The Importance of Curiosity (2021)

“In this world, you’re either growing or you’re dying, so get in motion and grow” -Lou Holtz

At the start of 2021, I thought that I knew exactly what was going to happen. I was very aware that we were in the “everything bubble”. Stocks, bitcoin, crypto, real estate, and bonds were sitting at all time highs, and I saw no end in sight. I believed we were in a Weimar Germany type of market environment. In some ways, I still believe that we are there as a society. More on that later in my last section of this letter. My solution was very simple, and lacked critical thinking. I thought, the simple solution is to short the dollar, and buy the precious metals. If I had stuck to this thesis, and refused to change my mind, it would have resulted in devastating returns. The first few months of the year though, I refused to believe that I could be wrong. But, I knew that I was missing something, and so I decided I needed to find as many holes in my thesis as possible. That is when I came across many great minds and different theories. I started reading and listening to Brent Johnson and his dollar milkshake theory. I read and listened to Robert Breedlove and went down the rabbit-hole of “what is money?”. I analyzed much of Jeff Snider’s work, one of the only minds who understands the euro-dollar system and banking. I listened and read history, where I learned more about how we got into this challenging environment we see today. I have consumed thousands of pages, and thousands of hours of content, picking apart every thesis I have had. I’ve spent many hours with friends and family, soaking up as much knowledge as possible. Finding holes in my arguments, and strategizing what moves would be most beneficial to those who have trusted me to do the right thing. I came to find out the things which are supposed to be structured simply, are much more complicated than any one mind could understand. It has sent me on this lifelong journey of learning. One of my greatest realizations throughout the year is that the “smartest” people in the world do not have the advantage. Just because you have a high IQ, are well-read, and have fancy letters behind your name, means nothing anymore. The smartest people I have found are those with curious minds. Whether it is a friend of mine from college like Jason Cassens, a brilliant CEO like Michael Saylor, my eldest brother Evan Schwerbrock, or new friends like Jason Leonard, they all have one thing in common. A curious mind. To me, once you have lost your curious mind, you have lost much of what makes life so exciting, and that is because of the daily challenges it presents. The perfect mainstream example lately has been Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. They’ve underperformed the Nasdaq for over a decade and still refuse to accept they may need to change their process. I grew up looking up to these individuals so it’s been something that bothered me for a while. But in their late age they made the same mistake as most, they lost their curious mind. 

We grow up as small children questioning everything. We question ourselves and the world around us constantly, but many lose that advantage as they get older. You see it especially in the “boomer” generation. Complacency, because “this is how it’s always been”. I see it evermore in my generation as well. Young adults think they know everything because a professor said it in a class, or they read it in a book one time. There are more than we’d like to admit that get information from mainstream news and take it as the truth, especially the last couple years. The loss of what I call “curious-minds” is one of the least talked about, but one of the most harmful phenomena that plagues our world today. It is one of the easiest traps to fall into. And I am not so sure that this hasn’t been intentional. The mass majority of people can be misled, and told to do anything once they have lost their curious mind. Like sheep walking happily towards the slaughter house, never asking why they are taking this path ahead. Just following those ahead of them. I was on that path along with many market participants, and so I diversified my sources of information to better understand every angle and possibility. Lesson learned. Curiosity is what drives us forward as a species, becoming more innovative, productive, and prosperous in the process. That is why I am very comfortable telling people, “I was wrong”. It is much more admirable and respectable to admit you are wrong, because the alternative is that you have lost your curious mind. Intelligence is simply error correction. It doesn’t matter if you are 20 years old, or 90 years old, when we lose our “curious mind”, we are as good as dead. 

It’s important to point out that in Soviet Russia and the Weimar Republic, their first step to controlling the people was teaching them not to think critically. The misconception is that they bombarded the population with propaganda from the start, but this is just not historically accurate. The first step was to teach people to think based on how they feel, and ignore critical thinking. Don’t ask questions, this is the way it is. Critical thinking is of the utmost importance in any field. We all know this intrinsically, but somehow we have now lost that in the past 20 years. I’m not going to blame the education system, the news, politicians, the WEF, IMF, or anybody else. What I will do is tell it how it is, and why I’ve come to these conclusions. Keep in mind this is how I see the world currently, and feel free to question anything you may disagree with, that’s how we come to the truth.