PWE043 Russian Personal Finance Author Denis Gorbunov

Passionately Wrong Podcast Episode E043

Interview - Denis Gorbunov

Key takeaway: Denis shares what it's been like moving from Russia to the Czech Republic and now Germany, as well as moving from a physicist in a laboratory to a management role, and how to keep developing in life. He shares his journey to becoming a personal finance author. 

Topics covered in this video: 
What does a Scientific Coordinator do?
Why do physicists come to other research centers
Languages in business - English, German
Challenges in going from the researcher role to a manager role
Culture shock on moving from Russia to the Czech Republic, then Germany
Practicalities of obtaining a visa in several countries
What professional development looks like for a scientist
Work-life balance, writing on Medium in addition to full-time work
Becoming a popular writer on the personal finance topic
Sources of expertise: experience, reading, courses
How to write an engaging non-fiction article
What Substack does versus Medium, monetization
Room temperature superconductivity
Be wrong less often by being open to change, iterating, and making mistakes (a mistake is just a data point) 

Resources in this video
Robert Kiyosaki (author of finance books)
The Intelligent Investor (book by Benjamin Graham)
Technitrader (online stock market training courses)

Transcript

Denis: 0:00

What I should have done, but didn't, was to scale my productivity. Not in a linear way, but in an exponential way. maybe by growing my team, right? by hiring people who would work for me, who would work on my projects. I didn't do that. And I believe that was my, number one mistake in the laboratory.

James: 0:18

Greetings, friends. I'm James.

Randy: 0:20

And I'm Randy. You're listening to The Passionately Wrong podcast where we challenge your assumptions, offer some different perspectives, and hopefully help you make better decisions.

James: 0:32

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Passionately Wrong podcast. I'm here with my co host, Mandy Searles. I'm James Bellerjohn, and today we have the pleasure of speaking with another guest, Dennis Skorbenoff. Dennis and I met online, actually. we met on a site where writers can publish their work and reach a pretty wide audience of people. It's called Medium. And I noticed this guy writing a amazing range of diverse stories on different topics, a lot of, and I really couldn't pin him down at first because he was writing on so many different things. And but what I remember. Being impressed by Dennis is that you wrote short, clear, interesting, about a diverse range of topics and that's very hard to do. People get excited about something and get interested in it and then they provide too much detail. you didn't do that. in the meantime, I think you've, I won't say niche, but you've found a few areas that seem to interest you more and you write more regularly about them. we'll get into that, and we'll get into some other things, but to set the stage for our watchers and our listeners, maybe you could just briefly introduce yourself, tell us, however much you wish about, you and how you got to where you are today, and then we'll get into the interesting

Denis: 1:42

details. Thank you, James. these are very kind words. I think that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to online writing. but indeed, online writing is, is a very interesting thing, that lets you reflect, on yourself and on your life. And I'm very happy to have met you on Medium, too. I'm, a German resident. I'm a scientific coordinator, here in a local research center. I haven't always had this job, in fact, I had, I've had a few struggles along the way, and, I believe that it's an interesting story by itself how I arrived where I am now, and yeah, I'm ready for your questions.

James: 2:15

All right, so I have two questions. you, of course, Pete, our interest when you say you've had a few struggles along the way. People like to hear about struggles and how you have overcome those struggles, but maybe your current job, I was wondering, what is a scientific coordinator? You're a scientist yourself. You've got a PhD in physics. Does that mean you're not doing experiments and hard work yourself and you're just shuffling other scientists around? What does a scientific coordinator do?

Denis: 2:41

Yeah, I would say that you provided a pretty, exact description of what I do. Yes, a scientific coordinator basically is a science manager. So there are a number of things that we do. I'm responsible for the communication between, local scientists and our research center with external scientists. they, come together on a regular basis to perform experiments, and when these experiments, happen, in our place, in our research center, this is where I come in. I should make sure that there, that nothing goes amiss when they talk to each other and that, the paperwork is

James: 3:12

in order. So is the reason for physicists to coordinate on research, so someone outside would come to the scientists at your center because you have resources that they need access to, I keep reading about how complicated and expensive doing, high particle research is anyway at CERN. These things take hundreds of millions of euros and 20 years to run or some ridiculous amount of time and money. Is that why you would have, cooperation between scientists or are there other things also going on? Is it resources or is it expertise?

Denis: 3:44

It is expertise and I would say facilities. you can do this, this particle research only at designated facilities, for example, at CERN in Switzerland, or for example, also in our place here in Dresden. I'm based in Dresden. The thing is that if you, James, would like to perform such an experiment, you're always welcome. You have to write a research proposal. Where you explain what exactly you want to do, why it is interesting, whether it can be applied, like whether it is, application oriented science and, some other stuff. And then the, your research proposal will go to, for a committee that will evaluate it. And if everything is fine, if your proposal is feasible, if it is also, if it is also scientifically sound, if it has never been done before, then you're welcome to come. The problem is that, these kind of facilities are very rare, right? And that means that, for example, you cannot perform an experiment, such an experiment in, I don't know, say in Prague, right? But you're welcome to come to Dresden.

Randy: 4:43

Does the German government pay for

James: 4:44

it? Or is it

Denis: 4:45

Europe, EU? it depends. It depends. Sometimes it's a local government, the state here is called Saxony. It can be the local Saxonian government. It can be the German government. The money can also come from the European Union.

James: 4:57

It depends. So what's your working language? did you have to, and did you learn German before moving to Germany? Do you guys conduct business in English because you got scientists coming from all over? Is it Russian because all the businesses come from Russia? What's the, yeah, what's your

Denis: 5:12

mix? I think that the, main language is of course English, uh, as you said, because most of the people come from abroad, but German definitely helps. It helped me when I arrived in Germany, I wasn't yet fluent, but I had, say, basic understanding of what it takes to speak good German. And I think it took me another three or four years to become proficient in this language. it was like, a huge effort on my part, but I knew that I needed that. And I love learning languages in general. So it paid off in the end. my German wasn't actually so good when I was, in the laboratory, I moved to my new job about one and a half years ago. And in the laboratory, we would mainly speak English because the community is international. But now that I have this more managerial job, almost all my new department consists of Germans. It's only Germans, apart from a couple of ladies who are not Germans. Anyway, so we speak German as much as possible. And that kind of, made me leave my comfort zone, which was a very good thing in the end. Yeah.

James: 6:11

Why did you study German? Did you have in mind that you might one day wish to go to Germany and maybe you take us through a little bit the journey of steps, from your, studies and getting your PhD to you worked for some time and studied in, the Czech Republic, I believe. What were the reasons for your steps along the way? Was it a plan or somewhat serendipitous? how did it evolve?

Denis: 6:32

I actually started, to learn German when I knew that I would get a contract in this country. And I think it was in May 2014. And I knew that I would start working here in, December, 2014. So it was like six or seven months difference. And I just wanted, to be more or less ready to, to handle, administrative stuff. in this country, things related to my visa, things related to, to the electricity bill and stuff, because it's all in German.

James: 6:58

Yeah, they don't make it easy for you, necessarily. of course, the Germans, and Randy, you'll have had this experience moving to several different countries and having to deal with stuff. You'll bump into people who will speak some English, of course, and maybe a lot of English, but at the same time, all the paperwork, all the administrative stuff, all your permits. You're going to have to speak the local language, right? Absolutely. Yeah.

Randy: 7:21

It's the same in the United States though. I don't think it's, I don't think we should expect that to be in multiple languages. my marriage certificate on the other hand is in five different languages from Denmark. That was

James: 7:31

nice. That's impressive. I think you're forgetting, Randy, that the default language for the world should be English because we are still the world's superpower. So everything is a deviation from that. Now we're getting canceled. yeah. since we're on it and you've mentioned your switch from being in the laboratory to then being a manager, do you miss doing the experiments and the research, or is it a new challenge that you're embracing how to be a manager? Now I understand why you've been reading the career path articles as well as the other ones, Dennis. how has it been switching to the life of a manager and putting on a different hat as it were?

Denis: 8:05

Yeah, that's a very good question. that I cannot answer with a simple answer. so I believe that I miss, the previous challenges in the laboratory before I had. challenging samples, for example, you have a sample and you glue to, to sensors to eat, trying to measure, I don't know, for example, it's electrical resistance and something goes wrong. You have to take the sample out of the cryostat, you have to warm it up, you have to take a very close look at your contacts. And then, figure out why it's not working. That was very interesting. And I believe, but I believe the most interesting part was again, meeting new people. whenever I had external users in my laboratory that I had to help, with experiments. And another interesting part was traveling for experiments too. For example, last year I traveled twice to Japan and I didn't pay a dime for that, because the laboratory paid everything. that was naturally very nice. and the few sleepless nights that I had to stay and, do those experiments, did not matter at all. Now I still travel, but not for, the scientific reasons. I travel more, mainly, to organize, one or two things abroad. For example, our organization is now running, a project in Jordan. So things are getting complex there, but the country is still at peace. And so we, we continue our work in this country. So that's one of the things that, that I'm missing, being abroad, doing a one week long experiment is a fantastic experience. talking to new people, trying, eating new food and stuff. It's all great. but other than that, I am, I wouldn't say that I'm missing being in the lab. Because, as you said, there are new challenges now. Now, I switched from challenging samples, maybe sometimes to challenging people this week, for example, we were organizing a local conference for, An internal conference, for, for the people from our research center, there's more than, 1, 400 people. So there were, a lot of communication with, with a number of, colleagues who wanted to give a talk, who wanted to present a poster. I don't know who had, special needs when it came to catering and stuff. And it all went well, but it also, made me, go out of my comfort zone because I had never done this before. and yes, I was worried and I was losing sleep at one point. but again, when this happens to you, it means that you grow and, it is this kind of thinking that kind of kept me going and not regret my decision to be a manager instead of scientist.

Randy: 10:26

that's, that's a really good perspective. the kind of different challenges you face as you grew up the manager level. I'm really curious cause you keep, talking about your travels and things like that. James and I are both American and we spent a lot of time in Europe growing up in, in the middle East a little bit. and we had a, episode about culture shock and how to adapt. and how easy it is and I think for Americans, just about going anywhere is like a huge culture shock from what we're used to. And a lot of people can't really, people who haven't experienced it, like James and I are, some of them are like horrified. Like, why would you live there? but, but I'm really curious for you coming from you, where you went and then you, I think the first place you went was Czech Republic and then you went to Germany. Thanks. Was it a huge change for you? Was it hard to adapt? Was it fun? Was it? Was it, the language, you talked about the language barrier, and that's true just about everywhere. but beyond the language barrier, was it, were you looking around going, why are people doing that? And how are they doing that?

Denis: 11:27

Oh, I can say so much about this. the first thing, yes, I did have a cultural shock in the Czech Republic. I moved to the Czech Republic in 2010. And, I believe, there is a curve, that shows your emotional state when you move abroad. At the beginning, it goes up, which means that, you get more and more excited and though, and then it comes crushing down. And it was exactly how it happened with me. Only it didn't happen like on a two week scale. I think it happened to me maybe on a three day scale. So I arrived in the Czech Republic. I think it was a Friday, and that was my first day. So I didn't sleep. I asked my boss, to let me go to my student's dorm because I was only beginning my PhD, to sleep for one hour. So I slept for one hour and then went back to the laboratory and we started working. Then I had a weekend. I believe that Saturday and Sunday I went to Ikea to buy a few stuff, to make my life more or less comfortable. And then on Monday, like I had to dive very deeply into, into what I was doing in the laboratory, because there was, one, one machine that could run a number of various, a number of scientific measurements, like electrical resistance, magnetic properties and so on. And it was constantly occupied. And it was like ready specifically for me for one week and my boss told me, you have to be like ready to go to the laboratory to change your sample 24 seven, like the machine should never stand still. Okay. Because, he was my new boss. I, naturally, I, yeah, that made me, act in a way that, you know, that he told me. And at that point I actually realized, like I was very excited about moving to a new country, but I realized that basically nobody, nobody cared, right? Nobody knew me there. I had a contract and the only person I knew there was my new boss, but nobody cared. Nobody was interested in me in particular. Nobody was interested to know in my, I don't know, in my knowledge and my experience and my anything. And to know that. that was, I believe that was a good realization, that also made me a bit frustrated to know because I thought that everybody would be as excited as I was, which of course didn't happen. But then, what helped was, that I had to focus on, on what I was doing in the laboratory. And to know it take me. It took me a couple of weeks, and eventually, made me forget, that I was in a new country. A couple of weeks later, it felt like I was, I had been living there for years.

Randy: 13:41

And then you moved to Germany. Was that a huge difference from Czech Republic?

Denis: 13:45

no, Germany was different because, during my PhD, which lasted four years, I think I went to Germany like 20 times specifically to the laboratory where I later started working. I already had a very good idea for Germany is so no, there was no culture shock at all in

Randy: 14:00

Germany. Yeah, I just moved to Spain and, Everything is closed on Sunday, like nothing is open on Sunday, we got here on a Sunday at our new place that we rented and we're like, let's go get some food and no grocery stores open. Nothing's open. there's restaurants are open, but. I think maybe if you go to a big city, maybe there's some grocery stores, but just little things like that. And now we have to plan our life around Sundays, nothing being open. And if we're out of food, we're going to starve. but just little things like that still annoy me, even though I've traveled a lot over the years and I still get bogged down by these things. And I think that's a big. Page from America where, you know, before COVID, especially it was 24 hour, 24, 7, 365 days a year, even on Christmas, you could find something open and get something if you needed it. And I had the same problem. I lived in Bogota, Colombia for a while and like they closed down for 10 days for Christmas, and if you don't, if you don't stock up, you're going to die, someone will find you, in your apartment all withered up and starving to death.

James: 15:05

But yeah, it's funny, Randy. I was, noticing stores that are closing on Thanksgiving next week. Thanksgiving is a big holiday here in the U. S. I'm like, what? I want to know that I can go at 2 a. m. anywhere and get, left handed knee scratcher because I need one. And I didn't think of it. Goodbye before. however, I will say that when we moved back to the U. S. after a long stint abroad two years ago, I also felt extreme culture shock. And culture shock comes from two different things. It comes from things genuinely being outside of your experience, and in our case, the second phenomenon is just being different than we remember or different than our expectations. So there's nothing objectively weird about, the new setting that we're in. It's just, hey, I expected it to be different. And especially if it's a place where you feel like I should be comfortable, then it's very dis disconcerting to have things not behave the way you expected. when you said nobody cared. Dennis, that is on the one hand true, but it's a little bit harsh the way you said it, and I think I understood that phenomenon as I started working when I was trying to get people to pay attention to things that I thought were important and priorities. I was trying to roll out an initiative. For example, people care, but they care much more about their own priorities. Right? So that's the way I learned to manage that one. It's not that they actively don't care about you. It's that they actively care about the stuff that is important to them. And to the extent you can help them, well, then they're happy to interact with you and talk with you. To the extent that you can't help them, you are neutral. And to the extent that you are competing for resources, why then you're an enemy, right? Not a friend. So it's always in relation to how does this help, advance my own priorities? people are very self centered, I find, both in their private life and in their work. And I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just a function of how people work. They work to optimize their priorities as they perceive them. So I turned that, I tried to turn that to my advantage by identifying ways to position my project or my priorities with the priorities of the organization that we're getting a lot of attention. I knew if the CEO cared a lot about this issue, why then, oh, this is just part of the CEO's project over here. So don't you care about it now? Of course. I don't know. so yeah, I just felt a little bit harsh when you were describing nobody cares. It probably felt that way to you. but that was the thought that was running through my mind. I'd be Czech culture. Yes, that's part of it too. I think you had a idea in your head that. The first move, moving to the Czech Republic, would change your life. Is that correct? And why did you think it would change your life, if that's true?

Denis: 17:33

as far back as I can remember myself, I have always wanted to be part of a multicultural, multinational society. And where I come from, in Russia, it's like that, but, in a different way. you have a lot of, people from Central Asia, that, that are guest arbiters. Yes. And, I wanted to be part of, the European society, Europe, in my opinion, I know Europe is small, but very cute and diverse. you hop on a bus and a couple of hours later you're in a different country. you have different people, different language, different food, different everything. And I find this extremely exciting. so I really wanted to be, I really wanted to be part of this. And I thought that it would definitely change my life, change my, change my perspective, change my perception of how I see the world, of how I see people. And I believe that it did. the first thing was the, that culture shock, that made me rethink my, my view of how people see you as a foreigner. And how you see, how you end up seeing them. Some of my expectations were crushed, but I believe that was a good thing, because that kind of makes you refocus, the, all the things that are important. yeah.

Randy: 18:39

So I'm familiar with, getting residency visas in different countries as an American, but how hard is it, or is it pretty simple for you from Russia to get your check one and then your German? Was it simple because you were a scientist or was it not simple at

Denis: 18:56

all? To get the visa for the Czech Republic was not simple at all. there is, in my hometown in Russia, there is a Czech consulate. So it was supposed to be easy. But I remember that back in 2010, it was only possible to get an appointment in the consulate, by phone on Wednesday, between nine and 10 o'clock.

Randy: 19:16

And is there, is everyone else trying to get one too, or are you the only person calling?

Denis: 19:20

that's exactly the point. I remember having three smartphones or mobile phones and I would be calling them like, like every second, like literally every second. And I counted then within one hour, I could make 600 calls. because oh my goodness, I just wouldn't stop. And so they would never pick them up. So I couldn't make an appointment. then I went to them personally, I called one of the departments, there was a woman who picked up the phone and I asked her to give me the console or the ambassador. She naturally didn't give him. But she gave me someone from the Czech Republic and I explained, what the problem was that I was a scientist that, that like I'm planning to do experiments. And just because of, this stupid phone thing, I couldn't get an appointment. And that person, gave me an appointment, but yeah, that cost me, I think three weeks of time and a bit of hours.

Randy: 20:12

Wow. But after that, it was pretty, pretty smooth.

Denis: 20:15

Yes. After that, it was

Randy: 20:16

smooth. I, actually had a similar incident with my paycheck. I used to be in the military. And I was supposed to get this bonus and it hadn't happened for three months and I kept calling the number for the finance people and no one would pick up and I happened to call on like a national holiday by accident. I forgot it was a national holiday and I called and some guy picked up like, hello, damn it. And I was like, what's going on? He's I didn't mean to pick up the phone. But. What can I do for you? And I told him my problem. He's I don't really handle this. I'm actually the supervisor of the whole office, but let me see what I can do. And then he solved my problem. But it was like total luck that I ever got through. And then on a, on another note, I applied for a visa for France from Romania. I was living in Romania at the time with my, my, now my girlfriend, then now my wife. And, no one ever goes to the French embassy in Bucharest to apply for a visa for France, because it's all in the EU, right? They don't have to, they just move, right? And, So there was nobody there. It was so easy. I wrote her an email. I was like, yeah, you want to come in tomorrow? I was like, yeah, I'll come tomorrow. And they're like, Hey, give us a passport. All right, here's your passport. And here's that form you gave me. okay, we'll call you. And then two days later, come pick up your passport. Here's your visa. But I've gotten all these Facebook groups where they're in the States. And they're like waiting six months for a consulate to get back to them or something like that. So we've been kind of lucky in a couple of different areas, but I appreciate that. I'm in same boat right now in Spain. I call, we call every day and we have a lawyer supposedly calling for us too to get an appointment. So I can get my residency here. We've been doing it for a month and I think we're going to have to go visit like you did in order to get this thing moving along because it's no one, they're like, no appointments. Yeah. It's very frustrating. Yeah. It's everywhere.

James: 22:09

it's everywhere. The bureaucracy. It requires, certainly some persistence and I think the stories you guys both told demonstrate that, I've had the same experience of, there's one day a month for one hour that the agency is taking appointments. There's, this, global entry process for getting a quicker entry through the airports, right? And they got completely backlogged during COVID and they stopped taking appointments. So then there was this huge crush of people who wanted to get them. And you can apply online, but then you've got to show up in person for the appointment. And they have few offices that do it. And it was literally one day a month at 8 a. m. We're going to start taking appointments. And as soon as they're gone. So I wish I had thought of having three phones, Dennis and battling all three of them simultaneously. He's a scientist. Yeah, exactly. Count on them to hack the process and come up with a better approach. And I think it reflects both, like you said, bureaucracy is complex everywhere, because if you don't understand the ins and outs, and frankly, it's not understandable, and it never will be. But if you're not from that culture, it's going to seem especially weird. And I think if a bureaucracy is dealing with immigrants or with foreigners, they sometimes let out their frustration on those poor foreigners, right? Because what are you going to do when you have a bad day at work? You come home and you kick the dog. if you're in an office that works with foreigners, you kick the foreigners because that's what you can do. I think that's also common. So it's good to be persistent and to just find other ways to work through the system. I guess the impression of an outsider looking at a scientist's life and you reinforce this a little bit with telling us what happened when you arrived in Prague, right? You got an hour sleeping and you were in the lab and then, for a week you have access to a machine and by God, 24 seven, you better be available to it. That suggests, that work life balance is a little hard to come by. I know that's a topic that you've been thinking about, and of course everyone thinks about that. How do I advance in my career but not ruin my life while I'm doing it? How has your, both your thinking and your experience in trying to achieve work life balance evolved over time, and how's it looking for you now?

Denis: 24:12

It has, it has changed considerably over the last two or three years, I think. I was, I think that I was pretty hardworking in the Czech Republic, but then I completed my PhD and moved to Germany. just wanted to say that moving to Germany, all these visa things were much easier. Because, as Randall said, it's within the European union and, there are very few people in the embassy or in the consulate. And, I think that my visa was approved within one week and I didn't even have to make an appointment. I just went there, submitted my documents and one week later, they were actually very respectful. because I already had a PhD. So they were like, okay, we are very happy to have you in Germany. but then when I moved here, I wanted to, so the reason I moved is because I wanted to grow because Germany is a larger country than the Czech Republic. It's richer and it naturally invests much more in science opportunities here abound. and, there are lots of facilities where you can perform really exciting experiments. And that means, very good publications, new collaborations, conferences and stuff. all of that. So science also costs money, although we don't produce, we don't contribute to the gross domestic product. and I wanted to grow, because the laboratory, when I was working, is really state of the art, it has, like the best equipment in the world. along or say comparable, it is comparable with a number of other laboratories also in the United States. and I wanted, to learn as much as I could. So for example, I learned to code in the laboratory. I learned to give, presentations, give talks and a few other things. And, the point is that I had to do this after my kind of standard, nine to five. Because like you do your job, you, and then you just stay in the laboratory and do something else. and if you want to be independent, you better do this, I, for example, I was learning to code and some people were writing, research grants. to get their own money, to do what they wanted. I, in principle, didn't have this kind of freedom because I didn't have my grant, but that was also not the point of my work. But some people made this a point of their work. Such were the first five years in the Czech Republic, in Germany here for me. So 2014 to 2019. Then, COVID came, I was still go to work, which was probably the best thing. I didn't have to stay at home, during lockdowns. But I realized at one point that I stopped growing, like I didn't know what else I could do. That was 2020. And I didn't know what else I could learn. naturally I didn't know everything, that, at one point, like you basically know that you maybe just need, a day or two to learn, like a new. I don't know, a new technique to measure something else, but it's not, it will not really contribute to not a great advancement of your own knowledge. So I started looking for a job somewhere else, especially in industry here where I am living. There are a few factories that produce semiconductors. It's a, currently this is a very big thing here in Saxony. I believe that Intel is building a new plant. In Magdeburg. And then, there are also, local companies like, okay, not necessarily local, but anyway, there are a few semiconductor producing companies. I was starting to look for a job with them and discovered one, one very interesting thing. They were a lot of job openings. But, I couldn't get a single interview, a single job interview, although my qualifications in principle fitted what they were looking for. And I talked to a few people who were also looking for a job, in the same industry, and neither could they get an interview. This made us think that maybe, the COVID time was a very uncertain time and, many businesses wanted to make it clear that they were doing okay, but they were also they wanted to create an impression that they were doing okay, but they, weren't sure of what was going, of what was happening the next day themselves. So anyway, this lasted for, I think, maybe one year, maybe one and a half years at which point I gave up. and then my contract was finishing. by that time I was already, I already knew that I wouldn't really stay in science. So I started to, fine tune my work life balance, to spend, to spend more time working on the things that matter to me, outside of work. And then, yeah, my contract was over and I had to move to a new job. And I remember that at the beginning of my new job, so about a year ago, I was doing like, 10, maybe 11 hours in the office. And at one point my new boss, came running into my office and said to me, Dennis, why are you doing so many extra hours? we have to do something about this. I was like, but no, but I'm working like before, like in the laboratory, you know how scientists work. And she was like, no, it's not going to work here. you have to stick to your work life balance, You're making us look bad

James: 28:31

and it costs extra money when you work extra hours. That's funny.

Denis: 28:34

Right. So she, she made it very clear to me, Dennis, like you, your workday is nine hours. You should stay at work for nine hours. After, afterward, go home, do something else. And I remember in the laboratory at one point, all of us received, a warning from the personal department because almost everyone, myself included, had had done like 500 extra hours. And by German law, it is actually prohibited. So they gave

James: 28:59

you a year off?

Randy: 29:00

What? So they gave you a

Denis: 29:01

year off? I was hoping for that. I actually went to talk

James: 29:04

to

Denis: 29:05

him and ask him, whether I could maybe take, one, one month off, seriously. And he said to me, no, we will work like before, I don't care about what the personal department says.

James: 29:17

I don't care about the law.

Denis: 29:17

and it's the same organization is the same research center is just that my former boss was a scientist and my new boss, she used to be a scientist, but now she's a manager too. And she says, don't work more than nine hours a day, which is probably a

James: 29:30

mother. So for all those people listening who are wondering whether it's worth the work to make your way up to a management role, here is the answer, that you've been looking for. Yeah, managers take care of themselves a little bit nicer.

Denis: 29:42

yes, I'm very happy with the work life balance that I have now. Because, I can come back home, say, at five o'clock in the evening. So I'm typically at seven o'clock, in the office. Because, I like, as I wrote on Medium a couple of times, I like to attack the day before it attacks me. I like it when I'm alone. because it, it gives me, maybe an extra hour, when I can focus on what I'm going to do during the day, when things are calm. And then at five o'clock in the evening, I'm at home or maybe in the city and I can work on my writing or I can meet someone, for coffee. And this really feels great. Germans take work life balance very seriously, unless they are not scientists.

James: 30:19

you're touching on it a little bit, but did you notice yourself or in others that, productivity or effectiveness was not necessarily correlated with the number of hours a person worked? That is to say, even in your own case, I suspect you might say, Hey, look, I can get just as much done in my eight or nine hours now as I used to working 11 or 12 hours because Yeah, whenever my work habits changed, I found out ways to work more efficiently, rather than just putting more hours in. How has your thinking evolved on that issue of working hard versus working smart, if I can say it that way?

Denis: 30:53

Yeah, that's a very good question. I would say that, when I was in the laboratory, my, the longer I stayed at work, the more I could produce, but in a linear relationship. more hours equals simply more experiments, linearly. What I should have done, but didn't, was to scale my productivity. Not in a linear way, but in an exponential way. maybe by growing my team, right? by hiring people who would work for me, who would work on my projects. I didn't do that. And I believe that was my, number one mistake in the laboratory. which is why I was eventually let go. but now, now, it's different. I have, I hope that I have learned my lesson. And as we were organizing this conference, this week, I, I was like, the main person responsible for the organization. And I distributed, the tasks, among a number of people. I still did most of them myself, a few things that I either didn't want to do or could not do, or didn't have the, I don't know the, how do you say this, like the credentials to do, for example, I wasn't allowed, to order catering. So this, this had to be done by another colleague, that has access to our budget, so I distributed, the tasks and it all went very well. Still, I didn't have to do more than nine hours a day,

Randy: 32:04

which is in America, it's eight hours a day, but you're, but in Germany, it's nine. Don't do more than nine. Oh,

James: 32:10

yes. Randy, I watched the evolution of Dennis on media, and at least it seemed that way to me, where over the course of the year that I've been reading him, he became, Uh, guru is probably not even too strong a word in my view, but a really great writer about personal finance topics. How do you save money? How do you, what do you do with that money once you get it? And how do you invest it? And for me, that was, I don't know anybody who writes more compellingly, more clearly, and more accurately about personal finance topics, which, is really remarkable, Dennis, when I consider. Your evolution, your background, obviously, you have a personal interest in the topic, tell us a little bit about that interest and about how you came to your knowledge of and understanding of personal finance. First of all, am I describing it accurately? Is it something you're interested in? Or is that just, I'm noticing it because I'm interested in it. but tell me, tell us what's your

Denis: 33:04

approach to that? Yeah, I am now deeply interested in personal finance, especially in investing. I believe that it was in 2019 that I had amassed about 60, 000 euros in my bank account. I would say that, I knew that, I knew it was stupid that I wasn't doing anything with this money. It was just parked in my bank account because I simply didn't know what to do with this. I remember hearing someone very smart when I was a kid saying that you should, let your money work for you, but I had no idea how. And I knew, there was a thing called the stock market, but I thought that was all speculation, and that if you invest in it, then you're bound to lose your money. So I wasn't doing anything. But at one point, I decided to go to my bank, and speak to someone about it. Which was in principle a bad idea in itself, you don't speak to banks, you know about what to do with your money. but, the, the guy who I spoke to, proposed a few investments, which, We were rather compelling in my opinion, but I still didn't invest. And then at the end of the year, I decided, okay, I'll give it a try. And as everyone or anyone who has never invested to know, I picked a, a large, strong, famous company that paid dividends, which was Coca Cola. And I remember I received my first, dividends, like about 20, 20 euros. about a month later and I was euphoric, it felt like, you know, free money. so now I am an investor, I understand capitalism and stuff. That, that, that was what I was thinking. That was the end of 2019. Then we had 2020. And you know what happened in March of 2020? Your dividend

Randy: 34:33

check went down? What? Your dividend

Denis: 34:36

check went down? No, the dividends still came as expected, but my portfolio took a plunge. I am, I'm still happy that I didn't sell anything in panic. In fact, I didn't sell anything. I sold, the few stocks that I was holding a few months later when they came back. But it was a good lesson, right? that. investing, investing definitely pays off, but, the main lesson is not the stocks that you choose. I believe that the main lesson is, whether you have yourself under control because, I wasn't, I wasn't part of the crowd that, that contributed to the plunge of the stock market. And then, yeah, One of the things that made me realize that I had to take care of my own retirement. I'm investing for retirement. I'm naturally interested in making money, but I understand that, maybe like James, some, a decade or two down the road, I will, decide that I want to stop working that I want, to do something more useful. like in the sense of having, a regular work. a regular job. So I decided that I wanted to grow my retirement account. And the fact that I couldn't stay in the laboratory, I couldn't keep doing, I couldn't stay at the job that I loved more than anything else, made me realize that permanent contracts now are more of a luxury than a, well, than a rule. That, I actually have a permanent contract right now, but I wasn't really, it wasn't like, I was ready to do anything for it. I wasn't obsessed with this idea. And so investing was, was, one thing that, I knew I needed to do in order to, be able to provide for myself. I'm 36 now, maybe in 20 or 30 years when I'm 66, maybe nobody will want to hire me again, but then I should be self sufficient. So

James: 36:10

as part of the financial self sufficiency, you needed to become, financially savvy to be aware of what were the right ways to approach it. So you mentioned a big key is just controlling yourself, right? You can't control the markets, but you can't control your reaction to things. And from that first time of going and talking to the person at the bank, knowing you needed to get more information, you've obviously learned more. Where did it come from? Was it reading books? Was it looking online? where, how did your financial education take place? Did you go get classes? What did you do to learn how to, approach your long term retirement, savings, in the way that you've done?

Denis: 36:48

I believe that I've done a bit of everything. naturally nothing, nothing replaces a real life experience. So I believe it's a good, it's a good experience to live through at least one, one market crush to, to really, to get to know yourself. Another source of information is books. Naturally, yes, I have an hour, a number of books at home, starting with Kiyosaki and ending with the intelligent investor by Benjamin Graham. but I also took classes. There is an American company, it's called Technitrader. they give, professional stock market classes where they explain how the stock market works, what kind of, charting software you should use to analyze stocks, what, which factors you need in order to make a stock go up, things like that. I was learning from the company. They have a yearly subscription. you can buy a course from them and then you can also subscribe to them. So I stayed with them for two years. it was at a point in 2020 when I realized that I was obviously missing something. I didn't understand why some, I did not understand why some stocks were going up and why some were not going up. So I took, yeah. So I took that course and it helped me immensely, understand, what's behind all this. yeah, what's behind the role of the stock market in the American economy and in the world economy too.

James: 38:02

Probably one of our few points of disagreement, is the, I don't know what's the right word respect or deference that I think you pay to professional investors and institutional investors and you make a good point, which is it's important to know what these firms are doing and why, And now that I think about it, as I'm listening to you talk, and I realize how many hard science, people, how many physicists in particular, end up going to Wall Street and making their way in the world of investments, quants, as it were, I probably should listen to you more than I should trust my own instincts about this, but, All right. and, do you feel like you, certainly from the advice that you are giving online or the summaries of, advice you're giving online, actually investing as a technical matter, what you actually do with your money isn't complex at all, is it? the much harder part is controlling your emotions and not making hasty decisions when markets are gyrating and going up and down. I think if I could summarize what I understand your approach, it is local. Automate your process, save a significant amount of what you earn, invest it in a way that will, obtain the broader market performance. So put it in a broad based, market fund and then just let the power of time do its work for you. So start saving now and invest for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. this is different than Randy's approach, by the way, which is, yeah. Put in 30 hard years working for the government, which is going to then pay you a proper pension and, no, I'm, I don't want to mischaracterize your approach, Randy, but I am impressed by all the ways in which you also paid attention to money over the course of your career. Not that you let it drive your life, but you didn't leave money lying on the table, let's say. Randy also picked up and studied several languages along the way because the military paid him extra. When he learned, to speak a certain language with an additional proficiency, and he kept jumping out of airplanes for 30 years, probably because you liked it, but also because if you were jump qualified, it gave you a certain additional amount in your paycheck or, and you did several things like that along the way that ultimately contributed to you having more financial security now than you otherwise would have. but, Anyway, there was a bunch of stuff going on in there. anything else you want to say to us about and to either agree or contradict with what I just said about, I characterized your approach to investing. So I'll let you comment on whether that's accurate or whether you'd add anything

Denis: 40:16

to it. Yes, I want to say, I want to add one thing. I think it was about a year ago when I actually started, actively writing about personal finance and especially about picking individual stocks. Which I fully realize is not a good idea for most of the people, including myself. And I remember that James was, one of the few people, who would argue with me, over, over this point. And, it was a good thing, because as you write, you actually explore what, the audience that reads, your stories actually thinks. And I really changed, I changed my focus and which also came, partly from my experience. I still hold a few individual stocks, but I never advertise these kind of, I never advise anyone, to, to select individual stocks and all because this is an emotional rollercoaster, even if you pick a very strong company. It will still be an emotional roller coaster. I have companies, that, that are profitable, that are growing their revenues. And still, within three months, they may lose like 50 percent of their capitalization. For no specific reason, it's not that there is heavy selling, it's just that no one, nobody's buying. If you people are selling the stock and to know it loses like 50 percent of market cap. it, it doesn't make sense to me. And to know it as the next earnings call, it goes up by 44%. and you are, I get very happy, uh, on these days, although I understand that I should actually stay in emotional and I understand that it might be, it might be hard, to handle this kind of, jumps, money jumps in your investment account. So I, Was following what James was telling me. and I came to the conclusion that it's better to really know, to focus on this kind of standard investment advice, to pick a broad, a broadly diversified index fund that is also low cost, that it is maybe the most certain way to make money in the stock market long term. this advice is cliche, uh, and if I express it using the words that I just said, nobody will be interested. I also understand that. people on the internet want to read something that, that is exciting, that is new, that provides a different perspective. It doesn't have to be different advice, right? It has to be, it just has to present a different perspective. one people have never thought about. And, so I'm doing these, but I'm just trying to, to maybe add a personal touch, a personal story of what kind of difficulties I have had in my investing journey. Or, I just talk about a friend or a colleague, who have made a killing in the stock market or who have made a fortune, by investing long term.

James: 42:35

Yeah, Randy, this is how Dennis is already, a better writer than I am, and you see the scientific approach to it, because Randy is also now, a developmental editor, so he spends a lot of time working with people, improving their stories, improving their books, and he's always talking about the story, the, what's the plot, how are you getting people interested, just what you were describing, if I give the plain old standard advice, no one's going to care about that, so how do I make it interesting? And I always start with the wrong assumption that the fact that I'm trying to describe is of itself interesting. So if I just describe the fact more clearly than that, the idea, that should be enough. Whereas, you two are always saying, as I see it, Hey, look, what's the story? What's the hook? What's going to make this thing interesting? how has your writing career evolved, Dennis, in terms of learning how to write a story that people want to read? has it been mostly on medium? I think you've also started a sub stack in the meantime. Do you want to say anything about your progress as a writer?

Denis: 43:33

My, writing is definitely going better than one year ago when I was just starting out. I still have a lot, really a lot to learn. sometimes when I read top writers, I understand just How, how great their writing is, they don't tell you, they show you, their story, their stories, just creates images in your brain. I understand that I'm not at that level yet, but yeah, I would like to be there. I don't, some of my best performing stories actually relate to person to, either to my personal experience or to someone I know who, have lived, something interesting. For example, there is a, I have a colleague in the research center. He's a technician and electrician. And, James might remember this story. this guy's a millionaire. he has made his fortune in the stock market because and he was born in the German democratic republic, which didn't even have a stock exchange. there was a stock exchange, but no, I think in the seventies and eighties, only local companies were allowed to do transactions there. Not, not individual investors. So somebody who actually came from this background and jumped on the stock market, as soon as the, as soon as Germany reunified and has made a fortune. In the meantime, I believe this is a remarkable story. And when I composed it, people, responded to it. I believe that it was interesting to, to, yeah, to, to quite a few readers on Medium. So this actually shows that, yeah, I basically work on trying to, add a personal touch to every story that I write. And, yeah, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but it's, often iterating trial and error. I read

Randy: 45:04

an article by James the other day about the people who write, who comment, who give you negative comments and sometimes are just rude or ignorant or both. And do you get a lot of kind of those

Denis: 45:16

trolls as well? yeah, sometimes, some people, really look, are looking to pick a fight, with a writer. I don't get many of these, but

James: 45:23

Only me. only me, Dennis.

Denis: 45:25

I would say that we always have a constructive discussion. Yeah, no, of

James: 45:28

course, I try. But I'm, as you said, I'm not shy about disagreeing with authors that I know will take it right. So whenever I disagree with you, I know it's going to create a discussion because you'll say, Oh, I either hadn't thought of that or, Oh, you haven't thought of this. And I learned something from it. And Medium's not bad in my experience. There's not a lot of trolling as such. I

Randy: 45:51

just see the trolling probably doesn't happen in the articles that you guys are writing about, but I've seen some big trolling and any political issues where people are just nasty for no reason.

James: 46:03

Yeah, I don't lose their sense of humor on politics. Yes, absolutely. We're going to say.

Denis: 46:09

Are you all from Medium?

Randy: 46:10

I actually introduced James to Medium, but, I don't write about anything interesting, apparently. I write about how to write better, and there's so many people that do that already. And I also write about military, kind of military benefits and things like that. And there's no, and there's no people really that are in the military that are, that want to pay the 50 or whatever it is, dollars a year to be part of Medium. I usually get. When I have, when I market my stuff, the military stuff, I get tons and tons of views, but not from any paid

James: 46:44

people.

Randy: 46:45

so I, I quit. I showed, James just long enough for him to get addicted. And now he's been doing it for over a year now. And he writes so many articles, more than I ever wrote. but I wrote, I took a class when I first discovered it in 2000, I guess 2021, I think is when I started writing something like that. Like after the big boom was like 2019, I think, when people were making lots of money on medium. And then I took a class from someone who made a lot of money on medium, and then I was like, I'm going to do this. And I dedicated, every day I was putting stuff out for two or three months.

James: 47:20

And I think I, yeah,

Randy: 47:21

capped out at 30 bucks one month. but I have, and then I introduced James and I said,

James: 47:26

I haven't done it, but a lot of, some people have. and so

Randy: 47:28

then I stopped, I haven't done it in six

James: 47:29

months, eight months. Medium changed, they've changed a lot of stuff and they tinker, but they no longer allow free views. so the three view, free views a month, you got to be a paid member to read, which is,

Randy: 47:39

which means that none of my military people are watching my things. I probably got to put them on my pot and my webpage now. So I can let the military see

James: 47:47

my great stuff for free. So Dennis, you started a Substack, not too long ago. How's that going? And how is it different? not that we get too far off down the road of writing, but of course it is interesting where all three of us are writing. Lots of people are looking at and trying to become content creators. This seems to be part of your general developmental journey, where you are learning new things, trying new things. How's it been going?

Denis: 48:09

Subst, I. Publish a weekly newsletter on personal finance on Substack. Substack gives you a unique advantage over Medium. On Substack, you own your audience, right? Because you have, an email list, and, each email from your list receives, whatever you publish. on Medium, you may have 100, 000 followers, but it's the algorithm that decides, how many of them will actually see your work. So Substack is definitely the way to go. But I have too few subscribers. I actually crossed 100 yesterday. after publishing with, you can do a guest post. You can publish a guest post on Substack, which means that for example, if Randall has a profile on Substack, he can add me as a writer. And then I publish my story on his profile and then Randall's readers will see my story and also my profile and they and if they like the story they will be able to subscribe to me. So this is

James: 49:02

your subscription free or paid at the moment.

Denis: 49:04

no, I'm not yet ready to monetize, what I like on Substack. Yeah, I just have 102 subscribers. I believe that it's a little too early to ask them to pay money. Maybe when I hit 1000, I'll begin thinking about that. But at this point, I'm actually happy that, I have subscribers at all. I added a few people that I know. Then my girlfriend asked, her friends to subscribe to me. And yeah, I'm growing, but very slowly. I'm not as happy with, with my growth, but I think that the way is to simply, keep going and sooner or later, you will hit, you, you will hit the next milestone.

James: 49:37

So if you look ahead five years, 10 years, how do you see things developing from a professional standpoint, from a. From a side gig standpoint, your content creation from a money standpoint, are you still in Germany? Are you still at the Institute? what are you, what's the future going to hold for Dennis?

Denis: 49:56

I believe maybe a decade later, I will still be in Germany. yeah, there is a chance that I won't be able to retire yet, but I'm thinking of moving to somewhere to Southeast Asia. later for retirement, over the last one and a half years, I've been twice. I've been to Thailand twice, and I really love the country, the climate, Jason, where you're not born in Thailand, you were born somewhere in Southeast Asia.

James: 50:21

no, that's not me. I've only ever spent time there as a tourist.

Denis: 50:25

Something is telling me that you either spent your childhood in Southeast Asia...

James: 50:31

Saudi Arabia and Holland. So not the Southeast Asia, no. All right. And you are adventuresome. I'm not sure I would be ready to contemplate retiring there either, but we know that already from the choices that you've made. Interesting. And maybe in that context... Why, how does Russia play into it? Do you see yourself going back there, visiting there? How have your attitudes about it changed since you left? Or is it pretty much clear, ah, no real reason to go back?

Denis: 50:58

I would only go back there to see my mother and father and a few friends. But other than that, I'm feeling very comfortable in Europe. No, I wouldn't want to go back and live there. often do you visit?

Randy: 51:10

Please say it again. How often

Denis: 51:12

do you visit? The last time I visited was before, the, this Ukrainian thing. I was, it was at the beginning of last year, before the war started. And I actually, I was at my mother's place, I think for two or three weeks. And then the day before I was due to go back to Germany, I tested positive for COVID and so I stayed for another 10 days, which was actually great, but I didn't understand at that time how good it was. Then I came here, then the war started and now. You can still go to Russia from Europe, but it's just more complicated. You cannot fly directly. I think you can go through either Serbia or Turkey. Turkey.

Randy: 51:50

Now, I went back to the States during COVID and like in 2020, I think at the end of 2020, and it was so hard to get back to Romania. I had to fly to Turkey to get back. All my flights were messed up. You had to get certain, whatever sort of, because it was before the, the vaccination even. So it was just like, People just didn't want other people in their country. It was so complicated.

James: 52:12

yeah, you're, what about when that nature article came out about room temperature, semi conductivity, you must have been saying to yourself, this is bullshit. there's no way, that would have been something that you could have got some headlines. And as a general rule, anytime someone comes out with an article that says they have discovered room temperature, semi conductivity, you could haul out your standard article that says, no, you haven't. but anyway, what was your thought when you saw that? Was it exciting? Did you immediately know it was bullshit?

Denis: 52:39

It was definitely very exciting, because we have, if you, at that time, we had a few visitors in our laboratory from the United States, from the high field laboratory in Tallahassee. they were doing experiments in our laboratory, on the same topic and they were naturally monitoring, these events very closely. We were basically discussing them with the scientists, almost every day. And they, I believe that at one point they were naturally very excited about that. But then at one point they realized that something was wrong with the nature article itself. like every article should have. like everything, what is happening with it or everything that has been happening with it should be documented. For example, the date that the first draft was received, the date, it was reviewed, the date was published. And I believe that even the nature, some of the dates were mixed up for no reason, or that they were changed later for no reason. But, people say that the internet does not forget anything, right? And so somebody apparently kept records. the, they like, changed the date of the submission by one month, I think. And there is like a chat, I think that you can leave a comment if you're registered in nature, at the bottom of the page. And they were, people like say, wait, but the article was actually submitted like, I don't know, say on, August 30th, not on July 30th. And then one week later, so on September 8th, I believe it was accepted. for an article of this kind of level, this kind of discovery, this kind of caliber, it is very unusual, to, for it, to go just one week, from submission to publication. you typically send it to a few reviewers, who need time, to read it, to think about it, to leave their reviews, to maybe, exchange a few emails with the editor. Then the authors of the article should be able to reply to the questions. posed by the reviewers. it's a whole process, it usually takes two or three months in the best case, especially for, for this kind of discovery. So they realized that, part of the story was bullshit, but it was actually hard to pinpoint what exactly that was. And then there was that physicist. Jorge Hirsch, I believe, he's a physicist at Santa Barbara, uh, and he, studied, he scrutinized, that, that article and found, I think, 13 inconsistencies in the original data. And so that article eventually ended up getting retracted. the

James: 54:59

reproducibility problem in science is real. It hadn't, it's usually in economics or psychology or, ones that aren't as hard as physics, but it is still an issue that people are. Desperate for attention, desperate for results, desperate for funding, I suppose without getting into trying to call people on fraud, because that's a whole other, level of work, what would be interesting would be all this talk about room temperature conductivity. What's it good for? What does, what would be four or five benefits that would immediately start flowing to society if we could achieve such a thing? I don't know. I don't, I've got other businesses, brands. I've talked to them about it a few times. I think that's something that most people don't have any concept of. Why is this such a big deal? Why is it so important? That would be something you could write about Dennis. That would be a cool. And I would certainly read suspect others would as well. Okay.

Denis: 55:47

Why should we care? Yeah, I'll keep this in mind.

James: 55:50

Alright, have we covered everything that we wanted to talk about anything else on the Dennis journey that we, you wanted to mention any last words for listeners.

Denis: 56:01

I just want to thank you for the very interesting conversation. It was my first podcast ever, and I have thoroughly enjoyed this experience. Very interesting. And thank you very much for the interesting questions. And the interesting discussion.

James: 56:13

maybe we do have to ask you one question, Dennis, and that is to make sure that we honor the theme of our podcast, which is passionately wrong. And that is how do, how does one avoid being wrong? And maybe we use the basic scientific process and what you just discussed about the superconductivity paper. That's a pretty big deal. but if you're a consumer. or any advice you might have in terms of what you've learned and either in your studies or in your work experience. How do you avoid as an individual being wrong about really important things? Have you picked up any tips or advice that you could share with us about? How to be wrong less often on important topics, whether it's investing or science or anything, actually, help us, with something that you might've learned. And I know this is coming out of the left field, but actually considering the name of our podcast, it is important for us to ask this.

Denis: 57:02

My, very general advice would be to be open to change. To be open to iterating, we don't know everything at the beginning, and this is perfectly normal. We grow maybe by learning from, the more experienced among us. But if we cannot do that, if, we all make our share of mistakes. And if that's the case, then, that's the way to go. We shouldn't be afraid of making mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life with money, with scientific experiments, even in my new managerial job. I've had, a few situations when I like screwed up in front of the director, but I think that's fine. eventually nobody will remember your screw ups. People will remember you for the good things that you are, that you have done and that you are doing. So not being afraid to experiment, to try out new things, in my opinion, is the way to go, especially now in 2023. my, my mother, for example, she's also a scientist. She's a chemist and she has been doing the same job. not exactly the same job, but she has been working in a laboratory for. How long I think for like more than 30 years now and that's perfectly fine, but I believe that the world is fast pacing now much faster than for example, when my mother was starting out. And so we shouldn't, settle for only one type of job, for the entire life. I think it's perfectly normal, to do, to do something that you love for a decade and maybe then move to a new place, that again, the challenges you, that teaches you something new. And so not being afraid of that is a good way to grow. Professionally and personally.

James: 58:36

I think that's a nice mindset to embrace change, first of all, but then also importantly to view mistakes as, a step along the way of an iterative process. I like to think in terms of continuous improvement, which implies that things are always going, in, in a positive direction. But what you're saying is, look, even if you have a mistake and something that looks like it's going in this direction, it provides data, you can learn from it. And then the next time you'll do better. that combination of, look, don't be sad and worried if you make a mistake. That's actually also part of how you get better. and therefore, you can be a little bit wrong. In other words, you don't want to be majorly wrong, but a little bit wrong actually helps you on your journey. So really we need to allow for, you can be passionately a little bit wrong. Maybe not. That's too long

Randy: 59:19

of a title. Yeah.

Denis: 59:21

Yeah. I believe that a mistake is just a data point. It basically shows you, how things do not work. I think that Thomas Edison is one who knows it very well.

Randy: 59:30

I think, I think, I think that's what we say a lot in our episodes is that keep an open mind. and I think one of the big things we haven't mentioned before is what Dennis brought up is, Is, don't be afraid to make mistakes and learn from your mistakes, which is something we don't often talk about that. We do talk about being having an open mind and listening to other people's opinions and in

James: 59:53

considerations and things like that. Yep, I agree. That's a good place to stop. I like that, Dennis. Thank you. And, we're honored to have you on your first podcast. We hope, you go on to great things and we see your name up in lights, for what's that in Thailand. There you go. Excellent. Dennis.

Denis: 1:00:10

I appreciate it. Good to meet you. Yeah, it was great. Thank you. All right. Bye Dennis. Talk to you later. Have a nice day.

Randy: 1:00:16

We'd love to hear what you think, so please comment on the show with your thoughts. We read all of your comments.

James: 1:00:21

Thanks for joining us, and thanks for subscribing. See you next time.