Episode 100: Dr. Daniel Crosby | The Scientist and The Storyteller Reunite on The Soul of Wealth, Why Every Company is a Media Company, and How to Find Meaning in the Attention Economy

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Being great at investing is one thing but if no one knows about you or what you stand for, good luck growing your fund. 

It might sound harsh, but it’s true. In today’s world, attention is the new currency and you can’t afford to ignore it.

That’s why today, Stacy is bringing her friend Dr. Daniel Crosby back on the mic for a very special 100th episode of Billion Dollar Backstory. They’re picking up right where they left off in their “Scientist & The Storyteller” series.

Together, they’re digging into why every company today is a media company (yep, even yours) and why building a brand that feels real and relatable isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore.

They’re also covering:  

• How to build a brand that’s real, relatable, and doesn’t feel like a facade

• Why being a thought leader matters (even if you’d rather be investing)

• The hidden costs (and upsides) of the attention economy

• The big reason why so many fund managers struggle to stand out and how to change that

More About Dr. Daniel Crosby 

Dr. Daniel Crosby is a psychologist and behavioral finance expert who helps organizations understand the intersection of mind and markets. Dr. Crosby's first book, Personal Benchmark: Integrating Behavioral Finance and Investment Management, was a New York Times bestseller. His second book, The Laws of Wealth, was named the best investment book of 2017 by the Axiom Business Book Awards and has been translated into 17 languages. 

His third book, The Behavioral Investor, was Axiom's best investment book of 2019 and is a comprehensive look at the neurology, physiology and psychology of sound financial decision-making. His latest book, The Soul of Wealth, was published in October of 2024 and has already been translated into five languages. When he's not decoding market psychology, Daniel is a father of 3, a fanatical follower of the St. Louis Cardinals, an explorer of the American South, and an amateur hot sauce chef.

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TRANSCRIPT

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.

[00:00:00] Stacy Havener: The very first guest on the Billion Dollar Backstory podcast was my behavioral finance bestie, Dr. Daniel Crosby. We parlayed our friendship and podcast magic into a four-part miniseries we call the Scientist and the storyteller. So it's only fitting that our guest for the hundredth episode of this show is none other than the doctor himself.

[00:00:22] Stacy Havener: Dr. Daniel Crosby, chief Behavioral Officer at Orion acclaimed keynote speaker and the host of Standard Deviations Podcast. He's the author of many amazing books on behavioral finance, including his latest award-winning masterpiece on Money and meaning called the Soul of Wealth. Every time I talk with Daniel, I am better for it.

[00:00:46] Stacy Havener: It's true in our friendship and on this podcast, this episode is a special one on the intersection of money and meaning, the power of media and the derivative impacts of the attention economy, and [00:01:00] most of all, how to own your story in a world that is desperate for your real. Let's do this.

[00:01:10] Stacy Havener: Hey, my name is Stacey Er. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the Toughest Boys Club, wall Street. I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in follow-on assets for investment boutiques, you could say, against the odds. Yeah, understatement.

[00:01:34] Stacy Havener: I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes. It's real talk here, money, authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college mixed with happy hour.

[00:01:55] Stacy Havener: Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and [00:02:00] challenged while you learn. This is the Billion dollar Backstory podcast.

[00:02:08] Stacy Havener: Wouldn't it be cool if you could diversify your investor base and add some non-US investors? Europe could be fun, or Latin America, maybe Antarctica. Hey, icebergs aren't really my jam, but you never know. You've only got one problem. How the heck do you do that? Fair question. Maybe this is a who not how thing.

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[00:02:52] Stacy Havener: They'll tell you where to go, and maybe more importantly, where not to go. Saving you time, money, and annoying [00:03:00] headaches. Want to find out if your investment firm is ready to go global? Visit billion dollar backstory.com/gem cap, G-E-M-C-A-P. We've created a quick quiz that'll help you figure out if you're ready to expand beyond the US and side note.

[00:03:19] Stacy Havener: It's pretty fun too. Get your firm in front of the right investors in the right places with Gem Cap. Take the quiz and get more info@billiondollarbackstory.com slash gem. Cap ge. M-M-C-A-P.

[00:03:38] Stacy Havener: Daniel, welcome back to the Billion Dollar Backstory Podcast Studio. I mean, this feels like a really special reunion tour for me because you are not only one of the favorite guests of our listeners, but one of my personal favorite guests being my BFI Besting all.

[00:03:55] Daniel Crosby: This feels like damning with faint praise.

[00:03:58] Daniel Crosby: I think some would say the [00:04:00] favorite guest of all, of all, of all 100 episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, congratulations on hundred episodes.

[00:04:06] Stacy Havener: Thank you. Well, thank you for being the hundredth episode guest. No pressure that it has to be extra. Fantastic.

[00:04:13] Daniel Crosby: So can I tell you that I did a little research? You're always giving out flowers.

[00:04:17] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. I want to give you yours. 44% of podcasts. Never make it to three episodes. 75% of podcasts never make it to 10 episodes, and less than 10% of podcasts make it to 100 episodes. Congrats on top Decile performance.

[00:04:37] Stacy Havener: Thank you very much. Wow. I will take those flowers. And I received them with a lot of grace.

[00:04:43] Stacy Havener: Thank you very much for that. That made my day.

[00:04:46] Daniel Crosby: It's very impressive. Like people ask me all the time, should I start a podcast? And I say, only if you're willing to do it for, uh, you know. Can you do a hundred episodes? 'cause if you're not going to, why start?

[00:04:58] Stacy Havener: Well, so I'm glad you brought that up because [00:05:00] that is one of my questions today, but not yet.

[00:05:02] Daniel Crosby: Hmm.

[00:05:03] Stacy Havener: I wanna talk about podcasting and why you do it. And you've been on the journey for years, how many years?

[00:05:10] Daniel Crosby: Five or six.

[00:05:11] Stacy Havener: So let's come back to that. But before we dive in, can you give us just a backstory update? Um, it's been a minute since you've been here. What have you been working on? What's new?

[00:05:21] Stacy Havener: What's the next chapter look like?

[00:05:23] Daniel Crosby: I'm gonna give you a billion dollar backstory update. How's that? Um, that's

[00:05:28] Stacy Havener: even better.

[00:05:29] Daniel Crosby: The biggest announcement is this guy that we'll talk some about today. Mm-hmm. The Soul of Wealth, uh, winner of the Gold Medal and the Axiom Business Book Awards. I'm very proud of it.

[00:05:39] Daniel Crosby: It should be, and the soul of wealth, I think is reflective of the direction I'm headed generally. Like I think, you know, my first three books were all about money. How to be a great investor. The soul of wealth has one foot in the world of money and one foot in the world of meaning. Mm. And I think whatever I do next will probably have both [00:06:00] feet in the world of meaning.

[00:06:01] Stacy Havener: What does that mean? Does that mean you're leaving money behind?

[00:06:04] Daniel Crosby: No, no, no. I'll never leave. I love money too much to ever fully leave it behind. But, but, but you know, sort of the catalyst, one of the catalysts for, for writing the book was this stat I came across when the US was founded. 85% of the world was living in poverty, which is a shocking statistic.

[00:06:25] Daniel Crosby: You know that, that as recently as 250 years ago, 85% of the world was like backbreaking poor. It would be $2 or less a day. In today's dollars, today that number is under 9%, and yet people are less happy, less content, you know, more lonely, more disconnected. So it's like we've had this incredible explosion of wealth and democracy and capitalism have brought so much abundance into the world.

[00:06:54] Daniel Crosby: And yet we haven't figured out how to spend, save and invest that money in ways [00:07:00] that are fulfilling. Yeah. And so I think there's a lot more work to be done there, and I'm excited to do it. So that's, that's what I'm doing and what I think I'll continue to do.

[00:07:10] Stacy Havener: No one better than you to be our guide on this journey, and I'm glad we both have our copies of Soul of Wealth, and I wanna talk about some of my favorite bits in here.

[00:07:19] Stacy Havener: If you haven't picked this up. It's a gem. One of the things I love about it, just sidebar, I love that you can just take the book and open it to a page. Read something like, as opposed to sitting down and committing to like reading from end to end. I find it to be super inspirational to just open up. It's sort of like, what's the universe gonna tell me today?

[00:07:40] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm. And go to a page and, and see where that journey leads. It's a really special book and it deserves that award, so congratulations.

[00:07:48] Daniel Crosby: Thank you.

[00:07:49] Stacy Havener: Alright. You said something in that discussion that I wanna pull forward. Eventually, I wanna take this to the loneliness idea, but before we [00:08:00] get there, I wanna talk about this concept.

[00:08:04] Stacy Havener: Of the attention economy, and I mean that has a lot of negative connotations. I think in general, if we even maybe expand it to say like a reputation economy. Every person has a reputation, every business has a reputation and the world of sort of. Managing and building that reputation has changed a lot in a short amount of time.

[00:08:28] Stacy Havener: And so from your perspective as the scientist, can you talk to us about like what does that mean, the attention economy and why is that working, so to speak?

[00:08:38] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, so the attention economy is just the fact that in the modern marketplace. Attention or reputation or the ability to change minds is the new currency.

[00:08:50] Mm-hmm.

[00:08:51] Daniel Crosby: And this has implications both for consumers, which we all are and for business owners. Um, if you're a consumer, I think a lot of [00:09:00] times we're very thoughtful about the way that we spend. Resources, like money, we would budget and be thoughtful and and deliberate about how we would spend our money.

[00:09:10] Daniel Crosby: But when it comes to how we spend our time or we spend our attention. We can think of it as a limitless resource, and it absolutely isn't. You know, the way that you spend your time and the way that you spend your attention has very serious implications for the way you manage your money, but also the kind of human you are and how you live your life, and some sort of heavier, heavier things.

[00:09:34] Daniel Crosby: So I think that's sort of the fundamental shift that, that we need to make as, as consumers, which we all are, uh, as business owners. It's sort of a call for us to all be, I mean, I hate this word, but all be thought leaders. Yeah. Like all be in the business of, of creating narrative, which you're sort of the master of.

[00:09:53] Daniel Crosby: And just to be thoughtful about changing hearts and minds and grabbing people's attention in this [00:10:00] extremely noisy world.

[00:10:03] Stacy Havener: Great points here. The consumer piece, I think ties directly to the loneliness that we're gonna come to in a minute. I love that you said that our time is not a limitless resource, and yet when we're scrolling, that's exactly how we're treating it, isn't it?

[00:10:19] Stacy Havener: It's like death scroll. I have unlimited amount of time. I, I don't need to worry about this. 30, 45 minutes I'm gonna lose here. And that's so not true. I wanna talk a little bit more about the business owner piece. I was death scrolling, um, unfortunately to, to be honest. And I came across a company that had raised a series A round and they were sharing, you know, the news and they shared their pitch deck.

[00:10:48] Stacy Havener: So I look at the pitch deck, I'm all about ditch the pitch, but still you wanna have a presentation, it's gotta tell a compelling story. And there was a slide in there that really. Gave me pause. [00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Daniel Crosby: Hmm.

[00:11:00] Stacy Havener: And it was a slide titled something like Audience or Media Platform. Okay. And on that slide it had all the stats of like, how many followers do they have on which platform?

[00:11:16] Stacy Havener: Like what's their email list, all of these things. And I thought, ah, if I was raising Series A, this would be a very important slide.

[00:11:26] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:26] Stacy Havener: And then I started thinking, gosh, is this an important slide? For anyone, for any business. The idea that you have a platform, I mean, we know from the book industry, this is like one of their biggest questions right now.

[00:11:40] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:41] Stacy Havener: So can you talk about that? Like, should we all be thinking of our companies as media companies?

[00:11:48] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, so it goes back, you know, you alluded to it, it goes back to a conversation that you and I have had and that I've had with many other people that people find almost universally disappointing. And [00:12:00] I, I also to speak to that, but you know, I get approached as someone who's written a couple of books.

[00:12:05] Daniel Crosby: 80% of Americans feel that they have a book in them. You know, a, a vanishingly small number of that 80% will actually complete a book. But almost everyone thinks they have a good idea for a book. Okay? And so, with some regularity, I get approached by people who wanna write a book and they wanna talk about the process.

[00:12:24] Daniel Crosby: And I inevitably tell them what my publisher told me and what they tell everyone. I send their way. Which is what is their platform. Mm-hmm. And people kind of huff and puff and stomp their feet because they don't wanna talk about their platform, they wanna talk about their big, bold idea. But this is a tree falling in the forest and no one hearing it without a platform, right?

[00:12:51] Daniel Crosby: The two components of a world changing idea are A, an idea that will change the world and the reach to get it [00:13:00] to the world. That's it. And people don't want to hear that. They wanna focus on the idea. And look, I am. Completely sympathetic to that point of view. I am much more a dork research scientist than I am, you know, than I am a showman or a marketer.

[00:13:17] Daniel Crosby: And I, I'm completely sympathetic and I've learned that it's just wrongheaded. It is the way of things. We have to embrace that reality if we wanna get our good stuff in the world. I spoke to a brilliant young woman yesterday mm-hmm. Who has this awesome, uh, career in mental health. Like she has a great background in, in sort of high finance and also mental health, and she wants to do work like mine.

[00:13:43] Daniel Crosby: And I said, look, your idea's great. The book you wanna write is awesome. Nobody knows who you are. Um, you gotta go take a couple years and like tell the world who you are. And that's hard to hear, but it is what folks need to hear.

[00:13:57] Stacy Havener: And is that because we're in an intention [00:14:00] economy or was that always true?

[00:14:02] Daniel Crosby: You know, I think it was, I, I think it's always been true. Okay. Now it's, it's greatly democratized now. You know, I'm, uh, I, like, I'm interested in the history of, I, I'm a, when I go back to school one day, I'm gonna go be a theologian or something. I only wanna do the least practical stuff in the world. I have it.

[00:14:21] Daniel Crosby: I wanna be, you know, I'm gonna get degrees in divinity in psychology, but. You know, I was reading about Martin Luther the other day. Mm-hmm. And it's like, look, a, a lot of the reason that his 95 thesis made it out to the world was because of the printing press. Because in a different world you have the same good ideas, um, the same world changing notions, but you don't have the force multiplier.

[00:14:44] Daniel Crosby: You don't have the vehicle or the platform to get it out to the world. And like, what do you do? You don't change the world. So back to your question that I, that I've skipped Yeah. About whether we should all be a media company. I think there's some art and some science here because [00:15:00] one thing that I see is sometimes the media cart pulling the business force ah, and, and not the reverse, which is sort of selling your soul for clicks or just reducing it down to the most like listicles and memes and sorts of things like that.

[00:15:19] Daniel Crosby: And look, you're great at this. There there is some science and there is some. You know, formula to how you get there are best practices in how you get the word out. But most businesses, when I think about my own business, yeah, the business of creating behavioral finance technology for Orion, the, the business of writing books and staying on top of human behavior.

[00:15:43] Daniel Crosby: There is some heat that's given off in that process in the form of me just learning cool stuff that I can share with the world. And so I try first and foremost to be a great behavioral scientist. I. Who happens to share these insights with the [00:16:00] world. Mm-hmm. And not first and foremost, an influencer who happens to do behavioral science.

[00:16:06] Stacy Havener: Oh God, I love that.

[00:16:08] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. And I think that's a meaningful distinction. Yes. 'cause I think like whatever your business is. Yes. You need to learn the, the Stacy Storytelling Framework. Yeah. You need to be a media company, but first and foremost, be great at what you do. Yeah. And then tell the story as an adjacency and not the reverse.

[00:16:28] Stacy Havener: Yes. Well, it's, thank you for the kind words. I, I would say we've all know influencers who, like they're influencers because. Of that fact. Mm-hmm. It's sort of like, what have they done besides figure out the media piece? And I love the distinction of which one of those things comes first. Mm-hmm. You know, I would posit that in our industry, the cart with, with the media bit is like still in the shed.[00:17:00]

[00:17:01] Stacy Havener: Like we haven't even taken it out of the barn. We haven't even like hitched it up. It's not even hitched up.

[00:17:08] Daniel Crosby: Fair enough.

[00:17:09] Stacy Havener: Fair enough. Right. So if you think about, I was like researching some quotes this morning about the idea that like, cash is king or even content is king. Then that second bit is that distribution is queen.

[00:17:22] Stacy Havener: Because to your point, if you're a, an, an asset manager and you've got the best philosophy, process, performance, you name all the things that asset managers value. If you've got all that in spades, but nobody knows about it.

[00:17:35] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:36] Stacy Havener: You're done. Yeah, and I think that same thing, like, so you want a business that generates revenue?

[00:17:43] Stacy Havener: Well, people have to know you exist.

[00:17:46] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:46] Stacy Havener: To be able to hire you or invest or whatever. So I feel like certain industries really understand how important distribution is and certain industries are just [00:18:00] still. Thinking some other game is being played.

[00:18:03] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. I mean, you hear this, every election cycle is like, oh, in a country of 350 million people, are these the best people we have?

[00:18:12] Daniel Crosby: And like, why do we keep getting. You know, Clintons and Trumps and Bushes and, and like, you know, these people with big name recognition, like, isn't there someone that's more qualified somewhere in Iowa or something? Yeah. Like there absolutely is, and no one knows that person, so it doesn't matter. That's right.

[00:18:29] Daniel Crosby: Like, so, like if you wanna go change the world, go make a name for yourself. That's right. And take your righteous morals to Washington. But nobody, nobody, like the most qualified person, uh, to be president in a vacuum in the absence of name recognition will never change the world. So, yeah. Stop being upset, like get off the lofty sort of theoretical side of these things and go, go, go.

[00:18:56] Daniel Crosby: Start, figure it out. Marketing yourself. Yeah.

[00:18:57] Stacy Havener: Figure it out. Yeah. Okay. So that's a [00:19:00] great segue into the podcast piece that you talked about at the beginning, because you've obviously built a platform both for your, you know, your sort of day job at Orion, but also for. Dr. Daniel Crosby, behavioral scientist, thought leader, et cetera.

[00:19:17] Stacy Havener: And one of the ways that you've done that is with your podcast. And so I was wondering if you could share with us, like why did you pick that medium? 'cause you're obviously a very talented writer. You could have had a Substack or some big newsletter or something like that. So why that medium and what has it done for you in the context of this conversation, like building a platform and an audience or, or any other things that it's done for you?

[00:19:41] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, so it's related, um, in some ways there's nothing special about that medium. I just, I, I believe in using every part of the buffalo, as it were. So the way that my podcast started was I was already writing, which is my preferred medium. Yeah. You know, like I was [00:20:00] already writing. Podcasting had taken off.

[00:20:04] Daniel Crosby: I think I started six years ago. Podcasting was a thing, but it was like a sort of new thing. Yeah. You know, it was a couple years old as sort of a mainstream, uh, medium. And so I said, look, I've already got this content. Like I might as well read it and see if anyone will listen to it. Yeah. And you know, lo lo and behold, the, the way that my podcast started was by me reading short excerpts from, from my book.

[00:20:29] Daniel Crosby: Ah.

[00:20:29] And so that

[00:20:30] Daniel Crosby: was just about using every part of the content. And I think, you know, smart people will do this. They'll take a white paper they've written, they'll turn it into five blog posts and 20 tweets and two podcasts. I mean, why I do extra work. So it was really born of my laziness, if you must know.

[00:20:48] Stacy Havener: I was just gonna say the Daniel Crosby School of Marketing, which is actually the way that we do it. I mean, that is it. You just nailed it.

[00:20:56] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, so it was born of just like looking for [00:21:00] another way to, to market my books. Well, then it sort of took on a life of its own, and at some point I'm like, well, I'm sort of out of books now, so I, I need to, I

[00:21:09] Stacy Havener: read all my pieces.

[00:21:10] Stacy Havener: I read all my books.

[00:21:13] Daniel Crosby: So then I, I, I moved to an interview format and look, I don't know that the way that I've done it, but the way that I've done it is sort of haphazard and experimental, but then I moved to an interview style format and back to this cart and horse conversation, the benefit to me mm-hmm.

[00:21:30] Daniel Crosby: Of that interview style format was so tremendous because it gave me an excuse to. Talk to people like you.

[00:21:39] Mm-hmm.

[00:21:39] Daniel Crosby: And to up my own game and to, you know, sharpen my own saw by talking to brilliant people, who, by the way, were happy to talk to me, not because of who I am, which is some nobody, but it was because I now had an audience and I'm like, look, I can promote the good things that you're doing.

[00:21:57] Daniel Crosby: And look, I can sharpen my intellectual saw [00:22:00] in the process. So the benefit to me of having a podcast is incalculable.

[00:22:07] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Because

[00:22:07] Daniel Crosby: of all that I have learned from the guests that I've had on.

[00:22:10] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Well and you're like serving up some humble pie here because people are thrilled, myself included, to be invited Yeah.

[00:22:19] Stacy Havener: On your podcast. And I think it's interesting, you know, if, if we think back to like. This is a little bit of sales, but even networking. And you're like, Hey, do you wanna get together for a cup of coffee? Or the worst one, which is, Hey, do you wanna like, can I pick your brain? And everyone's like, God, no, no, no.

[00:22:37] Stacy Havener: That's not happening. Yeah, for, okay, for a thousand bucks an hour, you can, yeah, exactly. But swap that for, do you wanna be a guest on my podcast?

[00:22:46] Daniel Crosby: Yeah.

[00:22:47] Stacy Havener: It's like a give. It's an ask and a give at the same time, because that person's like, yes, I don't have, even if they have a podcast, they're like, of course I would love it.

[00:22:56] Stacy Havener: We can have a conversation for, you know, 45 minutes or [00:23:00] whatever. I'd love it. Be great. And so it is an incredible opportunity for us to connect with people that it might be difficult for us to connect with without the podcast.

[00:23:12] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you get to put the content into the world that you wish existed.

[00:23:18] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. This year I've done this whole year of meaningful living where I've gone back to sort of a didactic style format where I'm just reading excerpts of things I've written about finding life purpose. And like the emails I get from people who are touched by that is just, it's so wonderful. So, you know, I've learned a ton.

[00:23:38] Daniel Crosby: I've helped to expose friends, good ideas to the world. Like they've taught me a ton. I mean, I just can't recommend it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:48] Stacy Havener: Okay, so I have to ask about the disappearing bit.

[00:23:51] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:52] Stacy Havener: Because that was an experiment that you tried this year, where the podcast, at first when you said it, I'm like, is this a joke?

[00:23:59] Stacy Havener: Like, is this like, ha [00:24:00] ha, like this, this podcast will, you know, will self-destruct.

[00:24:04] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. No, so, so the, for those that are unfamiliar, my podcast is called Standard Deviations, and the thing that we've done this year is we share these 10 to 12 minute episodes about finding meaning and purpose in life. And then we erase them.

[00:24:19] Daniel Crosby: So I got one, I won't name names of course, but I got one like vitriolic nasty email at the beginning of the year and it was like, you are an idiot. And what, what are you doing? And you know, effectively, like I'm a long time listener, you just lost a long time listener. You're being very stupid. But I will tell you.

[00:24:45] Daniel Crosby: Here's my frustration, right? My frustration when everybody's trying to be a media company is that there's no urgency sometimes. Yeah. This is a good point. It's so noisy and I'm a believer that, you know, life is kind of passing you by [00:25:00] and you gotta get the good stuff now. So this was purely just an experiment.

[00:25:04] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. Online to say, Hey, like I'm gonna do the best work I've ever done this year on the podcast, I'm gonna put out incredible stuff that's gonna change your life. If you don't come and get it, it's gone. Like,

[00:25:14] yeah,

[00:25:15] Daniel Crosby: I'm taking it away, so I want you to have some urgency. One gentleman was very upset by that, but listenership is up 30% this year.

[00:25:23] Daniel Crosby: Wow. Which is, you know, for a five or 6-year-old podcast is a meaningful bump.

[00:25:28] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:25:28] Daniel Crosby: So it is working

[00:25:30] Stacy Havener: and so. And also by the way, kind of a page right out of your BFI book, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Like the BFI playbook, because that's human behavior is we say to ourselves, I'll listen to that later, and then later never comes because there's no actual supply demand.

[00:25:48] Stacy Havener: Like there's just no, there's no timeframe for it to expire.

[00:25:52] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. If you look at Cini, who is the master of motivation and influence, right? Cialdini's book on on the [00:26:00] Psychology of Influence.

[00:26:00] Stacy Havener: It's amazing.

[00:26:01] Daniel Crosby: Amazing. Everyone should read it. Like he lays out six things that influence human behavior. One of them is scarcity.

[00:26:07] Daniel Crosby: I. Rolex is a great example of this. Like your Rolex ad has plenty of watches. Like

[00:26:14] Yeah, like,

[00:26:14] Daniel Crosby: um, they, they, Rolex sells millions and millions of watches every year, right? They're what? They're, if not the biggest, they're one of the biggest watch, you know, watch sales, uh, organizations and, and on the planet, and yet they are marketed as exceedingly scarce.

[00:26:30] Daniel Crosby: And if you've never bought a, if you've never bought a Rolex before and you go into your a uh, ad and you try and get one, they're gonna go, well, I don't know. Like, you know, you have to

[00:26:40] Stacy Havener: apply.

[00:26:41] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, yeah. Well, and Birkin bags and like all the same concept, same deal. Like when you look at the best brands on earth, they all do scarcity.

[00:26:50] Daniel Crosby: And look, I'm. I'm a believer in this. I, I had to learn this lesson with my public speaking back when that was sort of my primary business. [00:27:00] I would raise my fees until I was saying no to most people. Mm-hmm. My goal was to say no to, you know, 51% of people and that I found that to be really effective. Yeah.

[00:27:12] Daniel Crosby: Like, just raise your fees until you can say no to, you know, half of the people plus one.

[00:27:17] Stacy Havener: There's some studies that say your, your close rate should be 25%.

[00:27:21] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:21] Stacy Havener: Which actually is really difficult to do because from a human nature perspective, that means 75% of the time you're losing.

[00:27:30] Daniel Crosby: Right,

[00:27:30] Stacy Havener: right. Quotes.

[00:27:32] Stacy Havener: But to, so even 51% is great, but, but like there was probably still even more room for you. It's scary Yeah. To do that. Like was it scary to sort of say, I'm gonna just have this podcast disappear. Like what if, you know, I mean not, scary is not the right word, but like it could have not worked.

[00:27:50] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, it could have not worked.

[00:27:51] Daniel Crosby: And I mean, plenty of people sort of vocally questioned that. Yeah. You know, what about including social media experts so that Well, [00:28:00] what about long tailed content? Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, they look, you, you have a point like what's you're sacrificing, you know, what you're gaining and urgency you're giving up in.

[00:28:09] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, that's a

[00:28:09] Stacy Havener: great point.

[00:28:10] Daniel Crosby: Long tailed discoverability. I can only speak for how it's worked for my podcast this year, which is 30% up. Like, I mean, that's, that's good. So

[00:28:19] Stacy Havener: what are you gonna do next year? Do we have to apply to listen to it?

[00:28:21] Daniel Crosby: No. So next year I think we'll go back to next year. I'm gonna need a thousand dollar deposit.

[00:28:28] Daniel Crosby: A lock of your first child's hair. Uh, no, I think we'll go back to an interview style format next year just so you can come back.

[00:28:35] Stacy Havener: Oh, thanks. Okay, great. And last question about the podcast piece. So now let's say someone comes to you, lots of people come to you and say, should I write a book? I'm assuming other people ask you as well, like, should I start a podcast?

[00:28:47] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:48] Stacy Havener: And what would your advice be? Should everyone have a podcast? Should nobody do it now? 'cause it's like played out. Like what's the advice on that?

[00:28:58] Daniel Crosby: Well, you know, I'll tell you what I said sort [00:29:00] of at the beginning and, and what you and I talked about. Yeah. I think you need, uh, two things. If you're gonna start a podcast, you need something unique to say.

[00:29:09] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm. Right? And you need the force of will or the tenacity to, to make it to a hundred episodes. Okay. Right. I mean if you've got those two things, but I mean, the bar for the first one, the bar for the first one is tough. Like, I mean, you have to have something unique to say that's not easy to do. Um, and then the tenacity to see it through to a hundred episodes, that's really hard.

[00:29:33] Daniel Crosby: Yes. You know, like we said, like you know, better than 90% of people never make it that far. So Yeah. Yeah. That's the litmus test, I think.

[00:29:40] Stacy Havener: And do you think it's easier to be a guest or be a host?

[00:29:44] Daniel Crosby: Oh, um, geez. It's definitely easier to be a guest.

[00:29:48] Stacy Havener: That's how I feel.

[00:29:49] Daniel Crosby: Yeah.

[00:29:50] Stacy Havener: So I think if people want to explore, I like this.

[00:29:53] Stacy Havener: I would add, if you wanna explore podcasting before you start your own show, go be a guest.

[00:29:59] Daniel Crosby: [00:30:00] Yeah,

[00:30:00] Stacy Havener: go be a guest. See how you like it. See, you know, if you're breaking out in a cold sweat every time you have to show up on a podcast, you know, being a host is not gonna be fun. Right. Well,

[00:30:10] Daniel Crosby: I've been, I think I'm coming up on a hundred podcasts to promote the soul of wealth and.

[00:30:17] Daniel Crosby: You know, hopefully some of them are not listening to this. I mean, most of them are very good. Some of them are outrageously bad. And you can just see that the host has done no preparation and nobody wants to listen to this. And it's painful in the moment. They're bad at asking questions, they're bad at like

[00:30:34] Yeah.

[00:30:35] Daniel Crosby: Pursuing, you know, pulling on a thread or pursuing a train of thought. So, you know, being a good podcast host takes preparation. You gotta read the book. You gotta like dig into their background and. Um, if you're not willing to do that, then yeah, but I like do it about being a guest.

[00:30:51] Stacy Havener: Yeah. I think, you know, find, but you gotta find a way to build an audience is what we're saying.

[00:30:55] Stacy Havener: And I wanna, before we dive into the book, um, and this is [00:31:00] kind of a related topic in some ways, around the idea of meaning. You mentioned at the start that. We are in an epidemic of loneliness, and the studies do confirm this, which is ironic in all kinds of things, given the fact that we're more connected now in this attention economy and in this media environment than we've ever been.

[00:31:21] Stacy Havener: And yet we're lonelier than we've ever been. And I was hoping you could unpack that for us, like what's happening here.

[00:31:28] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. It's a big thing to unpack. So. Couple of stats to blow the mind.

[00:31:34] Yeah. Um,

[00:31:35] Daniel Crosby: 20% of Americans say that they're lonely every single day, and those numbers actually kind of defy expectations in some ways because the younger generations are the loneliest, like older generations are actually more connected than the younger generations.

[00:31:52] Daniel Crosby: And if you look at stats like happiness. Among older folks, the US is I think, top 10 in happiness [00:32:00] in the world. Uh, but among young people among like Gen Z we're like middle of the pack, you know, like 60, 70 sort of, you know, 60th or 70th, happiest country. I. And, you know, not to dis on any countries, but the company we find ourselves in is like not

[00:32:17] great.

[00:32:18] Daniel Crosby: You know, the countries that you, you look at the other countries that are around us and you're like, oh, yikes. You know, this isn't a, this isn't where we wanna be. So 20% of people are lonely every day. The physical complications of loneliness, I think people don't appreciate, just from a physical perspective.

[00:32:36] Daniel Crosby: When we look at the longevity research. There's nine variables that predict longevity. Three of them are relational, and so you find stuff like parts of Italy where they are smoking unfiltered cigarettes and like eating the, you know, the best food. It's all focaccia and cream. Ands, pasta. Yeah, exactly.

[00:32:58] Daniel Crosby: Pureed meat. And they're living to [00:33:00] be a hundred years old. Because they have low stress lifestyles and they spend every night on the porch playing guitar and hanging out and being super connected. So, you know, a third of the variables that predict longevity are, are social or relational variables. And, and it's, it matters.

[00:33:17] Daniel Crosby: And being lonely has the physical outcome. It's the, the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day on your health. And it's twice as bad for you as obesity. So loneliness isn't this nice. You know, relational connectedness is the variable that best predicts whether or not you're happy. It's not some nice to have thing.

[00:33:41] Daniel Crosby: Um, the reasons for that, I mean, I think technology's part of it. I think in some ways wealth is part of it because, you know. Gandhi said to a poor person, bread is God. You know? Mm-hmm. Like when, when you're just trying to scrape by, like all you're worried about is your next meal, well, our [00:34:00] next meals are nicely secured, and so now we can turn our attention to things like, does anyone love me?

[00:34:07] Daniel Crosby: No big deal. Let's just go there. Like what's the meaning? You know? What's the meaning of life? Yeah. Like, do I have any real friends, you know? Oh. And so it, in some ways it is literally a first world problem that we get to worry about these things, but, but it is real.

[00:34:22] Stacy Havener: But even in your example of the Italians and my grandparents sat outside of their garage in their driveway, like in the States forever.

[00:34:32] Stacy Havener: I mean, I don't know how many people walked by, but they were out there. Like, I mean, that's part of, maybe they weren't worrying. About it. The way we worry about it, I feel like we worry about it and don't do anything. So talk about that. Like we have to do something. Yeah. We can't just sit behind our screens and then go, I wonder why I'm so lonely.

[00:34:51] Daniel Crosby: Well, right, so since 2020, okay. Uh, su this is so heavy. I'm sorry to bring this [00:35:00] heaviness. That's okay.

[00:35:00] Stacy Havener: No, I think people need to hear this. This is real. And we just spent time talking about media, so I wanna like, make sure we go here.

[00:35:07] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, so I, I just gave a talk about this to, to the youth at my church.

[00:35:12] Daniel Crosby: Since 2020, suicide among 10 to 14-year-old kids is up 120%. Wow. And time spent face-to-face is down 50%. And COVID like kicked us into this isolated space that we never really bounced back from. So like in a lot of ways, it's not accepting counterfeits for connection. I've got, I've got my best friend group, my freshman year buddies from college.

[00:35:44] Daniel Crosby: I consider probably my best friends in the world. And there's the four of us that are on this text thread and we talk every day via text. I have not seen them in five years like together. And it's like realizing that the [00:36:00] little memes you send each other are not the same thing as a hug or a shared experience and really doing something about it.

[00:36:08] Stacy Havener: That is. So it's interesting because you need to plan something.

[00:36:14] Daniel Crosby: No, we're on, I'm gonna see two of them this summer. Okay. But it's hard to get, you know, it's hard to get everyone together. It's

[00:36:20] Stacy Havener: hard to get everybody. Mm-hmm.

[00:36:21] Daniel Crosby: Well,

[00:36:21] Stacy Havener: I think it's, so in some ways there's two sides to it, I think a positive piece.

[00:36:29] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm. Like. Social media or LinkedIn. I speaking for my own experience, has introduced me to so many people that I never would have met otherwise. You and I became friends. Mm-hmm. Because of LinkedIn. All my London friends I met because of LinkedIn. The podcast has connected me with people, et cetera. But if I had just left it at that

[00:36:49] Daniel Crosby: mm-hmm.

[00:36:50] Stacy Havener: Like that's it. The depth of my friendships is the space between myself and my phone and the, you know, it's just like this and then, you know. [00:37:00] 3000 miles as the case may be. I think that would've been sad for me and may hopefully for them. And so the trick of it is to have that, that text exchange with your besties because you do get to chat every day, which is super nice, but not to let it stop there.

[00:37:19] Stacy Havener: It's like get out of the building and get on the plane and go and see these people and take that connection from virtual to real life basically.

[00:37:30] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, it's a social is a wonderful on-ramp to in real life connection.

[00:37:36] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:37:38] Daniel Crosby: I mean, you know, I have so many wonderful friendships that that started on social media, but if they, if they stay there, yeah,

[00:37:45] Stacy Havener: that's it.

[00:37:45] Daniel Crosby: They're shallow. Yeah. Like if they stay there, they're shallow. You do have to hop the flight.

[00:37:50] Stacy Havener: Yeah. And that, I think is, which, you know, it's also a little bit, going back to an earlier comment you made about [00:38:00] laziness. Like it's not, it's like hard work. Yeah.

[00:38:02] Daniel Crosby: You know,

[00:38:03] Stacy Havener: it's hard work to plan something with your friends.

[00:38:05] Stacy Havener: It's hard work to, you know, even go meet for drinks when you have 18,000 things you should do at home and kids and all this stuff. Mm-hmm. Or it's hard work to go to the conference and, and yes. And that's also what makes it worthwhile. Um, yeah, I, I think this loneliness piece is, is very real and it's easy to hide behind the social media.

[00:38:30] Stacy Havener: It's easy to hide behind email. I. As salespeople, like not to go and do the hard work. I'll just, oh, I, you know, I sent a hundred emails today. I don't know. Yeah. It's like that's not enough. Mm-hmm. People are craving connection. Now you, you kind of weave some of those ideas into the book in various places in this whole concept of meaning.

[00:38:52] Stacy Havener: Um, I wanna talk about one of the chapters in the book that actually would make you think that you'd be lonelier, but I think we've talked [00:39:00] about this on other podcasts, that it actually is one of the things that's endearing. So. Bear with me while I put my glasses on. Can we talk about the chapter on not carrying what others think is a valuable asset?

[00:39:12] Stacy Havener: And you can talk about it, about how you wrote it in terms of what that means for money. But then I also wanna like pull that thread in some different directions.

[00:39:19] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, so there's 50 short essays in the Soul of Wealth. They each start with sort of a historical narrative and then transition into some of the science and you know, sort of what do you do about it?

[00:39:31] Daniel Crosby: That one, the historical narrative there is one of my favorite. It tells the story of Tesla. Like the, the scientist, the inventor, Tesla. And he was such a strange dude.

[00:39:42] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:39:43] Daniel Crosby: Um, he was a I love

[00:39:44] Stacy Havener: him. You're

[00:39:45] Daniel Crosby: right. Yeah. You, you do love him. Like, so he, he he wouldn't have loved you though. No. 'cause he loved pigeons.

[00:39:52] Daniel Crosby: He didn't, he was never, he was never married. He was never married. He was a massive germophobe. But somehow, like the [00:40:00] dirtiest bird of all, which is a pigeon, like, was absolutely obsessed with pigeons, said he was in love with one. Um, he was terrified of round things and would like run shrieking from a room if a woman was wearing a string of pearls.

[00:40:14] Daniel Crosby: He was obsessed with the number three. He would circle, uh, a building three times every time before entering. Oh gosh.

[00:40:21] Yeah, that's painful. He

[00:40:22] Daniel Crosby: would sold 18 napkins before every meal because 18 is divisible by three. Why not 12? Why not 15? Why not nine? I don't know. But like 18, you know, 18 was divisible by three, but just a weird dude.

[00:40:35] Yeah.

[00:40:36] Daniel Crosby: But I talk about, you know, in, in addition to these eccentricities. Some of these eccentricities made him who he was and they made him great, and he just didn't care what other people thought. And he knew that things like getting married would slow him down, like slow down his scientific work. So he never, he never did it.

[00:40:54] Daniel Crosby: Sorry. You know what I mean? You know, as, as someone who just spent a couple [00:41:00] hours at a fifth grade graduation, you, I mean, family life, you know, makes demands of you that, that yeah. You get less work done and you know, he understood that. And so he sort of owned his quirks and owned his own brand of crazy and you know, it attracts the right kind of people and the right kind of work to you taking it to the financial realm.

[00:41:23] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm. I mean, there's obvious sort of in, in investing there, you know, avoiding herding and crowded trades. Yeah. And all this sort of stuff, but even on the personal finance front. Uh, Dr. Sarah Fala has done some really cool research on the predictors of who gets rich. Mm. And one of the best bits of she'd be great to have on the show, but one of the best bits of research they have shows that social indifference is one of the best predictors of these Henrys, the high earner, not rich yet who, who eventually become rich.

[00:41:57] Daniel Crosby: Because people who are socially [00:42:00] determined, like care what other people think. They bought the Rolex, they bought the Porsche, they did all this stuff. They spent all their money on trying to stunt on their friends and look cool. They don't have any leftover to save or invest. The ones who really don't care, they're like, yeah, you know, I'm gonna drive a Camry because who cares what you think?

[00:42:18] Daniel Crosby: Right? And you know, they've got more, got more to work with.

[00:42:22] Stacy Havener: Fascinating. So. Can you remind us again? Because I think this is very real and I'm, look, the, the Tesla example is such a great one. It's also sort of like way out on the spectrum mm-hmm. Of not caring what people think and eccentricity, but even if we walk that back towards center a bit mm-hmm.

[00:42:41] Stacy Havener: There are probably a lot of us in the finance world, in the investment world who relate to this a little bit feeling, you know, maybe eccentric, quirky, like not as comfortable in social settings. All of these things. But I want people to really hear that these [00:43:00] eccentricities in quirks actually are endearing.

[00:43:03] Stacy Havener: Is that like a behavioral thing? Is that a real scientific thing or is that just like anecdotally that's how it works.

[00:43:09] Daniel Crosby: So it is, there's something called the, it's called the Red Shoe Phenomenon. So the way this idea came about was there was a researcher who was at a conference and noticed that sort of a small subset of the researchers there.

[00:43:26] Daniel Crosby: Were non-conforming in their dress, right? So they, you know, one example he gives of a, a researcher wearing red shoes, okay? As opposed to, you know, think navy blazer, gray slack, loafer, you know, deal sleds, whatever your, your, your Ferragamo slippers, you know, whatever. So they, they looked at these people who were non-conforming and who were sort of visually different.

[00:43:52] Daniel Crosby: And they looked at their output and their level of prestige and their earning power and these different things, and they found that [00:44:00] yes, these non-conforming folks were indeed. Published in better journals, had higher levels of output, made more money, et cetera. And so it's this really, it, it's weirdly, uh, the research shows that like a little bit of quirk

[00:44:17] Yeah.

[00:44:18] Is

[00:44:18] Daniel Crosby: actually a flex. It's actually a power move because wearing the thing that everyone else is wearing. Is sort of a symbol of low status. You've gotta get in line, like your hair's gotta look the same way. Your dress, your speech has to look the same way. That's sort of a low status behavior. You can't stick out too much because you're not good enough.

[00:44:41] Mm-hmm.

[00:44:41] Daniel Crosby: Nobody likes a freak. Like nobody wants, like someone who's so different that they're like, you know, it's, it's inappropriate. But that person who's just 20, 25% edgy. Is esteemed as more competent and higher performing than [00:45:00] their peers, and I think that's really good practical information. I

[00:45:04] do

[00:45:04] Daniel Crosby: too.

[00:45:04] Daniel Crosby: Now, I think that you model well as we see you here in your Moto jacket, and now you No, but seriously, like you've, yeah, you've staked your brand on being unconventional.

[00:45:15] Stacy Havener: Right. Okay. Well, thank you. I have mm-hmm. And it took me a long time to get there. Um, you know, I spent a lot of time in my, the earlier parts of my career wearing the thing and all that.

[00:45:29] Stacy Havener: Mm-hmm. Um, but what about like, what advice would you have for people who say, yeah, but like, I'm not cool. Like my edginess isn't red. Shoes, it's geekier. And how you said earlier, like, you know, it's, it's nerdier and I wanna hide it because I think it's not, it's not cool. It's not what I would define as cool.

[00:45:52] Stacy Havener: That's how they feel.

[00:45:53] Daniel Crosby: So here's an observation I have on human nature.

[00:45:57] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:45:57] Daniel Crosby: Passion and [00:46:00] earnestness are always cool.

[00:46:02] Stacy Havener: Yeah. There

[00:46:02] Daniel Crosby: was an example this week, uh, in the last week. I can't, I'm gonna forget the name of the channel. I think it's called Outdoor Boys. And it was this, uh. YouTube guy

[00:46:13] Yes.

[00:46:14] Daniel Crosby: Who just like having little camping adventures with his boys.

[00:46:18] Daniel Crosby: He would build a fire and like go chop down wood and go in Alaska and go hiking and go on all these adventures with his boys. This guy's not telegenic. This guy is not good looking. He's not, you know, he's, he's not cool in the conventional sense, and yet he built, rapidly, built a following of 15 million followers on YouTube.

[00:46:39] Daniel Crosby: To the point where this week he had to shut down his funeral 'cause he was getting harassed in public from people who wanted his autograph and wanted to take pictures with him and stuff. And he was like, look, I only started this because I wanted, because I, you know, I just like, I just like a

[00:46:57] Stacy Havener: niche like fishing and camping.

[00:46:59] Stacy Havener: He's like, yeah [00:47:00] dude,

[00:47:00] Daniel Crosby: I just like fishing and camping. Like, I didn't do this to be famous. But in a world that's so cynical and so jaded and always too good, caring earnestly about whatever it is you're into, and just being an unmitigated fan girl or fan boy of that thing and just showing the world that you care so deeply about it is so refreshing and so earnest and will do so much to attract your tribe to you.

[00:47:29] Daniel Crosby: It's all cool. It's all cool and, and on the flip side, nothing's LaMer than you posturing as some version of something that you're not. So I would say the coolest thing in the world is to be who you are with an exclamation point.

[00:47:51] Stacy Havener: I just love that so much. I was like, I could just spike my own microphone right now.

[00:47:57] Stacy Havener: Um, that is so great and [00:48:00] I really want people in our industry to hear this. 'cause obviously in the work that we do, you know, there's a lot of emotion and vulnerability around saying, Hey, like, you gotta tell your story and own your story and all these things. And I have friends and clients who really struggle with this.

[00:48:18] Stacy Havener: I am gonna make them all listen to this podcast. 'cause I think what you said there is incredibly empowering, incredibly powerful and very freeing for all of us to be who we are. So I want to transition to some question. So we had the PRUs question inspired list from the first round. I had to come up with some other ones for my reunion people.

[00:48:42] Daniel Crosby: Sure

[00:48:43] Stacy Havener: we'll start easy, I think, although you're a reader and a podcast listener, so I'm not sure how easy this one is. What's a book or podcast that's inspiring you recently?

[00:48:53] Daniel Crosby: I'm gonna go with an unconventional pick perhaps, but, um, song Exploder is [00:49:00] one of my favorite podcasts. What

[00:49:01] is that?

[00:49:02] Daniel Crosby: It's a podcast where artists come on and they talk about the process of their craft.

[00:49:08] Daniel Crosby: They talk about the process of songwriting, and they'll a lot of times share early, you know, a lot of times it's like humming into your iPhone or whatever, like where I got the first melody or the first riff or the song. But I love craftsmanship.

[00:49:24] Mm-hmm.

[00:49:24] Daniel Crosby: I love people who are artisans about whether it's building a portfolio or a watch, or writing a song, or painting a painting.

[00:49:32] Daniel Crosby: And getting an inside look into the creative process, even if you're not a musician. I think it's really noble and interesting to see how people build and song Exploder does a really great job of that. Wow. I'll tell you what, nine times outta 10, it's not the kind of music I would normally listen to.

[00:49:53] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. But I have always walked away a fan of whatever song it was, and I think it's a call to build in [00:50:00] public and let people see what you're doing.

[00:50:01] Stacy Havener: I cannot wait to listen to that. That sounds fantastic.

[00:50:06] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, it's good. Um,

[00:50:07] Stacy Havener: okay, so later I'm gonna ask you which episode I should listen to first. 'cause I really, really.

[00:50:11] Stacy Havener: Wanna, I'm down with that podcast. Okay. How about this one? What word or phrase do you most overuse?

[00:50:23] Daniel Crosby: It's gotta be used to, could what? No, I'm just trying to give you some Alabamas. When I, when I went to school in, so I've never had a southern accent. Yeah. But when I went to school in Utah and. People would, you know, y'all is pretty conventional.

[00:50:43] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm. But like I would say things like, oh, can you do this? Like I used to, could, people would move. I can't even answer. I've given that up. I say, I say ostensible. I think I say ostensible way more than the average person. I just love that word.

[00:50:57] Stacy Havener: You just like the sound of it.

[00:50:59] Daniel Crosby: I [00:51:00] just love the sound of the word ostensible.

[00:51:01] Daniel Crosby: I can't help it. I'm addicted.

[00:51:03] Stacy Havener: Okay. Yeah. I mean, of all the words that you could overuse, I think that's kind of fancy and, and, uh, you know, of good choice.

[00:51:12] Daniel Crosby: So ostensible and used to could or my,

[00:51:15] Stacy Havener: oh, yeah. Yeah. I guess we have, I guess we have the juxtaposition there.

[00:51:20] Daniel Crosby: My offsetting, my offsetting penalties.

[00:51:21] Stacy Havener: Also, sidebar.

[00:51:23] Stacy Havener: Going back to the red shoes bit, one of my favorite things about following you on social media, not so much on LinkedIn, you don't really do it there, but like on other platforms

[00:51:34] Daniel Crosby: mm-hmm. Is

[00:51:34] Stacy Havener: when you bring the south bit in, like why don't you do that on LinkedIn? It's so funny.

[00:51:41] Daniel Crosby: I should I you probably more Instagram.

[00:51:45] Stacy Havener: Yeah. That's where I see you do it. Not,

[00:51:46] Daniel Crosby: I'm not being, maybe I'm not being Red Shoe enough, but I am such a, I'm such a southerner. I mean, I'm from Alabama. I live in Atlanta, but I, I just love the south and it's so weird. And whenever I come back from somewhere else, [00:52:00] I don't know how to say it, but there's just a lot of characters in the south.

[00:52:03] Yeah.

[00:52:04] Daniel Crosby: And wherever I go, somewhere else where people are a little more. Conventional perhaps, and they come back to the, the weirdos and the clowns I live by every day. I just go, I feel, I feel very much at home. Yeah.

[00:52:14] Stacy Havener: I, you can't see Daniel, but he is beaming right now. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a really cool part of your personal brand that not everybody gets to see.

[00:52:23] Yeah.

[00:52:23] Stacy Havener: Okay. How about this one? What was your first job and what's a life lesson you learned? I'm not talking about like your first job in your career. I'm talking about like your first JOB.

[00:52:34] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. Yeah. My, my first job, so when I was 15, I was lecturing my 15-year-old about this, just the other day when I was 15, I worked in a warehouse at a place called Service Merchandise.

[00:52:47] Daniel Crosby: I don't even, I know

[00:52:47] Stacy Havener: service merchandise, you

[00:52:49] Daniel Crosby: know, service merchandise. Very old. Yeah. It was like kind of a department story type place. Yeah. But they would have, I don't know how to explain it. [00:53:00] They didn't have the stuff out on the floor. Like the washing machines and stuff were like back in the back where I was sweating profusely.

[00:53:08] Daniel Crosby: And you would pull a tag and like we would. Like a thing would go down a conveyor belt and we'd pull this and like sometimes it was a blender and you're like, okay, gotta go get a blender. And then other times it was, you know, a washing machine or something very big and heavy. And so I worked there when I was 15, the next youngest person was 23.

[00:53:29] Daniel Crosby: So to say that I learned some things about life that, oh my gosh, I don't know,

[00:53:36] Stacy Havener: warehouse life.

[00:53:37] Daniel Crosby: I don't know if the demented things I was exposed to. Uh, I don't know if my parents really thought that one through, like the, the lessons I learned that summer to make minimum wage. But what it did was it gave me a great deal of, I'm thankful for that job for two reasons I.

[00:53:55] Daniel Crosby: Um, it solidified my resolve not to work with my [00:54:00] hands. Mm-hmm. Like, I mean, you, you sweat, you sweat in a warehouse in Alabama long enough, you know, hauling heavy stuff and you really redouble your commitment to, to learning.

[00:54:12] Yeah.

[00:54:13] Daniel Crosby: And, and it gave me respect and. Kindness for people who do hard work and, um, you're a parent.

[00:54:21] Daniel Crosby: You know how it is. Yes. There's certain lessons that you teach your kids. One lesson I have taught my kids is, you know, whether it's a server at a restaurant, or just like wherever when you're out in public, like these people are working their asses off. Hell yeah. And like you will respect them. Yes, you will look them in the eye.

[00:54:41] Daniel Crosby: You will thank them. This is not fun. They're not here for your. Pleasure. Like you respect this man or this woman and you treat them like a human. I feel very, very strongly about that

[00:54:56] Stacy Havener: same, and I think it's those first [00:55:00] jobs, I mean. Like they're all so weird for all of us. Like it's like, how did you end up there?

[00:55:08] Stacy Havener: You know? You're like, how did I get this job? What? Like, your parents were like, underwriting that. Yeah. Go do it. Yeah. It's wild. Really. Thank you for sharing that. Mm-hmm. Okay. Kind of related to the topic that we've been exploring here. So given your experience now, what's something you'd tell your younger self?

[00:55:28] Daniel Crosby: I would tell my younger self to bet on myself earlier and to take bigger risks. I think, uh, I really have very few regrets in life. I've had a really nice life and things have gone my way in, uh, a lot of big ways. I wish I had bet on myself younger, and I am a firm believer that it's easier to take risks when you're younger.

[00:55:49] Daniel Crosby: Yeah. You know, as a middle aged father of three with like, you know, staring down the barrel of three college educations in, in fairly short order, [00:56:00] um, it gets hard.

[00:56:02] Yeah.

[00:56:03] Daniel Crosby: And I, I wish I had taken bigger swings earlier in my career. That's one regret I, I have That is pretty enduring.

[00:56:15] Stacy Havener: You know, you, you talked about this in the book.

[00:56:18] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm. And I

[00:56:18] Stacy Havener: don't actually know if people know this about you because you were an entrepreneur for a hot second there.

[00:56:25] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, yeah. For quite, for quite a while. Yeah. But, but even when I was an entrepreneur, it was always very safe.

[00:56:32] Okay. I

[00:56:33] Daniel Crosby: mean, you know, even as an entrepreneur, it was always. I'm not gonna really do the thing that scales, like, I'm gonna be a very busy speaker or something like that.

[00:56:44] Daniel Crosby: Like that's kind of safe. And you know, there were opportunities where I had the potential to do stuff like build a fund or start a technology. And it was like, well, I'm making a lot of money speaking. And I would, you know, I'd have to give that up, that one. I, you know, I, I, I [00:57:00] regret that I wish I, I wish I had taken bigger swings and, and believed in myself more.

[00:57:04] Stacy Havener: I wish I had these stats, like on the ready recall here, but there are some amazing stats about founders.

[00:57:11] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:12] Stacy Havener: Um, and success of founders in their fifties, even sixties. Yeah. So, hey. You never know.

[00:57:20] Daniel Crosby: First of all, Stacy, I'm 45, but

[00:57:23] Stacy Havener: listen,

[00:57:24] Daniel Crosby: I know what you're saying. You're right. I'm saying

[00:57:25] Stacy Havener: you still have time to camp out in your cushy job.

[00:57:29] Stacy Havener: Collect the checks, do the good work for, you know, whatever, and you still can come back to this regret and rewrite that chapter, rewrite the ending.

[00:57:39] Daniel Crosby: No, I, I think you're right. And I, I think I will, I think I will one day. You know, I think I heard the other day that the average successful founder is something like 43.

[00:57:48] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:57:49] Daniel Crosby: And we, we have this vision of everyone being sort of like a pimply college dropout in a hoodie. Yeah. And the fact is most people go work in industry for [00:58:00] some time, learn the ropes, and then they go build their thing. That's

[00:58:02] Stacy Havener: right.

[00:58:03] Daniel Crosby: Yeah.

[00:58:03] Stacy Havener: Have you read the book? Um. I don't know if we talked about this yesterday when we were catching it.

[00:58:07] Stacy Havener: Oh, we did that book so good. They can't ignore you.

[00:58:10] Daniel Crosby: Yeah, I haven't read it. Okay. You yesterday. So we,

[00:58:14] Stacy Havener: I'm like really geeking out on that as a Cal Newport book and there's a lot of interesting things in there about following your passion, trying to do the business before you've got the receipts, basically.

[00:58:26] Daniel Crosby: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:27] Stacy Havener: Yeah. And so, um, look, I think it's a next chapter potential for you. It's, that's the nice thing about owning our story. We get to keep. Keep writing it.

[00:58:36] I love it. You

[00:58:37] Stacy Havener: are a gift to all of us and to me. Thank you for being my BFI bestie, the best scientist that this storyteller could ever ask for.

[00:58:47] Stacy Havener: It's been a joy to have you with us today.

[00:58:49] Daniel Crosby: Congratulations on a hundred episodes. It's a huge milestone. I look forward to the next hundred.

[00:58:55] Stacy Havener: Oh, and congratulations on your book. If you haven't read The Soul of Wealth by [00:59:00] Dr. Daniel Crosby, go to your independent bookstore. That's my first call to action, and if you can't get there, then fine Amazon, but either way, get the book.

[00:59:09] Stacy Havener: It's a can't miss. Thank you, Daniel. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance.

[00:59:31] Stacy Havener: All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Haven or Haven or Capital Partners.

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