YouSaid · the spoken record

Richard Koch

lines on the record: 170
first: 2023-07-05
most recent: 2023-07-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Flower power and all that, which I think is much misunderstood. I think the attempt to stimulate creativity and get out of the straitjacket of working too hard and being monochrome and boring. You know, I think business is not boring and monochrome. And the people in the 1950s who did it did it one way, but we can do it in a multicolored and much more enjoyable way. Get enjoyment out of life, but also do things which are going to help other people in one way, giving them ideas or giving them inspiration or whatever. Anyway, so that's my little advertisement as you Americans would say for 80-20 daily. Go out. That's an advertisement. Oh, wait a minute.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's about living. So there's a lot of stuff in there which says one way or another don't work too hard. There's a lot of stuff which says one way or another. Don't follow the rules, break the rules. There's a lot of sort of, you know, non-conformist in a way. I suppose it goes back to the sort of...”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“365 daily readings about that, but I will have finished. Anyway, this book is going to come out next year, as indeed 80-20 beliefs is going to come out. It's going to be sensationally successful with putting my optimistic hat on and my marketing and investment hat on. And I actually think people will find it very, very interesting. And if you don't, blame me because I've tried hard to make it every single one is about a different subject, but they're all related to each other in one way or another through the 80-20 principle. And it's attempt to say...”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ideas about life, the universe, and everything, which are related in some way. Some people might say rather tenuous way in some cases, but which are fundamentally related to 80-20. And to me, 80-20 is far more than a technocratic thing. It's about creating a better life for yourself and for other people. And to do that, you need to be able to get results in a way which is very highly productive. So it sounds technocratic, but it's actually quite deep. So, for example, you were talking a few minutes ago about the impact of art in terms of increasing energy. Well, I think that's a very 80-20 concept in itself. Totally. I haven't got one of the...”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I said, well, why wouldn't it be a good idea to have a set of readings related to not just the 80-20 principle, but what I call the 80-20 philosophy? Because without being too grandiose, I do think there are huge depths which I haven't plumbed personally. I'm sure there's far more there, about the 80-20 principle. You remember that when it was first suggested to me that I write about the 80-20 principle, I told the editor who was concerned I could probably spin it out to about five pages, but I certainly couldn't write a book. I ended up writing four books about it. And they're not desperately repetitive, I think. They're maybe slightly repetitive. But I've set myself the task of writing 365.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There is one other thing which is I'm not only writing one book, I'm writing another book at the same time, and this book is called 80-20 Daily. I know that your interest in Stoicism, for example, and they've been a very successful set of daily readings. So you have 365 readings from Daily Stoic and others. It's very good, if a little tedious after a certain time.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think it's very important for business as well because businesses increasingly are a matter of beauty. I mean, you think about the Apple devices. They are beautiful at a certain level. And Steve Jobs apparently took the people to MoMA in New York Museum at Modern Art and said, you know, what we want to do is create things which are in the same category. That sounds like a crazy left field sort of thing to do, but it worked, you know, and they did create, you know, I think the iPhone is actually quite a beautiful thing.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I thought they were fantastic. I said to myself, I want to show that to Colin Smith, the chap involved. I'd really like to introduce you to him because he might think they're no good, but I doubt it. People need encouragement.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know one of my best friends is an artist who's got two paintings in the Tate, not the modern one, but the old one has Tate Britain, as what they call it now. I'm sure he would be delighted to come along and talk to people and look at the art of someone like you. I mean, you showed me some of the pictures that you've been drawing”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think your request is right. I mean, I think art is hugely important. I absolutely believe that Western civilization would not be what it is today if it had not been for the Renaissance and the artists. And, you know, we wouldn't have all these beautiful churches with frescoes. We wouldn't have lots of things. And art moves on. And art's, I don't know, it probably is cumulative to a degree because people invent perspective, for example, and then all the art looks a lot more interesting. And then people do text stuff. So, you know, that's another dimension and all the rest of it. So it's progressive, but it's also, there are different periods, even Picasso had about six different periods of his life. He didn't always draw people like they were sliced up. I think art is enormously important. Don't forget artists either.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then your only option to go from mega mega work is you retire and then you've got nothing to do. People who claw that effectively is really stupid. Don't”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hang out and have some wine around some gardens. Can you imagine working in a high-pressure organization for 20 years clawing your way to the top of that organization and then finding that they still want you to work 50 or 60 hours a week? Well, not 52 weeks a year, but maybe 48.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“and also the other great attribute is that we'll organize people into groups of three people they can't be from the same organization they have to be from a different background and they have to be from a different country and it's going to be a very intense experience for those three people and they're going to get to know each other they might hate each other as a result of the eight weeks they spend together but they might become best friends or they might work out a business rationale where their organizations in some way can collaborate with each other So this is a wonderful idea and they should be queuing up so anyone who's very interested in this contact me and I'll put you in touch with the warden of Waddam and he can sign you up for this”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wine sellers, which are very fine wines. And we make it a very enjoyable experience. And we also have weekly lectures. And apart from the tutorials, the tutorial is the sort of bedrock thing. And how do we price it? We charge £50,000. It's about £70,000 or something like that. Yeah. And it's a lot of money. But for an organization that's been very successful and is thinking about sending half a dozen people, it's nothing. It's an absolute drop in the ocean. And if one of those people comes up with a creative idea which is going to generate a new product or a new way of doing business comparable perhaps to what Bruce Henderson or Bill Bain came up with as a result of thinking, that's what they did. They thought very carefully and they were very bright people. If they come up with an idea like that as a result,”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very expensive. No, my idea is that we throw in. Everything, the tuition we throw in lots of food, we throw in the accommodation in this 17th century beautiful building, slightly impractical, but we throw in food and most important of all we throw in lots of wine because we've got...”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's the spring and summer vacation, so it's basically from May, June, July, August, September. Yeah. So those are the times that it's safe to go to England and my book. And if you live there anyway, it doesn't make any difference”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For eight weeks at the 17th century, beautiful 17th century college, Waddham College, Oxford, with the most wonderful gardens behind. Never mind that the weather is terrible. People are going to really benefit from this experience. And we'll do it in the spring and the summer. So that's all right. So you don't have to worry about that.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Weak suit is actually history. I've got no context for the modern world. I don't understand how the modern world developed. Other people said, what about psychology or sociology? And so on. So that, you know, we've got a list of 10 possible options. Oh, meditation. Meditation is enormously important. There's some intellectual grist behind it. It's not just sort of touchy feely sort of stuff. You know, there are some really profound roots to meditation and you have to understand the history of Buddhism and etc. Can you teach that? Yes, we can teach that. So what I said is, okay, what we do is we get people to come from organizations. We mix them up in terms of background and we put them in triads, in trios, groups of three people, and then they have the tutorial system and they come and they agree to study at the same subject.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is set up a course which has nothing whatsoever to do with business, but which is a good intellectual training. And so let's come up with a list of ten things that you can teach that people might be interested in buying. And they came up with a list and it includes things like the history of art. It's amazing how many people who have been very successful and know nothing at all about art actually want to study the history of art. It's a very fashionable subject these days. So there's history of art. There's philosophy. Again, it's a lot of interest, as you know, in Greek and Roman philosophy. So let's study philosophy and see what they had to say about this. There's also things like the history of the last 300 years. Again, quite a few people have said to me, including former investment bankers.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So one of the things that my old firm dedicated. LEK got a guy called Stuart Jackson who became the chief executive long after I'd disappeared. And he said, you've got to have a three-month sabbatical every five years. It's not optional. You've got to do it and you've got to do something which refreshes your mind as well as your body and all the rest of it. So I think perfect. What we'll do is we'll do sabbaticals for people who have been very, very successful. And what are we going to do? We're not going to talk about business because most of the people who are good target markets for this, what I call the Oxford experience or the Wadham experience, are going to be people who in one way or another relate to business. They don't have to be in business. But if they're going to make a lot of money, they could in theory be artists or they could be brain surgeons. Most likely they're going to be related to business. So what we're going to do”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Capital firms, marketing experts, anyone who's found a corner where they've got a very high relative market share, they're very successful at doing what they're doing. They're making pots and pots of money. But the people who are at the top of those companies actually very often have been responsible for making lots and lots of money are exhausted volcanoes. They've been doing the same thing for the last 10 years. They need some new ideas. And they also need a break.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is there a way of doing it? And I said, Well, let's think about the 80-20 principle. The 80-20 principle says that if you want a new set of customers, you might as well go for the customers that can afford the most and that can benefit the most. So I'm going to call these people 991 people. So what you want to do is go and talk to the most very successful companies in Britain and throughout the world and identify the very most successful people within those companies very probably. They're going to be the people at the top of the company, aren't they? Or close to the top of the company. Okay, it's become quite fashionable and I think very useful for people to have a period of sabbaticals. You know, this originated, I think, in academia itself, but more and more companies are very successful companies, investment banks, consulting firms, even venture.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Continue teaching these undergraduates. Why can't you charge more money? We can't charge more money because that's set by the government. Why can't you get more overseas students? We can't get more overseas students because the regulator won't allow us to go over a certain percentage. So then I'm sort of running out of ideas. And then I said to look Oxford terms last for eight weeks, don't they? And they said yes. And the three terms a year. So even I can do the mental arithmetic that three times eight is 24. That's 24 weeks of the year that you're actually operating this educational factory. Let's call it a factory. And again, even I can work out that capacity utilization on that basis is 46%.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a student, 18 year old student have got the benefit of the personal attention of someone who's a world expert in this particular field. And they're telling you that your thinking is all screwed up, or sometimes very occasionally. They tell you, that's really good. Yes, you're onto something there, but have you also considered this, that and the other? It's a wonderful system. I think I would never have made the money that I've made or have ever success I've had in life had it not been for that experience of having that tutorial system. So I'm very happy to give my old college some money. But I said, look, let's try and work out why you're losing money. And they said, well, it's very simple. You know, we're losing money on every undergraduate. Okay. So I say, well, maybe you should have more graduates. And they say, no, we don't want to do that. We like teaching undergraduates. We think it's very useful. And we're quite passionate about that. So you've got...”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we make a loss on that because we've got a tutorial system, a tutorial system is very labor intensive. A tutorial system means that instead of people going to lectures, what you do is you have a tutor and either alone or with one other student, you go and see them every week and they give you a subject for an essay and they tell you which books and articles to read and then a week later you go along to them again with a bit of fear and trembling and you've got your essay there and they don't sort of tell you to hand over they make you read it out. This is a form of sadism. And then they interrupt you halfway through and say, well, it's interesting that you say this, Richard, but isn't it true that? And then they give you a complete opposite view. And you get challenged. And that's very good for you, although it's terrifying to start with. And you can actually get into quite an intelligent discussion. And you...”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I said, Yeah, okay. He said, we're losing money on our undergraduates. Every undergraduate that we educate costs us twice what we can actually charge”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it started because they were interested in me making a donation to college and I said yeah fine I can make a donation to college but rather than make a donation can I also give you some thoughts about your finances and the head of the college was very gracious and said yeah that's fine he was thrilled We love donations”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right, right. So we could scratch that. So no editor, that's fine. Don't just scratch it. That's fine. Editor, don't scratch it.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd rather not say actually. I don't know. No, I don't see why I shouldn't. People can look it up very easily. It's Wadham College, Wadham College, WADH.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is probably the least selfish thing that you can pursue. Because if you're happy, you're going to make a lot of other people happy as well. If you're miserable, yeah, that's really important. You're going to make other people miserable. And whenever I'm tempted to be a bit downbeat or misanthropic, I say to myself, this is very selfish. So get out of this particular pattern of thinking.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So far. I mean, I actually came to when I was thinking about beliefs and I said, you know, there are all these toxic beliefs and isn't it strange how people have got these toxic beliefs? And then I realized I had one myself. It was a variant. I needed to make money. It was very important and it was the most important thing. And I said to myself, is this going to make me happy? So, I mean, my only advice to people is to say, you know, is it going to make you happy? And also, is getting rid of the belief going to enable you to get rid of some stress? Because stress up to a certain point is very functional, but beyond a certain point it's paralyzing. So you ask yourself a very simple question. And we should ask ourselves these whenever we're thinking about our lives in a serious way, we should say, is it making me happy? What beliefs do I have? And is it making me happy? And if it's not making me happy, it's not going to make other people happy. I mean, one of my points about happiness is that happiness.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How stupid can you be? To have a lot of money and be anxious about it. But the strength of the belief was very strong. It lasted for a very long time. So, you know, I do think that these grand beliefs can sometimes be toxic beliefs as well.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To make more money, when I've already got more money than I can possibly spend in my lifetime, even giving it away is going to be quite difficult. Don't write into me, please, and ask me for donations because I've decided what to do with my money. And it's not one for you.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the odd thing was, I was miserable and I was miserable because I felt the responsibility. Here I'd got this sort of, you know, wonderful track record of 22% compound after tax returns. And I just felt, what do I do in the next five to ten years in order to continue this track record? So there I was desperately trying to spend this money. I invested in the company we talked about earlier, what, through words, and made a very large investment in that, and invested in some other companies. And it was stressful because there was a lot at stake. And then I suddenly had a realization at the end of that year, this is stupid. Why should I feel understood?”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My actual grand belief was that I'd make a lot of money. I'd be a millionaire. But later on, I had a toxic belief, which was a variant of that, which is nothing in my life is more important than making money. And it was so ridiculous that when I had made a lot of money, and in the year 2000, my net worth doubled and it doubled very much in the last three months. And that was because two companies that I'd invested in, FanJuel and Auto One were the companies. In the case of Auto One, they did an IPO in the first quarter of the following year. In the case of FanJule, there was an offer made by Flutter, which was in a way descended from Betfair, to buy out the minority stake of which I was part in Fan Jule. It was a very generous offer. So there I was. I had £300 million in cash and my net worth had gone up to a billion pounds.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And when my friend had actually found out about it, he didn't identify who the person was, but confirmed the validity of his decision. This was someone who left three months ago, you might remember that they left and they looked like this. No, he didn't say that. But my friend was incandescent, so he reports with anger saying, how dare this man who's only been a geography teacher in his whole career? Say it's completely unrealistic for you to become Prime Minister. That just made me more and more determined to become Prime Minister, at least to get close to him. And so these beliefs are quite visceral. I mean, were they good beliefs or bad beliefs? I think beliefs at an early stage, they're the flip side of a toxic belief. So, for example”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My sample, yeah, so the eight people who had a Grand Police out of 50, so very, very small numbers. But I was staggered. I thought I was the only one with one of these stupid juvenile beliefs. So it's much more common than perhaps, and most of them had not told anyone else that they'd had this belief. I remember there was one of the ones who had a political belief said that his belief was held up to ridicule in the school assembly after he'd left. He left at age 16 and went to a sixth-form college because he couldn't stand being in the school, which was a very regimented traditional school. And he said that the geography master stood up in the assembly a few months after he'd left and said, you might know that when people leave school, we ask them why they're leaving and what their future career is going to be, what job they think they're going to have in the future. And he said, and this person wrote down Prime Minister, and he said, you know, it's...”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think that everyone Tim should actually have a grand belief. I think you either have it or you don't. And I don't think there's much point in trying to manufacture a grand belief because when you're beyond the age of 15, it's probably pointless anyway. The great value of having a grand belief is that it changes your whole mindset when you're at a very impressionable age. Most people, when they get beyond 20 and all the rest of it, would say, this is unrealistic. The whole point about a grand belief is that it's unrealistic. But you don't realize it's unrealistic, and therefore you might possibly achieve it. There were three other instances of people who, in one form or other, believed that they were going to make a lot of money or be very successful. And because they...”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He said, this is what we must do to save the world. And it is. It's unbelievable. So delusions can be very helpful sometimes.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He gives his word, he will stick to its word. David Lloyd George said the same thing so did many other writers, including George Bernard Shaw. You know, they thought Hitler May have come up with some ridiculous ideas in the nineteen twenties, but he was beyond that. He wasn't going to do anything bad. But Churchill said, Mark my words, the Munich Agreement in 1938 is complete disaster. Hitler said he's not going to invade Czechoslovakia, he's not going to invade Poland. Don't believe him. And Neville Chamber said, no, he's given his word, his signature to the bit of paper carrying his piece in our time. You know, it was complete rubbish. So when Hitler had done his worst in 1940, the only person that they could choose to replace Neville Chamberlain was actually Churchill. The king didn't like it. The majority of the Conservative Party didn't like it. The Labour Party didn't like it because he'd been very rude about the trade unions and had broken the general strike in 1926. He was very unpopular. But nevertheless,”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's very specific. Well, it is. And he said it to someone who became a minister and who actually wrote it all down contemporaneously. And Andrew Roberts believes the story. Well, the way that I interpreted that is that Churchill was delusional. He thought in a very schoolboyish sort of way that England was going to come under threat, which is not totally implausible, that there'd be a war, and that he Winston Spencer Churchill would be the person who saved the country. Well, that was nuts. But actually, when Hitler came along and started appearing to be a menace to Britain, who in the whole of the British establishment would say we better worry about Hitler? Almost nobody else worried about Hitler. The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, said, Hitler's a man we can do business with.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To Churchill's career was Hitler because he was an extreme patriot. He thought the British Empire was the best thing on earth. He'd grown up in an environment and in a school at Harrow where they sang songs about Queen Elizabeth I defeating the Armada. So you can see that given a conditioning like that, if someone like Hitler comes along, he thinks, well, possibly this is a threat to the British Empire and I've got to do something about it. There's a fascinating story in one of the biographies by Andrew Roberts, the most recent biography of Churchill. When he was 16 years old, and this is well documented, he told a friend that there was going to be a future terrible war. He didn't give any dates or anything like that. But he said during this war, I'm going to rise to a very high position.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, Winston Churchill is the opposite of Hitler. His belief was stop Hitler. And I don't know if you've gone into the career details of Winston Churchill, but he was incredibly unsuccessful. He actually was a cabinet minister very early on in his life, but he missed everything up hugely. He was responsible for several hundreds of thousands of people dying in the Dardanelles in the First World War. He was responsible for taking Britain onto the gold standard at a completely unrealistically high exchange rate against the US dollar in 1925. He was opposed to a very minor measure of self-government in India in the 1930s. He lost all credibility with his senior colleagues. He got thrown out of the cabinet. He was in the wilderness completely in the 1930s. And the only thing that saved”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Another person had the belief that they would find a cure for cancer. Now, it hasn't happened yet, but this person is making considerable progress on that. And I think there's a 50-50 chance that in your lifetime, if not in mine, he will actually do that. It's extraordinary for someone who was not a scientist, who was just an engineer. He's now going to scientific conventions and talking to people about that. So it's a grand belief Hitler's grand belief was that the Jews should be wiped out. So, you know, the grand belief is not necessarily a good thing. And, you know, that was quite a commonplace belief in Vienna when he grew up.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A very common one is I want to be Prime Minister or President. Now, you might smile at that and say that's completely unrealistic. There were two people in my sample. One said I want to become Prime Minister. This person is now a cabinet minister. If they hadn't had that belief, although it's very unrealistic, probably he won't become Prime Minister, but you never know. He's got a chance of becoming, he's got a lot closer to it than most people would think. Another person's grand belief was that they would play a prominent role in politics without defining what would be. That person's the head of probably the most respected London think tank at the present time. So it gives you a focus and it gives you an ambition. Sensitized to try and find those opportunities.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And tried to buy as many of these stamps, and some people would refuse to sell me any. Some people would say you can have three. Other people would give me whole sheets of things as long as I could pay for them. And those became immensely valuable. Now, it made me a few thousand pounds. But, you know, it all helped and it was looking for opportunities like that that made a big difference.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, one of the things that I did was start a stamp company, a company collecting postage stamps. And it wasn't wildly successful, but it did teach me a few things. And we did make a little bit of money. And then I was always looking for ways to make money. Again, related to stamps, when there's a commemorative issue, an event happens like England World Cup as happened in 1966 when I was 16, they overstamped the existing stamps with England winners. So it was kind of like almost like a toy printing outfit. And those stamps went on sale at the post office. You can imagine everyone wanted the England winner stamps and they were sold out in most post offices throughout the day. And what I did was I get on my bicycle and I went to every single post office in Windsor.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or bigger than good. They might be great, but I'd turn them grand because the problem with grand beliefs is that they are grand and they may be grandiose as well as grand. So they're not necessarily good. And when they're not good, they're extremely bad. But they are beliefs which are almost messianic. Very interesting thing. My 50 people, eight of them, had actually a belief which they got when they were very young, usually before they were teenagers, which was completely unfounded and completely implausible. In my own case, it was that I would become a millionaire. When you're a nine by extrapolation very rich, completely, I mean, I think I've described before how that happened, but it was a complete accident. But once I'd got the belief, I started thinking, what would I need to do in order to become a millionaire?”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. Some of them not quite so minor. So good beliefs, the toxic beliefs, good beliefs, and what else do you think there are on top of that”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the other beliefs which was very important was optimism, people who were optimistic were happier and more productive than people who were not. And books have been written about how you can actually become more optimistic. It's not something which is immutable. There are ways of becoming more optimistic.”
2023-07-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT