In this episode of the Intentional Investor, Matt Ziegler and Justin Castelli explore the intersection of life and investing, discussing the importance of aligning your financial plan with your personal values and vision. Justin shares his unique perspective on setting goals versus having a vision, emphasizing the significance of investing in exper…

Gambling is a big deal. And everyone's got an opinion one way or another. It's had a pretty insane increase over the last few years. But what happens when Gambling becomes gambling? When it stops being a grand event and is instead a much more insidious and, well, casual thing. Spoiler Alert. Nothing good. It's now showing up everywhere. From sports…

Men of God prophesied as early as 2007 that God would make Donald Trump the President of the United States.Our narrative virus gave these predictions fertile ground to take root.저자 Ben Hunt

In this episode of The Intentional Investor, Matt Ziegler has a wide-ranging conversation with Ben Hunt, discussing Ben's journey from academia to finance and the pivotal moments that shaped his career. Ben shares his lifelong fascination with games, puzzles, and cracking codes, which eventually led him to the world of investing. They delve into Be…

In this episode we discuss how the upcoming November election is shaping the current political and economic landscape. We discuss why inflation, the stock market and the war in the Middle East are all being viewed through a political lens as the election approaches and those with a vested interest seek to influence its outcome . We also discuss the…

As anyone who has ever left their trash lid loose would know, racoons have a tendency to come in and clean up the leftovers. And they make a huge mess while they do it. That isn't the only place they exist, though. Raccoons also exist in the financial world, the self help world and a lot of other places. They come in and take what is leftover from …

Younger generations today feel like they don't have a chance. Whether it be rising home prices or income and wealth inequality, they feel that they are starting with a significant disadvantage relative to older generations. One of the responses to this has been to resort to more aggressive gambling when it comes to their investments and their lives…

We all know that technology can be bad for children. But a new paper from 13D Research, which was republished on Epsilon Theory, really drove home the point of just how bad it can be be and the impact it has on the wirings of children's minds. In this episode, we discuss this research and what we can do as parents to help mitigate the damage techno…

Over ten countries are currently engaged in hot wars in the Middle East. But you wouldn't know if from the media coverage where what has been going on has received limited attention. In this episode we dig into why that is. We also cover Tucker Carlson's recent interview with Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden's attempts to tackle shrinkflation and airline …

Panera's in hot water over their charged lemonade. After building their brand on clean and healthy food, they're now facing several lawsuits claiming their lemonade caused permanent heart damage and even death. So what's really going on with the lemonade? And why is the story surrounding it so misleading?…

Harvard has some of the most stringent admission standards of any university. Most people will never have the opportunity to receive a degree from this elite institution. But that doesn't mean you can't obtain your "graduate certificate" in fields like Museum Studies, Social Justice and Digital Storytelling all for the bargain price of $12,880 from…

Claudine Gay recently resigned as President of Harvard due to allegations of plagiarism. But the story behind that is far more important than the headline itself and gets at much bigger issues within the academic world, In the episode, we dig into those details. We also discuss what the recently launched ETFs mean for the future of Bitcoin, why att…

The news about the election has been heating up recently. But it unfortunately has not revolved around the process of people voting to determine the outcome. The combination of Donald Trump's legal issues and efforts to remove him from the ballot in blue states have dominated the recent election coverage. In this episode, we tackle both of these is…

It is no secret that women are underrepresented in the finance industry. That is especially true with respect to the “risk-taking” roles that people tend to associate with a career on Wall Street. While there are many reasons for that, one of the primary ones lies in the stories we have been told in the media about women in finance. In this episode…

Movie musicals are a Hollywood staple. A spectacle of dance, emotion, and music. Proving which Hollywood stars are actors only and which are true triple threats. But it turns out a lot of our favorite classics have been keeping some pretty big secrets. Including who's really singing.저자 Ben Hunt

Every narrative is built on memes that have evolved and adapted to human culture over centuries. But some environments change the way that those memes are expressed. The effects can be explosive.저자 Ben Hunt

Generative AI has the power to become one of the most significant innovations any of us will see in our lifetimes. In fact, it may already be there. In this episode, we discuss the impact of this new technology on all of us and the world we live in,. We talk about what the technology is, how it works, the risks associated with it and its potential …

In the same way that genetics governs how physical viruses reproduce within a host, memetics governs how narrative viruses reproduce within a culture.And the memes which govern our narrative virus are powerful.저자 Ben Hunt

Truffles are well known to be one of the rarest, and most expensive, delicacies available. What's not known is the cutthroat world of truffle hunting. Where it's not uncommon to see fraud, theft, sabotage, and even murder.저자 Ben Hunt

With primary season getting into full swing, there is a lot going on in the political world. Candidates are taking things up a notch with their aggressive tweets and comments to try to stay relevant as a Trump vs. Biden election seems more likely every day. And Trump and Biden themselves seem happy to sit back and stay out of the fray while enjoyin…

We know that Hollywood is a multibillion dollar industry that shows no signs of slowing anytime soon. So then why do so many studios report that their movies failed? Especially when most of these movies are incredibly popular and by all accounts should be financially successful. Well turns out Hollywood has some tricks up their sleeves and, as The …

People traditionally look at war as something that is fought on a battlefield. And that is certainly true. But it is also fought in the world of narrative. The stories that are told by both the combatants in a war and other parties outside the war with a vested interest in its outcome can play a major role in how it plays out. In this episode, we l…

Earthquakes, storms, volcanos, oh my. It seems the earth is always trying to kill us one way or another. These are dangerous powerful spectacles that can literally reshape the world. It’s understandable that we’re so fascinated by them. But why aren’t we afraid of them?저자 Ben Hunt

There was an explosion in the vicinity of a hospital in Gaza. The media immediately began reporting on it. Major newspapers put out front page headlines. Television stations brought on experts to voice their opinions, But there was one major problem: much of the information that was reported as fact turned out to be wrong. In this episode, we dig i…

Reality TV is a constant and ever growing part of pop culture. Everyone has a guilty pleasure show that they watch every week. It's created stars and scandals that have gained international attention. It's dominated the small screen for almost 30 years and the line between tv and reality has never been thinner.…

The political world is becoming more polarized by the day. Whether it be on social media, in the news, or in the real world, extreme opinions continue to dominate any attempt to take a more balanced view. In our previous episodes, we have looked at why this is occurring, and why it is likely to get worse before it gets better. But that doesn't mean…

Invasive species are a known "bad thing". An organism that's introduced to an environment and ruins it. So why don't we do anything about them? Is there anything we can do?저자 Ben Hunt

Poll numbers show that the majority of Americans are not happy about the choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that we are likely to face in the next election. In this episode, we discuss how we got to this point. We look at the embedded problems in our political system that favor incumbents and how it has led us to where we are today. We also …

Airbnb has reshaped how we travel and disrupted the hotel industry. But most of the stories from both guests and hosts reveal nothing but disasters. So what's really going on? What's the real story of Airbnb?저자 Ben Hunt

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the tactics and tools used by upstart political entrepreneurs. Our political system is setup to heavily favor incumbents and candidates that are part of the political establishment. This presents an exceptionally difficult challenge for candidates who come from outside of that system. But social media and t…

We live in a very safe world. And we've worked hard to make it safe. But sometimes we take that safety for granted. And sometimes we think that safety applies even when it really really doesn't.저자 Ben Hunt

Every virus needs carriers to spread. Even a narrative virus. We can learn a lot from what they have in common.저자 Ben Hunt

Political entrepreneurs are all around us. They influence what we think. They influence how we think. But we often don't recognize it. In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the world of political entrepreneurs. We explain who they are, what they do and why they do it. We also look at what we can all do to protect ourselves from their influen…

The Bone Wars. A decade long battle of ego between two dueling paleontologists. It's a tale of obsession, sabotage, and academic backstabbing. This clash of titans brought new attention to the theory of evolution and helped make dinosaurs the cultural juggernauts we know them as now.저자 Ben Hunt

This is a story about a virus and the gain-of-function research that produced it. It's not what you think.저자 Ben Hunt

High inflation was the story of the investing world in the past couple of years. But that has recently changed. The common knowledge around inflation has now shifted from one that high inflation is here to stay to one that inflation is over. But is that change premature? In this episode, we finish off our discussion from our first episode and head …

Harper and Ben finally get a chance to talk about the Wizard of Oz and the not so wonderful behind the scenes production. Of course this was par for the course in the Golden Age of Hollywood as the studio star making system controlled everything. And we do mean everything.저자 Ben Hunt

Join Ben Hunt, Matt Zeigler and Jack Forehand as we break open the news to reveal the nudging language behind the headlines. Media bias is real, but not in the way you think.In our kick-off episode, Ben, Matt and Jack talk about why we're here - to break open the news reported by mainstream media to reveal the nudging language of narrative and stor…

A revamped Cursed Knowledge is back! This episode, Harper and Ben talk about the all too common trope of killing off female characters to motivate male characters. It's everywhere and it can tell us a lot about how hard it is to capture audience attention.저자 Ben Hunt

The City of Man always wins.The Visigoths always sack Rome. The Vandals always sack Hippo. Augustine always dies in the siege. Bad things always happen to good people ... at scale.Here's how we use generative AI to flip the script.저자 Ben Hunt

The student loan crisis is a Big Deal. And it is only a part of a Bigger Deal: the Myth of College. This issue will be front-and-center in the upcoming elections. We will all be handed our very own 'Yay, College' signs to raise high. More often than not, we will be asked to raise them in service of market-distorting policies which will make our pro…

The MacGuffin is the object of desire. It is the thing around which the plot of the story revolves.Here is the story arc of SBF and FTX, and the MacGuffin that anchored it all - the Magical Money Machine.저자 Ben Hunt

If you don't see that the crypto "industry" has become just as blindingly corrupt, just as oozingly fatuous, just as profoundly captured by the Nudging Oligarchy as the traditional financial services industry it was supposed to replace ... well, you're just not paying attention.저자 Ben Hunt

Mt Everest is a death trap. Everything about the mountain is designed to kill you. So why are so many people going up there? Why do we ignore the very real and very dangerous narratives that are right in our face.저자 Ben Hunt

What does farming have to do with investing? Quite a lot, actually. In this first of a series that takes on a life of its own, Ben discusses bees and bonds, eggs and ETFs, and more.저자 Ben Hunt

Part 2 of Ben's Notes from the Field series, in which he considers the question: what can a bird teach us about value investing? To everything there is a season.저자 Ben Hunt

There is no animal more important to the ascendancy of Western Civilization than the horse, and no invention more important than the horse collar. After all nothing shapes history like advances in productivity. Part 3 of Ben's Notes from the Field series here.저자 Ben Hunt

Marie Antoinette has a rather interesting historical footprint. For all that her image is iconic and her reputation infamous, it's not all the truth. The real Marie Antoinette has been lost to the cartoon of Marie Antoinette™. So I want to show you a glimpse at the real person behind the cartoon and take a closer look at how her cartoon got started…

The Golden Age of Hollywood was full of drama. On and off screen. It was the age of carefully cultivated images. Fake names and secret procedures. And it was the age of censorship. The Hays Code and the censorship office had more influence on the film industry than any actor, director, or producer ever could. They had full control over what Hollywo…

Part 13 of the Notes from the Field series discusses the Narrative Machine, which can help us see the invisible memes that drive our political behaviors. Because you're smart enough to make up your own damn mind.저자 Ben Hunt