I enjoyed a little taste of enlightenment this morning courtesy of Morgan Housel.
Morgan, if you’re not already familiar with his work, is probably the world’s pre-eminent financial writer (or at least giving Jason Zweig a run for his money).
His two books ‘The Psychology of Money’ and ‘Same as Ever’ have achieved Harry-Potter-level success. And for good reason: He unravels the complex mess of the financial world by telling enthralling stories of human success/folly in the same conversational tone as your best friend over a beer.
For a while now, I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that Morgan is a closet Buddhist. He has specifically referenced Buddhist ideas in passing a few times, but, more than that, a lot of the ideas he puts out there have a distinct Buddhist flavour to them.
The latest episode (“I Have a Few Questions”) of his excellent, simply titled podcast The Morgan Housel Podcast is a perfect example of his Buddh-ish leanings.
In the episode, Morgan poses a series of questions that he suggests every investor ask themself in figuring out what their financial goals are. Here are a few:
- “What haven't I experienced firsthand that leaves me naive to how something works?”
- “Which of my current views would I disagree with if I were born in a different country or a different generation?”
- “What do I desperately want to be true?”
- “What do I think is true, but is actually just good marketing?”
- “What do I ignore because it is too painful to accept?”
- “Which of my current views would change if my incentives were different?”
- “What events very nearly happened that would have fundamentally changed the world I know if they had occurred?”
- “How much of things outside of my control contributed to things that I take credit for?”
I don’t know about you, but these questions completely flummoxed me. I didn’t (and still don’t after some mulling) have a good answer to any of them. Not one.
Asking questions with no easy answers is at the very heart of Buddhism. Many other religions and belief systems are built on providing ready-made, one-size-fits-all answers to life's big questions (e.g., What happens when I die?). Morgan argues that financial plans are designed in the same. This is a big part of their appeal. Life is scary and complex, and people want certainty (however deluded).
Buddhism doesn't promise certainty. Instead it encourages us to embrace the genuine uncertainty of existence and use life's big questions as an exercise in understanding ourselves better. Instead of providing "heaven or hell" as an answer to the "What happens when I die?" question, Buddhism gets us to introspectively ask ourselves "Why am I asking this question in the first place? Why do I need to know an answer? Can I be okay with not getting an answer?"
Morgan’s questions ask us to step out of our reality and look at it objectively1. Questions like this make us uncomfortable. This is Morgan's intent. He wants to jolt us out of our everyday mundane, comfortable reality and to ask ourselves: "Is what I call reality actually real? Or just a story I tell myself?"
In Buddhist terms, Morgan's questions force us to face the groundlessness of reality—the ground beneath of our feet is not as firm as we'd like to believe it is—and to take the first step down the Buddha's 8-Fold Path.
The Buddha gave us the Noble 8-fold Path as a roadmap to reducing suffering in our lives. [More on this key Buddhist concept in future posts.]
Morgan questions get at the "Right View" part of the path. If we have a clearer understanding of reality—by shaking up what we *think* is reality—then we can begin to live saner, more peaceful and richer lives.
- The Buddh-i$h Investor
If you're looking for more:
The Morgan Housel Podcast: I Have A Few Questions, Jul 1, 2024
David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College in which he encourages his audience to question their take on reality
Kind of like asking David Foster Wallace’s "What the hell is water?" fish to throw itself on the shore and then to come to terms with that new, terrifyingly dry reality. Or, for a slightly more relatable example, Neo taking the red pill and gasping awake to the reality of the Matrix.