they were older
Morgan Housel:Yeah.
Adam Fisch:Might have an easier time than, you know, if by the time you were walking, your parents were multi multimillionaires because, yeah, you you can remember at least some of that experience.
Morgan Housel:And I think it becomes hard if you've always been that because society will often tell you you're great and wanna become involved with you because you're wealthy. Yep. And so it's easy to be like, hey, people have my whole life have been telling me that I'm great. So I must be great. And like, wow.
Morgan Housel:That's I think they're wanting something else there. So it becomes easier for you to tell yourself, I'm a great spouse, I'm a great parent and whatnot, which might be true, but it's easier to inflate in a non accurate way that description if you've been wealthy the entire time. Whereas again, if you were not wealthy before, then to become a good spouse and a good parent, you really had to earn it. People weren't going give you any extra credit points just because you were wealthy to begin with.
Adam Fisch:Right. No one's being nice to you just because they want something.
Morgan Housel:Just because they want something back in return. Yeah. Right. I'll give you so I'll kind of give you one example of this. I used to you know, I'm a partner at a venture capital firm. I'm not really involved in the investments whatsoever, but I was at a period of time eight or ten years ago. And as a venture capitalist, you talk to entrepreneurs who want your money. It's very explicit.
Adam Fisch:Right.
Morgan Housel:And it was- I understood this. I didn't think anything bad about it. It was inevitable. But whenever a founder was talking to me and pitching their business and wanting our money, they found my jokes so funny. They found my comments so insightful.
Adam Fisch:Right.
Morgan Housel:And it was I take to take a step back and be like, none of this is is actually reflective of what's going on here. Right. This is a transaction. It's transaction. And it's okay.
Morgan Housel:But I think so that was it was very clear when I had those calls, the seat I was sitting in. But if you're wealthy all the time, then sometimes people treat you like that all the time and you come to believe that it's all true.
Adam Fisch:Well, and if you've grown up that way, don't know anything else. Right? You had a long life before you were a venture capitalist where you knew like, okay. I'm funny. Maybe I'm not this funny.
Morgan Housel:No one has ever laughed this hard before.
Adam Fisch:Right. But if you were a venture capitalist from infancy, then-
Morgan Housel:Then maybe then maybe you know it. But I think a lot of wealthy kids grow up like that, from the time they're children. Everyone laughs really hard at their joke. Everyone says you're so great wanting to get in. I think it's inevitable. It's an innocent thing. That's not a cynical observation. I think it's just inevitable.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. And in some ways, thinking back to the example that you gave before about being exposed to people from different backgrounds and that in that sense, maybe there's some value to also socializing with people from a similar background because they may not want something from you. Yeah. Where it's sort of like there can be some value that you can draw from both of those experiences.
Morgan Housel:Yeah. I remember I did some consulting with a multi billionaire family four or five years ago. And mostly I was talking to the grandkids who were in their early, mid, late 20s, let's say. And one of the things that they brought up that I really empathized with, and that was a very interesting observation, they said, hey, we have basically a rule in the family that when we are dating someone, even like forget marriage, when we are dating someone that grandma and grandpa who control the money, basically tell that new date, hey, I wanna let you know before we are a million miles away from talking about engagement, but you will get nothing. You will get nothing. I know my grandchild is basically a multibillionaire. Do not think you will ever get one penny of it. And if you are fortunate enough to get to the point of proposals and marriage, you have never seen a prenup agreement that is as ironclad as this. And these kids said, like, look, it's done for good with good intentions. To keep the, you know, quote, unquote, gold diggers out.
Morgan Housel:But he was also there, like, it be it makes it really hard to date. But there are a lot of people who'd be like, look, I really did like you. I thought you were great. But after I heard this speech, like That freaked me out.
Morgan Housel:That freaked me out. I don't if this is for me. Yeah. I thought that was very interesting.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. But to be fair to that family, I think there's a lot of value in the transparency between each other to have that conversation of like, this is a value that's driving us. This is what what we really think of as important. Yeah. And, you know, it's it would have been a lot worse, I think, if the grandparents had sprung it on the grandkids, you know, when they were engaged or kind of further down the road.
Morgan Housel:And I think with a lot of wisdom and insight, the grandparents said, we're gonna do this when you start dating. I don't want you to fall in love with someone for three years, and then we drop the prenup hammer down the road, and you're both gonna be crushed. Let's be transparent from day one here.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. Like, as hard as dating is, this is gonna be the less painful path.
Morgan Housel:Yes. Yeah. And I imagine too that the outsiders who are dating these grandkids really genuinely thought in their head like, I really like you. I have really strong feelings for you and it's great. And then they hear the speech and I'm putting words and feelings in their mouth, but I would suspect a lot of them woke up the next day and said, I see you a little bit differently now. Yeah. It's an interesting thing.
Adam Fisch:Yeah. This has been such a great conversation, Morgan. I really appreciate it. I want to leave with just one kind of wrap up question. So you've written that almost everything changes, but human nature stays the same. If there's one enduring truth about money and happiness that you'd want your kids to hold on to, what would it be?
Morgan Housel:I think this is true at the societal and the individual level. The idea that the past was not as good as you remember, the present is not as bad as you think, and the future will be better than you anticipate. I think that is true. We tend to fall for that trap of false nostalgia in our individual life and for society as a whole. And almost always, nine times out of 10, it's not true. It's just easy to fall down those traps. The past was not as good as you think. Things are not as bad today as you think, and the future will probably be better than you anticipate.
Adam Fisch:An optimistic note to end on. So Morgan, thank you again for being here. I really appreciate it.
Morgan Housel:Thanks so much.
Adam Fisch:Thank you so much for listening.
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