MBA2557 Must Read: Same as Ever by Morgan Housel

0:05Hey, welcome back to the$100 MBA show. Today's episode is a must read episode. On our must read episodes, I share with you a book that I have read that has influenced me, that has impacted me in a big way. And I share with you my favorite takeaways and why you should read it too. Today's must read is Same As Ever by Morgan Housel. Same As Ever is one of my favorite books of the year, and I'll explain why. But Morgan is a fantastic author. He wrote the book, The Psychology of Money, which we did a must read episode on. Great, great, great, great book. So I had high expectations for this one. If you know anything about Morgan Housel and his style of writing, You know that he has a unique way of challenging your assumptions about something.

0:46He's helping us see things from a new angle, from a new perspective. And this book is no exception. I'm excited to share with you my three favorite takeaways. There's so many takeaways I love about this book, but I'm going to share my top three so that you can get enticed to buy this book and read it. If I'm talking about a book on a must-read episode, it is a must-read. I read a lot of books, read over 50 books a year, and not all of them make it to the must read. So if I'm talking about it, it's worth reading. You should check it out. If you want links to the book, just go to our website, 100mba.net.

1:18You'll see a link on top that says book reviews, and you should see this book or you could search for it nice and easy. So what is this book all about? Well, in a world that's obsessed with change, Morgan Housel reminds us that some things stay the same. Some things never change. They're constant. And that's really where the real insights are, the things that don't change, right? In this book, Same as Ever, he explores timeless principles, timeless ideas that shape our human behavior, shape business, shape the economy, shape the way we live, right? And we're going to dive into what those things are, what are some of the things I really found really profound in this book, but we're also going to take a look at how we can use this knowledge to navigate an ever-changing world, an ever-changing business landscape.

2:09So I don't need to mention this again, but these are just my top three, my three favorite takeaways, but I can probably list five or six more, but I'm going to let you dive into the book and enjoy it. I have to say that Morgan Housel has no weaknesses when it comes to his chapters. Every time I read one of his books, every chapter is just as good as the last. And that's really hard. If you ever read a lot of books, if you read books, especially nonfiction books, it's very hard to just have hit after hit when it comes to the chapters in your book. So I got to applaud him. He's done a really good job with his book and it really made me think and ponder and put the book down and write down some notes in my journal.

2:51That's the type of book that's really going to move the needle when it comes to changing your perspective and start giving you new ideas. So let me start with the first thing I want to share with you and that's Timeless Human Behavior and Decision-Making. In the book, Morgan argues that while technology and everything that's going around us, AI and everything, social media and all the trends, these things change, right? Over time, they improve, they change the way we interact with them, all that kind of stuff. But human behavior largely remains the same. How we act day-to-day hasn't changed a lot over the centuries, right?

3:26Understanding these timeless elements of our human behavior, our biases, our fears, our motivations. This gives us a massive advantage in our business life and in our personal life as well. We understand what to expect from people and from ourselves. Let me give you an example. Let's take the concept of business or the topic of business. This is what I do. I teach business every single day. Business hasn't really changed really like the tools and the technology. Yes, there's a lot of advancements, but essentially business is about trust, is about connection, it's about problem solving, right? These principles are as important today as they were 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, hasn't really changed.

4:05So let me give you an action step how to implement this takeaway that I got from the book, right? Instead of chasing every new trend, every new shiny object, I want you to ask yourself a question, what in your market in your business will not change will always remain the same, right? And focus on working and becoming better at that, right? Ask yourself this question, write it down on a piece of paper, write it in your notebook, right? What in your market, in your business, in your world, right? Will not change, will always be true, right? And I'm not the first person to do this. Actually, there's an example in the book about Amazon and Jeff Bezos.

4:42Jeff Bezos asked himself this question when he started Amazon. He said, when it comes to my company, Amazon, What will never change? Well, he chose two things. One thing that will never change is that people will want things quickly. They're not going to want it slowly. They want to get it delivered to the house as fast as possible, right? The second thing he noticed is that people want a good deal. People want it as inexpensive as possible, as cheap as possible, right? People don't want to pay more for something, especially if it's a commodity. So these two things will never change. So he built Amazon around it.

5:11Now the technology and all the offerings and all the things that Amazon does are based on these principles, right? how he gets there might change, but these principles don't. And that's really becomes our focus. All right, let's jump into the second takeaway I want to share with you from this book, same as ever, the power of patience in an impatient world. The world is incredibly impatient right now with everything that's happening in social media, with all our devices, with all the distractions, all notifications, all the advertising that's in front of us all the time, right? This is just a fact.

5:42We are becoming less and less patient, right? So anybody who has patience will win, right? They have an advantage, right? We are being spoiled with Ubers coming in five minutes and Amazon Prime coming same day and all that kind of stuff. So you need to start having more of a long-term perspective. And often people that have a long-term perspective that don't build something for next week or next month or next year, but for 10 years, for 20, years, for 50 years, these are the people that come out on top, right? For example, in business, we're often tempted to get a quick win. And I'm all for quick wins, but lasting success often comes from playing the long game, building systems and nurturing the relationships that you have, your connections, your customers, and focusing on sustainable growth.

6:30It's focusing on the fact that I have three customers today, tomorrow, I'll get four. By the end of the week, I'll have five. By the end of the year, I'll have X hundred amount of customers. In 10 years, I'll have tens of thousands of customers. I have a multi-million dollar business now. You understand that you win with time, that if you're patient enough and you're willing to stick it out and be consistent, that you will win. And it's even more important now because people are less patient. They're more impatient. So people that have patience are going to have a decisive advantage. So if you want an advantage in this world, be patient.

7:04Okay, so as an action step from this takeaway, take a step back, evaluate your business goals. Are you focusing only on quick wins? Are you focusing only on how many leads you're getting today? How many sales you're getting next week? Are you thinking about the long-term goals? Are you thinking about how many sales you are looking to get by the end of the year? You're right, where you're at in five years, in 10 years. It's okay to have short-term goals because you have to work backwards. I get it, but it's not okay for you not to have a long-term vision because if you don't have a long-term vision, if you don't have a long-term goal, then you're not making decisions based on the future, on what you want to build for the future.

7:42You're just making the decisions just for survival right now. And I understand how that could feel in the beginning, but it's dangerous because you might make decisions that will affect your success in the long-term. So as an action step, just think big, make yourself a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, sit somewhere in nature, maybe, or just in your living room and say, Hey, I know I got some certain goals I want to get done this week and this, you know, quarter or whatever it might be. But what does my business look like in five years, in 10 years, in 20 years, in 30 years, in 50 years, right? What does it look like, right?

8:17What is it doing? How many customers do I have? How much revenue am I making, right? Who are my customers? And what kind of influence am I making? What kind of impact am I making in the world. Think big for a moment. Think long term. All right, third takeaway I love from this book, and that's embracing uncertainty with a resilient mindset. Morgan House on this book points out that uncertainty is a given in life and in business. You can bet on it. Book it, right? You're going to have uncertainty. The real skill isn't avoiding uncertainty. It's building the resistance to handle it. Understanding that there's going to be some dark days.

8:57There's going to be some tough days and that you are ready for it, right? This is a game changer for me. This was a game changer, not only when I read it, but when I experienced it in my own businesses, that there's going to be tough days around the corner. As good as it is now, it's going to get tougher, right? And sometimes it gets harder than ever. Like you've never experienced hardship like that before, it's going to get stressful. But when you expect it, you have a different mindset. When you know that that's par for the course and that's normal and all successful businesses have to go through that, you have a different approach.

9:30For example, when I launched my software company webinar Ninja in 2014, we released our first version to our beta members. And I knew there was a lot of uncertainty. There was no guarantees that this is going to be a success. When we did release it, there were some bugs. There were some issues that we had to fix quickly, right? I kind of knew that was going to happen. I didn't understand what were going to be the challenges because this is the first time I was creating a software company or a software product. But by understanding that I knew it's not going to be perfect, I knew that something's going to happen.

10:00I was prepared. I was telling my engineers, hey, when we give this to the customers, we're going to have to fix a lot of bugs. There's going to be some issues. We haven't experienced it in our testing, but when you give it to hundreds of people, they're going to find some things that we didn't see, right? They're going to put it in a real environment. So that experience really taught me that you just need to always expect challenges. It's just going to happen. Some of these challenges are not external, like customers complaining. It could be internal, like your motivation, like your drive, like your satisfaction in what you're doing and your passion for what you're doing.

10:34Sometimes you're going to hit a slump and that's tough to deal with. It's a challenge and you're going to need to get through that in order for you to be successful. You got to be patient with that, but you also have to anticipate it so you know that, hey, this is normal. I'm going to get through it. So one of the things I love to do in my businesses, in any projects I do, in a product launch, in a webinar I'm about to run, in an episode of I'm recording for the podcast, right? I ask myself the question, how can this go wrong, right? What are some things that might happen that may not work out?

11:09I know this might sound a little bit doom and gloom, but it's good to go through an exercise like what are the possible outcomes of this project, of this launch, of this whatever, even if it's something as simple as publishing a podcast episode. You know, I could get sick and lose my voice and I can't record this episode. That could happen. That's a possibility, right? I can just feel off that day and not deliver from my heart and from where I want to deliver from with passion, right? I could have a malfunction with my camera and things not get recorded and I'll have to rerecord that episode because it didn't work out.

11:41I could have a power outage. There could be drilling next door and I can't record today. There's so many things that could go wrong. And it's good to know that because there's something about when it does happen, when something goes wrong, you're like, oh, I kind of expected this. And what's nice about doing this exercise, like what can go wrong? How could this fail? Asking that question to yourself, whatever project you're working on, is that it gives you the idea that, OK, there's a possibility this could not work out. what are some things I need to do to shore up those areas of weakness? How will I respond to those moments of unexpected change or unexpected challenges?

12:17So this is a great exercise. You may want to do it right now. Just write it down. How can X, whatever I'm working on, go wrong, right? How could it fail? How could it not just go the way I want it to? What are some things that could happen? So in conclusion, Morgan Housel, absolute champ when it comes to writing books. He's one of my favorite authors. His latest book, Same As Ever, a powerful, powerful reminder that the most important elements of life and in business are often the ones that don't change. The things that just don't change, the things that stay the same forever, right? By understanding that timeless human behavior, practicing patience, and building resilience, we can thrive in a world that's always changing, something that's happening all the time, right?

13:00That's always shifting below our feet because we know what's constant, what doesn't change, and we can hold on to that. So if you're looking for a book that will ground you, that will make you feel a little bit more comfortable about what's happening in the world, especially when things are changing so quickly, you're going to love this book. Same as ever. Definitely a must read. Check it out. You can go to our website, 100mba.net, go to book reviews. You'll check out the link. You could order it right there directly from our website. And it's just a fantastic book. Love Morgan Housel and his works.

13:28So check it out. You'll absolutely love it. Just go to 100mba.net slash read. If you want to check out this book recommendation, as well as all our book recommendations, you know, we've got the holidays rolling around, makes a great gift for your loved ones when they're done reading it. They, you can read it. Awesome stuff, right? Win-win. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day. I'm Omar Zanom and I'll see you in the next episode.