The Power Of Investing: How To Build A Mastermind Group Like Warren Buffett
I love learning new subjects that immediately catch my attention. I like to keep my mind sharp and push my knowledge muscle to the limit.
There’s huge benefits to creating the time for self education.
So that’s when I got the opportunity to connect with Stig Brodersen, the co founder of The Investors Podcast, rated the number 1 investing podcast by Business Insider, international best selling author, and master educator, I was ecstatic about the idea of connecting with him for an interview.
This was an opportunity I would not let pass by. Even though we’re literally on opposite sides of the world, we made this possibility happen.
Many of us wonder how luminaries such as Warren Buffett, Mark Cuban, or Sir Richard Branson have achieved such greatness to get to the level in life of being a billionaire.
I asked Stig about what he has learned about studying the key ingredients of billionaires.
We talked about how tapping into the power of investing affects relationships, business, mindset, and much more.
Stig told me about his adventures of crossing paths with his co host Preston and the creation of his podcast, why it’s so impactful to be honest with your audience, the life changing experience and sought out process of writing a book, being part of a unique mastermind, and where the Investors Podcast is headed next.
This interview was a privilege from start to finish and I’m excited to share the wisdom, power, and creative process of Stig Brodersen with you on this incredible interview.
Where did you find the inspiration and creativity to create this platform of The Investing Podcast?
I’m not too sure what a podcast was about 18 months ago. About 12 months ago, Preston (the co-host for The Investing Podcast) sent me an email that we need to start a podcast. I might have listened to it once or twice, but it was not on my radar at all. Preston connected with someone who suggested we listen to Pat Flynn.
Pat has a podcast and mentioned when you have that medium you are able to communicate with a lot more people. About a year ago, Preston and I had a website and we also had a forum but that was basically it. And there were times we were communicating with people 1:1 or who was in that forum. It would range from 5–10 people, something around those numbers. Basically this was our medium to still have the same message and come out to a lot more people.
You’re the author of The Warren Buffett Accounting Book, The 100 Page Summary of The Intelligent Investor, and The 100 Page Summary of Security Analysis. These are very niche subjects, can you elaborate on what you wanted to bring to your readership by writing these books?
The whole foundation of what we’re doing is teaching people to invest like Warren Buffett. And it also depends on how much viewers are into investing. When we hear investing we think of a thousand different things like real estate, stocks, and bonds. Value investing that we talk about that is a niche within stock investing. That is a way to look at stock investing, and which you can do a thousand different ways. And this is the way Warren Buffett looks at stock investing. What we found real interesting is that you can say that there is 1 perhaps 2 books on value investing that really shaped Warren Buffett on how he’s viewing value investing.
The books are called The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis. Now these books were written a long time ago. Not only is the sequence very different, but some of the concepts especially in Security Analysis are quite complicated. Our summary was our way of boiling it down to just 100 pages, where are else are you going to find novels that we’ve done with those 2 books? The other book, The Warren Buffett Accounting Book. I wouldn’t call that a beginners guide, it’s more intermediate. A guide of how to read financial reports, financial statements. If you want to invest like Warren Buffett, it’s real important that you understand accounting, he calls accounting the language of business. What we are doing in that book is explaining with examples of how you as a stock investor can read financial statements.
Why build the foundation of investing from Warren Buffett? Do you look at Warren Buffett as the most successful investor that’s ever lived on the face of the earth or have you come across the idea of speaking about different people related to Warren Buffett?
Our foundation is Warren Buffett. Lately, we have begun to also study other successful billionaires. To tell my personal story of how I got interested in Warren Buffett to begin with, because that was actually the reason I met Preston. Some years ago back in 2013, I was speaking to some friends of mine about success. I had this friend who said he read this book about success, and if you wanted to be successful this was no secret. Just do what other successful people are doing and you won’t get exactly the same results, but you will get close to that. I thought that was a neat concept, and it made sense if you were doing what other successful people were doing, why wouldn’t you have success? I’m a modest person and I didn’t know how to approach it, so I went to the Forbes 400 list and on top of that list was Bill Gates.
So I asked myself if I knew anything about computers? And no, I couldn’t come up with the new microsoft, but number 2 on the list was Warren Buffett. And to be honest at that point in time, I didn’t know of him that well. I knew him by name and he’s familiarized by investing and having a lot of money. I didn’t know anything about him in particular. Basically that was it. I thought to myself, maybe I can do some of the same things and then I start Googling after what Warren Buffett was doing and that was how I found Preston and his site about Warren Buffett.
Your team on The Investors Podcast goes into deep discussions regarding books recommended by billionaires such as Warren Buffett, Mark Cuban, and Richard Branson. What makes it important to go into deep discussions about their systems, ideas, strategies, and concepts?
I look at this from a different level. I think from a mental point of view, reading books is probably the most productive way you can spend your time. Basically, you’re having very successfully people who have spent years acquiring that knowledge and you get that in a few hours. For most of the time, I think that’s time well spent. Another thing I think is interesting about this is there’s no finite formula. I think you need to find your own style.
If people talk to me about investing as clear as possible about value investing, but value investing might not be for you, because you are not interested in accounting. The very patient approach you may need to do may be into day to day trading. Which is perfectly fine, you can make a lot of money doing that. But it has to fit you as a person. And I think that if you’re talking about Mark Cuban or Richard Branson. They’re all very different personalities that we are trying to communicate to our readers. That perhaps they can do some of their secrets to success in their own life, because their temperament is more aligned for them.
How did you get into your current niche of investing?
It wasn’t before my early 20’s until I really started to look into it. And I wasn’t successful at all. It was just for pure fun. Figuring out how to set up a company, all these lessons that everyone in business gets to do. I was giving financial advice to people in terms of their debt and how to pay off loans. When I sold the company to my business partner, we had a few hundred clients, it was a lot fun. And prior to that I use to have a website with a forum, talking about different types of games and so on, no money in that. I think I had that within me, and when I think about investing. I’m thinking of having money and then making more money, that was definitely not what I did when I started out, no money.
What’s the feedback been like since starting this podcasting platform with Preston?
I think the response has been awesome. I get a lot of traffic in my inbox which is amazing, from people that just want to say thank you. To some extent, investing sometimes does have a bad reputation, because there are a lot of sketchy people out there. And you don’t know how to trust and it’s very transparent. Our goal is to educate, I think it’s completely okay if people look at me as an investor, but I see myself as an educator. My profession set aside from this podcast is a college professor. This is my medium to teach specifically of what I want to do without fitting into a curriculum and reaching a lot of people at the same time. And I think a lot of people like that, they can get this type of education completely free when they are in their car, doing exercise, or however they please.
Do a majority of your students listen to your podcast on their way to class or when they’re involved in extracurricular activities?
Yes, there are a lot of students that do. And sometimes, I think they pay more attention to the podcast than what I say when I teach them. Its great fun and I it’s amazing to teach people, I really love teaching. And one thing is getting the 1:1 that you have when you’re teaching in the classroom and it’s also great to have this medium to leverage time. I think if you can mix the two, you have the best from both worlds.
In your personal opinion, what does it take to be the #1 podcast for Investing?
I think that’s really hard to answer, because I’m not on top of anything to be honest. I think there are a lot of people that are better than I am. If I had to say the one thing we do very well for The Investors Podcast, it would be we are very genuine. I think that’s something we do well and also we distinguish between facts and opinions. There’s definitely opinions, especially in the world of investing. Very often there is no finite or result. More like “if you have this opinion, I have this opinion”. I think a lot of people appreciate that. People appreciate that you’re honest and people can tell if you’re being manipulated by one way or another. So I definitely think the future of podcasting or any media for that matter is always to be straightforward as possible with what you’re doing.
You have a very successful podcast, what can we see from your platform in the future?
A lot of things are happening right now, one of the things we are doing is that we are embedding a lot of videos on the podcast side where we teach people to invest like Warren Buffett. So we have the podcast and videos, which is completely another medium to teach people how to invest that have advantages and disadvantages. And then we will also include a new forum where people can meet like minded people within investing of course and a blog. That’s what we’re doing here in the next few months. When you have a site like ours things go so fast, and I’m constantly surprised of what is the new things that keeps happening. I’m not sure what will happen in a year or two.
Have you thought of writing more books in the upcoming year or two?
Coincidentally, Preston and I have been talking about this in the last few weeks. We started writing the first book together in 2013, and we always have the dream about writing a beginners guide into investing. What we have done so far is focus on a niche. We’ve been focusing on value investing which is awesome for some people, but for 98% to everyone it’s boring. We thought about writing a book about investing in general. Of course we should focus on stock investing, but investing in general and what you need to know if you’re new to investing. The way we’re going to approach that is we are starting a new blog, writing great posts, and after some time, editing the content to make an ebook out of it.
How do you convey the important message of investing to your audience?
I think it’s something we really can’t put on to people. I’m a strong believer you can teach anything to anyone. Sounds very strange and I’m a believer anyone can only learn for themselves. When I say that, I’m also saying that I cannot convince someone what I’m saying is correct. People have to find our platform and figure out if that is the right thing for them. Our mission is to make it simple to people. Investing is considered something that is very very complex.
In your honest opinion, what do you think it truly takes to become a billionaire?
It takes something very unique. You need to have a very interesting personality to have the drive to get there. And I think that’s probably one of the most interesting things in what we’re doing. We are not only looking at the investing principles, we are also looking at the person behind that.
Contact Stig directly at: www.StigBrodersen.com
Listen to Stig’s podcast: www.TheInvestorsPodcast.com