Shut Up & Listen 🍀

Hello everyone and welcome to Gains Theory, where our aim is to help you level up your life, knowledge and career 1% at a time.

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Alright, let’s get right into it... 

One Big Idea

Want to get ahead? Be (genuinely) interested.

Want to know a little secret? Of all the things that can positively compound over the course of your lifetime - personal relationships may just have the greatest potential ROI.

Whether it is a significant other, client or partner in any field - genuinely investing in these relationships can pay enormous dividends in every sense. So how do you do it?

Well you can start by STFU, honestly. This seems like it should be intuitive - but speaking less and listening more is the ideal jumping off point for starting and/or growing any partnership. This not only allows you to have a better sense of where the other person is coming from - and where you can meet them and their needs - it also allows you to potentially LEARN a ton.

The legendary music producer Rick Rubin recently appeared on the Lex Fridman podcast and spoke to this dynamic a bit via the clip below:

Listening intently and asking leading follow up questions not only deepens your own understanding of the person across from you and subject matter at hand - it also inherently signals to them that you are deeply engaged with what they have to say and offer. So how can you apply this to the coming decade(s) of your own career, then?

Josh Brown recently wrote a great piece in conjunction with the release of Nick Maggiulli’s new book, “Just Keep Buying.”

Side note: pause here and/or remember to download Nick’s book to your Kindle.

Thank us later. Ok back to it…

The main takeaway here is that according to Josh you should aim to spend the first portion of your career making yourself as useful as possible to more established people in your field of choice. You don’t necessarily need a wealth of experience (more on this another time) or a wildly robust skill set to do this - but rather an insatiable desire to learn as much as possible about the topic at hand. Nick clearly had this in spades, was able to express it to the right people, and the following few years are no accident as a result.

While there is a certain level of serendipity at play here (as with anything) - this playbook offers a pretty ideal framework for how to approach the initial phase of your life and career. Josh also posits that the real payoff will come sometime down the line when you are the more established individual in the equation - with the ability to pay it forward to the next generation.

The Bottom Line: Building any type of fruitful relationship is simple, not easy - but consistently following these basic guidelines will go a long, long way...

• Start by listening more than you speak. Get a baseline understanding for where the other party is coming from, and how you can best serve their needs. Also...

• Be willing to learn whatever it takes to maximize your utility in a given situation. All of the information you need is out there, you just have to be the type of person who is willing and eager to seek it out relentlessly.

• Do this consistently enough and you will build up a track record of being an incredibly valuable partner, colleague, friend and collaborator. Once you’re there, it’s time to think about paying it forward…

What Else We're

Reading

'Just Keep Buying' - Nick's personal finance blog and Twitter feed have been must read material for years now - so it's no surprise that his first book is more of the same. Nick gives clear, actionable guidance and backs it up with plenty of relevant data to make your money work better for you. Pretty tough to argue with that.

Watching

'Tokyo Vice' - Dark and gritty AF, this neo-noir period piece set in 1995 Tokyo has pretty much everything you could possibly want; sex, violence, and an introspective look at the cultural interpretation of 90's boy band lyrics. Frankly, they had us with the pilot at 'Directed by Michael Mann.' Give it a shot this week and let us know what you think.

Listening To

'Lex Fridman Podcast' - Rick Rubin might just be the greatest music producer of all time. Lex Friedman might just be the best interviewer working today. Need we say more?

One Final Thought

Until next time, take care, and stay curious.

- G.T.