Shit You Don't Learn in School

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the hidden side of risk: the infrequent, often unpredictable events that make the biggest differences in our lives.If you look around, rare, high-impact events are everywhere. A small number of days in the stock market drive the bulk of the returns.Large businesses like Google, Amazon, and Best Buy have tested thousands of products, yet have a single profit puppy. Insurance companies make money on most customers, but have to pay out very large claims to a few people.A handful of people have had more of an effect on the future than the other 7 billion people combined.This episode is all about navigating tail risk and tail opportunity. You'll learn how to better avoid the catastrophic events in life, and on the flip side, to take advantage of the life-enhancing opportunities with asymmetric upside.Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

In this episode, Steph and Cal break down the best of 2021. You'll find out the...Best New IdeaBest New SkillBest New Life HackBest New ExperienceBest/Worst PurchaseBest/Worst InvestmentBest/Worst TrendBest PodcastCreator of the YearBest Personal Win/Accomplishment#1 Goal for Next YearPrediction for the New YearJumpstart 2022 by doubling down on the best activities and avoiding the worst. It's going to be an awesome year.PS: If you liked the sound effects in this episode, we found them here.

What do airplanes, railroads, and jazz music have in common? They were all innovations that people feared.In fact, if you look into any key technology shift from the past, you'll find a wealth of fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding it. And while this shouldn't be surprising, we can still learn from the skeptics of the past.We can learn just how difficult it is to predict what's to come and look toward our future with a humble perspective, an acceptance that we probably will get it wrong again.In this episode, Calvin and Steph talk through how people viewed inventions seemingly as innocuous as the bicycle or teddy bear, what we can learn from these stories, and how to stay open minded and capitalize on opportunities as technology takes us into the future.

Death is universal part of the human experience. During our lives, we often must confront the painful reality of death around us, and eventually, we face that reality ourselves.What's odd is that despite death being at the core of the human experience, many people avoid talking or thinking about it. So when people pass away or we face a health scare that brings us into contact with the fragility of life, we often don't know what to do. In this episode, Calvin shares his experience with the death of two close loved ones: his mentor and his mom. He dives into the depths of those experiences, whether it's choosing to take his mother off life support or the psychedelic experience that helped him process his guilt. And most importantly, he shares what he's learned from years of grieving.We hope this episode serves as a jumping off point for people to speak more openly about death and to connect with the many people that have lost a close loved one.As a disclaimer:  If you are unable to listen to difficult topics like suicide, mental health, or sexual abuse, please do not listen to this episode.Resources:My Mom’s Path to Suicide: Battling the Darkness in a Broken SystemI Will Make You Proud: A Eulogy for My MomThe Power of Mentorship and Paying it ForwardUnpacking Unit 73: Insights from Revisiting My Youth

In the second part of this series on the future of work, Steph and Cal dive into new products and services, alongside macro trends that they predict are in full flux.These include mass migration, global tax infrastructure, opportunities for services to specialize, increased isolation, UBI, and of course... the metaverse. :)

People say that COVID was an accelerator, forcing trends that may have taken decades to develop, to instead take hold in much less time. Remote work was one of those trends. But we're not done yet!The future of work is constantly evolving and it doesn't just impact whether you can Zoom without pants. :)In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the second and third order effects of the remote revolution and what's to come. And in part one of this series, they discuss how this equation impacts the individual and companies. In part 2, they'll talk about new products and services, and macro trends to come.Resources:Printable user manual prompts: bit.ly/user-manual-questionsSteph’s user manual: bit.ly/steph-smith-user-manualCalvin’s user manual: bit.ly/calvin-rosser-user-manual

The information age gives us access to so much advice that it can be hard to see through the noise.4AM morning routines that don't make sense for you. Productivity hacks that hardly move the needle. Hindsight bias cloaked as success stories.Most advice is well-intentioned, but rarely translates to improvements in another person's life. So this week, Cal and Steph took a step back to ask the simple question: what are the 80/20 habits, beliefs, and products that had an outsized impact in changing their lives.While many of their answers aren't revolutionary, they're universal and can be adopted by anyone.If you find yourself looking for an 80/20 episode that cuts through the noise, this one is for you.

With the exception of a few companies like Buffer and GitLab, 99.99%+ of companies opt to keep their salaries closed. This closed nature creates information asymmetry and at times, inequity in the workplace.Lack of transparency gives companies a hall pass to not develop a robust compensation system, but at the same time, sharing salaries openly isn't without its pitfalls, including privacy and the tendency for people to over-compare themselves to others. In this episode, Steph and Cal debate whether companies should share their pay methodology or even fully open up their book. They share a range of studies, including results from Norway, a country that has shared their tax returns publicly since 1863.If you've felt the information asymmetry in the workforce or are considering how you can get more out of your career, this episode is for you.Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

Wealth inequality has been increasing for decades, and recently, there has been a heightened focus on billionaires as we debate what to do about the concentration of large swaths of wealth in a few hands. In this episode, Steph and Cal discuss whether or not billionaires should exist, common proposals for dealing with billionaires, and a few policy proposals for how we can start thinking about tackling wealth inequality.Whether you find yourself saying, "billionaires are evil and don't deserve all that money", "billionaires deserve what they have earned", or "I don't care about billionaires, but I care about a world with more equality of opportunity," this episode is for you.Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the subjective nature of pricing. They explore how a value extends beyond utility or the physical nature of an asset (think luxury items, NFTs, etc) and use these ideas to explore new pricing models, including tiered, retention-based, and completion-based pricing.They also explore how our own psychology can inhibit use as consumers to spend on what's most meaningful and the importance of unlearning certain spending habits.If you find the psychology of money as fascinating as we do, give this episode a listen.Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn