00:00:00
but what caused the financial
00:00:05
success was not extreme
00:00:08
ability you know I have a good mind but
00:00:11
I I'm way short of Prodigy and I've had
00:00:14
results in life that are
00:00:17
prodigious and that came from tricks I
00:00:21
just learned a few basic tricks from
00:00:23
people like my grandfather were those
00:00:25
what kind
00:00:26
of now everybody's leaning in wanting to
00:00:29
know
00:00:31
it's too late for you old
00:00:32
[Laughter]
00:00:36
guys yeah
00:00:38
anyway the
00:00:41
[Music]
00:00:45
U there are all kinds of tricks that I
00:00:48
just got into by accident in life one I
00:00:51
invert all the time and when I I was a
00:00:56
weather forecaster when I was in the
00:00:58
aircore and how did I handle my new
00:01:02
assignment being a weather forecaster in
00:01:05
the aircore is a lot like being a doctor
00:01:07
that reads x-rays it's a pretty solitary
00:01:10
you're in the hanger in the middle of
00:01:11
the night and drawing weather maps and
00:01:13
you're cing Pilots but you're not
00:01:15
interfacing with a bunch of your fellow
00:01:17
men very much and so I figured out the
00:01:19
minute I was actually making weather
00:01:22
forecasts for real
00:01:24
Pilots I said how can I kill these
00:01:27
Pilots now that's not the question that
00:01:29
most most people would ask but I wanted
00:01:31
to know what the easiest way to kill
00:01:33
them would be so I could avoid it and so
00:01:36
I thought it through and reverse that
00:01:38
way and I finally figured out I said
00:01:40
there are only two ways I'm ever going
00:01:42
to I was in the ferry command there only
00:01:43
two ways I'm going to kill a pilot so
00:01:46
I'm going to get him to icing his plane
00:01:48
can't handle and that will kill him or
00:01:50
I'm going to get him someplace he's
00:01:52
going to run out of gas before he can
00:01:54
land because all the airports are sucked
00:01:57
in and I just was ftic about avoiding
00:02:01
those two hazards and if Kobe Bryant had
00:02:05
had somebody like me he'd still be with
00:02:07
us yeah it was so stupid to kill kill
00:02:10
yourself that way and but just that
00:02:14
basic I may have learned that from my
00:02:16
grandfather my grandfather would say to
00:02:18
when I'm swimming he'd say swim as long
00:02:20
as you want but stay near the shore
00:02:26
well but you can laugh but
00:02:30
he was a very wise man
00:02:34
exactly what I'm what I'm hearing you
00:02:36
say is that you as a discipline look at
00:02:39
what the risk is on the other side of
00:02:41
the situation and you avoid that that's
00:02:43
one of the rules right well it's it's
00:02:45
just it's it's like a a lot of practical
00:02:49
problems in algebra if you invert you
00:02:52
can solve it easily and if you don't it
00:02:54
you can't solve it easily exctly right
00:02:55
and so of course and I had that trick
00:02:58
very early and
00:03:00
and most people would say how can
00:03:03
you please tell us what you do to save
00:03:06
India to help India and of course I
00:03:09
would approach it differently I'd say
00:03:10
what could I do which the most easily
00:03:13
hurt India and approaching it in reverse
00:03:16
that way I got better results you look
00:03:18
at the vulnerabilities yeah yes and and
00:03:21
I have a whole bag of tricks like that I
00:03:25
went to the ROTC both in high school and
00:03:28
college and the irtc taught me to fire
00:03:32
mortar shells or artillery shells one
00:03:35
shot over one shot short and then
00:03:39
kapow well I never shot any damn shells
00:03:42
but I've been using that metal trick all
00:03:44
my life that's why how I
00:03:46
determined what size to make something
00:03:49
over and under and kapow and so I just
00:03:52
got a bag of tricks and I got the right
00:03:55
bag of tricks early and of course it's
00:03:57
been of enormous help to me let me give
00:04:01
you an
00:04:03
example I had a client once when I was a
00:04:05
young lawyer and he owned a bunch of
00:04:07
hilly Ranch Land on the edge of
00:04:10
civilization not very far from here in
00:04:12
Southern
00:04:14
California
00:04:17
and the Edison Company came through and
00:04:20
they wanted a new easement through his
00:04:22
land they already had some
00:04:24
easements and he hired the leading
00:04:27
appraiser in Orange County real estate
00:04:30
appraiser and
00:04:33
said and he had the idea that he should
00:04:36
have
00:04:36
$250,000 for the easement from the
00:04:38
Edison
00:04:40
Company and this leading appraiser who
00:04:43
was very pompous and very old and and uh
00:04:48
very
00:04:49
distinguished and he told her no I'm
00:04:51
sorry it's only
00:04:52
$125,000 value in your damn
00:04:55
Ranch and so he came to me and said
00:04:58
Charlie can you talk some sense into
00:05:01
this elderly
00:05:02
appraiser and so I looked at his problem
00:05:06
and
00:05:08
I totally impress but I thought how he's
00:05:12
doing his own appraisal wrong I'm not a
00:05:14
real estate appraiser he is and what he
00:05:17
had done is what he was taught to do in
00:05:19
appraisal school he thought the problem
00:05:21
through in two
00:05:22
dimensions and he figured out from
00:05:25
comparable sales what the value per acre
00:05:27
was and he computed the acreage and he
00:05:29
had something a little bit on the on the
00:05:32
damage the easement would do to the
00:05:34
remaining property and so but it was all
00:05:35
done in two dimensions and I said to
00:05:38
this appraiser you got to do this in
00:05:41
three
00:05:41
dimensions you know God gave us three
00:05:44
dimensions and I said if they put the
00:05:47
utility Towers big transmission line
00:05:49
Towers which is why they is going it's
00:05:52
going to freeze the grade and The
00:05:53
Logical way to all your land is to Lop
00:05:56
off the top of the hills and put them in
00:05:57
the valley that's the way Helly land is
00:06:00
developed and they're doing enormous
00:06:02
damage to you by freezing the grade and
00:06:06
he said he wouldn't change a damn thing
00:06:08
so I said to my elderly client I think
00:06:11
you have to fire this
00:06:14
twit and I will hire you an appraiser
00:06:17
who can think and so I got him
00:06:21
$600,000 which wasn't at all hard
00:06:24
because I was dealing with a bunch of
00:06:25
honest engineers at the Edison who did
00:06:27
think in three dimensions but again
00:06:30
that's so simple but you'd be surprised
00:06:32
how many lawyers would screw that one
00:06:35
up and and of course the people like
00:06:39
that appraiser who didn't know his own
00:06:41
business very well because he didn't pay
00:06:43
attention to the fundamentals those
00:06:45
people are always with us and if you
00:06:47
just have the mental trick of
00:06:50
constantly going back to the
00:06:52
basics it's pretty basic Insight that
00:06:55
are you conscious that the geometrical
00:06:58
problem in a real world is dimensional
00:07:00
are you conscious of the rules or are
00:07:01
they're just
00:07:02
[Music]
00:07:04
there well it's so habitual with yeah I
00:07:07
understand that and I revolve
00:07:10
possibilities and I rag problems hard
00:07:13
and if they don't yield I come
00:07:15
back and what what and and so this is
00:07:19
just a bag of tricks and it enables a
00:07:21
non- predus man to get prodigious
00:07:24
results
00:07:30
[Music]
00:07:38
[Music]
00:07:53
[Music]
00:08:00
[Music]