But I had one experience where I went totally broke, and I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad to help pay for my family bills. And then I thought, am I going to have to go get a job? Like I'm going to have to put on a tie and go on the railroad and go down to Wall Street. And I couldn't bring myself to do that. But I learned humility. And I learned that there were two things I could do in order to then get past that. First, worry about being wrong. Okay? And then I found the smartest people I could who disagreed with me and I would take in. I love to be challenged on anything. I never am certain I'm right. So I love to be challenged. And then I also then learned like the power of diversification, making bets. That's a whole other thing. I knew how to play the game. And from that experience, it was just straight up for the next, you know, led to becoming the largest hedge fund in the world and doing very, very well. But it's that setback. And there's an investor who's a pal of mine and he says about picking other investors who he's going to put money with, and he says the thing I look want from them first is, did they go broke? Did they have that painful experience that they don't want to get? Then did they get back in the game? Did they then become very successful? And so that they have both that knowledge, that adaptation. So yes, pain, if you make it into a learning, how do you view failure? How do you view not being good enough when you start to view those things as good things? Right? The second order consequences are really good. I started when I was 12 to play the markets. I didn't know what I was doing. So I've been doing this for, you know, I don't know, whatever 60 plus years or something. And so there's a season. So that's a season. And I would say every day is a pressure, but how you react to the pressure is the thing, you know, it's the game. By the way, I find that I meditate. I would recommend meditation. Transcendental meditation is what I do and it changes the way everything comes.
I can give you a thrill. I love it. I can give you thrills.
You know, I think whilst everything is being so stable, not erratic, predictable, coming from the United States, I mean there's not a lot you can do wrong.
Yeah. So your question, the market, he's ready for some help.
The markets are fascinating, isn't it? At the moment it's a little bit sad that you are depending on the mood of individuals that take, let's say, very spontaneous decisions sometimes. It's a game, it's a game, right? So back to what we're here for, right? Yeah, because we share a lot of principles, okay? The principles are about winning, exactly. Right, this is one of the kicks that we have in talking with each other. It's the principles about winning and so, you know, we want to share some of those principles about, well, we talked about the machine and the machine being the team. Yeah, I mean the machine isn't just the cars, the machine is the team and how you build an organization, how you change and so on. And I think we both want to try to convey some of those rules because in a way anybody can become a winner in a sense for them.
Yeah. Okay. And so there's a lot that we have in common,
including seeking thrills.
So for me, you know, it all starts with defining for yourself what does it mean to win. And I have realized over the course of my life that it is not for, let's say, reputational reasons or for leaving some kind of legacy. It is really about my own expectations. What is it that I would want to achieve in order to meet those expectations? And then from there on it's fascinating to reverse engineer how to meet those expectations. And I read this very, very simple book from some guru and there was a scene that he described where a monk, a master in archery, shoots his arrow onto a target in the forest and it goes right in the middle. And then he asks his pupil to blindfold him and he does the same thing. It's 100 meters away. He shoots and misses the target massively. And the pupil says, 'But you're the master of archery and you're a monk. Why did you miss the target?' And he says, 'If you can't see it, you miss it.' And in a way defining what we do in our organizations, we define those targets. What is the objective of the company? What is the objective of the department? What are our single objectives from the people? And once you can align those objectives to the let's say the biggest scheme you have a tremendous force that is going and our organization is two and a half thousand people. So my direct reports are just a fraction of the people that work in the organization. But it all comes down to the human, you know, we are talking what is a team? What is a company? For me I see an organizational chart or some kind of, I don't know, form, but the truth is it's individuals that are on a journey together. Those individuals have dreams, hopes, anxieties, worries, trivial, trivial questions that are not so trivial. How can I afford a university for my children? How can I repay the mortgage? Where do we go on holiday? Can we actually fly business class? So, if you understand that it's not only us who are running these organizations that are having all of those thoughts, but the ones that work with us, then you can properly align the objectives of the company to these ones. And my realization is it's not very often money. I'm very surprised that you normally maybe here we are lots of money people around here, investment, it's of course money to afford things but it's also power, internal recognition, external recognition, it is having free time for the family or the hobby. We had this amazing Italian engineer that said he can't work in the team anymore in Oxford because he lives in Parma. It takes him, he needs to come in on the Sunday because he needs to drive an hour to Milano. Then he flies two hours to Heathrow. Then he drives an hour to Oxford. So he basically misses lunch on Sunday with the family. And then on Friday he needs to do the same journey and he arrives at midnight in Parma and that's why he needs to quit the job. So we said, okay, how can we organize the whole situation? He said his wife doesn't really like it. So his compensation was very high, similar to what you have, but he never thought about, maybe not on your level, some people that work with you that come from university,
So we organized a fractional ownership of an airplane and suddenly the whole thing spun around. We extended his shelf life in our organization by five years. The wife really liked the champagne on the Sunday night and it was amazing. So tailor-made solutions for the individual.
Well, you said a number of things and so I wrote some of those things down. And you started with your own expectations, you know. I think it's very important to realize that different people have different natures and to know what your nature is, right? There are some that are extroverts, there's some like adventure, there's some who want conservative and they don't want the adventure and so on. And I think that it's a journey basically to understand your own nature and then find out what the fit is with your nature, what the career is. And I think that people really don't know that early. They discover it. What is your nature and what is the fit and then when I think about team, then that fit puts some people in the position of being a leader. You're a leader. And so you form a vision. So it's still your vision. Okay. But as you build that team around that team so that you put together your mission. Okay. And then you have to share that mission. So for me it's like my mantra is meaningful work and meaningful relationships. And when I mean meaningful work, you know, we're on a mission together. And then I think then it becomes you need tough love. You want tough love with your kids. You want tough love with everything because tough makes you stronger. And it also when you have a team, you have to make that team successful. And that's where a lot of the challenges come in. You have your vision, but to hold that team and to be tough on them and even make changes. It's the same. We're talking about different teams. Whether you're making an orchestra, you want the best musicians and you have to conduct them well, but it's your mission. Okay? Because they believe in you. And then for other people then to be part of that team is important, right? And that mutual, and when I say tough love, I don't, there's the tough but there's also that element of love, that element of mutual caring, that's a powerful force because you, when you say it's not the money, that's right. I mean the money's an important consideration in terms of life. But really if you even look at happiness, happiness past a certain level is not correlated with wealth. Like happiness, the greatest determinant of happiness is a sense of community. Am I with the connection with others? And so when we're going through that or anyone here I suppose, you have to have your vision. You have to be capable. You have your certain capabilities. You obviously have like the capabilities to be agile and change, adaptation is very important. There's a saying, success isn't determined by how smart you are. It's more determined by how adaptive you are.
The Darwinistic principle. No, sorry. The Darwinistic principle in a way that the most adaptable survive.
That's right.
Yeah. And so I think in your season the rules changed on you, right? But how do you, okay, so but that was in you with probably operating in a team where you're thinking it through together, so these elements, what if it's an orchestra, it's the same thing, right? These are the essential elements and let's say so not often the money, the leader, yeah, so I'm just responding to the things you said.
Yeah, so I want to pick up also some tough topics. The first one is adapt, adapt...
English is my first language.
