Speaker 1: Thirty two in the morning Kevin Gordon and for Brian
Speaker 1: Thomas fifty five KRC the Talk Station. If you checked
Speaker 1: out my Facebook page this morning, you'll notice that I'm
Speaker 1: going to have my next guest, vicrum Mansharamani. He is
Speaker 1: an economist and author and has written an interesting book,
Speaker 1: The Making of a Generalist Independent Thinker Finds Unconventional Success
Speaker 1: in an Uncertain World, and then another book that he wrote,
Speaker 1: A Thinking for Yourself. Welcome to the program, Vic Crum
Speaker 1: is certainly appreciated. And I hope I pronounced your name properly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's perfect, Kevin, yep, Vikram monstremoney, So thank you
Speaker 2: for having me.
Speaker 1: Oh, my pleasure. I guess I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit quickly if you don't mind. You ran for
Speaker 1: what the second district congressional seat in New Hampshire, and
Speaker 1: the primary was this past two day, correct and you unfortunately,
Speaker 1: and I watched a couple of the comments or a
Speaker 1: couple of the questions that were asked during one of
Speaker 1: the debates. I guess wm u R I think and
Speaker 1: I thought this guy's this guy's on fire. But anyway,
Speaker 1: sorry that that didn't work out. Well, I'm sure. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you are as well.
Speaker 2: Look yeah, look, I mean these things, as you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of different variables. Unfortunately, New Hampshire has
Speaker 2: a very late primary, right we're the last in the
Speaker 2: nation primary, and it's a Tuesday, after a week after
Speaker 2: Labor Day. And for better or worse, New Hampshire is
Speaker 2: also a state where tourists come and overcome our state
Speaker 2: during the summer months, and so no one really pays
Speaker 2: attention until the eleventh hour. And so after Labor Day
Speaker 2: is where the sprint happens. We have multiple debates and
Speaker 2: people pay attention. And despite that, you know, there were
Speaker 2: three major candidates in this race, and the three of us,
Speaker 2: the three of us in aggregate, I think, secured less
Speaker 2: than seventy five or eighty percent. Yeah, that means twenty
Speaker 2: percent just scattered among people that no one really knew about,
Speaker 2: possibly random and even here's an interesting kicker. Roughly, uh,
Speaker 2: I think it was almost ten percent of those who
Speaker 2: came in to vote for the governor's race didn't even
Speaker 2: fill in a CD two candidate left it blank.
Speaker 3: So and by the way, and so a six out.
Speaker 2: Let's just say it was more than six thousand people
Speaker 2: that left it blank and I came in second by
Speaker 2: a margin about five thousand some odd votes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just incredible. And what now, correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong? Apparently I am wrong. I thought New Hampshire
Speaker 1: primary was one of the first ones in the nation.
Speaker 3: It is for the presidency, for the.
Speaker 1: President, so they split the primaries.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh wow in.
Speaker 2: The nation president The first in the nation presidential primary
Speaker 2: took place in January. Uh huh. And then for the
Speaker 2: state primary, which is for you know, state offices as
Speaker 2: well as the two federal offices Senate and or Congress.
Speaker 2: If there is a set this this cycle, that happens
Speaker 2: to be no Senate seat that's up, but there are
Speaker 2: the two congressional seats that were part of that process,
Speaker 2: as well as the governor's race, so as well as
Speaker 2: all state offices.
Speaker 1: That seems like a double expense for the poll workers,
Speaker 1: the you know, all the network or the networking that
Speaker 1: goes into that and the mechanics of that. That almost
Speaker 1: seems a little duplication of efforts.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I don't know if that.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's true because let me tell you,
Speaker 2: being in New Hampshire during the first in the nation
Speaker 2: presidential primary process.
Speaker 3: There is a huge value for being first in the nation.
Speaker 2: And I mean, look, every presidential candidate descends on this,
Speaker 2: All of the media, national media descend on New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: There are civic.
Speaker 2: Engagement at a level you probably wouldn't see elsewhere in
Speaker 2: the in the country.
Speaker 3: Frankly town halls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess the local candidates would get pushed
Speaker 1: out as far as news coverage and stuff like that
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So I think,
Speaker 3: you know, look, there's is it ideal?
Speaker 2: No, But I will tell you the first in the
Speaker 2: nation process for the presidential stuff is a wonderful thing
Speaker 2: for the state of New Hampshire. It's a wonderful thing
Speaker 2: for America because look, Kevin, I will tell you I
Speaker 2: had multiple presidential candidates in my living room, where my
Speaker 2: children get to ask questions, our neighbors get to ask questions,
Speaker 2: and there is no pomp or circumstance. It is one
Speaker 2: on one, real conversations with candidates. And New Hampshire does
Speaker 2: a great job of sniffing out, you know, real candidates
Speaker 2: versus those that are a little.
Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing that that you know that is one
Speaker 1: of those facets of our political process that is just
Speaker 1: so unique to us and as actually unique to New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: That yeah, that is really cool. Hey, we need to
Speaker 1: take a quick break. It's away our clock works and
Speaker 1: we'll be right back if you can hang with us.
Speaker 1: My guest is Vikrum Charlemani and we're talking about his
Speaker 1: book and some interesting thoughts that he has in terms
Speaker 1: of thinking for yourself, as well as his latest book,
Speaker 1: Being a Generalist, The Making of a Generalist. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we'll pick this up on the other side of the break.
Speaker 1: I'm Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas fifty five KR
Speaker 1: see the talk station.
Speaker 2: This is fifty five KRC, an iHeartRadio station.
Speaker 1: Man, if you were so forty one in the morning,
Speaker 1: Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas fifty five care see
Speaker 1: the talk station. I guess is vic man Charromani. He
Speaker 1: is an economist and author lecturer at Harvard School. Being
Speaker 1: a lecturer there just a wealth of knowledge and if
Speaker 1: you got to check out his website and I will
Speaker 1: post that on my Facebook page as well as we'll
Speaker 1: have a link on it to our from our website
Speaker 1: here at fich five KR. See, I'm fascinating. You know
Speaker 1: your first book, Thinking for Yourself, I think is what
Speaker 1: caught my attention when you came on my radar screen
Speaker 1: because I read a couple of articles by you. And
Speaker 1: how does that fit with the latest book being a
Speaker 1: general This almost seems like the two don't mesh? Or
Speaker 1: am I missing something?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Look I would, I would go back even further to
Speaker 2: my original, my first book.
Speaker 3: So I've got three books out there. The first book
Speaker 3: is about.
Speaker 2: Financial bubbles, and I'll quickly connect the dots between the
Speaker 2: financial bubble book, the book Thinking for Yourself and it's
Speaker 2: called Think for Yourself, and then this latest book to Jennalist.
Speaker 2: When I found Kevin very simply was when I studied
Speaker 2: financial bubbles. It turned out that actually, while many economists
Speaker 2: would say you can't see a financial bubble, what I
Speaker 2: found was that if you use multiple lenses to evaluate it,
Speaker 2: that you could in fact probabilistically figure out whether you
Speaker 2: were more likely or not to be in a bubble.
Speaker 2: And the way I did that is I said, not
Speaker 2: just economics, you got to look at psychology, you got
Speaker 2: to look at politics, you gotta look at herd behavior.
Speaker 3: You got to figure out FOMO.
Speaker 2: And then when I applied that multi lens thinking logic
Speaker 2: to the world of strategy, personal decision making, and corporate
Speaker 2: decision making, what I found was actually it also worked.
Speaker 2: You have to be able to connect dots in a
Speaker 2: world where everyone is focused on generating dots. And I
Speaker 2: found this true in medicine. I found it true in
Speaker 2: personal finance as well as large corporate decisions and government actions.
Speaker 2: I said, you have to look through not only an
Speaker 2: economic lens, but also a geopolitical lens. You have to
Speaker 2: understand what's happening with technology, you have to understand what's
Speaker 2: happening in energy, you have to understand what's happening with
Speaker 2: individual psychology, culture, etc.
Speaker 1: Kind of the big picture effect, not just concentrating on
Speaker 1: a particular focus. And then, as you mentioned, the herd mentality,
Speaker 1: which is extremely dangerous, especially when you start looking at
Speaker 1: some of the investments and that type of thing that
Speaker 1: people were moving into. Well, whenever you've seen these bubbles,
Speaker 1: whether it was the dot com bust in the nineties
Speaker 1: and then the housing market in the late or two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight thereabouts. In twenty twenty, lindsight you say, oh,
Speaker 1: here were the warning signs? Well, the warning signs were there,
Speaker 1: you just chose to ignore them.
Speaker 3: Well, that's right.
Speaker 2: And so just to quickly finish up there, ken the
Speaker 2: generalist book, the one that's called the Making of a Generalist,
Speaker 2: is in fact that right, which is what is a generalist.
Speaker 2: A generalist is someone who prioritizes breadth of experience over
Speaker 2: depth of expertise.
Speaker 3: And the logic here is dots, using.
Speaker 2: Multiple perspectives, multiple disciplines or lenses is actually helpful to
Speaker 2: navigate uncertainty. So it's sort of a contrarian lodge. Everyone
Speaker 2: gets taught, develop your expertise, your niche, and get deep
Speaker 2: and you know, learn something more than anyone else knows. Right,
Speaker 2: I'm going to suggest that actually that's not helpful. That's
Speaker 2: not helpful, particularly in a time of artificial intelligence and technology.
Speaker 3: What you want is.
Speaker 2: To be able to connect dots across these areas of expertise.
Speaker 1: And you know when you vic monscharm romani is my
Speaker 1: guess the you know when you talk about that in
Speaker 1: terms of drilling down on just a particular data points
Speaker 1: or this is where you see where in I guess
Speaker 1: government or in regulations that they believe that they are
Speaker 1: almost like the center of the universe, and that everything
Speaker 1: evolves around them, whether it be the Federal Highways Traffic
Speaker 1: Safety Administration or the EPA or CDC or whatever. They
Speaker 1: don't seem to think outside of their area and see
Speaker 1: how whatever these ramifications will be out in the world.
Speaker 1: And I've seen some people talk in terms of what
Speaker 1: they should do with the federal government is instead of
Speaker 1: having all of these departments in Washington, maybe move them out. Hey,
Speaker 1: how about the Department of Agriculture be out where agriculture is?
Speaker 1: You know that's right?
Speaker 2: No, no, look, I agree with you, completely, completely agree him.
Speaker 2: Look it's not just and I'll broaden it. Look, it's
Speaker 2: this idea that.
Speaker 3: Experts know best.
Speaker 2: Yes, that actually there are people behind a guest who
Speaker 2: should tell all of us in the real world what
Speaker 2: to do. Like that is an offensive concept to me.
Speaker 2: I actually think a lot of us have knowledge and insight,
Speaker 2: and you know what, who knows better about me and
Speaker 2: my family than me and my family? No one can
Speaker 2: be Literally, I think I am the most informed person
Speaker 2: on that, and therefore having experts of any sort tell
Speaker 2: us how to do things is at some level offensive, right,
Speaker 2: I mean again, we'll go back to the pandemic. I
Speaker 2: wrote this and think for yourself. You know, what was
Speaker 2: the cost? Actually I wrote it about think for yourself later.
Speaker 2: What was the cost of people missing mammograms or missing
Speaker 2: dental appointments that was not factored into the public health
Speaker 2: decision making process. Now, maybe you could argue it didn't
Speaker 2: need to be, but there was a cost.
Speaker 3: It was not zero.
Speaker 2: People missing a mammogram led to probably having more cancer
Speaker 2: and probably more death than any public health official even
Speaker 2: factored into their process.
Speaker 1: Or even wanted to talk about.
Speaker 3: It, or even wanted to talk about.
Speaker 2: So they just talk about all we have to lock down,
Speaker 2: we have to do But that's okay, Fine, you can argue,
Speaker 2: and I would I'm not sure I would agree that
Speaker 2: there were benefits, but you for sure have to accept
Speaker 2: that there were costs. And this gets to your point,
Speaker 2: which is the expert class and embodied in some bureaucratic
Speaker 2: institutions that you have three letter agencies. In that way,
Speaker 2: that expert class feels that they know better than the
Speaker 2: rest of us, and that is what Thing for yourself
Speaker 2: is the opposite of that book was written to say
Speaker 2: all of us know enough to be able to make
Speaker 2: our own decisions. All these experts live in silos. They
Speaker 2: don't understand the big picture. Only you can understand the
Speaker 2: big picture of your own decisions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my wife, from time to time will make the comment,
Speaker 1: you know, it appears as though our best and brightest
Speaker 1: ain't so best and bright sometimes.
Speaker 2: Well that's right, that's right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, it's funny.
Speaker 2: The reason I used the title for that book called
Speaker 2: Thing for Yourself, which is the image I had, was,
Speaker 2: you know, and my mother never really did this, but
Speaker 2: you can imagine a mother sort of slapping, you.
Speaker 3: Know, not in a violent way.
Speaker 2: Of course, Wait a minute, now, it's sort of you know,
Speaker 2: telling a child stop this and think for yourself, Like,
Speaker 2: don't just follow her behavior, don't just do these things.
Speaker 3: Are stupid.
Speaker 2: If you know something is stupid, actually, don't do it
Speaker 2: because someone told you to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if Billy jumps off the cliff, would you jump
Speaker 1: off the cliffs whole?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's freezing cold outside, go stick your tongue on
Speaker 2: the flagpole.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, don't show.
Speaker 3: That, Like, don't do that. That's stupid.
Speaker 2: But yet, somehow, as we grow into adults, we start
Speaker 2: listening rather than to the cool kid. We start listening
Speaker 2: to the quote unquote expert who frankly doesn't understand the
Speaker 2: world the way they pretend to.
Speaker 1: No, and and and it's and it's obvious by a
Speaker 1: lot of the decisions and a lot of things that
Speaker 1: you see. It's it's you come and away scratching your head.
Speaker 1: And especially you know, having a background of economics and
Speaker 1: I am I am a recovering accountant, so I have
Speaker 1: a tendency of delving out to the numbers way too often.
Speaker 1: And so it it. You know, things have to make
Speaker 1: sense to me. They have to pass the smell test.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, yep, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's important to that. I mean, look, I do
Speaker 2: I do a lot of global work too, so it's
Speaker 2: important to think globally. It's important across industries, silos, think
Speaker 2: about geopolitics, economics, local technology developments.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's you have to connect dots.
Speaker 2: We live in a world where too many people focus
Speaker 2: on generating dots. We need to connect dots. That is
Speaker 2: the way to navigate uncertainty.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. My guest has been back vicram manshar Ramani. Uh,
Speaker 1: how can people get ahold of your books to go
Speaker 1: to your website or yeah.
Speaker 2: Well look they're available everywhere. Books are sold on Comazon,
Speaker 2: Barnes and Noble e. But the website is just my
Speaker 2: last name Monshuramani dot com. It's m A N s
Speaker 2: h A r A m A n I dot com.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for spending time with us
Speaker 1: today on such short notice. I certainly appreciate you. Have
Speaker 1: a great day and all.
Speaker 3: About us to you perfect thanks very much. Caning?
Speaker 1: All right, take care. Let's say we need to step
Speaker 1: out here real quick. I'm Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas,
Speaker 1: fifty five kr SE the talk station fifty five KRC
Speaker 1: dot com.