Here’s how fame works…

Here’s how fame works…

You see someone you’ve heard of in the media or on the internet. Maybe they’re walking down the street or sitting a few tables away in a restaurant. You say “I know who that person is” to yourself if you’re alone or to the people you’re with. It’s a notable thing because it doesn’t happen all the time. It produces a mildly intoxicating feeling in your brain because it shrinks the universe a little bit. It’s exciting to be in the same place as someone whom you know a lot of other people are aware of. Even if you don’t particular care for that person’s sports career or movies or TV show or political victories.

I saw Andrew Yang in the Austin airport last June. I don’t care for his politics specifically or the fact that he was on stage for the Democratic candidate debates in 2019. But still, I was like “Wow, that’s Andrew Yang!” People were swarming around him and asking to take a picture. Would those people have voted for him? Doesn’t matter. They have heard of him, have seen him on their TV screens, and they know that the people they know also know who he is.

Being in the proximity of a well-known person - regardless of the reason for their renown - instigates something chemical in our brains. Scientists say these encounters can trigger a dopamine rush because they elicit memories. If you were a ten year old boy in 1985 who had grown up in San Francisco, seeing Joe Montana now would practically nail you to a wall with giddiness. Watch Michael Batnick trying to keep from crying while interviewing his childhood hero Eli Manning earlier this year on The Compound. I know Michael really well and I can tell you that keeping his cool during this was an enormous lift.

I love Eli Manning too (who the hell doesn’t?), but for Michael this was a personal Super Bowl, pun intended.

Meeting a famous person produces surprise, awkwardness, euphoria, fumbling for words, and a feeling of being off-balance.

More from the scientists:

And when a celebrity talks to you - not on camera or for any particular benefit to them - but because they generally feel like giving their attention to you, it all goes to the next level. If this person’s work or career has been in any way meaningful to you, and they make eye contact during a conversation, you come away feeling drunk and high. Everyone does. Even famous people talking to slightly more famous people.

Why does this happen? It’s a self-esteem thing. You’re in a place that a famous person would be at. You’re worthy of that famous person’s attention. And you know that the famous person has options - sometimes unlimited options - in terms of who they want to be with or talk to. And they’re talking to you. They could be anywhere, doing anything they want and what they want to do right now is ask you where you’re from or remark upon the weather or accept your adulation about the TV show you saw them star in 20 years ago. This is the best explanation I’ve heard. When people with unlimited options opt to spend even a few minutes with you, it feels good. It’s not about the celebrity or whatever it is they’re famous for, it’s about you.

These moments are so powerful they make you want to leave with a souvenir. People used to ask celebrities for autographs so they could have something tangible to hang onto, knowing the moment would soon be over. Now they ask for selfies, same concept but even more powerful because then it’s not a signed baseball in a drawer but a visual token they can display for all their friends and family (and perfect strangers) to see. It’s a story to tell. “You’ll never guess who I saw last night!” They will tell this story for years, it never gets old. And in the retelling, a trace of that feeling comes flooding back. The good chemicals.

In the late 1980’s I was in the Solvang Danish Village in California on a family vacation. A girl working in a coffee shop physically leapt over the counter kicking down everything on the surface, burst through the front door and ran out onto the street literally shrieking her head off. We walked out to see what had happened and watched as a crowd of people, young and old, chased a man down the street. The man was in a disguise and had a teenage boy with him. They were running at full speed, jumping over curbs, holding the hats down on their heads as the throng of townspeople pursued them.

“That was Michael Jackson,” someone said. “He comes here all the time.” Apparently, Solvang is a 20 minute drive from the Neverland Valley Ranch.

What would they have done if they had caught up to him? They probably hadn’t even thought that through. It was the most famous human being alive, walking down the street.

That’s fame. That’s how it works. It’s one of the most powerful forces in human existence. It opens doors, diverts attention, changes the energy in a room and, if concentrated enough, it can move mountains. It can cause a crowd to stampede and lose its collective mind.

Influence

There’s fame and then there’s influence. These aren’t the same thing.

Many famous people are influential. Kim Kardashian is a famous person who has tremendous influence. Her apparel company, SKIMS, will come public this year and be worth a lot of money. Not because Kim is famous (among the most famous people of all time) but because Kim is influential. When she tells the few hundred million people who follow her to do something, they do it. Like buy her clothes.

I was reminded of this during the July 4th week this year when Kevin Costner’s passion project “Horizon” hit the box office and no one went to see it. Actually, the name of the film is much worse than that - “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1” - he financed it so no one could talk him out of the title, I guess. Kevin Costner is crazy-famous. If you met him somewhere you would never shut the f*** up about it. You would sit on his lap for a photo if he let you. He couldn’t get you to go to a movie theater to watch this thing it’s taken him 20 years to make. He did every talk show and interview under the sun earlier this summer. He flew around the world to raise awareness for it.

“Horizon” opened on 1,291 screens on June 28th and debuted at number 10 that weekend. It did a total of $11 million in box office, a disaster considering the reported $100 million budget - $38 million of which came directly from the star’s own personal checkbook. And when you hear that a film has a budget of $100 million, you have to add another 50% or so on for what’s known as P&A or Prints and Advertising, basically the marketing budget to open the movie. So this thing cost more like $150 million all in. Within a month, the movie had made just $28 million before being pulled from theaters at the end of July.

Kevin Costner is famous but not influential.

The same weekend Costner’s film bombed, an unknown 21 year old girl gave an impromptu TikTok interview at a music festival in Nashville. She was asked about what moves drive a man wild in bed. Her response made her the most famous person in the world for the next ten days. "Awh, you gotta hawk…tuah, spit on that thang - you get me?" The virality of the clip transcended all viral clips, leading to billions of views, remixes, duets, shorts, reels, memes and stories on social media apps around the world. It then leapt from the internet into pop culture and from there it became a global phenomenon. The “Hawk Tuah Girl” - real name Hailey Welch - appeared on stage with country music superstar Zach Bryan. She did Bill Maher and Barstool podcasts. She met Shaquille O’Neal. She attended a State Dinner with President Biden and dignitaries from around the world at the White House. Okay, that last one was made up, but it’s plausible in 2024.

Welch sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and was offered $600 for a jar filled with her spit. Kids were mimicking her signature “Hawk Tuah” from coast to coast. And then their parents learned about it and joined in. While Kevin Costner sat in his Santa Barbara mansion licking his wounds from a film project it had taken decades and a huge chunk of his personal fortune to bring to the screen, Hailey Welch was criss-crossing the United States appearing on stages, television sets and football fields taking a victory lap for spitting on men’s private parts.

It tells you something about the capriciousness of fame and influence, the randomness and unfairness of it all. It’s utterly inexplicable sometimes and hard to intentionally manufacture. Costner had set out to create a masterpiece and launch it into the world that week. Welch didn’t expect or intend for any such thing to happen. But if she were to have opened a movie against “Horizon” that weekend, she probably would have outgrossed him.

Fame is weird that way.

Now, you’re probably saying that in five years, we will still be watching Costner’s incredible body of work while Welch will be mostly forgotten, toiling away on reality TV somewhere or cutting the ribbon at an Arby’s opening in West Virginia. That’s probably true. But right now, this is the situation.

If I say the phrase “Hawk Tuah” in a crowded room right now, anywhere in America, everyone will know what I’m talking about. Nobody will be familiar with “Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1” anywhere but in Hollywood, where it’s become a punchline or a cautionary tale within the industry.

Famous on Wall Street

If you ask regular people who are the most famous people in finance, they will produce the following list:

You might hear Mark Cuban. Possibly Jamie Dimon. Bill Ackman. But only among people who are highly engaged as investors or read the newspaper. If you’re talking to people who are heavy Twitter users, you’ll hear Dave Portnoy, Anthony Scaramucci, Cathie Wood, Chamath “Whatshisname”, possibly Tom Lee.

It’s a really small list and most of the people on it do not actually work in finance or on Wall Street. They’re venture capitalists or celebrities who discuss the markets and stocks (or crypto) but they wouldn’t tell people they are in the finance industry.

People can name long lists of political figures, athletes, musicians, actors comedians and even podcasters. Young people can name social media stars and streamers. These are the celebrities that are influential to them. Very few people can name famous or notable people in the financial sector. Which, frankly, is how most successful people working in finance would prefer it.

As a result, very few people in finance have influence outside of finance. Hedge fund managers do not have endorsement deals with BMW or Rolex or American Express.

Many of the Wall Street people who do end up becoming “famous” among the general population do so because they are involved in a scandal of some sort. Sam Bankman-Fried became famous deliberately (which backfired spectacularly). Bernie Madoff became famous accidentally. This is something else entirely. It’s called Infamy and it’s different.

The majority of famous Wall Street people can walk through a suburban shopping mall without anyone noticing. Again, they mostly prefer it this way. It’s only in an airport or a steakhouse that the type of people who might recognize them may come up to say hello. Nobody is chasing David Einhorn through a parking lot for his autograph regardless of the fact that everyone on Wall Street knows his name. He can play at a poker tournament in a room of thousands with a hat smushed down over his forehead and be mostly left alone. If Howard Marks walked into your Starbucks, he’d be perfectly fine to pick up his coffee and leave without a second glance. In the business he is mega-famous. Outside the business, he is a complete unknown.

Thankfully for David and Howard, they get to enjoy the industry accolades (and wealth) without the inconvenience. They are micro-influencers, hugely important within their niche but hardly consequential outside it. Until one of them buys a professional sports team, it’ll probably stay that way.

Best of Both Worlds

To me, this is the best of both worlds.

Have a look at the diagram below…

The very best square for maximum enjoyment of life is probably Not Famous and Rich in the bottom left corner.

The absolute worst square is Famous and Not Rich at the top right. You have all the attention fame can bring but not the lawyers and PR personnel to preserve your privacy from people who dislike you, are jealous of you, disagree with your opinions or just want to take you down a peg. If you find yourself in that box, do whatever you can to get out of it. Either use your fame to build wealth - this is where influence comes in - or downshift your public profile and get yourself back into the bottom right quadrant where you came from. Famous and Not Rich is precarious.

The top left box, Famous and Rich, is what most people think they want, until they get it. It’s tolerable, but it’s not the best. There are those who do a good job at balancing this, but it’s harder than you think and the anxiety never goes away.

The bottom right box, Not Famous and Not Rich is how the majority of people will go through life, and it’s probably for the best, though they won’t understand that until much later.

There are neighborhoods in Manhattan like Sutton Place and Tribeca where the streets are teeming with rich but not famous people. These are probably the most satisfied people you will find - note, I said satisfied, not happy. If you can do it the way they’ve done it, you have a higher likelihood of overall long-term satisfaction.

You may need fame in order to reach success but if you don’t, this is preferable.

Fame vs Influence

You can be influential without being famous, but a little bit of fame is necessary to gain influence. Or, the influence you attain is the thing that will make you famous. Getting the mix right is difficult. It’s very hard to deliberately dial up the amount of each you want or need (or can tolerate) with any precision.

Because this is the case, the advice I give people is to decide what they want to be influential for. Or whom they want to be influential to. Having a good idea about this outcome will help guide decisions along the way. It’ll help you determine what you will and won’t do. Where and why you’ll go places and meet with people. How you’ll present yourself and on what platforms. You’ll make mistakes and then remind yourself of the goal. You’ll course correct. If your intentions are pure and your mission is focused, it’ll work out okay. If you’re seeking fame and influence for the sake of fame and influence and you’re willing to take it in any form in which it comes, you’re going to get what you wished for and you won’t like it. Not one bit.

Anyone who writes publicly or appears on television or creates content for social media is in pursuit of some level of influence. Myself included. I wanted to become influential because I believed I could help people become better investors and this would be helpful to my career. I thought I also wanted fame and had been thinking about fame and influence interchangeably. Somewhere along the line I realized the difference between the two things and this forced a realization that influence was the more preferable of the two. This realization informed the very deliberate choices I’ve made to balance the two things into a mix I could be happy with.

I love having influence with individual investors because I think my ideas about how to invest can help them - whether they become clients of my firm or not. I love having influence within the financial advice business because I love financial advisors and believe in the mission of my industry. So these are the two outcomes I’ve sought out, more carefully choosing my path over the last few years than I had at the beginning of my writing career.

I used to take any opportunity offered to shoot my mouth off about any topic under the sun. It felt like I was supposed to. Saying anything I wanted to anyone who would listen. Filling Twitter with every opinion that popped into my head morning, noon and night. Showing up on any TV program that would have me. Talking for hours on people’s podcasts and radio shows and conference stages. It helped more than it hurt and I probably wouldn’t do anything much differently. But that was back when I thought any audience would do.

The Sweet Spot

It’s different now that I’ve figured it all out. It was July of 2020 when I had put this epiphany into words for the first time and I have stuck to it ever since. (read: Who are you talking to? here)

So I built my own platform and talk to my own audience every week. Anyone can join the audience at any time, but it’s on my terms. I don’t mind playing “away games” as I do on CNBC each week or when I pop up on Scott Galloways’s show or get invited to talk with other podcast hosts I like. But most of what I’m doing these days is “home games” in my own stadium. Tens of thousands of people will get this note directly into their inbox, because they’ve asked for it. I’m no longer vomiting up my opinions all over the Twitter algorithm hoping to have random encounters with god knows who. I did that already. Stayed too long, perhaps.

I think, for the first time ever, I’ve finally found the balance I like. Influential but not famous. if I say something well, people react. Doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does it makes me really happy. I get the dopamine burst just like anyone else would.

Yesterday, with the Dow Jones down almost a thousand points, I said this to the people who follow me:

1,347 people liked it, 89 people commented on it and 33 people re-shared it to their own audience. That will never not feel good. I know what I am saying is true and helpful. They know what I am saying is true and helpful. It stands in direct contrast to the people who will use stock market fear to promote their own dark and nefarious agendas. I’m not able to tell anyone how much worse the markets will get or when the selling will stop. But giving people perspective in a time of volatility is more valuable than even the most prescient predictions. Giving them the other side of all the angst they’re being force-fed elsewhere is what my career has been about. It’s why my firm broke $5 billion in assets under management last week. The message has helped people before and it will help them again. We want to be a beacon in the storm because storms will surely come. Our message is not built on false promises of avoiding all storms. It’s that storms will eventually pass.

Away from the market commentary I stay in my lane. I don’t care who you vote for. I don’t care what football team you root for. I don’t care what house of worship you attend or who you want to marry. I don’t need everyone to agree with me all the time. I don’t need to win arguments with strangers. If you care what I think about the topics I talk about - even if you disagree with me - you’re in my audience and you’re the person I am trying to reach. And if you don’t care, you’re not in my audience and that’s perfectly fine too.

What I’m describing here is my sweet spot. Now, the goal is to stay in the sweet spot for as long as you’ll have me.

This week I just got the first hard copy of my forthcoming book, You Weren’t Supposed To See That. It’s the most personal thing I’ve ever done and I poured my whole heart and soul into it. It’s been fifteen years in the making, two years in the writing (and audio recording). You’re the audience that I want to get a first edition printing of it. Links to pre-order the book are here if you’re interested. Order now and you should have it the first week of September.

That’s it from me today, have an awesome weekend!