Episode 37: Data Viz Expert James Eagle of Eeagli on the Journey from the Bigs to Entrepreneurship | Why Story is Powerful in Numbers and Narrative

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James Eagle spent the bulk of his career telling stories with words, working as a writer for some of the biggest names in asset management. 

Since then, he’s traded in the proverbial pen for coding software and now he tells stories with data as the founder of his firm Eeagli. 

Today, James is sitting down with Stacy to discuss: 

• His Backstory:

  • From nerding out on coding in his teens to combining data and storytelling to build an investment communications empire

  • His leap from a cushy job in financial management to entrepreneurship 

• How he doesn’t let ADHD and Dyslexia define him or stifle his success 

• How ADHD and Dyslexia feed into his strength as a stronger storyteller

• The strategies he used to grow his Linkedin following to 145K+ 

• His best tips for leveraging social media to generate leads

About James Eagle:

James Eagle, founder of Eeagli, combines his expertise in data visualization and investment writing to support the financial industry. With over 15 years of experience in investment management, in both equities and fixed income, he focuses on turning complex data into straightforward stories. James uses JavaScript and other tools to create animated data visualizations and writes content that explains investment strategies and the macro economic environment. Based in Zürich, Switzerland, he works with a range of clients, from asset managers to private banks, providing high-quality, timely content.

Transcript

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.

[00:00:00] James Eagle: We as a human species have grown up and have evolved through storytelling. So before the written word, you have the oral tradition where generation after generation would pass on information through storytelling. And in a way, what data visualization does is it takes that data. And uses the oldest form of human communication, which is storytelling, and does it visually, just like in caveman times, people would tell stories verbally and for cave paintings.

[00:00:31] Stacy Havener: Hey, my name is Stacey Havener. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the toughest boys club, Wall Street. I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in follow on assets. You could say against the odds, yeah. understatement. I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use [00:01:00] story to shape outcomes.

[00:01:02] Stacy Havener: It's real talk here. Money, authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college, mixed with happy hour. Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the Billion Dollar Backstory Podcast.

[00:01:29] Stacy Havener: True story. I've been a fangirl of my next guest for years, and I'm not alone. James Eagle is one of the premier storytellers in the finance and investment business. He spent the bulk of his career telling stories with words, working as a writer for some of the biggest names in asset management. He traded in the proverbial pen for coding software.

[00:01:57] Stacy Havener: Now he tells stories with data. As [00:02:00] the founder of his firm, Eagley. Let's be honest. If you follow James on social media, you know his work is next level blow your mind type of amazing. And as you'll learn today, there's an equally amazing person behind those graphs and charts. This is one of my most favorite podcast interviews yet.

[00:02:24] Stacy Havener: Meet my friend, James Eagle. Welcome, James Eagle to the Billion Dollar Backstory podcast. This is a joy for me because we've become friends on LinkedIn. You have a lot of people who follow you on LinkedIn. And now we get to get a glimpse of the person behind all those amazing data visualizations that you share with us.

[00:02:47] Stacy Havener: So thank you so much for being here.

[00:02:50] James Eagle: You're welcome. Thank you very much for having me.

[00:02:52] Stacy Havener: So, along those lines, we gotta start with the good stuff. Tell us a little bit about your backstory. [00:03:00] I mean, did you always envision yourself as this data visualization expert? How did you get where you are right now?

[00:03:07] James Eagle: No, not at all.

[00:03:09] James Eagle: Actually, my story is it's similar to you in some ways. I come from the asset management industry, been in that industry for a good 20 years. But I think for me, I've always been a numbers person. So it came naturally. I grew up. I didn't have the fastest start in life. So I have dyslexia. I mean, I never talk about that because I don't really see it as a problem anymore.

[00:03:32] James Eagle: And I had ADHD. See. As a child as well, and so academically, it was a bit of a struggle to begin with, but I got through and I joined this industry asset management, which is an interesting industry where we invest money on behalf of institutions and individuals. But really, the way that I discovered kind of data visualization had nothing to do with that background, nothing to do with my career background.

[00:03:58] James Eagle: Basically, you know, we live [00:04:00] in this kind of crazy world, which is where it's basically just. Raining data, there's so much data being created and it's actually making the world confusing. So, in a way, you think that if there's more data, then the world should make more sense because you can, you can see more stuff.

[00:04:16] James Eagle: You can understand the world better because there's more information out there, but actually more information makes it more confusing and harder to understand because we're just. People were humans, and there's only so much we can take, you know, before it just becomes overwhelming. And the big issue is that there's so much data being created.

[00:04:35] James Eagle: Like, it's exponentially being created at such an alarming rate. It's absolutely exploding and subsequently, it's becoming very difficult to understand what's going on. There's so much misinformation. It's very easy. To be deceived, to be, to feel confused. Politicians quote statistics in incorrect ways. And unfortunately, what happens is you live in a world full of [00:05:00] misinformation and you're unable to actually understand the world.

[00:05:04] James Eagle: But at the same time, I think the problem is that we're still human. We haven't evolved to be supercomputers. There's only so much we can do. We're still emotional beings. We still have feelings. We still look at the world with all the emotions that we have. And so in a way, data visualization, what it does is it creates a picture and it tells a story that we as a human species can understand.

[00:05:29] James Eagle: Because we as a human species have grown up and have evolved through storytelling. So before the written word, you had the oral tradition where generation after generation would pass on information through storytelling. And in a way, what data visualization does is it takes that data and uses the oldest form of human communication, which is storytelling, and does it visually, just like in caveman times, people would tell stories verbally and for cave paintings.[00:06:00]

[00:06:00] James Eagle: We're kind of doing the same thing now, but at least that's how I feel it is. It's taking data and trying to narrate a story that lets us understand the world more clearly. So, for me, data visualization is like when the rain has cleared. You see everything you can understand, and you can feel it as well.

[00:06:20] James Eagle: It's also an emotional experience. So I think sometimes the problem is we tend to look at data like it's scientific, like it's set in stone, and we forget that actually, in reality, it's really a very kind of personal experience. And we can't deny our humanity and just say, well, you know, that's not scientific.

[00:06:39] James Eagle: That's not factual. That's not logical. What is factual? What's logic? You can go right into that and you can challenge it. And I think that that's basically what happened with me. So I was going through that kind of phase where I didn't know, you know, I wanted to know the truth. I'm on social media, my top voice on LinkedIn, and I felt disheartened because [00:07:00] there was such a lot of kind of.

[00:07:01] James Eagle: A lot of misinformation, it was very, very difficult to understand what's happening. And so I think that was kind of the spot, I would say, that's where it started. How do I make the world clearer with data? I mean, how can I understand the world better in a way that everyone can appreciate and understand.

[00:07:17] Stacy Havener: Yes. And thank you for sharing some of your personal backstory as well, because I could imagine given dyslexia, given ADHD, that simplifying things helps you. So in some ways for you to be the storyteller, that's painting that clear picture, helping people see through the noise that's so aligned authentically for you, I can imagine.

[00:07:43] James Eagle: I agree. I mean, to be honest, I don't use those labels at all. I never actually talk about it because it's not really relevant, but recently I have. So

[00:07:52] Stacy Havener: yeah, I'm so glad you shared it.

[00:07:54] James Eagle: My son was diagnosed with ADHD and that's the first time I've ever spoken publicly about it. [00:08:00] And dyslexia, I very rarely mentioned because.

[00:08:03] James Eagle: It's not really a disability for me and it was a hindrance when I was younger because I didn't get any help with it. But I would say that there's certain things that helped me do, certain things that helped me with. So for example, communication, one of the things I think that something like dyslexia does is it forces you to become a good communicator.

[00:08:23] James Eagle: And also it kind of links in with Yeh Litchi, I don't like people who speak with lazy language, there's some people who speak much to do about nothing. And if I'm in a situation where someone is just talking about the paint drying on the wall, I'm just going to be out of it. Like, I'm not going to be there.

[00:08:38] James Eagle: I'm going to be daydreaming in my own little world. So for me, good communication matters a lot because if the person is a bad communicator, It's really hard for me to actually take in what they want to say. And unfortunately, I did an economics degree and I had lectures. And economics, unfortunately, is a notoriously [00:09:00] bad subject when it comes to communication.

[00:09:01] James Eagle: Economists are really bad communicators. A lot of them are. Some of them are very good. But that's kind of where I came from. And that kind of links back into the data visualization as well. Because there was a frustration that I had as a student. I hated it. My degree. I mean, I was doing this degree and everything was so abstract and written in textbooks badly in a confusing way.

[00:09:25] James Eagle: I had to reread chunks of text several times to understand the theory that they were trying to convey. And I think that's where it probably started off. So I think it started off with a yield curve. So, uh, do you know what a yield curve is?

[00:09:40] Stacy Havener: Yes!

[00:09:41] James Eagle: Okay, that's good to know. You don't really need to know what it is.

[00:09:44] James Eagle: It's incredibly boring to explain, but economists are very good at talking about this curve that shifts up and down. They will say it verbally. The yield curve shifts up. It twists. It's inverted. They use words to describe something that [00:10:00] should be visual. You know what I mean? It's crazy, right?

[00:10:03] Stacy Havener: Yes. Great example of the story that the data visualization shows.

[00:10:09] Stacy Havener: Perfect example.

[00:10:10] James Eagle: Yes, and all I did was I animated it. I took the words out and added the animation and showed what it looks like in real life. And suddenly this thing that looks so abstract and so difficult to explain became alive. It became a moving, living thing and that just, it went viral. People got excited about it.

[00:10:32] James Eagle: People went crazy and it wasn't just economists. I mean, they loved it, but it was also ordinary people. I had people who asked me, I don't know what this is, but it's so beautiful.

[00:10:43] Stacy Havener: I love that

[00:10:44] James Eagle: and I love the colors. I like this. And tell me more. So suddenly it opened the complex world that we are to in a way that was accessible to others.

[00:10:55] James Eagle: And I think data visualization needs to do that. [00:11:00] There's a lot of science. There's a lot of academia that covers data visualization, but they never covered. I think that kind of human side. So sometimes. They can be so rigorous in the rules, like you should always use a bar chart, x axis needs to be the expansion, and sometimes you need to, well, I don't really want to do that because I'm not going to get a message across.

[00:11:21] James Eagle: I just want to tell the story and get people involved with me emotionally in what the story is.

[00:11:27] Stacy Havener: I love that. And I think you speak to even the art part of the data visualization, that there is science and there is story and there's also beauty. To what you're creating, which is incredibly powerful. I want to stay on some of these threads for a little bit longer, James, because Am I remembering this right?

[00:11:50] Stacy Havener: Did you start as a writer?

[00:11:52] James Eagle: Yes. Strange, right? I'm supposed to be dyslexic. But that's the reason why I never spoke about it.

[00:11:57] Stacy Havener: Yeah. But I would imagine, so one [00:12:00] thing I think that probably gives you a different layer of creativity than most, but the other thing that's fascinating for me is, I would never have guessed that.

[00:12:10] Stacy Havener: I would have guessed the economics. I would have guessed engineering or coding or computer science, but I never would have thought that you started as a writer. So can you talk about that piece?

[00:12:24] James Eagle: Yeah, that's an interesting one, because I was actually trained by former financial journalists in terms of how to write as an investment writer, and I used to drive them crazy.

[00:12:34] James Eagle: They had no idea, and these were like former sub editors of big ex Financial Times people, ex economists, economists as in the newspaper economists, and they would come back to me. Furious that you really need to reread what you write and it kind of helped me because it trained me how to write. I will never be an editor.

[00:12:55] James Eagle: I can do some basic editing But it I think it just basically helped me train my brain [00:13:00] and I think actually the dyslexia actually helps you write It depends on the person. It comes in so many different shades. It's not something you can pigeonhole. It affects people in different ways. But for me, because I have quite a high visual IQ, that's where I'm very visual and very, um, so actually that enhances the writing.

[00:13:18] James Eagle: Because it enhances the storytelling, enhances the creativity side. And I think that's actually more important than anything when it comes to writing. Grammar is extremely important because you don't have grammar, you can't communicate. You need grammar. But, um, that's something you can learn and there's no impediment.

[00:13:34] James Eagle: To learning how to write with good grammar. The trick is to notice where he made mistakes or find hacks and tricks to figure out, you know, sometimes you reread a sentence and it's totally jumbled up and you have to find ways to do that. And I have my own techniques. I read, I get the computer to read back a sentence.

[00:13:53] James Eagle: That's one technique. I read it on something else. Like a piece of paper rather than on screen. [00:14:00] Um, these days it doesn't really affect me. Um, I have my off days, but it does affect me. Today's an off day, so I have to re read everything I write several times. But it's not really an impediment, it's just one of those things.

[00:14:14] Stacy Havener: Thank you for sharing all of that. I think, again, it's kind of that combination of art and science, isn't it? Because as a writer, the fact that you're telling a story is like mission critical. Uh oh. in whatever you're writing. And so being trained in that, storytelling, storytelling, storytelling, written word, and then transitioning from written word to the data and the visualization, that's so interesting because you brought the storytelling with you.

[00:14:44] Stacy Havener: It's just this amazing combination of skills, the writing and the storytelling, the data component, but then the coding component, which I think you shared with me, that was just like a hobby of yours, right?

[00:14:57] James Eagle: Yes. So I would say [00:15:00] like, if anyone's listening, life is a zigzag. It's not linear. And I think the problem is when you have a career and you start off in a job, you kind of have this kind of, when you leave college or university, you think that it's going to just be this kind of linear thing to work for a few years, you get promoted, you get a pay rise.

[00:15:16] James Eagle: And for some people it is, but at some point you feel like it's not going anywhere. Like, oh, you're kind of like going on this path and where is it going? Where's the heading? And I think the thing is that to get the best out of yourself, it's not clear. People want certainty. They want clear kind of, um, prescription of what's going to happen.

[00:15:34] James Eagle: They want a clear path of what's going to happen. But in reality, you don't know. And it's embracing the unknown and being prepared to walk into the unknown and figure things out, which is the real skill in life. So for me, that started off. In a, another big asset manager here in Zurich where I was working and I had a problem.

[00:15:55] James Eagle: I had no idea if anyone was actually reading what I wrote or liking what I wrote. [00:16:00] I mean, I'm talking about investors here. I'm not talking about portfolio managers around us. I don't care about those guys. They're not important. The people who really matter are the investors because they're the ones who pay the fees that actually.

[00:16:10] James Eagle: Pay your salary. And, you know, I could have continued going down that path being this writer, investment writer who had great investment knowledge. And everyone would pat me on the back because I wrote intelligent things. But the problem was I didn't really know if people, the people who really mattered, the actual investors.

[00:16:31] James Eagle: We're actually reading my content. And so I started writing LinkedIn. That's actually where I started. So that's how I discovered LinkedIn. I wasn't really a social media person. Um, I used to have like a dictionary on my desk and I'd call myself a writer. And I had no idea about Facebook was a mystery Instagram.

[00:16:48] James Eagle: I heard about from someone next, a colleague, I think, and I honestly had no idea, but LinkedIn was accessible. I wrote an article about. The fed cutting interest rates or [00:17:00] raising interest rates. Anyway, it was a disaster. Turns out everyone thought it was really boring and it was boring. To be honest, it was very boring.

[00:17:10] James Eagle: And the reason why it was boring was because I think the problem, I never really thought about what other people. Would think, you know, like I never really understood what is it that makes people listen to you. And I think that was kind of like the kind of wake up call for me. Actually, I'm a bad writer because no one listens to me and doesn't know.

[00:17:30] James Eagle: No one wants to read what I write. And that was kind of like where I thought, well, I don't want to be that person because right now I'm working at this company. I'm earning this big Swiss salary and I'm absolutely adding no value to this company. And I could continue doing that until retirement, getting a nice Swiss salary and pension.

[00:17:52] James Eagle: I don't really want to do that. It doesn't make me feel good. It feels pretty empty. And it bugged me a lot. So [00:18:00] that was the journey I went on. How do I make people listen? I did what lots of people do. So I went to marketing seminars and read books like start with why by Simon Sinek and did the usual thing that a lot of people do.

[00:18:13] James Eagle: And if you haven't done that, do it and look at that book. It's a good starting point actually. And over time I slowly started to learn how it all fits together. How do I make someone listen and what is storytelling? Why is it so important? Why is it the starting point of everything in communication? How can we use the power of statistics?

[00:18:33] James Eagle: So that's something, you know, another data example. You'll often hear politicians saying something like, 97 percent of Americans are I'm happy with their jobs totally made up, but as soon as you get the statistic, you believe it. You have a visual image of an unemployed disgruntled American worker or something.

[00:18:53] James Eagle: It's a very powerful tool. So that's how it kind of started. And I tried lots of things. I tried shooting [00:19:00] video. I tried. Making infographics, which like static infographics, charts, writing, and I think data visualization is where I ended up, what I ended up doing, just by chance, I figured it out. I can't remember how it happened.

[00:19:13] James Eagle: I think someone asked me, how do you do this? Then I started looking into it, and then I realized it involved coding. And then you mentioned coding when I was a teenager. Yes, that was a hobby of mine when I was 14 years old or something like that. I started coding just for fun at school. A lot of people do that.

[00:19:30] James Eagle: It's something you do when you're a teenager, you've got time to do something. And I was coding, I think, in basic. I learned Java as well. And I did a bit of HTML, usual things, and a little bit of JavaScript started coming into my life, but it wasn't a massive part of my life. There's something I did as a teenager, and I forgot about it because I didn't go down that route.

[00:19:53] James Eagle: I went into economics and had a career in finance. But so that's what I discovered. [00:20:00] And what I also discovered was wow, the technology is so much better than before. Like coding is actually easy now. It wasn't easy when I was a teenager. It was really hard. It was really annoying. And like you'd write this code, you'd code it.

[00:20:13] James Eagle: Run it for a compiler, then the compiler would crash. You had no idea what you did, why it was wrong. And now it tells you, and everything just gets done instantly. You know, it's so fast and so quick. Anyway, so that's where the coding came from. And I won't bore you with the details on that.

[00:20:32] Stacy Havener: It's cool. I think it's a great reminder, real life example, of what you said, that it's a zigzag, or it's the pieces of you that when you cross them, create the magic, the writing, the coding hobby, the storytelling, the ability to create these visualizations in a really creative way. It's awesome. All of that mashed up that makes [00:21:00] it special.

[00:21:01] Stacy Havener: And it's not just one thing. We're never just one thing. We're an and not an or. Yeah.

[00:21:08] James Eagle: But that's what people have need to realize. Like in life, you have to realize that you don't realize that all these different experiences do come together at some point in your life again, and you have no idea what you'll end up creating or what you're doing.

[00:21:20] James Eagle: You do. So if I go back, back to when I was 14 years old, I had no idea that we would have smartphones and, and that I would be doing what I do now and creating animated charts and, and working with some of the biggest financial institutions in the world. I had no idea that I would be doing that because you can't tell, but you have to just, I mean, I'm one of those people.

[00:21:41] James Eagle: I'm constantly moving. I have to constantly move and I'm constantly thinking. I'm constantly doing things and sometimes it can be impulsive. Sometimes it's well thought out, but I always have, you know, I have an idea. I go for it and have a go at it. And I don't always think about the outcome. Sometimes I want to just do something because I want to see what happens.[00:22:00]

[00:22:00] James Eagle: And I think that that helped me in some ways by chance. And you could just say, yeah, it is luck. And it is luck early in the day, but you've got to create luck as well by putting yourself in a position where you can get lucky and have an idea work for you. And I think that's what happened. That was what I became known for in the end.

[00:22:18] Stacy Havener: He became known for it. And also you became an entrepreneur, which here you've had this career working for the bigs, right? And all of a sudden now you're sitting here now you're a founder, James Eagle, a founder.

[00:22:31] James Eagle: Oh my gosh, it's just a crazy journey though. Okay. So, um, my journey into becoming. Entrepreneur was not a deliberate one, so I was out of work.

[00:22:43] James Eagle: I was actually unemployed and I was going to, um, the unemployment office and I had my unemployment insurance in Switzerland. Unemployment insurance is very attractive. It's like 2 years of employment insurance. It's not like the US, but you get like a couple of months or something. And they, uh, I remember sitting in front of [00:23:00] my, the unemployment officer.

[00:23:01] James Eagle: Uh, Katya, I don't know if she's going to listen to this, but she's turned out to be a really good friend, actually. But she basically said, well, and she's very similar to me, to be honest, she's got very similar personality. And she just basically said very spontaneously, well, you can just freelance, can't you?

[00:23:16] James Eagle: I said, I guess so. And then next minute, I know I was saying, um, she said, well, if you freelance, you get more benefits and that's pretty much where it started and I'd love to say it was a smooth journey. It was not a smooth journey.

[00:23:26] Stacy Havener: They never are.

[00:23:27] James Eagle: So this place I'm in here, this is a co working place and I've just basically taken over one of the offices here.

[00:23:34] James Eagle: I've been here for, Probably six years now, or even seven years. I don't know now I've lost count, but I turned up here. I sat down, bought myself a laptop and I thought I'm going to be the world's best entrepreneur because I have a career in finance and I sat there staring at my laptop thinking, right, how do I get clients?

[00:23:52] James Eagle: And then it dawned very quickly. I had no idea what I was doing, absolutely no idea. And that's what it was really like fuddling around [00:24:00] trying to figure out for a year. It took me about a year to actually do anything to figure out. Understand how things work, how bookkeeping works, how important is to maintain a cash flow and actually get a cash flow.

[00:24:12] James Eagle: And I would love to say that it was, it was really easy. It wasn't, and I had lots of like people, people snubbed me, phones put down on me. People just weren't interested in who I was because no one knew who I was. And that lasted quite, quite a while. You know, it was really, really hard. And at the same time, you're just trying to stay solvent.

[00:24:32] James Eagle: You just trying to keep a roof over your head and survive. And that's the reality. That's how it really is. And it was like that for three or four years, it wasn't instant success. It was, and I watched so many people go bankrupt. I saw so many startups and people setting up. Just go bust, running out of cash and then disappearing.

[00:24:54] James Eagle: And I think, uh, the unemployment side helped me because [00:25:00] that gave me a lifeline and gave me, uh, something to kind of, um, give me some sort of foundation. And then I was kind of getting by and then slowly things started to build up and also being around other people and learning from them. So yeah, You can't really follow billionaires because that doesn't work.

[00:25:20] James Eagle: 'cause billionaires are billionaires and they're successful. I realized that some of 'em are just lucky and their story is totally different from yours, so you can't really apply things like for like. So I kind of stopped trying to look for those types of stories and I just tried to take bits of information from different people and see if it applies to me because I think.

[00:25:40] James Eagle: An entrepreneur's journey is very unique and there's no right way or wrong way to do things. That's the reality. It's all very personal to you and what you're trying to do and what works for you doesn't necessarily work for others and vice versa. So I think that's probably what happened. I kind of found the rhythm that worked for me and [00:26:00] that's how it worked out.

[00:26:01] James Eagle: And I'm only just getting started still. So, you know, I've got some big plans in the next few years.

[00:26:07] Stacy Havener: I love that last line because I think many entrepreneurs, no matter how long they've been in the game, are like, I'm just getting started. It's a great feeling once you realize that you get through all the, I mean, you don't ever get through it completely because an entrepreneur's journey is like a roller coaster and that could be before noontime.

[00:26:24] Stacy Havener: I mean, it's just, it can be very challenging and it is challenging and you have to be okay with that, but it's also incredibly hopeful and inspiring because you get to create. You know, you're in charge of your destiny. And I love that part. It's interesting. I want to go back to something you said earlier because you mentioned you work with a lot of big asset management firms.

[00:26:48] Stacy Havener: And I don't tend to equate creativity and large asset management firms together, right? And what you do is so creative. And I was [00:27:00] wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. Like when you go in with this, are people like, yeah, that's really cool, but they sort of don't. Get it? Talk to me about that experience of being inside a big place with something so entrepreneurial and creative.

[00:27:13] James Eagle: Yes, I think that can happen, but it's a bit different for me because Firstly, I come from the industry, so I kind of understand how their business model works. I understand their language. I understand asset managers. They're kind of homogeneous in some ways. Once you've been at work for a few of them, they're all kind of very similar in terms of how they're structured.

[00:27:34] James Eagle: I think if I were to explain my business model, you'd understand why it's easy to work. So when I create content, I'm not targeting marketing people. I'm targeting the C suite, the portfolio managers, the analysts. They're the ones I will get influenced with. That's why I create those data visualizations because those individuals, they are all very clever and very important, but they're also just ordinary human beings.

[00:27:58] James Eagle: And they have [00:28:00] families, they go to work, they come back on the train, they come up back home tired. They don't really want to read a white paper on some in depth subject when they're tired. They want, you know, like, imagine you're on the train. Do you want to watch a YouTube video or read a white paper about I don't know a higher bond strategies.

[00:28:16] James Eagle: No, you want to watch YouTube videos. It's more fun. That's the reality. But what if you saw a really cool, incredibly interesting story? Let's say, like the ill curve or something like that. Then suddenly with music and it's fun and it's exciting and there's people are commenting people you recognize in the comment section from your competitors and also within your own firm, writing what they think.

[00:28:40] James Eagle: Certainly you're engaged and you're hooked. Yeah. Suddenly you are listening and suddenly, because it's not too taxing on the brain, it's fun, it's exciting. And I guess that's what I was doing. I was going in and trying to influence those people like the the CEOs and the CIOs of these big groups and get the portfolio managers on my side to be [00:29:00] shouting my name in the meeting rooms.

[00:29:02] James Eagle: I want people on Wall Street to say, did you see James Eagle Star? When they're in a big, huge board meeting or something like that. And that's what my goal and aim was. When you have that base of political support within those big groups, suddenly everything just works. They go down the line and they say, call this guy, call the James Eagle, get him on the phone.

[00:29:22] James Eagle: You've got budget. You don't need to worry about that. You've got, but we want this. We need this because I've got this event coming up. I need this to be able to explain this concept more easily, and I want this in my presentation, or I just want something that I can stick in an iPad and go and speak to this massive sovereign wealth fund over in the Middle East.

[00:29:41] James Eagle: I don't want to pay the debt. I want just something cool because we're going to have a casual conversation and I don't want to be there with a classic stuffy sales pitch debt. That's what I mean. So. That's what was going on. And so when I was having those conversations with those clients, it was [00:30:00] almost like we're meeting a long, you know, a long lost friend.

[00:30:03] James Eagle: This thing people don't understand about content, right? When you create, like, say I shoot a video and 30, 000 people watch it. I've just had a conversation with 30, 000 people. Within 24 hours. And there's no sales team on the planet, even the largest asset management groups or wealth management groups or any financial institution that can have 30, 000 conversations in 24 hours, but that's what you can do when you scale up social media.

[00:30:27] James Eagle: That's what you can do with social media content. It opens the floodgates, if you're good at it, if you can do it, right? So, and the thing is, when people consume your content, they kind of get to know you personally. They feel like they know you personally. And so when you have a conversation with them, it's not a sales pitch.

[00:30:45] James Eagle: It's a conversation. It's like you're meeting a long lost friend and it's a done deal. They're ready to pay you. It's almost like a formality. It's like, well, you know, we want to do this. We have this campaign. The big boss has said, go do it. Get James on board. And we've got this, um, can you just [00:31:00] send this NDA and do the statement of works?

[00:31:01] James Eagle: And we want to start next month. So there's no pitching involved. The clients are coming to me. And if you use social media properly, that is the What you do, you create inbound lead generation, so, and it's more powerful, so much, much more powerful way to actually win business when people are coming to you and offering you work rather than you're going out there and trying to grab them.

[00:31:24] James Eagle: That was the eye opener for me. That was the kind of inflection point from being having phones put down on me to, Hey, we love your stuff.

[00:31:31] Stacy Havener: Yeah, that is a mic drop moment for me. What you just said right there, because so many people underestimate the power of social media and they think it's like, I don't want to say not real, but not impactful.

[00:31:48] Stacy Havener: You nailed that. And I love the idea. Once you embrace it, that your personal brand enters rooms that you're not even in, [00:32:00] or if you're going to go in the room, it enters before you. And that comment that you hear of like, I feel like I already know you that is gold to me because it tells me that it's working.

[00:32:11] Stacy Havener: It's amazing. It's very strange.

[00:32:13] James Eagle: It's amazing. It's strange feeling. And I think that I said the penny dropped for me probably 2 years ago. I got invited to some conference and I wasn't really excited about it. I had the flight. It was in London. to fly there early morning flight. And I didn't know anyone that was going to be there.

[00:32:31] James Eagle: It was a big kind of dinner and there was some kind of famous economist speaking there. And, um, I had to wear a suit and tie and I hate wearing suits and ties. So I used to like it when I was younger and they make me feel important, but now I'm totally over that. So that whole thing, I remember going into this very kind of, I won't name the name of the establishment.

[00:32:49] James Eagle: That's a very well known establishment on Pall Mall. A bit of piece of British history, very beautiful venue and walking into the room and seeing a whole load of other, you know, gentlemen [00:33:00] wearing suits and think, wow, I fell out of place and the strange thing was when I walked in there. I'd get these kind of looks and said, are you, are you James Eagle?

[00:33:09] James Eagle: And I go, uh, yes. He said, love your stuff. And then suddenly there's a crowd around me and I'm like, these people would never talk to me before. And now suddenly they want to talk to me. And it was a very strange feeling. I'm not really good in those situations because I'm a little bit introverted. So it's strange getting attention because usually when I go into a conference room, like in the past, I would kind of like wander in.

[00:33:32] James Eagle: I'm not like you Stacey. I haven't got the kind of, uh, I would kind of like stand in the corner and wonder, should I talk to someone or I'm just going to drink this cheap red wine. Stand in the corner, wander around a little bit and wait for the conference to start. That was me. It was a bit of a shock to me, to be honest with you.

[00:33:51] James Eagle: And I think that's when I thought, okay, this something's working.

[00:33:55] Stacy Havener: Something's happening. Relate to that. You know, I'm also introverted, even though [00:34:00] it doesn't seem that way. I get very intimidated in those settings and.

[00:34:03] James Eagle: Oh, really?

[00:34:04] Stacy Havener: Yeah.

[00:34:05] James Eagle: I thought you're this amazing sports lady and sales business person.

[00:34:10] Stacy Havener: I mean, I know it's, thank you.

[00:34:14] Stacy Havener: Yes. But I still anxious and it's work for me. I like disappeared from LinkedIn this week because I was speaking. I had two weeks of speaking engagements. It drains me. I had to refill my energy level. So I get that. And on a much smaller scale, I get what you're saying about how, it's not that it's awkward, but it's like, you kind of can't believe it's happening when people come up to you and say, Oh, I, I know you, are you this person?

[00:34:46] Stacy Havener: Also fun little tidbit for you, when you said your name there, it sounded just like you were saying James Bond.

[00:34:57] James Eagle: Well, yeah, I just needed to, I mean, if we're [00:35:00] wearing tuxedos, they're probably, I could probably pull that off. No, we're wearing kind of boring business suits.

[00:35:07] Stacy Havener: So good. But you know, I think it's a great anecdote and hopefully gives people a hint of inspiration to think about LinkedIn differently.

[00:35:18] James Eagle: Yes. I, well, you don't have to think too much about it.

[00:35:22] James Eagle: If you think about it, right. LinkedIn, everyone knows it's kind of like a business card, a digital business card, and everyone has a LinkedIn account. I respect people who don't want to do that. They don't want to. Have a LinkedIn account, that's fine, that's fine, I understand, you don't like social media and it's not your thing, but for those who do, the vast majority of people do understand that LinkedIn is, it's important to have a LinkedIn account, it's important to have some sort of visibility for your career, and I would say that LinkedIn is a little bit different, because people go on LinkedIn to do business, to actually network and meet people, it's not the same as I would say, Instagram, TikTok, [00:36:00] or even Twitter, which is more for entertainment, really, you're there to to unwind and just consume something.

[00:36:06] James Eagle: And you probably don't think about who the content creator was or where it came from. You just want to see. And there's some cute cat video of something or great, fantastic goals from the Premier League or whatever, you know, like it's just the way it is. So I think that that's where LinkedIn, for me, is probably one of the most lucrative platforms out there because people are there to do business.

[00:36:27] James Eagle: And also. It's really accelerating now. So I don't know if you've noticed, but it's got a lot busier on LinkedIn. There's a lot more content being posted. And that's partly because there's been a kind of a pivot away from Twitter or X, whatever they call it to LinkedIn. The companies are spending their ad money on LinkedIn and trying to expand on LinkedIn.

[00:36:47] James Eagle: And that's very good for content creators like me, because now the focus is, is more firmly on LinkedIn as the place to do business. Just the quality of people you get on there. You just get good [00:37:00] quality professional people on LinkedIn.

[00:37:02] Stacy Havener: You really do. Well, you've done an amazing job there. I've been a fan from the beginning of my time on LinkedIn and I love that you're talking about it, not just sort of talking on LinkedIn, but you're talking about LinkedIn and encouraging people to embrace it, whether it's for their personal brand or for their business.

[00:37:22] Stacy Havener: And I think probably those two things are more intertwined than any of us realize.

[00:37:27] James Eagle: Yeah, I mean, I'm not a coach, a LinkedIn coach, or I'm not trying to sell LinkedIn services in that sense. But I think you also have to figure it out for yourself because everybody has a different experience in the platform.

[00:37:40] James Eagle: So depending on what sector you're in. So I'm very narrowly focused on my. Industry. So I'm targeting wealth managers and asset managers and to a lesser extent, investment bankers. I think the key is really to understand what people want. You mentioned, you know, large asset managers not being as creative and [00:38:00] that's not a bad thing.

[00:38:00] James Eagle: That's a good thing for a content creator. That means the competition is low and that you've got a purpose. So quite often they bring me in. Not just because I'm a content critic, because I've got great data visualizations, but because I'm an outsider. I'm an outsider, but I'm an insider. I'm an outsider in the sense that I can look and tell them this is your industry.

[00:38:20] James Eagle: Because when you work in one of these big firms, you don't know what's going on outside the walls. You're so wrapped up in the importance of where you are and the politics of the company and the hierarchy of that company that you have absolutely no idea that it's so much bigger than that company. The world out there is so much bigger.

[00:38:37] James Eagle: And sometimes it's good to get someone outside to come in and show you a perspective that you may not have seen or known about when you're working with big companies and companies, that's where you, you're actually adding value to them. It's not a hassle. It's actually you're useful to them.

[00:38:54] Stacy Havener: I love that.

[00:38:56] Stacy Havener: That is so great. This has been the most [00:39:00] dynamic and natural conversation I've ever had on the podcast, which I want you to know that because I know it's not like you're, you know, going around on 1 million podcasts, but it's so wonderful to talk with you about your journey. Yes, you. And also kind of just how this all comes together.

[00:39:26] Stacy Havener: I think that's one of the things I take away from this. You know, you said something at the beginning, which was when you were just in the, the box, so to speak, of investment writer, you felt like are the people that really matter, the investors. reading what I'm writing. And then if you take that and juxtapose it with what you just talked about, you've done it.

[00:39:50] Stacy Havener: You've done it. And now you're helping other firms do the same thing.

[00:39:54] James Eagle: Yeah, I mean, there's boxes also exist within firms. So having worked on the investment side and [00:40:00] also on the distribution side within that industry, within asset management, quite often you'll find that portfolio managers and analysts have no idea how distribution works.

[00:40:10] James Eagle: They live in their own world and they also assume that you understand their world. And quite often outsiders don't. If you sit with a portfolio manager, you sit with an investment team. You see things that no one actually sees. Or understands like really simple things, little basic things, like how the trader interacts with the portfolio manager and, you know, what the analyst does on a day to day basis.

[00:40:32] James Eagle: So there are boxes within the industry as well. And there is also a kind of misunderstanding, like they don't understand necessarily who the investor really is and how to communicate with that investor. And likewise in the distribution side, they don't really understand what the investment teams are doing.

[00:40:48] James Eagle: And they also have struggled to communicate As well, so I think you can also break down some of those barriers within companies. And I think the key to do that is to kind of [00:41:00] break up the hierarchy a little bit, which is hard to do, but I think that's one way to do it. And for me, I think getting out of the traditional business was what made me more valuable.

[00:41:11] James Eagle: So I'm more valuable where I am now than when I was an employee inside the asset management group.

[00:41:19] Stacy Havener: And probably, I might venture a guess, it would be difficult for you to go back to being an employee. That's one of the things that happens to entrepreneurs is once you get out and you see all the possibility and you see how you can help, you're like, where has this been all my life? I didn't know I needed this.

[00:41:35] James Eagle: I don't think it would be too difficult for me to go back in. I think I could do that as well. It, it, it really depends on the firm, who it is. I mean, I'm not labeling myself as an entrepreneur. I just am what I am and where I am be for, for, you know, right now, in this moment in time. But it really depends what it is really depends on what I would be doing and whether or not the, the firm would be a good fit for me.

[00:41:57] James Eagle: But, you know, so I, I've never ruled that [00:42:00] out either. Ah,

[00:42:01] Stacy Havener: I love it. You're on the raft. You're on the raft, seeing where it's taking you. Can we end with a couple questions inspired by Proust's questionnaire? You know, how every investment podcast ends, right? And these are designed to, you've been fabulous about sharing personal things, but these are designed to let us get to know a little bit more about you.

[00:42:22] Stacy Havener: So I'm going to start with an, hopefully, Relatively easy one, which is what book inspires you?

[00:42:30] James Eagle: That's difficult because I read a lot of books.

[00:42:33] Stacy Havener: So I thought it was easy, but for some people it's not.

[00:42:37] James Eagle: So I would say when I was early on my career, The first book I read was given to me by a product specialist at HSBC asset management, and it was Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb.

[00:42:53] James Eagle: It's actually the only book I really liked from him. I think Black Swan is a bit, little bit over the top for me. And then I lost [00:43:00] interest in these other books. I think his ego kind of raced ahead and took over his other works. But his first book on Fooled by Randomness, I really appreciate it. Also, because he used the storytelling.

[00:43:12] James Eagle: So Nassim Taleb, if you haven't heard of him, he is a very interesting chap. I mean, I've got a love hate relationship with him. I think his ego can get a little bit annoying, but I certainly see eye to eye to him on a lot of things, particularly when it comes to risk. And that was probably the first book I ever read.

[00:43:27] James Eagle: And it's the one that I remember now. It's the one I re read. So I'm constantly reading books. There was also the remarkable story of Risk, which I read by William Bernstein, I think it was.

[00:43:43] Stacy Havener: I'm looking at my shelf. I have The Black Swan. I have fooled by randomness, but I can't find it. But that I have not read that one.

[00:43:51] Stacy Havener: So now I will

[00:43:52] James Eagle: say, yeah, I mean, that was where I started. And there's a few other books as well that I read. But I think, um, [00:44:00] I would say that, like, nowadays, I read probably sometimes I'm reading two or three books a week. Sometimes I'm not. I mean, I'm not. It's not always consistent. Like, it depends on what I'm doing, where I am, but I'm a thought I have to be doing something.

[00:44:13] James Eagle: My brain is always thinking. So for me, reading a book is a way to slow me down or to slow down the pace of what I'm doing. I read an awful lot. I'm also very into podcasts. So I listen to dozens and dozens of podcasts every day, and I usually play it. Twice the speed. That's how I get information to my brain.

[00:44:34] James Eagle: That's just what I do. I don't read things to be inspired. They form my opinion and view of the world, or help me change my perspective. And give me a view of something that I may not have had. And for me, that's what I like to get. Whether it's reading a book about AI or reading something about a business story.

[00:44:52] James Eagle: I read a lot of autobiographies, whether it's a book about Elon Musk or whatever. And I think for me, it's about constantly getting an understanding of [00:45:00] the world we're in from different books.

[00:45:02] Stacy Havener: How about a podcast? That's maybe an off the run podcast and

[00:45:07] James Eagle: what right now I really like the unhedged podcast by the Financial Times.

[00:45:12] James Eagle: So that's something I've been listening to. And I think it's really decent. I've been listening to that and I've enjoyed it quite a lot. And there's quite a few others as well. But I think that's the one. That I've gotten to recently.

[00:45:24] Stacy Havener: Okay, that's a great share. Alright, can we switch gears from books and podcasts to places?

[00:45:31] Stacy Havener: So what place inspires you? What's your happy place?

[00:45:34] James Eagle: That's an interesting one, because I would say that I need variety. So I don't have a place. So I would say when I was a kid, I would go into my head, you know, when things are too much and things, uh.

[00:45:47] Stacy Havener: Oh, I love that answer.

[00:45:50] James Eagle: I mean, yeah, it's a way of survival, because like, I found that sometimes when things are too much, there's too much going on around me.

[00:45:57] James Eagle: The easiest thing to do is to retreat into my head. [00:46:00] I don't do that so much anymore. Because I found it was unhealthy, so I don't have a place, I always have to be moving. So I can't stop, like, I don't want to be, to stay in one place for too long. So for me, I would say writing code, doing a maths problem, reading, learning something new.

[00:46:21] James Eagle: I constantly absorb information. That makes me feel content and happy.

[00:46:27] Stacy Havener: Does it make you feel calm also?

[00:46:29] James Eagle: Yes. It's like I have a frequency, like I'm working at a certain pace and I need something to come with me on that. Then I feel good.

[00:46:37] Stacy Havener: Yes. That's so great. Thanks for sharing that. That was a very creative answer and very honest answer.

[00:46:43] Stacy Havener: All right. Now how about this one? Let's say you're going to take the stage at a stadium. You've been hired to speak on data visualization and the power and all this stuff. Okay. So you're taking the stage. There's thousands of adoring [00:47:00] James Eagle fans. What song do they play as you walk out?

[00:47:05] James Eagle: I can see clearly now the rain is gone.

[00:47:08] Stacy Havener: Oh, I love that. That ties back to the beginning. What a great answer! So good!

[00:47:13] James Eagle: That's what I would play. I

[00:47:14] Stacy Havener: love that. Because that's

[00:47:15] James Eagle: basically what data visualization is. So if the rain is the data, like we are being flooded with data, and we can't see clearly, the world is unclear and confusing. But what data visualization does is that it makes the world clear.

[00:47:30] James Eagle: It's like the sun rising and being able to see the beauty of the world again in a very human way, in an emotional way. I think that's really important because people tend to be too scientific sometimes. You mustn't forget human emotions and that in reality, all truths can be contradicted by each other.

[00:47:48] James Eagle: That's reality and reality itself. What is reality? Reality is what you perceive it to be. So I think sometimes you should have proof, and you should have data, [00:48:00] and you should have all these things, but always bear in mind the human element. There is a human element to everything. Personal feelings and emotions that are tied to data and the world that you see around you.

[00:48:12] Stacy Havener: Dude, this entire podcast is like a mic drop. Okay, what profession other than your own? Would you like to attempt?

[00:48:20] James Eagle: Pilot. Astronaut.

[00:48:22] Stacy Havener: Really?

[00:48:23] James Eagle: Don't ever ask me questions like that because I'm going to give a very spontaneous answer.

[00:48:27] Stacy Havener: I love that.

[00:48:29] James Eagle: I'll just instantly say, I want to go to Mars. Elon

[00:48:31] Stacy Havener: Musk.

[00:48:32] James Eagle: I mean, I'm going to give you a very spontaneous answer.

[00:48:35] James Eagle: If you say something like that.

[00:48:36] Stacy Havener: I like it. That's so good. Do you want to explain why or is that just a today thing?

[00:48:41] James Eagle: No, it's not a today thing. It's just the first thing. I mean, if I think about it, it's a personal interest. So. If I think about the things that I do, so I've talked a lot about finance, but I have other interests too.

[00:48:51] James Eagle: I love physics. I love science. I love space exploration. I also like, for example, I mean, I was watching the space X launch today, [00:49:00] which I think was successful, I believe. And it's part national pie day today. So I think we were joking about this before, before we start the podcast. So yeah, I'm not talking about the pies.

[00:49:11] James Eagle: On Thanksgiving Day, I'm talking about Pi, the number. So, I did a post on that, because that's just something I love. The number.

[00:49:20] Stacy Havener: It's so good. I

[00:49:22] James Eagle: think it's beautiful. So, I think, like, profession wise, there's interesting things in every profession.

[00:49:28] Stacy Havener: Uh, yeah, I agree with you.

[00:49:29] James Eagle: To be honest.

[00:49:31] Stacy Havener: So then this makes this next question interesting.

[00:49:34] Stacy Havener: What profession would you not like to do?

[00:49:36] James Eagle: I don't know, be a politician?

[00:49:41] James Eagle: I'm not going to say that actually, because I've changed my mind, because I read Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent book.

[00:49:45] Stacy Havener: Oh, that's interesting.

[00:49:47] James Eagle: I read that thinking it was good because I like fitness. That's something I didn't mention. I'm very much into fitness, you know, so I've gotten to this routine of cycling to work every day, which is a good, um, 42 kilometers or 26 [00:50:00] miles both ways.

[00:50:02] James Eagle: And it's really helped me a lot with fitness wise, and I'm generally interested in fitness. Like I go to the gym. Frequently trained by hard. I'm fighting to sport. You know, I like to play sport. So, but one of the things that I didn't appreciate, I didn't realize when I read that when he, when I read his book was that he was the governor.

[00:50:19] James Eagle: And actually that was the most interesting part of the whole book was reading about what Arnold Schwarzenegger did as a governor.

[00:50:26] Stacy Havener: You didn't know that?

[00:50:27] James Eagle: No, I knew he was a governor, but I never I didn't take it seriously. I just thought he's a bodybuilder. He's a terminator, right? That's what I didn't think about him being the governor of California.

[00:50:37] James Eagle: But actually, it was very inspiring because he he taught me a lot of things like he said, like, this is a problem that we have. And this is a solution. And then it kind of realized that actually, There's a lot of politicians out there that actually want to do good in the world. They actually want to find fixed solutions and, you know, find solutions to problems.

[00:50:58] James Eagle: And that kind of renewed my, my [00:51:00] respect, I think, in politics. I was kind of in a negative moment and, you know, I didn't like the ugliness of politics. And then I, I think when I read his book, it kind of changed my mind about, about that. But jokingly, I said, politician, I don't really, know if there is a profession that I would really hate to do, but I'm sure there's lots of dead end jobs I wouldn't want to do, but that would kill my soul.

[00:51:24] Stacy Havener: I think it ties back to what you said, which I can relate to, is that for some of us, like, you can find I don't want to say joy, but you can find something interesting in any job. And so, I get that. I get the idea that like, I don't know, I could try it. I would try it, and then I'd see, and if I didn't like it, I'd change.

[00:51:45] James Eagle: You know what, I don't like the term profession. That's the problem.

[00:51:48] Stacy Havener: Okay.

[00:51:48] James Eagle: Because I think that the word profession creates a limit. or boundary for you. And there shouldn't be any boundaries in life. We're in a world nowadays where you can continuously learn, you can [00:52:00] upskill, you can reskill, you can change.

[00:52:02] James Eagle: For example, if you're a doctor, say a cardiologist, you don't have to be a cardiologist the rest of your career. You can do something else if you want to. So the problem is when you say professionally, it creates almost like a barrier. And it can make you feel trapped in that one career. And I think that's the danger.

[00:52:18] James Eagle: So it's never good to label yourself for something. I think it's good not to do that because there are jobs in 20 years. We don't know exist. Like today, there are things we don't know, we don't know what's going to happen.

[00:52:30] Stacy Havener: 100 percent

[00:52:30] James Eagle: Like, if we go back 30 years ago, nobody knew that there was such a thing as Google or the internet.

[00:52:40] James Eagle: Like, we have it as we know, there's a whole load of tech jobs out there that didn't exist 30 years ago. And now they exist. So the jobs that we have in 30 years time, 20 years time, I don't like the word profession. I think it's good to be professional. It's good to have a passion. It's good to have an area that you, but it's also good to be free and to be, to understand that [00:53:00] you are always free.

[00:53:00] James Eagle: It doesn't matter what you do, you are free. So you're not stuck doing that one job because you did a whole load of exams and that's what you're doing. You can always go out and be an entrepreneur. You can always go out and try something different. If you want to reinvent yourself,

[00:53:15] Stacy Havener: that's so great. And I wonder how you're going to answer the next one, given what you just said, which was super powerful.

[00:53:22] Stacy Havener: So what do you want people to say after you've retired or left the industry?

[00:53:30] James Eagle: I don't want them to say anything.

[00:53:31] Stacy Havener: Nothing.

[00:53:32] James Eagle: I want them to say, talk about someone else or someone who I inspired or helped. I want to leave that to the next generation because I think you have a time on this earth and your story is your story now and then.

[00:53:43] James Eagle: I don't want to be immortalized or remembered personally. I'm nowhere near that the way I'm just still James Eagle.

[00:53:51] Stacy Havener: You're just getting started. Yeah. I'm just getting started. Yeah.

[00:53:53] James Eagle: So that's something I'm not interested in. I want to help people. Achieve what they want to achieve. I'm not saying that I'm, I'm a [00:54:00] success and I've achieved it all.

[00:54:01] James Eagle: I haven't, but I think there's something more beautiful when you've worked together, like as a tribe and you help people that you care about succeed. I think that's more important. Yes. And so when I retire, I don't even want to think about work. I want to be. I don't know, lying on a beach in Brazil, enjoying my retirement, not thinking, and I don't want people to remember me.

[00:54:23] Stacy Havener: But I like the idea that you want to inspire the next generation to go forth and do their thing. And I think that's really powerful. That is a vibe. And that is a legacy.

[00:54:35] James Eagle: It's more interesting as well.

[00:54:36] Stacy Havener: You don't

[00:54:37] James Eagle: know, you don't know what they will achieve. When you've got a whole army of people that you're supporting and helping, you can do anything.

[00:54:45] Stacy Havener: I think that's a perfect spot to close.

[00:54:47] James Eagle: Great.

[00:54:48] Stacy Havener: Thank you so much, James. You are a gift to this industry, and I'm lucky to have you as a guest, and lucky to know you, and lucky to call you as a friend. Thank you so [00:55:00] much.

[00:55:00] James Eagle: Thank you very much, Lizzie. I appreciate it.

[00:55:02] Stacy Havener: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

[00:55:08] Stacy Havener: The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance. All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm.

[00:55:28] Stacy Havener: Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Havener Capital Partners.

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