Breaking the Paycheck to Paycheck Cycle: 7 Steps to Build Wealth

[music] [music] If someone's living paycheck to

paycheck, what's the very first step they can take to break that cycle? >> Yeah. One of the most unfortunate things

about money is we use money every single day. It costs money to eat. It costs money to feed other people. We go to

work to earn money. Yet, most of us are never taught a thing about money. And so what happens to so many people is we go

to school to get a good job and now we go and get an income and then we go and spend money and that recipe is a

disaster. Just statistically the majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. And by majority it

depends on which study you read. It's somewhere between 55% and some people say as high as 78% of Americans have no

money left over for a gift, a vacation, let alone an investment after I just pay my basic necessities. [sighs]

And now the problem and question everyone has is why and how do I get out? And in order to get out, because

that's your question, you have to understand the why. Because the reality, and this is going

to sound harsh, but I learned this the hard way. Our system is so rigged

for the rich and the financially savvy. But we're never taught to be financially savvy. What do I mean? When you

understand money, it's much easier for you to get that money and grow that money. When you don't understand it,

you're the one that's making everybody else rich. So, in this system where you are working to make money and spend

money, you're working to make everybody else rich except yourself. Why? Because the majority of America and really the

world now is I make money and I spend money. And every dollar you spend is a dollar going into somebody else's

pocket. And in our society, we live in what's called a creditbased economy. What that means is if I make $100 from

my job, I have the ability to spend that $100 plus more thanks to Visa, Amx, Mastercard, Discover, and all the other

forms of debt out there. And so if I go out and spend $100, I'm going to make you $100 richer. If I spend $100 plus

$50 on my credit card, I just made you $150 richer. And so when we live in a society that's built around spending,

but more specifically, credit based spending, and you don't have that that shield, that financial education, that

financial savviness to know what to do with your money. Well, now every corporation in the world, every bank in

the world is going to hire the smartest marketers, the smartest MBAs to get you to spend your money there because that's

going to make them rich. And you are going to work just to pay bills, just to make them rich. And now you never have a

chance to get ahead. So this system is designed this way. Now, how do you get out? And the way you get out, we can

break it up into multiple steps now. And it starts with step number one, building the right mindset. So I'm going to break

it up into seven steps. Step number one is the mindset. And when it comes to mindset, there are

four different layers of this mindset that you have to understand. Number one is I will become wealthy. Number two is

money is abundant. Number three is money is a tool. Number four, it's it's my duty to become wealthy. And the reason

why I say that is a lot of us grow up with some sort of money trauma, some sort of money negativity.

And people say poverty is generational. Well, it's not that we have a gene in our DNA saying you're going to be poor.

What it is is you grow up hearing money is bad, money is evil, we don't have enough money, that's too much money, we

can't afford that. We hear these types of things growing up. And so we start to normalize those things that, oh, okay,

as a kid, I can't afford that trip to Disneyland. I can't afford these nice things that I

want. And then as you start to get older, you start to have kids yourself. What happens when your kids want nice

things? We can't afford that. That's too much money. That that's beyond what we have. So that gets passed down. It's

that that mindset that gets passed down. So the first step is you need to change the way you talk and say, "I will become

wealthy." And I did a little exercise. I used to guest teach in Detroit public schools.

And it was a very tough school district, very rough school district. And I would talk to these kids about money. And I

think we talked about this on our last podcast, but one of the things I would ask them is, "What is your dream car?"

[gasps] And many people would have dream cars of things like a Ford Focus or a Dodge

Challenger. And I would say, "Why not a Bugatti? Why not a Rolls-Royce?" And the answer that I would get is somebody like

me from my background could never have a nice car like that. So when you tell yourself I can't, I guarantee you can't.

Which is why you have to start saying I will become wealthy. Number two is money is a tool. Many people are scared to

talk about money because we're insecure about our own money. But the reality is money is a tool that can amplify who you

are. You give a good person more money, they have a tool to do more good. You give a bad person more money, they have

a tool to do more bad. Which is why we need more good people with money and understanding that hey, you know what?

It is just a tool that can allow you to do more things to take better care of your family, your kids, your parents,

and your community. Yeah. I think the challenge is we look at how much we're worth as a sign of how much we are

worth, right? Like there's that idea of we're almost looking at it. The reason we're uncomfortable or insecure talking

about money is because in some way we believe society values us based on how much we make. And suddenly we may have

started to value ourselves that way as well. Well, this is 100% true. And just take a look at it from Instagram.

Instagram has become a highlight reel. I'm going to show my best self. But we often don't look at it as somebody

else's highlight reel. We look at it as somebody else's average. And now, let's say you're in a relationship. Uh, your

wife is now on Instagram and she sees, "Oh my god, this couple's going to Cancun. Oh my god, look at this nice

house that this couple has. Oh my, look at the car he just got her. What's going to happen? Hey, hub's husband, how come

we can't have these nice things? What are we doing wrong? How come we we feel the sense of like I'm missing out?" And

so now we go back to my money is my worth. But that's not true. Money is one part

of our lives. And you have to understand that more money will allow you to fulfill the financial part of your life,

which is important. But the only way you get there is by getting on the same page about money and building that separation

between the emotional side of money and the logic side of money. And that can be difficult because often times,

especially when we're struggling with money, we're thinking emotionally. Why is it that the casinos are in the

poorest neighborhoods? Why is it that all these stores are designed to profit off of people that don't have money?

It's because when you don't have money, man, it is easy to say, "Hey, let me give you a dopamine hit. Buy this nice

pair of shoes. Buy this Gucci purse. buy this whatever thing to the people that can least afford it because it gives you

that emotional rush that oh [gasps] that spending therapy. But that's the same thing that's keeping you broke. You

look rich. You feel better for the moment and then you have to pay it back plus interest. And in the beginning of

this podcast, I said our system is designed to profit off of people that don't understand this. Well, the reality

is our system is designed to profit off of keeping you poor. And it's going to sound harsh, but the reality is banks

profit when you are in debt. The more debt you are in, the more money they make. Corporations profit when you spend

money. The more you spend, the more they make. The government profits when you are financially uneducated because now

you're going to pay the highest taxes and you're going to be stuck relying on the government. when in reality when you

become financially educated you can pay less money in taxes legally and not need those same services per se from the

government. That's why the financial education is so important. But the only way you can get there is if you can

separate the emotional side from the logic side. And it starts with that mindset.

>> Money is a tool. >> Money is a tool. >> Yeah.

>> And then it's number three. Money is abundant. This one is is is a tough one, but it is one of the most powerful

tools to become financially successful. Let's say now you make $50,000 a year and you start to watch some financial

education content on YouTube and you're like, "Oh, wow. I like this idea to invest my money." And you become

extremely aggressive and you find a way to live off of $40,000 and invest $10,000 a year. [gasps]

Well, what happens to a lot of people in that situation is you say, "You know what, Jaspit? I want to do more of this.

I want to be more of an investor because I can see that light at the end of the tunnel. I'm going to live now instead of

off of $40,000 a year, I'm going to live off of $38,000 a year and put aside 12,000. Then maybe I live off of

$37,000. I'm going to invest 13,000." This is a scarcity mindset way of thinking because you think that there's

a limited pie and you can just squeeze more pennies out of the pie. I mean, everybody on the internet talks about

why you need to stop thinking straw Starbucks so you can have $5 more to invest. Well, let's flip that just a

little bit. You make $50,000 a year. You're saving and investing $10,000. But what if now you work to earn $500,000 a

year? And if you were going to save and invest that same percentage of your income, that means now you can save and

invest $100,000 a year. Now, the first time you hear that, your response is probably going to be just you are out of

your mind. My boss is not going to 10x my income. How am I supposed to go from 50 grand to $500,000 a year? Are you,

you know, bad word? Well, I want you to take a step back. What did we just say? I will become wealthy. Money is a tool.

Money is abundant. There's a lot of money in the world. A lot of money. There are some people that make whatever

you make in a month. There are people that make whatever you make in a week. There are people that make whatever you

make in a day. And there's probably people that make whatever you're making in an hour. If you start to reframe the

way you look at money, now you can start doing different things. Maybe you start watching more YouTube videos on how do

you earn more money. Maybe you start to read books about it. And maybe you don't get to $500,000 a year, but maybe you

get 80% of the way there, 50% of the way there. It's still a lot further and you will

never get there unless you start thinking about money in terms of abundance. And finally, it is my duty to

become wealthy. In the sik religion, um we have three main values. I'm not here to preach anything, but there are three

main fundamental tenants, which means remember God, serve others before you serve yourself, and earn an

honest living. It is in my belief your duty to become financially successful so you can take better care of yourself,

better take care of your family and take better care of your community. And once you can understand these things and

change the way you think, it's not easy, but if you can work on that, listen to your podcast, listen to the other stuff

out there, now you can move on to step number two, which is learn the rules of money. And again, I know we're getting

into the theoretical stuff right after this. We'll talk about the practical side of what do you actually do with

your money. But you have to learn the rules of money because one of the things that I learned is that wealthy people

understand that money is a game and every single person is playing this money game.

>> Mhm. >> But the way that wealthy people are playing the money games are very

different than everybody else. >> The average person thinks about money and how you attract that money is I have

to go to work and I have to earn this money. I have to I have to work hard to get this money. Now, you do have to work

hard. There's no way around that. But the way that wealthy people and financially savvy people think about

money is I'm going to work hard not to make the money, but own an asset. >> And this asset is going to make me more

money. I'm going to work to own the the things that will keep paying me even after I stop working.

And that is a completely different different way of thinking because the average person is thinking if I can make

a little bit more money, I'm going to drive a better car. If I can make a little bit more money, I'm going to buy

a better house. If I could get a bonus, I'm going to go on a vacation. If I could get a nice raise, I'm going to buy

my wife a nice purse. We think in terms of spending. Wealthy people think in terms of investments. And there's three

rules of money that I learned that you have to understand. Number one is that money flows to the investor.

When I go to Chipotle and I and I buy a bowl of extra guac, who am I benefiting? Am I really supporting the employees?

Yes, in a way, because I will be paying their salary, but the the real profits are going to the owners of Chipotle.

It's going to the investors of Chipotle. Money rule number two is inflation benefits the investor. What does that

mean? Over the last 5 years, we've seen the prices of things rise. This is because of inflation. Inflation didn't

just start after the pandemic. It's been happening for a long long long time. And so you might have heard your

grandparents or parents say, "When I was young, I used to go to the movie theater for a nickel, a dollar, whatever it

might be. Now it's $25 to go to a movie." This is inflation. So now when you spend those more dollars at Chipotle

who's getting those more dollars, it's the owners of Chipotle, the investors. And then finally is our system is

designed to benefit the investor. As a licensed attorney, who's not your attorney, I can tell you that when you

earn your money as an investor, you are going to pay a lower tax rate than when you earn your money as an

employee. That's why it is so important to understand the rules of money because

our entire system is designed to make the financially savvy wealthier while everybody else is paying the price. I'll

give you one more example. When I was in law school, I learned about this concept called fiduciary duty.

And what I didn't understand and what I learned is that the CEO of a company, your boss, has a fiduciary duty to make

one person rich. Do you know who that is? It's not the employees at the company. It's not the customers at the

company. It is the owners of the company, the investors in the company. The CEO has to make decisions to make

the investors rich. And we're never taught to become an investor. We're taught to become an employee. Now, it's

not bad to work a job. That's not what I'm saying. In fact, that's probably the best thing for most people. What I'm

saying is you have to understand that when you go to work, you now have to take some of that money and become an

investor. Now when you do that, now you can start to get into the practical steps of what you do with your money.

>> Yeah. >> So we talked about now step number one is you have to build the mindset. Now

you have to learn the rules of money. Now we get into the practical side, which is step number three. Get out of

the financial danger zone. And what I mean by that is the very first thing you have to do is save $2,000 as fast as

possible. >> Just 2,000. >> Just start with 2,000 as a start and

then pay off your credit card debt. Half of America today does not have $1,000

put aside to protect them against emergency. So if your car breaks down, your kid gets sick, your window breaks,

the average person has to go into debt to pay for that expense. You have zero breathing room.

If you want to go on vacation, you want to do anything, you have to go into debt to do that. So we need to stop that. I

call this the financial danger zone. You need to save $2,000 as fast as possible. And the way you can do that is by

spending less or working to earn more. And you have to make some extreme sacrifice if you don't have that.

>> Do you know what people are wasting the most amount of money on right now in in the United States? Is there any research

on that? >> Oh man. [laughter] Well, if you are somebody who does not

have $2,000 saved up, there's a lot of things you got to cut out. And this is going to sound mean, but I don't say

what I say to make friends. I say what I say to help people be better with money. You should not be eating at a

restaurant. You should not be going on vacations. You should not be driving around in a fancy car. You shouldn't be

living in a big fancy house right now. You got to make some extreme sacrifices if you don't have $2,000. So much so

that what I tell people is you should not have a Netflix subscription. Not because it's going to save you $15 a

month, but because the average American is watching somewhere between two to three hours of Netflix a day.

If you don't have $2,000, how can you feel comfortable sitting there at night time watching whatever

the heck is on Netflix? You have to have a little bit of urgency that, oh my god, I got to take care of my family. So,

whatever you can cut back on, do it. And then once you get that $2,000, pay off your high interest credit card debts.

Because when you are in that situation where you have those high interest debts,

you are trying to climb a mountain with a,000 lbs of chain strapped to your back. You're never going to get to the

next step because anytime you get some money, you got to pay it back off. In fact, let me give you an example, Jay.

If I gave you $6,500 today and you invested that money today, you never touched that money again, you

never invested another penny again, and you could get a, let's say, 20% return a year on that money, in 40, 45 years,

you're going to retire very wealthy. You're not going to have a million, $5 million, $10 million, $50 million.

you're going to have closer to $60 million off of that one investment of the $6,400

$6,500 that I give you today. Now, you're going to say, "All right, sign me up, Josh. Put it give me that money and

where do I invest it?" >> Well, here's the reality. Do you know who's getting those returns? Amex, Visa,

Mastercard, Discover. And do you know who's paying it? You. M >> if you have credit card debt. And so

instead of you having that wealth, you are the one that's paying for their private jets. You are the one that's

paying for their big buildings. You are the one that's paying for their luxuries.

Which is why I get so serious about this that if you want to become wealthy, you have to you have to you have to get out

of this financial danger zone. Once you get there, now we can get to the next step. Step number four. This is where

things not get fun because you finally have a little bit of a foundation. [gasps]

Now you can create a system for your money. The difference between wealthy people and everybody else is wealthy

people know what they're going to do with their money before they earn it. Everybody else gets the money and then

they wonder, well, what should I do? How should I spend this money? And this is where it is very helpful to have a a

system for your money. One that I teach is a 751510 plan [snorts] which says for every

dollar that you earn from here on out.75 is the maximum that you can spend. 15 cents is the minimum that you invest. 10

cents is the minimum that you save. This way whether you're earning $30,000 a year, $300,000 a year, or $3 million a

year, you're always going to have a rule of how much you can save, invest, and spend. and break that down for us again.

>> 75 15 10. So the way I'd like you to do this is I want you to open three bank accounts and you're going to make money.

Money gets deposited into one bank account. Create an automatic withdrawal and deposit. That money gets pulled out

of one bank account and 15% goes into your bank account holding your investment money. 10% goes into your

bank account holding your savings money. The reason why you want to have three different bank accounts is because if

you have $100 in one bank account and you think, "This is my investing money and my saving money. You go into the

store and you see this nice sweater on sale. It's $90. I have $100 in my bank account. Well, I should be able to

afford it, right?" Well, you forget that some of that money is supposed to be saved and invested. And then you pay

taxes on that sweater. And now you spent $989 on that sweater. And oops, I just spent my savings and my investment

money. which is why you need the three different bank accounts. Your savings are not going to make you wealthy. This

is a big lie that we've been sold. Your savings are there to protect you. Your investments are there to make you

wealthy. And that spending money is what you pay for your house, your groceries, your vacations, and everything else.

Now, we move on to the next step is how do you spend your money smartly? And this is where things start to get a

little bit painful, but this is where you can really accelerate your wealth. You know how to spend your money now.

You have a good system. Now, when it comes to actually accelerating your wealth, you got to spend your money

smartly. And what I mean by that is no more financing things that don't put money in your pocket. And then follow

the rule of five when it comes to luxuries. So, when it comes to no more financing things, it's very normal. You

want to buy the new iPhone, why would you pay $1,1200, put it in $50 a month, 0% APR? It's free

money. Why wouldn't you take it? Well, let me ask you a question. If I walked into the bank today and I said, "Give me

a $1,000 loan at 0% APR." What are they going to say? Heck no. There's a door. Why is it that somebody's willing to

offer me 0% APR? Not just somebody, a very profitable corporation. Because they know how to make money off of you

with a 0% APR. Why? Because at 0% APR, number one, it's going to make it much easier for you to buy the new iPhone

more often. Number two, you don't feel the pain of $1,000 leaving your bank account. It's just $50 a month. Number

three, when you buy the new phone, well, now they can sell you the new AirPods, the new charger, the new case for it.

And then number four, they know that a lot of people are not going to pay it off in time and now they're going to

slap on that 15, 20, 25% interest, which then makes them even wealthier, which is why you should not be financing things

even at 0% APR. If it doesn't put money in your pocket, do not finance it. The only exception is the house that you

live in. [sighs and gasps] And then my rule of five, if you can't buy five of them, you can't afford one of them,

[laughter] especially for luxuries. >> That's a good rule. So, you want to buy

a nice $1,000 watch, you better have $5,000. So,

>> of disposable income, >> of extra money. >> Yeah.

>> Now, we can get into the next step, which is how do you earn more money? The step number six, because now we know how

to create a system with your money. You know that I'm going to do 75, 15, 10. I know how to spend my money. Now, let me

earn more money. And this is the part that many people get flipped because they assume that I just got to make some

more money. Well, if you make more money without knowing what to do with that money, you make more money, then you

make other people rich with it because you just go and spend it. This is where now it is important for you to figure

out how can you earn more money. Maybe you ask for a raise at your job. Maybe you get a second job. Maybe you create

your own business. Maybe you learn how to utilize artificial intelligence. You find ways to earn more money. But you

keep following that system, the 75, 15, 10. And that's the key is as you earn more money, you keep investing more

money because that's what's going to make you wealthy. And then finally at the top step number seven

is you have to protect your assets. And there's two parts to this. Number one is you got to understand the legal side.

That means understanding taxes because taxes can be one of the biggest expenses that you have to pay. You have to

understand how do you pass this wealth down? How do you put shields around you? Because when people realize you have

money, they're going to want some of it for themselves. And this also means how do you give

back? How do you help others? How are you going to leave a legacy for yourself and your family? That's now wealth

planning. And so we talked about now kind of the whole progression of these seven steps. But it starts with that

mental side of understanding the mindset. Then you got to understand the framework of the rules of money. Then we

start with the basics of saving the 2,000, paying off the credit card debt. Then you build a system for your money.

From there, once you have the system, you have to know how to spend your money the right way. Then you have to learn

how to earn more money the right way. Then you learn how to manage your wealth, grow your wealth, and pass on

your wealth. >> Yeah, that is a really brilliant system. I mean, that's a masterclass truly

because >> I call it the climb to wealth. >> Yeah, it's brilliant. It's so great. And

I love that it goes from I love that you start with the mindset and then switch into the practicals of money because

if you taught all the practical stuff and people didn't have the mindset, you'll make mistakes and you'll actually

put your money in the wrong places. And if you only have the philosophy and the mindset and don't have the practicals,

well then it's just a nice idea. On eBay, every find has a story. Like if you're looking for a vintage band tea,

not just a tea, the band from the last show your favorite band ever played. You wore it everywhere. Then your best

friend started wearing it, which was cute until they unfriended you and took it with them, which was not so cool.

Anyway, now you're on eBay and there it is. Same tea from the same tour, still living in your memory, rentree forever.

See, the things you love have a way of finding their way back to you. But eBay isn't just forgetting whatever your ex

or ex- best friend stole back. It's also for that rare championship foul ball you caught, then heroically gave to the kid

next to you. And where else are you going to find your first car? The one you wish you never sold, but now finally

get the chance to take back home. For good this time, shop eBay for millions of finds, each with a story. eBay,

things people love. The big question that comes to my mind right now is for anyone who's like, "Justree, I'm making

that $50,000. I'm making that $30,000. I want to make more money right now. What is the fastest, most effective,

realistic way I can make more money today?" so that I have more of the 7510 split to ultimately invest more. What do

you recommend I do in this day and age right now? >> And can I recommend what you shouldn't

do too? >> Yeah. So, I talk about investing a lot. That's that is my focus is the financial

side of what do you do with that money and so uh I was actually just doing a conversation with somebody about this

where a lot of people who end up in a tough financial situation whatever it might be

maybe you have debts you have expenses you have you're in a situation where money is tight you go into the internet

and now you start to hear about this topic called passive income and now you think wow if I could just

have some more money coming in passive ly I could pay all my bills and no longer have to worry about money.

But that's not how it works. Investing and everything that I'm talking about when it comes to growing your wealth is

when you have extra money that you don't need and you throw it into this investment. You throw it into this asset

that is going to then grow and make you more money. It is not fast, but if you do it right, it works and it can make

you wealthy. And that's how that works. >> Mhm.

>> Your question was, "How can somebody start to earn more money fast?" And the first thing that you can do, ask

your boss for a raise. But don't do it with the way most people do it. Because what most people will say is, "Hey boss,

I've been working here for a long time. Can I get an extra $5,000 a year, $10,000 a year, whatever it might be?"

[gasps] And well, what your boss is probably going to say is,

"No, because I'm going to pay you to do the same thing." No. Instead, I want you to think about it from their

perspective. The fastest way for you to make more money at your job is to make your boss

more money. And if you can show them, hey, I'm going to make you an extra $20,000 a year. You pay me an extra

$10,000 a year. Now, they will probably say yes because you are adding more value to them. How can you do that? It's

going to depend on your position. But find a way to add more value and go to them and say, "Hey, look, here's what

I'm going to do. Here's how much more revenue I'm going to drive. Here's how much more money I'm going to make you. I

just want a piece of what I'm going to make you." Some people are going to say and say, "Wow, I like that idea." Others

are going to say, "Screw that. I don't want to make my boss richer." Okay, then well, you can try to do something for

yourself. And today AI is probably not probably it is the biggest opportunity that we have at our fingertips. It is

growing faster than the rate of the internet. It's growing faster than the adoption of blockchain. And most people

think that AI is how do I go on to chat and search guacamole recipes. But if you can understand AI,

you can get ahead of the curve and solve a problem for many businesses or people with money. Help them understand it.

Help them use it. And in exchange, you charge them money to do that. And there's so many ways to do it. I mean,

this is going to get into how do you actually make money? How do you build a business? But if you can find a pain

point, for example, dentists have a pain point which is that patients don't show up for their services.

Well, you can use AI to help solve that painoint. What can you do if you can show these dental offices, hey, let me

build you an AI tool that will automatically text your patients when they have an appointment and it will

say, if you can't make it, click this button. If they can't make it and you click the button, your AI tool will then

work to find somebody else who's on the waiting list to come in and fill that slot. Well, now all of a sudden, you

helped that dentist office fill more of the slots, have less vacancies, and make more money. And then

you could take it one step further. After they're done with a procedure, send out an automatic text message

saying, "Did you like your service? How was it? If you enjoyed it, give us a fivestar review on Google." which is

going to help drive more patients for the dentist office. And so that's the thing is people assume I'm just going to

go teach AI. I'm going to go help. It's too broad. Get specific. There are every business in the world should be using AI

to some way, shape, or form. Most people have no idea how it works. If you have some time, study it, learn,

and if you can figure out a one pain point, go out and solve it for one person. Let there be a testimonial for

the second. Let there be a testimonial for the third. And now all of a sudden, you're in business.

>> Yeah. I love I love I love the first piece of advice as well. And I think there's three types of people that ask

for a raise. The first person just asks for a raise, as you said. They're like, oh, can I get some more money? And it's

like, well, you're doing the same exact thing. Why would I pay you? The second type of person shows you everything

they've done in the past and ask for a raise. And the person again goes, "Well, that's great, but you did that anyway."

>> Yeah. >> And then the third type of person goes, "This is what I want to do." Which is

what you're saying, which is like, "Hey, here's I'm going to make you 10,000, 20,000% more, whatever it may be in your

position." And that third type of person is the person who gets the raise because you're now investing,

>> right, >> as an employer in what you hope is something that's valuable to you if it's

a win-win. >> If you work a job, you have to know how you're making money for your company.

Yeah, >> if you don't spend this weekend figuring that out because unless you understand

how you drive revenue for your business, you are just a a piece of space. And I say this as nice as possible because

we're talking about AI. AI is getting smarter. It is getting more advanced. I mean, CATBT did not exist 5 years ago.

It is getting more advanced every single day. And you know, there's a lot of talk about people being replaced by AI, which

is true, but the bigger threat to that is you being replaced by somebody who knows how to use AI.

>> Yeah. >> And so, if you don't understand how you're driving revenue for your

business, [snorts] well, there's a chance that there's a missing link between what you're doing

as a job and what the business needs from what you are there to do. >> Yeah.

>> And that's what we got to figure out. And even with your second part of the answer which is like how do you learn to

use AI for something? It is people who start with problems like trying to figure out a problem that you can help

solve. >> Mhm. >> That is really where it is. I think

often we sit there we go I want to come up with a really cool idea. >> Yeah.

>> And it's like every cool idea was only cool because it solved a good problem. If it didn't solve a problem it wasn't a

cool idea. And so if you are close to a problem like sometimes people think also I want to go do something that I enjoy

and love and that's great and and wonderful if it works out but it's like there's something that you know in your

career path. >> Yeah. >> Because you're close to it. I have a

friend funnily enough you talked about dentistry. I have a friend who's a dentist. He just understands the dental

industry better because he's been so close to it for so many years. It's not his passion. It's not what he loves.

It's not what he enjoys. But he's been able to build solutions for dental practices that allows him to make more

money than even being a dentist. And again, it comes back down to what you just said, which is start where you are.

Start where you understand problems. You don't have to go and learn some new industry and figure something out

because I think that can feel quite overwhelming sometimes to think, "Oh god, I don't know anything about what's

happening in the world." you got to know your your skill set as well, but I think you nailed it on the head with that

problem side because I looked as you were talking I was kind of smiling cuz I was looking back at my life and I was

like everything that I've kind of done sort of successfully was because there was some problem that I was trying to

solve. My first kind of reals I don't want to say first but one of my earlier more successful businesses was an

e-commerce company. It was a waterresistant sock. And this is I mean it goes so beyond what we're talking

about. But I came up with this idea because I was in school. I was in college taking a public speaking class

and they gave us an assignment to pitch a product to the class kind of like Shark Tank or Dragon's Den.

>> And I procrastinated. I put it off. And one day it was raining for class and I ran to class. I stepped in a puddle. I

got to class and the teacher's like, "It's your day to present." And I said, "Present what?" She's like, "The

product." And I said, "Oh crap." I'm standing in front of class, my heart is beating, my socks are wet. And I started

talking about water resistant socks that if you're an athlete, because I used to put football in high school, American

football. Uh oh man, when it rains, your feet feel soaked. And I started talking about water resistant socks and how

athletes would love it. And I I sat down and I was like, "That's kind of a cool idea. How can I do that?" So I created a

water resistant sock. And that was my first kind of internet business. And then I think about what I'm doing now.

Uh so I run a company called Briefs Media. Our flagship product is called Market Briefs which is a a free daily

newsletter. And that started because during COVID the economy flipped upside down like in a matter of a day. And so I

went from making YouTube videos like three times a week to 7 days a week. And there's a there's there's so much

happening in the news that I asked my team. I said, "Hey, uh, can you send me a daily briefing of what's happening in

the markets and make it stupid simple so I can understand because I don't like complex jargon." And so my team started

sending this to me and I I was like, "Huh, I wonder if other people would like this." So I would occasionally

mention this on my YouTube channel that, hey, if you want to get a daily report of what's happening in the markets, you

can just join this newsletter. At the time, it was called the Minority Mindset Newsletter. Super original, right? And

um it's that started picking up uh attention. People started to like it and I was like, "Huh, we can actually do

something with this. We're not making any money, but I was like, I I see the value because I like reading this

newsletter and I don't like the complex jargon of all the traditional financial news. I just want to know what's

happening in the stock market and the housing market and crypto." I just break it down into a quick fiveminute read.

And that's when we re rebranded it into market briefs. And I said, hm, let's ignore all this other like stuff that we

were doing. Let's put more energy and focus into market briefs. And that's what then allowed that to take off,

which then was the flagship for many other products that we have now in our company. But it started with that

painoint. >> That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's always a pain point. I just whether it's

something like that like a newsletter, whether it's the biggest business in the world today, like it all started from a

painoint. >> Yeah. And and I think if we spent more time with pain points, we'd come up with

better ideas rather than trying to come up with solutions and ideas to problems that either don't exist or that we're

imagining. I I know a lot of people like this, probably even on my team, people that I know, friends and family who are

like they were never exposed to investing. They even I wasn't. I had no idea growing up what investing was.

>> You and me both. >> Yeah. I had no clue. No one ever explained it to me. I didn't know anyone

who invested really, I don't think. Maybe I knew one person who had one other property than the one they owned.

I didn't grow up in that circle. If someone's out there going, "Okay, I want to start investing. What's the smallest

amount I need to start investing? What's the number? Where do they start?" Now, $1.

You can start investing with any amount of money. And the whole idea of investing is you take this extra money

and you're going to put it into this thing. you're going to buy something with it with the goal of making money

off of this thing as opposed to just buying a watch or a pair of shoes. But the part that I think a lot of

people don't understand, especially if they don't grow up learning about investing like we didn't is there's more

than one way to invest because 10 years ago, what was investing or what did people think investing was? How do I

find the next Amazon? How do I find the next Apple? Today, a lot of people think investing is how do I find the next

memecoin? How do I find the next cryptocurrency before it pops off? We start to think of investing in terms of

gambling. Especially because now there's so much of it around us. I mean, there's sports betting, there's uh there's

foreign exchange markets, there's poly markets. I mean, people are betting on uh what the Federal Reserve Bank is

going to do next. They're betting on these wild decisions off of You remember that one? There was a big couple that

got caught cheating at the Cold Play concert. I forget who it was. >> There was a a betting market around are

they going to file a divorce or not. So people are quote unquote investing their money

>> on don't that type of thing. So people are now like making businesses out of all sorts of prediction markets. And so

we start to assume without any financial education that investing is the same thing. We're just going to predict

what's going to happen in something tomorrow. But that's really not what investing is. Investing is something

that you want to buy and own for the long term that you believe is going to either go up in value and maybe pay you

with some sort of interest along the way. Maybe it's going to deposit money every month, maybe it's going to deposit

money every 3 months, maybe it's going to deposit money every year into your bank account for not doing anything.

That's what investing is. So now, how do you go about doing it? And there are three layers that you need to

understand. Number one is the most hands-off. And that is I'm going to give my money

to you, a financial adviser, and you are going to manage my money for me. And now it's completely handsoff. And so if you

just run some basic numbers, if I invest $1,000 a month for 30 years, and my financial adviser can beat the markets,

they do 11% a year, I'm going to end up with 1.8 million, but I got to pay a fee. I got to pay a price.

You might have to pay 1 and a.5% in fees. So, you might end up paying 500 or $600,000 in fees. So, the 1.8 million is

what you're getting after the fees. Option number two, if you want to be a little bit more involved but not fully

involved, is what I call being a passive investor. And passive investing is all about finding a basket of stocks and now

you just keep consistently investing your money in it. So, for example, you can invest in the United States economy,

in the broad economy. And one of the most common and popular ways to do that is to invest in something called the SNP

500. That's a group of the 500 largest companies in the stock market. You don't have to go out and find Amazon and Tesla

and all these companies. You just invest in this fund and you don't have to touch it. And the nice thing about it is if

you invest your money into this fund and let's just say Amazon goes bankrupt, you don't have to do anything. The fund is

going to kick Amazon out as they get smaller and they're going to replace them with another company. So it's

completely fast passive for you. Historically, this has averaged about 10% growth a

year. A little bit more than that, but right around 10% historically despite the recessions, despite market crashes,

because know we know that they happen. it has averaged about 10% a year. So if you invest $1,000 a month for 30 years,

that would be about $1.9 million. Then you have layer three, the most involved. This is called being an active

investor. And being an active investor is not trading. It's not flipping. It's I want to own good investments that I

believe in, that I've researched, I put the work into, and I want to own them for the long term. So this might be

investing in individual companies, individual stocks. Maybe now I want to invest in Amazon. Maybe now I want to

invest in McDonald's or whatever. Maybe it's investing in individual re real estate properties.

And the goal with this is you're taking on more risk for more potential return. So we talked about how if you just

invest your money into the broad economy, you're averaging about 10% a year. as an active investor, you know,

we're not talking about 200% returns or 100% or even 50% returns that people like to talk about on the internet

because that's not sustainable. It's a lie. It's a scam and they're screwing you over.

We're talking about a slight edge. Let's just say 13% a year. If you can do that, 13% a year, $1,000 a month for 30 years,

well, now you're going to have about $3.5 million. So, we're talking about $1.6 $6 million more than if you

passively invested. You're taking on more risk. It's more work and more research,

but there's more potential upside. And so, you have to know kind of where along this curve you want to be because active

investing is not for everybody. This is what our firm focuses on is that research for active investors,

but it's more risk for more potential upside. >> Yeah. And and it almost feels like it's

better to start and move layer by layer by layer rather than dive straight in. It often is just to start with what's

most accessible to you because what is most accessible to most people is something like a 401k or IRA.

And I personally don't use a 401k because it's not right for me. But personal finance is personal. Okay?

What's right for you is not going to be right for me. Start with whatever you have access to and then take the next

step. and then take the next step. And then you'll start to realize what are all the options out there because it can

be intimidating because you say, "Oh my god, should I invest in stocks or real estate or crypto? Should I invest in

individual companies or ETFs or mutual funds? Oh my god, should I be investing in apartments or or single family

houses? Should I be using like take a breath? It's okay. Just start. The reason why people don't see the success

that they want out of their investments isn't generally because they made the wrong decision. It's because they never

made a decision. It's because it never started. But once you can get started, you can make that adjustment. I talk I I

relate uh investing to working out all the time. Because I see the same thing in the gym. People that are getting

started with working out, they'll say, "Just what should I do? Should I go do these highintensity workout? Should I do

this low intensity workout? Should I do carnivore diet? Should I do a vegan diet? Should I do you know, look, just

get on a treadmill and put down the donuts, right? Start and then take the next step. and then the next step and

just just start and then you'll see what works better for you. >> Yeah. How do you track the stock market?

Break that down for me for someone who doesn't know where to start. Kind of like what we're saying right now where

you know someone's like, "Oh, I'm thinking of doing this. I'm thinking of doing this." They don't understand. How

would you break it down for them? >> Yeah. So, well, the stock market is a place where anybody can go out and buy a

piece of ownership in a company. Not every company. the company has to be what's called publicly traded. So for

example, Briefs Media, my company, it's private, meaning you can't invest in my company. But if a company is publicly

traded, for example, McDonald's, you can buy a piece of that company. It's called a share. And if you buy one

share of McDonald's, you become one of the owners of that company. So when I go to Nike and I buy a pair of shoes, I am

a consumer at Nike. When I own one share of the Nike stock, I become one of the owners of Nike. As the owner of Nike, I

profit. When you buy the Nike shoes, as a consumer of Nike, I am making the investors richer, but I look cool cuz I

got the Nike. I got the Jordans on. And so, the whole idea behind the stock market is you are buying shares of these

companies that are publicly traded. Now, the price of a stock is going to depend on whatever the stock is. And what

causes the price of a stock to go up and down is not how much money the company's making. It's supply and demand. And what

I mean by that is the price of any asset, real estate, stocks, crypto, it

ultimately depends on how many buyers and sellers there are of that asset. So if more people want to buy the

McDonald's stock than there are sellers of the McDonald's stock, that stock price will go up. If people are selling

the stock more than there are buyers, the price of that stock goes down, which then goes to the next question. What

causes it to go up or down? Why do people buy versus why do people sell? And there are a whole list of reasons,

but you can look at the obvious. If McDonald's starts to produce bad hamburgers, the owners might say, "I

don't know about this." Well, maybe not the hamburgers cuz McDonald's is actually in the real estate business.

But if McDonald's starts to have some problems, the owners might say, "Maybe I should sell." If McDonald's starts to

have smaller profits, now the investors might get concerned. If they start to have bigger profits than expected, more

people might want to buy, which could push the stock price up. So, you have to understand the psychology of the buyers

and sellers because there's two parts to successful investing. One is the the financial

side, but it's also the emotional side. And in today's market, our markets are more emotional than ever

before. Business Insider actually did a study on this recently where they I mean it's not really that hard to find, but

they said that our stock market is more volatile than previous decades, [sighs and gasps]

which for the average person is not good because they say, "Oh my god, I'm scared my the markets are going to go down. I'm

going to lose money." But for the financially savvy, that creates more opportunity than ever.

In 2025, for example, we saw three stock market crashes. When we saw the first announcement of tariffs, markets

crashed. Then tariffs were paused, markets hit new record highs. Then we had the second announcement of tariffs,

markets crashed. Once those were paused, markets rose again. Then we had liberation day, the third announcement

of tariffs, markets crashed at the fastest rate since the pandemic. Then there were paused and markets broke new

record highs. See, for the average person, that was a nightmare. But for the financially savvy, all of those

downturns created a great buying opportunity. The thing that I like to tell people is

you're going to see ups and downs. But when you have those crazy times, I want you to remember one thing. I want you to

remember poop. P O P. Why? Because panic leads to overselling leads to opportunity leads to profit.

And that's where, you know, we've been talking a little bit about the education side of investing, but that psychology

is just as important because if you're the one that's panicking, well, you're making somebody else wealthier.

>> Yeah. >> And you have to understand what it is that you're investing in and know how

that fits in with your investing strategy. That way you can actually make money instead of being the person that's

making somebody else money. >> Yeah, I was gonna I was going to say that one mindset that sticks very close

to what you're saying, which may have to go earlier on in your system, is this idea of I'm trying to get the language

right. You you'll name it better because it's your system. But this idea of just don't chase fast money. Because I think

the reason why we get scared when the markets crash, when we're not financially savvy, is because we

thought, "Oh god, I lost all my money. Let me take it out." Right? or let me avoid putting more money in because

things are not looking safe. And this idea of this mindset that we have around I just want to make money quick, you

know, I just want to put something in next year it's huge and then I want to pull out. And it's like well that's like

very very rare for people to pull off. And I think that speedy money is what stops us from making good decisions

because by the time you actually put money in, you're like, "Oh, they I should have done it last year." Right?

Cuz you're just watching that quick win. Does that make sense? Yeah. And that that is actually it goes back into what

you were saying a little bit ago when you said, "What about that person who's living paycheck to paycheck?" What does

that person want? I want a relief of where I am. So what is that relief often? It's fast money. It's like, "Oh

my god, my arm hurts. What do I want? I want relief. Give me the extra strength Tylenol or whatever it is because I just

want a quick fix." And so what happens to a lot of times that person in the situation and we we were hinting at this

from a different angle before is you get screwed over. The system profits off of you because well you are a prime

candidate for spending money. But now if you start to say, "Oh my god, I just want to make some more money."

What happens? Well, you become a prime candidate for that fast money. And that fast money

most of the times is not there. And when it is there, if it does happen to come fast, you are also going to lose it just

as fast. Because if you don't know what to do with that money, well, it can go and leave just as fast. It's a they say

I think it's like 80% of lottery winners go broke or bankrupt within 5 years of winning the lottery. Why? It's not

because you didn't have enough money. People have won millions and millions and millions of dollars. If you don't

have the financial education and the money comes fast, it's going to disappear just as fast. And on the other

side, when you become desperate for money, you become a prime candidate to buy those programs and services that are

trying to sell you this dream of, hey, all you got to do is work 3 hours a week on a laptop off of a beach in Bali and

you're going to make $10,000 a month. $10,000 a week. You don't have to do anything. It sounds amazing. Sign me up.

$997, no problem. Well, that fast money >> Yeah. >> doesn't work like that.

>> Yeah. >> There's no sacrificing the hard work. Yeah, you brought up AI. Where do you

see the biggest opportunities with AI and investing right now? >> Oh man. Well, let me premise it with

this because I love talking about history because while history doesn't exactly repeat itself, it does rhyme.

When the internet started to become popular in the '9s, we started to see very similar things

happen. What do I mean by that? If you started a company in the mid to late 90s and you put the word.com at the end of

it, you could go to whatever bank or investing institution you wanted and raise a couple million dollars because

they wanted a piece of that action. Money was just being dumped into the internet companies. And then came the

year 2000. And in the year 2000, that internet bubble that was created popped and we saw internet stocks get wiped out

and there was a index called the NASDAQ which tracks a lot of these techy type companies. At that time it was a lot of

internet companies. That index fell by about 78%. And it was a disastrous crash

where even Amazon stock fell by more than 90%. But during that time, we started to hear

the news that the internet must be a fad. The internet's done. No one's using the internet before. I mean, there was a

lot of famous headlines from big newspapers that published that. >> Well, what happened?

It wasn't that the internet died, but a lot of internet companies did die. It was the strong companies that survived

and Amazon became what it is today. So, you talk about AI. Could we be in an AI bubble? Absolutely. Uh we're always in

some sort of bubble. We have more money going into AI than ever before. And it really feels like that rate is

accelerating. And it's like it's like a infinite black hole of money. It's just money coming out of everywhere from the

government, from foreign countries, from investors. Everybody wants a piece of the action.

Could we see an AI bubble burst? Absolutely. But just like how the internet bubble

burst, it doesn't mean the AI is going to go away if it does happen. It means that the smart and the savvy will

survive and then the others will get wiped out. So now let me ask that answer that question. Now, where's the

opportunity? And I'm going to explain this like an onion because like onions have multiple layers. That's how savvy

investors like to think about their investments. Because when a lot of people think about AI, they think how

can I invest in chat GPT? Well, when you're saying that, what you're essentially saying is I want to

invest in the company that's producing the AI. And there are companies that do that, which sure, but that's the top

layer of the onion. What every savvy investor wants to do is they want to know where is the money moving, where's

the money going to go before other people understand. That's what investment research is all about. And

that's what I I tried to spend a lot of my time and what's my company works on. So let's let's now go one layer deeper.

Well, what is the AI going to be powered by? What is powering this technology? Well,

right now it's being powered by computer chips because in order to do this AI computing, you need powerful computers.

Well, the next generation of computer chips, which we don't have yet, could be something called quantum computers. And

a quantum computer is essentially a supercomput to the 10,000th power on steroids.

that a a typical computer like so and I don't want to get too technical but a a typical computer that we have today can

solve one math problem a second that's just the way that it works but what a quantum computer can do is it can solve

multiple problems per second so a 64-bit computer that we have today which exists that can solve one problem a second a 64

cq-bit computer can solve if I remember the numbers correctly. I think it's 18 quintilion

problems a second. >> Wow. >> What does that mean? A quantum computer

can solve what a normal computer would take hundreds of years to do. That same problem could be solved in a

matter of seconds. It's >> insane. >> It is. We're not there yet, but there

are companies that are investing in it. If that happens, some of those companies could make a lot

of money. >> Mhm. >> Well, let's keep going another layer

deeper, right? We're going down the onion. So we talked about the first layer which is the AI maybe quantum.

What about the third layer? If if I have a AI company or I have AI, I have data. And as much as we want to talk about

privacy, the reality is if you have a a smartphone, you have data that's in the cloud. Well, the cloud isn't in the

clouds. The cloud is actually in a physical building called a data center. So, as AI starts to gather more data,

because anytime you ask Chad GPT a question, whether it's a guacamole recipe or it's something, write me this

email, that data is being stored somewhere and that data is being stored in a data center. And that could also

create an investment opportunity because now as we start to have more data being processed, as more people use AI, more

data is being created every single second. So now data centers are now booming because of that. In fact, I was

just reading that there are some companies looking at putting data centers on the moon now as a way to

diversify. And that's how crazy it's getting that we're looking for new ways to put data centers outside of the

earth. We could take it now one layer deeper in the onion, right? So, we talked about data centers, but those

data centers have to be powered too because those data centers need energy. those uh data centers that are keeping

all this stuff use a lot of power and there are specific companies that are powering those data centers and these

companies are trying to be as innovative as possible of how can we now power the data center for as low cost as possible

and somebody is going to win that race and the one that wins that race is going to make a lot of money that can create

an investment opportunity. Let's take it one layer deeper in this onion. That data center has to be kept at a

specific temperature because they have all these computer parts in there that get hot.

>> I mean, if you if you use a computer, you know, you get that sound, it gets hot. Well, if that data center starts to

overheat, >> it is going to malfunction and no AI company, no tech company wants to lose

it. I mean, it would be a disaster. So these data center companies are investing heavily into data center

cooling, which is a whole new industry of companies. >> Yeah.

>> Well, one of those companies is going to be the most efficient. They're going to be the most innovative. And they're

going to be the best one, the the one that everybody wants to use. Well, they're going to have the opportunity to