If You’re Not As Wealthy as You’d Like To Be… Watch This

What is going on in this world around us when I don't actually know what's going on in the world? My answer is usually to build. Let's not burn it down. Let's not tell anybody to shut up, but let's be bigger. Let's be louder than the thing that we don't like in the world. When they try to make us serfs, when they try to make us renters. I want you to say one word back, which is owner. I want you to get really rich. Like, I want you to get so rich if you want to wear Gucci, Fendi, Prada all day, you can like that kind of rich. But I actually want more from you. I want you to think about this word service that I think we have forgotten. So JFK famously said, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Every time I hear it, I get chilled because I've traveled all over the world and there ain't no country with that as the foundation. In 2020, maybe, like many of you guys, I was kind of like, the is going on around here. Anybody else feel like that? You're like, wait a second, I'm no mathematician, but this isn't adding up. And I started to feel that way again and again. And I was like, what is going on in this world around us? And I couldn't really figure out anything except that I thought the world was kind of weird. You know, I'm like, aren't we talking about the Olympics and like high performance athletes? I don't know, like, what is going on in the world? The. And so when I don't actually know what's going on in the world, my answer is usually to build. I go, okay. I don't kind of like what I see. Let's change it up. Let's build something better. Let's be louder than the thing that we don't like in the world. Let's not burn it down. Let's not tell anybody to shut up and let's be bigger. What does everybody else do? Protest. We don't protest. We profit. Because profit is what creates freedom. Now, when I don't know what's going on in the world, I like to go to the. What I consider like the sage of modern day philosophy, sort of the Oracle of the 21st century or South Park. I don't know if you guys also feel the same way. Nostradamus, really. They oddly get a lot of things right. And so there was this one episode of south park that I Just thought was brilliant. And basically what happens is there's a dad and he's got two young kids. And this dad is like standing in the kitchen and he's like, it's come to my attention to these two young kids that young people don't know how to fix. You guys seen this episode? He's like, you young kids don't know how to do anything. Because see what's happening is the stove is broken over there. So the front of the stove is broken. So he's telling the kids, hey, it's broken, we're going to fix it. So what does dad do when he goes to fix the stove? What do you do when dad doesn't know how to fix something? Home Depot wrenches maybe? I don't know. I don't know how to fix things. So what does dad actually do? He pulls out his phone and he calls a handyman. Because dad also doesn't know how to fix anything. Except there's a small problem here. The handyman is having some issues. He can't quite get the right part. It's not working out. And so the dad is a little rude to the handyman. And the dad's like, hey, we'll just go get this part. Handyman's like, oh, I can't, you know, I don't have any here on hand. And then the handyman says, I'm so busy, I don't have to deal with your anymore. You figure it out. And I kind of giggled about this, that in our 21st century world, the handymans are ballin'. I never really liked this blue collar, white collar nonsense. I think in a lot of ways this doesn't seem much cooler than this. And I think we got it a little sideways because I actually think it's deeper than that. The dad didn't know how to fix this one thing. It's way deeper than that. It's that the dad has lost personal sovereignty. The dad is dependent on people all around him, maybe financially, definitely when it comes to fixing things. And it started making me realize that this isn't about tools and it isn't about anything but the fact that we humans have to take back what we have lost. So before we can fix a problem, what do you do when you go to the doctor? You gotta diagnose it. And with all the noise in the world, I think it's damn near impossible to diagnose. Why the we got these crazy looking people on there during the Olympics, which is really just what's going on in the world today. It's a symptom of the same game played over and over and over again. And so I think this is actually why we don't trust the system anymore and why especially the youth doesn't trust the system anymore. Have you guys felt that, like, young people are like, I'm out, they're opting out, they're falling back. And here's the reason why. I think it's because we tell young people that they gotta go to school for eight hours a day up until they're 18 to brainwash, I'm sorry, learn from our educational establishment. And then the second that they graduate there, we send them to college, where they go, I don't know, $30,000 to $100,000 in debt. Learning again, what to think, not how to think. But the problem is it's the only type of debt that is actually unavoidable. It follows them around for the rest of their lives because they're not allowed to cut it with bankruptcy. And there's a small problem with the fact that it's more expensive than it's ever been. And so in fact, our youth are spending more money on four year degrees in underwater basket weaving than they are on their credit cards. And then they are on their loans. And then, small issue, our parents. Tax dollars pay for it. Your tax dollars pay for it for your kids. And how much do they pay for it? Well, colleges these days, they're actually not even colleges anymore, they're hedge funds. These people have billions of dollars sitting on their balance sheet that you guys funded so your kids could go into debt for them for the rest of their life until they could pay off their loan. And if that's not enough, let's do like, I don't know, $179 billion in grants from the government to colleges each and every single year. But then when the kids graduate, how about this? Why don't we send our best and brightest to the two most uncreative jobs out there? I should know, I had one. Wall street and banking. And then we wonder why the other half idealizes startups who tell them to sleep on their floor, who make them raise millions of dollars in VC capital where only 1 out of 10 of them will make any money. And then eventually we get mad because the kids begin quiet quitting. They don't want to work anymore, but they have to because homes are at the most unaffordable level that they've ever been in this country, even with the rates today. And then, small issue that 40 to 80% of them hate their jobs, they'd love to actually leave. But guess what? 60% of Americans can't afford $1,000 bill for their health care issue. And how could that be? Well, maybe it's because our government is actually stealing from us. Since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, we've deflated the dollar by almost 75 to 80%. That is what's wrong with our kids today. And the second that they think they might get out from under it, they realize that they've got all time high credit card debt. As a society, we have the highest level of credit card debt that we have ever had since we've begun counting it. But it's okay because the government is spending more on interest than they are on defense. But maybe that's not true because the government says so. In fact, Zuckerberg comes out and says, oh, no, no, no. We were actually pressured to tell you things that aren't true, but that can't be true, right? Those are our media, our outlet, our trusted sources, our government, our elected officials. They couldn't do that to us. Right? And if we still are unhappy and our youth is still unhappy, then you know what we should do? We'll send them to war in a foreign land to die in a place that they've never been before with people who don't want them there. That is why we have lost trust in this American institution. I heard a line the other day that the truth is like a tuning fork. When you hear it, you feel it. You don't have to go to the facts and figures. You don't have to have somebody tell you, yeah, yeah, that's true. You feel it, right? You heard those words and you knew they were true. And that is happening all over our country, which is no wonder people are mad at the system. No wonder people are mad at the system. Because here's how it goes today. I drew you a scientific bar chart of how society works today. It goes like this. If somebody does something and you agree with them, it's fine. If somebody does something and they're not on your side, they're a bastard. You're a Republican, they're a Republican, they do X issue, it's fine. They're a Democrat, those guys. And this is happening all across our society. We are at war with our countrymen. And it takes me back to this story that I heard, which I don't know if is true or not, but I like the analogy that if you put red and black ants in a jar and you let them chill, they don't do anything. They cohabitate. They're happy little ants. They're building. But what happens when you shake that thing? They attack each other and they tear each other apart because they think that the problem is the other half. They don't realize it is the hand that shakes. And I think your tuning forks feel that. How many times have you been in a room like this and met humans that are awful, terrible humans, that hate you, that say terrible things about you, that want the worst for you? Is that our normal, everyday American experience? No, it's not. And in fact, when you meet a human face to face, by and large, they help you. And so I think you all are here because you're awake. Not woke. Not woke. You're awake. God, we had terrible job. Somebody else take that job. We'll just make money and let them do whatever they do in Washington. Here's why I think, I think we are now saying, enough, no more. And I think this is the moment we take back our country and we have diagnosed what is happening here. And there's a beautiful truth. Somebody who I've looked up to for a long time, who I've been lucky enough to get to become friends with his daughter, Jordan Peterson, has a line that stuck with me. And it was this, before you go change the world, why don't you? Does anybody know it? Change yourself. Before you go try to clean up the world, why don't you clean your room? And yet we got 18 year olds going, I'm gonna save this place. It's like, Sally, get a job. Get a job, Sally. You're not gonna save anything yet. And so the beautiful part about what's happening in this country right now is we take it back by doing something really small. Huge problem, tiny little solution that makes all the difference in the world. And I think it is this. It is. We take back our country by taking back Main street. One street, one community at a time. And that is the idea is that we create all over this country, Main street millionaires. Do you need Wall street to buy a business? No. Do you need a bank to back you? No. Do you need permission from somebody on high to transfer your business from one to another? No. You don't. And we are realizing that all around us, tactics are easy. What they hope to do is strip you of hope. They hope to focus your attention so much on the things you hate, on the things that are scary, on the things that you can't change, that they can steal from right underneath you. But there's something wild happening out there today and I want to share it with you. When we're already pushing back. You guys are already pushing back. In fact, you're saying the universities. Look at this yellow line. That is the amount of people attending universities these days. Look at the blue line, by the way, their revenue's up. How's that? They overcharge. Attendance down. You're waking up. So what's happening instead? We're teaching ourselves. We're going to vocational schools, we're going to online universities. We're learning tactics and trades as opposed to. To philosophies. And. And they don't realize it yet because all around us we're saying we can actually own ourselves. All time high searches for how to buy a small business. I think maybe we had something to do with that. What do you guys think? You think we all in this room have something to do with that? I think so. Because guess what? I worked for 15 years on Wall Street. It took me, I don't know, mom and dad could tell you. It took me like 8 to 10 years of people telling me, no, I couldn't. No way. Why do you think you could leave? Oh, if you want to do this on the side, you need to go elsewhere. I have a screenshot saved in my phone from one of my managers when I was in finance. I had at that time taken over the head of Latin America position for a company. I won't say which one, even though I want to first trust. And what happened is I took over the head of this company, Latin America, and I built it up from nothing. $0 in assets under management to very close to a billion by the time we were there. Assets under management, not revenue. Two different things. I was the youngest manager and I was a chick. I really wasn't part of the get rich, silently don't help other people club, which is what finance is. If you guys see me on the Internet, do you see a Lambo anywhere? I mean, no shame if you guys want one. But that wasn't my thing. I was never really into their culture. I made a couple changes to the business. We're going faster than any other international department. One of the guys who is a manager of the company sends me an email. I saved it to this day and I keep it as a screensaver sometimes when I'm pissed. I hope you got more followers today because you have dumbed down our business. And now my bank account is way bigger than Dan's. So Dan is the point of this story. Do it ourselves. And it doesn't mean that Being an employee is bad. In fact, I loved multiple companies I worked for. It's just that you want to work with people you want to work with on a mission that matters. Because what if we don't even get another chance? And also, I have a belief that working in a business is maybe one of the best ways to better yourself as a human. Maybe the best. Instant feedback. You win or you lose. A bunch of other humans working right alongside you. Where else can you grow that way? And so you choosing to build somebody else's castle who doesn't have the same moral compass as you do, what are you doing? You're building the world you don't want actively. And I don't think that's what we want here. We want to become owners because we realize that the actions we take in business, they ripple all around the world. Three years ago, I started talking about laundromats on the Internet. And to be frank, I thought nobody would care, right? Like laundromats on the Internet. Why would anybody care about that? And yet people started caring. And here's why, I think because they realized that if we can collapse decades into days, we might win. I have a real belief in something that I'm scared about. And that is what happens if the builders don't win. I ran a business in Latin America. One of those businesses was entering into Argentina. That was right before a new president came on board. A really hopeful president, A young president. A president that said all the right things, that expressed all the right views. Have you guys ever heard the words, the path to hell is paved with good intentions? That president's name was Cristina Fernandez. And she single handedly tanked the Argentinian economy, nationalized every business in Argentina, kicked our business out entirely and bankrupted a nation with kind words. And I think about that often. And that is when I started saying, not here because I don't want to move to France and I want to stay here in this country. And so we started doing something about it. We've taught 3,000 people how to do M and A. You all are the reason that I do this. You, the voices that I can hear, the faces that I can't see. Because I want you to notice something for a second. Look at this photo. This is a photo of one group of our community members. What do you guys notice about it? They're happy. I like it. United. It's diverse. In this group, we have a pregnant mom, we have a 19 year old kid. We got immigrants, we got young people, we got old people, we got black People, we got white people, we got Indian people, we got a lot of crazy people. And in this group are a group of owners who had never done it before. In fact, in front, in the brown coat, his name is Renan. And Renan was a medical device salesman. Hard job, lots of traveling, has a young kid, a son. At the time, Renan was super overweight. He publicly says this, so I'm not fat. Shaming. Okay, take it easy. Don't post it on the Internet. And Renan came to one of my events and he said, I want my son to be proud of me. I'm not proud of me. I'm going to buy a business. And I said, well, are you prepared for long days, sleepless nights, a lot of headache to regret this and then maybe eventually to really be glad that you did it? He said, yes, I am. And so Renan, inside of one year, bought one business, now has bought Multiple, has an eight figure portfolio of businesses and lost £60. One word, ownership. And it's not just Renaan. It's Karun in the middle. Kind of all black dude, Indian. He's from Australia. Australia, the land where they used to love freedom more than us. And now, I don't know, not so much freedom happening in Australia. So Karun flew all the way here for an event. He was an attorney doing billable hours, miserable work. And he was like, wait a second, why don't I buy a couple accounting firms? Two and a half years later, he owns seven accounting firms. And then we got up in the top. You can't see him. Hans. Hans went from working in corporate M and A to buying businesses of his own. And what did Hans do then? This is why I love people like him. He just became a facilitator in our community. Instead of getting rich quietly, he's teaching other people how to get rich. How much more money do you think he has made? Because he has taught others a lot. Because the truth that this group knows that I think you know too, is we are a lot stronger when we're united together. I think they're underestimating us, you guys. I think they think that we don't realize that social media ain't real. That actually we don't hate our neighbors, that actually we do believe in ourselves, that actually we are capable of pushing back. And so when they start to shake the jar, I think we shake back. And let me tell you how so in the audience today is my dad. I learned a lot of lessons from my dad because he was an entrepreneur for many, many years. And still is. And his family came over from Spain during the civil war. They saw countrymen fight countrymen, and they left for a better opportunity. And so I think about the lessons from my dad a lot, because that chain's not so long. One of the best lessons he ever taught me is that if you can bet on a human who believes it's something bigger than themselves, you should take that bet that actually all of us who have a little bit of hope are worth way more than those who don't have it. In fact, I believe that complexity makes you look smart, Simplicity makes you money, pessimism makes you look sophisticated, optimism makes you money. And yet they don't want us optimistic. How many times do you tell people how bad the world is? And they go, yeah, yep. And then you tell them, actually, I'm going to win anyway. And what do they say? Like, well, that's cute. That's Pollyanna. I actually think we have to push back on that because there's a magic that happens in math. The difference between addition and multiplication, or what's called in finance, compounding. You see, we talked about that 3% number. There's 3% of us in this world that are builders. Yet what's interesting is, is when you have builders that multiply, we beat all addition. When you buy a business, what happens? Do you buy a client one by one, or do you acquire a client one by one? No, you acquire hundreds at once. Multiplication. When you start on second base by already having processes and systems in place, what happens? Do you have to build them all and then hope and pray that they work and then be like 90% of startups that fail and most entrepreneurs that only make $64,000 a year after the first three years of them making more money? No. And so multiplication means that we have an opportunity to push back on what's happening in the world around us. The third thing that he taught me is that fat cats can't run fast. I get a little visual of that every time, right? This little fat tabby trying to run after you. And if you think about it that way, that is actually what our government is lots of ways. They're this fat, bloated thing. Well, if they're not that fast, then that's okay because we can run more quickly. Another thing I thought about is, do you want to know why the IRS actually wants more people to be employees? We know this. Why they pay more in taxes. They want a nation of laborers, a nation of workers, a nation of serfs. Owners have these beautiful things called Write offs pace. Probably gets paid by the government. That motherfucker. Sneaky. We got to watch him. He's a great guy. They don't run very fast, so we can. And so I want to implant three ideas in your head before I close out here. The first idea is this. If we don't move fast, we're not going to win. So I want you to ask yourself one question, which is, how can I achieve my 10 year goal in one year? How can I achieve my one year goal in one month? How can I get done what I said I'd get done in one week, in a day? If you do that one thing, your life will entirely change. And the truth of the matter is we need you to do that because the world is speeding up. Have you guys felt that they do not want you to win? If that's not clear? If they wanted you to win, there'd be less regulation, there'd be less oversight, there'd be less bureaucracy, but there's not. So we have to figure out what games can we play and how fast can we go? And we have to realize that every day we wait costs us thousands of dollars. This is actually a graph that I made for myself back when I was looking at what my net worth would be if I had moved faster. I highly recommend. It's a really sobering exercise. If you were not in this room today, your life would look different ten years from now. And I think about it this way, my life right now is because I made a decision 10 years ago to start buying businesses. I made a decision to start operating for myself. Your life in 10 years is going to be different because you were in this room. You're one of the few who do not. The many who speak. Because you realize that every single thing that you pour your life into has a cost. Like Thoreau said, every single thing you do has a price tag associated with it. And they want us to forget that in the world of phone phones as distraction devices, in the world of entertainment all around in the world where we don't actually build, we're just hooked up to the machine. So waiting is expensive and we cannot afford it. We cannot afford it in this country. So I guess I have a question for you guys, which is really this. The question is, do you want it to be easy or do you want it to be worth it? And in fact, I think what's pretty incredible is most people don't. Most people want it easy and they want it to be worth it. Right? The beautiful part about today is have you guys ever looked around and seen who you're competing with? Do they impress you? We are at one of the peaks of opportunity and civilization that has ever existed. The Internet is at our fingertips. More businesses have been created since 2020 than in any period since then. Listen to that again. More Businesses created since 2020 than existed ever before then. How is that possible? Because it's also been harder than ever to create a profitable business. So you have at your fingertips more opportunity than ever. Because people are lazy and they want it easy. And that should make you happy. I remind myself that their missed opportunity is my ability to win. Because the truth of the matter is this. They got this wrong. You see, those on high don't actually understand ants very well. They look at us like a colony of ants. We are slave labor in the form of taxation. We are free commerce in the form of our consumerism. We are automatic payments to the health care system in the form of our obesity and our continual health issues. We are worker drones for them. They think they can just squish us, yet they don't really know something about ants. Ants are really fucking hard to kill. You guys ever try to kill ants worse than cockroaches? You know how ants are actually a marvel? The largest ant society in the world is 3,700 miles long, three countries and has more ants in it than the population of this country. One ant colony, more than just the scale is the sophistication. This is a leaf cutter ant colony found in Brazil where they pumped inside of the ant colony because it had been evacuated or abandoned for some reason. Some sort of substance that allowed the entryways to stay open. What did they find in there? They found more sophisticated architecture than humans can actually recreate. Underground, under their feet, beneath them, which is how they think of us. They don't actually realize the power of the mini versus the few, but I think you guys do because we were actually told a lie. We were told a big lie and I bought it, hook, line and sinker. We were told a lie that this would make us happy, Right? Sit in your cubicle, stare at a screen. Air conditioned in a place with padded walls. Where else do they have padded walls? Psych wards, motherf ckers. They want you working in psych wards. Tracked to a machine. When I first started out here in Phoenix, Arizona at Vanguard, I would clock in when I went into work, I would clock out when I went into the bathroom. I would clock back in when I got out of the bathroom. And I would clock out at the end of the Day, every single day. And then one day, one of my friends that was working there, her name was Courtney, told me that she was so miserable, she started taking antidepressants at work. We were 21. She saw so little future opportunity, and Hope didn't realize she could leave a job that tracked her like a slave and thus got on pharmaceutical medicine. A brilliant young woman. And it happened to me, too, until I said no more. Until I met people like these two guys. This is Brandon and Carter. They are. They're my special boys. They run one of our companies called Pinks. If you guys ever see them on the Internet, they have hysterical window cleaning ads. And these young men worked in a really sophisticated series of jobs. One worked in finance, one worked in a corporate endeavor. Brandon, the one with the mustache, told me that he's very close with his mom, right? So his mom would call him often to check and see how he was doing in this finance job. And he would tell her, mom, doing good. I'm doing okay. But inside, he was dying. Have you guys ever been in a job that made you feel like you wished you were like one minute closer to death? Anybody else, that idea of the clock ticking closer and closer until you can leave? Well, he was feeling that way. He was really in a dark spot. Now, being both men of faith, something kind of magical happened. They got laid off. They got laid off. And so they started a window cleaning business. Two young college educated white collar workers started a window cleaning business. And they told me this story about. Now, the window cleaning business, by the way, does millions of dollars a year, is one of the fastest growing franchises in the country, has over 100 franchisees, a couple of which are here in the back and have done a complete 180 on their lives. And yet they remember the first moment, which I think you business owners will relate to. They had just quit their jobs. They had started Pinks. They were excited. They went to go drive out to their first client. This one was all the way in Houston. So they drove down to Houston and have you guys been in Houston this summer? You think they were having a good time cleaning exterior windows? No, they were not. They were sweating. They were unhappy. And they remembered, like, streaking the window like this, looking in, watching their former colleague on his computer, in his desk, in the air conditioning. And after they cleaned it up, they got their money. They left their little down. They're in their car, and they looked at each other and they're like, did we make a giant mistake? Like, this guy's in his beautiful house on his keyboard and look what we're doing out here. And I remember Carter told me that they turned to one another and they asked themselves these questions. Did I make the world a little bit better of a place? Did I clean something up? Did I leave it better than I found it? Was I proud of the final product that I delivered? They looked at each other and they said, yes, I was. And their friend who was a hedge fund trader, do you think that he felt the same way? Was he cleaning something up? Was he making it better? Was it a product he could be proud of? And the answer was no. And so when did we start believing that having dirt under our fingernails and a little sweat was a bad thing? Now we're finding out that sitting is worse than cancer. Sorry, guys. We'll let you stand up shortly. We found out that screen time is terrible for your eyesight and maybe also your anxiety. And we found out that even though we started as a nation of calloused hands owners, we're now a nation that is owned. But what I want to leave you on is this. At my company, we have a contrarian creed. 13 things we believe in. The very first one says this. Those who say it is impossible should get out of the way of those of us who are doing it. Get out of the way of those of us who are doing it. Stop telling us we can't buy businesses. Stop telling us we need you. Stop telling us there's a safety net we have to have because the rich people actually know a secret that they don't want us to know and that is all around us. They take our ideas, our main street businesses, and they buy them and they make them big. And then they remove all soul from your local Starbucks until the worst thing you could imagine is going into that place. Just me. They know this secret. And so I actually think the American dream might start with those people we clapped for in the beginning with the trades. I think it starts with you builders, because you're doing something bigger than just making money. You're bringing dignity back to work. You guys have been on TikTok lately. They're trying to tell you guys, work ain't good. It's not fun. You shouldn't have to do it. You'll be happier on the beach. Have you guys ever felt what it's like to feel no purpose? The void that you can stare into? That is not what this country is about. It is not what this room is about. And I want you to remember one thing, that they are scared of you. They are so scared that the ants that outnumber them hundreds to one will awake and they will push back on the idea that the few should run the mini. I salute every single one of you owners. I believe in a Main street revolution, and I think it all starts with every single one of you. I want you to stand up and I want you to not give me applause. Not for me. This is for you. I want you to stand up and I want you to look at your neighbors, and I want you to give a round of applause and a high five. And I want you to know that this is for all of you, and I want to end with one thing. Yeah. High fives. I love this. I want you to end with one chant that we have to yell across this country when they try to make us serfs, when they try to make us renters. I want you to say one word back, which is owner. The ultimate rebellion. So with me, give me an Owner chant. 1, 2, 3. Owner. Yes. Thank you guys so much. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you, thank you.