Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· John Kim
[00:00:00] S1: It depends on what your ambition is. In the end, the easy way to think about it is what kind of candidate do you want to support? There are people in the world, and I'm not judgmental about this, who say, look, I just want to be on a winning team. And there are candidates who are really strong candidates, who aren't necessarily people that giving them substantial sums of resources are going to do great in this world. But they're great candidate, and great candidates allow you to get elected. And when you're elected, there are benefits to the Secretary of State, period. In other words, the more powerful your candidate, the more powerful the Secretary of State. In some ways, many people who have these fundraising jobs — myself included — one of the humilities that we need to commit to is that we really are only as great as the people we represent. That I, when I was at my peak as a fundraiser, still am representing somebody else's greatness. And that's really important. So you have to then say, is it worth it to make the sacrifice and the ego deprivation for this candidate? And at different stages in your career and at different stages of your life and different stages of your egoic development, you'll make different decisions. You'll say, look, I want to make a lot of money for me and my family, so I'm going to find the best candidate who I can monetize. I want to be in a powerful place. And there are other places that say, look, I really actually want to try to attract resources to this individual because this individual is a candidate who I really believe in. And I'm okay if we only have a small amount of resources because I'm doing something that I believe in. And if you can find both, then you hit the jackpot. It's a little bit like marriage or careers in general. Why does everybody get married when 50% or more of people don't stay married? And actually maybe 75% of people shouldn't be. It's because when it works out, it's one of the most magnificent things that life can possibly give you. So the payoff's great. It's a little bit like jobs. When you find that candidate who is magnificent in their ability to attract capital and develop relationships, and they happen to be somebody who also is somebody who you ethically and emotionally just adore and want to see do well, that's like winning the lottery.
· John Kim
But unlike a bad marriage, it's not a binary experience. My experience is that to be a Secretary of State or a head of investor relations can have many powerful benefits and great intrinsic joys, because the flip side of it is that if you enjoy the job, you do — like your job — you enjoy the curiosity of meeting people and learning. If you like traveling a lot, you like interacting with people and playing the game of discovery of the person — then this is about as good a job as exists, because you get to play the exploration of people every minute of every day. When you're a Secretary of State or you're a head of investor relations and you're meeting all these people, you sometimes get some great intellectual stimulation, but you always get an opportunity to actually engage at the coalface of the human condition. And it's amazing what you get to experience. And I'd say that this is true for anybody who's done this job for a long time, or the job that I used to do for a long time, is that you make some incredible friendships. Because by definition, you spent all this time trying to get to the other side of trust. What is the other dividend? It's not the money that you were able to attract. It's that you actually became friends with the person. Cannot be any other way. If you're authentically developing trust, then you are authentically creating a friendship.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S0: If you think about your whole set of experience doing stuff like this, you were talking about this idea of inner games before we started recording. Your being interested in the inner game of interesting, exceptional people. What has the inner game been like for you across this period?
· John Kim, Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S1: The inner game of fundraising is really about putting the person in the room as the center of all conversation, that I actually don't exist but for the fact that I'm in your mind at this moment in time. I actually am just an object in your mind, and that object in your mind is being processed by all the stuff that is Patrick O'Shaughnessy. And so now that I'm living in your mind, what can I do to, in this case, make myself interesting, make myself compelling, make myself somebody you want to meet again? Make myself somebody that you are satisfied that you actually invited onto your podcast, because I'm inside your mind and what is going on inside of there. And when I look at you, I see such a deep curiosity. I see incredible patience as well. You're allowing me to have these long-form explanations. So when I'm talking to you, I really myself don't even exist over here as much as I exist inside your head. And that's the inner game of the highest level of persuasion. Mentalists do this. They get inside your head. Hypnotists do this. Psychologists do this. Anybody who is engaged in a mental discussion, if they're really good, they're not just saying, here's what I am. It's like, who are you and how do I address you in a way that actually is satisfying to you? And I hope I've done that in today's podcast. [00:00:00] S0: I think you know my traditional closing question for everyone. What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, John Kim
[00:00:00] S0: I think you know my traditional closing question for everyone. What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you? [00:00:00] S1: First of all, thank you for asking it, because it opens up such a cornucopia of gratitude in my life. There's no way I'd be where I am today without the charity of others. And so the hardest part was finding that one moment. When I thought about the nicest thing, I thought, it's actually the body of work of niceness. And that has to be my wife — the body of work of things that she does for me that is kind and nice. So the nicest thing she's done for me is support me and all of the lunacy that actually is connected to being a fundraiser and how hard it is and physically how difficult it is. But I'll tell you the one story about my wife. I'm 58 years old, so eight years ago, I had my 50th birthday and I was born in 1967. And so I grew up loving '80s and '70s rock bands and my favorite rock band is a band called Styx. And so on my 50th birthday — and I happen to play guitar, and so she got a band to play, and I happen to be able to play several Styx songs on my guitar. And so they called me up on stage and said, well, your 50th birthday, why don't we have John come up and play one of his favorite Styx songs? And so I'm like, great. They opened up the guitar case, and my wife got me an autographed guitar from every band member of Styx. And then inside there was actually tickets to the next show. And I got— and she got me backstage passes so I can meet the band. [00:00:00] S0: Amazing.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, John Kim
[00:00:00] S0: Amazing. [00:00:00] S1: Oh, amazing. And it was the nicest thing, to this day, that anybody's ever done for me. It was incredible because not only was it such a rare gift to give somebody, but she had to go figure this out and she had to have the resources to go do this. And by the way, just so you know, not only did she get me on stage to play a Styx song with this band. But my brother — my younger brother, who's five years younger than me — plays piano. She got him to learn the song on piano. It was Come Sail Away. So my brother gets on stage, starts playing the piano, and I'm laughing like, oh my God, my brother's a very busy guy. I'm sorry that you had to learn this. And so the whole thing was an expression of love, but it was an identity of me. It was a celebration of me. You can't ever take that away. [00:00:00] S0: Beautiful, wonderful place to close. You've taught us a lot today. Thanks so much for your time. [00:00:00] S1: Well, thank you. It was great to be here.