work thinking is an active process in
which you are constantly trying to
convince yourself of the truth or lack
of truth of the idea knowing is
different knowing is a passive state of
being it just is and so when you know
something you’re not forced to
continually work on it it’s true it is
as undeniable as the fact that the sky
is blue we all know the sky is blue
because we see it every day and our
experience informs our knowledge so you
might say that knowledge is the
combination of thought and experience a
popular thing that people say is to
think outside the box and for me that’s
not the end of the journey because when
you think about something you are best
positioned to continue thinking about
that thing but when you know something
you are well positioned to act on it
because thinking about it doesn’t serve
you any purpose you already know that
it’s true knowledge in and of itself is
great it’s valuable but you’re not going
to change the world by knowing things
that other people already know for that
you need uncommon knowledge a few years
ago I was introduced to an uncommon idea
started as a curiosity and developed
into an interest and has become a very
important philosophy that I live my life
by it’s this one idea is that
core of why I launched a start-up and it
has significantly enriched my life and
the lives of my friends and family would
you like to know what that idea is I’ll
tell you travel is free and specifically
for Americans if you want it to be
travel is essentially free raise your
hand if you know that travel is free one
hand in the room so I think it’s safe to
say this is an uncommon notion and it’s
uncommon in part because it sounds crazy
most people will run into a mental
roadblock when they try to ponder this
notion that travel is free it runs
contrary to the common wisdom and as a
result it requires a little bit of
unpacking so why don’t we unpack it to
start will define some terms when I say
travel I am referring to hotels and
commercial air fare okay and when I say
free I mean that for the individual
doing the travel a hotel will typically
cost zero dollars and a flight may cost
a few dollars in taxes and fees but the
base airfare will be cash free I’ll also
caveat that travel is not always free
for all people at all times but in this
example you benefit for example by being
so if we if knowledge is this
combination of a thought and experience
let’s look at the theory and experience
of free travel and we’ll start with the
experience side of things because that’s
just more fun so over the last five
years i have been to Lima Peru Machu
Picchu buenos aires argentina Santiago
Chile Easter Island London Barcelona
Lisbon Portugal Istanbul Paris San Diego
California New York about a dozen times
and the Maldives and I may have left a
few out but you get the idea and all of
those were essentially free trips and
that Maldives trip in particular is
remarkable because my wife and I went to
the Maldives for our honeymoon and we
had a forty thousand dollar travel
experience we flew first class and
stayed eight nights in a thousand-dollar
a night hotel for under two hundred
dollars so not forty thousand dollars
under two hundred dollars so clearly my
experience supports the idea that travel
is free but how how does this work
what’s the idea what’s the theory behind
this well it exists because of a
complicated set of financial incentives
and social constructs that have kind of
conspired together to create this
atmosphere where you can travel for free
and at the heart of it our credit cards
now the conventional wisdom before we
get there raise your hand if you
routinely overpay for the things that
you buy okay I should see a lot more
hands because it turns out everyone over
pays for the things that we
bye we pay to the tune of two to three
percent more for all of the goods and
services that we buy in stores and
online to cover the convenience fee for
using credit cards and incidentally you
pay that markup regardless of whether
you use cash or credit that amount of of
marked up spending aggregates to about
40 billion dollars a year and eventually
some of those billions of dollars go to
airlines and hotels to purchase frequent
flyer miles and hotel points that the
credit card companies then package with
their credit cards to entice people like
you and me in a competitive industry to
choose their credit card instead of
their competitors because every time you
swipe that card they earn a profit okay
now the conventional wisdom on credit
cards and credit scores is that the more
credit cards you have the worse your
credit score will be and that simply
isn’t true it’s just wrong the factors
that account for your credit score are
your payment history your utilization
the length of credit history the types
of credit you have and your recent
credit inquiries none of those things is
a number of credit cards and I guess it
shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that
Americans are misguided about credit
because I recently read that over ninety
percent of us don’t even know that we
have multiple credit scores at any given
time so much for conventional wisdom and
it feels appropriate at this moment to
issue a brief public service
announcement if you are pulling out your
cell phone right now to apply for a
credit card stop don’t because if you’re
just learning about this from my talk
you have neither the requisite theory or
experience to know what you are doing
and on top of that you may not hurt
yourself by applying for a credit card
but you’re not going to be successful in
achieving your goal without some
additional education and maybe a little
bit of guidance and for that education
and guidance you should go to rewards
com and then you should apply for credit
cards so uncommon knowledge what do you
do with uncommon knowledge well I
launched a startup it’s called rewards
com perhaps you’ve heard of it and i’ve
used this knowledge to earn a million
miles and to fly and travel all around
the world and experience amazing things
you know Shakespeare says that knowledge
is the wing with which we fly to heaven
and i guess i would say that knowledge
is the wing with which i fly to the
Maldives in first class for free my
entire perspective on travel has changed
as a result of this when I want to go
somewhere I simply go and I’m at least
unencumbered by budget I look for the
most luxurious flight I can find and I
literally search for the most expensive
hotels that may sound counterintuitive
for someone who like myself is budget
conscious
but I I think it actually makes a little
bit more sense than the alternative and
if you think about it how does the
average person plan their vacation so
they want to take this relaxing trip
somewhere and they start by saying okay
what are all the places in the world
that I might want to go now let me just
immediately dismiss the top few options
because they’re too exotic and therefore
too expensive third tier vacation here
we come you’re already getting off on
the wrong foot and then you say well I
need a flight so expedia what is the
best rate you can give me on a seat in
the baggage compartment because you can
just fold me up and stuff me in there I
just want to save ten percent obviously
you need a hotel those get no better say
expedia what have you got that doesn’t
have bedbugs Wi-Fi option so what we do
with reward stock is we are helping
people to have better life experiences
by empowering them to make smarter
personal finance decisions that make
them more able to travel freely and so
when we talk about what you’ve learned
what I’ve learned in startup world and
and and this whole idea of uncommon
knowledge why do I say that it’s
important to have uncommon knowledge and
not just uncommon ideas the reason for
that is because along your journey you
will need to rely on the conviction of
knowledge because you will encounter
doubt you will encounter smart people
who through no fault of their own
believe the common wisdom and they will
tell you that the sky is blue and you
must be able to look them in the eye
and say no it isn’t and further that the
only reason they believe this guy is
blue is due to a principle called
Rayleigh scattering in which the
molecules of the atmosphere scatter
photons of blue light is a shorter
wavelength into our eyes more than other
colors but that sometimes of the day
when the angle of the earth to the Sun
is just so all of the blue light is
scattered away and what remains in the
sky for our eyes to see is orange and
green and red and so I encourage you yes
to think outside the box but don’t stop
there pursue those ideas and combine
them with experiments and experience
until you gain uncommon knowledge and
with that uncommon knowledge change
lives thank [Applause]