Please close your cable trays.

Put your seats in the upright position.

Please put your tray tables and seat backs and they're locked in upright position.

Locked and up.

You know, you've been doing this for a long time when your headphones are all beat up.

You're on your second pair.

I'm on my second.

No, but I'm.

I gave the new pair to potential guests.

Oh, there you go.

That's right.

Because you're.

Because I'm.

You're selfless.

I'm a good human.

I wouldn't.

Let's not.

Let's not stretch it too, too far.

I, like, feel.

Feel like that would be a little bit.

A little deceptive.

We're not about that on this show.

Misrepresenting.

Yeah, you know.

All right.

Welcome back to the number one financial literacy podcast in the world.

This is the higher standard.

Sitting in front of me is my partner in time, Christopher Nahibi.

Sitting across me, my partner in crime, the one and only, the very striped up.

Striped Samar got my diddy on.

And sitting behind the desk, the Fijian himself, Regil.

Aloha.

Aloha, Abula.

I don't know how.

I don't know how I like it with him sitting behind a curtain.

You can't see his face.

I can't see his face.

He could be flipping me off right now.

I have no idea.

He might be.

Yeah, exactly.

Never know.

So today we got a lot of things to talk about later on in the show.

We're gonna talk about how the real power lies in ownership, Ownership of assets, ownership of businesses, ownership of time and the decisions you make.

Right.

We talked a lot about it in episode 291, where the educational system did not teach us this.

No, not at all.

And it's kind of like a progression, if you will, of.

Okay, so we know the educational system doesn't teach us this.

But then there's what came next that made it worse.

For a long time in American history, the idea of education being what it is today, and what it originally started off on was okay, because corporate America had a commitment level which afforded almost everybody a guaranteed middle class so long as they did all the right things.

But that social contract has now been broken.

And I thought taking a little bit of what we learned about the educational system in episode 291 and then overlaying it on to how corporate America has failed to keep up their end of the bargain, all under the auspices of chasing profits and being, you know, separate.

I think one of the big disconnects for a lot of people is that they're like, oh, my God, that was so cruel.

Well, companies are not humans.

Companies as a fiduciary, as an executive, publicly traded company, your fiduciary responsibility is to the shareholder.

And if you're publicly traded, you have the burden of being pressured into increasing your profits quarter after quarter and seeing growth quarter after quarter, quarter, regardless of the economic outcome.

So that being said, companies can do some things that seem heartless because there isn't really a heart in those decisions.

So I wanted to go over that in context.

But first, I want to do away with a little bit of, I don't know, nonsense.

There's no way we can just gloss over what happened this past weekend and last week.

Do tell side.

Yeah.

Um, do you want to get into home sales first or do you want to get into the.

The number one friendship in the nation?

The number one friendship?

Well, home sales are, are the volume of sales are going down, but yet home prices are still going up.

We're at the highest average home price, median home price across the country, well over $450,000, which is insane.

And all I can tell you is, is we're not going to feed into hysteria that there really does need to be a home price correction at this point in time.

Whether anybody agrees that or not, it's all on.

It's all on you.

But I'm telling you, there's just no other way.

And I know there's a few listeners out there.

There are a few Realtor listeners out there that are listening to the show and it's not true, man.

In my, in my neighborhood, in my region, home prices are down 6%.

Well, that just means somewhere else in the nation, it's up 7%.

Mm.

Right.

So real estate is very, very subjective.

It's very, very market based and it's very, very niche, you know, kind of niche.

Niche.

There you go.

Yeah.

Do I sound sophisticated?

Sophisticated, yeah.

So it can happen that way.

But yeah, you know, Austin's taking a massive hit downward in price.

You know, parts of Florida taking a massive hit downward in price.

Yet in Orange county, you've got prices going up still, which is kind of wild when you think about it.

There's where I live, I'm the main street one Main street over, away from a hillside.

And, and the homes that are up against that hillside, literally just one Main street over.

Right.

They're.

They're slashing their prices right now, like 70 grand, 100 grand, you know.

Yeah.

And.

But where I'm at, you Wouldn't need to because just for property insurance.

And, and that, that's, that's the craziest thing ever is that you see these, these home prices and just one street over being affected differently than the street somebody's.

You can't even get.

They can't even get fire hazard insurance on that side.

They have to go through California Fair Plan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, because.

Yeah, because nobody will insure them.

Which is wild when you think about it too.

There's so many things that are happening now and we're going to get into a lot of this in the show that, that are so lopsided towards corporate America and against the consumer that we're getting to a point where it just doesn't feel fair anymore.

Exactly.

California Fair Plan is not fair.

Yeah, it's the names.

They're so creat.

So insulting.

It makes you think it's fair in the name.

Yeah, it's the Inflation Reduction Act, Chris.

We're reducing inflation by.

Doesn't actually reduce inflation.

It's not what it does.

The big beautiful bill, it's actually pretty ugly.

I don't know.

It doesn't feel beautiful to me.

I was so tired of all that nonsense by that time that I just, I just didn't even dive into it.

Oh.

I, I was like, you know what?

Nope, not doing it, bro.

Even I can't read another bill, which is completely the polar opposite of what everybody's telling you.

Yeah.

It's so wild how they're, they're in your face with like, it's not this, but we're just going to call it this.

Yeah.

So let's talk about the two best friends that anybody ever had.

I mean, JP and dj.

Yeah, they are, they're not friends.

So just to be clear, I posted this on, on X. I think it's, it's worth a share because there's, there's just like this massive disconnect.

Okay.

Trump's talking and JB's just like, no, that's not true.

And again, this is not political.

Okay.

This is just purely economics.

Well, let's do a little.

Is there going to be a little bit of a backstory?

Yeah, well, not, not the backstory is why the two relationships fell apart, but more of like the FOMC is what I was getting.

Oh, okay.

Well, yeah, well, lately the administration has found a bone to pick with and potentially a reason to, because we all know that the President can't unilaterally go out and fire.

What I'm going to explain right which.

Is what you're going to explain.

But they found, they found, they're trying to find a loophole and saying, you said the renovation cost for this Federal Reserve building was going to be 2.5.

What is it?

Billion, right?

9 million?

2.5 billion.

It's actually going to, it's actually costing 3.1.

These are the new numbers.

You'll pull it up here.

So we're talking, we're taking a look and it looks like it's about 3.1 billion.

Mr. Trump started in, prompting Mr. Powell to shake his head.

It went up a little bit or a lot?

Yeah, it went up a little bit, actually.

Kind of a lot.

Yeah.

And JP's just shaking his head.

And then of course, Trump just had it ready, pulls it out of his pocket, is like, no, no, this just came out earlier today.

You should read this.

You're like, how is this real life?

Why is this being played out for the public to see?

Yeah.

So just read this exchange.

To give you an idea, you just added in a third building.

Mr. Powell said, It's a building that's being built.

Mr. Trump said, no, it was built five years ago.

Mr. Powell said this, this is, this is like how catty we're getting.

Yeah, they're in hard hats, by the way.

And all the captions across social media, media was like, yeah, this is, this is a scene straight from the office.

They're, they're, they're in hard hats walking through a construction site.

And it, it looks, it looks like somebody like forced the other person to be there.

Let's be honest.

Yeah, it was.

I mean, but here's the thing, right?

JP's term is a May of next year.

So let's get into this.

Let's do it.

Okay.

I don't know what.

So the President cannot fire the chair of the Federal Reserve just because they disagree on his policies, which is why he's fishing for things like this to find a, quote, reason to terminate him.

The chair of the Federal Reserve is a member of the Board of Governors.

And like all governors, they can only be removed, quote, for cause.

Hence the reason why he's looking for this.

If he tries to say that he's abusing his power or he's not being, you know, honest, then he can be removed for cause, I. E. Misconduct, neglect of duty, or incapacity.

The chair's title as chair is a four year designation made by the President.

But their underlying position as a governor lasts up to 14 years and is protected from arbitrary dismissal.

You can't Just be like, all right, you're out, buddy.

Mind you, he DJ appointed him.

Yeah, originally.

Originally.

But he, he tries to claim that Biden did, but they got footage saying, showing that he appointed him.

Yeah.

Which is all over the interwebs.

So while the President can choose not to reappoint the chair when the four year term as chair ends, they cannot simply fire the chair in the middle of the term without cause.

And the reason for all this, there's supposed to be independence.

You don't want somebody controlling monetary policy that has political incentives to do so.

You want somebody who's politically neutral.

Hence the reason that, that Powell won't even wear a blue or a red tie.

He only wears purple ties.

There you go.

Right.

And big disconnect for a lot of people.

There's monetary policy and then there's fiscal policy.

Right.

Fiscal policy is what the government chooses to do with the budget, What Congress chooses to do with the budget.

Monetary policy is the fomc.

And they're trying to control inflation.

Right.

And provide maximum employment.

And they, and they, and they believe, and I mean, and it's left up to our opinion whether they're doing a good job of this or not.

Okay.

But they believe by controlling the interest rates, they control, I guess, how well the economy is doing and how healthy the economy is.

This is arguably the best daytime TV show on television right now.

I, I'm like, I'm plugged in.

I'm locked in.

Yeah, the Caddy back and forth is hilarious.

And the sad part is, is that when you get into the details.

So let me finish up here.

Jerome Powell's term as chair of the Federal Reserve began with his second appointment on May 23, 2022, and is set to expire on May 15, 2026.

So it's coming up.

Right.

His underlying appointment though, however, as a member of the Board of Governors runs through January 31, 2028.

So even if you remove Jerome Powell as the Fed Chair, he's still a voting member of the fomc.

True.

And to be clear, let's just throw this out there.

Even if you get rid of Jerome Powell, there's still 10 other members who vote who make these decisions.

So it's not like he, you get rid of him and all these decisions change.

Who have, who are supposed to remain unbiased but have a relationship with their boy.

I mean, this is their boy.

Yeah.

They work with him, you would think.

Yeah.

And he's the one that's standing up at the post game press conferences and taking the Heat taking all the Q's and A's for all the decisions that the other guys are making.

Oh, yeah, guys.

And the President's fire coming down is really not just on Jerome Powell, it's on the whole fomc.

Yes.

So if they, if they tried to, if the President tries to remove him, there's going to be some salt in the FOMC wound.

Right.

And now, so now let's, let's be clear here.

In June, after the June meeting, right, they released the summary of economic projections, right.

The scp.

And it said in there by the end of the year, we'll probably cut rates two more times.

There's only four meetings left.

Okay.

And it's widely accepted that it's not happening in July next week, which, the week this episode drops.

This week.

Yeah.

Right.

I don't see it happening either.

It's not going to happen.

No.

90 over 95% chance that's not happening.

So that just three remaining meetings after that.

So what everyone believes, even though they're supposed to be like unbiased, if Jerome Powell does step down and a new, or let's just say he completes his term and he leaves and a new FOMC chair is appointed, that would be from the President.

Right.

That whoever comes in, they're cutting rates.

If that deal has been made, you're going to come in and you're going to cut rates.

So.

And again, just because I know what's on the Internet, okay.

If you're in the real estate business, whether you're a mortgage broker, mortgage loan officer or your realtor, I know, you go, you pee a little bit in your pants.

Oh my God, it's happening.

It's going to happen.

Yeah.

Let's be clear.

There is a visible and palpable disconnect to the bond market right now.

And what's happening here, Mortgage rates are about 650ish as of today.

Today.

Oh really?

27.

Okay.

I thought they were a little bit higher.

There might be a little higher.

There's no 680something.

Okay.

I think it was 6.8.

Okay.

Yeah.

665068.

If you have good credit, you can probably get in 6.5 range.

I do not foresee those, those rates going down meaningfully because the Fed cut rates.

And to be clear, if the Fed cuts rates, that's the fed funds rate.

That's the cost of banks to borrow.

And you go, oh, okay, well, banks will pass along that savings on to me, the consumer.

No, no, they're not in the Business to help you.

No, think of banks, the fed funds rate, like tariffs.

Okay.

You added tariffs.

We all got used to tariffs.

It's been a long time we've had tariffs there.

Do you think companies are gonna go, you know what if tariff costs go down and I can charge the same amount of money, I can become more profitable by just keeping pricing the same.

So, and so this is really, this is really where there, there's, there's been a, a little bit of a beef for quite some time now.

But what's really escalated the beef between the two, the two gentlemen has been this.

Jerome Powell was asked directly if the tariffs didn't go in place, would you have cut rates already?

He's like, and he's like, yeah, yeah, we probably would have.

Yeah, yeah.

But which was a strange way for him.

To this guy who's been ambiguous for a long time, if you're Trump, you go shots fired.

Yeah.

Because literally there's no other person you can blame the tariffs on other than dj.

It's like that guy, that guy chose to do it, right?

So it's like if it wasn't for him, we would have cut rates by now.

But from a data perspective, you can't blame him.

You can't blame him for not cutting rates, right?

No, I can't blame him for not cutting rates.

But what I would say is, is he's been so, Jerome Pal has been so polished in everything that he said for so long.

Why go out, why go out on a limb and say that?

Like, why can't you just say we don't know what would have happened?

All we can tell you is what did happen.

And right now.

Well, because, okay, we all, because, because we know, like we've talked about on the show, we know what tariffs do, Right.

They're inflationary.

They're inflationary.

And it's a tax that the consumer ultimately has to pay.

The business owner isn't going to pay this.

Right.

They got to pay more for materials.

Well, I got to keep my profits.

So now the prices of my things have to go up.

Now what they think is a lot of businesses front loaded their inventory ahead of time to deal with the tariffs are coming.

So Jerome Powell says we haven't really seen the full effects of tariffs yet.

I think that's true.

Right.

So we need to sit back, hold tight for a little bit to see how this plays out.

Because we know businesses aren't going to just increase their prices to now match their profits.

They don't want there to be that sticker shock price.

Yeah, right.

I think that's true.

Yeah.

Right.

That's.

I mean, that's a prudent way to.

To practice a business.

Right.

Like, you're not just going to increase your prices 100% if.

If that's what your tariff was.

Right.

You're going to slowly ease it in.

So I think the FOMC is right in doing that.

And here's the other part.

The data isn't helping anybody.

Unemployment went down.

Yeah.

Unemployment went down from 4.2 to 4.1.

So he's like, why do I got cut rates?

Yeah, you got.

You guys can all find new jobs.

Yeah.

Yeah, clearly.

Yeah.

Right.

Which is not true.

So I'm gonna be forthcoming about something that I haven't talked about on the show.

I am.

I am no longer employed.

I've talked about it on social media.

Clearly, my.

My social profiles, including LinkedIn, have changed.

I will honor my commitment of transparency to people who listen to the show at some point in time.

And I will get into it, but it's still a little fresh, and I'm still trying to figure things out as to what the new normal will look like for me, which means I can do whatever the.

I want now.

I can.

Yeah.

Say so.

Clean.

Yeah.

But that being said, I. I know that a lot of people have a lot of questions, and I know that a lot of people want to know kind of the history and the details there.

Why.

I want to do a full unpacking of why and kind of the logic, but it's gonna.

It's gonna take a little bit of time.

Mm.

Before we get there.

But I did want to say that because what we're jumping into today is how corporate America broke the social contract, how wages are down, debt is up, and loyalty, at least for me, feels dead.

And I'm saying that because I have a fresh bias on some level that I want to be open and acknowledge.

But I will say that I felt this way for a long time, and I don't think that doing this show has done anything to dissuade me from how I feel that corporate America isn't keeping up their end of the deal.

And I'm just now in a position where I feel like I can be a little more open about it.

But I also want to do so in a collegial way where I'm not trashing any one company.

I'm just saying this is how all companies operate right now.

And the paradigm has shifted in a measurable, meaningful way.

So shall we jump in?

Let's do it.

All right.

So the biggest education gap is really in our wallets.

And as much as social media really tries to take this up a notch and say, hey, there's all these secrets, all these hidden agendas, a lot of what we're going to unpack today explains why the guru phenomenon on social media is so prevalent.

It explains why they are able to fill this gap and sensationalize things that are really misrepresented and why most consumers of their product don't understand that it's misrepresented.

If you understand how money worked, you'd stop trading your time for money.

What does that mean?

Unpack that.

There's a couple different ways I can do this, but I'm going to do it the most obvious way.

When you are a W2 employee and you go to work, you are paid for the hours that you work.

Now, you can be exempt and non exempt, which you can either get paid hourly or you can get paid a salary.

And if you get paid a salary, most people who get paid a salary actually work more hours than, than 40 hours a week.

It's true.

And what I'll tell you is it's tantamount to trading time for money.

And as we go through today's episode, I'm going to explain how there is a misconception in hustle culture that working harder means you make more money.

It does not always mean that you make more money.

I agree.

When, when you first graduate high school, I think what a lot of people especially I think I'm going to speak on behalf of, like, my culture.

Right.

Get a safe job.

Yeah.

Right.

Get a good, get a good job, Get a high paying salary, get good benefits.

And these things that were being taught to us are really the things that have been holding us back the most.

Yeah.

And if you were a good student and you bought into this.

Yeah.

And you were complicit in this, in this whole educational process, then that's exactly what you should believe.

Now, I've been very fortunate to, to get some of these things right.

I have gotten good jobs.

I have got a good salary.

Right.

It has.

And it has provided me to afford a lot for my family, which I'm extremely grateful for.

But it's also created a mindset for me that has left me at times feeling trapped.

The fear mindset, Right.

Exactly.

And that, that, that's the biggest part.

That's the biggest problem that I have with corporate America today is using fear to make employees feel like they have to stay.

Right.

That bothers Me.

And it's not a company doing that.

It's just.

That's the zeitgeist.

Right.

It's not exactly.

It's not them.

I don't know how much of it is.

It's hard to put a, you know, pinpoint on saying this is intentional versus, like, it's just kind of just happens.

I don't think it is intentional.

Right.

I think it's a byproduct of a system, educationally that we talked about in episode 291, but also of the stock market, of the expectations on companies.

It's equally not fair to.

To tell a company, hey, regardless of what happens in the economy, regardless of what happens politically, I need you to make more money every quarter.

If you're a company and you were a person that was speaking, you'd be like, what the fuck, dude?

Yeah, yeah, I know.

You did really a really good job last quarter.

I'm gonna need you to do that a little bit better again this quarter.

Yeah.

I mean, if you don't, if you have a quote, earnings miss, the stock market reacts, your stock price goes down, your shareholders lose value.

You know, these things are bad.

Right.

So it's not a company being malicious, but it's the preconceived notion that you can outperform every single quarter that's expected.

That.

That kind of gets you to a point where the employees take less benefit at the end of the day.

Yeah.

And.

And really, this boils down to, I was always hot, and I can only speak on behalf of myself.

And you guys chime in.

Rajeel, you too, right?

It's.

I was taught that if you're wealthy, you have a high pay, you have a good salary.

Right.

You get.

If you get a million dollars in the bank, you're rich.

Right.

I think real wealth isn't built through the salary that you earn, but in the investments in the assets and the businesses and the time that you have to where you can make your own decisions.

Right.

That to me, is now that I'm older, if I could speak to my younger self, I would.

It.

It sounds nice in theory.

Like, you hear these words, you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

But like, what does that mean?

Right.

I wish I could go back to my younger self and, you know, teach him that.

And we've also done something really bad to ourselves by over stigmatizing words and not changing socially.

So a great example of this is the ideology of being a millionaire.

Used to be sensational.

Yeah.

It is not sensational anymore.

Yeah.

I know that's going to upset a lot of people, but billionaires truly are the new millionaires because there's a whole hell of a lot more millionaires today because the value of a dollar has gone down a great deal than there were a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, even twenty years ago.

And because of that escalation in overall net worth and the cost of living, I would argue that being a seven figure millionaire is not that impressive anymore.

Wow.

I know that's a terrible thing to say.

I recognize it's stigmatizing, but it's still.

It'S still a step in the ladder that you should like, try to, obviously try to get to and should be that much more achievable now.

Yeah, I don't like Grant Cardone.

I'm not a fan.

On the record, right?

On the record.

He has a quote saying if you make $400,000 a year or less, that you're basically like poor or something, that effect, I don't remember the exact, like the language of it because he just pisses me off.

I would say something a little different.

I would say that in some areas where the cost of living is higher and if you're a W2 employee and you're getting taxed in that case of up to 58% in some states, that $400,000 a year is not enough.

True.

It's true.

It's not enough.

And that's crazy to even begin to think about.

It is.

And then you start layering in some of the, some of the other challenges of this whole problem, which I think in my mind is interesting too, is that we, we still hold on to 20 years ago's philosophy of what was a lot of money.

Yeah.

Because when I think of when I was in school.

Yeah.

You know, and I'm, I'm 45.

I just thought of a meme that I saw over the weekend.

Yeah.

Al Bundy was considered fat and poor, bro.

He was younger than me.

He was younger than you.

He was skinnier than a majority of the population now.

And he owned a million dollar.

He owns a million dollar home.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I mean that, that's how much life has changed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if he, if Al Bunny were still in that house today, he'd be balling.

Ballin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it'd be a different situation.

Situation.

So let's pick back up on episode.

Oh, here you go.

There are over 22 million millionaires in America, which means that roughly 1 in 15Americans are millionaires per the 2024 UBS Global Wealth Reporting report.

Good.

Fine, Rajeel.

The report also shared that the millionaire population in the U.

S is expected to grow 16 to 25.4 million by 2028.

I hope I'm one of them.

Okay, so too man.

Right now, me and you, bro.

Let's get it.

Hey, let's get after it together.

Yeah.

And look, we can go down this path too.

We've talked about it on previous shows.

The single largest contributor to most Americans net worth is the equity value, the appreciation in their home over time.

Time.

We often say on the show that your home should not be an investment.

It should be used for utility.

But certainly if you can get equity appreciation over time, that's a great add to your net worth.

And it is the single largest contributor to most Americans net worth.

Most.

Right.

However, if you have home affordability at its absolute worst in history and people cannot buy and the younger generation all the way up to even some of the older generation can't get their first home, then they're not building that wealth.

So now you're going to have this.

And again, home values went up 46% in a single year in the last couple of years.

And you know, and it continues to rise.

Home values have not gone down in most areas.

Right.

So what happens?

Yeah, you do have a lot more millionaires now, but you're not going to have that cadence increase over time.

And there's going to be a crunching of the middle class.

You're going to have a lower class that's going to increase and you're going to have an upper class which is going to increase.

You're going to have a middle class which is going to shrink.

True.

That's what's going to happen here.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's just like.

Yeah, it's factual.

Right.

So the public education in the US Wasn't just careless about financial education that we talked about in episode 291.

We were clear on why it was deliberate.

We talked about the Rothschilds of Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, the people who really wanted skilled workers.

And they were really defining with the US Government what they wanted their workers to be, not what would be best for you financially.

So this was intentionally excluded as part of the education because having a good worker who aspires to be wealthy as opposed to aspiring to have consistency, comfort and a W2 wage coming in, that creates a very disconnected employee.

Right.

They're searching for other things.

And I can tell you from personal experience as a W2 employee, even at a high level in A public trade institution.

I was always looked at with a side eye because I was very open about wanting other businesses.

Yet the irony is, is that most executives, people who are wealthy, do have side businesses that create passive income.

Oh, yeah.

It's not uncommon.

Right.

Because if you're a wealthy individual, you can buy stock, right?

You can buy real estate, you can invest in real estate, you can invest in businesses.

And yet, even if it's not passive, if it's active income or passive income, everybody always kind of looks at you as a side eyes.

Ooh, is that a conflict?

Yeah, yeah, right.

Looking for the conflict.

Is that a conflict?

It's what Trump is doing to Jerome Powell right now.

Ooh, is that a comp?

I can't get rid of you for it, but I can get rid of you for this.

You know, and that's where it's, it's, to me, it's so disingenuous that we want people who are entrepreneurial and successful who have that mindset, that work ethic, but that we want their work ethic to end when they leave the building.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like, that doesn't make any sense to me.

Yeah.

What do you think it is?

Do you think it's a fear that it might be, it might catch on like wildfire and then everyone just starts breaking the mold?

Like, is that like.

I mean, obviously, look, it's no secret.

I've said this on the show now.

It's like part of the American dream that has been sold on to us is to own a home.

Yeah, right.

You said it before.

Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness meant to own a home.

Right.

And owning a home meant putting you in a 30 year fixed mortgage.

Right?

Just pay this payment every month.

And what do you need to make that payment?

You need a job.

Consistent income, right?

Consistent income.

They need, and they need to be able to predict your behavior for a certain amount of time so that other businesses can react accordingly.

Right?

So this, this, all, this is no different.

And they need to know that you're gonna come to work every day.

Yep.

You're gonna be here.

Because, hey, we're all at will employees.

Right?

Or at least the majority of people.

People at the top know they're on contracts, whatever, but majority of people out there are at will.

But are you really, Are you really at will or you have to be there tomorrow?

Well, and let's not forget there's a social pressure outside of your written contract.

And a corporation can be like, look, you're at Will, bro, you can quit anytime you want.

I'm not forcing you to stay.

Yeah, but I bet you do.

I bet you do stay.

Yeah.

And that.

That's unfortunate.

Right.

And when you think about unemployment being this low and competition being what it is, you would think that there'd be enough people changing jobs consistently to where people.

There would be pressure on companies to continue to provide benefits, but we haven't seen that in the market.

Matter of fact, we've seen the opposite.

We've seen companies pull back on benefits for employees to maintain their earnings, their profitability.

Right.

Some of the perks that they were getting.

Yeah, right.

Unless you're, you know, somebody who's now the new head of AI over at Facebook.

Damn.

200 million, bro.

Bro.

What?

200 million.

Come on.

Come on.

Although I did hear there's a new CEO position available for Astronomer.

Bro, that was so wild.

And you know what's even crazier about that?

I saw a social media post, and this is a whole another show for another topic.

But the head of hr, she's married, too.

And when no one's talking about her husband.

No, I've seen people talk about it.

Nah, nah, come on.

Not enough.

It's always.

It's the other way, which is rightfully so.

But I'm just saying it's messed up that there's a guy on the other end, too.

Oh, 100.

There is.

And they were both married.

And the whole thing.

First of all, who reacts that way?

Okay, if you get caught stealing, your job is not to look like you got caught stealing, bro.

Oh, hey, man.

Yo, Tim called me and told me to pick this up.

Yeah, man, that.

That was karma working.

And it's like, finest.

Like, way shout out to Coldplay.

You should be trolling everybody every concert.

The fact that every network picked it up.

When I saw Sports center, who's.

Who is owned by the mouse Disney.

They're talking about it on SportsCenter.

And then, like, you got mascots at baseball games doing it, and you're like, oh, this is it.

This is like, I've never under.

None.

None of us.

The kind of guys that.

That.

That cheat.

We're not those guys.

But I've never understood the mentality.

Like, what do you think?

How do you think this place name achievement gotten away with it?

But how unhappy are you, though?

Like, why.

If you're that unhappy, just leave.

What are you doing?

I mean, I understand it's complex.

You got kids, like, whatever.

But damn, bro, like, how did you think that was gonna end?

If it wasn't on camera nationally, which is probably not the ending anybody expected.

Right.

Somebody at your company.

There were other employees in that suite with you.

You didn't think someone was gonna say.

Something at some point, at some point in time, there was a shot, okay, from like arrogance.

Arrogance.

Right.

From a different angle where it kind of.

Because they were on the upper deck.

Yeah.

You can see the employees next to him.

Who knew?

Who knew?

Exactly.

They're all there.

But there was a shot where right before they got put on the screen, you could see them in the upper deck standing and everybody else was sitting.

Yeah.

How arrogant are you, bro?

Yeah, right.

Like the light on me, brother.

Yeah, let's, let's hold each other in.

And first of all, who goes to a concert like that without your wife?

A Coldplay concert.

Cold Play concert.

I mean, come on, man.

I love Coldplay personally.

I do too.

Yeah, that's another topic.

Yeah, I'm just trying to switch topics.

So as a reminder, the public school model imported from Prussia in the 1800s was engineered to create orderly, predictable workers, not entrepreneurs or independent thinkers.

Go Back to episode 291.

We talk about it in detail, but let's talk about why.

Okay.

Financial literacy teaches autonomy.

If you understand the world of financial literacy, what we're trying to teach you on this show, casually, like two friends talking to you, you know, when the lights are off and everyone's just hanging out.

That's the vibe we're trying to give you.

Yeah.

You know, autonomy breeds non conformity, unfortunately for companies.

And that breaks this whole machine of conformity and complicit employees.

Right.

Doing what you tell them to do at all times.

Right.

The predictability.

Right.

Of what, that, what everyone's going to be doing.

Now, I believe there's a happy medium where you can allow professional, responsible adults to, to, to do what they need to do to make more money on the side without overreaching.

As a company, I don't think that an Employee should have two 40 hour a week full time jobs that require you to be working the same time.

I completely agree.

I think that nobody should be able to work them simultaneously even.

Right.

Like, I mean, there might be certain instances where that might be the case, but for the majority of people working like corporate jobs, right.

You know, you can't be working them simultaneously.

It's got to be like a, like we talk about 9 to 5 and then a 5 to 9.

But that's my problem is I've seen way too much of corporate America trying to reach into the 5 to 9 to try to control that time.

And it started with, I think, Covid.

There were people who abused the system during COVID and work two full time jobs, three full time jobs, taking in extra money.

I'm.

I'm not going to pass judgment.

I think it's wrong.

My personal opinion, but whatever.

Then there were people who started side hustles.

Okay.

And you and I understand a corporation going, okay, is Billy working on his side hustle during his normal business hours?

And I would respond, is Billy getting his job done?

Is Billy.

Is Billy's performance what other employees would be?

Then you shouldn't be reaching into Billy's side hustle after hours, especially if it.

Hasn'T created a conflict.

Right.

I mean, for the record, this show is being done on a Sunday.

Right.

This show is always done after the hours of five, nine to five.

Right.

It's always done nights and weekends.

And that's probably why it's been so difficult for us historically to get guests on we recently, because we're in a new studio, because we have guests that are willing to come after hours, many of which have.

Have jobs and people.

People are willing to, you know, work with us as well with our schedule.

Right.

Which isn't always easy.

We got somebody coming tomorrow night at 5pm which is, you know, kind of strange.

But, you know, look, it's.

It blows my mind that, that we're trying to clamp down so much on employees that we now bastardize entrepreneurial thinking.

And to me, you're making people the black sheep who are assets to companies.

Yeah.

If somebody thinks that way, okay.

And they want more money and they're not going to press you as a cor.

As a corporation to give them more money because they appreciate, hey, this is.

I get paid this to do this job for you.

Yeah.

And I like my job.

I like the people I work.

Right.

I'm cool.

I'm cool with what you're giving me.

So if you as a corporation are saying this is bad and it's not interfering with their work product, are you saying that the idea of them possibly leaving to take this on full time is enough of a threat to you to press them?

Because that bothers me.

And I think that in some ways, and I'm going to say this out loud because it's the quiet part, I think a lot of it has to do with jealousy from coworkers who don't do that.

Yeah.

Okay.

If you're a coworker who's underlying.

Oh, look at, look at Billy he's over there doing this.

Why don't you go do something in your spare time besides stalking Billy, you psychopath?

There's that.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's not normal behavior, but we all deal with it as corporate America.

So let's get into it.

Compound interest is more powerful than any wage you're going to earn, yet it is not taught to Most K through 12 curriculums.

Instead, we are given abstract math, like geometry proofs and algebraic equations, useful to a minority of careers if you're an engineer, perhaps if you're in some type of banking or something like that, then, you know, maybe these things will be very valuable for you.

But for the average person trying to build wealth, you don't need to figure out the area in a triangle with the Pythagorean theorem.

Okay?

So it's a huge part of what should be standardized curriculum that's missing in high school.

The average graduate won't know how credit cards work, how interest is compounded, what inflation is, how it erodes purchasing power.

I mean, just completely not taught in school.

I mean, there are some elective courses.

Someone's gonna inevitably get my DMs.

Yeah, those are rare.

Okay, what a 401k IRA index fund is, or more importantly, how they work.

How do you graduate school?

Supposed to be an employee for corporations in this system built by the Rothschilds, the Vanderbilts, you know, JP Morgan.

And they don't even tell you the benefit they're gonna give you because they don't want you to understand it.

Right?

They don't even want you to understand how to deposit a check, how to write a check, Right?

Like, luckily for.

For this new generation, you know, we're part of the old generation, my friend.

I'm sorry.

I mean, the beers can't explain it all.

Yeah, but it's sad.

When I graduated high school, the term compound interest wasn't even in my zeitgeist, okay?

It sounded like a really cool saying.

Oh, come on, that sounds dope.

Yeah, I want to compound.

Yeah, I like.

I love compounding.

Love pounding.

Right, Right, Virgil.

Right, Virgil.

But now with social.

With social media, you got enough people, right, that are.

That are preaching these images and you're going to get into this a little bit later, right?

On this novelty, on these novelty concepts that now make them feel like, oh, look, look at me, I'm.

I'm so more well read than you.

And look, what I know I could teach you this because they know it's not being taught over here where you should have learned it, right?

Yeah.

And it's like compound interest.

Should be taught, like literally junior year, sophomore year, freshman year, why not?

Let me give you a real tactile example of this, okay?

For a long time, I openly criticized every asshole on the Internet who was saying, let me teach you about Airbnb arbitrage.

Arbitrage.

Because financial arbitrage, the ideology of it, is not taught in school unless you've taken some finance based class where you realize that every financial decision you make is effectively arbitrage.

The idea of somebody saying Airbnb arbitrage sounds sexy as hell.

Oh, my God, that sounds.

I don't know about you, bro, but I'm trying to arbitrage.

I'm trying to.

I'm trying to arbitrage.

Yeah.

I want to do all the tragedies.

I want to get all that, and I don't have to put any money into it.

This sounds amazing.

And I told everybody, hey, don't do this.

And guess what?

How many people.

You see some of those courses now, huh?

They almost vanished overnight.

You want to know why?

Because it wasn't sustainable.

Yeah, but they were selling this sensational ideology of you can get into real estate with little or no money and make way more money than you could just renting a property.

And it's like, okay, you're taking one of the oldest trades known to man, renting property long term to long term tenants, and you're bastardizing it with hybrid technology, and then you're putting yourself on the hook for a mortgage payment.

And some people are like, no, no, no, you don't need to get a mortgage.

You can just rent a property and then just sub.

Sublet that property.

Subleasing in almost every single residential lease across country is a technical default of your lease.

Okay.

It's prohibited in the lease agreement.

Yeah.

And they're like, oh, well, you can find someone with a corporate lease.

Stop, stop.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, what are you doing?

Yeah, exactly.

Yet every, Every kid on the social media was like, I can get rich doing this.

And I like those kids.

I. I don't mean to make them sound like they're bad people.

Those kids are the kids who don't fit in the educational system, who want more.

Right.

You know, exactly that.

And that.

That's a positive way of thinking about it.

Yes.

Did they go down the wrong avenue to try to obtain, like, what they're, you know, that level of wealth?

It's not them I'm mad at.

It's the guys pedaling this that I'm mad at, right?

And it's like, okay, you use that time and energy towards something that you shouldn't have, but keep that same focus and now apply it to other things that, that are more legitimate.

Right.

Understand that, that you can have a non conformist mentality, you can not be a good student and be a, an amazing entrepreneur.

But none of that comes overnight and it does take hard work, okay?

So by the time these kids graduate school, they learn the Pythagorean theorem, they learn about the Civil War, they've got the understanding of mitochondria and the DNA, which, you know, if you're like, you're me and you like peptides and you geek out on it, but there's no real value in work for that.

It's not gonna make you rich, right?

There's a class, there's a class on government.

It's teaching you all the different branches and that what everybody does, right.

And teaching you about the U.S. supreme Court.

And you're like, okay, cool.

Like this, this is all really cool.

But I can't.

Here's the thing, I can't even change any of that.

I want to.

Why not?

I want to be able to change my future.

Teach me something that's gonna help me change my future.

Yeah, and we don't really study entrepreneurs at all.

Think about every like, social notable figure you studied in school.

They're all W2 employees.

They're all W2 employees.

There's not a single person you've gone like, oh, this guy started a company.

Let's, let's talk about him in school.

Right?

Every single figure you've ever.

I mean, Rajille, can you name one figure from high school, college that you studied that was a non W2 employee?

Sorry, I was just naturally going to 1984.

George Orwell.

Yeah, that's what my mind naturally went to.

By the way, I love that book too.

Fantastic book, one of the best.

Yeah, but again, there wasn't a single like, historical figure you typically studied.

No, no, no, right, exactly.

I mean, other than maybe an artist, right?

Like Picasso or something.

But you didn't really study that in school either.

No, no, no.

You know, maybe if you had an art class or something.

You know what I mean?

But most people you learn about George Washington, W2 employee, didn't make a lot of money, believe it or not.

Right?

Now these people are notable figures in the ecosystem.

That's who you should aspire to be.

Be notable figure inside the ecosystem, say in the ecosystem.

That's a good point to be Rich?

Yeah.

Rather be rich.

Off the grid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You didn't know who I am.

I want to be on the island somewhere.

That's.

That's all I'm saying.

So this is not neglect.

It is designed.

None of this stuff will help you escape the paycheck to paycheck, living again by design.

So it's amazing to me that here we are, decades later from when these systems were instituted, and no one has changed this.

That's not an accident, right?

That's not like, oops, we forgot.

This is now intentional.

Clearly intentional.

So if people understood money, they would ask more questions.

Do you really want your employees asking more questions?

Probably not.

In a lot of cases, the answer is no.

I have been criticized openly for challenging people.

And I know everybody's got the boss, you know, Scotty, I love being challenged.

He doesn't mean that.

Scotty got Billy, you got Scotty.

Don't fall for that trap.

And we all know what Scotty does out of here.

I ain't asking you.

I ain't challenging him.

Right.

You're right, boss.

Yeah.

I like being challenged, too.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

It's just.

It's.

It's.

It's a trap.

We all know that.

Yeah, but they all say that stuff, right?

So why am I taxed more for my labor than someone is on their investments?

That's.

That's a logical question.

You try not to ask it.

Why does inflation rise but wages stay stagnant?

That's a logical question as an employee.

Right?

There you go.

A couple of years ago, a lot of employees that work for me that I knew were like, hey, man, inflation's up 9.1%.

I got a 3% salary increase.

I got a 5% salary increase.

And that's this.

This is me falling behind.

How is.

How is it.

How is it that you don't learn this until you become a finance major, right?

Some type of business major in college?

That inflation erodes your buying power?

Right?

It's like, yeah, in theory.

Like, you can kind of piece it together.

Like, oh, okay, inflation, prices, things go up.

But, like, my money, you can't buy me as much anymore.

But like, how, over time, when it compounds, how bad does it get?

Right?

What can you do to offset that?

How is the fact that these things aren't taught.

You should.

We all should be asking ourselves why?

Why are we not asking for these things to be taught?

So let me tilt this in a way that I think most people don't ever really stop to appreciate compound interest you think about in the context of, I put money in my.

This account and over the course of 20 years, I'm going to be rich.

And people on the Internet, they're lose their mind.

They get pissed off.

Chris, I don't want to be a millionaire by the time I'm 45.

Yeah, my viral.

My viral video, people are hating on it.

Yeah, don't, don't.

Oh, it's got to be the plug, bro.

Yeah.

That being said, every time I say it, it hurts my feelings.

I am 45.

But.

But it's also.

I feel young, bro.

I don't feel.

I don't feel like I'm old.

I feel young too.

But the reality is we're not.

I'm definitely not.

That being said, I get it.

I get that you don't want that.

But what people don't realize is, is that what also compounds over time is inflation.

So if it went up 9% last year and it's still going up 2% this year, and it goes up 1% next year and 3% the year after that and 2% the next year after that.

That's compounding too, dude.

Yeah, exactly.

Which means the cost of living is getting increasingly more expensive, but your salary is not getting increasingly larger.

Commiserate with that.

True.

So we're always thinking about compound interest in the idea of saving, but you're not thinking about the idea of spending every single day.

Go back and look at how much eggs dude, I grew up in, in the 80s.

Okay, laugh now.

Get it out of the way.

Me too.

Hold on.

Me too.

I remember my mom's on the.

On the end.

The later portion.

I remember a movie costing $3 and 50 cents.

Dang.

And it was cheaper obviously before that, but now you go to a movie theater, it's 20 bucks.

Yeah, I know.

Seriously, you want Those recline seats 25?

Yeah.

During.

So during the summer, we've been trying to find ways to keep the kids busy.

And we found out like on Tuesdays, the first showing of the day, tickets are really cheap and they're like nine bucks.

So I'm like, we're happy about it.

Nine dollars for one ticket.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

I don't even go to the movie theaters that much anymore.

And I used to love.

Yeah, I just.

It's extortion.

What is this?

Egg prices.

And egg prices adjusted for inflation.

Yeah.

1995 to 2022.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's insane.

Look at that.

Hockey stick.

Yeah.

If eggs prices are going up like that and everything around you, you buy is effectively going up on some level.

Whether or not to this degree or not, compound interest is affecting you whether you understand it or not.

Because everything around you is getting more expensive.

Yeah.

And if you're settling for your salary in a 3% increase every single year, but inflation's 9%, you are falling behind.

That's just math, kids.

Yeah, I'm sorry, this is math.

It's true math that you're intentionally not taught.

Financially literate population would challenge corporate power, negotiate higher wages, reject predatory debt and pursue ownership over employment.

Ownership over employment is going to be a big part of what we're going to talk about today.

Saeed, you have a quote here that you're supposed to read me.

I am.

It's a financially educated citizen is harder to exploit and exploitation is profitable.

Always.

Just feels a force.

Whenever I ask, you say it.

I was getting there, bro.

You didn't let me get there on my own.

But yeah, absolutely true.

So what I'm.

What we're trying to do with the show is to weaponize education to make you a.

A less exploited person.

You can still work in corporate America.

Matter of fact, most of the listeners who listen to the show do not saying don't do it.

I'm going to give everybody on the show the same piece of advice that was given to me years ago, which has made me financially the position person I am today.

Okay.

It's simple.

Most of your net worth is going to come from what you do between the hours of five to nine.

And most of your income should come between the hours of nine to five.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And over time, that income will transition to growing on its own passively.

But when you start for anyone, whether you own a business or not, how you invest that money and what you do when you are not at work will be the meaningful difference between whether you were wealthy or not wealthy 20 years from now.

True.

And I'm take this even a step further.

It's not, I don't think it's just a financially educated person.

It's just an educated person all around.

We talk about financial literacy on the show and that's the primary driver.

But it's, it's all aspects of life.

Right.

And if, if you're not, you will get exploited.

That's just, I mean, as humans, that's just nature.

Right.

That's what people try to do.

That's what animals try to do.

Yeah.

I guess that's kind of a scary, sad reality.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So some facts that make you think about this in a different context.

And a 2023 TIAA Institute study found that US adults could only answer about 50% of basic financial literacy questions correctly.

I say that because most people listen to the show are interested in financial literacy and finance and business, and they're going, well, Chris, not that big of a deal.

I understand these concepts.

Well, not most people don't.

Right.

Exactly.

You know, so you were probably an outlier statistically based on your financial knowledge.

Just if you've been listening to the show for a couple of months.

Only 17 states in the US require personal finance course for high school graduates as of 2024.

So there are some, some states that do offer these.

These courses.

Now, are they.

Are they the backbone of their education?

No, it's just one course, typically.

And, and generally speaking, you're required to take some basic financial.

Like a balance checkbook.

Yeah, it's good.

I'm not bastardizing.

That's good.

But it's, it's far from where we need to be.

But we talked about it on the top of the show that real power is in the ownership of things like your businesses and your assets.

Right.

And rich people, people who consider themselves rich or wealthy, don't work for their money.

Their money works for them.

And that's a, that's a, A kind of cliche statement that you hear a lot of people say, but, like, break that down.

What does that mean?

Yeah.

So ownership's a game.

And none of us were invited to it because we were supposed to.

To not own the vehicles with which make money.

The Vanderbilt.

Real money.

Real money, not your salary.

Yeah.

And as you get older, we all have that friend.

Okay, And I'm going to set up a hypothetical here.

We all have that friend who makes a lot of money, and you secretly, like, fuck that guy.

Right?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Like.

Like, I support you, bro.

Like, I, you know, respect, but fuck you.

Like, we all have that guy.

There's one guy, you know, and there's always one or two around you, and you're like, how did this happen?

And the sad reality is, is that they own something.

And you and I, as former underwriters, probably know better than most that owning a small business is super underrated.

Right.

People always want to have this big company and all this big stuff.

Owning a small business that provides you consistent income that you own entirely.

Never mind the freedom from corporate America.

Never mind that you don't have to deal HR and corporate politics, but just.

Just that structure of owning a business has been in my Experience from the probably thousands of people I've underwritten over the course of my career has been the most consistent path to wealth and happiness that I've ever seen.

So I recently had a conversation with my dad.

So my dad's been.

Backstory behind my parents and their family, right?

Is they were a very wealthy family in Afghanistan back in the day, but when the country was invaded and they had to flee the country, they lost everything, right?

And they had to flee the country at 19 years old, which is insane.

When you think about it in the context of what we were.

I mean, I'm just thinking about, like, they.

They flew over to Germany initially, then they lived in.

My parents got married in France, and then two, three years later, they ultimately ended up in Southern California, right.

And crazy.

Crazy, right?

And my dad went from being, like, one of one of the richest families in Afghanistan to now being a mechanic.

Right.

And because of his love for cars and I'm.

And.

But he had to actually get his hands dirty for, like, for the first time, and he fell in love with it, and he built a business.

And I remember.

And I'm kind of, like, not, like, hard on myself for it, but growing up, I had other friends that had, like, I guess parents who had, like, corporate jobs.

And I'd be like, oh, like, I like that.

My dad has.

He's a mechanic one up.

But, like, man, he's, like, working.

I'm seeing my dad change tires.

He's coming home, hands are really dirty, you know?

And I got to be honest, man, when I was a kid, I looked down on mechanics.

Yeah.

And as an adult, I fucking wish I could do that for every day.

So I.

So then I literally, a couple weeks ago, I was like, you know, I never stop to give him a call and just say, dad, I am so proud of you, man.

Yeah.

I am.

Like, I don't know if anybody's ever told you that, but I am so proud that you did that on your own and you built something on your own.

Because right now, the age that I'm at, and I compared it to how old I was when he started it, and all throughout high school, and I said, I would have been too afraid to do it.

And you.

And you weren't.

And you did it, and I'm freaking.

Proud of you because probably didn't have a choice.

Like, that takes cojones, man.

Yeah.

And he also didn't grow up in the US Educational system.

Think about it.

He grew up.

He grew up in a world where the most people in Afghanistan in that time, owned their own business.

Yeah.

I'm not saying he's, he, he, he became super wealthy rich here.

Right.

But like, look, he owned a home, he supported his family all off his own, off his own back, and he started his own business.

This is going to get a little esoteric, but bear with me.

He, he's probably a happier human being because he wasn't dealing with so much of that corporate ecosystem.

Yes, there's something to be said for a guaranteed check, going on vacations and getting paid, having health care be cheaper.

Right.

But there's also something to be said for independence.

Owning your own business, making your own rules, figuring out how you want to do things.

And yeah, when you own your own business, you wind up working more hours.

But as a guy who now is no longer in the corporate American ecosystem, I've worn nothing but shorts for like the last like six weeks.

Oh, yeah, you've been activating those glutes, bro.

I know they, I know they'd be calling you out of the gym.

No, but I'm, I'm legitimately.

Sarcasm feeling comfortable.

I, I literally haven't worn a suit since I left the job.

Probably won't be wearing one anytime soon.

Don't know exactly what I'm going to do next, but I've been able to wake up, take my son to school in the morning, go to the gym, my wife, come here to the studio and just kind of work on, you know, my side quest and figuring the stuff out for eight hours a day.

There's no one who's pushing, you know, teams, meetings and schedules on me.

And your dad probably had a lot of that freedom.

Yeah.

And it probably made him a happier human being in some ways.

Yeah, yeah, no, definitely.

And he said he stopped and he's like, no, let me tell you why I'm proud of you and this and that.

And I was like, no, dad, we're gonna stop.

You're just gonna have to take these, accept these flowers right now and just appreciate that somebody else is appreciating you right now in this moment.

I gotta have a conversation with my dad too.

My dad never.

He worked for somebody else early, early on when he came to the country, but he started off as a janitor.

Oh, I didn't know that.

You know, he started, he was working as a janitor at nights while he was in school, and him and his best friend who passed away of cancer, started a janitorial company and they just got a bunch of late night janitorial contracts.

Oh, wow.

They thought they were living the American dream back then.

My dad was cleaning, I think, at the time, as a beneficial finance.

Okay.

At night.

And he saw one of the guys there working late, who was making pretty good money, asking, what do you do?

Like, what do you guys do here?

Like what?

You know, blah, blah, blah.

And that's how he got into mortgage, mortgage and lending back then.

And he originally started off working for somebody else in corporate America.

Okay.

And that adjustment for him was not.

Ideal, and they ultimately branched off on his own.

To this day, he has this palpable and very open clear disdain for corporate American, just businesses in general.

Wow.

You got to work for yourself.

You got to work for yourself.

And he's always said that to me, and I always thought naively so.

I'm like, this guy just can't make it.

He can't hack it in America.

Corporate America.

He's not that guy.

Right, right.

And our younger selves.

That's what I would think, too.

I'm like, oh, yeah, you don't know how to play the game, bro.

You don't know the political game that you got to play play.

That's why you can't do this.

But now I look back, I'm like, oh, you were so smart for not trying.

I told Joanna, my wife the other day, I said, I. I hate to say it, but he was right.

Yeah, he's right.

He was right.

And I'm like, I. I was wrong.

I. I thought that he could not make it in that ecosystem.

Maybe that, maybe that's partially true, but he wasn't wrong.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And.

And I don't want.

I don't want to trash all corporate jobs.

Right.

I mean, me personally, I still have one.

Right.

And I'm very grateful for the one that I have.

And it still, like I said, provides me a lot of opportunity for my family.

I might get another one if y' all know somebody who's hiring.

Accepted applications right now.

Yeah.

Hook brother up.

Right.

But.

And so, like, I'm not ungrateful for, for what I have now.

It's just there's a level of freedom on that side that you can appreciate.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

So public education by design prepares you to become a worker, not an owner.

We know that again, as a reminder from.

From public school.

It teaches you to follow the rules, be punctual, work well with authority, perform on a standardized metrics.

Right.

You know, you know, you can compare to your peers.

It doesn't teach you how to acquire real estate, build a business, own intellectual property, invest in appreciating assets in the game is not about earning.

I know we all think about, how much do you make, how much does this guy make, how much does that person make?

It's about owning what do they own.

And I can tell you right now, I didn't realize that when I started to acquire things.

I was just thinking about the earnings side of it, and that was the wrong idea.

I was thinking too near term.

I was thinking, oh, this Property makes me $4 a month.

Well, that property making me $4 a month doubled in value, tripled in value.

And now I have the luxury of, you know, I think last year we talked about it on the show, I had a huge tax bill.

I just sold the property to pay for it.

Which is part of the reason why I bought this property that we're in today was because I wanted to get back up the same number of properties I had before.

Because I've got just.

Yeah, it's a game.

Yeah, it's a game.

It's a game.

But it's important.

If you were taught that owning is more important than earnings, you'd realize that wealth doesn't come from labor, it comes from leverage.

And as a real estate guy myself, I can absolutely say this is 100% something that I believe in.

This is also why these concepts are almost always exploited by social media gurus and charlatans.

They know these concepts weren't taught in school.

So all the things they say to you sound novel and cool and unique because nobody has gone so far to teach you these things before.

So they have to be meaningful.

Right, right.

And, and you see, well, okay, well, Grant Cardone owns a lot of real estate.

Does he, though?

No.

And therein lies, like, the problem.

If we had armed our kids better, then social media wouldn't be so provocative for this particular thing.

So you already know the industrialists who founded the public schooling system.

The Carnegie, the Rockefeller, the JP Morgans, weren't looking to create new capitalists to compete with them.

They were looking for compliant employees to fill factories and follow these orders.

You were never meant to own that business, buy rental property, invest in the market, and build generational wealth.

And sure, some of those concepts have trickled in on a certain level, but as they've trickled in, the, the, the target is moved from being a millionaire like them to being a billionaire.

If I told you, hey, Saeed, can you become a millionaire in your lifetime?

You'd probably be like, yeah, yeah, you know, if you're a young kid, yeah, I could do that.

If I said, will you become a billionaire?

Oh yeah, that, that's a toughie.

Yeah, that's pretty challenging.

It's a big obstacle.

Right.

So don't think because more people, you know, own a business or buy rental property or are building generational wealth, you know, have 401ks that, that.

Oh, okay.

We figured it out.

The Carnegie's.

And then they were wrong.

No, no.

They moved the needle.

Having those things won't get you to where they're at now.

So.

Yeah.

They don't mind you having them.

Right.

That makes sense.

It does, yeah.

And a lot of it has to do with.

We talked about in episode 291.

It's the framework of our mindset and we.

I don't want to.

We don't.

On this show we try not to dive into mindset too much because then it sounds very preachy and guruy.

Right.

Where you're like, we're, we're trying to like pushing him.

But in 291 we talked about the educational system and how it breaks down your mindset to where you don't.

Why would I. I don't want to put the thought into building a business.

Let me just go work for somebody, make a, make a good salary, have good benefits, be able to come home every night for dinner.

Right.

Where it's like it's too much work to have to build something myself.

There's too many things that I need to figure out logistically in order to get this to happen and just take the easier path.

This way.

Right here is easy.

Just go down this path right here?

Yeah.

And it's, it's structured to be that.

One of the things I just recently heard about, and I didn't know this because now I'm unemployed and I haven't thought about new jobs in a long time.

Somebody told me something that I thought was astonishing, that there's now a 60 or 90 day waiting period for health care benefits to kick in.

When I got my last job, which.

The job I just left about 20 years ago.

Yeah.

And we built this company from the ground up.

You had health care day one, day one.

And to me.

So what does that mean?

So 60, 90 days.

It means you start a new company, you don't get healthcare coverage into their plan for 60 or 90 days.

Is that like that, that beginning period where they're testing out to see if they're gonna keep you or not after 90 days?

Naturally that's where my mind went, which to me said that the corporations are now taking the risk of picking a bad employee and putting it on the employee saying if you don't work out, that's on you.

You don't have health care coverage, you didn't cost.

But then did they backdate the coverage or.

No, no, you don't, you don't get coverage.

So if you were interested, today's July.

If you start like August 1st somewhere, you'd have to wait September, October 1st or November 1st, depending on what their policy was.

Wow.

And I'm going down the whole COBRA path right now because I'm unemployed and you know, this is kind of a conversation that's come up, but to me you're passing off the risk to the employee on something as immaterial to the corporation as two months of health care.

Three months of health care.

Like that's wild, right?

Like what are we doing here where we're penalizing employees from jumping now?

It's another prohibition against jumping companies.

Wow.

Yeah, that's actually a really good point.

Because if you're a family of three and you.

So I'll give you myself as an example.

I have a family of three, my wife and our six year old son to have healthcare, vision and dental for a single month.

It's like 3,500 bucks, right.

If I were to pay out of pocket.

Ouch.

Right, so just two months of that seven grand, three months of that ten and a half thousand dollars.

Yeah.

I might think about rolling the dice on this.

So.

But it's, it's prohibitive to you switching jobs.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Right.

So now companies have built in another way to make you think twice about leaping because of fear.

And to me, I mean, that's wrong.

That's not even, that's not even fear.

That's directly hurting your pocket.

Yeah.

So I want to take all the concepts we just talked about and I want to distill them down into showing you real life examples of how this is not hyperbole on our part.

Okay?

Okay.

We were trained to trade your time, our time, everyone's time for wages, then spend those wages on products owned by the people who never showed us, who never showed up to the job site at all.

Okay.

J.P. morgan is not showing up to the job site.

The Carnegie's aren't showing up to the job site.

They have people who run their companies for them.

That's what we went to school to be, people who run their companies for them.

Yeah, yeah.

It's fact.

Right?

Even the CEO.

Okay.

You can be on the board, own stock in the company and have a CEO work for you and be your puppet.

Frankly, for lack of a better word, so many people we talk to feel guilty not working more hours than 40 hours per week.

I can't tell you how many people I talk to.

Oh, Chris, if I just work more hours, I get more hours in.

Yeah, it's true.

Yeah.

You were, you were literally in a limiting mindset.

And I know that sounds like every social media guru.

Well, it's very short.

It's very short term.

Right.

It's like, how can I hurry up and affect my pocket like right now versus like building something greater down the road?

And unfortunately for some people, they're not in a position.

They've now worked themselves throughout this whole process.

And the system is kind of broken.

Right.

Where it's, it hasn't really worked out in everyone's favor.

Like if you just follow these rules, you'll make it.

And for a lot of people, it hasn't.

Look no further than the housing crisis.

Right.

The, the lack of affordability there.

And they now feel like, okay, I have to trade my hours in.

Yeah.

For more money.

And I did this for way too long in my career now.

I am a type A worker.

I like to work.

I'm always going to be putting in more hours.

But as you get older, and this is a 45 year old guy talking, I recognize that I'm in the older demographic bunny years here.

I am now trying to find ways to trade time for money.

Right.

So I'm looking for ways to work less and make more.

There you go.

And it's very counterintuitive.

It's very, like, weird.

Like, I don't know, do my hands like I'm weird?

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

But at the same time, there is no world where I'm going to continue to trade hourly wages for time.

I was, I was recently asked to consult.

I think, I think Mind Pump talks about this too.

It's interesting that.

Do the least amount of work that'll elicit the most amount of change.

Yeah.

But that concept is scary because it's counter to everything you were ever taught.

Right.

So they talk about the show.

If I work out more, I'll work out more.

Like I'll get bigger, I'll get stronger, I'll get faster.

Really?

No, you're, you're hurting yourself.

Yeah, you got it.

You have to find what's optimal, not tolerable.

That's right.

And as you find what's optimal, you continue to optimize.

You don't settle.

So the, the goal is to work out as little as possible to get the results that you want or need.

Yes.

And not.

I'm going to work out as much as possible to get those results because that's number one, not sustainable.

It's not optimal.

And you're wasting time.

Time is the only resource here.

So I want to, I want to put this in a clear perspective for everybody.

So I want everyone to think about this because it applies to everyone unilaterally.

You spend 40 hours a week working.

Okay.

Then you hand your paycheck over to a landlord who owns the home who's not working for that ownership.

Right.

You pay corporations who own the brands or products that you buy.

They are not working 40 hours a week to sell you that product.

Okay.

That product is there.

It's effectively your passive income.

Yeah.

They're running a business.

The shareholders who own that comp.

That own those businesses.

Think of it.

If it's a publicly traded company.

Right.

Yeah.

They're not working for that investment.

That's right.

Investors who own stock.

There you go.

There you go.

They're not working.

That CEO is working for them.

Go make my stock worth more money.

Yep.

Okay.

So everybody in the ecosystem of businesses is getting a chunk of your 40 hours per week, your time and money, but they are not putting in the same amount of time that you are to sell you that product.

You're one of many people in their ecosystem.

And I say this not to diminish how hard corporations work or property owners work.

I have lots of real estate and I was sat down by a former boss at one point in time and asked about how much time I was spending working on the real estate.

And I laughed and I said the whole point of owning this is not to work on them.

I have a property manager, an outside, neutral, third party property management company that runs things.

They have decision making authority up to this dollar amount of.

And this person wanted to unpack every decision that I was making, how often I was making them.

I thought to myself, number one, this is ridiculous.

Okay, why'd you hire me?

Yeah.

Number two, it's none of your business.

And number three, the fact that you have to ask me this assumes that I'm either stupid and run my business like a fool or that you have some kind of superior position to me to where you think you can dive into my business like this.

And I always thought it was ridiculous.

But it goes to show you that owning property, owning.

Owning something, small business, for example, has way more inherent value to you over time than working for somebody else's Company.

Now that's not to say that working for somebody else's company can't get you there.

Into owning your own personal.

And I want to be clear, when I say owning a business, I don't mean you have to be out running a business, a restaurant or online digital retailer or a podcast.

What I mean is the business of your family.

If you're a family of one, then your business, your.

Your business of you.

The hours between five to nine, everything you do is a business, like it or not.

How you invest your money is a business.

How you spend your money is a business.

How you choose to take that money and what you choose to do with it is a business.

My sister told me the other day that she has.

We have, I have three nephews and nieces, two nephews, one niece she has, she tries to have a thousand dollars for every year of age.

They are in an account.

Yeah.

So naturally the banker and me goes, where is that money?

Yeah.

What'd you do with it?

It's in a savings account earning interest.

And I thought, okay, you're missing out on compound interest over time.

You're missing out on low cost index funds.

I said, call me this week, on Thursday, I'm going to set you up, we're going to go online, we're going to set up one of the accounts.

You do the other two yourself.

Good.

We're going to set up whatever custodian you want, whether that's Charles Schwab or Fidelity or Robinhood.

We're going to set this up to where you're going into something that's going to follow the market.

And yeah, there's going to be some ups and downs, but over the long term, this has been statistically proven absolutely factual to make you more money.

Oh, yeah, it's going to.

And there will be years where it'll take a dip, but over the long run it will make way more.

So my son Adam recently helped out on the neighborhood lemonade stand.

Oh, really?

Yeah, he was a whole.

Not sign the whole thing.

He made cupcakes and with my wife and they sold them all.

And at the end of it all, they divided up all the money for all the kids in the neighborhood to take home and do what you want with it.

Right.

Then they came by and they dropped it off.

And the next morning I woke up and the money was sitting on my nightstand.

And I asked him, was like, buddy, like, like, this is your money.

Go put it in your wallet.

You know, go give to mom.

And he's like, he don't want to give to you.

I want you to go invest it.

The I was so happy in that moment that he, yeah, he thought, he's already thinking that way.

And I asked him, I was like, well, why don't.

How about we do this?

How about you take some of it?

It was only like 23 bucks, right?

I was like, how about you take some of it and you keep it and you get to spend it on next time you mom go to Target, you can just go buy some you want.

He's like, dad, I have everything already.

What else do I need?

Go invest it.

I was like, let's go.

Thank you.

Right.

Because what you said to your point earlier about six months ago is one of the things I taught at my.

We have a whiteboard and because I found that with my kids, they like learning on the whiteboard.

Right.

For whatever reason, it just makes it more fun and engaging.

Right.

And I showed them there's consumers, there's business owners, and there's investors.

And I show them the consumer pace this person, the business owner, but the business owner is making money for the investor and they're not doing it.

Just like you said, passive income.

You're.

You're earning money over long, over the long haul, right?

And he's like that for whatever reason resonated with him.

And I mean at least it resonated.

And he's young.

Oh yeah, he was.

But he's still thinking like, I'm gonna buy all the Kobe's with it.

Yeah, there you go.

There it is.

Trying to try to get more codies with it.

So maybe you should be the one who owns something.

It's a simple concept that no one even offers up in school.

In fact, they could go so far as to suggest that the desire to own is ambitious.

It's incredible.

And with no disrespect intended, most people who are teaching you are not business owners.

They're W2 employees as well.

So to them it might seem sensational or incredible.

And I'll be the first to admit we do not pay our teachers.

We do not respect our teachers enough.

I agree.

So it's a flawed system in many ways.

And I don't think that the best entrepreneurs in the world are the best teachers.

But certainly having entrepreneurs come in and teach people is different.

Even the Bible suggested that greed is bad and it's, it's a constant thing that we see and it's very polarizing.

And I'm going to say something that's, that's going to be very emotionally charged to a lot of people.

So don't take this the wrong way.

It may offend some, but religion is also a business that passively makes money off of you.

Okay.

Whether you like that or not, the narrative aligns closely with corporate America.

Greed is bad.

You need to fall in line.

You need to contribute.

You need to be obedient.

You need to obey.

It is no shock to many people who understand that concept that the single largest landowner in the world is the Catholic Church.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

So you have to understand that a lot of the systems that were put in place in the educational process, which is tied very much when it started to religion, have very similar messages which have the same effect on controlling a population.

And I know people are going to get really bad.

There's no reason, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do both.

And there's no reason why you can't have morals and not go to church every single day.

Right.

Or there's no reason why you can't like be a greedy person as far as like wanting to make more money and earn more money and still be considered a good religious person.

Yeah.

There's no reason for that.

You could do it.

You could do it ethically.

Yeah.

Right.

You could do it with morals.

There's, there's plenty of people out there that operate their businesses that way.

But let's be clear, religion is also a business.

And, and that's, that's where I think people like really resonate.

They go, oh my God, wait a minute.

And you look at like, are you donating?

Okay.

You go consistently, you follow the rules.

There's a special tax code for them too, right?

There is, yeah.

Non profit.

So religious, non profits.

Scientology tapped into it.

That's how they got their big tax breaks.

But when you start thinking about the concepts of, of how we've been brought up in, particularly when the whole ecosystem of school was rolled out in this Prussian system, and you think about how tied in and tapped in families were on an average basis across the country to religion and in many ways still are, and just different religions, you wind up seeing that there's an inside the corporate American structure, there's an outside the corporate American structure, and there's an educational system, all three of which.

Which was where you spend the preponderance of your time in school, at work or in church and they all teach you the same behaviors.

It's true.

Wow.

And that it's a scary thing because it leaves very little time in your day.

To be entrepreneurial.

Right.

There's only so much time in the day.

I mean, decision fatigue is real.

That fatigue is.

Is done.

Think about this.

There's a lot of days I come home from work, and naturally I just go, man, I so badly could just use the glass right now to just unwind and just sit here and just, like, relax, you know, because that's what I've just been conditioned to believe.

Like, you need that.

But you go through so much in your day.

It's like there's only so much time.

Yeah.

I'm so glad I stopped drinking.

Yeah.

And when we were in Hawaii, not a single drink of alcohol.

We're dealing on their hand.

My man, boy.

Good man.

Hitting them licks, boy.

Throwing a couple back.

What.

What is your drink of choice, Rajille?

Oh, over there.

It was a lychee soda.

Lychee vodka soda.

Lychee vodka soda.

Oh, I haven't had vodka in a long time.

Not really.

I'm.

Lately, I've been a tequila guy.

Have you really thought you get violent?

You drink tequila?

No, no violent bone in my body.

You're the least violent person I know.

Unless you talk about basketball.

There you go.

All right, so examples that build wealth here.

And yes, we're going to have a little bit longer show than normal stock.

Instead of just working at Apple, the classic example is you could own Apple through shares.

No school class teaches that social media does real estate.

Understanding how leverage cash.

How leverage cash flow and appreciation.

Work changes lives.

But it's rarely even mentioned in school.

But social media teaches it via guru selling courses all day long.

Business equity, the biggest wealth generator in America isn't wages.

It's private business ownership.

Yet schools teach entrepreneurship as an extracurricular activity, if at all.

This is what Cody Sanchez taps into with her bullshit.

Trying to mimic a lot of what she.

Oh, I buy businesses all day long.

I'm a former Morgan Stanley person.

She does.

Yeah.

You're full of lady.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Don't come at me with, you know, my experience.

My experience or my resume.

And it could lie to my face like that.

Okay, let's be honest.

You are not a male version of Alex Hermosi.

Trying to be, though.

Trying to be hard and good for you and your social reach.

She's better at social media than me by far.

So.

Yeah, but let's not lie about her resume.

Different approach, right?

With everything is very calculated, even with hormones, even though Hormozi makes it seem like it's not.

I think he does a.

He tries really hard at making it seem like I'm not trying hard.

I'm just here to tell you about what.

What.

What can make you rich.

I know.

And it's like, I'm in shorts.

I'm.

I'm.

I'm in the tank top.

I mean, it is what it is, bro.

This is.

This is what you can do.

You want to go this path?

Let's go.

Okay, tell me what Alex Hero does for a living.

He wears an acquisition hat.

That's what.

Acquisition.com.

Yeah, he wears that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He buys companies now.

Yeah, that's what he does.

That's what he does.

Yeah.

He's got a new CEO running acquisition.

A cup.

Yeah.

So what is that?

What is that?

Somebody does that.

Venture capitalist, essentially.

It depends on how you do it and what your structure is.

But, yeah, you're gonna buy companies.

You're gonna be the investor.

And like you said, example, consumers buy from the business.

Business pays the investor when the business makes profit.

So he's like an individual private equity.

Yeah, effectively.

Effectively.

But again, easy.

Do you have evidence of that?

I don't.

That's what he says he does, though.

Yep.

See, that's the problem with a lot of these people.

And Cody Sanchez falls in this category.

Alex from Mosey falls this category.

I don't have any problem with these people.

I have a little problem.

Cody Sanchez.

But look, I don't have a problem with them.

I guess in a meaningful way, it's more just me being butthurt.

They're fantastic speakers, great social media presence.

They tap into an audience.

Good for you.

Yeah, they know what they're doing.

They're doing a good job.

Yeah, clearly better than us.

But that being said, what have you done that's verifiable, other than you saying, at least Alex Hermosi's written books.

Good, good, great.

But why is it, like, let's.

I guess let's have an open discussion about this.

Why?

Why do people buy into it?

Why do people dislike Alex Ramosi, by the way?

I don't have a problem.

Why do people not care about validating anything that they say?

They just accept it as gospel.

Why?

Why do you think that is?

Why have they been conditioned to train and be like, oh, this guy, he knows what he's talking about?

Well, in the case of someone like a Hermosi, like, I think that he's done enough and been around long enough to where people go, okay, he's.

He's got a track record, whether you know what it is or not.

But I Think for a lot of people that they go, okay, well, I want what this person has.

But, like, what was he selling?

He.

Was he selling it?

He wasn't selling a course, was he?

I know he sold a book.

He sells mentorship.

He gave a book.

Oh, he sells mentorship.

He did at one point in time.

Oh, interesting.

There you go.

So 100 million dollar offers.

100 million dollar leads is one that he just came out with the gym launch secrets.

Because that's where he started off, was launching gyms.

Yeah, there you go.

Go down there.

People also ask.

He started his entrepreneurial journey turning brick and mortar gems.

Running brick and mortar gems after taking some good advice from Russell Brunson.

See, unfair to throw Chris Williamson in there.

I don't think he fits that same mold.

He ended up selling those gyms and eventually licensed his business model to start the company gym launch, which scaled to over 4, 000 plus locations in four years.

I gotta be honest, I. I've seen no evidence of that.

No, no, no.

Other than the books and other than the social media presence, I don't know of anybody.

And maybe I wouldn't from.

From soul sucking job to $120 million in revenue.

How Alex Hermosi.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

But this is on Yap.

Young and professional.

Young and profiting.

Okay.

That lady's podcast, her name's Yala or Holla, whatever the her name is.

Yeah, that podcast is completely full of.

Oh, we've.

Yeah, we.

We did a deep dive and Adam.

From Mind Pump went on the show and I was like, bruh.

He's like, bro, what?

And I'm like, nothing.

I didn't want to go there.

I'm like, I love you, dog.

I don't want to go here.

Like, I'm just.

I love you.

Yeah, the number, the numbers are a little skewed.

The numbers a little skew.

But that's the problem too, is that even that guy from the social whatever the hell platforms got zero personality.

What social platform?

You know, I'm talking about that weird looking curly haired dude who rents out the place at the mgm.

Oh.

Runs out the place from.

Damn it.

Jeff and I were talking about.

He bought like 12 million fake followers.

It's the guy that does like six shows a day.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Digital social hour.

That guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's completely.

But these guys who fake it till they make it, they actually make it, right?

So I'm like, every time I go online, I'm like, I just need to Buy a couple million dollars.

A couple million, like, followers.

That's it.

I don't even care.

That's, you know, just get a couple million followers, pay for them, and pay.

For some guests to come on.

Do the.

Go the PBD route.

Look, I got no problem with Alex Hermosi.

His wife, Leila Hermosi.

I know a lot of people who really follow her for, like, that female segment.

I don't really know Iman Ghazi.

I've heard some bad things.

Chris Williamson's got a great podcast.

Cody Sanchez, I want to punch right in the face.

I like Chris Williams.

I don't like her.

He's just.

He's so nice to listen to this guy.

Digital social hour.

Sean Kelly literally has no personality.

None like you.

Look at him.

He.

He is.

The only thing I can say about him is he's tall.

He's tall.

Yeah, he's tall.

He's a tall, goofy looking kid.

Look, there he is right there.

That's him.

Wow.

Yeah, he has no personality.

Like, you hear him talk, you're just like, oh, God, this is painful.

He'll talk about anything.

Huh?

Yeah, it's.

It's.

Yeah.

Interesting.

All right.

It's a whole thing.

Not a fan.

All right, well, look, I'm gonna cover some statistics and we'll cut the show a little bit shorter than the full breadth of what I wanted to cover because we're getting a little long on the tooth here, so.

Consequences of the blind spot in entrepreneurship.

They're real or meaningful?

The top 10% of Americans own over 89% of the stock market.

Okay.

That Delta, is because they were taught things you weren't.

Yeah.

Repeat that again.

The top 10%.

Top 10% of Americans own over 89% of the stock market.

Come on now, real realistic.

The bottom 90%, they hold most of the debt.

Wow.

Yeah.

So think that through.

The top 10% who own.

Who owns 89% of stock market has the least amount of debt.

Yeah.

61% of millennials say they were never taught about investing.

61% of millennials.

Less than 15% of public schools grads report understanding how to build equity in anything.

Yeah, that's right.

Wow.

Debt is a control tool.

They taught you how to apply for student loans, but not how to manage or avoid them.

Credit cards, car loans, and mortgages keep people locked into the rat race and working for that W2 wage the same way that gap in coverage in health care does.

Well, we're not going to stop till some of these statistics go up.

Debt Literacy is as vital as reading, but intentionally ignored.

My six year old knows how to read.

Yeah, there you go.

You know, and we talked about it.

There was articles that came out that there was a huge percentage of the population that just refused to open their credit card statements.

I don't want.

I'd rather not know.

Yeah.

Dude, I'm not gonna think about.

I think I think about this Mario song.

I don't wanna know.

Come on.

I know the song is not gonna say.

Come on, help me out, bro.

Don't leave me hanging, bro.

It's a great song.

So I'm gonna leave.

We're gonna end the show on this.

Okay.

Debt doesn't just finance your education or lifestyle.

It shapes your decisions.

You can't leave a toxic job because you have a car note.

You can't start a business because you owe Sallie Mae your student loans.

You can't take a risk because you have too many obligations.

And that's the point.

Debt doesn't just buy things.

It buys compliance.

Your compliance.

So think about that.

When you're trying to pay down debt, it really, truly is freedom.

If you work hard, play by the rules, and get an education, you will live a good life.

That is a myth.

It takes more than that.

Now, I got a lot more here, but we can.

We can go into it.

There's data which talks about how worker productivity since 1979.

We talked about this in episode 271.

Has increased by 70%.

Isn't that.

I know that's.

That really blows me away.

The productivity is increased, yet they're like, no, no, no, no.

I know your productivity is increased and you could probably finish your work within 40 hours, but I need you to come in into the office.

Yep.

But in that same time, real wages have only gone up about 6 to 10%.

So while companies are seeing 70% more profitability and productivity.

Well, productivity, not profitability.

Right.

They're getting 70% more efficiency from their workforce.

Some of that has to do with obviously, the advancement in technology.

Yeah.

Shouldn't you pass that, some of that benefit along to your employees or more?

Employees only make more than that to 10% more.

Yeah.

1979.

Right.

We know.

Just last year alone, inflation went up 9.1%.

But we're also part of the problem.

Right.

As investors.

As investors, you.

You're expecting a return.

It's like a vicious cycle.

Yeah.

Right.

As investors were like, I need you to outperform your earnings last quarter.

Right.

That's right.

So I don't know.

There needs to Be some type of systemic shift.

And let's not.

Let's not get it twisted as the.

As the kids will say.

I don't think they say that anymore.

I think we're old.

I think I'm.

I'm going to keep it alive, bro.

Don't get it twisted is.

That's.

That's got to be in your arsenal.

It's gonna be a tough conversation.

So you don't have the social cachet or the youth to keep it alive with.

Come on, bro.

The stripes don't do it.

No, that definitely would not be.

Although this dude, can we have a.

Why are cut off shirts coming back?

The crop.

Yeah.

I don't.

Why is everybody talking about crop?

Not gonna lie.

I'm not gonna lie.

So I. I don't.

Hold it, hold it.

I will spray you with Jason.

Jason from Pleasures gave me.

Gave me a shirt.

Right?

They're heavyweight, oversized.

You got a shirt?

I did get a shirt.

Yeah.

Hey, Regil, did you get a shirt?

Now y' all are getting it.

The care package is coming.

Hold on.

Well, that seems very convenient.

The care package.

Or did it already come s. The care.

I know.

I'm handpicking o. I like it.

First of all, the crop top ain't going to fit you.

Okay.

You're.

As you said.

That's hest you coined yourself against you.

This is style.

This ain't it.

That's not style.

That's not style.

That's.

That's Bollywood.

That's.

That's Bollywood Came out with this first, bro.

You know that is, right?

But he looks really familiar.

My Adam Sandler's movie boy.

Which one?

First dates.

Oh, 51st days.

Yeah.

That's the brother who's on steroids.

I think Happy Gilmore 2 is coming out soon.

It's already out.

I was on Netflix.

I was gonna watch it last night.

But it's already out.

Yeah.

Oh, that might be tonight.

I.

Instead I watched Deadpool, Wolverine again.

But I don't know if my wife's gonna like it.

I don't know.

She.

I don't know if she didn't like the first one.

Hey, Regil, you want to know how you know you're whipped this boy?

Yeah.

I don't know if I can watch it because my wife won't lie.

No, no, no.

She'll watch it with me.

But it's like, it's the.

Not the same.

If you watch a movie with someone that isn't vibing to.

You're like.

You're kind of killing it by not Laughing.

Nothing's worse than when you look over and they're on their cell phone and.

You'Re like, bro, I don't want to watch this with you.

This is.

I like, I. I'll watch it by myself.

It's fine.

But I demand obedience.

What I was going to talk about, what I was going to talk about is it.

I should have probably found a way to weave it into the show earlier.

But the, the tax code, right.

It was designed in a way to tax the W2 worker.

And there's a reason why there's.

The tax rate is lower for people who invest.

Right.

And there are tax breaks for business owners.

Yeah, right.

There's a reason for that.

Right.

So a great example of this is.

And I've routinely said this is not, like, revolutionary.

I have made historically more money outside of work than I have inside of work, even as an executive at a public traded company.

That's a good point.

And it's not because I'm making more in gross income.

It's because my net after taxes on that income is very different than what I was making.

I thought, I thought you were going to say you made a lot more in the relationships that you've built over the years outside of work.

Oh, they're sensational.

I love them very much.

You want, you want to write me a check?

My Cobra?

Yeah.

You what?

Pay your cobra?

No, bro.

$3,500 a month, man.

That's enough to end the friendship, bro.

You're on your own.

My mortgage is $1,700 a month.

That's true.

What's wrong with you?

I know why they call it Cobra.

That will kill you.

Right?

And if you say, yeah, why do they call it Cobra?

That's kind of.

Yeah, exactly.

What are you insinuating here?

Yeah, listen, if you stuck around this late in the show and you haven't left us an honest 5 star review, please go ahead and do so.

If you do it, we will read at the end of the show like I'm about to right now.

Or if you're watching us over on YouTube, make sure you subscribe.

Hit that, like, button, ring that notification bell, do all the moist goody good stuff.

We got one.

Oh, we got a new review.

We got one from.

Yeah, don't do this.

It's been so different.

You know?

You know, you know what's going on here.

Yeah, they ready, bro?

They're coming after the paper hands.

Are they really?

Oh, yeah.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Do tell.

Yeah.

So this from sorry for Butchering Jay dirt it.

Jay dirted it.

Sounds like you're a little sensitive.

What is that?

High quality podcast.

Five stars at least.

Jay.

We'll call him jd.

JD was honest, gave us five stars.

Because of my contribution.

Now your contribution coming up.

Get out of here, you.

Bro, I. I don't have any hands.

I never bought, I never sold.

You're the one that sold.

You got.

You got the paper hands.

Only because I didn't have the time to invest in staying with it.

No, you're just supposed to stay long term, bro.

Diamond hands is holding, bro.

You got to hold bitcoin and ethereum too.

It hurts.

You don't have to do anything.

What do you mean I don't have the time here.

That's the good thing.

You don't have the time.

Don't look at it.

Just sold before the crypto winter.

Yeah, there you go.

Love the last episode.

Diving into the history of the USA government school system.

I'm looking forward to Saeed Omar.

Dang.

He gave first and last name.

He's like technically first name on the record, bro.

Said Omar, admitting defeat to us bitcoiners.

When it crosses 500,000 a coin.

Might take years, but we'll get there.

If it crosses $500,000 a coin.

We're still doing this show and we're not big enough for me to throw a party for you being like wrong.

Then I'm just going to stop doing.

The show, mind you.

I think it was.

I can't remember, I want to say it was Thursday last week.

Thursday last week.

300 billion liquidated in crypto.

Yeah, I was on an island in Hawaii, not caring.

I mean that kind of scary.

So I had some stats here just for everyone to understand why I got the paper hands.

Okay.

Jesus.

Just.

Okay.

You really can do this.

Look, y' all winning.

You're right, you were right, I was wrong.

But let me tell you, just the understanding.

They were right, you were wrong.

Look, it's just seen as the new hedge against inflation.

Currently.

Currently.

Right.

It's the new goal.

Bitcoin has suffered peak to trough 80% losses three times.

Yeah, three times.

Right back in from 2013 and 15, 2017 to 18, 2021 to 2022.

In 2022 alone, it fell from 50, 000 to below 20,000.

Kind of scary for me personally.

What I would expect somebody with paper.

Hands to say, yeah, yeah, 100%.

There have been multiple single month drops of 30 to 40%.

I can't handle that much instability.

That's why I sold.

Yeah.

Is for me, it's, it's not a.

Single month drop of 30.

40 is.

Now I will, I will admit I made the mistake of selling because I couldn't handle that much amount of volatility when I bought to see it go up and down and I didn't have the time to invest in understanding why it was going up and down.

Yeah.

So I sold because I'm like, look, this kind of volatility for me isn't what I'm looking for and how I invest because all of my other stock, I just throw it in equities.

Yeah.

It's rare that like Apple's going to lose that much value at any.

I mean you'd have to go out of business.

And let's just put a spade right over the last like several years.

Right.

Look, the stock market is still hitting all time highs.

It's not like any of anything else I invested in didn't do well.

It didn't perform the way bitcoin has performed.

Sure.

But like I was still seeing like so far, even now, year to date, I'm seeing 11% gains.

I mean I'm happy with that.

I'm.

I mean, could I have more?

Sure.

But 11% gains ain't bad.

I'll take it.

I'm not gonna lie though.

I regret selling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I regret not getting in.

I'm at a seven figure loss on the selling, bro.

I've done the math.

Stop it.

It's bad.

Yeah.

I had a lot in bitcoin and Ethereum.

Seven figure loss.

That's that.

Yeah.

Don't do the math, bro.

No, I did it.

Didn't school teach you to stop doing math?

Stop.

Don't do it.

Don't learn anymore.

It makes me emotional.

It's not good.

But here's the thing.

If you didn't, would you have sold now?

Like, what's your exit?

That's a good question.

I do think this is actually a really good conversation maybe to have for a later episode.

Didn't have the time to, to really formulate like a lot of these.

The crypto guys.

Would you formulate a plan?

Would you be like, all right, when we cross a certain threshold, a percentage.

I would have a disposition strategy for sure.

Yeah.

A certain percentage.

I'm going to be liquidating and then I'll keep going a little bit further.

Yeah, I would.

I would have probably pulled out what I thought was a reasonable amount of profits, including my original investment and just left the rest.

Rest in there to sit.

There you go.

But I didn't have the time then.

I do now, ironically.

Unemployment's got its benefits.

I didn't have the time to really understand crypto.

So a lot of these crypto guys were on X.

They were on chat forums.

They were places that I just didn't have the time to invest in getting into and really like spending time to nerd out on it because I was building other things.

Yeah.

So I chose to invest in this show, which has cost me probably seven figures at this point in time.

So, I mean, hey, we all make bad decisions, you know?

I mean, you got to get a return, bro.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah.

You've been quiet tonight, brother.

You okay?

Yeah.

What's happening, bro?

Oh, yeah, I'm all good.

He's behind the curtain.

He's.

Yeah, I close the curtain on your relationships.

You guys can't see each other.

You can see him, though.

I can see.

It's fine.

I feel the disconnect between us.

Yeah.

You didn't like this?

Yeah, I got a lot of people hitting me up.

They were like, damn, bro, you didn't get the invite to Hawaii.

What's.

What.

What happened?

Trouble in paradise?

I'm like, nah, bro, they just vibe better without me.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

I respect it.

Good show, brother.

Yeah.

Rajil, you got anything else?

I got one meme.

I like it.

Buying, holding, selling.

I don't get it pumped.

Yeah.

When it pumps back up.

But you sold everything.

Oh, because he already sold.

Oh, no, I got it.

That's.

You.

That's.

This is you.

Is this.

Was that why he's bald?

You hasn't made the trip to Turkey yet?

No, but nobody.

Speaking of which, like, I'm.

I'm thinning up top again.

I think it's the unemployment thinning my hair.

No.

Yeah, you overanalyze.

Well, I realized this morning I had a.

An epiphany.

What's that?

I don't have to care about my appearance anymore.

Stop it.

Like, I show.

You have a podcast.

You got.

You.

You position the lighting just right to not care about your appearance.

No, I want to be well lit.

I don't.

Doesn't mean I don't want to look like a caveman.

Stop it.

So I don't have to cut my hair.

You're gonna be the.

I can get more tattoos.

I can grow the beard out.

What was the guy that went crazy?

The liver king.

You want.

You want to look like.

That's an extreme example.

Well, I'm just saying.

Not care.

I'm just saying it's weird to be able to do what you want, wear what you want.

Like, I'm not used to that anymore.

Like, I. I am used to being buttoned up and polished.

I'm growing my hair out again, man.

Yeah, the man buns coming back, brother.

Let's go.

Why?

Then you can't wear the hats, bro.

Then it's gonna have, like, a nice.

Wear hat with it.

You did?

Yeah, but it was hanging down low.

Because I got kind of like the whole, you know what?

I don't know, like, the faux hawk thing going on.

It's almost like a mullet slash mohawk.

Why are you making the face?

Moment of silence.

All right, that's it.

We're at the show.

That's coming, bro.

Let's go.

I'm in for it.

I'm coming.

I'm getting all new tattoos.

It's going to be all cryptocurrency.

My left arm.

That's all.

You see Ethereum right there.

All right.

You got anything, Regil?

No, I'm all good, man.

Christopher?

Nope.

Good night, everybody.

Bye.