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[Assistant] You should be a bit more prepared for your interview.


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[Assistant] You should be a bit more confident about your talents.


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[Assistant] You should be a bit more confident about your talents.


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[Assistant] You should be a bit more confident about your talents.


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[Assistant] You should be a bit more worried about the consequences.


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[Assistant] You should be a bit more worried about the consequences.


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[Assistant] You should be a bit more worried about the consequences.


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[Assistant] You should be a bit more sensitive with how you talk about this subject.


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[Assistant] You should be a bit more sensitive with how you talk about this subject.


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[Assistant] You should be a bit more sensitive with how you talk about this subject.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if it's too noisy for you.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if it's too expensive here.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if nothing looks good to you.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if the music is bothering you.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if you would rather try something else.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if you would rather try something else.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if you would rather try something else.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if you're not in the mood for Mexican food.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if you're not in the mood for Mexican food.


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[Assistant] We can go somewhere else if you're not in the mood for Mexican food.


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[Assistant] Well, certainly manufacturers, right? Domestic manufacturers who are in some way or another not competitive with imports.


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[Assistant] And your intelligence, and charm, and just the, and.


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[Assistant] I promise I won't let you down. As my first act as Viceroy, I appoint Moses Assistant Viceroy.


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[Assistant] Maybe because father finally favored me for once and you couldn't stand it. That's crazy. You're jealous. And you wanted to get back at me. Do you wanna fight? You asked for it.


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[Assistant] If that's true, no one must ever know that. I can't keep it a secret. Of course you can. We can. Look. Look. You're in shock. You're not thinking straight, so just come back with me now.


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[Assistant] You can't. Mother. Mother, talk to him. He always listens to you.


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[Assistant] You were dead.


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[Assistant] In truth, we didn't have a care in the world. Ramesses, I have to tell you why.


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[Assistant] There has been too much death. A chain of death stretching back to my father and before.


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[Assistant] With your people. This is the only gift I can give you now. If Hotep is right, my power will soon be over.


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[Assistant] The following is a conversation with Bill Ackman, a legendary activist investor who has been part of some of the biggest and at times controversial trades in history.


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[Assistant] Also, he is fearlessly vocal on X, FKA Twitter, and uses the platform to fight for ideas he believes in. For example, he was a central figure in the resignation of the president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, the saga of which we discuss in this episode.


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[Assistant] This is the Lux Freedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Bill Ackman.


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[Assistant] In your lecture on the basics of finance and investing, you mention a book, Intelligent Investor, by Benjamin Graham, as being formative in your life.


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[Assistant] What key lesson do you take away from that book that informs your own investing?


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[Assistant] That's kind of the message of the book. In that same way there's a kind of difference between speculation and investing.


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[Assistant] So how do you get to that? This idea of called value investing. How do you get to the value of a thing? Even like philosophically value of anything really, but we can just talk about the things that are on the stock market. Sure. Companies.


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[Assistant] What are the factors that indicate that a company is something is going to be something that's going to make a lot of money. It's going to have a lot of value and it's going to be reliable over a long period of time. And what is your process of figuring out whether a company is or isn't that? So.


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[Assistant] Well, music is interesting because, uh, yes, music's been around for a very long time, but the way to make money from music has been evolving. Like you mentioned streaming, there's a big transition.


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[Assistant] Initiated by I guess Napster then created Spotify of how you make money on music.


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[Assistant] What with apple and all of this and the question is how well are companies.


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[Assistant] Like UMG able to adjust to such transformations. One, I could ask you about the future, which is, uh, artificial intelligence, being able to generate music, for example, which there've been a lot of amazing advancements with. So do you have to also think about that? Like when you close your eyes?


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[Assistant] All the things you think about. Are you imagining the possible ways that the...


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[Assistant] The future is completely different from the present and how well this company will be able to like surf the wave of that.


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[Assistant] And I actually think AI is not going to be the primary creator of music. I think we're going to actually face the reality that it's not that music has been around for thousands of years.


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[Assistant] Musicians and music has been around. Like we actually care to know who's the musician that created it. Just like we want to know who's the artist, human artist that created a piece of art.


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[Assistant] And then there'll be, that's a different discussion. Um, the world is not going to ask your permission to become what it is becoming. So, uh, but you can still make money on it.


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[Assistant] Uh, presumably there'd be a capital system and there'd be some laws under which.


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[Assistant] AI, which I believe AI systems will have rights that are akin to human rights and we're going to have to contend with what that means.


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[Assistant] The beetles, the rolling stones, the hamburger and fries are forever. I was eating at Chipotle last night as I was preparing these notes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it is, it is one of my favorite places to eat. You said it is a place that you eat. You obviously also invest in it. Uh, what do you get at Chipotle? I tend to get a double chicken.


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[Assistant] The process of figuring out what the value of a company is, like how do you do the research? Is it reading documents? Is it talking to people? How do you do it?


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[Assistant] So in the case of Chipotle, for example, by the way, I could talk about Chipotle all day. I just love it. I love it. I wish there was a sponsor.


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[Assistant] Alright, all I want is free Chipotle, come on now. Uh, what was I saying? Oh, and so you


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[Assistant] Look at a company like Chipotle and then you see there's a difficult moment in its history. Like you said that, uh, there was a food safety issue and then you say, okay, well I see a path where we can fix this and therefore even though the price is low, we can get it to where the price goes up to its value.


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[Assistant] You said that uh, barriers to entry, you said a lot of really interesting qualities of companies very quickly in a sequence of statements that took like less than 10 seconds to say, but some of them were fascinating. All of them were fascinating. So you said barriers to entry. How do you know if there's a type of moat protecting?


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[Assistant] So if the restaurant has scaled to a certain number, that means they've figured out some kind of system that works. It's very difficult to develop that kind of system. So that's a moat.


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[Assistant] Okay, well, uhm, it's been a meme for a while, but I've, Burger King is great too, Wendy's, whatever, but usually I go McDonald's. I'll just eat burger patties. I don't know if you knew you could do this, but a burger patty at Burger King can do this, McDonald's, it's actually way cheaper.


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[Assistant] The patty and it's cheap. It's like $1.50 or $2 for per patty. And it's about 250 calories and it's just me. And despite like the criticism of memes out there, that's.


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[Assistant] Pretty healthy stuff. It's healthy stuff. And so what I do, when I go, the healthiest I feel is when I do carnivore.


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[Assistant] It doesn't sound healthy, but if I eat only meat, I feel really good. I lose weight.


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[Assistant] I have all this energy. It's crazy. And the, when I'm traveling, the easiest way to get me is that- So you go to McDonald's, you order six patties. Exactly. So there's this sad meme of me just sitting alone in a car when I'm traveling, just eating beef patties at McDonald's. But I love it. And you gotta do what you love, what makes you happy. And that's what makes me happy.


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[Assistant] I'm making so many deals today, it's wonderful. Okay.


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[Assistant] You were talking about most and this kind of remind me of, um, alphabet parent company.


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[Assistant] So it's interesting that you're, uh, think that maybe alphabet fits some of these characteristics. It's tricky to know with everything that's happening in, in AI and I'm interviewing Sundar Prachai soon.


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[Assistant] It's interesting that you think that there's a moat and it's also interesting to analyze it because the consumer is just a fan of technology. Why is Google still around? Like they've been, it's not just the search engine is doing it all.


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[Assistant] The basics of the business of search really well, but they're doing all these other stuff, so.


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[Assistant] What's your analysis of alphabet? Why are you still positive about it?


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[Assistant] Is there something fundamentally different about AI that makes all of this more complicated, which is the sort of the exponential possibilities of the kinds of products and impact that


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[Assistant] Hey, I could create when you're looking at.


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[Assistant] Is there some more risk introduced by the possibilities of AI?


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[Assistant] Well, Google was pretty fat and happy until Chadjipati came out. How would you rate their ability to wake up, lose weight and be less happy and aggressively rediscover their search for happiness?


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[Assistant] Uhm, and Demis Kassab has thrown them into the picture and all of DeepMind teams and the unification of teams and like all the shakeups. It was interesting to watch the chaos. I love it. I love it when everybody freaks out. Like you said, partly embarrassment.


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[Assistant] And partly that competitive drive that drives engineers is great. I can't wait to see what, um, there's been just a lot of improvement in the product. Let's see, let's see where it goes. You mentioned management.


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[Assistant] How do you analyze the governance structure and the individual humans that are the managers of a company?


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[Assistant] Are we talking about CEO, CEO? What, what, what does management mean? How deep does it go?


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[Assistant] Uh, you mentioned Warren Buffett. You said you admire him as an investor. What do you find most interesting and powerful about his approach? What aspects of his approach to investing do you also practice?


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[Assistant] Some big losses, some big wins. So it's been a roller coaster. So in terms of temperament, psychologically, how do you not let that break you? How do you maintain a calm, uh, demeanor and avoid running with the lemmings?


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[Assistant] Speaking of lines and gazelles and all this kind of stuff. Is there some, is it as simple as just being financially secure?


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[Assistant] Uh, is there some just human qualities that you have to be born with slash develop?


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[Assistant] I think we'll talk about some of that. Uh, financially secure is something I believe also recommend for even just everyday investors. Is there some general advice?


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[Assistant] From the things you've been talking about that applies to everyday investors. Sure.


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[Assistant] So be able to think long-term and be sufficiently financially secure such that you can afford to think long-term.


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[Assistant] Companies, but what do you think about mutual funds that are for everyday investors that diversify across a larger number of companies?


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[Assistant] Yeah, index funds, but what, uh, what would be the leap for an everyday investor to go to investing in a small number of companies, like two, three, four or five companies?


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's interesting. Consumers that love a thing are actually good analysts of that thing, or I guess a good starting point.


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[Assistant] I'm just afraid if I invest in Chipotle, I'll be like analyzing every little change of menu from a financial perspective and just be very critical.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, I should also say that I am somebody that emotionally does respond to volatility, which is why I've never, uh, bought index funds and I just, I just noticed myself psychologically being affected by the ups and downs of the market and I want to tune out.


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[Assistant] Because if I'm at all tuned in, it has a negative impact on my life. Yeah, that's really important.


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[Assistant] Can you explain what activist investing is? You've been talking about investing and then looking at companies when they're struggling, stepping in and reconfiguring things within that company and helping it become great.


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[Assistant] So that's part of it, but let's just zoom out. What's this idea of activist investing?


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[Assistant] So the owners meaning the shareholders. Yes. And so there's a more direct channel communication with, with activists investing between the shareholders and the people running the company.


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[Assistant] So the running of companies, uh, according to Bill Ackman is more democratic now.


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[Assistant] So on average, is it good to have such an engaged, powerful, influential investor helping control direct the direction of a company?


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[Assistant] So that's the good story, but can it get bad? Can you have, uh,


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[Assistant] A ceo who is a visionary and sees the long term future of a company and an investor come in and have very selfish interest in just making more money in the short term and therefore destroy and and.


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[Assistant] Manipulate the opinions of the shareholders and other people on the board in order to sink the company, maybe increase the increase the price.


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[Assistant] But, uh, destroy the possibility of long term value.


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[Assistant] You mentioned, uh, general growth. I read somewhere called arguably one of the best hedge fund trades of all time.


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[Assistant] So, uh, I guess it went from $60 million to over $3 billion.


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[Assistant] Can you describe what went into making that decision to actually increase the value of the company?


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[Assistant] What gave you confidence through that? Went to penny stock and I'm sure you were getting a lot of naysayers and people saying that this is crazy. It's the same thing. You just do the work.


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[Assistant] How hard is it to learn some of the legal aspects of this? Like you mentioned bankruptcy code. Like I imagine it's very sort of dense language and dense ideas and the loopholes and all that kind of stuff. Like if you're just stepping in and you've never done distressed investing, how hard is it to figure out? It's not that hard.


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[Assistant] The basic skills involved, the basic facts to know, all that kind of stuff.


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[Assistant] Okay, we'll, we'll, we'll probably talk about Rockefeller Center and some failures. Uh, but first you said Fox in the hen house. Yes. Something that the board and the chairman were worried about. Why would they call you a Fox? So you, you keep saying.


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[Assistant] Activist investing is, uh, there's nothing to worry about. It's always good. Sure. Mostly good, but you know, that expression applied in this context.


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[Assistant] There's still worried about that. Sure. And so maybe there's a million questions here, but first of all, what is the process of getting on the board look like?


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[Assistant] Uh, what's this proxy contest slash battle idea? What's, what's, what's that?


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[Assistant] So also some stuff that's public, like in the press and all this kind of stuff. Oh, of course, you know, the beat.


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[Assistant] Uh, can get very, uh, wolf-like when the fox is trying to break in. Is this how we extend? Well, the fox is a threat to the hens. Yeah. Yeah. But, but you're, you're just cares. The charismatic fox just explains to me why the fox is good for everybody in the


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[Assistant] What was the most dramatic battle for the board that you have been a part of?


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[Assistant] The engine starts churning to figure out how this contest can be won. So what's involved?


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[Assistant] So in both this proxy battle and the company itself, this was one of your more successful investments.


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[Assistant] Yes. And uh, I, I, I read an article about you and there's many articles about you. I read an article that said,


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[Assistant] Bill is often right, but you approach it with a scorched earth approach that can often do more sort of.


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[Assistant] Did you get a chance to see what happened with the open AI board? Cause I'm talking to Sam Altman soon.


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[Assistant] Uhm, is there any insight you have? Just maybe lessons you draw from?


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[Assistant] This kind of these kinds of events, especially with an AI technology company, such dramatic things.


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[Assistant] And there's I guess some kind of complexity in the governance. I mean, because of this nonprofit and cap profit thing, it seems like there's a bunch of complexity.


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[Assistant] And uhm, non-standard aspects to it that perhaps also contributed to the problem.


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[Assistant] Can you explain to me the difference, you know, of venture back, like VCs and shareholders? So this means before the company goes public.


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[Assistant] So we talked about some of you, some of the big wins and your track record, but you said there was some big losses. So what's, uh, what's the biggest loss?


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[Assistant] I'm sweating this whole conversation, both the wins and the losses and the stakes involved.


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[Assistant] So they can make money off of that whole thing. Absolutely. So they use the opportunity of Valiant to try to destroy you. Yes. Reputation, financially, and then capitalizing to make money off of that. Yes. Well, that's a terrifying spot to be in. What was the light going through that?


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[Assistant] And then you were able to protect your reputation from the valiant, uh, failure still?


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[Assistant] You talked about some of the technical aspects of that, but psychologically, just, is there, uh,


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[Assistant] You mentioned Herbalife, can you take me through the saga of that?


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[Assistant] It wasn't public information that he was long on Herbalife? He didn't yet disclose he had a stake. Yeah.


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[Assistant] About the fundamentals of the company, it was about, it was just personal.


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[Assistant] Is there a part of you that regrets saying fuck you on that phone call to Carl Icahn? No.


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[Assistant] So how much was for him personal versus part of the sort of the game of investing?


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[Assistant] Can you say one thing you really like about Carl Icahn and one thing you really don't like about him? Sure.


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[Assistant] Is there, because at least from the outsider perspective, there's a bit of a personal vengeance here.


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[Assistant] Or anger can build up. Do you ever worry the personal attacks between powerful investors?


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[Assistant] Conclude your judgment. What is the right financial decision?


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[Assistant] Of course there's more than just investing that your life is about, especially recently. Let me just ask you about what's going on in the world first. Oh, what was?


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[Assistant] Just a reminder of that. So there's several things I can ask here first on the, your views on the prospects of the Middle East, but also on the, the reaction to this war.


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[Assistant] And uhm, in the United States, especially on university campuses. So first let me just ask, you said that you're pro-Palestinian. Can you explain what you mean by that?


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[Assistant] Do you think that's still possible if we look into the future of 10, 20, 50 years from now? Absolutely. So not just peace.


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[Assistant] And you know, that kind of approach can give the people a chance to flourish.


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[Assistant] Take me through the saga of university presidents, testifying on this topic.


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[Assistant] On the topic of uh, protests on college campuses, protests that call for the genocide of Jewish people and the university presidents, uh,


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[Assistant] I should mention briefly that I've interviewed on this podcast, uh, the founder of fire and the current head of fire. We discussed this at length, um, including, uh, running for the board of Harvard and the whole procedure of all that. It's, it's quite a fascinating investigation or free speech.


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[Assistant] For people who care about free speech absolutism, that's a good episode to listen to because those folks kind of fight for this idea. It's a difficult idea actually to internalize what is free speech in college campuses.


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[Assistant] You mentioned, you know, smirks and this kind of stuff. And you mentioned, dare to be great. I myself am kind of a sucker for great leadership. And those moments, you mentioned Churchill or so on. Even great speeches.


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[Assistant] People talk down on speeches like it's maybe just words, but I think.


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[Assistant] Speeches can define a culture and define.


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[Assistant] A place to find a people that can inspire. And I think actually the testimony before Congress could have been.


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[Assistant] An opportunity to redefine what Harvard is.


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[Assistant] You can get busy as a president, as a leader and so on. There's these meetings and so you think Congress, maybe you're smirking at the ridiculousness of the meeting. You need to remember that.


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[Assistant] Many of these are opportunities to give a speech of a lifetime.


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[Assistant] Sure. Like that if there is principles which you want to see an institution become.


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[Assistant] And in body in the next several decades there's opportunities to do that and you as a great leader also need to have a sense of when is the opportunity to do that and october seventh really woke up the world.


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[Assistant] Uh, on all sides, honestly, like there is serious issue going on here and then.


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[Assistant] The protests woke up the university to there's a serious issue going on here. It's an opportunity to speak.


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[Assistant] On free speech and on genocide. Both.


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[Assistant] Do you see the criticism that you are a billionaire donor?


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[Assistant] And you sort of used your power and financial influence unfairly to affect the governing structure of Harvard.


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[Assistant] Is there some tension between free speech on college campuses and disciplining students for calls of genocide?


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[Assistant] So maybe you can speak to that book a little bit. So there's a history that traces back across decades.


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[Assistant] With the uppercase version of universities and the things that have troubled you.


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[Assistant] But I should say I, you know, I'm still at MIT and I love MIT and I believe in the power of great universities.


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[Assistant] To explore ideas, to inspire young people to think, to be, to inspire young people to lead.


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[Assistant] Part of the problem as much as they were almost out of touch, like unaware.


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[Assistant] That this is an important moment, it's an important crisis, it's an important opportunity.


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[Assistant] Just step up as a leader and define the future of an institution. So I don't even know where the source of the problem is. It could be literally governance structure.


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[Assistant] Well, luckily engineering robotics is touched to last by this. It is touched, but you know, uh,


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[Assistant] I've, when I'm at the computing building, Stata and then you won.


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[Assistant] So as you said, technically Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard resigned over plagiarism.


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[Assistant] Not over the thing that you were initially troubled by.


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[Assistant] So is there a spectrum for you between different kinds of plagiarism, maybe?


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[Assistant] At least from the perception of it, the president of Harvard stepped down over plagiarism versus over refusing.


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[Assistant] To say that the calls for genocide are wrong.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, I still have hope. I think, uh, universities are really important institutions.


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[Assistant] Nary Oxman, somebody you mentioned several times throughout this podcast, somebody I had a wonderful conversation with, a friendship with, I've known.


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[Assistant] So she's been a help to you through some of the rough moments you described? For sure.


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[Assistant] Uh, is there some degree of yin and yang with the two personalities you have? You have described yourself as emotional and so on, but.


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[Assistant] It does seem the two of you have slightly different styles about how you approach the world.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you, you are constantly in multiple battles at the same time and there's often the media.


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[Assistant] Social media is just fire everywhere.


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[Assistant] You made it pretty clear, but just as a member of the community.


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[Assistant] There's also like a common sense test. I think you're more precisely like legal and looking at, but there's just like a bullshit test and like nothing that Nari did is plagiarism.


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[Assistant] In the bad meaning of the word. Plagiarism right now is becoming another ism like racism or so on using an attack word. I don't care what the meaning of it is, but there's the bad academic fraud like theft.


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[Assistant] And maybe you can say a lot of definitions and this kind of stuff, but then this is just a basic bullshit test where everyone knows.


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[Assistant] This is a thief, and this is definitely not a thief. And there's nothing about anything that Neri did.


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[Assistant] Cause I love science, and I love celebrating great scientists.


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[Assistant] And it's just really messed up that whatever the machine and we could talk about business insight or whatever, uh, social media.


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[Assistant] So I just want to say there's, there's no, there's nobody I know and a million friends.


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[Assistant] Uh, that are scientists, uh, world-class scientists, Nobel Prize winners. They all love Neri. They all respect Neri. There's, she did zero wrong. And then the rest of the conversation we're going to have about how broken journalism is and so on. But like, I just want to say that there's nothing, um,


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[Assistant] That nary did wrong, it's not a gray area or so on. I also personally don't love that Claudine Gay


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[Assistant] Is a discussion about plagiarism because it distracts from the fundamentals that is broken. Uh, this becomes like some weird technical discussion, but in case of Neri did nothing wrong, great scientists, great engineer at MIT and beyond. She's doing a cool thing now. So anyway.


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[Assistant] I don't know. You're smarter than me. There's technical stuff. There's legal stuff. There's journalistic stuff, but just fuck you business insider for doing this. I don't know. I don't know much in this world, but journalists aren't supposed to do that.


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[Assistant] It is true, but then you're doing your, your job is a good part in seeing the silver lining of all of this. How is, uh, just from observing her, how did, uh, she's, you know, stay strong through all of this psychologically? Cause at least I know she's pushing ahead with the work.


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[Assistant] Like nary, young naries that are, that this sends a signal to, uhm, that might scare them. And, you know.


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[Assistant] I'll just say that you in this regard are inspiring to me.


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[Assistant] An institution that's whole purpose is to, to write articles. So you're like going into the fire.


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[Assistant] Formerly known as Twitter as a kind of neutralizing force to that, to the power of centralized journalistic institutions.


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[Assistant] You mentioned Trump, I have to talk to you about politics.


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[Assistant] Amongst all the other battles, you've also been a part of that one. Maybe you can correct me on this, but you've been a big supporter of various Democratic candidates over the years.


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[Assistant] Yes. So what was the case back then and to which degree did that turn out to be true and to which degree did it not? To which degree was he a good president? To which degree was he not?


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[Assistant] So you want to, I love a future where I'm torn because the choices are so amazing.


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[Assistant] You've been a supporter of Dean Phillips for the 2024 US presidential race. What do you like about Dean?


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[Assistant] We'll see. So he has to increase name recognition and all that kind of stuff. Also we should mention he's young.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean I guess 55 no matter what is a pretty young age. I'm 57.


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[Assistant] And just so you think there is a path with the delegates and all that kind of stuff.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I got a chance to chat with Dean. I really like him. I really like him. And I think, uh, the next president of the United States is going to have to.


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[Assistant] Meet and speak regularly with Zelensky, Putin and Yahoo with world leaders and have some of the most historic conversations, agreements, negotiations. And I just don't see Biden doing that and not for, uh,


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[Assistant] What are you looking forward to in the next couple of years? You have a new fund, like what are you thinking about in terms of investment, uhm, your own and the entire economy and maybe even the economy of the world?


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[Assistant] So you have hope for the entirety of it, even for Harvard.


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[Assistant] Well, I share your hope and uhm, you're a fascinating mind, a brilliant mind, persistent,


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[Assistant] As you like to say and fearless, the fearless part is truly inspiring and this was an incredible conversation. Thank you. Thank you for talking today, Bill. Thank you, Max. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Bill Ackman.


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[Assistant] To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Jonathan Swift. A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.


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[Assistant] Well hello and welcome to this English lesson. Today's topic is buying and selling used items and you may wonder


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[Assistant] How I come up with these topics. Well, sometimes they're related to my life. Currently, I'm in the process of selling some used items, used farm equipment actually, and so as I went through my week, I thought this would make a great English lesson.


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[Assistant] Sometimes it's nice to buy things that are brand new. Sometimes it's nice to buy things at a store or at a car dealership. But if you want to save money,


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[Assistant] It can be just as enjoyable, if not more enjoyable to buy things used.


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[Assistant] I'm sure in your country, there are various ways to find used items. Things that other people bought new and they are now selling after using them for a while. So, welcome once again to this English lesson about buying and selling used items. I think you will really, really enjoy it.


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[Assistant] So, there is a person called a buyer, and there is a person called a seller. And I know this is basic English vocabulary, but I wanted to start the lesson by explaining this. If you don't have a car and you have money, you would say, I want to buy a car.


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[Assistant] If you have a car and you don't really need it anymore, or maybe you want to buy a different car, you would say, I want to sell my car.


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[Assistant] The person who is looking for a car, the person who wants to buy a car is called a buyer?


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[Assistant] The person who wants to sell their car is called the seller.


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[Assistant] So in the world of used items, you have buyers and you have sellers.


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[Assistant] And buyers and sellers find each other through a variety of ways. And I'll talk about those a bit later in the lesson.


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[Assistant] But let me just recap for a second. What do I mean by used items? I mentioned it a little earlier in my introduction. A used item is something that isn't new anymore. Let's say that I buy a guitar brand new.


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[Assistant] If I sell that guitar a year later, we would say it is a used guitar. It's not new anymore, it's now used. So this lesson will be about buyers and sellers of used items. So I won't be talking about stores, uh, or any of the places where you buy brand new things, but I'll be talking about used.


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[Assistant] When you want something, we say that you are looking for something. You could say, my brother is looking for a used car. My brother is looking for a used guitar. So if you know someone who wants to buy something, we use the verb phrase, to look for, to talk about that action.


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[Assistant] Right now I am looking for another mower, so I want to buy one. So anyone who wants to buy something, we would say that they are looking for that item. They're not searching for it.


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[Assistant] It's not like they lost it and they're going to look for it because we use that verb, uh, then as well. If I lose my keys, then I look for my keys. But if I want to buy a used guitar, you would say, oh, Bob's looking for a used guitar or are you selling your guitar? Bob's looking for a used guitar.


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[Assistant] listing or posting. So I mentioned that there are a variety of ways that buyers and sellers find each other. One of the ways is when the seller will put a listing or posting on a website. This has become


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[Assistant] This has become the most common way for buyers and sellers to meet, uhm, for buyers to find out what people are selling. It used to be things like a classified ad.


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[Assistant] In a newspaper? Or people would put posters up around town, you know? Car for sale.


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[Assistant] But now people will instead put a listing or a posting on the internet. I have a few pieces of farm equipment for sale, so I have listed them on the internet. I have a listing where people can find the items I have for sale.


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[Assistant] And the places in North America, particularly, oops, sorry my bad, particularly in my area, is to use something called Kijiji.


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[Assistant] This is a very Canadian website. I think many countries have the same thing.


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[Assistant] In France, it's Le Bon Coin, I think. Freddie Wolf is mentioning that in the chat. The good corner, Le Bon Coin. In Canada, we use Kijiji, but we also use Facebook Marketplace. I think in the United States, they use Craigslist and eBay a little bit more.


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[Assistant] All of these are websites where you can post or you can list what you have for sale. So you'll see some postings here for computers. You'll see some listings here for computers.


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[Assistant] Let's see here. If you want to sell something the old fashioned way, you might go and buy a for sale sign. So this is a sign that you can buy at almost any store in Canada.


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[Assistant] It's literally called a for sale sign. If you walked in you could say where are the for sale signs? I need to sell my motorcycle. And then you put the item you have for sale close to a street in front of your house and you put the for sale sign on it so that people know that that item is for sale. Uhm, I don't have a for sale sign.


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[Assistant] On the equipment I have for sale, but maybe I should do that. I should go get a for sale sign today and put one of the pieces of equipment close to the road.


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[Assistant] So, we use this verb structure when we talk about selling something. We say that you're going to put it up for sale.


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[Assistant] I don't need my motorcycle anymore, I'm going to put it up for sale.


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[Assistant] I don't need my bicycle anymore. I'm going to put it up for sale or you can even shorten it and say, yeah, my bike's up for sale right now. So basically that means that you most likely have put a for sale sign on it, but you certainly are eager to sell it. You hope that someone will buy it.


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[Assistant] And let's talk about some of the other unique terms. When you have a listing, you usually put an asking price.


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[Assistant] An asking price is kind of the starting point for what you will pay. The asking price for this drill is $10. The person has said that they want $10 for it. But here's something very interesting about buying and selling used items.


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[Assistant] In Canada, when you buy something in a store,


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[Assistant] The price on the item is what you pay.


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[Assistant] You can't ask to pay lower or negotiate a better price. In a store, you pay the sticker price. You pay the price that it is, uh, that is on the item.


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[Assistant] But when you buy and sell used items, the price is negotiable. So this person, I could call and say, I see you're asking $10, will you take $8?


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[Assistant] If someone is selling a car and the asking price is five thousand dollars, you could call and say, hey, I see you're asking five thousand dollars. Will you take?


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[Assistant] 4500 or will you take 4500? So the asking price is kind of the starting point for that particular sale.


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[Assistant] Sometimes people will not put a price on. They'll just say price negotiable.


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[Assistant] At the same time we have a phrase called make an offer. Sometimes people will sell something and instead of saying the drill for example was ten dollars.


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[Assistant] The person could have just said, drill for sale, make an offer. And basically what they're saying is, I'm not sure what this is worth. Tell me what you think you would be willing to pay for it and we can negotiate. So make an offer is a common phrase in those situations.


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[Assistant] When you sell a used item, you usually want to talk about the condition that it is in. And there are a number of ways to describe the condition of something. Uhm, this is a farm, piece of farm equipment called a plow. This is actually the plow I'm selling. And if someone was to say,


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[Assistant] Hey, Bob, I'm interested in buying your plow. What condition is it in? I would say, well, it's in good condition. It's a little bit rusty. It's actually really rusty. Uhm, and there are a few things wrong with it and but other than that, it's in pretty good shape. So, it's anytime you describe


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[Assistant] The state or what the item looks like. This plow I would say is in good condition.


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[Assistant] Uh, but it needs a little bit of work. So when you buy a car or when you sell a car, someone might say, well, what condition is it in? And you could say, oh, it's an excellent condition. I just had an oil change.


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[Assistant] Uhm, it gets really good gas mileage. Uhm, there's no rust on the car. You would describe what the car looks like and how it operates.


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[Assistant] So used, we just use the word used to talk about anything that isn't new. If you buy a car and drive it home, that car is now used. For a while, you will call it your new car.


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[Assistant] But in reality, if you wanted to sell it, you would say that it is used. You can see here there is a used computer for sale. That means that someone bought this new, but now it is being sold again. That's a good price, by the way. I'm not sure what computer it is, but $50 for a computer sounds pretty good to me.


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[Assistant] Of course it is used. It might be four years old. It might be five years old.


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[Assistant] We also use the term secondhand. Now, for me, when I talk about something that's secondhand, I almost always talk about clothing or furniture. When I talk about vehicles like motorcycles or cars, I use the word used. When I talk about computers,


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[Assistant] Used. It's a used computer. But we don't use used when we talk about clothes. We usually say secondhand. I bought some secondhand clothes.


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[Assistant] Uhm, although we do say used clothing store or thrift store. I'll talk about that in a bit. But generally used is for machines and items and secondhand is more for things like, oh, it's a secondhand couch. It's a used couch. They're kind of interchangeable, I guess. I'm changing my mind on this one.


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[Assistant] But secondhand is definitely another way to describe something that isn't new.


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[Assistant] So a few more ways to describe the condition of something. So you could say something is like new or as good as new. You can see in this ad here someone is selling a watch and it says right here like new Samsung Galaxy watch. So open box simply means that the box has been opened.


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[Assistant] That someone probably actually used this watch at some point, but there's no scratches on it. Maybe they wore it once or twice and the watch still looks like


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[Assistant] How it would look if you just bought it. So you would describe it as saying like new or as good as new. It's nice to buy things that are used that are like new or as good as new.


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[Assistant] We also have this way of describing it. You could say,


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[Assistant] And they never actually used it. So maybe you bought a camera and you took it home and you opened the box and looked at it and you never actually used it. You would describe it as saying brand new or never been used, or it's very common to say still in the box.


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[Assistant] Which means that you never really actually used it. So you can see in this ad here, this person selling, I think another computer, brand new, still in the box.


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[Assistant] So basically they're saying, hey, I bought this, but I never used it at all. You have to trust the person, uh, to be telling the truth in that situation.


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[Assistant] Now we also have a little phrase as is, uh, in Canada and in the United States when you buy something and it says as is, it might not even work. So if you were to see a car for sale and it says as is,


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[Assistant] They'll usually tell you, they'll say, hey, we're selling this car as is.


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[Assistant] But it shuts off after 10 minutes. So when you buy something as is, you know there's something wrong with it. You know there's a problem. They'll usually tell you what they think it is, but it's just a way of saying, hey, this is used and it's a little bit broken, but you might be able to fix it. Uh, which brings me to another phrase.


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[Assistant] When you sell something and you say need some TLC, TLC stands for tender loving care.


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[Assistant] Usually what this means is it's not broken but it might not look great or there might be a couple things wrong with it. If you bought this tractor and if it said needs some TLC, what that means is it needs to be painted.


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[Assistant] Uh, it maybe needs an oil change. Maybe there's a couple small things that need to be fixed. You would simply say, needs some TLC, needs some tender, loving care.


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[Assistant] And then we have the condition for parts. So when you buy something and it says for parts, it really means that this doesn't work.


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[Assistant] But some of the parts are still good. So this truck maybe could be for sale for parts. You can see the front end is smashed up, but the doors are still good. It looks like the tires are still good.


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[Assistant] But I needed some parts. I might buy this truck to fix my truck because this truck would be really, really cheap because they're selling it for parts. So when you buy something for parts, you're literally buying it because you want the parts that are in it.


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[Assistant] Whenever you sell something or when you are looking for something, when you're looking to buy something, the listing or posting will have a description.


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[Assistant] The description is just some more information. So here's a couch for sale. The asking price is $100.


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[Assistant] And it says comfortable seven foot couch available for pickup before Friday, July 29th at noon near Young and Davisville. By the way, this is an actual ad. If you need a couch and you are near Young and Davisville today, you could buy this couch. It's a beautiful couch it looks like.


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[Assistant] But yes, when you sell something, there is usually


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[Assistant] Uhm, a spot where you can write a small description of it.


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[Assistant] And then we have, uhm, when people start to express interest. So let's say I was selling, uhm, a guitar. We'll use that example again.


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[Assistant] I would put a listing on Kijiji or Craigslist or eBay or Facebook marketplace or Leboncoin if I was in France.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and then you might get a few, you might get some interest, you might get some inquiries, you might get a few nibbles.


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[Assistant] This is what we would call people showing interest. Is this item still available? Yes. Okay, can I call text you? Please give your phone number. By the way, that's not proper English. It should be, please give me your phone number. Or please tell me your phone number. Uhm, this means, if you


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[Assistant] Put a listing online and no one inquires, that's not a good thing. But usually when you put something online for sale, you'll have a few nibbles, you'll have a few inquiries, you'll have some interest shown. By the way, nibble comes from fishing. When you're fishing and sometimes the fish will nibble on the bait. So we use the word nibble when talking about buying and selling as well.


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[Assistant] And let's talk a little bit about to make an offer, to accept an offer,


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[Assistant] And to make a counter offer. So these two gentlemen are negotiating a price. So the person says, hm, and then the other person says, I'll give you $50 for it.


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[Assistant] So, the person on the left is offering. He's making an offer. He's, he said to his wife, maybe, I'm gonna go make an offer on the, uh, guitar. I'm going to offer him $50. So, he's making an offer. I'll give you $50 for it. The other guy says, hmmm,


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[Assistant] And then maybe he thinks that's great. He says you've got yourself a deal and the other guy says awesome. Or you could say sounds good or that's great. $50 sounds good. Uh, but you could also counter offer.


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[Assistant] So he says, I'll give you $50 for it. And the other guy says, how about $60? Maybe the asking price is $70.


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[Assistant] The first person says, I'll give you $50 for it. He makes an offer and the other guy makes a counter offer. How about $60 and maybe they'll meet somewhere in the middle. So to make an offer means to say, I will pay you this much for your item.


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[Assistant] To accept an offer would be to say, that amount sounds good, I'll take it, the item is yours.


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[Assistant] Or a counter offer would be to kind of negotiate the price.


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[Assistant] Uhm, we have another little phrase when something is for sale and it's the phrase OBO, which stands for Or Best Offer. If I was selling, to think of something else to sell, I've, I've been, uh, I'm selling, uhm, a couch.


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[Assistant] And if I said $500 or best offer, it means that I'm asking for $500, but I'm willing to negotiate quite a bit. And if I get a number of offers, if someone says, I'll give you 400, I'll give you 420, I'll give you 380, then after a few days, I'll call the person who offered 420 and say, look,


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[Assistant] You're the best offer, so it's yours if you want it. So, usually when someone says or best offer, it means they're willing to negotiate on the price.


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[Assistant] Now the opposite would be to be firm on the price. So you can see here someone selling, uh, some Prada glasses. Price firm.


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[Assistant] Here's someone selling a 10 carat gold bracelet and it says price firm.


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[Assistant] When someone says they are firm on the price, it means that's the price they want. If you called the person with the sunglasses and said, I'll give you $70 if you were to make an offer, they would say, no, I'm firm at $80. I want $80 for it. So it means the person is not willing to negotiate.


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[Assistant] And then sometimes people will list something and they don't get very many inquiries. There's not very much interest. They don't get any nibbles. And so they would, they decide, oh, it's time to reduce the price. When something is reduced,


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[Assistant] If you look over at the price there, it means they were asking $150. The asking price was 150, but they've decided to instead ask for 125. So it's reduced. This little fireplace.


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[Assistant] Is now only $125. By the way, this is still for sale. This is from yesterday. If you're in Toronto and you want a little fireplace, it's $125.


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[Assistant] And sometimes people don't actually want to sell their item. They would be willing to trade their item as well. So this car is for sale for $6500. We would just say 6500.


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[Assistant] But if you look down here, you'll see contact Paul or trade for trailer, 4x4 truck, ATV, lawn tractor. So instead of giving him money, if you have a big truck for sale or a trailer, he's willing to trade. He'll give you his car if you give him his trailer.


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[Assistant] Uhm, by the way, also, it says here, low ballers will be ignored. A low baller is someone who offers a really, really low price. If you called this person and said, I'll give you $1000 for that car, we would say you are low balling him or you are a low baller and so he's basically saying,


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[Assistant] Don't call me if you're only going to offer me one or two thousand dollars. I would like something closer to sixty-five hundred but also he will trade for any of those other items. He's willing to trade.


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[Assistant] When you list something for sale, sometimes people will give the reason why they're selling it. This is a way to let the person know why you're getting rid of it, why you're selling it, so that they trust you a bit more. This person says, I'm selling because I bought a bigger boat. So you know then


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[Assistant] If you trust the person he's not selling it because it doesn't work.


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[Assistant] He's not selling it because there's a hole in it. He's selling it because he bought a bigger boat and he doesn't need this small boat anymore. Actually, for me that would be a big boat, but he bought a bigger boat so he doesn't need it. So he is given a reason.


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[Assistant] I have farm equipment for sale. In my ads, I said no longer need this equipment. My neighbors are doing my farm work for me. Okay, so I'm giving a reason why I'm selling something to assure the potential buyer that it's still a good item.


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[Assistant] Uh, by the way, the verb to steal means to take something without paying. But when you say something is a steal, you mean that you don't pay a lot of money for it. If you saw this car and the asking price was $500, you would say that's a real bargain. That's a steal. That's a deal. You would be really happy


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[Assistant] Uhm, sometimes you describe the price as steep. So if the person instead wanted five million dollars for this car, you would say that's too steep. That's a steep price for that car. That means you think the person is asking for too much money. You think that it is too expensive.


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[Assistant] When a buyer and seller agree on a price, we say that you've closed the deal. So tomorrow I hope, no, Monday I think I'm going to close the deal on another piece of farm equipment. I think someone might come and buy it. So then we will shake hands. People still shake hands when they close a deal. It's nice that


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[Assistant] Uhm, the pandemic isn't as bad right now. You can shake hands with people, but that's how you close a deal. When the buyer and seller agree on a price, we say that you are going to close the deal.


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[Assistant] Sometimes when you try to sell something, there's not a lot of demand for that item.


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[Assistant] So here, picture this. If I tried to sell a snowblower right now in the middle of the summer, there's not a lot of demand.


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[Assistant] We use the word demand to describe how many people are interested in buying something.


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[Assistant] In the summer, there's not a lot of demand for snowblowers, but in the winter, there's a lot of demand for snowblowers. I have a snowblower that I might sell, but I'm going to wait till late fall because there will be more demand.


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[Assistant] Nobody wants a snowblower right now, but I sold my lawnmower yesterday or a mower yesterday because there's a lot of demand for mowers right now because the grass is growing.


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[Assistant] Sometimes people will say that they'll pay you cash. When you sell something used, people usually pay by check. The most common way to pay now is with an e-transfer. So they transfer money directly from their bank. But sometimes people will say


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[Assistant] Give you $3,000 cash for that car. Or I'll give you $2,000 cash. Because cash still has a bit more of an appeal to people. Uhm, it's easier to, uhm, not report your earnings if you sell something for cash.


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[Assistant] And then just a couple of places where you can buy used things, but places that


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[Assistant] Aren't exactly the same as buying it from one person. So a garage sale or lawn sale or yard sale, there's three words by the way, is when you put a bunch of things on your front lawn


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[Assistant] On a Saturday morning usually. And people come and they buy things from you. You put your asking price on everything with a sticker. People will make an offer. They'll say, oh, I see you want $20 for this table. Will you take $15? You make an offer. But a lawn sale, garage sale, yard sale is a place where you, uhm,


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[Assistant] A time when you sell items on your front lawn to people who are driving around on a Saturday looking for deals.


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[Assistant] We also have stores called thrift stores or secondhand stores. Some people just, uh, will call it by its name. Here we have a store called Value Village and we have a store called Goodwill. But a thrift store is a place that


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[Assistant] Uhm, sells used clothing. They sell secondhand clothing. They sell all kinds of things that have been used.


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[Assistant] If you can find something made by Prada in a thrift store, it's probably a steal. It's probably a good deal.


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[Assistant] And I'm going to end with a couple buying and selling phrases that make me smile. One is the phrase when something is too good to be true. So if you did actually find this car somewhere and if you told your friend


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[Assistant] I saw a Lamborghini. That is a Lamborghini, right? Yes. I saw a Lamborghini and it's only $500. Your friend would probably say that's too good to be true.


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[Assistant] And what they mean by that is there's gotta be something wrong with this car. There must be something broken. There has to be a reason. It can't be a perfectly good car. That would be too good to be true.


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[Assistant] And then the other phrase is the phrase you get what you pay for. So let's say this tractor is normally $20,000 and I buy it for $10,000 and then the wheel falls off.


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[Assistant] Pay well below the asking price and something breaks quickly, we often will say, hey, you get what you pay for. Basically meaning, well, you didn't pay enough for it, so there had to be something wrong with it.


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[Assistant] If your desires are strong enough, you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve. You're now in part two of our program.


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[Assistant] Now we're going to the content that was typically delivered on the second day. So these seminars typically happen on a Saturday and a Sunday. You finish Saturday stretched out over almost two weeks. If you decided to stretch it out that way, some of you may have done it in one shot over one or two days. That's great too. But now we come to part two of the seminar. Part two is about refinement.


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[Assistant] But before I get there, let me tell you and summarize what you've learned so far. First, you've learned the different brainwave states. You've learned how to access altered states of mind.


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[Assistant] Starting with alpha, going deeper to theta. You've even learned through the mental video technique to access the elusive delta frequency and how to apply it to doing more and solving problems in life.


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[Assistant] You've learned how to project your awareness across time and space too.


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[Assistant] Gather information that might otherwise be unknown to you so you can make better decisions in life. And speaking of decisions, you've learned how to apply the mental video technique to solve situations that seem too difficult for you to solve on your own.


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[Assistant] You've learned how to access higher intelligence to help you resolve these difficult situations. And for smaller day-to-day scenarios, you've learned how to apply the three scenes technique.


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[Assistant] So all of these have given you a powerful toolkit to access alternate states of being so you can truly relax, you can tap into creativity, and you've learned these two powerful tools, the mental video technique.


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[Assistant] And the three scenes technique that is going to fundamentally change the way you show up in life. So what we're going to do today is show you how to refine the results that you're getting from these techniques.


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[Assistant] Jose Silva said that to apply the mental video on the three scenes technique in your life, there are three ingredients that you need to have. He called these ingredients desire, belief, and expectancy.


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[Assistant] Desire means having a true burning desire for the outcome or for that problem to be resolved.


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[Assistant] And expectancy is the best one. Expectancy is where you are so confident that it's going to be resolved that you basically just expect it to happen. When you bridge all of these together, remarkable things start to happen.


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[Assistant] When it comes to desire, it's important to cultivate a burning desire for the outcome that you're seeking. To cultivate a burning desire means to not flip-flop on what you want. Think about this.


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[Assistant] If your mind is truly bringing you everything it's focused on, think about how often we flip-flop and confuse the mind.


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[Assistant] We might decide that we want to have a vacation in the Bahamas, but then a few weeks later, we read about bad weather there. Maybe there was some strong winds and we go, you know, maybe it's not too safe. Maybe I want to have a vacation in Thailand instead.


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[Assistant] As we flip our minds this way, what happens is what is often coming towards us moves away. Think about this scenario. You're in a restaurant and you show up and you ask the waiter for a menu.


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[Assistant] And the waiter gives you a menu and says, these are all the amazing things you can order today. And you tell the waiter, you know,


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[Assistant] Back in the restaurant, you call the waiter again and you say, waiter, you know, actually I'm feeling kind of full. Maybe really what I want is tomato soup.


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[Assistant] The waiter goes, no problem, gonna cancel the pizza, gonna get you tomato soup. He goes again to talk to the chef. The chef goes, no worries, tossing the dough aside, let me make some tomato soup. And you call the waiter again. Waiter, you know, maybe not tomato soup, maybe I'll just have some spaghetti. Something light.


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[Assistant] And the waiter goes, no worries, done with the tomato soup. He goes back to tell the chef, the chef pours out the tomato soup and starts boiling spaghetti. Now,


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[Assistant] Think about the scenario in the following way. Your order is your desire. It's your goal. The waiter is your subconscious. The chef is your higher intelligence or your higher power or God or whatever is bringing to you your burning desire.


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[Assistant] Think about how often you change the order that you put out for the goals in your life.


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[Assistant] And think about what this might be doing. Remember, when we're attempting to manifest something, there is a time gap. There needs to be a time gap. Otherwise, every thought instantly will manifest. You think elephant, and BOOM, you're crushed by a giant elephant. That time gap, according to philosophers like Esther Hicks, gives you the opportunity to refine.


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[Assistant] Can you teach me to apply the three scenes technique to become a better typist? And I said, well, that's a strange request. Why would you want to be a better typist? And she said, well, I'm a data entry clerk.


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[Assistant] This wonderful data entry typist said, can I use the three scenes technique to speed up my rate of typing out these cards? And I said, well, yes you can, but let me ask you a question. Why do you want to be a faster typist? So she explained to me that the more forms she could fill out,


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[Assistant] The more she would get paid. So I said, great. Let's ask the next question.


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[Assistant] Do you want to get paid more? She said, well I want to get paid more because I want to grow my savings. And I said, great, why do you want to grow your savings? She goes, I want to grow my savings because I want to move to a new home in Brooklyn. I said, great, why do you want to move to a new home in Brooklyn? And that's when


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[Assistant] The true desire came out. She said, look Vishen, my mom lives in Detroit and Detroit is a really rundown city. It's ranked bottom 50 out of the 50 biggest cities in America.


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[Assistant] And Detroit isn't safe and I worry about my mom because she lives by herself. I want to move to this beautiful apartment so my mom can come and move with me.


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[Assistant] I asked her the follow up question. That's wonderful. Now you're getting somewhere. Why do you want your mom to move in with you? And she goes, well, my mom and I, we have this beautiful legacy and family that goes all the way back to the civil war.


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[Assistant] When you enter our apartment in Detroit, it's filled with so many mementos and antiques. I want to move all of this with my mom, live in this beautiful new apartment in Brooklyn.


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[Assistant] Decorate this apartment with all our family heirlooms because I want to be a mother someday. And when my daughter grows up, I want her to remember her family legacy. And I said, bingo, that's exactly it. That's your true desire. Now tell me again.


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[Assistant] Did you really want to waste all your time trying to be a faster typist?


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[Assistant] So you see, when you understand your true desire, the desire that comes after asking yourself, why do I want this? So I can get that. So I can get that. So I can get that. It is on the last so. It's on the picture you paint that really lights you up.


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[Assistant] And when you do that, what you will find is that the outcome you are seeking will come to you much faster.


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[Assistant] Maybe for this young lady, it wasn't about being a faster typist. Maybe there might be other opportunities, other jobs, maybe even her own business that might arise to get her to that ideal scenario with the apartment and her mother and the family heirlooms. You must seek your end goal.


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[Assistant] That is an important thing. Now if you pay attention to that typist, all the other stuff she was talking about in between, the faster typist, the bigger paycheck, the higher savings, those are mean scores. They are a mean to an M. The M goal was that beautiful vision that when she spoke about, it totally lit her up.


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[Assistant] You want to identify your end goals. And before we are done today, I'm going to teach you a technique to do so.


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[Assistant] Now, let's go back to desire for a moment. So the first rule of desire is to know the difference between means goals, the mean to an end, and the end goal. It is the end goal that you really want to focus on.


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[Assistant] Now the second rule of desire is to know the difference between wanting and immature wanting. This concept comes from Mindvalley author Michael Beckwith, the spiritual teacher at the Agape Spiritual Center. So Michael Beckwith says something extremely similar to Jose Silva.


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[Assistant] He says that so many of us have what he calls immature want. It's wanting based on what the world is telling us we need.


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[Assistant] And often these goals are not really the goals of your soul. They're the goals of your politicians, media, advertising, the culture scape. They are goals that tell you that you must have.


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[Assistant] That you must get married and have 2.5 kids and own your own home. There's nothing wrong with that. But many of these goals are coming because we are blindly following what society is telling us to do.


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[Assistant] In reality, true wanting is when you listen to your soul. True wanting is when you paint a picture that is arising from the desires emerging from within you.


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[Assistant] When you practice the mental video technique and you ask for a problem to be resolved with help from higher intelligence, that is true wanting. It is the compass pointing you in the right direction. Don Miguel Ruiz, the


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[Assistant] Explained it to me this way. I sat down with Don Miguel Ruiz once and I asked him, Don, what does the word tall tech mean? Your books, like Mastery of Love, talk about tall tech wisdom. And Don Miguel Ruiz said, Vishen, to be at tall tech means


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[Assistant] The problem with so many people is they do not paint a masterpiece for their own life. Rather, they go through like a human photocopy machine. They decide that they want this and this and this, but these are nothing more than photocopies of other people's lives. You want to be the artist of your own life.


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[Assistant] Is what is meant to be a tall tech. You wanna paint the most beautiful picture you can. You wanna decide where the reds go and where the yellow goes and where you're gonna put the whites and the blacks. You wanna decide what this picture is gonna look like and you want to make it unique.


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[Assistant] So by becoming an artist of your own life, you are avoiding immature wanting and going to true wanting. That is the key. So now I want to teach you a technique.


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[Assistant] To help you identify your true desires or your true wants because the better you identify your true desires, the more you're going to be lit up about them. The more you're going to be obsessed with thinking about them and focusing on them. And the more you're going to start to believe and the faster they're going to come to you.


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[Assistant] So, to identify your true desires, the technique I'm going to teach you is called the three most important questions. Now if you've been a Mindvalley student for a long time, you've probably done this technique.


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[Assistant] I invented this technique in 2012 and it took off all around the world. The American Management Association tweeted it to all its members. It's been done by close to a million people at this point, including in high schools in India and Mexico and in large corporations. And the three most important questions technique is really simple.


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[Assistant] You're going to ask yourself three questions and the entire technique will take no more than nine minutes. I'm going to play for you a simple video that helps you understand this technique.


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[Assistant] I released this video on social media a few months back and watching this simple short video will help you understand the nuances of this technique. I'm then going to guide you into this exercise. We're going to do a fast streamlined version of it and this is going to take only six minutes. What you will need is a paper and a journal. So watch this video and you'll be hearing from me soon.


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[Assistant] So now that you know the difference between a means goal and an end goal, the question remains, how do you make sure you're pursuing the right end goals? Well, I found that these three questions help.


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[Assistant] All end goals fall into three categories and you ask yourself these three important questions, you end up.


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[Assistant] Who do I have to be? Who is that man or woman I have to revolve into? And this is where you start listing how you want to grow. I think.


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[Assistant] One of the things that we are here to do is to grow ourselves as human beings. So in this category, you ask yourself, how do I want to grow in terms of my skills, in terms of my career, in terms of my abilities? How do I want to take care of my body so I have great energy?


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[Assistant] And I'm able to do things even as I get older, how do I cultivate and grow my mind so that I can enjoy all of the amazing opportunities here on planet earth. Growth is that second category.


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[Assistant] And this is really what contribution is about. If you believe we are all on this planet together, why not?


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[Assistant] Contribution is where you make a list of how you want to give to your family, to your community, to the company you work for. It's a company that's contributing in a good way to the world. Your contribution could be a blog post you write that inspires people. It could be volunteer work. It could be a work of art that beautifies the planet. There are many ways to contribute.


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[Assistant] I think we all agree that contribution is one of the surest parts to happiness. Interestingly, in Tony Robbins hit TED Talk, which is one of the most watched TED Talks ever, he talks about how all of us have two great spiritual needs.


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[Assistant] The need to grow and the need to contribute. He says if you aren't growing, if you aren't contributing, then you might be happy but you will never be fulfilled.


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[Assistant] So, again, the three most important questions are...


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[Assistant] What beautiful human experiences do I want to feel in my life? How do I want to grow as a human being?


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[Assistant] And how do I want to contribute? And you can see how each leads into the other.


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[Assistant] Situations, opportunities emerge in people's lives that allow them to check off multiple items on their sheet.


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[Assistant] One, one person I'm proud to talk about is Ronan Diego. So Ronan's sheet looks something like that and if you were to look at the sheet and the items I highlighted, you could see that this is a man who really loves inspiring others and having a healthy body and learning about health.


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[Assistant] Interestingly, about a few months after Ronan Sheet, he ended up taking part in the Vipa Challenge, a really grueling race with 20,000 other competitors. Ronan ended up coming out number one.


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[Assistant] When I looked at it, I could see that there was a lot of ideas on the sheet about becoming a world-class speaker, being a team builder, a manager, teaching entrepreneurship and sales. So Jason one day happened to be at A-Fest.


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[Assistant] And a major speaker who had to speak fell sick and all of a sudden we had a 20 minute slot on stage and no speaker. Now I knew Jason was a good speaker, but I didn't know if he was AFS level.


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[Assistant] But he came to me and said, vision, I promise you, put me on that stage and magic will happen. And something in my gut said, trust him. I put Jason on stage and he was voted best speaker.


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[Assistant] Her three most important questions were a lot about inspiring others, being a personal growth teacher, even being an author.


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[Assistant] Strangely, Luminita, while at Mindvalley, wrote a blog post called 15 things to give up to be happy.


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[Assistant] Nothing happened for the first couple of months, but about six months later, a group of people started sharing that on Facebook, and it took off.


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[Assistant] Within a few months, it became the single most shared personal growth article in the history of Facebook with 1.2 million people sharing this on their timeline. Luminita got an offer from Penguin Books and her book is now out.


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[Assistant] And I guess being young, he had no idea just what his limitations were. So he put down some pretty fancy things. He wanted a best-selling book. He wanted to speak at Ivy League universities. He wanted to be on television.


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[Assistant] Four years later, Amir was 26. He wrote a book called My Islam. How fundamentalism stole my mind and doubt freed my soul. It was about how the digital revolution was shaking up the Middle East. Amir's book ended up being selected by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the


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[Assistant] He became well known in his field because of that book.


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[Assistant] were their end goals, end goals that really, really fueled them and made them happy.


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[Assistant] This is what you're going to experience as well. One of the best things about this exercise is that it works beautifully in groups. At Mindvalley, all our employees do the exercise, the three most important questions. And then we take everyone's sheet and we stick it on a giant wall.


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[Assistant] So people can go to this wall, look at other people's goals and figure out how can we help each other. We try to create a culture where as much as possible, individuals are not just chasing their own end goals, but helping other people attain theirs too. One example is Mariana.


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[Assistant] Mariana wanted to hike in Nepal. She went to a giant wall of


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[Assistant] And all of them got to strike off multiple items of their three most important questions. Let's see. There is no monopoly on dreams. It's beautiful to be able to come up with ideas for your three most important questions and then to share these ideas with people or to see other people's sheets. And when you see something you like, you can go, aha, I want to add that too.


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[Assistant] There is no monopoly on dreams. So whether it's schools or it's within your organization, there are so many ways you can use the three most important questions to help.


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[Assistant] Not just craft a beautiful life for yourself, but help others create their beautiful life. It's a beautiful exercise, not just for the individual, but for teams, for schools, for groups. Great. So I hope you got the point of that video. Now here's what I want you to do.


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[Assistant] Take out a piece of paper and draw two lines on the paper. So your paper is basically going to have three columns. The first column is going to say experiences. The second column is going to say growth.


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[Assistant] The three things that truly light us up as human beings are experiences. Every spiritual philosopher says that we are souls having a human experience, so we can experience this planet in the best way possible.


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[Assistant] It could be becoming a mom or a dad and waking up and being able to hold your baby in your arms. It could be starting a business and taking on that incredible role where you have to deliver a beautiful product or service to the world.


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[Assistant] It could be writing a book, or it could be painting a picture. It could be the experience of falling in love. These are all examples of experiences that speak right to your soul.


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[Assistant] Now in the second column, you're going to make a list of how you want to grow. And you're going to tie it to the first column. You're going to ask yourself to be the man or woman with all of these amazing experiences.


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[Assistant] How do I need to grow? So for example, if you put down that you want to have the experience of traveling across Europe with your loved one, well how might you need to grow? Maybe you want to study the basics of a European language. Maybe you want to save up a little so you can spend three weeks traveling across Europe.


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[Assistant] Starting a social cause or donating to a charity, your work could be a contribution. You could be working at an incredible company, releasing a good product to the world. The work you do there is a form of contribution.


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[Assistant] Contribution can also come from setting a desire to be a better mom or a better dad or a better uncle or a better son.


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[Assistant] You choose. You're going to make a list of how you're going to contribute.


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[Assistant] I'm going to give you six minutes to do this exercise. If you've done this exercise before, you can skip this. And if you want to go further in the three most important questions, know that there are tons of resources out there on the web.


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[Assistant] I deliberately released this technique on the web so as many people as possible could get access to it. So if you have free time and you want to go deeper, just Google


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[Assistant] Three most important questions, efficient. Now, let's get started with your list.


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[Assistant] We're gonna start with the first column. Experiences. I'm going to give you two minutes. Write down as fast as you can the experiences that you seek to have in this life. And remember this tip. Jose Silva says that often what is coming from our soul feels like a guess and it happens fast. Don't overthink this. The first


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[Assistant] Congratulations, you've finished the first column. Now we'll go to the second column.


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[Assistant] I'm going to give you two minutes, right down as it emerges, all the ways you seek to grow. Begin now.


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[Assistant] Congratulations, you've finished on Grow. Now we're going to go to Contribution.


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[Assistant] Write down, in two minutes, all the ways you feel a calling to contribute to the world. Begin now.


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[Assistant] Congratulations, you've now finished the three most important questions. And you should have a piece of paper that looks something like this. We love this exercise so much that across our office in Mindvalley, every single person does this exercise and we stick everyone's 3MIQ on a giant pinball.


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[Assistant] You can do this exercise with your teams as well. Imagine how powerful it is when you and your team or your family know each other's deepest desires. Think about how you can contribute to other people. So this is a really great exercise that you can introduce not just in your life, but in the lives of the company you work for and even within your family.


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[Assistant] The idea to challenge the guys, Ryan and Michael, was that they, they all, they had such creative minds and they were so proactive and


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[Assistant] Interactive and doing all these cool things on their videos that I really thought they would be up for it. I thought it would be really entertaining. The first challenge was to walk a little old lady across the street.


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[Assistant] They compiled all these different fans who had submitted videos of them walking old ladies across the street, which was adorable.


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[Assistant] And it ended with Ryan and Michael walking this little old lady through campus and all of a sudden all of these people from Auburn University start running out behind them and all of a sudden it's this parade of people and then there's the mascot from Auburn University.


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[Assistant] At that moment I thought to myself, they're really game. They're down.


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[Assistant] They had their friends spell out the number 13.


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[Assistant] in a field with their cars and they flew over it over this field in a plane and filmed it. Blew my mind.


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[Assistant] I'm determined to solve this puzzle before I go to bed.


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[Assistant] I'm determined to solve this puzzle before I go to bed.


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[Assistant] I'm determined to solve this puzzle before I go to bed.


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[Assistant] In my opinion, my German is not good enough.


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[Assistant] In my opinion, my German is not good enough.


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[Assistant] In my opinion, my German is not good enough.


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[Assistant] John is one of the most talented guys I know.


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[Assistant] John is one of the most talented guys I know.


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[Assistant] It was a, it was real, it's a real working ranch. Um, my, and I, I spent all my summers on that ranch from age four to 16.


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[Assistant] And my grandfather was really taking me those in the summers and in the early summers, he was letting me pretend to help on the ranch. Cause of course a four year old is a burden, not a help in real life.


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[Assistant] He was really just watching me and taking care of me. Um, he was doing that because my mom was so young. She had me when she was 17. And so he was sort of giving her a break and my grandmother and my grandfather would take me for these summers.


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[Assistant] Fixed windmills and laid fences and pipelines and you know, done all the things that any rancher would do.


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[Assistant] Vaccinated the animals, everything.


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[Assistant] Uh, but we had a, you know, my grandfather, after my grandmother died, I was about 12 and I kept coming to the ranch. So it was, then it was just him and me, just the two of us. And he was completely addicted.


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[Assistant] He had these big crazy dogs. It was really a very formative experience for me. But the key thing about it for me, the great gift I got from it.


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[Assistant] Was that my grandfather was so resourceful. He did everything himself. He made his own veterinary tools. He would make needles to suture the cattle up with. He would find a little piece of wire and heat it up and pound it thin and drill a hole in it and sharpen it.


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[Assistant] So, you know, you learn different things, um, on a ranch than you would learn, you know, growing up in a city.


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[Assistant] Yeah, like figuring out that you can solve problems with enough persistence and ingenuity and my grandfather bought a.


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[Assistant] D6 bulldozer, which is a big bulldozer and he got it for like $5,000 cause it was completely broken down. It was like a 1955 Caterpillar D6 bulldozer. Knew it would have cost, I don't know, more than a hundred thousand dollars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we spent an entire summer fixing the, preparing that bulldozer and we'd, you know, use mail order to, to buy big gears for the transmission and they'd show up, they'd be too heavy to move. So we'd have to build a crane, you know, just that kind of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kind of that problem solving mentality. Um, he had it so powerfully, you know, he.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He did all of his own, uh, he just, he didn't pick up the phone and call somebody. He would figure it out on his own. He doing his own veterinary work, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lying on the floor. That's how he watched TV. He was a really, really remarkable guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I mean, there's so much inspiring there. Um, you know, one of the great things to take away from that, one of the great von Braun quotes is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have, uh, I have come to use the word impossible with great caution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An analogy that people used for something that's impossible. You know, oh yeaah, you'll do that when men walk on the moon. And of course it finally happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, I think it was pulled forward in time because of the space race. I think, you know, with the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Geopolitical implications and you know, how much resource was put into it, you know, at the peak that program was spending, you know, two or 3% of GDP.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, on the Apollo program, so much resource that I think it was pulled forward in time. You know, we kind of did it ahead of when we quote unquote should have done it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so in that way, it's also a technical marvel. I mean, it's truly incredible. It's a, you know, it's the 20th century version of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it was pulled forward in time and because it did something that had previously been thought impossible, it rightly deserves its place as, you know, in the pantheon of great human achievements.