Stephen Liao - From Dropping Out of Stanford University To Becoming A Celebrity Credit Consultant

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Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. I am joined today by my good friend Stephen Lau, or better known as Reddit on Instagram, the credit God. Thanks so much for coming on, Stephen.

Thanks for having me.

Of course. So, you know, it's been so cool to see your journey over these past years. I know we initially met when I was, I think 17, when I was coming up to Vegas for different conferences, which is where we are now here today. And just learning from you from afar and seeing your growth has been incredible. But for those that may not know who you are, your story, I'd love for you to dive into, you know, what you do and overall, you know, why. You go by urban credit on Instagram and all across social.

Yeah, so I basically help people build credit, repair credit, and I help companies access massive lines of credit. That's what I've been doing for the past, wow, almost five years of my life now. I come from a small town in Ohio, Cincinnati, and they were just in the Bengals.

Didn't win, but hey, they made it though.

First time since like the 80s. That was pretty cool school. And I went to Stanford one semester, dropped out, did a startup, didn't go so well. But then I found my space and credit while I was trying to travel the world for free. So I built massive lines of credit along the way of, like, building a massive, like, amount of points. And I use those points to travel. And now I teach people to travel.

I love that. And I know I learned so much from you. Just again, from, from social media and what you post publicly and you have some incredible coaching with people that follow you. But for people that may not know anything about credit, I would love to just start by breaking it down from the small scale and then I want to get to the point where we're talking about it. Why would you even want to access these massive lines of credit? Let's start at phase one and then we can dive into it. Where did this start for you.

It started when I was 18. Well, I was actually 17, turning 18. I remember the night like before my birthday, I like went to my dad. I was like, hey, I want to get a credit card. You know, I'm about to become an adult and I asked him to cosign for me. He's like, hell no. And I was like, man, like, I really want a credit card. So I went, I applied for like five different credit cards, got approved for one called Discover it. And as soon as it arrived in the mail I open, I was like, wow, this is a really cool feeling. I felt like I was opening a video game console. I was like, okay, I want to replicate this feeling again. And it was like, oh, spend 500 bucks, you get 100 bucks. I was like, oh, that's easy. Like, you know, like, yeah, you go work nine. You go work for like a $8 an hour minimum wage job at 18. Like, this is. I just spent 500 bucks. I get 100 bucks. And so I, I basically started applying for more and more credit cards and I started learning the system about like, you need to have one credit card to build more like credit score and to have like, more credit lines. And so from then I was like, okay, I built like, I got like three cards in my portfolio, got like 100,000 points from the signup bonuses. And then I was like, wow, I can use these points to travel. I flew first class to. I flew first class domestically, but then I took like a first class trip to London. Lay down seats. I was like, wow, this is so cool. I was only like 18 nights here at the time.

Was this a. To interject, like, were you. Have you traveled internationally like that before growing up or was this all new to you?

No, I was small town, Ohio, never got on a plane until I was 18.

Wow. I was 16. So yeah, I can relate.

It's, you know, all I saw was I was in the Tri state. So like, it was Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, a lot of farmland. And so I was like, oh, this must be the world. Like, I got on a plane, I fell in love with the feeling of taking off. And like, so I was, I was in like, I caught like the flight bug for like a couple years and then started like, I guess falling in love with the travel, the luxury aspects of it, but not the price. So like, I didn't want to pay the price, but I want to like, you know, experience all the cool things. So that's where, that's where the initial like credit and the travel, like, got together and Then as I was traveling, I'm like, wow. So, like, I'm meeting a lot of cool people and in order to get more travel, I need to get more credit, but obviously not spending money. So there's different ways to get points. One was called manufactured spending. So you go out, you buy a Visa gift card, use the Visa gift card to pay off the credit line. So technically you never spent any money, but you got the points for hitting that spend. So I did that when I was 19, got a bunch of points and traveled the world using that way. But from then, you know, that's. That's how I got into credit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What would you say? Like, if there's a lot of. There's a lot of younger entrepreneurs that listen to this show, if they're going out there applying for their first credit card, like, what is a strategy that you would recommend that they should even. Just look for and think about it, because I know last night at dinner we were talking about how things have changed so much, especially since the time we met, like in. In the year 2022. Like, what's a good game plan if someone's going out there to a build credit, but to utilize it for travel hacking and all these cool things that are available if you learn how to do it?

I'd say, like, the biggest, like, concern or I guess turn off for people that don't have any credit or are scared to, is that they just don't want to, like, affect their credit score. They're like, oh, if I apply, it hurts my credit, which it does from through, like, hard inquiry. But if you go and apply for just one credit card, it starts building up the history. So there's two things. There's two points here. Like, the one is, is that you want to build your average age of history up. So, like, it's the best time to apply for a credit card is now because you have that timer to start now in order for you to get like a perfect credit score. And like, I always try to shoot for perfect because no one really has a perfect score. But if you want to get a perfect credit score, you have to have at least a minimum average age of nine years. So, like, it's impossible. Like, if you apply for one today, your average age is zero. So you'd rather apply for one today. And the second one is they're scared of, like, spending it. So my best solution to that is you get the credit card and you literally just cut it in half. As soon as you get it, you activate the card, you Cut it in half, you can't use it, but at least it's building up the age. And I guess a third point to that is a huge impact on the credit score is the utilization. So you want to keep that under 10%. So a lot of people don't realize this. Let's say you have $1,000 credit limit, you can actually spend $1,000 on it, just pay it off before your statement actually hits. So as long as the statement doesn't actually hit, spends like $1,000. But you pay it off to zero statement hits, your utilization is still zero.

Yeah, very cool. And for business owners out there, like when you're thinking and talking about personal credit versus business credit, I know you said you're able to help entrepreneurs get massive lines of credit. What's the value of that and how do you start that if you're just starting up in business today?

So you gotta first for you to start a business, right? To do a startup, there's two ways to get capital. You either have to find investors, which that's a lot of work, a lot of benefits to that too. But the second way is to get money from the bank. But the bank also needs to be able to trust you. So in terms of for personal credit, that's the first step because when you go apply for credit lines, credit loans for your business, they're going to ask you for a guarantee. So unless your business is already doing millions of dollars or at least hundreds of thousand dollars in volume and like have a bunch of bank statements which most people starting off don't have, that you're going to need to personally guarantee or collateralize something. And so they're going to look at your personal credit. And so like if you're a founder, if you're an entrepreneur, CEO, whatever, and you're getting started, it's going to be very difficult to just get your foot in the door. Once you have that first relationship with the bank though, it gets a little bit easier because it's a more personal relationship getting into the business level, lending side of things.

Got it. Very cool. I want to talk about travel hacking. I know, like, you know, you'll post on and people that follow you, you'll post on your Instagram stories like first class flights, you know, five star hotels, $0 or $50, like for, for. I would say the majority of people that are listening or watching, they see this and they're like how, how is that real? Like this must be fake. And they're like, how does that happen? Right? Like I'd love for you to talk about, like, some of the, like, key things about travel hacking and the unknowns that if people were to just hear about them or learn about it on a small scale, it would just change their perspective on it.

Yeah. So, like, there's a. Here's like, one little nugget of things. Like, you see all these, like, credit cards with, like, annual fees, $450, $550, $650. Like, the inflation just keeps going. It's insane, actually. But they all come with, like, you know, $200 airline credit, $200 dining credit. They give you, like, lounge access. Something that's like, I don't know, not so, like, mainstream. What you could do is what I was talking about before is manufactured spending. So, like, you're getting 5x per point, 3x per point, 3x per dollar, 5x per dollar. What you can do is you can literally go out and buy, like, gift cards. And as you buy these gift cards, you're racking up the spend, but the gift cards convert right back to a dollar. And we take that dollar and you pay it back to the credit card companies. Your balance, your balance becomes zero, but then you get all the points for that. And now you're traveling for free. That's one small piece of advice. As you're, like, getting, like, more in depth, like, more. More information is coming, coming in, but, like, for. For this. That's like.

Yeah, that makes sense. When it comes to traveling, I'd love to just dive into, like, I know we were talking last night, like, your current travel schedule. Like, how. How do you break up your travel schedule? Because I know you've been all over the world and, and what. What have been some of the lessons or biggest takeaways when it comes to, like, since the time we met, like, four years ago now, like, you've done more traveling than I would say the majority of people in the world will ever do in their entire life. And, and at the high level of first class and like, the, the luxury side of it, like, what have you learned through this process? And you know, what were some of the biggest personal takeaways? Because I know personally, through traveling, it's opened up my perspective in so many incredible ways. And I can't imagine the scale of. In which you've had.

For me, it's like, when you're traveling, especially internationally, you're, like, absorbing so much like culture. You're absorbing so much like, the way of life of people outside of the U.S. i really think that, like, people would be A lot more kind and a lot more understanding if they just got out of their bubble. Even just like once a year, like once every couple of years, just to like. Because I love. What I call is, like, I love culture, shocking myself. I do it almost every month because I'm going to. I'm going to Paris in a couple days, and then from Paris, I'm going to Melbourne. Australia just opened up. I've never even been to Australia. I'm very excited to go. Just to see the way of life there, how people act. And to a lot of entrepreneurs out there, I read some statistic. I don't know if it's true, but majority of people are introverts or society has allowed us to become introverts through social media, just sitting behind a screen. So when I'm out, like, of the country, I'm kind of out of my comfort zone. It kind of just like pushes my introvertedness. Like, I'm naturally an introvert, despite what Instagram shows. When I'm out there and, like, I'm traveling, like, it forces me to, like, talk to people. Like, sometimes I'll just be in an airport lounge and like, someone that doesn't look like me, that doesn't speak like me, you know, they're sitting right next to me. And once in a while, like, most people, you know, mind their own business, but once in a, like, you know, every hundred people I pass, like, someone makes small talk and I've actually had some really cool, interesting conversations. I've take. I've like, left. I'm like, man, I wish I was an extrovert. It forces, like, myself to come out and, like, I come across a lot of realizations and, like, it just helps me become like a more understanding person. And so, like, especially if you're in business, you're an entrepreneur, you want to sell a product, you want to sell a service. Just having that understanding and like, that global mindset of, like, you know, what kind of people are out there and why they think differently, why they speak differently, why they act differently, and the reasoning behind all that. It's an amazing realization.

Absolutely. Do you have any crazy stories that you want to share throughout your travel history? And maybe you don't, and we can skip the question, but I'm sure you have dozens of stories that you can pick. 1 or 2.

This most recent one, which I guess goes to show, like, I. For the past year, I've been, like, completely off grid from social media. I've taken a break from, like, posting all the crazy parties and all the like girls and cars and everything. But like, if he's watching this, like, I met this guy while flying. I thought was like so cool because it goes to show, like, while you're traveling, anything can happen. I'm flying from Munich to Dubai and first time in Munich. I've been to Dubai a bunch of times and I was in this like business class seat. But like, the way it's like laid out is like the lay down seats. You're laying down next to someone else. And so I get on there, this guy, like, he's speaking German and I'm like sitting down. I'm just like, okay, well what's this? Like, I'm an introvert. I don't like talking to people. I have my headphones in, he keeps tapping me. He wants to like make small talk. Eventually I'm like, okay, fine, I'll talk. So, like, we start making small talk and he's like, oh, yeah, like, I live in New York, but I travel between Germany here. It's my first time in Dubai. All this stuff. At the end of it, he gives me his business card and I'm like, oh, cool. It says CEO on there. I didn't know what it was. I left and I googled the company. I don't want to say the company, but like I Google company. 12 billion dollar company. And I'm like, wow, I could have completely blown off this guy. But because of the circumstance I'm in, I'm literally laying down in a seat next to him. It was like a 10 hour flight. So I'm like, I'm forced to talk to this guy. Yeah. And so like the circumstances that are created while you're traveling, even if you're an introvert, like, even if you don't like talking to people, which I like. I really. And just like, it's out of my comfort zone. It's not that I don't like talking to people, it's just out of my comfort zone in this situation. I got connected to someone that's insanely powerful, insanely cool. And like a week later I'm like getting dinner with him in, in Dubai. So it's.

That's awesome.

Like, how often do you meet somebody that's. And I'm saying that like this company, everyone has interacted with at some point, like, very cool.

That's an incredible story and something that, you know, just hearing that, it's like, do you ever have moments where you weren't gonna go somewhere maybe, and then you do, and then moments like that happen?

Yeah. Yeah, it's like, how so? Right.

Well, like, I just. I'm a firm believer in, like, hey, everything happens for a reason. But, like, there's so many opportunities. Whether that's goes back to, like, you know, the one trip I took to Vegas, where we first met, like, all these different moments that add up together where it's like, wow, like, I need to keep putting myself in these uncomfortable situations, like, over a period of time, because moments like that, you can't predict.

And if anything, I think you just answered your own question, because I think that's exactly how it is. You know, like, if you stay, like, all these things happen by chance and they're all random. Right. But, like, if you stay at home, you kind of, like, take yourself out from the equation.

Yeah. Like, and I think Covid did, like, for a lot of people, it's like, there was so many missed opportunities, but also so much opportunity created with work from home and, you know, making it a global workspace. But, yeah, no, I think.

I think Covid enabled, like, a lot of people that even weren't even introverts to become introverts and, like, enabled for people to become, like, they stayed in their comfort zone. And what I love doing is that, like, traveling is fun. You know, it's very, like, pretty. It's not always pretty. It's sometimes really stressful. But it puts you in these uncomfortable situations, especially for introverts. And when you're out there, you end up by chance, meeting a lot of these, like, crazy people, having these crazy experiences and making lifelong friends. Like, I went to Dubai the first time, September of 2020. I've made, like, a lifelong friend by, like, maybe, like, 10 times. And, like, every time I go back, I hang out with him. So it's like, had I not gone there, like, and he reached out to me via dm. Yeah, it's like, you have no idea who you're gonna meet when you go, like, different places.

Speaking of COVID I know obviously, traveling's a huge part of your, like, where you spend your time and what you love to do. How did that affect that? And over the last two years, so.

To be honest, like, Covid, I loved navigating, like, the restrictions, like, even though, like. Like, a lot of people are, like, I tried to stay safe. I wore a mask. I did all the. You know, I checked off everything that, like, was required. But Covid, traveling during COVID was actually pretty not stressful because, like, all the flights were empty, all the planes were empty, all the hotels were empty. So Like, I guess it kind of like helped that I was an introvert, but now that's like picking back up. I'm seeing like the networking start to blossom. I'm seeing like the people like around me, like I'm meeting new people, having new cool experiences. So if anything, I think Covid should be like a wake up call to people like, look, life is short. Yeah, it's been like two. It's two years, right? Yeah, it's about two years now. Like almost three years. Coming on three years. So get out the house, travel more, see the world, you know, develop this new new experiences and absolutely.

When, when we talk about social media, obviously you said you took a break for a long time, but you know, people ask me like, oh, you have at Casey, like a cool domain on Instagram. You have at credit. Where did this identity and an idea for branding yourself as at credit come from? And you know, from the outside looking in. I think it's, you know, it was such a powerful move that's really been a huge part of like, you know, a digital identity which comes in many different forms. But when did you make that decision and how is it like helped your, your business and just overall like brand identity online?

I think it's cool because if you know me as Stephen, like, you know, if you know me as like Stephen, then like, you know that I'm pretty much an introvert.

Yeah.

Like, I kind of stay back. So like having that like second like name where like people, if people recognize me, they're like, oh, it's credit. It's nice because like it allowed me to like kind of separate, I guess, social media slash work from like personal life. And I took a break for this past focus a lot more on like health. Made me realize like during COVID that like a lot of people were getting unhealthy sitting on their couch. And after, I guess partying for three years, like, you know, it takes a toll on your body. So it made me realize like, look, having money, having all the wealth, having like these like crazy opportunities by your side means nothing if your body is broken and your relationships with your friends and family are broken. So I really took like 2021 to just like dial all the crazy wealth and like crazy party experiences back and try to balance out the other parts of my life. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs that are coming up, I see on Instagram, like everyone's like has caught some kind of play. Has like, like, you know, has had a, had a lot of people have had come ups and I Want just, I want them to keep them, I want them to keep in mind, like, you know, there's other aspects to life that you have to balance out, otherwise your body's going to get run out like very early on and, and you know, all the money in the world can't fix, you know, or broken relationships. Like, you know, you might be distant from your mom, from your dad, because you're focused so much on making money. And then you try to go back five years later, 10 years later, and it might not be there.

Totally. No, I think. And I'd love to dive into that. Like, you know, just me understanding your story. Right. It's like dropping out of college, getting into like this whole world of credit and entrepreneurship to then obtaining massive amounts of success, like in a very short amount of time. A, that's very rare, but B, like, I'm sure it took a massive toll on, on, you know, on your mental health, on how you think about the world. Maybe your family. And I know obviously we haven't seen each other in quite some time since last night, but seeing how like healthy you look and how, how great you are today, it makes me so happy. And I'd love, I'd love to do have you dive into that like this physical transformation that you've had. And I know you're posting a lot about like fitness on social media. You have your epic jump ropes, like, where, where do you stand today and how do you think about social media, family time, like fitness? Obviously I know that health is important to you, but like, where do you, like, what's the mindset like moving forward into 2022 and beyond?

I think for me, like, what I've preached for, I guess, the past five years, like publicly on social media is that like, I'm a very big, like, believer of education. And, and so during this like five year journey, I've kind of like went from, oh, I want to educate people on dropping out of college, to educating people on credit, to educating companies on how to get massive amounts of credit. And really I want to tie all of that in because like this next stage, this next 2022 part of my life is I want people to kind of like, I want to educate people on balancing all of that. Like, it's okay to have money, it's okay to grind and hustle to get money, but also keep in mind that you have a body and you only have one of them, and you also have a family, and you only have one family, you know, and you only have a set of friends and as I'm getting older, which, I mean, you know, we're all getting older, but, like, as I'm getting older, I'm realizing it's harder and harder as you get older to make friends and to keep those friends. So I'm really focused on just trying to nourish those bonds that I still have, make new friends and focus on health. Because, like, man, I was, I think at peak, I was like 175, 180 pounds. I'm down to like 115 now, which is. I'm trying to bulk up, but, like, it's. Man, it feels amazing. Just, I'm sure you were telling me you're running marathons. Like, I'm sure, like, you're working on it. Yeah. So it's like, you know, just having the health aspect in combination with wealth is insane. Like, you know, I would. I would trade, like, I would trade like, half my money to be perfectly healthy, then, like, you know, I would trade all my money to be perfectly healthy, you know, and at least go back and grind, then have all the money and be stuck, like, you know, at home, like, really fat and.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Health over wealth, right? It's. Yeah. And I think it's such a cool concept and like, hearing it from you and how you've been talking about this on social, like, taking this hiatus off social media and you've had such, like, a polarizing brand on social and the people that know you, like myself, right? It's like, you're very introverted, but on social with, like, different parties or, like, travel experiences. Like, it's. It's so cool to see that, like, anyone can. Has the opportunity to shift what they want. They shift how they want themselves to appear in the world. Right. Like, speaking on this whole idea of education. So first off, like, I'm super excited for you and super happy for you. Second of, I want to touch on, like, moving forward. Like, what are you excited about? Right? Like, you've had not only massive amounts of success, you've had a massive physical transformation. It seems like you're in, you know, the best place you've ever been in. If I look at it from the outside, like, what motivates you moving forward? Because I think it's one of those things, right, like, maybe that someone's made a lot of money and they're not as motivated or same thing on the health side. They're in perfect shape and they're not as motivated. Like, what fuels you to this day? Moving into the future, I think, like.

After Going through this, like, transformation this past year and having all these, like, crazy realizations, or not even crazy, but like, just these realizations about, like, how the world works and how being healthy is so important. If there's anything like, like, moving forward that's like, motivating. If there's like one entrepreneur that watches either this podcast, a video, a Snapchat story, whatever, if they, if I can just inspire one successful or not even, like, coming up entrepreneur to like, take into account, like, hey, like, my body's important, health is important, my family, my, like, friendships are important. And just as important as making money and being successful. If just one person can take away from that, I'm happy, you know, like, love that. And if they can just attribute to like, hey, I watched that podcast with Stephen. Or I, hey, I watched that Snapchat story that, like, three second story that I like, glimpse through. Like, you know, if just one person can come back and say that, I think I've, I, I'd be pretty satisfied.

Yeah, I'd love to dive into, like, to get tangible. How do you balance that? Right. I think all of us have different ways of balancing family and friends and business and whatever it may be and success. How do you personally go about that or how have you learned to go about it?

I think, I think 24 hours in a day is pretty short, and I think 24 hours in a day is also pretty long. It depends on what you're doing. And it just really just comes down to, like, in order. If you really want to balance, if you really want to prioritize it, you'll make time for it, you know, Like, I know that there's a single mother out there working three jobs and comes home and still has time to play with her kids, and it's incredibly stressful, but they're able to do it. So like, for me to balance it, like, I take 30 minutes out of my day to jump rope. I could also take 30 minutes a day to watch an episode and a half on Netflix, you know, so it's like, where are your priorities? And, and like, like TikTok. Great platform to grow on. Also very dangerous platform to get addicted to. You know, you, like, I've sat there and I've like, scrolled through, like, TikTok. I'm like, oh, I've only been here for like 10 minutes. I look, oh, shit. It's like an hour and a half, you know, like, so it's like, where, if you make the priorities right, like, I work out 30 minutes a day at minimum. Even on rest days, I take 30 minutes out either to meditate or to do some yoga, to do some stretches, whatever. Because if you can commit at least 30 minutes a day to your body, you're heading us, you're heading like towards the right direction. And, you know, if you want to build better bonds with your friends, take 30 minutes, put it on your calendar if that helps. Put a set, a reminder to call your friends, call your family to do something, you know. So in order for me to make time, I mean, like I just said as a meeting, like, I go, yeah.

Okay, I have a be a student of your calendar. That's what one of my mentors always says. Like, be a student of your calendar.

Yeah, like, and for me it's like, what I realize is I read somewhere it takes 28 days to build a habit where like, your brain physically, like, rewires, like physically, not like, you know, internally physically, your brain is like rewiring itself. And so, like, one thing I did for, I guess end of 2021, like, so not my exactly New Year's resolution, I just started to floss. Like, I don't know how many people out there floss, but like, you know, dentist says to do it. I never did it. I know a bunch of my friends are like, what?

What's floss?

So, like, I went on, bought a pack of floss. I just like, I set a reminder every single day. I'm like, hey, I got a floss today. Yeah, I set a two minute, like, calendar meeting. Like, it was a meeting on my calendar to go floss. Like, even if I wasn't going to bed yet, I would just like, okay, my two minute meeting is up, I got to go. Yeah, I just spent two minutes, I would floss. And now, like, it feels completely different. So it's like if you really care about something, whether it's building bonds with your family, whether it's integrating like into your busy lifestyle, so you have meetings 9 to 9, like 9am to 9pm every single day. You will be able to figure out squeezing 30 minutes for a meeting to go work out or to go do yoga or to call your family or whatever, you know. And so like I did, I spent all 2021 focus focusing on that. And so, like, for 2022, I would love if anyone consuming my content, you know, would be able to take away from that, be like, oh, wow, you know, like, I've made awesome. I've made a million dollars in 2021. I really want to, you know, start balancing it out. I Would love to get a six pack. I would love to look good, I would love to feel healthy. And, you know, I'm going to start integrating. That makes me completely satisfied knowing that hopefully one person out there can do that.

That's awesome. That's incredible. Two more questions before we wrap up here. One is just like, if you were to go back in time when you were at that moment. Well, actually, let me take a step back. During that moment when you're about to drop out of college, what was your plan and what was your mind thinking? And I wanted to take that step back because a, there's a lot of young people that watch this, but mainly for like a critical decision in life. I think we all have like, moments in our life that dictate our path. For me, it was maybe being a neck brace for six months after a football injury. Or for you, maybe it was dropping out of college. And maybe it's not that. But how, how are you thinking about a critical decision in your life that has played out to be a, a massive win for you?

So like, for people dropping out of college or for.

Yeah, let's talk. I want to talk about that. Because you can relate to it.

Yeah. So like, I mean, when you're making like a critical decision like that, I really like to just take a step back and just like count my lucky stars just being grateful, you know, like the fact that I'm born in the United States, you know, so like, that's already, or like in a first world country that's already puts me at the top. I have food in my fridge, my parents are alive. I have all these things, like, I'm thankful for, I'm blessed to have. And so like, when you, when, when you take into account like all the things that you're very lucky and blessed to have, dropping out of college seems like such a small decision, you know, like there's people out there that can't even get food where they're thinking like, oh, like why on earth like, you know, does college even matter when I'm starving or I'm hungry? And so it really, like, I guess I tried to like, downplay like these, like, not downplay, like, try to like, minimize these like, critical decisions into just another decision that I have to make. And so like, going through with it. When I did drop out of college, I had absolutely no idea where I was going to take me. You know, like, everyone around me said, don't do it. I come from a very like, traditional Asian background. So like, dropping out of college is Unheard of. And it's pretty frowned upon. And I knew by doing that I'd disappoint a lot of people. But all I knew is that, like, look, college wasn't making me happy. If. If college makes you happy, don't drop out. Like, I don't. I think, like, I think everyone should do what they think or what they believe that will make themselves happy, you know? So, like, if drop. If staying in college and having that stability, you know, helps you, great. If it helps take you to the next step in your life, great. But for me, dropping out of college and, like, making that, like, critical decision, I really just, like, looked around, like, I'm very happy. I'm very thankful. I'm very blessed to have all these things around me. You know, I can. I have my two hands. Like, sometimes, you know, like, something. Sometimes something that, like, I really think about. Whenever I'm in, like, a stressful decision, I literally just swallow and I'm like, I don't have a sore throat right now. I'm happy. Like, you know, like, when you have a sore throat, you're like, oh, man, I can't wait to get better.

Yeah.

Or like, when you're sick and you're like, sniffly or whatever, can't wait to get better. And when you are sick, like, when you do have a sore throat, be like, hey, that's a great thing. Now you get a week off and watch all the Netflix. You want to play video games, lay in bed. Like, Like, I try to think about the positive things when making these critical decisions.

I love that. Well, I know we are running short here on time. So, Stephen, before we wrap up, where is the best place for everyone watching or listening to follow you, to stay in touch with you? Because I think, you know, not only the message that you are putting out there in the world is so powerful, but, you know, your story is inspirational and it's been so cool to see the amount of growth you've had. So with that being said, thank you so much for coming on the show, but where's the best place everyone can just stay along?

Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat is all Reddit. So just follow me there. Check me, follow my journey and.

Yeah, awesome. Well, for everyone watching or listening today, thank you so much for tuning in. And of course, thank you so much to Blue Wire Studios for having us here today. I will talk to you guys soon.

Thanks for coming on Legacy of Monsters, an Apple original series. The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th.

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