Every Entrepreneur Should Watch This Video.

Is life better today than it was four years ago? @ the last presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked if the average American was better off four years ago than they are today. Now, true to any politician, she didn't answer the question. She provided some canned answer about her plan to help the middle class. And Donald Trump was preparing his favorite Haitian dog recipe. They're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of the people that live there. I kind of got mad at this answer from Kamala, and I know every politician has their canned responses, but it sent me down a rabbit hole because I wanted to answer this question for myself. I looked at this and said, does anyone remember four years ago? Does anyone remember the year? That was 2020, in case you forgot. 2020. Not a fun year. One out of five stars. Great success in 2020. Most of us were concerned about things like hyperinflation. We were concerned about government overreach. We were concerned about the pandemic spreading. We were concerned about what the vaccine would do and what the long term consequences would be. There were very serious concerns in 2020, so much so that I have peers who were preparing for civil war, for civil unrest, who are stocking up food for years and preparing for what they called the fourth turning or the undoing of America. Yet despite all of the warnings and concerns about hyperinflation or even civil war, we as a society have continued to move forward over the last four years. And there have been incredible innovations at a record pace in things like artificial intelligence, self driving cars, healthcare, even space travel. Since just the year 2020, the stock market is up almost double. GDP has expanded, despite the fact that we've gone through two recessions. And there are more opportunities to start businesses for entrepreneurs than ever now. This is not unique to the last four years. If we look at Donald Trump's term from 2016 to 2020, we were riddled with uncertainty and political division. And yet we as a society continue to expand by almost every objective measure. So let's look at the last eight years so that we can cover one presidential term from someone that you probably don't like and one term from a president that you probably liked. In the last eight years. Since 2016, the broad stock market, as measured by The S&P 500 index is up almost three times, up three times in eight years. GDP is up over 50%. In just eight years, Bitcoin has gone from $500 a coin to over $70,000. We've had two recessions and each one was the shortest in history. We had one in 2020, and that was the shortest on record. And then we had another one two years later, and that one was even shorter. And contrary to the World Economic Forum depopulation agenda, the population of the world has gone up by half a billion people in the last eight years. But first, why does this matter? Why do I care about this so much? And, guys, it's honestly because I really struggled with this earlier in my life. I was in College during the 2008 financial crisis, and I was an economics student during that time. And I was scared, and a lot of people around me were scared. And I was listening to a lot of voices out there who were warning about how bad the collapse was going to be and how long we would be in it. And I also happened to be starting my first business at the same time. So I was making money from my college dorm room and also really scared about the state of the world. And I didn't know what to do. And so I sort of froze. I didn't bet on my business getting bigger because I was afraid of what was going to happen in the world. I didn't invest the profits that I was making in my business because I was afraid that the economy could melt at any time. And so as a result, I missed out on so many opportunities for years because I was afraid, because of the voices that I was listening to in the media, I felt uncertain. So I didn't build for the long term. And as a result, I not only missed out on millions of dollars worth of opportunities, but I also got deeply unhappy. I started seeing the world through a very fearful lens. I started trying to consume as much information as possible so that I could prepare for the next great challenge that we would go through. And that didn't make me happy, and it didn't make me successful. And even though I believed so strongly that I was correct and that the world was going to hell in a handbasket, the economy boomed, markets expanded, new opportunities came on the scene. And so I had to adjust my worldview. I had to question if the fearful narrative that I had about the world was true. And today I see a lot of entrepreneurs going through the same uncomfortable transition that I went through back in 2008, where there's a lot of uncertainty and there's a lot of voices saying what they think is going to happen in the world. And as a result, people for the first time are going on defense rather than betting on things getting better in the future. And that's why I think this matters so much. Despite all of these challenges, we as a society have continued to march on and continue to innovate at a record pace. Yet despite this, we don't feel it. We don't feel more abundant. We don't feel like the world is getting better. We. We don't feel like we have more opportunities today than we did 10 years ago. We don't feel like the world is a better place. Instead, most of us feel like the world and even our lives are worse off than they were a handful of years ago. We are more stressed, we are more anxious, we are more divided because we are constantly beamed the bad news in the short term rather than paying attention to the progress that we're making over the long term. Progress takes time. Problems are in our face right now and problems get our attention. So we are constantly beamed the problems that face us on a day to day basis. And they are real problems. But we miss the entire progress that is happening in the background because of innovation, because of capitalism, because of entrepreneurs like us who are betting on the world getting better over time. In fact, we're the ones who are creating a better world over time because we're the ones who say, I want to create a better life for myself, I want to create a better life for my family. And in order to do that, we must bet on the world getting better so that we can create the products and the solutions and serve our customers in a way that is more abundant that we believe the world is today. So if we're going to thrive in the next chapter, we have to turn our attention away from the short term problems and put our attention into creating a better long term future and betting on things getting better over time. I laugh when people talk about late stage capitalism because capitalism as an idea is really only about 200 years old. The wealth of nations was published in the late 1700s and information spread a little bit slower Back then. There was no Amazon.com where you could order a book and they didn't even have chatgpt to summarize books. Ideas spread a lot slower back then. So the idea of free market capitalism is really only in our culture for about the last 200 years. And in that time we've made incredible progress. Here's what I found. Since the dawning of capitalism, 83% of extreme poverty has been eradicated. Even though population is expanding, the number of people living in poverty is going down. People have gotten freer too. Despite the media narrative that capitalism is exploitative, an entire worldwide industry of slavery was eradicated from the planet within one generation of free market capitalism taking a hold of our ideas and culture. That was because for the first time, capitalism said, you have rights and you have rights to keep what you earn and you can keep the fruits of your labor. For the first time, we recognize that human beings had sovereign rights. That was a uniquely capitalistic idea. And because of that, people have gotten freer since the dawning of capitalism. If you know anyone who's old enough to remember the year 1950, then they've seen a 180x increase in GDP in their lifetime. That means that we are 100 times more productive today than we were in 1950. There are a hundred times the number of goods and services and opportunities to buy and transact than existed in the 1950s. Heck, if you're even old enough to remember the year 2008, then you've seen an entire remaking of the American economy. In 2008, there were no Facebook ads, there was no Amazon FBA, there was no TikTok, there was no Instagram, there was no like button on Facebook, there was no Bitcoin, there was no chatgpt. None of these things existed. And yet today, they are part of our everyday experience as entrepreneurs and business owners. Fifteen years from now, we can only assume that this trend will continue. We can only assume that over the next 4, 8, 15 years, there will be new opportunities, there will be new innovations, there will be new platforms that don't exist today, and they will be better than what we currently have. This is the real context of where we are as a society. And that's why the way that you see the world is so influential over the success that you will have over the next few years and for the rest of your life. Right now, half the world, or at least half the United States, is concerned that we will be worse off in four years than we are today, and certainly worse off than we were four years ago. However, history tells us that over the next four, eight, 12 years from now, the world is going to be better. Even if there is horrible policy, even if we have questionable fiscal policy, even if we have problems that we don't know how to deal with, History tells us that things will continue to expand. My question to you is which worldview is more helpful in building the life that you want? Is it more helpful for you to prepare for disaster? Or is it more helpful for you to bet on a brighter future? It is my belief that abundance starts with how you see the world. If you believe that the world is a threatening place, then you will try to extract as much as possible to try to be safe. You will try to look for short term hacks and shortcuts. You will try to get as much as you can as quickly as possible so that you can feel safe. That affects how you treat your customers and your partners and your investors, and how you show up to work on a day to day basis. But if you believe in an abundant world, then you are thinking about giving to your customers more than you take. You're thinking about creating value for your investors. You're thinking about creating opportunities for your team members and your employees. You're thinking about creating more than you can extract. And it's been my experience that the people who operate with that mindset tend to create it. So the beliefs that we have about the world dictate what we create within that world. And so this has everything to do with your success over the next 4, 812 years. Despite what is happening in Washington D.C. the way that you view the world during that time will dictate the results that you create at the same time. That's why over the next few months here on the channel, the content will assume that the world is going to be better in four years than it is today. We're going to be talking with people who are creating a better future. We're going to be looking at the best opportunities for the next chapter of entrepreneurship. There is enough negativity in the world, so part of my job will be bringing you people examples and opportunities that are ripe right now. There are enough negative voices in the world and for the last several years there have been enough negative entrepreneurs warning against fear. And you know what has happened during that time? Markets have expanded, opportunities have expanded, innovation has increased. And I think it's time for us to turn the page and to participate in the next chapter of the expansion. So I want to be louder about this because I know what it has cost me to be fearful about the world. I know what it has cost my customers and clients and partners to feel uncertain. But when we are confident in where the world is going, we create amazing things. I just spent eight weeks on my podcast and YouTube channel sharing the entire framework for how we build million dollar businesses. And it works. It works faster now than it did back in 2013. If you believe that the world is getting better, if you believe that things are going to expand, then you will confidently apply that playbook. If you believe that you're going to be under threat over the next four years, then you will find all the reasons why it won't work. You'll find all the reasons why you shouldn't start that thing, you shouldn't go in that direction, you shouldn't invest in this thing. You'll find all the reasons not to do it. But if you know that the world's getting better and if you believe that things are expanding, then you'll find every reason why it will work. You'll find every reason to bet on the idea that you're excited about, because there are resources that make it possible. And you know what happens, whichever one you believe you will create. I realize that not everybody is going to agree with an optimistic worldview. And that's okay. That's their own journey. I've chosen to believe that the world is going to continue to get better. And guess what? I find evidence for it everywhere. And I find that to be a helpful framework for seeing the world and an empowering reason for me to build my businesses and to invest the profits and create long term wealth and create more opportunities. I no longer see it as my job to persuade people to be entrepreneurs or persuade them to be optimistic. But it is my job to call out those of you who can do nothing else but be entrepreneurs and believe that the world can be better and is going to be better and will be better because of your participation in the expansion. It is my job to call you out and to empower you with the resources and the frameworks and the playbooks that make it possible for you to create that in the world. And if that's you, and if you need some help, there are free resources@capitalism.com that can help you get started on your road to get to building a million dollar business and beyond. Best place for you to get started is over@capitalism.com playbook. That is our free course, our free resources, our best case studies for entrepreneurs who have built million dollar businesses using our framework. And if it's not my framework, that's fine. There are plenty of opportunities both now and coming in the future for us as entrepreneurs to create a life on our own terms and also the world as we best see fit. Because we're the ones creating it and not government officials, politicians or bureaucrats. That's what I believe here@capitalism.com thank you for watching. Thank you for being part of this. I hope you'll subscribe and be a part of this next chapter. We're doing a series all about optimism, all about opportunities that are coming down the pike. Talking with people who are creating new things, who have done big things, who are betting on big opportunities, and I hope that you'll be around for it. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next time. Take care.