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The Power of Crisis & How to Fight a Geopolitical Recession | Ian Bremmer 0

Jun 27, 2022

In Episode 255 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ian Bremmer. Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading global research and consulting firm, and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. Bremmer is also the author of ten books, including his latest, “The Power of Crisis,” in which he argues that we are unprepared for a trio of looming crises in the areas of pandemic response, climate change, and the next technological revolution. All of these looming crises that Ian focuses on are subjects that we’ve explored in great depth over the years with folks like fmr. FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, NASA’s Chief Climate Scientist Gavin Schmidt, Google’s Eric Schmidt, and so many more. You can find all of those previous and relevant conversations in the related section on the episode page of our website.

Because of the ongoing war in Ukraine and its effect on global commodity markets—and in particular oil & gas—our conversation with Ian leads with a discussion about climate policy. The discussion focuses specifically on the war in Ukraine, what it reveals about our vulnerabilities as we try transition towards more sustainable, carbon-free forms of energy production, and how to balance our national security concerns while still ensuring that we can meet the long-term climate goals set out in the 2016 Paris Agreement.

In the second part of their conversation Kofinas and Bremmer continue their discussion about energy markets, eventually pivoting to a much broader conversation about the upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024, and specifically why there seems to be a persistent leadership deficit in American politics today and what we can do to change that. They also discuss media reform and what we can do as individuals and in some cases as influencers with large followings to have more constructive and good-faith conversations around the issues that matter to all of us as we navigate what may well be the most dangerous time for the international system since at least the early stages of the Cold War.

The goal of today’s conversation, among other things, is to bring you the perspective of someone who operates within some of the most powerful networks of people in the world—and is an advisor to many of them. Ian Bremmer has years of experience speaking with global leaders, CEO’s of Fortune 100 companies, and experts across all industries & territories, making him an invaluable resource for anyone trying to think about the future path of policy, risks to global governance, and so much more.

You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week’s conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:

Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify

Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas

Episode Recorded on 06/21/2022

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How to Trade Market Sentiment & Why Inflation Is Coming Down | Jared Dillian 0

Jun 20, 2022

In Episode 254 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jared Dillian, editor of The Daily Dirtnap, a financial newsletter for professional investors focused on gauging market sentiment and how to capitalize on it. Dillian is also the author of two very successful books on Wall Street and investing and is the host of the Be Smart podcast, where he talks to his listeners about everything from how to sort out their personal finances to how to approach trading and investing in the stock market and everything in between.

This conversation is yet another in a series of episodes that we’ve been doing focused on how to navigate the transition in market regimes and all of the challenges that this transition presents for our assumptions about markets and the world at large. Jared is the perfect person to speak to about this not just because of his focus on sentiment, but because he really is someone who stands apart. He’s a contrarian in the purest sense of that word and during a time when many of the people we’ve had on this podcast increasingly seem to share similar perspectives on the future path of interest rates, inflation, and energy prices, bringing on someone like Jared is a way of holding ourselves and our ideas accountable–something that is especially important whenever money or investing are involved.

That said, Jared Dillian also has another unique quality which is that he publishes an investment newsletter, which means that he spends an enormous amount of time thinking through his investment ideas in public and that can be very tricky to do while also managing to invest successfully in those ideas, precisely because of how easy it is to become emotionally invested in being right. This is something that you will see time and time again in the financial news business. Financial commentators and pundits will twist themselves into pretzels trying to align their public statements, personas, and track records with an ever-changing set of market conditions. Therefore, one of the topics that Jared and Demetri discuss is how not to do that and how to know when someone else is doing it. In other words, how to filter through information so that you know who to listen to, what to take from them, and then how to exercise a level of humility in your own investment mindset so that you don’t get caught off-sides during a period of time where we think that market conditions and assumptions about risk and allocation will be changing faster than at any point since the great financial crisis.

If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:

Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify

Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas

Episode Recorded on 06/14/2022

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The Path Towards Self-Actualization & How to Overcome Your Fears | Demetri Kofinas 0

Jun 13, 2022

In Episode 253 of Hidden Forces, I (Demetri Kofinas) share an interview I recently gave on the In-Bloom podcast hosted by Micaela Richmond. This was a pretty emotional conversation, and I don’t want to spoil the episode by giving it away, but I do want to say that while the subjects I mostly cover on Hidden Forces are intellectual the things that matter most to me are most definitely not. Every now and then I publish episodes that speak to those things like my episode with Jerry Colona on the hero’s journey and the art of growing up or my episode with Eugenia Zuckerman who courageously shared stories from her own experience living with Alzheimer’s. These types of conversations speak to what I believe is common in all of us. Our common humanity and our capacity to experience joy and suffering as we try and make our lives matter. And that can be really hard especially when you’re younger and you’re just starting out, full of insecurities, self-doubt, impatience, fear…I dealt with a lot of fear when I was growing up—fear of failure, fear of disappointing others, fear of not amounting to anything. That was my greatest fear that I’d die and have made nothing of my life. It wasn’t until I overcame those fears of failure and of not amounting to anything by learning to run into danger, by learning to run into the burning building that I found my path to bliss. And I say this because I know that millions of you out there feel exactly the same way even if you haven’t found the words to articulate it.

My hope is that today’s conversation with Micaela can go some way in helping you identify, face, and overcome those fears regardless of where you are in your life, because those are the things that stand in the way of joy, love, and self-actualization. Those are the things that matter in life. Not money or fame or material success. The sooner you recognize that, the sooner you can come into relationship with the mystery of life from which I believe everything arises and ultimately returns.

You can access the transcript to this week’s conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: