November 2025 Q&A: Run for President, Coming Civil War, Book Recs, & more

0:00Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Open Book. Now, I've been seeing all your comments on YouTube, x LinkedIn, and of course, Instagram. And I've been loving the feedback and questions, the good, bad, and the ugly, by the way, not just the good stuff. And so as always, thank you. These are the questions that were asked in October. So if I don't answer your question, keep an eye out for my posts in the future and feel free to comment on just about anything you'd like to discuss, whether it's business, politics, personal stories, et cetera. I'll try to get to If I can't get to you here, we'll certainly try to get you on messaging.

0:37So let's get going here. As always, thank you so much for tuning in and engaging. It means a lot to all of us here at Team Open Book. You can always click the subscribe button on YouTube or other places. Give us a follow. Let's get started. Okay. We're going to start with YouTube at Galway Bound. How has your faith influenced your life to date? do you think is stronger now than in years past? And so it's a great question. I often tell people I'm a practicing Catholic and got raised in a Catholic family. Interestingly enough, I didn't go to Catholic grammar school or Catholic high school or anything like that.

1:16My parents, frankly, didn't have the money for that. My mother always wanted me to go to Chaminade High School out in Mineola, Long Island, probably one of the best schools in the country as Catholic schools go, but we didn't have the money. So I went to the Port Washington Public High School. but went to church regularly with my mother and my grandmother. And I think, and I say this to people teasingly, but once you're a Catholic, you're sort of always a Catholic. And my faith, like everything in life, I've had times where I've had heavy, near-perfect attendance at church and other times where I've had some laxity with actually going to church.

1:53But the truth be told, it's never really affected my faith. I've had a very strong faith in our religion, a very strong belief in God. I find when I'm traveling around the world, some of that has waned around the world. I noticed that there's more secularism in Europe, secularism in Asia, et cetera. But I'm still quite faithful. I do appreciate the question. And it has impacted me. I guess it's given me some resolve or some long-term belief that things will be okay. and so whether you believe like a Catholic, I do, or you trust into the universe, I think one of the best things I could say to people is just fall back in the belief that you're here, you're part of the universe, and you'll stay part of the universe long after you leave here.

2:44So anyway, those are my thoughts there. Instagram, this is from at Junior Linden. What makes you a Republican? Okay, Junior Lyndon, let me take a memo and I'll get back to you because I don't know anymore what makes me a Republican. So Republican Party used to stand for some traditional conservatism and business pragmatism, and the Republican Party stood for things like growth. And so if you said to me, what type of Republican am I or was I? I was an Eisenhower Republican, a Rockefeller Republican. Remember, he was somewhat liberal on social issues. He was the Republican governor of New York here for many years, going back into the 50s, early 60s.

3:31Ronald Reagan, to me, I don't even know if he would fit the measurement or definition of Republican today, but he was considered a right-leaning Republican 40 years ago. So it's a good question. I guess it's a little bit like sports teams. I'm a Jet and Met fan, so you can imagine how miserable that is. I think these, whether they're businesses, political parties, sports franchises, they ebb and flow. For me personally, I think it's a low point for the Republican Party. But it's not like, let's say you're with Manchester City, and all of a sudden you can flip over and be with Manchester United.

4:10It doesn't really work like that. So I've been loyal to the party, but more about the traditional party, not the current party. In fact, in many ways, I think the current party has actually moved off of being Republican. So I hope that answers that. But I'm going to stay as a Republican and try to seek reform in a post-Trump world. Okay, let's keep going. This is from Instagram. This is Dunn Allen, I believe. Do you anticipate a civil war in America? So the short answer to that is no, I don't anticipate a civil war. Economic hardship would have to prevail in the society. And yes, not just income inequality, but real sustainable economic hardship that could tip over into a potential civil war or a big ideological fight about the country.

5:03But at this point, our temperatures are up. We're sort of fighting with each other. We are keyboard bullying each other. And so there's a hassle there, but I don't see it tipping over into the Civil War. And remember, I think you have still a very strong, reasonably sound economy. If you're telling me that we're going to have extreme deterioration in the economy or something systemic that hurts the economy, then I'll change my tune. But I don't see that right now. Okay, let's keep going. X, this is from Thomas Philip W. Do you have any favorite books in categories of fiction, investing, history, general nonfiction, and or business history?

5:47All right, so let's hit each one of those categories. I'm going to give you some contemporary ideas. And so the brand new book, Circle of Days by Ken Follett, is an amazing book. It actually goes back in ancient England and the whole era around Stonehenge, how Stonehenge was created. what the tribes were like at that point, living on that big, beautiful island. And it's just an amazing story. It's historical fiction, something I adore. And I think Ken Follett's writing style is second to none. He will keep you hooked and you will be learning. Okay, as it relates to investing, I'm a very big believer in the simple books like One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch.

6:34I also like Morgan Hassell's books, The Art of Spending. as well as The Psychology of Money, which was an international bestseller about two years ago. So those are phenomenal books in the category of investing. History, well, you're looking at a huge history buff here. So there's so many things to choose from. What I've read recently is Checkmate in Berlin by Giles Milton. I've read books about the Beatles. There's a great biography about the Beatles by Bob Spitz, which is a phenomenal book. So I'm all over the map when it comes to history, but I've been really focused on World War II, America First by H.W.

7:15Brands. What was the rise of nationalism? There was a first America First movement back in the 30s. How did we put that down? I think that's something that I would recommend to people. I thought that was really good. Angry Days by Lynn Olson would be in that category. General nonfiction, to me, I think We the People. This is Jill Lepore. It's a nonfiction book. It's got great insight into the U.S. Constitution, some of the things that we're not doing well at this point in American history, i.e. like amending the Constitution. And if you want a fun book that's sort of general nonfiction, it's Chaos by Tom O 'Neill.

7:58That book is awesome. And so what is chaos about? It's about the 1960s and Charles Manson, and it's about the counterculture that was taking place in the 1960s. And you may not have thought that this was connected before, but you will after you read the book. What does the Manson movement in California and the CIA have in common? Well, if you read the book, you'll learn about it. It was really a lot of great fun. And so those are the general categories. Business history, of course, I would go with Andrew Roche Sorkin's new book, 1929. It's a long read. It's about 460 pages, but my God, what a story about the mistakes that were made in the late 20s, the euphoria that tipped over into excess leverage, which was combined with a tremendous amount of excess confidence, which led to a debacle.

8:55And then we got a lot of things wrong as it relates to economic policy that led to not only a stock market crash, but an economic depression here in the United States and around the world. So those are some of the ones that I liked a great deal. Let's keep going. This is from LinkedIn. This is Mary Lee Dillon. If you were president, okay, let me make the sign of the cross, okay? If you were president, what would be the first five things you would do to move the U.S. into the future away from the chaos and catastrophe? And how would you start completing those goals? So it's interesting. So if you're in a five-step program, included in that program would be a series of constitutional amendments that I would propose.

9:39And then I would want to also go out and campaign on those. But let's just talk about a few things that you can do, five things. So number one, you use the bully pulpit. Remember what Teddy Roosevelt said about the U.S. presidency, you stand on the bully pulpit and you can command a lot and you can instill values in the nation and guide people through your speeches and sort of your interaction with the American public and the American media, the international media for that matter as well. Second thing that I would want to be doing is I would try to create some level of bipartisanship and I would get at least one or two Democrats into the cabinet.

10:21I think what we're doing now doesn't make any sense at all. We're either hard right, get the hard right in, implement hard right policies. They lose, then we go hard left, then we've got the business leaders and the culture completely confused. And so I would want to work with the other side to try to see if we can have a breaking of that impasse and some reduction in the tribalism. And then the three amendments, just quickly, the first amendment that I would want to the Constitution is we'd have to end the gerrymandering. I know we've been doing it for over 200 years, but it's really not working anymore.

10:57We've got to make it more even. And maybe you have it AI generated or algorithmically generated. And just put simply, if you have 40 % Republicans in the state of New York, then from the House of Representatives perspective, there should be roughly a portion of representatives that represent those Republicans instead of trying to jam them and have them always be underrepresented across all the House of Representative districts. Same thing would go for the Democrats in California or the Democrats in Texas. It's an indictment of both sides. Second amendment that I would have in there is I would do something related to Citizens United.

11:41And for those of you that don't know what that is, we've allowed unlimited amounts of capital to flow into the political process. And these political action committees, if anything, they've just skewed the legislative agenda to be way more geared towards big business or big pharma or rich people, corporate welfare, etc. I would want to put an end to that. And the third one, and this is going to be the most controversial, but I would want to get the Department of Justice out of the executive branch and make it a little bit more apolitical if that were possible. So those are some of the things I would think about, which I think would help the process.

12:20And so you don't have to be president to suggest those things or to help other people work on those things. Okay, let's keep going. Instagram, Sarah Karate. How do you have the time to consume and analyze all the information you consume on top of investing? This is a great question. So three hours a day. Say that again, three hours a day. So already got up this morning, went to the gym. Guess what I did? I had a book tape in my ear while I was doing my workout and got through 45, 50 minutes of a book. secondarily got in the car, guess what I did? I had a stack of either research papers or a book that I'm reading and kept reading.

13:06At some point tonight on the way home or some point tonight before bed, I'll try to get one more hour of reading it. Now, Mr. Buffett claims that he reads six to seven hours a day. That's Warren Buffett, one of the richest people in the history of the world and arguably one of the best investors ever. He reads for six hours a day. You can read for three hours a day. If you do that, you're into a tremendous amount of learning. So three hours should be at least a minimum 60 pages. I'd like to say 100 pages. So if you read three hours a day, that's 700 pages a week. You can pile through two books a week.

13:47You get yourself up to 100 books. I don't read 100 books, though. I'm probably reading 50 or 60 because I do feather in the newspaper and magazines and research articles, et cetera. But get yourself in the habit of reading. Force yourself to listen to book tapes when you're walking or doing your exercise. That's what I would recommend. Okay, what are the best restaurants in New York and Long Island? Well, some of them are private, you know, like Casa Cerviani is private, the Columbus Citizens Foundation, private. But if you can get access to or invited to those restaurants, they're two of the best.

14:26alongside Azizis. If you can't get into Azizis because that's also private, you can go to Carbone, which is their sister establishment, which is an amazing restaurant. People who know me know I love Rao's, which is probably the oldest Italian eatery here in New York. And it's super hard to get into because they don't even have a telephone number. But those are the things I like. If you've heard only Italian restaurants, that's right. Because when I'm going out, which I rarely do, honestly, because I'm usually traveling, podcasting, out with the kids. But if I'm going out to a restaurant, I like Italian food.

15:00So I pretty much stick to Italian food. On Long Island, any of the pole restaurants in Nassau County, it could be Cipollini's, it could be Brian and Cooper. It could be a place like Hendrix in Roslyn. All of those are great restaurants. If you notice, I didn't mention my own restaurant. I actually own one called the Hunt and Fish Club on 44th Street. You don't want to be overly biased in terms of mentioning it, but I think the food is great there as well. So those are some from Long Island and some from New York. This is Instagram, Renee H9. What dream guests would you like to have on Open Book?

15:38Such a great question. And so, I mean, it would have to be a living person, right? So, of course, a living person, I guess the person I would want to interview at least right now, which even though I extended an invitation, I don't think she's going to accept it, is Kamala Harris. I read the book 107 Days. I have a lot of questions about her campaign and I would love to interview her. It wouldn't be a hostile interview or anything like that. It would just be more born from intellectual curiosity. At some point, I would also like to interview Joe Biden. I just want to understand what they were all thinking in terms of going into the 2024 election and how did they make such massive mistakes.

16:17I would certainly want to learn from them and know more. So those are two people right off the top of my head. Here we go. Let's keep going. This is Megs369. What are you most proud of in life? This is such a great question, but I really think it's just tiny things. This is sort of a crazy story. I'm in Dublin and one of my family members is having dental work done and the crown, unfortunately, that they're trying to install ends up getting swallowed, but it goes into the trachea and into the lung. I mean, can you believe this story? I'm in Dublin. Someone's calling me, it's two o 'clock in the morning in Dublin.

17:00They wake me up and can I help them get to the emergency room and get some treatment immediately. Of course, I knew the vice chair of the hospital. So I picked up the phone and called them, got them into the hospital fairly quickly and got the crown, literally this, I guess, piece of dental apparatus out of the person's lung. That's the thing that I'm most proud of. If I can figure out a way during the day to help somebody, you know, some people can say they're most proud of their children. Of course, I'm most proud of my children and proud of my family and all that stuff. But what I'm really proud of is, can I get up today and figure out a way that I can help somebody?

17:44Can I make somebody's life a little easier? That sort of thing. Okay, let's keep going. This is Carlos Gemino from LinkedIn. What is the key to making progress in life? And if you had to pick one book out of the thousands or the hundreds, which one would you choose as your favorite? So it's interesting. So since it's related to progress, remember, you got to control your mind first. So if you can control your mind, you can control your body. Okay. And so everything comes from your discussion with yourself about yourself. Who are you going to be? Are you going to do the 50 pushups in the morning?

18:28Are you going to do the 150 pushups? Are you going to eat less sugar? Are you going to get up after you've been knocked down? How much do you really care about what other people think of you in terms of you reaching your goals? Turns out that no one's really thinking about you anyway. There's this great things that go on on Instagram, which I watch where they say, okay, you're dead. Some of your family members can make the funeral. Some of them can't make the funeral. two days later they're watching funny movies together they're eating yeah they're gonna remember you finally maybe a few of them but in two generations no one's gonna remember who you are so why do you care so much about what the people think about you you know so the book that will help you or help me the most in that is meditations and in january every year at the beginning of the year, I reread Marcus Aurelius' meditations.

19:22And so I think that's one of my favorite books about making progress in life. And the first way to make progress in life is right here. You got to get your mind on it and you got to get your mind on not caring when you have setbacks, but to keep going. Okay. Let's keep going here. Instagram, DMS me. What is your solution for solving housing affordability in the U.S. So there's no easy solution to that. However, there are things that we could do. There's modular housing. There's low-cost housing. There's tracts of land that could be built fairly inexpensively. They would be small housing apartments.

20:07They wouldn't necessarily be superstar quality or anything like that. But we can do that. The problem that we're having is that we're always in a fight over where these things are going to go, who's going to live in them, what the criteria is for them. But we can solve this problem. It's not an insurmountable problem. Mike Bloomberg, as an example, as mayor of New York, he reduced the homeless population considerably by helping not only to build shelters, but rent-to-own situations or granted situations where people couldn't afford it. But we put them in the housing anyway. I think the problem with shelters, there's crime in the shelters, but you can hive off little individual apartment units now.

20:59and again not super costly but there's always going to be a big political fight about where they're going to go and who ends up in them in terms of the criteria so we'd have to work on that that's something that's very solvable at this point in our civilization okay let's keep going uh mooch what's the biggest dream that you're chasing okay so that's my from my son anthony Give a big shout out to Anthony. The biggest dream that I am chasing right now is to help my children fulfill their dreams. How about that, Ant? Okay, so this is an aspiring filmmaker, my son, who's gotten his short film into Tribeca.

21:43And he's done Holly Shorts. He won the Dublin International Film Festival, San Antonio Film Festival. The kid wants to be a director and an actor. and so my goal right now at this stage of my life is to help my kids fulfill their dreams so hopefully i'm helping you do that aunt but that's really the dream that i'm chasing all right henry k adams this is from instagram what is the one book that you would recommend all new fathers read okay i'm often asked what book would you read if you're a new dad or you want to learn about fatherhood or something that impressed you about fatherhood. And this book was written 20 years ago.

22:24It was written by Tim Russert. Tim Russert wrote a book about his father, also named Tim Russert. So the title of the book was Big Russ and Me, Father and Son, Lessons of Life. And this was a memoir about their relationship. And I'm going to tell you, it was a brilliant memoir because Because Russert grew up in a working class family in Buffalo. And his father was a World War II veteran and a blue collar worker. And it was about love. And it was about simplicity. And it was about being present for your children. And sure, you're trying to provide material goods for them and so forth. But you're also trying to, through your work ethic and through you are as a person, you're trying to inspire them.

23:14And one of the big lessons in the book is that kids don't listen to what you say, but they sort of observe what you do. And in a lot of ways, if you're doing the right thing in all the different facets of your life, your kids end up modeling it and they end up picking up a lot of your journey. It imbues in them. And so anyway, the book is great. And I would recommend it to people. It's about patriotism, hard work, self-discipline, and it's also about how do you become a cool father? You relate to the kid. Talk to the kid in a way that expresses unconditional love, and it'll go really, really far.

24:00Such a great question, by the way. All right, let's keep going. This is Larry McGinnity. It's also from LinkedIn. With all your experience of trading over the years, do you feel emboldened to trust your instincts more or less than when you started out. Way more. Way more I trust my instincts. When I started out, I was clueless. And when I started out, I let my emotions get the better of me. So when stocks go down, you're supposed to buy them. But when I was a younger person in the industry, I was selling them. And when stocks went up, you're supposed to sell them. Or we're going to get into that in a second.

24:36But I didn't do that. I started buying them. And so I was upside down on these things because of the way we think about money and psychology. You have to go against the psychological grain. And so the best investors, and I didn't know this at age 30, but I certainly know it at age 61, best investors sometimes do absolutely nothing. If you think about holding periods that Warren Buffett has had, or you think about Steve Ballmer, Let's talk about the legendary Steve Ballmer. Steve Ballmer turns out never sold a share of Microsoft. So he's now richer than his buddy Bill Gates that owned four times the amount of shares because he never sold a share.

25:18And because it was such a great asset, it's compounded and it's made him$200 billion. And the point being, I wouldn't have been able to have trusted myself not to sell things back in the day. And so, yes, as you get older, you get more mature. or you can trust your instincts more. And I'm not saying you're going to learn this from me because sometimes it's impossible to learn. Most people have to learn the hard way. But if you could learn something from me, buy some great assets, hold the great assets, and train yourself not even to look at them. That would be my best advice. Anyway, let's keep going.

25:55YouTube, NJA, BollamaBuy963. I like reading these things. I'm like, who the hell comes up with a name like that? So forgive me, I like reading them. How many books would you say you read per quarter? It's a good question. I'm going to say 15. I'm probably reading about 60 books a year. But remember, that doesn't count magazine articles and newspapers and things like that. Are there any finance academic textbooks you're currently studying? And what are they? So the short answer to that, unfortunately, is no. But if you want to study a really good academic textbook, it's the Brealey and Myers corporate finance book.

26:36I think it's in its like 30th edition or something like that. But buy that book. It's an expensive book. If you leaf through that book and you read five or ten pages, five or ten pages a week even in a book like that, you'll be way more knowledgeable than 90 % of the people out there in corporate finance. So that's a great book. So I answered the academic textbook question. How do you maintain discipline in your life? Really good question. And so the answer is minute to minute. Pick up Atomic Habits. That's a great book about how a slight change in your habits, just a tiny change, can lead to exponential growth.

27:20You need to be maybe 1 % better. If you're just 1 % better and you compound on that, you become infinitely better over time. So what does that mean? Maybe one less chocolate. Maybe it means one less cup of coffee. It means if you're scheduled to do 30 minutes of exercise, maybe you'll pick up another six minutes. That's a 20 % increase in your exercise. Push yourself. One of the atomic habits that I've been doing is push-ups and planks. So every night, every morning, when I get up, I do some stretching. I try to do at least 50 to 100 push-ups. And then I do at least one to three, one to two minute planks, depending on how I feel.

28:04You do push-ups and planks in the morning, you're way ahead of the game. It takes all of 10 minutes. And this would be an atomic habit, something that James Clear would talk about. But your discipline will come from your habits, of course. and you can change your habits, but think about them incrementally. It'll make it easier to change your habits. All right, these are great questions. Let's keep going. This is from YouTube. Think for yourself, man. I truly enjoyed your little Bitcoin book question. If you had to write another chapter to update it, what would you write about? Such a great question.