Back by popular demand, Clay Finck brings back Chris Mayer to chat about his book, How Do You Know – A Guide to Clear Thinking About Wall Street, Investing, and Life. This book is one that really made us think as it is not your conventional investing book and questions much of traditional thinking in the world of finance. If you’re interested in becoming a better thinker as an investor, then this episode is a must-listen.

Chris is the author of 100 Baggers and How Do You Know?, and the co-founder and portfolio manager of Woodlock House Family Capital.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

00:00 - Intro.

02:13 - How being a learning machine has impacted Chris as an investor.

07:30 - Chris’ goal as a long-term investor in public equities.

09:59 - What general semantics is, and how it relates to investing.

10:42 - Finance terms that investors use that muddy the waters of how people think about stocks.

13:10 - How either/or thinking doesn’t align with how the real world typically operates.

14:31 - Why can we do without broad terms as investors such as: “GDP,” “the economy,” “value investors,” “growth investors,” etc.

20:17 - Why we shouldn’t always take labels and names at face value.

22:20 - What companies Chris owns are in what many would call “unattractive industries.”

24:21 - Chris’ opinion on what drives long-term shareholder returns.

27:24 - What Sosnoff’s Law is.

30:17 - How meeting management teams play into Chris’ investment process.

33:17 - Why Chris believes that “This Time is Always Different” and that reversion to the mean is a flawed concept.

42:58 - How Chris thinks about judging what numbers actually mean rather than judging the numbers themselves.

44:06 - Why we shouldn’t take accounting earnings at face value.

47:50 - Why Chris encourages investors to develop a “delayed reaction.”

50:29 - How Chris developed the ability to not take himself too seriously.

55:08 - Chris’ book recommendations.

Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences.

BOOKS AND RESOURCES

• Check out our newly released TIP Mastermind Community.
• Chris Mayer’s book: How Do You Know?
• Chris Mayer’s book: 100 Baggers.
• Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act.
• Richard Rorty’s book, Philosophy as Poetry.
• Chris’s fund & blog: Woodlock House Family Capital.
• Thomas Phelps’ book: 100 to 1 in the Stock Market.
• Follow Chris on Twitter.
• Follow Clay on Twitter.
• Check out our recent episode covering TIP568: Current Market Conditions, Alternative Assets, & AI w/ David Stein or watch the video here.
• Check out  TIP531: Mark Leonard: The Best Capital Allocator You’ve Never Heard of or watch the video here.

NEW TO THE SHOW?

• Check out our We Study Billionaires Starter Packs.
• Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) here.
• Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance Tool.
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• Stay up-to-date on financial markets and investing strategies through our daily newsletter, We Study Markets.
• Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts.

P.S The Investor’s Podcast Network is excited to launch a subreddit devoted to our fans in discussing financial markets, stock picks, questions for our hosts, and much more! Join our subreddit r/TheInvestorsPodcast today!

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