Watch the full video of our conversation on the Spread Great Ideas YouTube channel.

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Full Transcript of Our Conversation

Introduction to Julio Froment Castellvi

00:00.74 – Brian David Crane

Please welcome my friend Julio Froment Castellivi to the show. Julio is the brains and brawn behind Picking Nuggets, one of my favorite YouTube channels. It’s just about to crack 150,000 subscribers. He’s also the author of The Little Almanac, a weekly newsletter where he shares timeless ideas from what he calls influential doers with handmade infographics to about 16,000 subscribers.

And of course, he writes on spreadgreatideas.org. So excited to have Julio here. We’re going be talking about his three defining values, ones that he and I both share, curiosity, truth, and freedom, why he does what he does, whether he considers himself a content creator, more of a thinker, a philosopher.

We’ll see. I don’t know. Welcome, Julio. Thanks for coming on.

00:46.78 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Thanks for having me, Brian. Excited to be here.

00:48.69 – Brian David Crane

Oh okay, so for those who don’t know, tell folks a little bit about what you’re going into with picking nuggets in the little almanac. Like, why’d you start doing this? And why do why why why is resonating? Why do people care about it?

How Julio Got Started with Curation

01:04.26 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. So it all started like, without ever planning for it to ever happen. I believe like my first plan, like my first step into this journey. It was from a YouTube channel I called Yaps, Y-A-P-P-S. I think now it’s banned on YouTube, I think.

Or it just got destroyed with copyrights and stuff. I think they created a new channel and from that. But basically, what they were doing is like small clips from the Berkshire Hathaway annual meetings.

From, you know, there’s like video recordings from these annual meetings since I believe 1990 something. It was all like recorded by, I believe it was CNBC.

02:03.54 – Brian David Crane

It could be, yeah.

02:04.60 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. And so these annual meetings, they were like 5 hours long, 6 hours long, something like that. Uh, so I love this channel that it would cut to, you know, some 10 minute, segment while, uh, I remember it was especially when I was like commuting to do my internship when I was, uh, 25, I think something like that, 24, 25 years old And I was always like listening, especially to this YouTube channel.

And then it occurred to me that I could do something similar to this Japs channel. Right. Even though they were not creating notes like I have on my YouTube channel. Now I like a lot of notes and visuals and a lot of stuff. There’s a lot of stuff going on.

He just like, watch the 5 hour interview and pick a 10 minute clip and literally just repost it on his YouTube channel. But that was like, I’m getting so much value from this.

03:07.64 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And I was like, maybe I can do something similar with other people that I love to learn from. And in that time, I believe it was like Monish Paproy, an investor who actually likes a follower of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett.

And the other guy was Navarravi-Kent. So Navarravi-Kent, yeah.

03:27.25 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Those are the two guys that you wanted to, yeah, please go ahead.

03:28.94 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, these two people mainly.

03:31.94 – Brian David Crane

So what about Nivaldo?

03:32.21 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Actually, I wrote an email to the Japs YouTube channel and I asked him that. But first I said, I love your YouTube channel. It’s bringing so much value to me.

03:43.47 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And it was funny because he did not like doing anything. He was just like clipping. He was clipping it and uploading it with a really interesting title. But just that it was super valuable because the original video was so long. It was like 5 hours.

And he replied to me and then I asked him if he has any issues with copyrights and these kinds of things. And he told me that that’s his main concern. That’s his main concern. But he hasn’t had any problem for like two years since he made the channel. So I was like, oh okay. So it’s not so crazy, right?

04:21.73 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, what but then what happened? How did it end in the sense of you thinking that CNBC finally filed a takedown request and basically his entire channel had to be nuked because they…

04:31.22 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It happened like, yeah, I mean, luckily, maybe if that would have happened, and that would have happened at the time that I was thinking about doing Picking Nuggets, maybe I would have not never never, like, done the first step.

Navigating Copyright and Learning Fair Use

04:45.33 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But because of these copyright claims and came just like a year after that, I already had like the Picking Nuggets going on and actually I had a copyright claim experience.

I’ve had one like after 7 months of the channel going, and had one copyright claim. and it was from a health podcast actually. It wasn’t even from Navarro or Mauricio or anything.

From this psychiatrist called Gabor Mate.

05:18.69 – Brian David Crane

Hmm.

05:19.56 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, he said something and yeah I found super, super cool. And this was already with visuals and text, although it was super crappy. It’s not like how it is, how it is right now.

I would like to literally do the video in two days, three days, whereas now it takes me like two weeks at least to make one video. m And so they make a claim and there’s this thing called in YouTube, the seven day grace period where..

05:47.62 – Brian David Crane

That they need to.. What is the seven-day grace period?

05:50.01 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It means that so It means that basically you receive this claim, but if you take it down in the next seven days, you are clean.

05:50.34 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Okay. And you don’t get a strike against your channel.

05:59.81 – Julio Froment Castellvi

You’re on the clear. Exactly. You don’t get any copyright strike or claim or anything.

06:01.49 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

06:06.01 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. And so I just took it down and that was it. Yeah. And then I remember I called a lawyer from Kentucky, I think, because I saw that he had experience with YouTube channels and copyright claims everything. And he just gave me a masterclass about the copyright act law from the US.

And so now I have it like, all these like copyright act I have in my like checklist so on the process of how I make my videos and everything. And since that, it’s never been an issue to have the copyrights.

06:44.19 – Brian David Crane

What does that…

06:44.38 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And that was like three years ago, I think.

06:47.40 – Brian David Crane

Congratulations. but I’m curious, what does that look like, that checklist in the sense of like you’re, he’s talking about fair use in the US or he says you can’t use more than three seconds.

The Checklist for Fair Use Compliance

06:53.80 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

06:56.18 – Brian David Crane

Like what are some of the guidelines that you’re adhering to?

06:59.49 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I think it’s very unique to the US because we don’t have that in Spain. I mean, if I were taking content from you know from a Spanish podcast, I would be like I could be like… The takedown would be super like way more harsh than if it was a podcast from the US because the law here is super, super… like

07:22.57 – Brian David Crane

Strict about it, let’s say.

00:07:23.28 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And strict about what they call the author rights. Even if you just take one part and you like to mix it and then you make it super informative and you add commentary and all this, it’s like it’s super bad here.

07:30.80 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

07:41.05 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But in the US, it’s great and it’s the best place. I think it’s the best place to do it. Or maybe even like the UK, I think it’s a common law, right?

07:48.51 – Brian David Crane

Love it.

07:49.97 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Which is kind of a little bit universal, I think.

07:52.73 – Brian David Crane

Yeah It’s a UK concept. Yeah.

07:55.84 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It’s yeah, there’s something about that. Yeah. And but I’ve only seen like the US Copyright Act because honestly, also all the cool podcasts and interviews come from the US. So that’s great, right?

Everything, everything that is worthwhile for me comes from the US and the best place to do it is from the US. So that was the best combination for me. So I’ve been just very, very lucky, honestly, in this path, to get these kinds of things.

And what the checklist looks like. I mean, I would say there are probably like five main things. and one thing is that it’s not very artistic.

The content nature is not like, for instance, if I were to take some a little bit of a Dua Lipa song,

08:46.77 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

08:47.36 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Would be really bad, right? Because that thing, those 3 minutes that Dua Lipa creates, and it’s like magic, right? It’s super artistic, it’s super all of that, right?

Whereas the other end of the the spectrum would be guy yeah

00:09:04.88 – Brian David Crane

Charlie Munger talking for three minutes at the Berkshire Hathaway meetings.

09:08.98 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, I literally like that.

09:09.56 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

09:10.34 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. or Naval, like literally, like he wasn’t even like recording his Periscope live stream.

09:18.52 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

09:18.95 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Like the first thing I did was from his Periscope live streams, and some people on the comments I would say, can I record the screen and then upload it to YouTube? And he would say, yeah, sure, do that.

So he’s super open with this kind of thing about people using stuff. If it’s building, sort of putting into a supply chain of value and actually creating something from that.

I think he said this from a podcast. It’s probably from from the Tim Ferriss podcast, I think, where he would say that this copyright thing is it’ is very, very dumb because it it he sort of makes the the comparison with software where, you you know, you have in in GitHub, you have a lot of people and uploading their software everything, and people will use it as a Lego pieces, right, to build their own kind of thing.

And so he thinks in the same way for content, where people can take, like, bits of content from places and build their own unique, like, yeah content kind of thing.

Naval’s Philosophy on Content Sharing

10:29.94 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, got it. Makes sense.

10:30.98 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, so that’s also that also was a lucky factor that he’s super like pro, and you know using and like other people’s things to sort of help create your own thing with your own touch.

So that also helped on the mix of and you know the Copyright Act law and also he’s being super eager to that.

10:55.09 – Brian David Crane

Well, I suspect that as well, like to use Dua Lipa versus him as an example, is that Dua Lipa’s livelihood is based upon her artistic.

10:55.66 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Song Exactly.

11:04.34 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

11:04.82 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I mean, you’re touching on the other factor.

11:05.03 – Brian David Crane

So and like, and of end the Vols is not.. Yeah.

11:08.16 – Julio Froment Castellvi

This is the other of the five factors that I want to talk about. Yeah. This is the other factor, which is that if it’s like the thing you are producing and that you are taking this third party content, this thing that you’re producing is a market substitute for the original pieces.

11:20.63 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. What does that mean?

11:27.97 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So if if if if the thing I create is going to economically and and

11:33.70 – Brian David Crane

Degrade like, or somehow like, yeah okay.

11:34.59 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Degrade the original things that you have taken, exactly.

11:36.90 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

11:38.12 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So an example would be like, of course, if I take literally the song of Dua Lipa and I get 100 million views, it has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with Dualipa, but all the economic value comes to me, right? Because I uploaded that thing.

11:52.67 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

11:53.77 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So obviously they’re going to take it down because I’m economically taking from her, right?

12:01.38 – Brian David Crane

Got it.

12:01.39 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So the factor in the copyright is that the thing that you produce is not economically degrading the original and bits, the original pieces.

12:16.01 – Brian David Crane

Interesting. Okay. Yeah, makes sense.

12:16.92 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, so I always asked this question myself, and see if yes or no.

12:17.65 – Brian David Crane

But..

12:23.63 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And then if not, I proceed with it.

12:26.80 – Brian David Crane

And how do you deal with..

12:30.83 – Brian David Crane

You and I were talking prior to the show about highlights from Kindle or from written works. I know you’re a fan of Taleb and a lot of his work, his written work. And if you take something he’s written and you post it how much of it are you allowed to post?

Might not really be the right question, but like, is there a part where you are somehow infringing upon his copyright if you publish

12:52.13 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

12:59.17 – Brian David Crane

10 lines of his book, 10 pages of his book, 10 paragraphs of his book. Like what is the, how far, how much of his work are you allowed to publish on your own site?

The Rule of Substantiality

13:05.90 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, There’s not a clear cut of how much you can do but there’s something called the rule of so substantiality.

13:11.16 – Brian David Crane

Do you know, let’s say. Okay.

13:19.05 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Which is how much of another person’s work you can use for your work. Right. So if it’s something like 0.5% or even 1%, then the thing here is that you have to mix all of these five factors, right?

When you mix them all it is almost like, it doesn’t look at all. Like you are, just like pouring the content and pirating the content.

13:49.94 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, you’ve made your own thing out of it then.

13:50.18 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And you Sorry?

13:53.26 – Brian David Crane

You’ve made your own thing. you take You take these different five factors and by the end of it, like, yeah,

13:54.42 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, exactly. That’s the key, exactly. So this is one of the rules, the rule of substantiality. For instance, in the case of the Joe Rogan episode, you know it’s two hours.

And so I take 5 minutes from that. It’s much better than another content creator that has made a 20-minute video. And I’m taking five minutes from that right because in the first case, it’s like 2.5% or something like that.

14:22.68 – Brian David Crane

And..

14:23.31 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And in the other case, it’s like 25% of his original content. Yeah. And then another thing is like a really cool thing that is very favorable for copyright is to mix it with content from yet other sources.

Like I get a bit from Naval, then I get a bit from Monish Pabra, then I get a bit from Charlie or even the same person, but from a different source. Right.

14:51.99 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

14:52.21 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Because that way it’s..

14:52.57 – Brian David Crane

One book versus another book, one speech, and then something you said on a podcast, like they’re different.

14:57.01 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Exactly. Because that way it sort of looks like a research, like a research work, like a research paper where you are like creating this paper and and you’re taking reference from everywhere.

14:58.03 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

15:10.73 – Julio Froment Castellvi

You’re taking this from that place and you almost look ike a research kind of work, right? Where you’re referencing everything and all that. It kind of starts looking like that.

15:25.15 – Brian David Crane

But yet you are monetizing it. Like you have ads running on YouTube.

15:27.31 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, for sure.

15:28.51 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. It’s not a pure research work.

15:31.55 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, exactly. So that’s the thing with combining all these factors. But there’s never like a clear cut if you are completely risk-free or not, right? It’s just very subjective. I mean, it’s just like the way it works is like on YouTube, they can make you like the copyright claim, but you can also say, no, this was fair use.

Right. And then it’s like they have to reply to that, and the reply is like a court order. Right. and Or they are like, OK, we are not going to and like follow this.

16:09.56 – Brian David Crane

Pursue this..

16:10.16 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right, we are going to leave it like that.

16:10.49 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, keep going after

16:12.24 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Or we can talk about it separately. You can exchange contact and talk it through before going to the court. But you kind of like if you like you know escalated, court you can definitely go to the court And then the court decides and whether it was fair use or it was not fair use.

16:34.43 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

16:35.97 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And if they say it’s fair use, then I can leave the content on YouTube. But yeah, I mean, and that this thing is like it never happens, right? Because it’s like typically one site already knows that it has a lot of odds in their favor or not, right?

So depending on who likes the odds or if it’s really like 50, 50, you can probably talk about it. Yeah.

17:01.67 – Brian David Crane

But there’s also the question of who has the most resources, right? like Who’s willing to pursue it?

17:04.90 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

17:06.02 – Brian David Crane

Well..

17:06.17 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, exactly.

17:07.19 – Brian David Crane

So one of the things that had come up to me as I was thinking about this show with you is I think for people who are..

17:09.77 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

Choosing a Nontraditional Career Path

17:20.40 – Brian David Crane

Not familiar with you. Let me just say this, like most kids in their 20s, you’re in your late 20s at this point, they’re off working somewhere for the man. And I say obviously there are quotes like they’re usually in a corporate job.

17:33.82 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Oh yeah.

17:33.93 – Brian David Crane

You’re not doing that. You and I were talking before the show.

17:36.13 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I did it for a few months.

17:36.45 – Brian David Crane

You’re headed. Yeah, a few months. Okay, but you’re not doing it. Yeah, like you’re not.

17:42.63 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Taught me a lot. yeah

17:43.93 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. So I think the question is, like, why not? And how do you think about a career now? Are you a content creator? Like, what do you do, how do you see yourself?

17:55.09 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. I see myself as, and so some sell..

18:02.44 – Brian David Crane

As what?

18:03.34 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Sam Zell, like the guy, the real estate model, right?

18:06.79 – Brian David Crane

Oh, Sam Zell.

18:07.10 – Julio Froment Castellvi

There’s this guy, Sam Zell.

18:07.17 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, yeah, thank you.

18:08.66 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. He has this book, right? The Subtle Art. What is it called? I think I’m mixing with Mark Manson’s title right now.

18:17.84 – Brian David Crane

That’s the one I know of.

18:18.36 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Something about the Subtle.

18:18.64 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. I know the Mark Manson book, The Subtle Art.

18:19.52 – Julio Froment Castellvi

All right. Okay. Yeah.

18:21.52 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

18:22.45 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Something about this to..

18:22.62 – Brian David Crane

I can look. Let me look.

18:25.47 – Julio Froment Castellvi

All okay, yeah.

18:26.86 – Brian David Crane

Are you ready? Keep going. It was a book about Sam Zell. We’ll find it, add to the show notes. Keep going. You just take a quick look.

18:34.96 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It’s, yeah, so basically in that book, okay, yeah, ‘Am I Being Too Subtle?’ is the title.

18:42.19 – Brian David Crane

Oh, ‘Am I Being Too Subtle?’ Okay. Yeah. All right.

18:44.41 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But there’s no art of subtleness or anything.

18:47.88 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Okay.

18:51.17 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Okay. I think he shared, like one of his stories when he was in Africa, and he was smoking wheat with some people. He was already a billionaire at that point. And, but someone asked him, what do you do for a living?

19:08.58 – Brian David Crane

Okay

19:11.44 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And he was just smoking pot on the beach. We’re just watching the waves. And he said, I’m a professional opportunist. Yeah. And since he said that he always likes to say when someone asks him like, why are you like for a living or something like that?

He always liked that line and sort of stayed with him and that really resonated 100% with me. I don’t see myself as a clear like title or anything..

I also don’t like to be in a box, right? Because I feel like it could constrain my growth or where my curiosity wants to take me.

“Professional Opportunist” Philosophy

20:02.43 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And so I would say that same line of being a professional opportunist and always sort of guided and through my curiosity, through my genuine curiosity.

20:09.05 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

20:17.37 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

20:18.56 – Brian David Crane

Got it. Okay, so a professional opportunist guided by a guide guided by your genuine curiosity.

20:19.99 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I would say, yeah, that’s it. Yeah, it’s very simple.

20:25.65 – Brian David Crane

So then if you are a professional opportunist guided by your genuine curiosity, is picking nuggets in the little almanac a stepping stone? Maybe that’s not the right word for it. Let’s call it a stepping stone to something else. And what I mean by that is and in both of your projects, you’re looking at what you call influential doers.

20:51.26 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

20:51.32 – Brian David Crane

People like Charlie Munger, Steve Jobs, Naval, Bezos is another example, like all of these guys and have done something professionally, and then they get asked subsequent to that, Hey, what do you think about human psychology? Hey, what do you think about a life well lived? Hey, what do you think about.. When like, let’s call it, esoteric questions or philosophical questions.

21:20.95 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

21:22.65 – Brian David Crane

From my perspective, as you’re working now, you see what you’re doing as a precursor to, I don’t know, setting up a rocket company to try to put a man on Mars or something else, right?

21:37.81 – Julio Froment Castellvi

No. Yeah.

21:38.71 – Brian David Crane

Like, I think you want yeah i think you want to do something.

21:39.11 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah

21:42.39 – Brian David Crane

I think you want to do something, not just talk about influential doers. It’s like, you’re fascinated by the influential doers.

21:50.03 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. yeah

21:51.32 – Brian David Crane

But you would also like to be one.

21:55.01 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, I mean, it’s a big dilemma. But I actually love what I do every day like picking nuggets and a little almanac and the essays as well. and so I just like to do that.

And then whenever I have something like, for instance, executing on a new video, and then something will like come to my mind. Then I will try to explore it. But I always sort of explore or try to plan on things and from already being like executing.

I don’t usually have long-term plans or even medium-term plans. I just like to, like every day, I go and execute. And then from that execution, I get new ideas and then may those new ideas but could or could not become plans in the medium and term or not.

But I feel like it always stems from doing, right? And although it’s not it’s not doing, sorry?

22:58.97 – Brian David Crane

And really from your curiosity. And really from your curiosity. It’s like every day is day zero in terms of curiosity.

23:03.48 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, yeah.

23:05.88 – Brian David Crane

It’s like, what am I curious about today? Right?

23:08.16 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Although it’s a little bit different from the people that I make the content from because what I’m doing is like content dissemination. And that might stem from that, that might become like a stepping stone for something else. But, right now I love this trajectory. But the thing is, especially when I look backwards, I see that there’s been like a growth in.

First, I just was like, with a YouTube channel and then now with a little Almanac and And even with the SEO traffic for Little Amnick. So if I just look backwards, It looks like it’s like building some sort of trajectory, even though from the present into the future, it’s hard to see it. I think it’s easier to like to do things and then have the ideas and then execute these new ideas. And then as you execute, you start getting these new paths and you make the way up.

Yeah, I think it was like this actually actually like this. This is what I’ve been doing, but also I feel it was definitely just Jensen Juan who put it into the line. What I’m saying here is already like that kind of line, right? Jensen Juan is when people ask him, right, what his if he has like a long-term plan, medium-term plan, he’s like, have no plan whatsoever.

It’s just what? I’m doing what I’m going to do today. And that execution of today is going to take me, it’s going to produce a new idea, which, and then that new idea, I’m going to go for it like whenever I finish what I’m doing right now, right or or even not, if it’s that important.

No, and so it’s that kind of thing. you know, And that really resonated with me because looking backward on what I like my path to be, I feel it’s very aligned with that without philosophy.

Execution Over Planning

25:10.88 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, what you’re talking about reminded me of The bit that you wrote on YouTube as well, let’s call community notes goes. this You wrote, so if it is all about luck then?

I think if we look at it on an individual project basis, looking at a single project, luck plays a big role, but luck’s role decreases as the number total number of projects increases, i.e.

25:32.66 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

25:32.83 – Brian David Crane

You keep learning and adapting. So that’s over a long enough period of time and enough projects, luck plays a significantly lower role in the entrepreneur’s success, maybe even an insignificant one.

And so the reason I say that is because I think what you’re describing is you’re showing up every day. you keep taking agency, which is something you and will get into later about why we both care about it.

But trying, testing, doing something and you’re not. Yeah, it’s like you’re not lost in thinking about it. There is output happening every day. And when you look back on it, you can see a clearer path to it, let’s say..
But at the moment to today, you don’t necessarily say I’m doing this because in 6 months I want to be.

The Role of Luck and Connecting Dots

26:22.15 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

26:22.37 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, I mean, there’s a Steve Jobs quote, right?

26:22.98 – Brian David Crane

This other, right.

26:25.79 – Julio Froment Castellvi

About the dots, connecting the dots.

26:27.89 – Brian David Crane

But what does he say?

26:28.18 – Julio Froment Castellvi

You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. I guess it is going to be the same thing, I guess, like when he took this calligraphy course and he had no idea how this was going to be useful for his quote unquote career or profession, but he just like loved the way, like and the way they would like do these like letters.

26:44.79 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

26:52.48 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right. And he was really, really curious about how to make this calligraphy, the different types of calligraphy and all that. And so he spent like months learning this and he had no idea how this is going to contribute to his career, his professional path, whatever.

But then you know he said, you know after five years or something like that, it all came back when we had to decide what type of typography we’re going to use in the iPhone or the Mac.

27:24.66 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm. Makes sense.

27:26.50 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

27:26.57 – Brian David Crane

Got it.

27:26.70 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So it’s trusting, just trusting that the dots will connect.

27:31.76 – Brian David Crane

Is there also a bit of economic opportunism? And what I mean by that question is, okay, cool. You’re from Ecuador. You and your family moved to Spain. As you and I talked about prior to the call, the vast majority of your viewers, readers, consumers of your content, they’re Americans or they’re in the States, right?

Don’t necessarily know if they’re Americans, but it’s in English, tends to be focused around, yeah,

27:58.47 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, and India, US top countries.

28:02.03 – Brian David Crane

India and the US, okay? Yeah. And so, like, as you’re watching what’s happening in the States, you know, amazing place to do business, what the US produces as far as let’s call it content and economically, and yet you’re not physically in the States.

28:16.99 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

28:18.84 – Brian David Crane

But yet, Substack’s a US company. YouTube is a US subsidiary of Google. And so you’re in, let’s call it Pax Americana, like the ecosystem.

28:30.73 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Yeah.

28:32.29 – Brian David Crane

The ecosystem

28:34.30 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

28:34.76 – Brian David Crane

So is this a way to get into the U.S. without being physically in the U.S.? It’s the same thing with English. Like In your bio, you talked about how frustrated you were with your level of English. And then at 20, you were like, I’m just going to get better at this and started watching a lot of, I think, American – Well, yeah.

28:57.14 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah

28:59.25 – Brian David Crane

American content. I don’t know what it was, whether it was TV, movies, podcasts, and Netflix.

29:01.73 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. And Netflix. When I was 18, I switched everything because I was spending so much time watching series and these kinds of things.

29:05.36 – Brian David Crane

Okay, yeah.

29:12.35 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And I was like, okay, maybe if I just put it in English, I already like learning English.

29:12.44 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

29:16.42 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right. And then I stopped watching.

29:17.46 – Brian David Crane

A better use of the time.

29:18.93 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So

29:19.67 – Brian David Crane

A better use of the time, right?

29:20.01 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, yeah, various times.

29:21.27 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

29:22.04 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But then I realized this is still BS.

29:22.55 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

29:24.20 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I didn’t realize this is still BS.

29:24.46 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, question

29:25.64 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I’m just going to cut off this Netflix thing, whatever. I’m not because not, and then I became really curious about investing in finance and then everything came from YouTube and Spotify.

That’s it. And then I haven’t had a Netflix subscription since probably for about 6 or 7 years. Yeah.

29:44.89 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

29:45.90 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But everything from YouTube and Spotify, of course, everything from in English, except two things, taxes and I think airplane security.

29:51.81 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

29:56.75 – Julio Froment Castellvi

That’s it.

29:57.11 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

29:58.71 – Julio Froment Castellvi

The rest is like this is a no brainer to go for the English because that’s where the best content is just created in English. Unless it’s a very local thing, and like the taxes thing.

30:09.83 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

30:11.98 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And it’s not even because it’s the best.

30:12.60 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

30:14.02 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It’s just because no American is going to talk about Spanish taxes.

30:17.50 – Brian David Crane

For sure.

30:17.51 – Julio Froment Castellvi

That’s crazy. Yeah.

30:18.64 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

30:20.57 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Until ChatGPT will catch up with say the taxes people here, but it’s not there yet, I think. So yeah, everything English is just because it’s the best, the best content.

30:29.96 – Brian David Crane

So but..

Choosing English for Access to the Best Ideas

30:34.22 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And my desire for English was not so much to break into the US so much that what I was thinking is that the highest quality stuff is always created, almost always created in English.

So I really want to have English, like I talk Spanish at the same level. to never miss anything of this. like I can go straight to the source of something that is really good, like a really good book that is not translated into Spanish.

Or even if it’s translated to Spanish, there’s a lot of loss in translation, right? Like so I always go for English, yeah.

31:10.92 – Brian David Crane

Or translator’s discretion, right? Like you want to go see what that person actually said and you get it.

31:13.41 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, exactly. I want to see what the person says. Yeah, exactly.

31:17.01 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

31:17.74 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And that’s also something that I like about my YouTube channel, that it’s actually what these people say. It’s not me trying to like other content creators that are saying, you know these are the 10 principles of Navador, Nafzini, whatever. And it’s them talking, well right?

31:39.01 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

31:39.81 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And sometimes, like we have so many biases that sometimes you have certainty that this person is referring to this thing, but that’s totally wrong. And in the case of Nassim Telev, it’s like 50% odds that you get wrong, probably.

Yeah. So that’s something I really like, that it comes from the source and there are no like filters through it.

32:02.93 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, Taleb is a funny one because he talks in a way.

32:03.36 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. So yeah.

32:05.87 – Brian David Crane

I want to find one of his quotes that you recently highlighted that was…

32:10.05 – Julio Froment Castellvi

He writes like it’s a novel, I think. That’s what I love also about what I love about his books. that It’s like you’re reading a novel, but this is a nonfiction book, right?

32:20.59 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, and he uses words that are not… comment for the average, I think, English speaker, right? I’m going to read a little bit of, he wrote here.

He says, and you quoted this, to have a stable social life, filter out those who get easily offended by offending them early on.

32:41.49 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah okay.

32:42.60 – Brian David Crane

Okay. That was a statement to have a stable social life, filter out those who get easily offended by offending them early on. And he says but beneath it to explain, he says, as usual, some people are getting the aphorism wrong.

32:50.23 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah

32:58.44 – Brian David Crane

Americans don’t really use aphorism all that much, but so as usual, some people are getting the aphorism wrong.

33:00.95 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Okay

33:03.34 – Brian David Crane

It does not mean one should offend people. It means that if people will eventually end up being offended, it is much better early than late. Capiche. So I think you like it because it does sound almost like a novel.

33:15.20 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Top

33:19.69 – Brian David Crane

It’s also thought-provoking and it’s, and it’s contrarian, right?

33:20.04 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

33:22.57 – Brian David Crane

It’s a contrarian take.

33:24.09 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

33:24.93 – Brian David Crane

I think he thrives on being a bit of a contrarian, right? In taking, yeah.

33:27.48 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Absolutely. And YouTube also loves that. Contrarian things.

33:32.53 – Brian David Crane

Does it? Yeah.

Crafting Contrarian, Timeless Content for YouTube

33:33.64 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, I mean, that’s I have like a checklist for making like my YouTube titles and my thumbnails. One of the things is that it challenges and assumptions. And yeah, so because challenging assumptions create a lot of curiosity.

So there are many things that create curiosity. One one of the things is challenging assumptions. Another thing is contrasting stuff. And like, for instance, this silly small trick made me 1 million dollars. OK?

34:03.49 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Yeah.

34:05.45 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So it is a contrast between a silly small trick and $1 million. dollars So that picks up career a lot of curiosity, that contrast.

34:14.00 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

34:14.45 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And then other things like making like listicles. It makes us curious to know, what’s this thing and and the number two and the number three and the four.

And yeah, I think maybe there’s like two more or something. But yeah.

34:31.20 – Brian David Crane

Tell me, but what is your process? Like, how does this start? And I know that’s a bad question. So let me reframe it in the way that you sit down, if you look at your channel, okay, you might make a video.

It’s certainly not every day. It’s not every week.

34:50.55 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It’s not every month sometimes.

34:50.87 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, so let’s say it’s once every two months, right? So…

34:56.61 – Julio Froment Castellvi

On average, yeah.

34:58.16 – Brian David Crane

It’s labor love. You’re conscious about it. You’ve thought about it. How do you pick what you want to cover or why?

35:06.95 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, first, before answering this question, I like i think that the the the philosophy i I kind of follow is to really think through like very hard is if this is going to make is going to be like a really good video.

And maybe I do the whole process. Probably that’s why it takes me so long. Although, I think when I start executing, it’s about two weeks, three weeks of work. But what I have in my mind is that I want this and this content not to be like I’m something that is going to be like seen for one month.

The Lindy Effect and Content Longevity

35:49.33 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I want to create something that is going to be like timeless.

35:49.90 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

35:53.12 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And someone 10 years from now is still going to get value from it. Right. And that’s actually one of the checks on my checklist, that this content I’m creating would be interesting for people 20 years ago.

Because if it’s interesting for people 20 years ago, it means that it’s very likely that it will be interesting for people 20 years in the future. That’s the kind of like the Lindy effect, right, that Nassim Taleb talks about.

And that’s actually what he actually said. And I just added it to my checklist. I like to take stuff, even in my checklist.

36:32.75 – Brian David Crane

So yeah, well..

36:37.68 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. And so always..

36:38.49 – Brian David Crane

Standing on the shoulders of giants I think as well as you put it yeah go ahead though

36:41.13 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, yeah. And so I have this in my mind that I want to like this to be almost like a book, like a timeless book that people can go over it like for months, for years, for decades. And so in terms of my process, it’s like I never like to start with a blank sheet on Google Docs or anything.

I have a list of titles. I think I have 40 pages right now of titles and ideas. On Google Doc that I’ve made through like 3 years, 4 years since I started. I’ve put in like, when I have an idea about something, I just write it down there.

And then when I start actually, it is not a click, no.

37:26.66 – Brian David Crane

It’s not Just to be clear, it’s not in ClickUp. Go ahead, yeah.

37:33.91 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

37:34.56 – Brian David Crane

You got this Google Doc.

37:35.14 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah this Google, dog with 40 pages. Yeah. And when I get an idea, I put it in there and then when I want to make a new video, I just scroll through it and I see, what really, what still resonates, because if it resonated two two weeks ago and it still resonates, it resonates now, it’s probably going to be more timeless. That’s kind of the way I think. And so..

37:59.04 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, you let the idea kind of settle for a bit and then see we come back to it and it’s not so emotionally charged.

38:01.97 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, absolutely. Because, yeah. And that’s something they’re from David Perl, or Perl, I think it is, that you are sometimes so excited about an idea and you think it’s like it’s such an amazing idea.

And then you know you go all in, right? And then in the process, you realize this idea actually sucks. That’s right. And so one of the things I do is like I take this idea. I think it’s amazing, or otherwise I wouldn’t put it in this and Google sheet.

And then when I want to actually make a video, I go through it and I see it again without any mental context on it or anything. Because that’s also the way that the YouTube viewer is going to see it. right They are only going to see the title.

And that itself must create all the interest, because otherwise it’s not going to click. So it’s kind of like I’m putting myself in the shoes of the viewer, like scrolling through all these titles, this list of titles and ideas that I have, and and see something that is like that that stops my scrolling.

And I’m like, wow, this is amazing. And so when I have that click, as I know that this is a video.

39:14.24 – Brian David Crane

Caught you again.

39:16.04 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

39:16.67 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

39:17.92 – Julio Froment Castellvi

When I have that, it’s like, this is the video I need to make. Yeah.

39:22.52 – Brian David Crane

Yeah And I think what then If you would talk a little bit about your process, you were you and I were talking about it before the show, but I mean, process wise, as far as you’re using a tool called Readwise, i think that you know you’ve got, you’re taking in content from your Kindle, you’re taking in content from YouTube, you’re taking in content from Twitter or X.

The Curation Workflow: Readwise and Python

39:44.15 – Brian David Crane

Maybe other places, sometimes a podcast.

39:47.19 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

39:47.26 – Brian David Crane

Let’s use each one of those 4. Kindle, YouTube, podcasts, and an X. whisper Like how do you synthesize all that content that you’re digesting and then get it out and into work art? I don’t know. a work of art.

40:11.04 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. So what has worked very well is, as you said, having my Readwise library, and which takes all the sources, like all my my Twitter bookmarks, my X bookmarks,

And it takes my YouTube transcriptions where I have highlighted stuff. It takes my highlights from Kindle and all that. But for me, it doesn’t stop there.

What I do is once every 3 months or 2 months is that I export all my highlights from Readwise into a CSV. And then through a series of Python programs that I’ve created, obviously with ChatGPT, otherwise I have no idea how to make that.

40:54.31 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

40:55.46 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, so I created all these programs so that it ends up being like a super clean database of nuggets, which actually that’s one of the products I made also, which I promote, I think in the description of YouTube videos and also in the newsletter.

Where it’s like a lifetime value, I think it’s $80 or $90. And then you can see literally all like the nuggets that I have taken and that I use as a tool for content creation.

41:28.72 – Brian David Crane

And it gets updated.

41:29.05 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And sorry.

41:31.16 – Brian David Crane

It gets updated. These are like when you do.

41:32.82 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It gets updated, yeah. Every 2 months, 3 months, I add the new content and because I always have, right?

41:34.36 – Brian David Crane

Yes.

41:38.69 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Like new bookmarks, new highlights from YouTube or Kindle. So it gets updated with that. I, well, I have to manually update it and it actually takes me like two days to make this update.

41:49.41 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

41:50.55 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Because, well, and for many reasons. I think one of the things that takes me most of my time is like the YouTube transcriptions are super bad. So I actually take, again, the audio and I send it to Descript, which is a tool that gives you super clean transcripts.

And then I take it from Descript. Although nowadays, I just send it to ChatGPT. I don’t use Descript anymore. I used to use Descript. The last batches I’ve done, and it’s amazing.

I just put it there like the nugget from the YouTube transcript.

42:19.67 – Brian David Crane

Audio file.

42:21.02 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And I’m like, clean it.

42:21.54 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

42:22.72 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Don’t change the words, but like make it nice to read with capitalization and everything. And it’s amazing. Yeah.

42:30.77 – Brian David Crane

And then what, yeah, so what about with a podcast when you hear something, or are you not consuming, audio podcasts?

42:30.78 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So that takes me about two days every two two months.

42:40.31 – Brian David Crane

You’re only doing this with YouTube videos.

42:40.85 – Julio Froment Castellvi

No, I do. I mean, for audio, if it’s only audio, that’s typically when I’m walking somewhere.

42:46.53 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

42:50.07 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And where I live, I walk everywhere.

42:50.27 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

42:52.91 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I rarely go into the metro or buses or I usually walk if it’s up to a distance of 55 minutes.

And that for me, it’s like the way I see it is an opportunity for me, obviously to to exercise a bit, but also and also to to listen to these podcasts, which are like audio only because it’s like I’ve done it sometimes to like listen to the audio without walking or just doing nothing. And it’s terrible, right?

43:27.59 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

43:27.74 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I mean, because you need to do something. I think it’s not natural to a human being, right?

43:32.21 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

43:33.18 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, you need to see some facial expressions or something.

43:33.37 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

43:35.98 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But when you’re walking, right? Like a million years ago, we would walk with others like yeah and Homo sapiens, whatever. And you don’t have to see his face, right? Because when you’re walking, you’re not supposed to see someone else’s face.

Right. You just hear the voice on your and your on your side.

43:56.37 – Brian David Crane

Oh, yeah.

43:59.81 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right.

Podcast Listening as a Walking Ritual

44:00.41 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

44:00.61 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So I feel that aligns more with how we have evolved. And so when I walk, I put in the podcast and it’s amazing, yeah. The podcast I love most is one called founders by David Senra. Don’t know if you’ve listened to it.

44:13.81 – Brian David Crane

No, I have not.

44:14.78 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Very cool. And Acquired.

44:17.45 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

44:18.31 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And another one we just go Philosophize this. These are my three top ones.

44:22.59 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

44:23.74 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

44:25.80 – Brian David Crane

But if you hear something as you’re walking, you’re in the 50th minute of your walk, right?

44:29.36 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Oh, yeah. I noted down on my Google Keep. I noted down on my Google Keep.

44:37.23 – Brian David Crane

Okay. So that’s where I was getting out of this. So you do take a screenshot. You pull out your phone and go, this was at the 52nd minute of this podcast.

44:39.81 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. I don’t even have to do that because there’s like a way where you can share the timestamp on Spotify. The timestamp link.

44:51.66 – Brian David Crane

Got it.

44:52.77 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Like you can do it on YouTube, you can also do it with Spotify.

44:52.93 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

44:55.36 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And I will add that link into a note on Google Keep. Just say like, it comes from this podcast, whatever. And then I would also add that into my Nuggets database. But I would manually add that because that’s not gonna go into like a read-wise, yeah.

45:07.41 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Got it. Okay. So, and, and you’re doing all this yourself. You don’t have a VA, somebody, I don’t think you have, like,

Doing It All Himself for the Sake of Quality

45:20.73 – Julio Froment Castellvi

No, no..

45:21.42 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, because they’re your nuggets, let’s say, right?

45:25.95 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I’ve definitely thought about outsourcing some parts of the process. And I mean, definitely people I like every time I talk with someone, right? And the person will be like, you are not outsourcing this to this or to that person or to this kind of audio engineers or professional visual designers or whatever, right?

And I guess it sort of, like quote unquote, like makes sense, maybe from an economic perspective, although long term, I don’t think so. But it would be like definitely a valid and economic rationale to see to say it.

But the way I see it is that if I start outsourcing, like all these like different parts, then it sort of misses like the.. I feel like no one’s going to care more about your product than the owner.

46:33.04 – Brian David Crane

About the end product.

46:35.22 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Or the person who really has like for instance, I’m like making a video, right and there’s something happened about a new idea about something, and then I’m two days exploring that idea.

I mean, if I outsource that, it’s impossible. This is going to happen because of the incentives and all that.

46:57.23 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

46:58.16 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And just like a super different thing, I believe. And for me, it all stems from the quality of the product of the video in this case. I think everything is downstream from the quality of the product.

So I’m kind of afraid to outsource and compromise quality because that’s like the core thing, the most important thing, right? So I’m really worried about compromising the thing that really makes everything kind of like and go.

Yeah. And actually, this podcast, I was telling you about the Founders Podcast by David Senra. He made a clip like, I think like 2 weeks ago, where there was a video that showing Steve Jobs and Ivan Chouinard, the guy from Patagonia.

Content as Craft, Not Just Business

48:01.74 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

48:02.56 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And it would set it that these were the anti-business people, right? Because they were more like craftsmen and they were trying to follow almost like a love love affair.

48:18.39 – Brian David Crane

They were artists in a way.

48:20.18 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Sorry.

48:20.35 – Brian David Crane

Yep. They were artists.

48:21.18 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, exactly. I like almost like a love affair for what they do and what they want to output into the world. And that comes on top of the economic output that it could produce. And so I like to see myself that way, like being more of a craftsman rather than like a businessman.

48:44.21 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

48:44.95 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And also, if you think about it, like with the leverage of media you know content, I think like this these days, I think it’s sometimes enough to be and be a craftsman because of all the leverage that the media content gives you.

But because like a person consumes it, and the marginal cost of that is zero, right? But you are getting, like in my case, I’ve made calculations in my head, I get about half a penny for every view on YouTube.

49:15.13 – Brian David Crane

For every view.

49:17.52 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, half a penny.

49:17.71 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

49:18.79 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I think it’s like 5 euros for every thousand views or something. But the cost of producing that content for that person is zero, right? So if you get good numbers on how many people’s watching it, it’s like it’s just like you don’t have to be like a businessman or anything or or think too much about anything.

49:39.15 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It’s just going to make money but I make money. Yeah.

49:43.06 – Brian David Crane

Is that what you’re seeing though? As far as your YouTube channel goes, when you do this, when you take this craftsman attitude and pour your heart and soul into it, and I want to, I’m going to finish that question, but I do want to say something about what you said previously, which is another part of why you’re doing it the way you’re doing it and kind of keeping it all in house is.

You want to get better at these things. You wanted to become a better illustrator. You wanted to get better at copywriting. You wanted to get better, like for you, it was the skills and you looked at this and said, I’m going to kind of force myself into a position where I have to develop better skills in order to improve, right?

50:28.11 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

50:29.77 – Brian David Crane

It’s one of the reasons you and I work on these essays together. On Spreadgreatideas.org you looked at it like, I want to be a better writer. And this is a way to kind of force me into doing it, you know?

50:42.98 – Julio Froment Castellvi

For sure.

50:43.08 – Brian David Crane

So where I was going with the original question, which I’ve totally forgotten by now, let’s go with it.

50:43.67 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Well, the craftsmanship on YouTube.

00:50:55.24 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, is that I think that from a monetization standpoint, you have stuff that came out like let’s say 2 or 3 years ago it might not be your best work now, but let’s say the amount per hour of your work, the amount of money you make per hour, is actually going up because it continues to accrue views is that right like videos from 2 or 3 years ago that..

51:24.82 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Oh, yeah. I mean, there’s many, many things that I’ve been thinking about as you said these things.

51:32.58 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

51:32.93 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But yeah, I mean, in the sense of like me creating a new YouTube video, I know that a part of that income is going to be like passive, like a percentage of that income is not just going to be like, I mean, most of it is going to be in the next..

51:37.31 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

51:48.44 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I mean, in most cases, it’s going to be mostly like in the next 4 months, the income, right?

51:53.93 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

51:54.81 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But then there’s like a 10%, like the other 10%, 20% part that still is going to accrue every single month. And sometimes even like increases or or like increases.

For instance, I think the video that has become the most passive in terms of views and income and everything is like 11 rules for life. I think that one has like around 2,000 views every day.

Like right now, like yeah I think 1.5k, 2k views every day. And I think I bought it like around 3 years ago or I think it was 2 years ago.

52:38.36 – Brian David Crane

And where are those views coming from?

52:38.44 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right?

52:39.96 – Brian David Crane

And what I mean by that is, are they coming from people who they know Naval, it was a play on Jordan Peterson’s 12 rules for life. I said like, but so as an evolved popularity kind of spikes and drops Jordan Peterson’s popularity spikes and drops, or is it that they’re looking for just a general query of what are some rules for life and YouTube keeps serving it up to them?

52:52.86 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that.. No way.

53:04.80 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Like, I don’t know. Yeah.

53:05.51 – Julio Froment Castellvi

That’s it, the last place.

53:05.64 – Brian David Crane

Well like, I don’t know how do they get it?

53:08.15 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I mean, a general query about rules for life on YouTube is definitely not coming. I would confidently say that zero views a day comes from that.

53:17.65 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

53:17.74 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And I think it’s multifactorial. I think there’s many, many places where views are coming. And I mean, just looking at the way that YouTube organizes the like where the views are coming from, it’s like that you have the browser features, browser features right?which is basically suggestions on the home page and on next watch next video when you end like one video.

53:34.30 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

53:43.34 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right. And maybe also like the videos that when you’re watching one video, you have other other videos like listed at the right if you’re on desktop. Yeah. So all of that is like the browser features. So 85%, it comes from browser features.

53:59.27 – Brian David Crane

Bingo.

53:59.39 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Only about 10% comes from SEO, like YouTube SEO, proper like searching the search box.

53:59.85 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

54:06.16 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I would say the most likely funnel is like someone got interested somehow with a from Naval. Maybe he read something on and I said because 95% are male, he read something or 5% women. Okay, and read something on Twitter or X and they go to like YouTube search Naval Recant

54:23.39 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

54:34.47 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Then they watch a podcast and then they see suggested videos and they see 11 rules for life. And I was like, okay, nice. It’s like, it’s going to give me like this from something that is really compelling and interesting and from like many different sources.

But then I think that that idea actually came from the obviously Jordan Peterson’s book, 12 rules for life.

54:56.58 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

54:57.32 – Julio Froment Castellvi

That was my.. Yeah.

54:57.45 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And..

54:59.43 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And actually in the comments, there’s always like Jordan Peterson has 12. Because it’s like 11 rules for life. Jorapis has 12. Every single item. For Naval, Naseem as well. Because of Naseem, I also did it on purpose.

55:11.89 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. yeah It’s a good hook though.

55:13.50 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

55:14.22 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. I mean, it creates a bit of curiosity as well, because people are familiar with the 12 rules.

55:19.37 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Yeah, and it’s valid, it’s a tested title as well, right? It’s already been like a bestseller book, like 12 Rules for Life. That’s like a catchy kind of title. So I don’t have to do the work myself. I can just take it and reframe it.

55:36.85 – Brian David Crane

But do you know… Yeah, and I think to speak to it, they become familiar with Naval some other way. They heard about him. They’re like, yeah this guy’s wise. He seems wise based on what I saw in this one podcast.

55:47.10 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Oh, yeah.

00:55:48.76 – Brian David Crane

And so therefore, yeah, I would love to know what his 11 rules for life are, right?

55:49.06 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

55:52.14 – Brian David Crane

Because you do. If you’ve not listened to him before, he is a very wise man. And I think it’s clear after you listen to him for a bit that you’re like, yeah, I’d be curious to hear what this guy says about…

56:05.03 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

56:06.80 – Brian David Crane

Different topics, because he’s got a very solid framework and way of looking at the world, you know, and contrarian as well.

56:16.03 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

56:16.84 – Brian David Crane

He’s again, it’s like I think he’s an original thinker.

56:19.88 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, and he talks really well. Right.

56:22.72 – Brian David Crane

In terms of how he explains his ideas.

56:22.86 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So like, yeah. The way he thinks. Sorry..

56:26.49 – Brian David Crane

In terms of how he explains his ideas or what?

56:28.61 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. I mean, he explains ideas so well. And Jeff Bezos, I think, is the other example. They have a really clear mind because when you just listen to them and maybe you don’t realize it that much.

But in my case, where I do like the notes and everything, I’m like, wow, like this guy is like really talking about something here. Then he talks about the other thing, then he makes them, then he makes an example, then he makes an analogy.

Then he references the source of someone, so another person. and then he introduces some aphorisms. He mixes all these things. And it’s not even like just the nugget, and the substance.

57:10.17 – Brian David Crane

And..

57:11.65 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But it’s also how the substance is delivered. He delivers that substance so well. So I think it’s both things, right? He has the substance. And he also has a very good way to deliver, like super good way to deliver it.

57:31.94 – Brian David Crane

So if you had to pick who’s your favorite, do you have one? Let’s name some of the people that you think are the influential doers. We’ve got Charlie Munger, Steve jobs, Naval Ravikant, Nicholas Nassim Taleb, excuse me.

57:42.20 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

57:49.88 – Brian David Crane

Who are some of the other ones that I don’t know off the top of my head, like, that you classify influential doers and which one do you Jim Rohn? I don’t know if he classifies an influential doer, but you and I both like him.

57:59.59 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, actually, like I heard a little bit about Jim Rohn before we met, but like I just got some quotes.

58:05.49 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. How?

58:09.38 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I think I never heard him talking, but then you send me the video about the best, the best. How’s the title?

58:17.34 – Brian David Crane

And how to have your best year ever.

58:20.07 – Julio Froment Castellvi

That’s it. Yeah. The 4hour long video. And I watched it all like while I was eating, when I was eating, I would put it on YouTube and I would see the video. Right. And I completed these 4 hours, like in 2 months or 1 month I think. And yeah, I mean, I love Jim Brown because also when I first heard Jim Brown, I already had a lot of context from other people in my mind.

I already had the context of Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Monish Papri, Navarra Wiccan, Jeff Bezos. And the things that Jim Rohn was saying for me, the thing that most called and my attention was that he would say it in one line, what Jeff Bezos saying in 5 minutes or something.

58:58.78 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

59:07.33 – Julio Froment Castellvi

He just capsulates and encapsulates really well. Like I think also Navas does really well on twitter and on X. and He just put it into one line, right?

59:17.68 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

59:18.54 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Like for instance, there’s this line, I think it was really cool. I also have a playlist on YouTube where I have a few shorts for him. Like I think mainly when I’m running, just to inspire myself because that’s when I need the most motivation when I’m running and I’m really tired.

And he said like, yeah, that’s one of those.

59:37.67 – Brian David Crane

Don’t wish it were easier or wish you were better.

59:41.87 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, that’s one of those. I mean, and then they put, of course, the super inspirational music on YouTube.

59:51.21 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

59:51.37 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And it’s just, oh my God. And then I just want to run faster, right?

59:54.60 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

59:55.17 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Like the one I was thinking is so work harder on yourself than you do on your job, for instance.

01:00:02.43 – Brian David Crane

Bingo. Yep.

01:00:03.42 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, that’s so, so good. So he has so many of these.

01:00:07.27 – Brian David Crane

Take care of your body. It’s the only place you’ve got to live. That’s one of his that I always liked. Take care of your body.

01:00:14.30 – Julio Froment Castellvi

A good one.

01:00:14.35 – Brian David Crane

It’s the only place you’ve got to live.

01:00:14.63 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, it’s a great one.

01:00:15.84 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. They’re very thoughtful. They’re very, very thoughtful. I come across them all the time and I’m like, man, OG, Jim Brown. Mm-hmm.

01:00:22.82 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, and Tony Robbins, he learned from him. but he yeah like Jim was his mentor. right I mean, Tony got way, way more fame than him, but he was his mentor. Yeah, I definitely like more Jim Rohn than Tony Robbins, actually. like just the way that…

I’m not sure if it’s the substance or the way they speak. I think it’s more the way that Jim Rohn speaks because they both sort of deliver like great but substance. But I prefer how Jim Rohn talks compared to Tony Robbins.

01:00:57.57 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, he’s more, I would listen to Jim Rohn, you talking about, you have the speech in front of you while you were eating and whatnot. I mean, I would be on my motorcycle in Bali is about an hour drive place I had to go on a regular basis.

And I would put the speech in and listen to it. And I couldn’t do the whole speech, the 4 hours of it, but I could pick up parts of it during that hour and over and over again.

01:01:18.64 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

01:01:19.34 – Brian David Crane

And it was just like listening to I don’t know, your favorite uncle or somebody that you felt gave a damn, had your best interest at heart and was not preaching at you, but was lovingly nudging you a bit to step it up.

01:01:25.38 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yep.

01:01:39.94 – Brian David Crane

You know, he had an analogy that he used, which was if you have a child who isn’t doing so well in school, do you tell them, Oh, you’re trying your hardest. It’s okay. He’s like, no, he’s like, they make the chairs a certain size in third grade because you can’t stay there. He’s like, you gotta advance.

The chairs are too small. You’re going to outgrow your chair. And he does it in his kind of slightly nasally voice and, yeah, it’s like you’d listen to him and go yeah, it’s totally true. Like this dude, he’s hit the nail on the head.

I don’t know. So I’m glad that yeah I’m glad that you appreciate that, how to have your best year ever.

01:02:16.60 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah

01:02:20.44 – Brian David Crane

It’s probably the single piece of content I’ve shared with more people than anything else. I will link to it in the show notes because I like it so much. But let’s go back because you’re getting ready to go to Bali.

01:02:26.82 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Perfect.

01:02:29.22 – Brian David Crane

And I saw another quote that you posted from a guy named Vitaly Katsenilasan. Okay, I might butcher his name. Apologies.

01:02:37.03 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, yeah.

01:02:37.85 – Brian David Crane

Yes, people fail to realize that the principal thing you can learn from a professor is how to be a professor.

01:02:38.03 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah

01:02:43.46 – Brian David Crane

And the chief thing you can learn from, say, a life coach or inspirational speaker is how to become a life coach or inspirational speaker. So why do you find that so true? Why did you like that?

01:02:55.43 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Well, because we have a lot of that in the world, and it just lacks essential skin in the game. but I think it’s as simple as that.

It’s like the thing they are trying to teach. and they don’t have the skin in the game to actually like to talk from, you know, having walked the walk, you know?

01:03:19.04 – Brian David Crane

And..

01:03:20.03 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And that’s also why I’m like super thoughtful of giving, or when I say something, I’m always like, this is my opinion. This is my reflection. This is not a rule for you or anything like that, you know? And essentially what I do is like, I take this information from Naval.

01:03:35.11 – Brian David Crane

Yeah

01:03:39.37 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I found it amazing. I share it with the notes that I would do anyways, because before I do in the YouTube channel, I will always take notes from these videos. And I’ll just share it. And then I would like to put in my reflections. Right. But there’s no like, you have to do this.

01:03:55.48 – Brian David Crane

Julio says this. It’s more like, yeah exactly.

01:03:58.08 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. And whenever I want to learn from something, and I always look for a person who has like, I’m 100% sure that he has got skin in the game and actually came out successful from it. And then you can have things like survivorship bias.

So you can really put the all into what someone says, but yeah, so there are like ways to, I would say, Make sure that the source from where you are learning something is actually like the highest signal possible.

So my filter would be right skin in the game and then maybe have a few sources. So there’s it’s not too biased with the survivorship bias in the case of entrepreneurship. And I think she’s just, I mean, the skin in the game is like 95% of the thing, I think.

01:04:56.67 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:04:57.68 – Julio Froment Castellvi

She doesn’t need to look at many more factors, honestly.

01:05:03.12 – Brian David Crane

Well, it ties in with The skin in the game ties in with one of the essays you wrote on spreadgoodideas.org, which is teachers versus mentors versus gurus, the quest to find the best instructor, right?

01:05:16.81 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

01:05:17.24 – Brian David Crane

Because partially what we’re talking about here is somebody who, let’s say, is a teacher versus a mentor or a guru and how to distinguish between the three of them. Do you remember what you wrote and how you defined the difference between the three?

01:05:33.14 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. So, I think the case of the, in the case, no, don’t worry, about In the case of the guru, I feel like it was like someone who got really successful in one area of life and then use that as a validator to, in order to give advice in a broad spectrum of areas in life, basically.

01:05:34.77 – Brian David Crane

I can quote it if you want me to. I can go find it. Okay, yeah.

01:05:55.64 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So..

01:05:55.78 – Brian David Crane

Bingo.

01:05:58.18 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Like if Warren Buffett, got really successful in investing in business and then gives advice on how to live your life and all that. And he even himself said, when someone asked him in a Berkshire Hathaway meeting, and something super philosophical or something like he’s like..

I’m not because like he got successful in business, he’s going to know how, what’s the best for someone to live his life or something. Right. But Charlie Munger would be way better in that, because he has an interest in more things and he has gone through many, like big, big misfortunes in life.

And he has gone ahead and never let that stop his like..

01:06:47.50 – Brian David Crane

His journey, let’s say.

01:06:48.69 – Julio Froment Castellvi

His journey, yeah.

01:06:48.78 – Brian David Crane

No. Yeah I wanted to ask that because Munger would get asked, you have somebody who’s a billionaire, very successful investor. If you’re not familiar with Charlie Munger, there’s an excellent book about him called Poor Charlie’s Almanac.

He was Warren Buffett’s business partner for, I don’t know, 40, 50 years off the top of my head. But they would ask him for advice about other things in life. They’d say, how do I attract a good spouse or how do I like, how do I honor my parents?

And he had thoughts about a lot of this stuff. but I think he did not offer those kinds of things up unless somebody specifically asked him. And then he had very insightful takes on it, but he was not sharing it.

01:07:32.06 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

01:07:40.00 – Brian David Crane

It was when asked, let’s say, right?

01:07:42.49 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, it was when it went on demand.

01:07:42.93 – Brian David Crane

It was when it was once solicited.

01:07:44.25 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It was on demand. Yeah, absolutely.

01:07:45.74 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And I think that’s the difference because, yeah, because I think that the guru is quite keen to tell you without you necessarily asking their opinion on certain topics, right?

01:07:47.17 – Julio Froment Castellvi

That’s a big difference. Yeah. Absolutely.

01:07:58.94 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, and so how do you think about what’s a teacher and what’s a mentor? What’s the difference between those two?

01:08:04.92 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So in the case of the teacher it is like when there is absolutely no skin in the game.

01:08:12.12 – Brian David Crane

A professor, let’s say.

01:08:13.12 – Julio Froment Castellvi

A professor, exactly. So for instance, this comes to mind, my finance teacher and when I was doing a master’s degree.

01:08:15.01 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:08:23.69 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And I remember I got into this master’s degree because I got really curious about, to know, investing and listening to Monish Barbara and he would be so hardcore like a fan of the concept of compounding.

You would like to teach over and over again in every session about the chess thing, about the rice where you put one rice and then you double it in every single square and then you end up with more rice than the whole kingdom or even the whole earth can produce.

01:09:03.99 – Brian David Crane

Hmm.

01:09:08.70 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

01:09:04.71 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, I do know this. And that is, yeah, please go ahead. We will link to this in the show notes. But yeah, he’s easy.

01:09:10.95 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So, exactly.

01:09:11.75 – Brian David Crane

This piece of curiosity, talk about compound interest or compounding in general, you decided to sign up for is this an MBA?

01:09:15.47 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. yeah

01:09:19.23 – Brian David Crane

Or what’s your master’s?

01:09:20.16 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It was for people coming from a technical background. So I did my bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. So it’s from people with a technical background that wants to do some business management thing for one year, but it is not an MBA.

01:09:33.15 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

01:09:38.24 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And actually I didn’t even have a job, but then I, most people that go for MBA, they previously have a job. I went straight by front of the degree because I got curious about the stock market and investing and trying to make money. So it was just a one year thing, master’s degree in management, but not an MBA. So, but basically it made..

01:10:00.69 – Brian David Crane

You’re sitting in this finance class with you in the master’s. Yeah, that you were going somewhere with the story.

01:10:03.95 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, it just created this contrast for me already, like from experience, from Moish Parvite, who would actually like the mentor, right? Someone with like 300% or like skin in the game, like absolute skin in the game.

And, like teaching to people, what but like his experiences, he would be super passionate about what he says and super confident, right?

And if you ask him, you know, about why he does this thing that way, he would immediately say, it’s because of this, right? With full certainty, but full confidence, right?

01:10:44.97 – Brian David Crane

Full authority, full confidence. Yeah, sorry. That’s right.

01:10:47.76 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Because he’s doing it, right?

01:10:47.93 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:10:48.92 – Julio Froment Castellvi

He’s doing it. And if he’s doing it and his money is, and he’s putting you know hundreds of millions of dollars there, he probably has thought about it quite enough, right? But of course, he’s also open to consider new ways to see things, right? But the things that he does, he’s like pretty pretty sure why he’s why he’s doing it right?

Whereas in the case of my finance teacher, we would get to the… I already saw previously on the slides that we were going to get to the chapter of compounding. So I was curious about how is this person going to teach it and how it’s going to be different or maybe the same as what I learned from Monish Fabri, right?

And literally explain it in 1 minute or 2 minutes. Like, not a big deal. Like, not even worth you paying attention to the slide. And I just scroll it, like in 30 seconds, we are into the next slide. And, like, super sterile.

01:11:44.17 – Brian David Crane

You’re like, whoa.

01:11:44.53 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Like, sterilize it.

01:11:45.17 – Brian David Crane

This is another almost like the force of gravity.

01:11:47.21 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

01:11:48.53 – Brian David Crane

This is the eighth wonder of the world.

01:11:49.65 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. The eighth wonder, exactly. Monish was like, this is the eighth wonder of the world. And in the case of my finance teacher, it was just another slide from the deck of 60 slides. It was just the other slide, you know?

01:12:02.31 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:12:04.18 – Julio Froment Castellvi

No emotion whatsoever, no like anything. because I just think that for this teacher, probably everything is just concepts. Everything is just theory, right? It’s like this quote from Jogi Berra, which I actually got from the internet, but it’s from Jogi Berra where he said like in theory, there’s no difference between practice and theory, but in practice, there is a difference.

01:12:28.52 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, yeah.

01:12:31.28 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So, yeah.

01:12:31.42 – Brian David Crane

But it’s Mike Tyson’s quote as well, which is that everyone’s got to play until they’re punched in the face. You know, it’s the same.

01:12:37.42 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

01:12:39.40 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, they don’t have skin in the game, right?

01:12:40.30 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

01:12:41.13 – Brian David Crane

Like it’s all theory.

01:12:41.43 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Yeah. Monish is coming from the bottom up, from what actually works and what actually you probably need to pay attention to. Right. And then the other stuff is like non-relevant and you probably don’t need to see it.

Like, for instance, the Cap’n equation, the capital pricing model, I think something like that.

01:13:01.21 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:13:02.33 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Where you have a beta, and you have the variance and the covariance and all these kinds of things. Like for my finance teacher, he would put the same amount of energy to that or even more than to the concept of compounding, right? Whereas for Monish, it’s like that doesn’t even appear in his sessions, but when someone brings it..

And makes a question about the captain model or something like super like economic model specific or finance specific, he’s like you just have to teach that to the trash you’re never going to use it. If you actually want to make money in business or investing and just focus on the compounding, focus on you know investing, in business that there’s a margin of safety and where it’s in your circle of competence and you understand the business

01:13:38.70 – Brian David Crane

Sippled with..

01:13:49.43 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And when you buy it, you think you are an owner of the business rather than just an equity holder, right? And they just have this kind of mental shift that you just get, and the rest is just doing and and just learning from the doing.

01:14:07.29 – Brian David Crane

Super with that

01:14:07.28 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I think that creates, I think already like the difference, right? Between what’s a mentor, what’s a pure academic teacher.

01:14:17.21 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:14:17.59 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I would argue that’s entirely the difference between them. So you, you want to look for men. I want to look for mentors. Of course, I always make sure like have skin in the game.

01:14:25.73 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, me too.

01:14:27.71 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right. Otherwise, he just like read, read, like, whatever is in the curriculum, the academic curriculum. Right. And even the correct academic curriculum is not even like they decided this is going to be the curriculum the teachers decided. It was just passed to them, right? By the dean of the university, whatever.

And maybe there’s a conflict of interest on what they want the teachers to teach. I mean, the clear example is in the healthcare system, right? I mean, that the manual for health for healthcare care was provided by Rockefeller.

01:15:04.85 – Brian David Crane

I don’t know the story. What’s the story with the main?

01:15:06.66 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I mean, I can’t verify this.

01:15:06.98 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

01:15:08.62 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah I read it in the book from… but She’s an MD, Casey Means. It’s a book called Good Energy.

01:15:15.33 – Brian David Crane

Okay

01:15:16.17 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And basically, she argued that the manual procedure, like what you actually have to do as an MD and as a surgeon, and it came from Rockefeller and a surgeon called, I don’t remember his name, but his surname is Halstedt, something like that.

01:15:35.77 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

01:15:36.15 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And Rockefeller got very interested in the healthcare area because he realized that some byproducts of his oil operations can be used as drugs.

Right. And so obviously you can imagine how this manual is. It’s basically all drug-based intervention. I don’t even look at nutrition, exercise, sleep, all of that.

01:16:01.72 – Brian David Crane

Lifestyle. Yep.

01:16:03.42 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah it’s all about, you have this symptom, we have the drug that is going to manage your symptom, right? Even though it’s not going to cure your root illness because it probably comes from somewhere else, right?

I mean, when you go to a doctor and you have sinusitis, right? Or something, and they will propose you a drug, they’ll propose you a surgical surgical operation, right? But those treatments are only for that symptom, right? But probably that symptom is just a manifestation of something bigger, right?

Something that comes downstream from, let’s say, metabolic dysfunction because you are eating too much ultra-processed foods or too much of that, too much of this, or not getting too much sleep or or getting too much you know environmental toxins from… from from all these parabens and stuff which are in personal skin care products.

01:17:02.67 – Brian David Crane

Patrick.

01:17:02.88 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right And just changing that can actually like take care of all the symptoms that you have. And not only this manual that is very like and drug-based, intervention drug-based, but also the fact that healthcare is just so siloed into like specific departments.

01:17:16.96 – Brian David Crane

And drink..

01:17:24.90 – Julio Froment Castellvi

We have like more than 50 departments, right? If you have problems with your nose, you go to the person who specializes in noses, right? How do you call that? Like your ornitor, something like that.

01:17:35.34 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, then we’d say that. No, we call them an ENT, ear, nose, and throat doctor.

01:17:40.76 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, exactly.

01:17:41.66 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:17:42.40 – Julio Froment Castellvi

So he is never going to look at the big picture of your body, your entire body. He’s only going to look at your nose, right? But if that symptom is just a manifestation of something bigger, then he’s never going to actually cure your root illness. He’s just going to manage your symptoms on the nose because literally he’s only allowed to treat the nose, nothing else, right?

But everything is like in the body, everything is like universal within your body. right Something that happens in your nose could be produced by another thing that was caused in another part of your body, right? Or the way your cells produce energy.

For your level of blood sugar, insulin, all these kinds of things.

01:18:26.17 – Brian David Crane

Or by your environment.

01:18:28.56 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Exactly.

01:18:29.17 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

01:18:29.22 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. So it’s so siloed and it’s so drunk like yeah drug-based intervention, even in Spain, right where the drugs are free, right? But it’s taxpayers’ money. So you don’t give a damn if they have to pay right? And many of the politicians here have ties to big pharma.

Right. So as far as they are concerned, they will give a damn if they have to pay like billions of dollars for the drugs because it’s all coming from taxpayers money. It’s not coming from theirs.

There’s money. So, yeah, I don’t know where it all came from, but.

01:19:02.75 – Brian David Crane

Who started with a Rockefeller? And I asked you the story there.

01:19:05.00 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Rockefeller. Yeah.

01:19:05.87 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:19:06.23 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Okay.

01:19:10.27 – Brian David Crane

Well, it ties in with another quote that you and I both like, which is show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome that comes from Charlie Munger.

01:19:18.48 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, yeah.

01:19:18.78 – Brian David Crane

Because what you’re describing there is the incentive structure and the incentive structure is Rockefeller wants to

01:19:25.31 – Julio Froment Castellvi

You see that everywhere.

01:19:26.54 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. It’s like, when you start to pull it back, you’re like, dude, it’s crazy.

01:19:27.51 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, it’s crazy.

01:19:29.47 – Brian David Crane

It’s like, what’s the incentive here? Of course. Of course this person is going to act this way, you know, like they’re going

01:19:33.68 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. And many hospitals have this like system of and we’re going to promote the doctor who builds the most, right? And the person who builds the most is the person who gives the most drugs.

Right. So you’re incentivized to give the drugs or if you’re a surgeon, you’re incentivized to actually cut the patient, right? I mean, in one chapter of this book, Good Energy, which was mind-blowing to me, or it’s still mind-blowing because I’m just halfway through it.

01:19:55.20 – Brian David Crane

Yep. But you like it. You’re reading it.

01:20:06.50 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I love it. I love it.

01:20:07.07 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:20:07.38 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, I mean, I love it. It’s a part where the MD, Casey Means, right, the author of the book, and she said, like, her roommate on residency, where she was specializing to be, like a surgeon.

01:20:09.55 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, I have the quote pulled up in front of me here from you.

01:20:25.41 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, excited.

01:20:30.78 – Brian David Crane

I’ll read it.

01:20:30.94 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Man, you can read it.

01:20:32.42 – Brian David Crane

Yeah during residency, one of my best friends was a cancer surgeon.

01:20:33.28 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Okay.

01:20:35.06 – Brian David Crane

This is from Casey. During the meeting with my mom’s doctors, words my friend spoke years before they rang in my head. The words were, if you walk through the doors of the surgical oncology department, you’re going to get an operation, whether you need it or not.

And then the quote that you like from Buffett that ties in with this Warren Buffett is never ask a barber if you need a haircut.

01:20:57.50 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Absolutely. Or never ask a bank if you want to have some interest rate on your money or, you know, it’s like, they always have something.

01:21:08.86 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. But I think there’s a deeper truth there, that is philosophical in the sense of saying, all right, that humans respond to incentives, and some people don’t agree with that as a presupposition.

01:21:30.48 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

01:21:35.91 – Brian David Crane

They’re like, they don’t. Yeah, I’ve had this discussion. People are like, of course, boom it’s like, look at the incentives and you can see the outcome.

01:21:39.04 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I agree.

01:21:42.32 – Brian David Crane

They’re like, well, it might have been because of this, that, and the other. I’m like, no. The incentive structure is such that it just rewards this particular behavior. And I don’t know why to me that’s common sense, but I have heard people who do not like that. Maybe. Is that why?

01:21:58.81 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, I thought about this a lot because I think this is universal. Like a lot of people think that it can’t be that way because it’s like too scenic. Like people only care about this economic, like, I mean, in the case of the surgeon, right?

01:22:13.79 – Brian David Crane

Maybe it’s that one..

01:22:19.50 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. That he’s going to cut you just because he wants to bill. It can be thought about, oh, that’s too scenic a way of seeing it.

01:22:22.46 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:22:28.05 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It’s probably not what’s happening, right? This person would say.. But the thing I’m thinking is like, yes, it’s kind of scenic. But at the same time, the thing is that the human being has ways to justify his behavior as something good.

Right? Like the surgeon is never going to justify us. I’m doing this. I’m literally cutting through this human because I’m going to build more. I’m going to make more money. I’m going to get that jet, right?

That’s not I don’t think that’s I mean, maybe in some cases, but I think it’s like on the normal average human being, I think where probably what goes on is that he has justified that behavior.

Like, for instance, I’m doing this because and I have this reason and this reason. And these are all reasons that make you feel good about yourself.

01:23:14.93 – Brian David Crane

Uh-huh..

01:23:15.30 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right. And then you can go ahead and do it. And I’ve realized this because I have reflected on some behaviors that I have that are like negative behaviors. And sometimes they are being like induced by or are conducted by some sort of incentive. And the way I think when I act upon this negative behavior, it’s never like, oh, I’m doing it because of this incentive. It’s way more subtle.

Right, I’m always like, I’m doing this because reason one, reason two, reason three, reason four, which I like the reasons and make me feel good about myself and make me feel good about what I’m doing, but they ultimately lead to that incentive.

So that’s the thing. Yeah, that’s because like in humans, you have cognitive dissonance, right? And like for the normal human, he can’t process the thought that he’s just going to cut through a human just to build more money.

Right. So they will create pretext. They will create like any reasons that will dissipate this cognitive dissonance. And they can keep on with their job.

01:24:20.14 – Brian David Crane

Dissonance, yeah.

01:24:23.03 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And keep on with your job right because they literally have no, or many people think that they have no alternative. Right I mean, if I stop being a surgeon, what else am I going to do? right I mean, I went through 10 years of studying for this and I have hundreds of thousands hours of debt for this. And now I’m just going to choose to be like a baker, like working at a bakery making bread.

01:24:42.92 – Brian David Crane

Well, it’s also confirmation bias there. That’s another one of the cognitive biases, right?

01:24:45.08 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. And so that’s that’s the way. Yeah, I think that’s the issue.

01:24:55.42 – Brian David Crane

Why do you think you’re right about the cynic?

01:24:55.74 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I mean..

01:24:57.29 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, that ‘s like, people view as too cynical.

01:24:57.52 – Julio Froment Castellvi

When you don’t feel that you have a choice, that might be, by the way, super different from reality. You probably have a choice, but in your mind, you don’t have the choice, right?

And so you try to make it, and try to make it through. So your mind just creates excuses and creates explanations for why you’re going to do this. That ultimately leads to that incentive.

01:25:24.34 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, I sometimes bore my wife to tears with this stuff. But like I mean, no, really, I love reading history books. And a lot of the books, the history books that I read are like they’re long, they’re complex. But you see these incentives and you’re like, okay, cool. We were we made this decision at this point in time. And really the roots of it are like way back here at something that was decided earlier.

15, 20 years prior to that. But now, to use another analogy, like the chickens have finally come home to roost. And yet it’s like the culmination of all of these decisions that are made. And really the incentive was, well, a lot of times it’s around power and it’s around like a desire for power, right?

And because a lot of the books I’m reading tend to be about like, rises and falls from power. They’re, they’re less about business, although it’s another manifestation of power, but, yeah. I mean, if you ever get curious and you want to study something that was..

01:26:19.72 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, yeah.

01:26:28.36 – Brian David Crane

Like on a glow on a colossal scale is like the Vietnam War and how the U.S. got involved in Vietnam, how long the U.S. stayed in Vietnam, how much money, how many lives were lost, how it was justified. It was a 20-year war. For 20 years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. And you and I both like Southeast Asia. Hopefully you get it. I don’t know if you’ve been to Vietnam, if you get a chance to go. The irony of the whole story now, folks, is that Vietnam is now one of the most favored nations for the U.S. And you know why?

Because Vietnam shares a border with China. So now all of a sudden, the U.S. has decided to befriend Vietnam and is selling its weapons from its military industrial complex because it can arm the Vietnamese and be a thorn in China’s side. And it’s like, well, this is a country that we spent 20 years trying to stop a communist takeover on the other side of the world.

And for all these different theories, domino theory, whatever it did like anyway. So I’m off on a tangent on this one, but like my wife gets tired of listening to cause I’m like, yeah, there’s like consequences, all these decisions and they pile up and dah, dah, dah, dah… So it is.

01:27:35.63 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. And so being more about the interest of the people making these decisions on Washington or where they are, right?

01:27:39.10 –Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:27:46.90 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Rather than a patriotic feeling, I think, just like the interest for them. And then, you get into this stuff of like, okay, cool. How do you try to decentralize this or at least, your exposure to some of this stuff? Because deep down that this person who looks you in the face and says, I have your best interests at heart.

You’re like, you know, they don’t, you’re like, okay, cool. I mean, I want to just basically shield myself from this sort of stuff. Right. And to use the phrase to lab talks about, which is to be anti-fragile, and try to make it so that..

01:28:11.26 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Yeah.

01:28:17.36 – Brian David Crane

When like a bone or like your immune system is that when it’s put under stress, when things go against you, that you actually come out more resilient on the other side. And I think you and I share an interest in that too, because a lot of this is like how to make yourself mentally anti-fragile between the ears, let’s say..

01:28:26.32 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, absolutely. And even in that case where you said, like, trust me, I’m here for you.

01:28:42.83 – Brian David Crane

I’m here for you. I’m doing this for your benefit.

01:28:44.48 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I’m on your side and all that even. It doesn’t even have to come from a malicious like thing from that person.

01:28:51.92 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:28:55.71 – Julio Froment Castellvi

It’s just like it’s very easy for a human being to lie to himself.

01:28:55.97 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:29:00.60 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And to create a lot of excuses for doing stuff that ultimately, leads to his incentives, right? I like Richard Feynman said, like and the easiest person to fool is yourself.

01:29:15.30 – Brian David Crane

Mm-hmm.

01:29:15.40 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But so you have to be very careful of not fooling yourself and you really have to like reflect and go into the root of you of the way you think and all that because it’s so easy to just fall for a convenient excuse to do something that ultimately benefits you personally and secures everybody else.

01:29:34.43 – Brian David Crane

So part of you, when you were describing this process where you’re refreshing your nuggets on a quarterly basis, is that also a chance to reflect and see if you’re fooling yourself in certain areas of your life?

01:29:49.94 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, every time when I do the nuggets, like the pace or a video, the nuggets database, absolutely.

01:29:51.84 – Brian David Crane

Sounds almost like a quarterly review.

01:29:58.97 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, no, when you’re doing the Nuggets database, because you’re also going back and like looking at stuff that you recently captured, you think about, I mean, you read a good quote, you go, why did this quote land with me, right?

01:30:01.68 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah.

01:30:06.84 – Brian David Crane

Like, what is it about this quote that made me? Yeah.

01:30:10.44 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we can also call it my monthly review, my bi-monthly review of highlights.

01:30:14.72 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

01:30:17.82 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Right. So it’s great because I’m probably going to do it anyway, right? But I end up putting more content into it and I view that the content is like written perfectly. So it works as a reflection to me of things I have learned.

01:30:35.72 – Brian David Crane

And then you get to, yeah, was sorry..

01:30:36.56 – Julio Froment Castellvi

And then I consolidate as well.

01:30:39.64 – Brian David Crane

But then you get to share it with the world because some of what you produce is like the art that you come out with, and some people find value in it. And you make half a penny for every person who watches one of your videos.

01:30:51.01 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. That’s great.

01:30:54.13 – Brian David Crane

Pretty nice.

01:30:54.48 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I mean, I never expected that both things would be aligned, but it’s great. Yeah. I can explore my curiosity and at the same time, I can make money. That’s amazing, right?

01:31:07.32 – Brian David Crane

Amazing.

01:31:10.67 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Because it’s like this thing that also Sam Altman talks about, that you always want to be a compounding curve yourself.

01:31:10.76 – Brian David Crane

Amazing

01:31:22.43 – Julio Froment Castellvi

But you never want to be doing like a job that you’re doing it for two years, and the new person can learn it in one week. And he’s even going to do it better because you end up, you’re 50 years old and this 25-year-old comes in and he’s like the same job. There’s no learning curve and he’s doing exactly the same, but with more energy because he has the age advantage, right?

So you always want to be like a compounding curve yourself. That’s what Sam Altman said in one of his blog posts. And so you always want to be like learning. You always want to be like in a learning curve.

And the more you can make that your work, that learning curve, it’s that’s great. And if yeah if it’s fired by your genuine curiosity, then the learning is way faster, right? Because nothing is forced upon you.

As you’re always bottom-up interested in something. So that goes way faster if you’re actually interested in that thing. Like, I think like also Paul

01:32:30.17 – Brian David Crane

Or Graham.

01:32:31.38 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Graham, yeah, forgot his name. He said like, sorry?

01:32:33.96 – Brian David Crane

Y Combinator.

01:32:37.30 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah, Y Combinator. Yeah, he said like, if you have that genuine curiosity, you don’t need discipline almost. But because discipline is forcing yourself to do some things that maybe you don’t want to do. But if you come from a place of natural curiosity, it’s just like fun, right? It’s just like you want to do it. You actually genuinely want to do it.

So maybe there are some things that are important to force upon yourself. Maybe exercise, maybe nutrition, but even then, right, you can take the whole breadth of nutrition of all the things that are healthy and you can pick from there, right? What works for you? what let’s the most like the What the best for you, right?

Because you have many, many, like a whole, a huge breadth of vegetables, huge breadth of fruits, so you have a lot of things to pick from, right? And exercise, you can pick, from many sports or from many things. It can be a mix of a genuine willingness and maybe a little bit of discipline, at least in the realm of fitness.

01:33:42.63 – Brian David Crane

Amazing. Okay. Let’s wrap up here. If those who are curious about your curiosity want to learn more about you, what do they need to do? Follow you on Twitter?

01:33:52.26 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Yeah. Oh, not, I mean, YouTube is better.

01:33:55.17 – Brian David Crane

Go out to YouTube? Subscribe to your Substack? Where do you want to go?

01:33:58.20 – Julio Froment Castellvi

YouTube is better. Yeah.

01:34:01.06 – Brian David Crane

Cooking nuggets.

01:34:02.12 – Julio Froment Castellvi

I mean, if you find the YouTube, you’ll find everything else. If you look through the video descriptions and the bio links, it’s all there. So just the YouTube channel. Yeah.

01:34:13.12 – Brian David Crane

So go to YouTube and type in Picking Nuggets.

01:34:15.43 – Julio Froment Castellvi

That’s it. Yeah.

01:34:16.34 – Brian David Crane

Then you’ll find Julio. Thanks so much for coming Julio. Appreciate your time.

01:34:21.79 – Julio Froment Castellvi

Sure I was. It’s a pleasure to be here, Brian. Great time talking with you.