The Morgan Housel Podcast

Episode: Very Bad Advice (And a Word on My New Book)

Date: July 29, 2025
Host: Morgan Housel

Overview

In this episode, Morgan Housel shares insights gleaned from both personal reflection and observation about why giving and receiving advice is so challenging—and why “very bad advice” is often easier to spot (and learn from) than “good advice.” He introduces his forthcoming book, The Art of Spending Money, explaining its focus on the nuanced, often overlooked realm of spending psychology. The heart of the episode is a rapid-fire list of dangerous, misguided, or simply terrible pieces of advice, with brief commentary on each, built from Morgan’s experiences and wisdom.

Main Themes

• The challenge and subjectivity of giving advice
• How to learn more reliably from “what not to do”
• The art (not science) of spending money for happiness
• Common toxic beliefs and behaviors around money, success, and social status

Episode Breakdown

1. Announcement: New Book – The Art of Spending Money

[00:42–05:42]

• Morgan apologizes for the gap between episodes, explaining his focus on new projects—primarily his forthcoming book releasing October 7th.
• Book will be available in ~50 languages.
• Describes The Art of Spending Money as a completion of The Psychology of Money.
  • The Psychology of Money focused on investing.
  • The Art of Spending Money delves into day-to-day spending and its impact on happiness.
  • Quote: “For the vast majority of people… how you spend money has a bigger impact [than investing].” [01:50]
• Notes that little has been written about how to find happiness in spending.
  • Shares that his new book draws more from personal experience than anything else he’s written.
  • Quote: “There is more of my personal experience in this book versus trying to look at how other people have dealt with it.” [04:55]
• Emphasizes that spending is not a science, but an art: personal, messy, and individualistic.

2. The Trouble With Advice

[05:43–08:50]

• Morgan introduces the main theme: Why is advice so hard to give—and receive?

  • “What worked for you might not work for me.” [06:06]
  • Recognizes that people are better at knowing what won’t work for them, rather than what will.
  • “It’s hard to know what you want; it’s very easy to know what you don’t want.” [07:09]

• Illuminates this point with a Charlie Munger anecdote:

  • At a Berkshire Hathaway meeting, a boy asked for advice; Munger quipped:
    “Don’t do cocaine, don’t race trains to the track and avoid all AIDS situations.” [07:29]

• Suggests flipping advice: Instead of striving for “good advice,” learn to identify and avoid “very bad advice.”

3. Rapid-Fire: Very Bad Advice (with Commentary)

[08:51–21:43]

Morgan lists a series of “very bad” pieces of advice—each critiqued briefly—describing actions and mindsets best avoided. Some notable items and quotes:

• Let your expectations grow faster than your income.

  • A surefire route to dissatisfaction.

• Envy others’ success without knowing the full picture.

  • “Look at one part of their life… and envy that without having any idea what it actually took place to get there or what else is going on in their life.” [09:20]

• Pursue status at the expense of independence.

  • Called “the core of a lot of misery and depression and anxiety these days.” [09:36]

• Associate net worth with self-worth (for yourself and others).

  • “View your net worth as the key to your success in life. Terrible, terrible advice.” [09:45]

• Mimic strategies of those who want different things than you.

  • Many personal mistakes stemmed from following people with different goals in life.

• Trust people based on social media follower count.

  • “It’s easy in this era to view follower count on social media as having some correlation with wisdom or insight or truth. And of course, when you say that out loud, it sounds ridiculous, but don’t we all do that?” [10:25]

• Associate engagement (likes, retweets) with insight or truth.

  • Crowd approval is not equivalent to accuracy.

• Let envy guide your goals.

• Automatically associate wealth with wisdom.

  • “It should not make any sense whatsoever that somebody who was very talented at say, foreign currency arbitrage, that person’s advice on immigration and abortion and gun rights should be taken more seriously. But we do that, don’t we?” [11:08]

• Assume a new dopamine hit means lasting joy.

  • Chasing first-time excitement is a path to emptiness.

• View every conversation as a competition to win.

  • Especially pervasive in the social media era: “There is some version of road rage online… If you bring that into the real world… nobody wants to be associated with them.” [12:10]

• Assume more money solves all problems.

  • “If you assume it is the solution to all of your problems, I think most people are going to be in for disappointment.” [12:48]

• Maximize efficiency to the point you leave no room for error.

  • “The moment you hit some kind of speed bump… you have no cushion to fall back on.” [13:25]

• Be transactional rather than relationship-driven.

• Defend what you already believe instead of learning.

  • Notes the tragedy of people who stop growing after early adulthood.

• Assume what people can communicate is all they know or believe.

  • “Usually the person who gets the biggest reward… is not the person with the right answer necessarily. It’s a person who tells the best story.” [14:42]

• Believe the past was golden, the present is crazy, and the future will be worse.

  • This is fueled by nostalgia and hindsight, ignoring the fears of the past.

• Blame all failures on bad luck, chalk all success up to hard work.

  • “We are much more aware of other people’s faults than we are our own.” [16:01]

• Value the appearance of being busy over actual productivity.

  • “Sometimes the most productive day that I can have is sitting on the couch quietly thinking about something. That’s when I do my best work.” [16:47]

• Use uncertainty as an excuse for inaction.

  • “The world is always uncertain.” [17:31]

• Judge others at their worst, yourself at your best.

  • We're masters of rationalizing our own mistakes, less so with others.

• Use money as a scorecard instead of a tool.

• See loyalty to those who deserve it as servitude.

  • Loyalty, when rightly placed, is “a wonderful thing.” [19:00]

• Be tribal, viewing everything as a social hierarchy battle.

  • Online interactions amplify this.

• Learn only from your own experience, never others’.

  • Morgan’s personal motto from his Motley Fool days: “Learn vicariously through others because other people have dealt with every single imaginable amount of risk, fear, uncertainty, regret, all of those things.” [20:27]

• Make friends with people whose morals are beneath your own.

  • Inspired by a Naval Ravikant quote: “The closer you get to me, the better your morals have to be.” [20:58]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[The book] started in my head many years ago with self-reflection about my own spending.” [03:45]
• “Giving people good advice is hard. Flipping it around and saying, what is bad advice and what can we learn from that, I think is much easier.” [08:40]
• “Associate engagement with insight… particularly in politics, but also I think, in investing, which is another emotional topic where people just want to hear… what they want to hear.” [10:48]
• “Value the appearance of looking busy at work… the most productive day that I can have is sitting on the couch quietly thinking about something. That’s when I do my best work.” [16:53]
• “Learn vicariously through others because other people have dealt with every single imaginable amount of risk, fear, uncertainty, regret…” [20:27]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:42–05:42 — Introduction & New Book Announcement
• 05:43–08:50 — Why is advice hard? The value of identifying “what not to do"
• 08:51–21:43 — Rapid-fire list of “very bad advice” and how to avoid it
• [Select Quotes]
  • Charlie Munger story: [07:29]
  • On associating wealth with wisdom: [11:08]
  • On false markers of social media wisdom: [10:25]
  • On nostalgia’s bias: [14:42]
  • On vicarious learning: [20:27]

Tone & Style

Morgan maintains a conversational, self-reflective, and candid tone, blending personal anecdotes with concise, punchy observations about wealth, life, and happiness. His advice is cautious, anti-dogmatic, and often challenges prevailing cultural assumptions.

Summary Takeaway

This episode challenges listeners to be less concerned about “doing what’s right” according to generic advice, and more attuned to avoiding common traps and fallacies—especially those involving money, status, and self-worth. Morgan’s closing thought calls for humility, learning from others, and an awareness of the messiness of both money and life.