Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #0240_ Rob Luna — What’s Really Coming for the Economy in 2026? Financial Trends, Market Risks & Economic Outlook

Transcript

#0240_ Rob Luna — What’s Really Coming for the Economy in 2026? Financial Trends, Market Risks & Economic Outlook · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Rob Luna.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Sean.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, man.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, man.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Third time, man. I'm privileged, excited to be here.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Third time's a charm.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: But this new studio, dude, I'm just looking around and amazing.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: It looks so badass.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Congrats, man. Oh, thank you, dude.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: It looks really good.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Well, congratulations to you too. So new CEO,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: new company, Valtrion, Wealth Management. How long have you been?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: That's like brand new.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we just launched it last year. Last year
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: was our first full year in operation. And yeah, taxes,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: financial planning, and business integration, it's doing really good. Nice.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks, man. Nice. Well, we got a ton of stuff
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to talk about. I mean, just in the news and
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: in the past. Look, first of the year is coming up,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: just like last year. I think you are the perfect
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: way to kick off the year and trimming the financial fat.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: What should we be looking at? What stocks? What should
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: we be thinking about crypto? What's with this new child
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: savings plan? What's with the 50-year mortgage? I mean, there's just,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: what's the update with all the tariffs? How did that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: wind up working out? I can't remember if we talked
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: about that last year. I don't think so, because I
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: think it was right before all that stuff. And then
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: January came around, and that.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Was headline news pretty much. Yeah.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: So we just, we got a lot of stuff to cover.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I just want, but that's, that's kind of what I
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: want to do. Projections. What should people be focusing on
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: financially business owners, uh, in 2026 and kind of, you know,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of a recap and, um, in 2025,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: but as you know, everybody starts off with an introduction.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Rob Luna spent a quarter of a century is one
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of the top investment advisors in the country, working with
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: professional athletes, entrepreneurs, and ultra high net worth families. Built
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: a successful wealth management firm from your bedroom and eventually
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: sold it for millions of dollars. Stepped away for a
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: few years because of a non-compete, and during that time
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: started educating people, me being one of them, on personal
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: finance and entrepreneurship through your book, Wealth Academy, and a podcast.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Then last year, you launched something completely different, and you
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: shifted your personally from being an investment advisor to a
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: business and private wealth strategies. This is Valtreon. Yeah. You're
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a husband, a father, and most importantly, a Christian. And
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: once again, congratulations on Valtreon.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: So just a personal testimony. And a lot of entrepreneurs
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: are looking for this, man. But, you know, I don't
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: know much about about wealth management, taxes, stocks. I think
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I know real estate, but I don't know anything about that. And,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I just want to say, man, that what
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: you've put together over at Valtrion is fucking incredible. So,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: you know, me as a business owner, a business owner,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: an entrepreneur that has zero education in business, I really
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: don't even have any education at all. I'm a public
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: school boy with no college education. So, and I built
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: a pretty damn good business. But one of the, one of,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: you know, one of my biggest hiccups, man, was fucking taxes, man.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Taxes and planning and just anything with numbers in general.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I totally winged it all the way up into this point.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: And I had fired so many CPAs because I just,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I was like, hey, can you guys do the planning?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: You know, I want to, I want to, I hate
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: paying taxes. I'm tired of paying the Taliban. I'm tired
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of paying all these other countries. I want to save
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: on taxes. I know there's planning. And they all say
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: the same shit. Yes. Yes, we'll do some tax planning.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And then December 26th comes around and it's like, hey,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Christmas is done. We got about a week left. Let's
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: come up with this plan. And nobody's talking to each other.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: They're not talking to... Anybody, you know, they're not talking
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: to the bookkeepers, to any of this, any of these people.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And then it's the same fucking story year after year.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: And then me and you talked and you started Valtreon
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: and everything is under one roof. Everybody's talking to each other.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And this is just a key component that I think
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: not only myself, but a ton of entrepreneurs are looking
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: for us is all the financial stuff under one roof.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Everybody's talking to each other. And the fucking tax plan
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and the wealth strategy, all that stuff comes together. And
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: it's really cool what you built, man. I've never seen
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: anything like it.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks, man. And I think, look, first of all,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: I think you totally underestimate yourself. I think you're probably
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: one of the smartest business people I've ever met in
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: my life. And certain aspects of what you're doing here
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: with the show are unprecedented. And you're actually creating markets.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: So don't sell yourself short, first of all. And so
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I think your success is largely because of you. But,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: you know, like you said, I think in being an entrepreneur,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: like most entrepreneurs, when I started Valtrion, like my introduction,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: he sold his business for millions of dollars, which I did. But,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: you know, our focus really there was just on managing money.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: I had a CPA for 20 years that I was
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: kind of complacent with, and I figured all those things
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: were going on. And then when I sold my business,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: it's nothing like doing it for yourself. I was like, shit,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: If I would have structured this like this or had
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: this trust, I literally lost millions and millions of dollars.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: So kind of the cool thing about what I'm doing now, Sean,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: is the business I'm building today, or we built at Valtrion,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: I am the target customer. So selfishly, I'm building this
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: for myself, not from an ivory tower. And when I
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: started looking at taxes, let's just talk about taxes in particular,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: because I think that's the biggest, biggest pain point. And
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: when you talk to people about their tax situation or CPAs,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I'm sure... All your listeners are thinking about this. Everyone's disenchanted.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: The CPAs are taking on 300, 400 clients. Everything's reactive.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: There's nothing proactive. And people are just losing millions and
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: millions of dollars because of that. So when I started
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: this firm, I'm not a CPA. But I'm pretty smart
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: with numbers. And my team is pretty smart with numbers.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: And we said, look, we're pretty good at this stuff.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: We understand business and real estate and strategy more than
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: any CPA does. And CPA is not to underestimate them,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: but there's a code. of what you can and can't do.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: And what we said is, hey, we're going to reverse
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: engineer that code. And to your point, when we find somebody,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: we're going to start at the beginning of the year
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: tax planning, and we're going to do every single thing
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: that we can legally to make sure that we minimize taxes.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Because coming from California to here in the federal government,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: where that money was being pissed away, we didn't want
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: to do that. And so that's really pretty much what
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: it's about, is get it back from the government, put
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: it in your pocket, your family's pocket, and help you
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: use that to help your business grow. And we really
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: focus on that.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Man, you guys have crushed it. I mean, I You,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: first year, hundreds of thousands of dollars saved in taxes.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Hundreds of thousands, just because you guys are talking to
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: each other. And that's, I mean, we haven't even time
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to do everything. So anyways, I'm really excited for you, man.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you. And congratulations on that.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Let's help some other people save some money and make
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: some money and protect them from, you know, the great
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: thing about coming on right now, Sean, is we're talking
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: about it earlier. This year, I'm a really optimistic guy.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: But this year, looking out over the next 12 months,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: and I think with AI in particular, it's kind of
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: like even more than dog years. Like every year is
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: 10 years in business and your personal life and things
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: are just moving so quickly now. And when I look
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: at the next year, I've never been more optimistic about
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: what's going on in the country and the opportunities for entrepreneurs,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: but also I'm pretty frightened and pessimistic about the things.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: And the reason being is because all of the opportunity
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: that maybe we'll talk about with AI, I think there's
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: very few people that are prepared to take advantage of that.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: And because of that, I think there's going to be
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: a lot of unemployment, a lot of things that are
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: going on that are really going to put the American dream,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: which at the end of the day, besides God, number
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: one in my family, the thing I fight for and
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: wake up every day for is to keep the American
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: dream alive because I you know, a little bit about
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: my background. Without that, I wouldn't have been able to
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: accomplish anything that I have today. And I think day
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: by day by day, the decisions that we're making politically,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: whether it's the left or the right in this country,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: is threatening that. And I think never more so than today.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I wanted to start with the 50-year mortgage. But since
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: we're going down this road, I am.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Well, that's part of the problem.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I want to have this conversation because It sounds like
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: you think that the American dream is drying up.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think that. I think that the American dream
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: is alive and well, but you have to figure out
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: what sector you're going to grow that in. And so
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: let me give you an example. Okay. We see all
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: these illegals come in here and they take out all
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: of the trades. They're the plumbers. They're the carpenters. They're
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the electricians. They're... They're the lawn care. They're everything. They
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: do all of it. And, you know, you see these
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: guys and they come in this town and I've hired them.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's not really a market. You have to
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: hire them. Right.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: You know, and I remember in my old studio, that
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: guy came in and built that, studded that entire studio
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: out on Easter Sunday. I couldn't get I could not
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: get an American to get in there and do it.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: They wouldn't even give me a price because it was
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: too small of a project for them. So I go,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I find this guy. He's on a site somewhere. I'm
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: just like, hey, I need somebody to stud this out.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: He was working right across in another building. Comes in,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: does the studio, call him a year later to do
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: something else. Now he's got his own crew. He's got
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a brand new car. He smells like he just got
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the most expensive cologne out of wherever the hell he
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: was shopping but and he's proud man and i talked
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: to him and he's i'm like man looks like you're
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: doing good he goes i got my own crew now
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: i got six different projects going that's the fucking american
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: dream yeah right yeah it is alive and well but
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: we got a bunch of people that are too fucking
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: lazy to go out and do learn the trades they
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: want to you and so you have to be able
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to adapt and overcome you can't just go this i
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: mean am i wrong.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Here Well, I think you're a thousand percent right. And
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: I think when I talk about the American dream being threatened,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: I think it's more about the things that you're talking about.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: It's the mentality, right? And when you think about, you know,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I was talking to your team a little bit earlier
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: about my disenchantment, what's going on with New York right now,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: because my grandfather came from Ellis Island through Italy and
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: helped build that city brick by brick. Didn't speak any
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: English at first, learned how to speak English. would never
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: speak to us in anything other than English during that
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: period of time, worked seven days a week. He was
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: a bricklayer, wound up creating his own business, bought a home.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: He did all these things without having any college education,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: without speaking English, but he understood that nothing was gonna
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: happen for him, nothing was gonna be handed to him
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: unless he did it himself. And when you think about
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: all these policies Well, I don't like the 50-year mortgage. Well,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I don't like all these Band-Aids that we keep putting
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: on things. That is softening America. The American dream is
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: people and intuition and motivation and understanding that you are
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: responsible for yourself. So the further you take that away
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: from people, everybody gets a trophy. That's going to deteriorate.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: And that's why we talk about New York. Everyone says, oh,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: it's going to come back, invest in it. It's not
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: coming back. It's not coming back because the people that
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: built that city live in Florida now, in Texas, in Tennessee.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: New York isn't buildings. They're not living here, are they?
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: But think about it. The reason it always came back
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: is because the people made it come back. After 9-11,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the people made it come back. Those people are gone, Sean.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: They're not back. You look at the immigrants that are
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: in New York today, and I'm all for a legal
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: immigration process. We need that to be able to prosper. Otherwise,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: you become Japan, right? You need immigration rights. But you
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: need the right type of immigrants. You need the right incentive.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: It's not the immigrants that are in that city today
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: that are absolutely destroying it and looking for handouts and
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: have created that problem. And everyone says, oh, it's just
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: a mayor and it's just New York. No, that is
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: a metaphor for what could be happening to this country
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: unless we start changing those things. And that's the problem
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: with the 50-year mortgage and all these band-aids that we're
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: trying to create to kick the can down the road
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: and not take the medicine that we need to put
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: our boots on and start getting back to what made
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: this country great.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Man, I mean, I'm not... I can't argue that. I mean,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: we've seen massive outfluxes out of New York, Washington, Oregon, California.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: And so I know, I mean, if I remember, I
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: think it was Polymarket. I think Polymarket predicted that a
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: million people are going to leave New York if he
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: was elected. Yeah. And he was elected. And from what
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I've been hearing, real estate. Real estate prices in Florida
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: is inflating and real estate prices in New York are deflating. And,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: you know, but I don't know. I just, I'm still not,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I'm still just not there with the American dream is dead.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, another example, another example. Friend of mine started
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: American dude, started a fence company this year. He was
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: a cop or he was a Marine. Then he was
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a cop. Then he started a fence company. like six
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: months ago, he's already done. I think he's already done
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: over a hundred thousand dollars in sales. Yeah. Six in
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: six months with a new business, just by getting his
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: fucking hands dirty and doing the.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Work, answering the phone, showing up, taking the risk, doing
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: what he says he's going to do.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean, I, I just, I'm not, yeah,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: maybe the American dream is dead in certain sectors. I'm not,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna, I mean, but maybe those sectors are
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: fucking dead all over the world because of AI, you know? And, and, um,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: But anyways, I know we're going to get more into this,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: but I do. I want to ask about this 50-year
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: mortgage right now because I am not a big fan
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: of anything that's gone on this year. Yeah. And I
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: had really fucking high hopes. I think a lot of
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: us had really high hopes. I think it's a disaster.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: But I will say that, you know, and like I
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: said at the beginning, I'm no financial expert. I don't
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: know my ass from a hole in the ground with it.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: But with the 50-year mortgage stuff, like, I understand why
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: everybody's bitching about it, but to me, I think it's
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: a good thing. I understand, yes, the bank's going to
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: make a shit ton more money in interest if you
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: take a 50-year mortgage because if you hold that note
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: for 50 years, then yes, you're going to pay a
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: shit ton more in interest. But I don't know anybody
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: that's held a home for 30 years that's Not in
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the baby boomer generation. Most of them haven't. Actually, that's
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: like the World War II generation that was holding homes
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: for that long. Not baby boomers and under, correct? I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: don't think people, I mean, people buy and sell their
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: homes all the time now. It's hard to find somebody
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: that's lived in a home for more than 10 years.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: And you hear all of the all of the younger
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: generations bitching about housing prices. And I think they have
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a great fucking point. I think housing prices are super inflated. Um, and,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and it can, it is hard, but you know, then when,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: you know, and it sounds like there was a battle
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: between the Trump administration and, and, and, and lowering the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: interest rate. So they didn't get that. And they came
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: up with this 50 year mortgage. To me, I feel
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: like the 50 year mortgage is a great thing. It
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: cuts your payment at damn near in half. Yes, you're
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: going to pay more in interest. Are you going to
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: hold your home for 50 years? Probably fucking not. You're
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: probably going to hold the home. You're going to build equity.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: And then you're going to sell that home, do a
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: 1031 exchange, or you know what I mean? You're going
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: to sell that home and you're going to upgrade to
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: a bigger home as your family grows and you have kids.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: So how am I wrong? How am I wrong?
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: You're not entirely wrong.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: And the thing is, I know you, Sean, and we
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: kind of share this philosophy of the value of home ownership.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: And so one of the things that I have to
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: always balance is the art and the science of business
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: planning and financial planning, because there's numbers, like you said, right,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: to say, hey, if you amortize this over 50 years,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: you're paying X amount of interest, stupid, horrible idea. Then
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: there's the human side of being able to lay your
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: head down on a pillow at night and know, I
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: own this. I can paint my walls purple if I want.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: I know that the landlord's not going to say, hey,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: my brother-in-law wants to move in there at the end
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: of this term. You got to get out there and
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: find somewhere else to take your family. The value of
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: your kids being able to come to a place that
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: they know is their home. So all that has some
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: dollar value that might be exponentially higher than the interest
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: that you're paying. And I get that and I love
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: and respect that. But here's the problem with it. When
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: you think about it, and we've done a lot of
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: work on this, when you look at a half a
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: million dollar home, and you have a 6% interest rate
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: somewhere where we're at right now, when you have a
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: 30-year mortgage, that payment roughly is about $ 3, 000 a month.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: When you extend that out to 50 years, that doesn't
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: get cut in half. If it did, it might be
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: more on the side. It goes to $ 2, 650. What were
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: the numbers again? It takes you from about $ 3, 000 a
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: month to $ 2, 650. That's pretty fucking bad.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: $ 350.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: For that, instead of over 30 years taking a half
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: a million dollar home and paying a million for it,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: You pay $ 1. 5 million for it. So it's three times more.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: The problem also with, like you said, upward mobility, because
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: you have so much interest now that's built in this
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: and amortized over a 50-year period, the first 15 years,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: you basically build no equity in the house. You're paying
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: back that interest over that period of time, and then
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: it starts to accelerate.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: But hold on. Yeah. Wouldn't you, I mean, let's say
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: you bought a house in Middle Tennessee. Yeah.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: And you.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: technically didn't pay any of the, any of the, the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: principal down, but your equity will be skyrocketing because real
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: estate is going fucking insane in this part of the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: country right now. So you would be building equity if you,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: if you did, if you put the research in and
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you bought in the right market, which I think it's
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: without even looking, I would bet if you're buying in
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: New York, California, Oregon, Washington, you're probably not going to
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: get any fucking equity because everybody's leaving. If you buy
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: in Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, I
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: don't know, tax-free states, maybe you might get some equity.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, it just takes a little bit of research. Look,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm going off here because... I'm not mad
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: at the younger generations, I think they just need some guidance.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, I'll tell you this.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: My son the other day was at the fucking creek.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: He wants to get up the hill. He can't get
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: up the hill. He wants help. And I'm like, no,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: look for another way. If you can't find another way,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: then I'll help you. And I think with a lot
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: of these younger generations, they go, they hit a roadblock
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and they're like, see, fuck, tried to do it. Can't
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: do it. We're done.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I'm fucked.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And it's like, no, dude,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: you're not fucked. Now you need to go find another
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: way out. Yeah. You know, and that's what I'm trying
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to teach my kid. Like, don't just give up because
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: you can't get up the hill. Walk 50 meters that
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: way and fucking go up the side, you know? And
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: people don't think like that anymore.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: That's why you're at where you are today. And that's
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: why your son will be in a very similar position.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: It's because of that's mindset. Right. And so when we say, well,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: let's just give them the 50 year mortgage. All right. Well,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: I already told you it's only 350 bucks. Dude, you
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: can't go make an extra $ 350 a month somewhere. I
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: bought my first home at 19. I grew up in
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Southern California. I brought that in Mesa, Arizona. I fucking
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: hated Mesa, Arizona. but that's where I could afford to live.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: That's where I could afford to go to school. That's
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: where I could afford to start a business. I was 19.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: That home was $ 56, 000. It was a two bedroom, one bath,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: 900 square feet. By the way, I went to school
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: full time and I worked two jobs to be able
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: to afford to pay for that. That's what it fucking takes.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: But for that home of 56,000, I sold for 80,000.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Now I'm on my like 16th home, right? But people
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: want to live in Southern California and people want to live,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: they don't want to live in, Dixon, Tennessee or Alabama,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: where you don't have to even have a half a
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: million dollar home. You can get a home for $ 300, 000.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: So the thing is, it's about choices and life's about choices.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: So instead of trying to accommodate all these things, which
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: puts our self in more and more debt, which I'm
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: sure we'll talk about and create bigger and bigger problems,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: why don't we just say man up and get an
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: extra $ 350 a month, figure out how to get that done.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: And housing isn't as unaffordable as people say, because We
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: just talked about a half a million dollar home being
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: 20 something hundred bucks. My housekeeper pays 20 something hundred
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: dollars a month for an apartment in Tennessee. You can
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: get it done. It's still out there. There's this whole
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: narrative of everything's unattainable and everything unaffordable.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Not true. Well, that's good to hear. And that's, you know,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I sound frustrated, but I just, I really, I just
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: want to help. And I just, I want the best
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: for her. Yeah.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: The younger generations. And I do too. My kids are
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: in the younger generation. Well, that's the big thing, right?
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: You've got young kids. I've got a two-year-old. It's not
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: really about us. It's about what does the world look
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: like in 20 or 30 years? And are the same
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: opportunities that we have going to be available to them?
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Are we to be drowning in so much debt that
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: they're not going to be there? And that's really what
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: I'm mostly concerned about.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: So 50-year mortgage. Bad.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: You hate it. Don't need it. We don't need it.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Well, you know. Uh, now that you say it's only
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: a 350 bucks, not a $ 3, 000 mortgage. I was wrong too. So, um,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: but let's, let's talk about the tariffs.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: How did those work out? Everybody was really excited.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: And then it quickly went away.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think it depended on what side of
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: the aisle, right. Was really excited about it. I think
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: some people hated it from the beginning. Some people loved it,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: but I think that was on both sides.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Um, You know, I voted for Trump to get into
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: office for a lot of the same reasons that you did,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: but I'm not one of these dogmatic guys where it's like, oh,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: everything he's doing great. I disagree with a lot of
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: what's going on right now. And a lot of people ask, ah, see,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: you're getting what you asked for. Well, no. Had it
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: all been done over again, I still would have voted
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: for him because the alternative was a complete freaking disaster. So, but...
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: When you think about tariffs, I think this is, I'm
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: a free market capitalist, right? In general, I want to
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: let the free, for me, less government is better. If
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: you could just stay out of my way, I don't
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: need social security. I don't need any handles. Just leave
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: me the hell alone and I'll figure myself out. I
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: realize not everybody can do that. But when you think
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: about tariffs, inherently, I don't really like tariffs. I don't
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: like government intervention. I don't like trying to dictate what's
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: going to happen in free markets. However, because the way
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: the game has been played, We have been put in
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: a significant disadvantage when you think about countries like China.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: When you start taking a look at national security, and
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: I think we've seen this, right? One of the great
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: things about tariffs, it exposed our weakness in supply chains.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: It exposed all the problems that we have to where, hey,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: we are really relying on China and other countries for
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: our economy to run. And that's not sustainable. It's kind
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: of like COVID. The great thing about COVID is it
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: exposed a lot of problems. Like, are you going to
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: open up a restaurant today? without having some backup for
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: outsourcing or delivery or something or not. And so I
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: think what it's done for businesses, and I speak from
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: this from working with real small businesses, one of our
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: clients who is one of the largest floor distributors in California,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: about 90% of his supply chain was coming from China.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: He had a lot of problems. Things were backed up.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: He had one of the worst quarters in his life.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: But you know what? He figured it out. He went
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: to other countries. He broadened his supply chain. He got
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: more negotiation and he was able to increase prices. Now
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: his actual net price is about the same as it was.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Those prices will stay up. He's figured out a way
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: to get it done. And as someone who's spent time
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: in China, a lot of people don't, you know, there's
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: a lot of components to this. The Chinese have a
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: different cultural way of doing business. And the way we've
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: been kowtowing to them for years and allowing them to
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: dictate things. I think the way that Trump is handling
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: this with them is the way that you need to
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: deal with the Chinese. You need to take a hard
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: line or they are going to take advantage of you,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: steal your intellectual property. They are playing the long, long,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: long game. We play a very short game. So for me,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: I think when you look at the major impact, we
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: haven't had the inflation that people talked about. I think
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: it's caused business owners to diversify supply chains. And I
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: think over a long period of time, look at Taiwan's
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: semiconductor industry. They're expanding, putting tons of money to create
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: new jobs in Arizona now, right? So at the end
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: of the day, it's working. No matter what, it's working.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I think it's working. It's putting us in a position
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: where we're not going to be relying on these countries.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Now it's a long game. We still have to do
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of things to broaden out our supply chain.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: But again, do we want to just be this services business?
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: We don't make or manufacture or can't sustain our own
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: quality of life here? I don't think so. And I
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: think especially when you talk about AI, the time we
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: do need those blue-collar jobs to come back here to
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: be able to sustain ourselves.
• 26:47
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• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Show's story. What about this child savings plan? What is that?
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: That's a new thing.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's kids that are born this year. Basically,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: they're getting $ 1, 000 of free money that you can put
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: into a child savings account that that money grows tax-free.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: And so, look, $ 1, 000 in and of itself is not
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of money. However, if you get invested in
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: something like the S & P, and we did a
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: little thing on this to where if even as a parent,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: you can contribute another $ 3, 000 to $ 4, 000 on this, by
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: the time the kid's 25 years of age, they could
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: have almost a million bucks in there. One of the
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: secrets to investing is the earlier you start, the returns
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: are usually the same over a long period of time.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: It's a smaller amount of money that you have to
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: put in. to compound into a very large amount of money.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: And so the magic of compounding works for you. So
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: what do a lot of people want to do, though? Complain,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: it's only a thousand bucks or it's only this or
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: it's only that. Take it, put it away, invest because
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: you know what? That's a thousand dollars more than most
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: parents are putting away for their kids right now. If
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: it is going to be a challenging economy and our
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: kids are going to need a leg up to help
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: them buy a home or help them educate themselves or
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: start a business, you might as well take this money now.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: So I see any, any, look, and this, this is,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: I hate socialism. And so people, ah, it's socialism. No,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: it's our tax dollars that are going to this. I'd
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: rather have my tax dollars going to something that our
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: kids could actually get a benefit from, new parents, their
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: kids could actually get a benefit from. then paying for
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: all this other shit that we've been paying for years
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: that we get absolutely zero benefit from. So I'm a
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: large proponent of it.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: So is this every child that's born?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Every child that's born. Yeah, I don't know exactly what dates.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: This year, it has to be this year that they're born.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: So anyone that was, kids were born in 2025, like
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: my son, it doesn't work for. But yeah, you get $ 1, 000.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: It goes into a tax-free account that you can invest
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: in basically the equivalent of the S & P 500,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: which over a long period of time has returned about 10%.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Could we open an account?
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: So you would open this account.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Can you open the account
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and invest in it without being penalized for your kids? Yeah.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: No, it has to be used for certain things like education.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: You have to hold it for a certain period of time.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, it's basically free money. Now, is
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: there more that people should be doing for their kids? Yeah,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: we can talk about that, especially if you're a business owner.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: There's a lot more things. But as of right now,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: is it political, whatever?
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: But the way I look at it is it's $ 1, 000.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: That we're paying in taxes that gets put to a
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: much better use than what we're spending most of our
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: money on.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: That's good. That's, I mean, I feel like, I feel
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: like that's a good thing.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't see anything negative about it. All right.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: This is probably the biggest topic that we're going to
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: talk about today. Artificial intelligence in the business world, in
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the job place. What, what is going to happen? I mean,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: we talk a lot about third class being our middle,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: excuse me, middle class being wiped out. Yeah. AI is
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: going to take a lot of jobs. AI is also
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: going to be a force multiplier to type A players.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, what are we looking at? What are you
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: seeing already?
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's the thing. It's not like what's going
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: to happen. It's already happening, right? And it's not that
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: AI is going to take most people's jobs. It's people
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: that understand finance and strategy and scaling that are going
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: to use AI to take the jobs for most people.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: So that's really what it is. It's not this thing
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: of AI. It's how are you utilizing AI or not
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: utilizing AI? And if you're not, you're going to be
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: wiped out, right? It's kind of like the horse and buggy.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: You've got to upgrade, you've got to learn new skill sets,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: and you've got to be able to do that. And
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: the problem is, I think there's a lot of complacency
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: that still doesn't believe in what's going to be happening
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: with AI. And we've got this Baber boomer generation where
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: they don't even want to learn how to use an iPad,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: let alone how to put AI into their world. And
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: the problem is, with society today is you have to
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: be more innovative. You have to be more entrepreneurial. You know,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: I have entrepreneurs or people ask me, everyone asks me
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: whether they want to start their own business or not.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: What is the skillset I need to learn? You have
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: to learn to be an entrepreneur.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Because every entrepreneur, including you, that I know, wants to
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: hire entrepreneurial people, people that can come in, critically think,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: take a division, run it themselves, understand it themselves. work
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: their ass off, do the things that they need to do.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: And do that. If you can do that using AI
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: to leverage yourself to get the power of 10 people,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: you are going to be very, very successful. And so
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: what everyone needs to start learning is how can they create,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: first of all, a valuable skill set? How can they
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: connect with people? And how can they use AI to
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: be able to multiply that? I use AI on a
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: daily basis. My productivity personally versus what I was just 12,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: 18 months has gone up significantly, right? And so when
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: you talk about this just practically, most of the time
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: what I do is spend time with businesses like yours. Everybody, Sean,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: is saying, okay, what do I need to do for
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: my business to be able to win, succeed, pivot today?
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: How do I build a business? And really it comes
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: down to a couple things. It's first of all, you
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: need a small team of all-stars, right? And I'm talking
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: about billion-dollar businesses. And when I say small team, to
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: put that in perspective, like eight to 10 people. To
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: find eight to 10 really good people right now, no
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: matter if you're Apple or if you're Sean Ryan, it's very,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: very difficult to find those people. So you got to
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: find those people and put them in a position to succeed.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Then you need all-star processes that they're following, that they're scalable.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: And then you need all-star technology to be able to
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: develop and scale all that. And so what people are
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: doing today is building... flat organizations with really high quality people,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: high quality processes, and high quality technology. And so the
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: middle management is getting cut out. The average nine to
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: fiver is getting cut out. Somebody who just shows up
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: and dots the I and cross the T is getting
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: cut out. And those people are becoming unemployed and businesses
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: are becoming better. They're faster. They're leaner. They're more profitable.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, as a capitalist,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: when I invest in a business, this isn't a socialistic endeavor.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: It's I want to invest in businesses that are good,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: They're solving a problem faster, better, cheaper, and they're doing
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: it more efficiently. And that flows to the bottom line.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what AI is doing. And so you
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: figure out like, well, how is that killing the middle class? Well,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: the middle class is not ready to adapt to that.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: And the biggest problem I have with that and why
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: I worry about this country and all the debt is,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: you know, when you think about pensions, for example, you know,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: what my grandfather had, maybe our parents had working for
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: General Electric or all these companies, Boeing, Pensions are gone.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: There's no more pensions anymore. So when you retire, if
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: you didn't put money away for yourself, if you don't
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: have a skill set to maybe have to work longer
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: because with AI people are actually living longer now, people
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: are going to be in a lot of trouble. And
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: so the debt that we have, the savings that people
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: don't have, the lack of financial literacy, and if people
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: are not understanding that AI is here, it's not going
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: to happen, it's happening. I'm consulting, my firm's consulting every
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: single day And one of the first things we look
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: at is what are you guys doing? Who are doing that?
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Who's doing that? And we're getting rid of people, right? That's,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, just being honest, Sean, we're getting rid of
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: people that don't serve a purpose anymore. And the people
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: that serve a purpose have high specialization. They understand that
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be a nine to five anymore.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: They have to be critical thinkers. They have to pivot
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: and adapt. They have to use technology to leverage what
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: they're doing. They have to demand more. They have to
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: have that entrepreneurial mindset to understand and know. That this
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: person is hiring me because they want to make more money.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: How do I become more efficient, more specialized, and become
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: an asset, not a liability to the company? If you're
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: a liability, AI is going to wipe you out. Wow.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Wow. So what is going to happen? I mean, let
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: me ask you this. Do you have a percentage of
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the workforce that you think will be wiped out?
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: I don't, you know, I haven't done that work and
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I'm just not a guy that comes up with random numbers.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I think it's a lot though. I think it's a
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: lot of people because, you know, you talked about it
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: before and you talked about like this analogy of your
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: son walking up the hill. There's just a lot of
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: average people. And this goes back to, you know, everyone
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: gets a trophy, you know, this whole woke situation, right?
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Where I guess one of the thing I do love
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: about this administration, at least we don't hear about that
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: shit anymore. It's like people just don't want to work
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: hard anymore. And it's every single service that you need,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: whether it's financial services, whether it's getting your dog's haircut,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: whether it's getting someone to come out and fix your electricity.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Nobody answers the phone. Nobody wants to show up. Nobody
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: wants to work hard anymore. And so I think, okay,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: if that's the median, then what are those people going
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: to do? I don't know. Because it's not just like
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: retooling their skillset, it's retooling their mindset and understanding to
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: be able to succeed, that shit's not going to fly anymore.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Because that's who you are. I can easily put an algorithm,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: a robot, a trophy. I'd rather deal, I'd rather walk
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: into a Chase bank today and deal with a kiosk
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: than I would talking to one of these people who
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: doesn't know shit, who doesn't want to work, who doesn't
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: want to make a second call. They're just there as
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: a cutout, basically. to deter me. And nine out of
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: 10 times, I'm going to have to leave and call
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: a customer service number anyway. And that's Southwest airline. That's
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: everything these days. I'd rather just deal with a robot.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: That's me at 51. My daughter's never grown up without
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: technology and an iPad. She's 18, getting ready to go
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: to college. Think about that with the millennial generation, which
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: is larger than the baby dreamer generation. They want to
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: deal with robots and technology. They don't want to deal
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: with Joe blow has no value and is wasting their time.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, what, what does, what does it look like?
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, what does that look like with the middle
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: class wiped out? AI is going to, if AI wipes
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: that many jobs, I mean, obviously it means a lot
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: of government assistance and that's great. That's great.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: No, that's horrible. What I'm saying is that's great. Entrepreneurs like, cool.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: You got a bunch of A players, AI, you know,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: fucking jet launched, you know, it's a force multiplier for you.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Business is going great. Cool. Who's going to buy your product? Yeah, exactly.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Because everybody's broke.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: It's a real question. It's a question.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: No, and it's a great question. And the answer is
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: who's going to be able to afford your product is
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: the people who can afford it, which is going to
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: be a smaller subset. And so this is why I
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: believe that I've spent time, you spent time out of
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: this country in India. You got ultra wealthy. I spent
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: time there where I watched basically a castle. Gates open up.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Rolls Royce pull out of their kids out there trying
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: to squirt it and wash it who live five feet
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: away where they don't even have running water or sewage.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: That's kind of, I mean, that's maybe a little bit polarizing,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: but that could be close to what our country comes
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: or how do you solve for that is through socialism.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: And see, that's why I'm really worried going, I hate
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: to keep going back to this whole New York thing,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: but it's the canary in the coal mine, right? Because
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: this narrative and we've seen the way he won, very smart,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: he went as far left as possible and he stood
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: there because what his message does is it resonates with
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: those people who don't want to work, who aren't going
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: to have jobs, who are going to be flushed out.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: And how are you going to solve that? Free handouts,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: free cells. And so that will continue to spread throughout
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: this rest of this country. And socialism is what's going
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: to kill the American dream. And you think about our deficit,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: how are we going to get out of that? We
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: can't grow our way out of that. You need to
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: have like 8%, 10% GDP. You know how we're going
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: to get out of it? Higher taxes. Higher taxes will
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: kill the American dream. We're already paying enough in taxes.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: But hey, tax the 1%. We don't care. You make $ 500, 000
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: a year for some people. That's so far removed from
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: what they're making. Tax those people. Tax those people. Tax
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: those people. That will get passed and we'll become uncompetitive
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: and you won't be able to work or live here anymore.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Or you just, you know, you become Europe. And that's
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: what I'm afraid of. I mean, I hope there's something different.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: But what happens to those people? I mean, they've got
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: to learn and adapt, but I don't think it's going
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: to happen quick enough. It will happen eventually. New York
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: will come back in 20, 30 years after it burns down,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: just like we saw in the 80s before Giuliani came down.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Once it hits the bottom, it will rebuild. But how
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: long does that take and at what cost?
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Do you have any good news for us, Rob?
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I think that's what I told
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: you at the beginning.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: We get $ 1, 000 if we got a baby.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully that works. But that's what I kind of
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: told you at the beginning, right? I've never been more
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: optimistic because I know I'm going to win. I know
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: you're going to win. I know all my clients are
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: going to win. And that's why every business, Sean, that
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: I'm dealing with today is their going up market. How
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: do I deliver services to people who could afford those services?
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Because even if it's a smaller percentage of people, it's
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: a higher price point. And what do you need to
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: do is you need to look at wealthy people. What's
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: their most valuable asset? It's time. So how do you
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: find a problem that gives them time, that you can solve,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: that gives them their time back? They're willing to pay
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: for that because that's their most valuable asset. So every
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: single business I'm talking today is going more and more
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: towards that, more and more towards leaner, flatter organizations, more
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: and towards cutting middle management out, more and more being efficient.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: All these things for businesses are very, very highly profitable.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Investing in the businesses. If you look at CapEx spending
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: of all these big technology companies, where is all their
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: spending that they're already telling the market about going? To AI,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: to robotics, to artificial intelligence, to increasing productivity, increasing profits
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: at the cost of what? Their highest input cost, which
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: is labor. So if you can get labor out, look
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: at your P & L, look at my P & L.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: I've never seen a P & L where labor wasn't
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: the highest cost. So if you can reduce that, and
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: I believe, again, going back to the Chase example, not only,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: when I consult with businesses, it's not about how do
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: we just get rid of people and get more profits?
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: It's about how do we get rid of these mediocre
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: people and create a better solution and service for your customers?
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: So what they're getting is actually better and faster and
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: a better experience. And at the same time, you have
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: higher profits. That's a win-win. And so it's not just like,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: let me put this money in my pocket. No, it's like,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: how do I reinvest that into technology and solutions to
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: make it a better outcome so that I can compete
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: at the highest level? And that comes at the cost
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: of these average people. So, I mean, that's the truth, Sean.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: It's just going back to like, you just got to
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: figure it out. And I'm just somebody, Sean, you know
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: my background. I grew up super poor, like my food
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: stamp type of poor, horrible. I had every excuse in
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: the book to be a loser and fail and not win.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: My brother and I, same situation. He's in prison. I'm
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: where I'm at today. It's mindset. It's realizing that nothing's
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: fucking going to be handed to you. You got to
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: work your ass off. The environment's always going to be changing.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: You have to pivot and adapt. You have to find
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: out what the skills are that are valuable today. It's
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: never comfortable. It's never going to be easy. You're never
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: going to sit back and be able to pound your
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: chest and win. You're always going to have to go
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: out there and grind and add value. And that means
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: I'm 51 years old today. I'm on my second business.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: I'm in a pretty good position financially. When you call me,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: do I answer the phone?
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what you have to do.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I don't care if it's Sunday, I'm shopping, whatever it is,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: you know why? That's your expectation and it should be.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: That's just not America today. We need to get back
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: to that.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's going to happen.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: It has to. And it's not for everybody and probably
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: not fast enough. And that's why when I look out
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: into the future, when I look at the list, the
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: laundry list of things that we need to do to
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: save this country... I don't think people are going to
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: get it and do it in enough time. When I
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: look at the flip side of what we need to
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: do to let New York expand and proliferate throughout the
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: rest of the country, it's very easy. So we have
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: to battle against that in everything that we do, how
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: we raise our kids, how we vote, how we hire,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: what our expectations are as CEOs for the rest of
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: our employees. We're investing our dollars. And unless we make
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: those decisions, and that's why, not to beat up on
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: the 50-year mortgage, I hate Band-Aids. I'm tired of Band-Aids.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: I'm tired of, I mean, think about that last time
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: we tried to do something for home ownership, but on
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: the other side of the aisle, Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: everybody should own a home. Liar loans. How did that
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: work out? Collapsed. Everyone short sold their home and their
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: government and their infinite wisdom. What did they do? They
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: gave them actual debt forgiveness. So before, if you short
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: sold your home, that hundred grand or whatever, you had
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: to pay taxes on this. No, let that go. You
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: know who paid the bill?
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Me.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Because my house sunk in value and I stayed there
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: and I continued to pay the mortgage. It took me
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: six years to get out of that. What about PPP loans?
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: All that shit during COVID where, you know what? We
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: just sucked it up and worked. I didn't take any
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: of that money. I could have took a million dollars
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: free from the government. They offered it to me. I
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: didn't take it.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Because I didn't need it. But you know how many
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: assholes took it and bought Lamborghinis and Ferraris and Rolex watches?
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: True story.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: I could point to them. Some of them are in jail,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: but not enough of them. This is the shit and
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: the moral hazard that we're creating with all these things
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: that we need to get away from. But you know what?
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Soundbites sell. The way politicians run today, people want easy, fast.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: They don't want to really fix the problem. I don't
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: think Trump or anyone else, not that they can't fix
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: the problem it's what it's going to take to do
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: that and be honest with the american public they're never
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: going to say because it'll never get them vote voting
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: in they're not that stupid sean they know what it
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: takes i'm not smarter than them but i can get
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: it fixed but you know what no one would ever
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: vote for me.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah i mean it's just we could talk about
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: that with the economy we could talk about that with
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: the energy grid exactly yeah talk and whip about a
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: lot of things that they, they just transportation. Yeah. The roads,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, yeah.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: To your point, I mean, I, I know finance and
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: that's kind of the lane that I stay in. Um,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: but money's pretty important. Right. Um, but when you think
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: about the military and all like your expertise and experience,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: you see the same shit there. That's this whole mentality
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: proliferates through everything. And yeah, not just that, but again,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: going back to New York, The NYPD, like when I
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: grew up, when I went to New York, you know,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: I was born in New Jersey. So I didn't move
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: to LA till I was nine. Like the NP and NYPD.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Wow. Wow.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: That's something you really wanted to be. You felt safe
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: when the NYPD was there after nine 11, NYPD fire department,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: you go there today and it's like crap. No one
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: wants that job anymore. You're looking at like, I feel
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: like I'm gonna have to go save these people. If
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: anything goes down, these aren't the people that I could protect.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: And you talk to them, they can't recruit anybody anymore.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Nobody wants to do that. So this whole mindset, this softness,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: this weakening of America, not wanting to take our medicine,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: which I think tariffs are. And I think other things
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: that we need to do to take a step back
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: in order to take three steps forward. It's just, it's
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: just very hard to get those things done. And it
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: frustrates me, Sean, because I look at every single thing
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: that happens, the PPP loans. the short sailing, all these
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: things that we do to reward mediocrity. And then what
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: we want to do is we want to take the 1%,
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: and the 1% isn't billionaires, guys. They always point to
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: these billionaire assholes. The 1%, the people that are making $ 800, 000, $ 900, 000
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: a year, trust me, guys, that's not ultra wealthy. That's
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: not private. Those are people like me or you that
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: grew up, busted our ass, that lived within our means,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: that had sacrifices. There's a reason I'm on my second marriage, Sean,
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: because I wasn't there. I missed birthdays. I missed everything.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: I sacrificed to build a business that was able to
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: put myself in a position. Do I regret any of it? No,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: because my daughter wouldn't have gone to the schools that
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: she's going to. That's just the shit it takes. If
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: you want things in life, you have to give other
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: things away. And I hate to keep going back to that,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: but it's every single thing. And so when I say
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: the American dream is dead, this is what I'm talking about.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: We got to fix the mentality. We got to start
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: taking our medicine. We got to understand that it's not
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: going to just be a magic pill that we're going
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: to be able to take and everything's going to be okay.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: But that's what politicians, that's what- gets people voted in.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: That's why most people vote off 30 second news clip.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Like you can't even, no one even wants to watch
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: more than 60 second reel anymore, right? It's amazing how
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: well you're doing with this long form content that people
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: actually watch the whole show. I can't even get people
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: to pay attention for 60 seconds anymore. Rob, I want
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: to be wealthy. Cool. I could teach you how to
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: do it. I just can't do it in three minutes.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: They don't want to spend the time.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Man. How about the national debt? We're approaching $ 40 trillion. Yeah.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: What is that? We keep talking about this. What are
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: the actual implications? Who do we owe the money to?
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, to bondholders, right? Some of them to China
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: and other countries. And internally, we hold that debt. So yeah,
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of debt that we have. The big
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: problem about it also is the vast majority of it
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: is short-term financing, which is another thing. Like when we
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: had near zero interest rates, I don't know why we
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: just didn't look to refinance all our debt at longer
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: term and zero interest rates. Because now as interest rates
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: tick up, the debt that we're having to pay is
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: much higher. So now we're paying over a trillion dollars
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: in just the debt service, which is more than we
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: spend on defense just to service that debt. We're still
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: in with this administration running annually near a $ 2 trillion
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: deficit that we're just adding onto that. So, and then
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: you start thinking to the point I was making before, like, well,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: how the hell do we get out of this? We
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: can't grow our way out of it. Like you have
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: to do eight to 10% GDP. We're at like 2% GDP.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: And we're already adding to that. The only way that
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: you get out of it is you start cutting entitlements
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: like social security and all those things. You start raising taxes,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: you start doing all the things that we don't want
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: to happen. So social security is pretty much almost bankrupt, right?
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: So all of this, so the implications are, is that
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: social systems will fail. Taxes will have to go up.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: The US debt could be downgraded again, which means we
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: would have to pay even higher interest in that. The
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: US dollar is the reserve currency right now. Does it
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: stay that way forever? Well, not necessarily if people lose
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: faith in what's going on there. It's just like an individual, right?
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: You can keep racking up debt and living beyond your
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: means as long as you can finance that and put that,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: you know, people are, you know, credit card debt, I
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: think is an even bigger issue. We've got $ 1. 3 trillion
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: in credit card debt that the average American has right now.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: They're paying 24% interest on not four or 5%, 24% interest.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: How are they going to get at that? By the way,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: that's an all time high. And by the way, we've
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: had the highest delinquency rate we've had since the great
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: recession in 2009, by the way, Just the last 24 months,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: that delinquency rate has doubled. There's real problems out there, Sean.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: And these are the same people that are racking up
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: credit cards to get by, to have their experiences or
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: whatever they're spending that money on right now. They're probably
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: the same people that are not going to have jobs.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: And so what I'm thinking is, and you're not going
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: to hear this, the people that are not paying their
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: credit cards are probably the people, the companies that I'm
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: working for that are getting fired, that don't have jobs
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: because they don't have value to add to an organization.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: So this gets worse. And I'm an optimistic person.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Sounds like it.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: No, I am.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I am.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: I'm just– what I'm not optimistic about is the largest
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: part of the U.S., which is the middle class, adjusting
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: and adapting and doing what it takes for them to
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: be able to win. So it's just a smaller subset
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: of people that will win, but they'll win bigger than
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: ever before. So you got to– as an American, you
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: got to choose which one do you want to be,
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: which one do your kids want to be.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the thing that I don't– the thing
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: that's just not computing for me is if we lose
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: the consumers, then– There's nobody to buy the product.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, I mean, if you're selling cheap product,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: if you're Procter & Gamble and you're selling toilet paper
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: and people are still going to find a way to
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: do those things, right? But it's kind of like the middle,
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: those middle levels of services to the middle class are
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: the things that are going to be wiped out. If
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: you're selling, you know, Ferrari's still doing good and Rolex
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: watches are doing good and our firm's like having mega years.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Like we're doing way more in our first year of
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: business than I did in the first 10 years of
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: business in my firm before.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Why? Why?
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: We're dealing with successful, like-minded people like you who are
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: going to just make shit happen. And so that's who
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: we're selling to. If I was creating a business right
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: now for the middle class, I wouldn't be creating a
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: business right now for the middle class. Not what I'm
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: looking to do.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: If you were creating a business, what sectors would you
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: be looking at?
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: I would be looking at sectors, again, that are solving
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: problems for people who don't have a lot of time.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: And by solving that problem for them are willing to
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: pay for that. And that can be just about anything
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: from financial services to like, I talked about it before
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: when I was saying, when I, when I say anything,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: it's from personal experience, getting someone to come and groom
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: your dog. Like these people are booked out four, five,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: six months to be able to do that. Right. We
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: don't groom our own dogs.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: And we're willing, and it's not cheap. Like every time
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: they come, the dog's like 250, 300 bucks to get groomed.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: There's clearly a, Just in our neighborhood, a demand for
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: these services, there's no supply. So there's a problem. We
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: don't have the time to cut our dogs ourselves. There's
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: no one who wants to show up and do it.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Why not do that? Why not go out there, learn
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: how to do it, be the person who does it yourself,
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: then hire somebody else to get the second van out
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: there going and the third. It's almost anything. Pick anything, Sean.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: But it goes back to, are you willing to do
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: what an electrician, plumber does? Like you can become, I've
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: worked with multi, multi millionaires, close to billionaires in everything, plumbing, landscaping,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: pest control. All these are services that people with money
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: are willing to pay for. And if you understand how
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: to build, scale a company, use technology to motivate that,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: you can really go out there and win today. So
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to say like the big thing is
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: be an AI consultant. Yeah, maybe, whatever. But just do
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: anything on scale and show up. That's really what you
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: need to do today.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about all the, just going back
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit, I was just thinking about things and,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about unmotivated average folks.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: But I mean, that's a choice.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: You know, and so, I mean, for business owners, you know,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: how do they motivate their staff? Can you- Because that's another, that's,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're sitting here talking and we're, you know,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: we're attacking, you know, a large percentage of the workforce. Yeah.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: You know, and, but I mean, how can you incentivize them,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: you know, and turn them into a motivated employee, motivated
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: team member, you know, how do you do that? Yeah.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I think first of all, um, you know, I'm
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: not somebody who needs to be motivated.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what I'm getting at, you know,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: is back to, back to Valtreon. So, but a bit
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: of a crisis here and, uh, we worked together and,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: you know, I needed to know how to incentivize, you know, my,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: my people here.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: And, um, and, and, and, you know, the vast majority
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: of them, even there's not very many of us. I mean,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: pretty much everybody here is a fucking killer. Yeah. And, um, Otherwise,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't be here. Right. But when I hired you
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: and your team to come in and do an assessment
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: and do some consulting and stuff, and one of my
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: biggest things was how can I incentivize these guys? And
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: you put that structure in place. You put that incentive
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: bonus structure in place. End of the year now, approaching
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the year, and we always do end
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: of the year reviews. And when I tell them about...
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: the new bonus structure, you see their eyes light up immediately. Yeah.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: And they're like, oh shit. And it's already fucking working.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: It's already working. I mean, one guy, phenomenal editor, fucking
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: phenomenal editor. And, you know, told him I need him, hey,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: you know, here's a new structure. I'd like you to
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: get to know cameras. You need to learn how to
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: run a camera a little bit better. Guess what? Two
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: fucking days later, I come down here, he's working on
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: fucking cameras immediately. And so the, the, It works. And so,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that it, I guess what I'm
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: trying to say is, you know, there's also ways for
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: business owners to not just go, oh, you know, you're
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: fucking lazy. You're not working. You're not doing this.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Good point.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: You can incentivize them and you proved that to me,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: you know, through your company. And it's been, I mean,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: I just started those this week. Yeah. Yeah.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Rolling it out to them.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: And they're not even finished yet. And they're already fucking done. pumped.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: I can see the fire. But, but yeah, so let's
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: talk about that and let's, and let's share with the
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: audience what it is. Cause I think there's either, there's
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to you and a
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: lot of people that want to become entrepreneurs. But I
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: think more importantly, Sean, most of the people that I've
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: worked with over my career that have become very, very
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: wealthy were actually entrepreneurs. They were people who work within
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: a larger organization, but they were really on the best
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: people I know that have made a lot of money
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: inside of other organizations, small, mid and large and, could
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: have themselves been entrepreneurs, but they had a better opportunity
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: to go in somewhere else where there was a team
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: in place that could allow them to leverage their skill set.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: And for most of them, that was a smart decision.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: I always say, I started my own firm primarily because
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: the person I was working for before kept that carrot of, hey,
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: you're going to get this or get that. And then
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: it was always like, sorry, can't get that. No bonus,
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: no that. And it was just finally, it was just like,
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: I'm never going to be able to grow here. So
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: no one ever gave me the opportunity to have my
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: work rewarded. So I went out and started my own thing.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: For most people, they don't have to do that, right?
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: And so when you talk about this, first of all,
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: going back to how you build businesses today, small team
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: of all-stars, all-star processes, all-star technology, part of the all-star
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: processes is how do you reward and compensate those individuals?
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: And a lot of entrepreneurs, it's like, especially the first
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: few years like you, it's like head down, let me
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: just work. When I did your show, I was episode
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: 42 the first time. Like I was so shocked when
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: I showed up and you're like, come over here and
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: take a picture, Rob. I'm looking for the, like, where's
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: the camera crew? There's no camera crew. Like everything.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: It was just me and you.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Just me and you, dude. And now it's like this, like, dude,
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: there was nobody else. But like, that's, Kind of what
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: it takes, right? Same thing when I started my previous,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: not this firm, I'm a little further along now. The
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: first firm I started, dude, it was just me. I
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: was the guy who traded the stocks and did the
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: business development and mailed the applications and all those things, right?
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: And so here's the thing, though. You can do a
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: lot of things to go from zero to a million bucks.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: It's just work your ass off seven days a week.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: But to go from a million to five million to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: 10 million to 100 million, which is what everybody wants
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: to do, especially if it doesn't take any more work,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: especially if it could be less work, If it's just
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: done within a strategy, like this whole world's word scale,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: everyone says scale, scale, scale, scale. I went back and
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: did an MBA at 38 because I didn't know what
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: the fuck scale meant. Right. And I'm not advocating that
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: for everyone, but I needed to understand what that was.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: And then what I understood was it's like, oh, it's
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: just processes and it's just transparency and it's just alignment.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: And it's just actually really simple. And wow, if I
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: do this, it's actually easier to run my business this way.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: But it took me 20 years to get that knowledge
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: and information. And so, for most entrepreneurs, they're just head
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: down buried in the sand. And then what happens, though,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: is you hit that proverbial glass ceiling and you can't grow.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: And then you're like, man, is this a business or
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: did I just buy myself a job, right? And that's
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: ultimately what it becomes. And the problem there is you
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: can't increase cash flow because you can't scale. You don't
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: grow any enterprise value, so your business isn't worth anything.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: And then what it is, it's like, okay, now I've
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: sacrificed missing out on my kid's life. I'm constantly fighting
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: with my wife. I'm in constant stress and all these
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: things that being an entrepreneur, it's like, is it really
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: worth it? It's not unless you can get past that hurdle.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: And so that's kind of what I do is like,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: I just take what I learned.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: And then I come in with your team and to
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: back to your question, how do you incentivize average people?
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: You don't, you don't, you fire average people, you hire
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: exceptional people. And what I found interviewing your team, these
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: are exceptional people. These are great people. But now the
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: idea is, okay, if you're a business owner, The hardest
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: thing is to attract talent. And because a lot of
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: your success, it's brought the best people to you. The
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: second hardest thing to do is to be able to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: develop talent. And the third hardest thing to do is
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: be able to maintain talent, right? Because you've got to
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: get them to come in. No matter who or what
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: business you are, you still have to develop them to
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: understand what is your culture and how do you get there.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: And then once they do that, Sean, is the grass
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: greener on the other side? And this is every business.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Do I go and leave? How do you get them
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: to stay? Because now you've invested tons of money and
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: time on them. Do you want to train people to
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: go out to a competitor and be there? No. And
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: so I always tell entrepreneurs when you hire, we put
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: these all-star processes and we hire these all-star people, we
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: have to incentivize them to be here for a long,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: long period of time because your ROI is not going
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: to be in the first year or two years. You're
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: actually losing money. So you got to keep time on them.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: You got to spend money on them. And the last
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: thing you could do, the most expensive thing for an entrepreneur,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: the most costly mistake is hiring wrong. So it goes
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: back to, we've worked on your hiring process, setting job
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: descriptions that are right, bringing the right people in. And
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: then when they come in though, a lot of times
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: people are like, oh, this person sucks. No, you suck
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: because you didn't have clear expectations. You didn't have clear processes.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: They didn't know what the hell they were doing and
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: their compensation and their incentives weren't in alignment with with
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: the goal that you were trying to achieve. So what
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: we do with you, and this is what every entrepreneur
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: can do, is we figure out first and foremost, where
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: are we trying to go? So what is our revenue
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: we're trying to get? What are our margins? Who's our
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: target customer? And then we figure out that, what are
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: all the activities we need to do to make that happen?
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: And who are the people that do the activities to
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: make those things happen? From answering the phone, in your case, editing,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: all those things. They are the people within your organization
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: that play a role. So then the question I always
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: ask people is, okay, here's what you want them to do.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: How are you compensating them? And what I find out
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: is the compensation is almost never in line with the incentive.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: And then they wonder why are they not doing the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: activities they want? Because they're not rewarded for doing that.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: So what you have to first do is figure out
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: the strategy, figure out what you want from that person.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: And then you need to structure compensation and bonuses and
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: incentives so for them to be able to do that.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: And there's two components I use with every business, including
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: our own. First of all, keep KPIs. We've been talking
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: about this key performance indicators. Like what are the activities
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: that you need this individual individuals? And they're usually different
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: to be able to do, to get you towards that goal.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: Cause everyone's playing in a role to getting there and
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: they should know what their role is and what that
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: ultimate goal is. So those are, that's one thing. And
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: that's an individual. So your individual should be reported or
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: rewarded based off of his or her own So if
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: you've got someone who's crushing it, they're doing their part,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: but Joe's asleep at the wheel and sucks and has
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: got family problems, isn't showing up, doesn't want to work. Like,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: should they be penalized because of that? No. So you
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: might not ultimately hit your revenue goals, but Joe shouldn't
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: be penalized because everybody else sucked. He should be rewarded.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: So that's number one is make sure individuals are rewarded
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: for their contribution. And number two, what I always like
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: to do is incentivize the group as a whole to
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: for hitting those big top line goals. Cause every business,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: your business, my business, every business I work with, it's
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: not altruism. We need to hit a top line and
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: we need a bottom line to be able to pay
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: and do things and give you raise increases and buy
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: more products and have a better, create better products, all
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: those things. So what we then do is have a
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: bonus for everybody. Hey, if we hit these guys, goals, guys,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: we all get more money, right? We all get more incentive.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: And then if we crush it, like I like to
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: reward for overachieving, right? stretch goals. If we crush it
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: even more, more money. So what I always tell people
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: is you have to remember once you educate them, get
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: them straight, they have a couple of options. They can
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: go work for a competitor. They can do it themselves.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: What are you creating? What type of environment culture, which
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: I think you do better than anybody else here, are
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: you creating to maintain that talent and what type of
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: incentive compensation do they have? And what I was always
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: able to do in wealth management and kind of start
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: to my own background as I was able to create
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: a situation to where it's like, Why would I go
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: out and start my own business at 10 or 15%
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: margins when I know right now I'm making 20 or
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: 30% margins, have the headache and the hassle and leave
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: this great team that I know makes me better because
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: being on my own as an individual, probably not going
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: to be able to compete. But these guys were playing,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: especially that's what's so good about you right now and
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: why you're at where you're at is your expectations are
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: super high, super high. Anyone that's ever achieved anything good
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: that I work with, I work with some of the
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: best athletes in the world. best entrepreneurs, best intrapreneurs in
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: the world. You don't need to motivate them. You don't
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: need to, they are harder on themselves than they will
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: ever be on you. You will ever be on them, right?
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: So your team is already there. This culture is phenomenal.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: You're the number one, like everybody wants to be here,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: which creates that competition also. But what I can say
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: about you also and every client that I personally work
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: with is you want them to win. You want them
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: to buy that next house. You want them to be incentivized.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: Every time I talk to you, it's like, I have
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: to stop you sometimes. Like, how do we get them
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: to make more? Like, okay, Sean. And this is everybody.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: This is like, I won't work with them if they're
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: not like that. Because if you want to succeed as
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: an entrepreneur, you have to get joy from watching your
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: team win. And when I see you with your team,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: nobody cares more about their team winning than you do.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: So when you think about all these things, Sean, it
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: comes back to what I said, hire all-star people, put
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: all-star processes in place. Most people don't know how to
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: do that. Fine. Get yourself educated and find how to
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: do that. Get the, give them the all-star technology to
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: be able to replicate themselves because you're not going to
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: be able to find a thousand of them. You don't
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: need a thousand of them anymore. That's the great thing
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: about AI. Our, our firm we're building today, when we
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: first started three years ago, planning for this, like we project,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: like we're numbers people. So You're two, we're going to
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: hire this many people. And three, we're going to hire, like,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: we're at today. Like, we're like, we've cut like 70%
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: of the hiring that we thought.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: 70%? 70%.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: Why? Because there's just roles that are being eliminated. But
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: you know what? The type of people we're hiring is different.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: Most of those people are like mediocre, average people. We're like, no,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: let's just hire the best and give them the best technology.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: And let's 10X their own individual productivity versus having a
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: bunch of mediocre people just sucking the air out of
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: the room. I hope that answers the question.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty long-winded.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry sometimes.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: No, that's perfect. That's perfect. But thank you. Let's take
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: a quick break, and when we come back, I want
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: to ask you why the hell gold's at $ 4, 200 an ounce.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: I used to hate shaving. Every razor I bought dulled fast,
• 1:08:41
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• 1:08:48
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• 1:08:51
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• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: right now. All right, Rob, we're back from the break.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: I forgot a couple of things at the beginning. I
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: got too fired up, too excited here. So, you know,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: it's probably the only reason you came back.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: That's the only reason I came. I heard these are
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: almost sold out.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: They're almost done.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: I won't put it on eBay, though, I promise.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't blame you if you did. But and then,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: you know, we got a Patreon account. It's a subscription account. And,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: you know, they're the reason that I get to sit
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: down here with you today. So. we offer them the
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: opportunity to ask every single guest a question. This is
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: from Steve Lanthier. If 50 years old, the company I
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: work for is closing with eight months severance, with eight
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: months severance pay and a little over a hundred thousand
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: dollars in this 401k. How can I set myself up
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: to retire and cover expenses till I can draw my military? Yeah.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Let me look.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: Um, So most people know if you've got a hundred grand,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: people want to know what does that mean in terms
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: of income? It's usually about five to six percent. That's
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: only going to provide them about five to six thousand
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: dollars in income. So more than likely not going to
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: be enough. Hopefully, Social Security and military, when that kicks in,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: will help them get there. But look, I mean, it's
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: just one of these things where he's going to have
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: eight months severance, I think, at 50 years of age. Hopefully,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: we talked about it before, he's got a skill set
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: that's viable today. He's going to have to work more.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, at 50 years old, I think no one's
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: going to be retiring at 50 anymore. He's just going
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: to have to figure a way how he's going to work.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: Because with 100 grand and eight months severance, I'd love
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: to give him a magic pill, but it's not. He's
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: just going to have to find another company to slip
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: into or look to start his own thing if he
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: thinks he has a skill set to be able to
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Gold. Mm-hmm.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: Why is it at $ 4, 200 an ounce? Silver, is it
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: at 60?
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think the
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: thing about silver and gold is silver typically follows some
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: increment of what gold does. So silver has done just
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: that this year. However, it's done even better. Why? Because
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: of the industrial use of silver and everything AI that's
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: going on right now. So you've got this whole concern about, okay,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: Is there going to be inflation because the Fed's probably
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: going to have to cut interest rates again because of
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: all the things that we talked about and all the
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: debt that is piling up? We talked about the national deficit,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: but real estate debt over a trillion dollars that needs
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: to be financed next year. So there's a lot of
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: worry out there right now. And I think when you
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: have that type of worry, a lot of people talk
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: about Bitcoin being a hedge, and maybe we'll talk about that.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: I think it's not gold over 5,000 years, especially over
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: the last 100 years has proven, especially during inflationary periods,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: to be a very good hedge. And so I think
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: you've got gold doing what it typically does during this
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: period of time of uncertainty. It's doing pretty well. And
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: I think silver is just following.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: Man, I started buying gold in 2020 because I started
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: buying a lot of different things in 2020 today.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: Toilet paper.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: But I mean, I think when I started buying gold,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: it was $ 1, 200 an ounce. Five years later, it's $ 4, 200
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: an ounce.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: No, it's done.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: Silver was, I think 22, 23, maybe an ounce. Now
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: it's 60 something an ounce.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Gold is one of those assets. I think over
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: when you're, everyone should be putting together a diversified portfolio, right?
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: You know, when all your eggs in one basket, that's pretty,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: pretty common saying, but it's true. The question is how
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: do you diversify those eggs? And so when you think
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: about gold as an asset class, I think everybody should
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: have between about 5% to 10% of their overall portfolio
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: in gold. So if you've got $ 100, 000 total, $ 5, 000 to $ 10, 000
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: of that would be in gold. I prefer using actual
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: gold bars, coins versus the GLD ETF that you can access.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's second best. Or if you've only got a
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: 401k and you have GLD in there, that might be
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: the way. Same thing, SLV is an ETF. I'd rather
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: hold the silver, because it's just more of a hedge.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: The challenge is that it's a little bit harder to
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: get in and out of gold and silver. There's very
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: few places that do it. There are some good ones
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: out there. But look, I think long-term, it's a hedge.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: If you're so inclined to be able to time it
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: a little bit around inflationary periods when you think those
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: are going to be happening, it tends to do a
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: little bit better versus deflationary periods. But arguably, with what
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: we're getting into, which I think the Fed will have
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: to cut interest rates a lot more aggressively than they're telegraphing,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: a lot more aggressively than even the market thinks, I
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: think that is a really good backdrop for precious metals
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: to continue to do well. So it should be part
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: of every portfolio, in my opinion.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: Why has it gone up so much? I mean, it
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: didn't do this before, did it? Yeah.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's been periods. I mean, it's always held
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: up well during uncertainty, 2008, 2009, during the dot-com crash,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: during COVID. Gold has held up exceptionally well. So that's
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: the thing I love about gold too. Like I said,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: it's been around 5,000 years, but you just look at
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: the last 100 years, there's a track record. Unlike cryptocurrency,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: we've only got 15 years of crypto. When you think
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: about data sets, and I'm very big on data, 15
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: years is nothing. You can't make any determination. But gold
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: has been very, very reliable over that period of time.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: And I just think with tariffs, all the uncertainty that's
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: going on, all the things that crypto was supposed to
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: do and hold up well during, which it hasn't, I think,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: too 2025, pretty much everything's down, right? Bitcoin's down significantly
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: during that period of time. Gold has done what it
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: should be doing. And so I think during of all
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: the alternative asset classes to stocks and bonds and real estate,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: I do like precious metals. And I don't have enough.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: I wish I would have bought more.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: Should people be buying it now or is it going
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: to come back down?
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: I think, look, it's very hard to time any market.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: And so one of the things about investing in general,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: The shorter your time horizon is, the harder it is.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: The longer it is, the easier it is. Think about
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: the S & P, the largest 500 companies. Over any
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: 10-year period, it does well. Over a longer period of time,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: it's always done 10%. But it comes like this. If
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: you needed to know what is the S & P
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: going to do in the next 12 to 18 months,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: I have no idea. So if what you're investing for,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: those needs need to be liquid in 12 to 18 months,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't touch the S & P 500. Longer period
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: of time, 5, 10 years, absolutely. Same thing with gold.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: If you're trying to time it over the next night,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: if you need to take this money out of gold
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: and buy a house in 12 months, I would say
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: don't touch it, especially after a big run. It should
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: pull back. Nothing, trees don't grow to the sky. It
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: should pull back. I wouldn't be going all in on
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: it now. If you have no position, maybe buy a
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: little bit right now. I would look for a little
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: bit of a pullback, which I think could happen. But
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: I think longer term again, five to 10%. If you've
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: got more than that, also the thing about gold is
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: it doesn't pay a dividend. The only way you make
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: money on gold is you buy low, sell high. So
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: someone like yourself, if now you've seen that it was 10%,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: but it's become 30% of your portfolio, the corollary is
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: it might be time to take a little bit off
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: the table of that. But if you don't have any,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: it might be a time to start a small position
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: and try to look for some pullbacks.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. What about crypto? I mean, I've had a
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: lot of crypto guys on here.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You will, despise crypto.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: Despise is a relatively strong word okay you're not a
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: fan of i'm not i don't own any i have
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: owned none zero now i closed uh the last of
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: my cryptocurrency out which was not a lot about six
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: months ago i sold all my bitcoin a year ago.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: The crypto bros are not going to be happy.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: With you anytime I told you before if I talk
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: about penny stocks that I don't like or I talk
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: about not liking crypto like the cult comes after me
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: they you don't know shit about crypto neither do you
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: so and that's the one thing look about cryptocurrency Sean
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: my view only it is is my view um What
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: I believe is there is no way, and I've asked
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: multiple people, in terms of the technology of it in blockchain,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: and even if you talk about to really, really smart
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: people and some of the vulnerabilities and potentially with blockchain
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: and crypto, with supercomputing coming out that everyone's closing their
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: eyes to, but just say the technology and all those
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: things are solid. As a substitute, which still people say
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: it could be a substitute to the dollar, never going
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: to happen. There's not enough liquidity. It's way too volatile
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: for that to happen. There's still a lot of problems
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: with nefarious types of things being done through cryptocurrency. So
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: governments are finding very hard to regulate. How do you
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: value cryptocurrency? The truth is it's only worth what someone's
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: willing to pay for it. You can say the same
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: thing for the dollar. Kind of true. But if you
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: look at the usage of the dollar, if you look
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: at the reserve currency status of the dollar, if you
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: look at trading in currencies, the dollar has actually increased
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: over the last 10 years. So as bad as we
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: talk about the dollar, it still continues to be the
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: gold standard, if you will. Cryptocurrency, again, the big problem
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: I have with it is how do you value it?
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: What's the intrinsic value? I can do that with gold,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: even with silver because there's a use case for it.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: There's no utility for cryptocurrency. So now, can that change
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: in the future? Can this be adopted by more people? Potentially,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: but in terms of, again, who I work with myself,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: We build multi-asset class portfolios, gold and real estate and
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: private equity and stocks and all those things. And so
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: what would be the reason to put cryptocurrency in there? Now,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: if you maybe had a small idiot bet, you're like,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: I just don't want to be proven wrong. I want
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: to have 2% to 3%. And this is why I
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: bought it before, right? 2% to 3%. Yeah, maybe. But
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: the truth is, the people that got in in 2008, 2009,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: Like that run, like that's done. That's not going to happen, right?
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: And so everyone's saying, oh, you still got to be
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: in crypto because Bitcoin might go to 150,000.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: So you don't know how to value this. There's a
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: tremendous amount of risk in it. I can't touch it.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: I can't feel it. It might go to 150, but
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: I've got multiple AI small cap stocks that are up
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: over 300% this year while you sat in an asset
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: class that lost 18%. So like, I don't see, it's
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: like not a great speculation. Hasn't worked out super well.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: I can't really use it. And then the one thing
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: I just want to talk about is I think, you know,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: the crypto bros or whatever you want to call them,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: they always come back. All of a sudden, the guys
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: who are investing in this stuff because they hate the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: the industry and they don't want to bank. They're now
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: using bank of America is offering it to their clients. Rob,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: are you smarter than bank of America? Um, yeah, I am.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: You remember bank of America in 2008 was essentially bankrupt
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: because they also backed some pride mortgage and me and
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: you had to bail them out with our tax dollars.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: Now they're all of a sudden the authority on risk
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: management and how to allocate assets. And Oh yeah. But
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: what about them? The biggest ETF company in the world,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: BlackRock now offers Bitcoin. they would offer a turd if
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: they could put in an ETF and put a fee
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: around it. And that's what they're doing. They're collecting a
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: fee and it's very, very profitable. And the biggest problem
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: I have with cryptocurrency is that when these big organizations
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: validate it and they make it available to more people
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: to put in portfolios and other things, it then could
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: create a systemic risk, just like subprime housing did. And
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: so people who didn't get in in 2008 and make
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: all this money are just sitting in it now and
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: bought the Bitcoin ETF and are actually negative. Now, if
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: this gets infiltrated and over levered inside of other organizations,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: does it become a systemic risk where that's the next bailout?
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: And now we have to worry about cryptocurrency because there's
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: some systemic risk to it. Again, I'm not in it,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: but am I going to have to pay the tax
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: bill for it at some point if it continues to spread? Probably.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: That's just kind of the path that we've been on
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: with all these things.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: Jeez. Jeez. Can't wait to see the comments.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: I'm an idiot. Dummy. Don't know anything. I'm missing out.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: Boomer. Are you tracking BRICS at all?
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: Brazil, Russia, India, China, the currencies that are going on there? Yeah,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: I do. And again, it goes back to if you
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: look at the dollar, its reserve status, how much is traded, yes,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: some of those currencies have gone up. They have greater
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: and greater depreciation. The one that's done the worst is
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: the euro. Money is just flowing out of the euro,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: and I think we kind of all know why there. Why?
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: Because of socialism, because of unrest that's going on there
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: and like the government's continually like socialism destroys countries. It
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: really does. That's the reason, right? When you look at
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: voters and I'm half Cuban and you look at Miami, right?
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: These are immigrants that came here. Most of them vote Republican.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: Because they know the problems with socialism, right? They know
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: what it does to countries. You look at Argentina, you
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: look at going back to places like Russia, 1998, going
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: back to systemic risks. And smart people knowing what to do.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: Nobel Prize laureates started a hedge fund of trading currencies
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: in 1998 called long-term capital management. They didn't think Russia's
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: currency can go to zero. When it did, collapsed. The
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: rich people, yeah, maybe they lost some money, but then
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: our government again had to come in, backstop banks that
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: were doing this, and taxpayers once again had to be
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: able to do it. So what I would say is
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: the dollar as of right now, from what I could see,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: is still a very safe place to be I just
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: talked about all the deficit and the long-term sustainability and
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: all these things. And I think it is a house
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: of cards, but the big question that you and I
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: always have to answer, and especially because every I've been
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: on TV, 17, 18 years, I have to go out
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: there and make an opinion. When I made those opinions though,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: my clients are like, is that consistent with the things
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: that you're doing for us? So there was always hundreds
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: of millions of dollars that had to be accessed and
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: put to work through my opinions. I don't have the
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: luxury of 300 year bets because my clients don't live
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: to 300. Right. And so if I sit here and say,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: Bitcoin is great guys. And in the end of 2024,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: when I was on your show a year ago and say, Hey,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: go all into Bitcoin. And you just lost 18% this year.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: Why small cap stock skyrocketed nuclear stock skyrocketed. Some of these, um,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: we talked about some of the psychedelic stocks, uh, sky.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: If we missed out on all of that, because I
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: was so in on this one strategy, I would have
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: gotten fired, right? And so what we have to do
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: is be aware of the risks. And I started as
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: a risk analyst, so I always look at what could
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: go wrong first, right? We have to be aware of
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: the risks with bricks and all these different things. But
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: the question is, in putting our money to work, are
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: we willing to take a bet on that, that collapsing
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: and those things? And I would say, as of right now, no.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: That's not where I want to put my money. I
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: came in the market as a professional in 1998. And
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: I was hearing the dollar's going to collapse, all this.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: All valid arguments, right? Why this guy was pretty much
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: 100% in T-bills and he did have some gold, but
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: very little in the stock market, very little in private equity.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: And what happened during that period of time? The thing
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: about the S & P, which is, I say S
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: & P, it's the US. It's the largest barometer of
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: the US economy, the largest 500 companies here. 100% of
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: the time, every time there's been a dip, it's been
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: a buying opportunity. not 99, not 98 for a hundred years.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: Every time it's been a dip, it's been a buying opportunity.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: So if you just bought every time it declined, you're
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: going to do well. So when you look at that,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: that's consistent gold consistent over time. But when I look
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: at something and I have, and I I've learned over
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: 28 years of doing this, my opinion doesn't mean shit.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: All that matters is what is in front of us?
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: What are the risks? What are the opportunities? And what
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: does the market as a whole believe? And that was my,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: why am I out of crypto? Well, I understood why
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: it went to where it was. I understand why was
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: it there. But then what I also talked to you
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: about is last year, I said, okay, if you're going
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: to be in crypto, have a small mount.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: Because I believe this administration is so crypto friendly and
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: the narrative that they've been putting around crypto and the
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: investments that they have in it. If anybody can get
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: this to run and get enthusiasm around, and that's what
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: you need from an asset class is enthusiasm. It's going
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: to be this. So then I looked at like, if
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: they can't get it to go, then what's the next,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: I'm always looking at what's the catalyst. And when you
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: start running out of catalyst, then you start thinking of,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: am I going to just sit in something with the
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: hope and praise strategy? Or am I going to go
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: to something that has intrinsic value, it's discounted, and there's
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: going to be some catalyst where at least I'm putting
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: myself on that side of the table. And that's kind
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: of why I.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: Sold my crypto. Makes sense. Does make sense. What about
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: real estate? I feel like real estate market since 2020
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: has been just really weird. Yeah. And I say that because...
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: Before that, it seemed that it was the country. The
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: country's doing good, the real estate goes up. The country's
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: doing bad, it goes down. Now, I mean, I'm not
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: terribly familiar with all the different markets, but I mean,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: we kind of mentioned it before. Polymarket predicted a million
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: people leaving New York after that election. I mean, California,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: it's been an exodus of people coming out of there.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: You know, and I don't know if that's slowed down
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: enough at all, but Washington, Oregon. I mean, and we travel.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: I travel. You know, everywhere I go, they're complaining about
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: the influx, And so I would think that there's markets
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: in the US that are skyrocketing. I would think there's
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: markets in the US that are plummeting. And I think
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: that is the result of a very, very divided nation.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: Am I right?
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: You're 100% right. And then But essentially that's how real
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: estate has always been. It's very, it's always been market
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: by market, certain, like some of the same markets that
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: you're talking about plummeting now for a long period of
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: time did exceptionally better exponentially better than Tennessee, for example, right?
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: What would you rather have done 20 years ago by
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: beachfront California property or Tennessee property? Well, maybe up in,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: maybe not now, but five years ago before COVID, you
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: definitely would have rather had those beachfront properties. Now, and
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: I think especially after COVID, for a lot of reasons,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: all those things have changed. So I think the real
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: estate market today, going back to your, you know, you
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: were saying this before, is it's market by market. It's
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: really dependent on where you're looking at. And just like
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: I said, this is for any investment. What's the catalyst
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: for it to go up? And so the catalyst for
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: Tennessee or Texas or Florida real estate to go up
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: is there is an exodus because the reason my wife
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: and I left California, it wasn't, just because of taxes,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: it played a role in it. But I stayed there
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: a long period of time, paying an exorbitant amount of
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: taxes because the weather was nice, right? And I had
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: the beach there. I lived one house off the bay. Like,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: that's pretty nice. But when I couldn't wear a Rolex
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: watch to the mall and I was worried about my
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: daughter's safety, there's no climate out there that I'm willing
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: to not feel safe in. So I moved out of there.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: So the catalyst for real estate here is that. So
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of it, yeah, maybe it's political, but it's
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: also economical because when you look at all these big
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: companies moving out of California and Tesla going to Texas
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: and Oracle now opening their health headquarters here in Nashville.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: So what does that mean? People are leaving, jobs are
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 2: coming here. You don't have to be a rocket science
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: or an investment analyst to understand, well, supply demand, that's
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: going to cause real estate prices to go up here
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: So back to your point, follow, like Gretzky said, go
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: to where the, skate to where the puck is going,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: not to where it's been. And so that's, you know,
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: the funny thing, Sean, like my wife and I talk
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: about this all the time and you talked about it.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: So my wife came here from Kazakhstan when she was
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: 19 years old. She spent, she's 38 now. She spent
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: her whole life primarily in New York City for several
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: years and then lived with me in Los Angeles. Like
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: that's all she knew of the U.S., Uh, not too
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: much unlike me, if you would have ever asked her
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: about living in Tennessee or anywhere in the South, she'd
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: be like, what the hell are you talking about? But now,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: and I want to, I don't want to shout too
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: loud about this is it's like, this is what a,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 2: this is a luxury to live here. And you hear about,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: I was just reading about a little town in North Carolina.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: It was just, I forgot where I even read it
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: a couple of days ago, but small town, like 800 people.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: but the amount of billionaires that are moving there is
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: like X it's huge. So people are starting like places like,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: and again, I don't want to mention towns. I don't
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: want them here, but places like that are the new
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: New York city and the new Los Angeles. It's just
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: retraining your mind. And then like I told you the
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: other day, we spent some time together and it's like,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: and I've been out of California for two years now.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 2: And it's just like, you know, surrounding yourself with people
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: who have good values, right. And they're, you know, put
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: God first. And when they look at you, they're not
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: sizing you up to what do you own and what
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: do you have? And they just want you to win
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: and they want to win and they just want a
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: good place to raise their kids. Like that's a luxury.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: And I think that's worth overpaying for. And I know
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 2: your question was about real estate, but I think there's
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: certain places in this country that have become more and
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: more desirable and they're not the New York city's and
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: they're not the Los Angeleses. They're the places where real people,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: real Americans who care about their families, who care about
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: their dream, and who put God first, I think those
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: are the areas where the money's gonna flow.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: You're saying values are coming back.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: I think so. And I think so, I know so,
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: they are.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: Man, that's good to hear.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: But there's a war, though. You go back to this division,
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: it's a division on values. I mean, at the end
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: of the day, Christian values, family values, traditional American values,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: there's people who are now speaking out and speaking up
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: like you and me and don't really give a shit.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, Sean, I think like that's
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: the opportunity. We always all want more money, but when
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: you hit a certain amount of money, it's just like, okay,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: I don't have to be in fear of losing my
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: job right now. And like, Hey, maybe I'll make no
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: more money, but it's more valuable for me to say
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: how I feel, to say what I believe. Um, Because
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: I think at the end of the day, whatever we
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: collect here is all bullshit. Our real reward comes after
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: this life. And I want to be able to go
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: up there and say, hey, I did everything that I
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: believe was right. And when you're in places like we
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: talked about in California, I think sometimes you can be
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: the most ethical Christian person on there, but when you're
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: constantly surrounded by shit.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: You turn into shit.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: You turn into shit. You do. So I try to
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: get shit out of my life.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: Done a damn good job. Yeah. What do you think about,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: what do you think about Ohio? I mean, Vivek's running there.
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: I haven't checked in a while, but last time I
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: did check, he had a pretty good lead. Yeah. And
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: he's talking about taking the state tax-free and Dural Headquarters
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: is there now. I mean. It's a catalyst.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: It's a catalyst. I think you've got more traditional values there.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: You've had Vivek on your show here before. I think
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: the things he's talked about conceptually are We can only
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: vote what they talk about, whether they go in there
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: and they're able to execute or want to execute on that,
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: we don't know. But conceptually, like you said, with Enduro,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: with Vivek going there, the prices are pretty low right
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: now in terms of national standards. That's what I'm talking about.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: Is it guaranteed you buy real estate in Ohio and
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: make money? Of course not. But there's every catalyst for
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: that to happen. So would I rather buy it there
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: than New York or California? Of course I would. So
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: that's the other thing. Everything we're talking about is a
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: shift in mindset. And that's what I said earlier about
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: New York real estate always comes back. It's not coming
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: back this time. I believe that. And people, again, just
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: like the crypto, you don't know anything about. Okay, we'll see.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: I hope I'm wrong. My son was born in New York.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 2: My wife lived there for a long time. My grandfather
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: helped build that city. I love the idea of New York.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't the buildings in Central Park. It was
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: the people, the culture that built that and made that great.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: Now that they're gone, it's been replaced by a whole
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: new immigrant that doesn't care about this country, that doesn't
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: care about Christian values, that's tearing it down, that's out
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: to get what they can and pilfer New York and
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: this country, and then they'll leave once it's all gone.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: That's not going to allow real estate in.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: New York to come back. Yeah. Yeah. There's no culture there.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: There's no culture. It's just buildings, skylight, lights on. On
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: Fifth Avenue? I don't know. It's not enough for me.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: You said something earlier, and I've been thinking this for
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: a long time, but there's this, well, you get what
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: you vote for. And I've been guilty of this. It's like, oh,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: you fucking voted for that? You live in that.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And now I don't feel like that. And now
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: I'm like, this shit is way too close to home.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: And it is spreading. Just like you're saying, it's percolating.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: It's getting bigger.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, you see it here in certain parts of
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: Tennessee already.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately. Nashville.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Nashville. Yeah. But yeah, people really got to
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: start paying attention and you can't, this is, I mean,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: everybody warned me about diving into politics. Now I get it.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: It's all connected though, man. It's not just politics.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: You're right.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: I know Maria Bartiromo, she left CNBC years ago to Fox,
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 2: and they criticized her for making a political move and
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: talking about politics. And she's like, you don't think politics
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: drive the economy and the stock market? You think you
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: can totally disassociate yourself from that? It's all connected. Politics
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: is the way you feed your kids. It's how safe
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: or not safe that you feel. Your health care, are
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: those three things not important to you? But yet we
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: make political decisions based off of 20, 30 second news clips.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: And like you said, like the thing is, as I
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: get older, right. I realize how much I don't know. Uh,
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: and I start to realize that it's the world is
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: a lot more gray than it is black and white,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: and you have to be comfortable living with uncertainty. And
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: whenever you vote for somebody, you're not going to get
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: a hundred percent of what you think you're going to get. Right.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: whether they can't do that or they don't want to
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: do that. So you have to make, going back to investing.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: Might not even get 1%.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: You might not even get 1% of it, right?
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: So is that frustrating? Of course it is. So what
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: do you do? You just crawl into a ball and leave? Like,
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: I love this country, and I've been into a lot
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: of other places, and every single time I'm really happy
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: to come back here.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll tell you what you do. You fucking
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: figure it out.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: You figure it out.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: Find another way, just like we were talking about earlier.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: You, you, you.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: Quit putting all your faith in a fucking political prostitute
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: and you make shit happen for yourself instead of fucking
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: voting for a handout or voting for somebody to come
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: save your ass. That motherfucker isn't going to save your ass.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: You're going to save your ass. Yeah. You got to
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: find your way out. You got to find a new way.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: That fucking retard isn't going to do it for you.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: On either side, Sean.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm getting at. That's what I'm getting at.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. On either side.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: And I think in a lot of that, even like
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: I said, coming to Tennessee and you're, part of that decision.
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 2: I saw how you were living, and I was like,
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: it's just that, right? Like I said at the beginning,
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: I don't need shit from the government. I don't want shit.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: I just need them to stay the F out of
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: my life and let me create things for myself because
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: I'm capable of doing that. Now, does everybody in America
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: have that opportunity? No. If you're disabled, you're mentally ill,
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: you're a veteran who's come back and you're destroyed because
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: of the situation. I think we should help those people,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: but I think there's things in place. They could be
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: better to do that. But the vast majority of Americans
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: are just getting soft and lazy and they don't want
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: to take the hard medicine. They don't want to work.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: And I've got a problem with that. And so when
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: I came here, this is like the opportunity to where like,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: I look at things like you have of farmland and
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: plays like, Hey, let me just, let me, let me
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: be responsible for my family. Let me surround myself. with
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: friends and family who are like mine, who put God first.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, we might not
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: be big enough, but we're going to put up a
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: damn good fight if something happens. I'm not relying on
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: anyone to protect my family or feed my family. And
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: I never will until I take my last breath. I
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: will work. I will work to get better at everything
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: I'm doing. I don't need shit. And I only surround
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: myself with people that think that way.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. You can still make it happen. Yeah. Well, Rob,
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: did we miss anything? Taxes? What do you got on taxes?
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like off the topic now. We could
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: end it.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: Hit it. We got any good news? We getting some
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: tax cuts?
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 2: Some tax stuff. Should we hit that?
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: Is it for everybody or just the top?
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: The tippy top. Yeah, I mean, if you got money. Well,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: here's the thing about taxes. If you don't make money,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: you don't pay taxes anyway. So who really gives a shit?
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: That is a good point. Yeah.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: We have a progressive tax system, right? So the first 40,
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: 50 grand, you don't pay any taxes on it anyway.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: So if you're making money, right. And like, dude, my
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: goal in being on this show, right. Which is a
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: huge opportunity for me to be on here.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: Because I'm fighting for the American dream. I'm fighting for
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 2: Christian values. And what you've created as a platform for people,
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 2: whatever their message is, is to get that out to
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 2: a larger audience. And so we talk about how do
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 2: we change things as you fucking speak up and you
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: give people tools to, that are going to allow them
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 2: to be the type of American and create this country
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: that's going to get us the ability to compete. And
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 2: so the tax system, look, you've got to use it.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: If you're making money, do you want to give more
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: to the government or less than the government? So you
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: have to be proactive. And so when you think about
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: some of the tax incentives that have come back, you
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: talked about real estate, okay? So there's a couple of
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: things with real estate. Number one, there's something that's called
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: cost segmentation bonus depreciation. So when you buy a piece
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: of real estate, there's really three different components of what
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: make investing in real estate good. There's income that you
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: can get off of real estate. There's appreciation that you
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: can get off of real estate over time, whether it's
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: raw land or a single family or a commercial building.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: And there's also tax advantages of depreciation that you can
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: get from real estate. So all in all, when you
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: take 5% from a piece of real estate versus 5%
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 2: from a government bond, real estate is better because you
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: don't pay taxes on that full thing. So you're getting
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: actually a higher yield. So two things now with the
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: new administration that I will give them credit for a
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: lot of it may be self-serving because they own a
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 2: lot of real estate, but you get bonus depreciation now
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: reset back to a hundred percent. So instead of having to,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: let's say depreciate a building over 30 something years, right?
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: There's a big percentage of that now that could be
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: taken in year one. And so that'll dollar for dollar
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: help lower your income. So it makes investing in real
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: estate more attractive now. So if you're starting to make
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: some money, You're going to be able to lower your
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: tax basis so you get to buy an asset, not
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: pay as much to the government. That's one thing. What
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: I also like about in terms of how do we
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: create and incentivize people to do more, build the economy,
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: there's something called opportunity zones where if you go to
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: disadvantaged areas pretty much in any state where there's not
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of economic growth out there and you invest
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: in qualified opportunity zone funds, which There's companies like Cantor
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: Fitzgerald that are out there that put them together. I
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: think Blackstone will probably create them next year now that
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: this is back because they can make some money off
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: of it. If you want to do it yourself, you
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 2: can set up your own LLC. If you buy in
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: those areas and you invest money into those properties, two
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: things that are really cool. You can roll capital gains
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: into here, meaning let's say you bought a property 10
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: years ago for $ 100, 000. Now it's worth a million in Tennessee.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: That's happened, right?
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: You've got $ 900, 000 in gains. You could pay taxes to
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: the IRS on that if you want. Probably don't want
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: to do that. Or you can roll it into this
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: Opportunity Zone Fund, kind of like a 1031 exchange, but
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: you don't pay taxes on that money that you made
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: that 900 grand. The other cool thing is when you
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: put it into this fund, if you hold it for
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: 10 years, now you've, let's say, have a million dollars
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: that goes into this Opportunity Zone Fund. That grows to
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: $ 3 million. That $ 2 million, if you hold it for
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: 10 years, is tax-free. You never pay $ 1 on it.
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: You put it into a fund or you buy real estate.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: So you're buying real estate, but it has to be
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 2: structured a certain way. You can do it as an individual.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: We do it for clients. You set up an LLC
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: that's structured to meet all the requirements. But for a
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: lot of people, if it's a smaller amount or they
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: don't want to deal with that, there's companies that structure
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: those funds out there for you. So you can invest
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: in alongside other institutions and still get that same benefit.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 2: The difference there is you don't have as much control
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: over doing that. So this is something that's come back
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 2: that was gone in 2022 that you're starting to see
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 2: people now. So two things, if you're a real estate investor, again,
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: to your question, should I invest in real estate? Now
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 2: it's more attractive, especially if you do that than it
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: was before in terms of investing in real estate.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: So is this, is this, where are these zones?
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: Is this Memphis, Detroit, Baltimore? It's pretty much every area.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: It would be probably like Memphis, maybe. In Tennessee, it
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: would be areas of Los Angeles. There's zones that you
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 2: can go.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: New York.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole Manhattan. But basically, you can go look
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: it up, use ChatGP to kind of break down maps
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: of these zones. You can go to some of these
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: large sponsors like I don't even know if they have
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: them open right now, but now that this has just
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: been passed, I'm sure you'll see in 2026, all these
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: big companies will be coming out with new opportunity funds.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think about that? When you're
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: talking about New York and you're saying this isn't coming back,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: I guess I shouldn't make assumptions, but I am assuming
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: that The majority of these places are in areas that
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: probably aren't coming back. I mean, when you look at Detroit, St. Louis,
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: these areas, I mean, manufacturing left, Ford's gone, McDonnell Douglas
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: is gone, Boeing is gone. I mean, St. Louis is
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: fucking destroyed.
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: There's going to be some areas that- There's no industry
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: coming back. Yeah. I think there's going to be some areas,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: like even in Tennessee, and I don't have the map
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: in front of me, where- You've got all these values
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: and everything that we're talking about. There just hasn't been
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of economic growth there. So those could be
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: opportunities in those areas to where it's like, hey, Williamson
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: County Mount is maybe a little bit more expensive, but
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: let me move further south into some of these areas,
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: which still have a lot of the same benefits. There
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: just hasn't been as much economic growth or investment in
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: those areas. Okay, so it's not necessarily— It's not just
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: all the shitholes. Okay. There's a lot of that.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: It's not all the most dangerous cities in the country.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: Most likely to get killed, opportunities are no. It's a
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: lot of that, yeah. But again, back to doing your
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: due diligence and doing the investment and hand-selecting it and
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: making sure that there is a viable strategy and catalyst
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: for this to work, you can look at that. But
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 2: for everybody, the bonus depreciation of now being able to
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 2: write off a lot of that, especially if you're having
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 2: a good year, you're selling an asset, a business or something,
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: you're selling some Apple stock that you bought 20 years ago,
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 2: you could take some of that profit and put it
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: into real estate and use that to offset some of that.
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: Now, there's caveats around all this stuff, so talk with
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: your CPA and everything like that. But these are things
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 2: that people need to be aware of. Another one I
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: want to talk about- That's pretty cool.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 2: That's really cool. Yeah, I like that. I'd rather invest
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: in these areas versus just give people more social programs, right?
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: The other thing that's really, really cool that we've talked
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: about is for small businesses, qualified small business stocks, I
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 2: think it's section 1202, you can set up a C-corp today. So, hey,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: you're going to start a new business. I talked about hey,
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: I think there's huge opportunities in plumbing and HVAC and
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: dog care and all these things, right? To get in there,
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 2: work your ass off scale, under promise, over deliver, and
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: you can build real businesses today. Well, the cool thing is, again,
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: this is why knowledge is power. If you set that
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: today up in the right structure, it has to be
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: a C-corp, right? There's some, again, talk to your CPA
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: about it. You can set up this company, If you
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: hold it for five years, so you set it up today,
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: you put $ 10, 000 to get it started. In five years,
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: you build up this great landscaping business, you build up
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 2: this great pest control business or this mobile dog grooming
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: business or fencing business, whatever it is, you get offered
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 2: by somebody, and I think there's going to be a
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 2: lot of M & A mergers and acquisitions, people buying
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 2: businesses going on the next five years. You build it
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: up to a $ 15 million asset, $ 10 million asset, $ 5
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: million asset. Anything up to $ 15 million is tax-free.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: Wow. What? Tax-free.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: Wow. As long as it's structured that way, the first
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: 15 million, there's some caveats around there, but it's not
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 2: really that difficult. The main thing is before you start
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: making money or you have some other entity set up,
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 2: it has to be structured the right way from the beginning.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: You have to hold it for five years. Now, I
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: think after two years, it's like 50% tax-free, but at
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: five years, 100% of that is tax-free. And that's huge
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 2: for small businesses, right? Versus giving 20% of that to
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: the government plus whatever your state is. So if you're
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: in California, 34% of that go to them. If you're
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: in California, even, uh, you'd have to pay the California tax,
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: but the federal on that is zero. You pay zero
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: federal tax on that. So that's something a lot of
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: people don't know. The other one that I just want
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 2: to hit on, um, is R and D credits have
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: been restored back. Now R and D credits a little
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: bit more complex, but every business, your business, my business,
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: all has research and development. We're trying to expand new products,
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: especially with AI. We're trying to see how can we
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: use AI to create new processes or procedures. And so
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 2: there's some metrics that need to be established. So if
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 2: you talk to your CPA, a qualified team, we're doing it.
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: We have tons of work in R & D right now.
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: Everything from the products you buy to the big thing
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: for people we talked about is labor costs, the percentage
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: of time that your people are spending on that. That
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 2: can be associated towards this R & D credit. There's
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 2: no limit on that. It's as much as you need
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 2: to offset your taxes. If you're just starting up and
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: you're not profitable, the only thing you could really do
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 2: is offset payroll taxes, and there's a half a million dollar,
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 2: I believe, exemption there. But what you'll see is a
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: lot of what everyone's doing today, their time, what they're
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: spending on does qualify for this. A lot of people
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: don't know about it, don't talk about it. CPAs don't
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: know how to do the work. what you will see
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: is you will save, you talk about how are we
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: going to save you some taxes. R & D credits
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: are huge because they're credits. And the difference between, if
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: you don't know, a tax deduction and a tax credit
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: is a deduction. If you get $ 100, 000 deduction for buying
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 2: real estate, what you get to write off is your
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: own tax bracket. So if you're at a 30% tax bracket,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: you don't get to write a hundred thousand off the
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: taxes you owe, you get to write off 30,000 off
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: the tax you owe. A hundred thousand dollar R and
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 2: D tax credit, it's a hundred thousand dollars to offset income.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: So you get a hundred thousand of that. And there's
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: companies we're working with right now when you start taking
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: the percentage of people's salary and the things that they
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: spend in new locations, there are hundreds of thousands of
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 2: dollars of tax credits that are now available that are
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: reset back that people should be looking to those R
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: and D tax credits.
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: So again, There's never been a better time. That's the
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: one thing I would say with this administration too, the
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: barrier to entry, the ability for M & A to happen,
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: the taxes. Taxes aren't going any lower, guys. If anything,
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: if you look at the deficit and all these things
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: we're talking about, taxes are going higher. So you want
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: to structure that. And then that's the tax work, but
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: there's estate planning work that we've talked about that you
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: can do trusts to maybe double that $ 15, 000 exemption where
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 2: your trust owns some and you own some. Now it's
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: $ 30 million. But this is the idea, like I said before, Sean,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: of the people that are going to win are the all-stars,
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 2: just like they always have. The all-stars in sports, the
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: all-stars in business. And you want to be working with
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: the A-list. Do you want to be working with Joe
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: Schmoe in the shop who doesn't have any resources and
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 2: just telling you, just be grateful to pay your taxes
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 2: because you made money this year? Or do you want
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: to work with a team who kind of understands the code?
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: Do you want to self-educate yourself to make sure that
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: you're taking advantage of these things? Because the difference between
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: people who are poor and people who are wealthy isn't
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 2: because they're doing anything that much difference because they have knowledge, right?
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: And that knowledge is power and it turns into dollars.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 2: So the tax code is there for everyone to access.
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 2: It's up to you whether or not you know how
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 2: to use it and if you want to use it.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: And again, if you're not making any money, don't worry
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 2: about it. It's not going to help you. Don't listen
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: to this. But if you're making some money, you probably
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: want to pay less in taxes.
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: Man, great interview. Thanks, man. Lots of knowledge there. Thank you. Yeah,
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: it's interesting you said that because that's what my last
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: guy told me. This is the price of success. Congratulations.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. It's funny.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: I said, wrong answer. You're fucking fired.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: But, well, Rob, seriously, man, thank you for all the knowledge.
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you. And, yeah, what a, like, really good discussion.
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: I think this is a perfect way to kick off
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: the year. And, you know, as always, man, I just,
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: I wish you the best of success. Thank you. Good
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: luck with Valtteri.
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: Same to you. Thanks, man.
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: Cheers. Thanks. No matter where you're watching Sean Ryan Show from,
• 1:53:25
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• 1:53:29
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• 1:53:38
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