Become A Millionaire With These Habits w/ Graham Stephan EP 1382

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Yeah, I would say definitely consistency. I was relentless in just keeping the same habits over and over and over again. I would then say it was the focus of just, I had one goal in mind of just like, I'm gonna do this one thing and do it really, really, really well. That's all I wanted to do. And I would also say saving money. I mean, I lived really, really, really frugally.

You obsessed about that.

Probably- Too frugal. I was too frugal.

You were like every penny.

Yeah.

I can't go out and have an extra sushi, I cannot eat that.

Oh, not even, I wouldn't even do the sushi. It was probably unhealthy, I mean looking back, I can't have regrets about it, but I mean it got to a point where I remember, I was talking about this yesterday, I was calculating the cost of gas to go and visit a friend, and I determined, it's how bad it is though, the cost of gas was not worth the time I would be able to spend with his friend. and I did the analysis on that and thinking, well, if I'm only gonna see you for two hours and it's gonna cost me X amount of, that's stupid. I should not be looking at it like that, but that's how I was in the beginning.

Where did that come from? Is that like a childhood learned behavior? Did you model that from somewhere? Why did you feel like you needed to be so obsessive about every penny and decisions of driving to see a friend, is it worth the money?

Yeah, a lot of it I thought of like how much I would be making or the cost of like my time and then extrapolating from there like what my time is worth doing certain activities. There was also another point, I must have been like 15 years old, maybe 16 and I just got my driver's license and I remembered like how far $20 could get you. And I was like, okay, if I have $20 and that's my budget and that's what I'm spending, I could put $10 in the gas tank, I could spend $5 on a Subway footlong sandwich, and that's like two meals for $2.50 per meal, and then I have another $5 left over for like, miscellaneous. I remember breaking it down to that degree, and then just from there, taking that to, well, here's what a dollar could buy, and just appreciating that. But then also going through, there was a time briefly, I think the job was like six weeks, I worked at this Gold Precious Metals Bullion investment firm. I did data entry because I thought I wanted to be an investment banker. I'm like, this is a great way to get experience. It wasn't. But I think I must have been paid $7.75 an hour. It was maybe eight bucks max. And this was back in early 2008. And I remember thinking, okay, if I'm making $8 an hour, is a Subway sandwich worth $40? minutes of that?

No.

And then how could I stretch that further? So I just thought everything in terms of like going back to making like eight bucks an hour. Wow.

Did your parents teach you lessons about money early on? Did you have money mentors?

No.

What were the things, what were the beliefs you had early on around money? Like what did you think when you thought of money? When money came in, did you think I need to save it? Did you think money was good? Money was bad? You know, what were your beliefs about it?

Yeah, I never thought money was bad. I had always been obsessed with, I guess, like saving and collecting. Like even as a kid, I think it was my grandpa showed me like his coin collection and I thought it was so cool and he's and he showed me a picture of like a 1909 S VDB penny. It's like these pennies are out there still. They're like X amount that are probably still in circulation and like every like and I was like maybe six years old and I'd just be checking pennies. Like every penny would be like, This is a 1909 SVDB. I never found one. But I've just been obsessed with, I think, just saving, collecting. Even if I got birthday money or Christmas money, I would save it. I wouldn't spend it. And I liked just to see that accumulate in an envelope in my room.

Like seven years old.

Yeah, it'd be like 100 bucks or something like that. Of the whole year's worth of saving and collecting. I just naturally, I think, gravitated towards that.

What was the... I mean, did anyone teach you about money though? Did you ever like...?

No, not really. My mom had a book, and I think it was like the Millionaire Mindset. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind?

Maybe.

I don't... Something about the Millionaire Mindset, or maybe it was the Millionaire Next Door. Yeah. And I must have been like 10, 11, 12 years old. And for some... Like, I just saw the book that's a millionaire on the side of it. I'm like, I'm gonna read this book. And I was not a reader at all. Like, I was not reading books. But for some reason, I just read that book and I enjoyed it. And it's just like all these things made sense. Like, oh, the average millionaire drives a Ford F-150 and it's more common to drive a Toyota Corolla than it is a Ferrari. And most millionaires don't make a million dollars a year. They're making an average income and they save for 30 years. And so all of those things, like.

I just had an interest in that. What was the year you made your first million.

Dollars or talking about networks?

In sales, that came in, what was the year that happened? Do you remember the year?

Yeah, that would have been 2019. And that was a combination of real estate sales and then YouTube adding on top of that. Right.

And the year before, where was it at? Was it half as much? Was it close to that?

The year before, I think, I made $250,000 from YouTube and then I think 500 grand from real estate.

It's about 750 grand the year before.

Yeah, I'll be about that.

What do you think was the difference between what you did or how you thought from 2018 to 2019?

I would say I had never, for me it was really YouTube, but that really started 2017 for me because I never thought that I'd make money on YouTube at all. I started making videos just because it seemed like the fun thing to do. And even I remember making a dollar a day on YouTube through AdRevenuE and just thinking, wow, this is like a free sushi dinner that I could, 'cause I was gonna do YouTube anyway. So it's like, the fact that it's making $30 a month, it's like, that's sushi, once a month for free. And I remember it being like $100 a month and being like, wow, that's my cell phone bill. And then $300 a month, that's my car insurance and gas, like this is so cool. and it just, I guess seeing that I could make money without having to be like actively involved, even though I became very involved, but with real estate, I was in sales. And so the bulk of my income at that time was really like, I gotta be there, I gotta show houses, if I don't sell a house, I don't get paid, I could work an entire year and earn nothing, and a lot of my commission is dependent on my ability to get listings, meet clients, be there for those clients, and I would drop anything for them at any time. If there's a client who wanted to see a house Friday at 10 p.m., I would cancel any, I'd be there because that's what I had to do. But seeing on YouTube that I could work around my own schedule, post videos and like every video I was like, wow, if every video I make just makes an average of a dollar a day, I get a thousand videos and that's a thousand dollars a day and I could be anywhere in the world. And so something like that was very freeing to me that I knew that I could scale it a way that I couldn't do as a real estate agent. Even the best agents I've seen, like we're talking about like the top few in the country, are making two to six million dollars a year and they have like huge teams and they've been in the business for 20 years. And I started seeing people on YouTube be like, they're doing this in, you know, a few months and scaling to that point. The reach that I was able to get on YouTube and the benefits that I saw of just like being able to network and meet other people, I could meet a thousand people by making one video in the time it would take me like years in real estate to like meet a thousand people one-on-one. And that really changed my mind in terms of just seeing what was possible.

So 2018, if I remember what you said, about a half a million came in from real estate, is that right?

Yeah. And then of course on top of that though you have like broker splits and like miscellaneous income.

Sure, in terms of like sales coming in. Oh, you got expenses and and everything, obviously. But that's like, how many homes is that? For half a million dollars in commissions?

It wasn't much.

Well, in LA, I guess, yeah. Yeah, I would say 10 homes, what is that?

Probably about that. I would say in a year, I would have maybe 20, and I'm, this is like years, this is like five years, six years, I don't know how many years ago this was. I would say on average, I probably had about 25 transactions a year. A lot of those would be high-end leases. And of those sales.

Rentals.

Rentals. And then sales would be, I don't know, 5 to 10. But usually it would be like, I'd have a whole bunch of one and a half to $3 million homes, and then I'd have like one a year that was like 5 million or like 8 million. And that would boost the bar a lot. Or sometimes I'd get really good lease commissions. There would be some properties for lease that would make more commission than the sales. Just because let's say it's $30,000 a month and I'm representing both sides and we get like an 8% commission on top of that for a two-year lease. That's pretty big.

It's monthly. You get a commission monthly?

I know I get a whole one. Gotcha. Check upfront. Sometimes they'll say, well, you know, we'll pay you for the first year and then we'll be, which is fine.

But yeah, a lot of them would just pay upfront. That's amazing. What would you say the top three physical investments that you've made that have.

Paid the best dividends?

Over the last five to 10 years.

Probably a good computer, a fast, I was like on this little mini MacBook for a while that would like pause for minutes and I didn't want to spend money. I finally got like a new MacBook at the time and like it helped my video processing like a ton. Like that has probably been one of the best investments. Probably a good camera for YouTube videos. Besides that though, I would say real estate has been a fantastic one. That's always been like the core of everything I do is like, that's the foundation is like, good real estate, rental properties, and that's like the foundation, I guess, to fall back on if that makes sense.

How much real estate do you have now?

It is, I was trying to, I think it's six properties total. One is my primary in Vegas.

But then five rental properties. And then the rest is mostly index funds at the moment or?

Yeah, index funds and cash. I pretty much almost got a 30-30-30 split between real estate, cash, index funds.

Really? When did you feel like you were able to break through mentally and emotionally of you see these bigger homes, you see individuals who have made it essentially in a certain way financially, when did you start to realize, hey, maybe I could break through this financial level as well and get to a certain level? Was that when you were 18 getting started or was it more in your mid-20s?

I'd say immediate. Yeah, immediately just like seeing and being around these people, I just felt like I could do that too.

At 18, 19.

Yeah. Even though I didn't achieve that immediately, I guess it was a feeling like I felt like I dressed the part too. I'd see how they dressed and I'd go to H&M and try to replicate their style for like 50 bucks. And so just doing that, a big change for me too came when I sold my first house and I do what I tell everyone not to do. Pretty much all of it on a car. And I think my commission, like after everything, like 50 grand, something like that. Like after I sold- 50 grand? Yeah. Like after all the commission.

First house.

Yeah, the first house.

That's huge.

Yeah, 3.6 million dollars.

How old were you?

I had just turned 19 or I was just turning 19.

That's a massive commission.

Yeah, it was. And that buyer I met doing an open house, I'd done an open house every single Sunday for nine months and then just a buyer happened to walk in. We had a great conversation. He was a doctor and straight up just gave me a chance. Like that was one of those things where he was like, I remember when I was 18 and someone gave me a chance and I wanted to do the same for you.

That's cool.

I want you to help us find a house. And I did. I owe so much to him. But I spent all that money buying a Lotus Elise. And the car, I think, was like 30 grand plus taxes and stuff like that. And then you also have to pay tax on the commission. So, I was left over like nothing afterwards. But that car, I started taking it every weekend to these car meets, like early in the morning, like early Sunday, wake up at like 6 a.m., go to a car meet, and I meet like car friends there, like people driving like Ferraris and Lambos, and here I got in for the cost of a new Honda Accord. And so like being around those people, like getting into those groups, and I loved it. It was just like fun, like I take the car and, go to car meets, and then right afterwards, I'd go into an open house, park the car out in front, and people comment and they're like, it helps.

So what sounds like you said, what you tell people not to do is actually a great investment. In hindsight, yeah.

Right. It was a bad investment, but it.

Was a great investment. It could have gone the other way too.

I think had I been reckless with it or maybe not used it, like if I was like, oh, I'm going to go pick up chicks in the car now. Sure, much. It could have not worked. But I just used it as a passion and a networking tool at the same time.

What's the best invisible asset that you've invested in for yourself? Oh man, that continues to pay dividends today.

What do you mean invisible asset?

Not a physical thing, but more of a skill set, a learning, something you've developed, a relationship that you've invested in, something invisible. that is not a tangible thing.

I would say just like, I would say just great people and mentors around me. Jason Oppenheim, I say this all the time, has been like one of the best parts of like just learning, I guess not how to be more assertive, but like being able to convey what you want and being able to basically give a direction in a way that people will understand. And seeing him operate on such a high level, just watching him, like I just go into the office and just listen to him speak and see how he negotiates, like those sort of connections and just being able to learn from those people has been invaluable.

Yeah, that's beautiful, man. What's your plan with this year, with the recession potentially going to happen? You're talking a lot about this on your channel. What's your plan to do with the cash? What do you plan to do with it over the next six to 12 months? If everything crashes, if real estate crashes, if the stock market crashes, what will you do?

Well, I'm buying in, I'm dollar cost averaging into index funds every day. So every day the market's open, it's a habit of mine to wake up every morning and to buy the same dollar amount every single day.

How much is that every day?

Five grand.

Five grand a day. It's right in there.

Index funds. Always index funds. It's just like my morning routine is just like index funds. Anything above that, obviously taxes, take that into consideration. Goes into the cash pile. And in a perfect world, I want a really good commercial property that's triple net, ideally in Las Vegas. But I believe we have a ways to go in that, because right now I have that money parked in treasuries. And it's earning about 4.4%, maybe 4.5, 4.3.

It's not bad.

Yeah. And I just keep rolling it over.

That's not bad.

So if I'm making 4.4%, but I'm looking at commercial properties making 4.5 to 5, I don't see the risk premium there yet. So I think if I could find something at 7, 7.5%, to me that gives enough of a buffer where if the market continues going down, I've locked that in, but I've yet to see those deals come up yet. So I'm looking, I look every day, and I think it'll get to a point where I could start making offers, but some of the properties that come up, they're great, but I don't want to be like their first week on the market. Here's an offer for 30% less. It's like, I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot. It's offensive to a mom, but if it's been listed for six months, four months, whatever, then I'd consider making an offer.

Yeah, I know you get asked this question a lot, but if someone had between 20,000 in cash or 100,000 in cash. And I know you're not a financial advisor. What would you be suggesting as options for them to do to invest it as opposed to holding on to it in the bank and they wanted to invest it somewhere, what would you suggest? Between 20 and 100,000 of extra cash laying around that they want to invest in somewhere to make an interest.

The biggest thing that's made a difference for me is house hacking. One of the best things that I've done is buy the duplex. I moved in one side, I rented out the other. I think a lot of people, not every area has a duplex that you could go and buy. But I found that if you could reduce your housing, because housing makes up 25 to 35% of your income, just a third of it is gone just for a place to live. But if you could find a way to reduce that by using that down payment, leveraging that for a duplex or a triplex or anything where you could rent out the other units, ideally it'll cover your overhead, but even if it covers half, like to be able to save an extra 20% of your income by building up equity in a property that you could rent out, I think that's tremendous. But you also have to be okay with being a landlord, putting in the time to like managing a property, fixing stuff, everything. And you also have to be careful about what you buy, that it's a good deal. Just because it's a duplex doesn't mean it's worth buying. So if you're willing to put in the work, I think that could probably yield the highest results. Yeah.

What's your thoughts about owning a home in general? I know there's different real estate experts that talk about only rent where you live and own the thing that you rent out so it brings you in passive income. What's your thoughts? You own your home, you live there. Do you think people should buy a home or should they rent and use their down payment as an investment to bring in cash somewhere else.

I think it really depends on the area. Places like Los Angeles generally are cheaper to rent. The difference becomes if you plan to live in the house for like 15, 20 years and you know it's a place that you're going to be raising a family or for the peace of mind of being able to like not worry about rent increases. But like Los Angeles is an area--.

It's coming up, yeah.

Yeah, where renting is so much cheaper. the majority of the city is rent control. Your rent's going up, usually three to five percent a year at the very most. It's cheaper.

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I mean, it's more expensive right here than it is anywhere in the country.

Yeah, true.

True.

A lot of other places, it's cheaper.

To rent versus owning here.

Because it's so expensive to own. I would say generally, if you plan to live in the house for, Seven to 10 years, it's usually cheaper to own. But you have to factor in also your closing costs, commissions, maintenance. Now in LA, there was a whole.

Like mansion tax coming out. Did you see this in April?

Yeah, I saw that.

April 5%, if you sell a home.

I don't think that passed, did it?

I hope not. I'm pretty sure in April, if your.

House is over 5 million. I don't think that passed.

I think it did.

It passed. I have not kept up.

I think you're in Vegas now. I think it did. So it's like, if you got a $5 million home, 5% on the mansion tax.

On top of this, it's just stupid. It's crazy. My issue with California is that their solution to everything is tax. Let's not fix everything that's broken here. We just need more money. But they make so much money to begin with. Where does it go? Where does it go? So their thing is just let's tax the rich people. Let's drive everyone out of state, but then let's tax the people who stayed even more. It makes no sense to me. I think, you know, California is such an amazing state with so much to offer.

Why did you move? Why did you move? You grew up here.

Yeah.

You grew up in Cali, in LA. Why go to Vegas when the weather is perfect here 90% of the time? You've got the ocean, you've got the mountains, you've got industries here. Why move away?

I think the quality of life deteriorated to a point where it was better somewhere else. And I never thought I would leave. But what really kept me here was doing real estate. And like up until 2020, I was going to the office every single day to the Oppenheimer Group and I would do real estate on the side. Like I was like 85% YouTube at that point. But if a client came around, like I was, and they were looking for a $4 million house, like I'm gonna help them find a house. Anyone else, I had, you know, a cool little referral business within the office of like, I'll give that to so and so and I'll give that to this. And it worked really well and I'd be involved in the phone like throughout the process, but they would do a lot of the stuff and it worked really well. But when COVID happened and I was just like home making videos, I realized how much I loved just like being able to make videos and like do that. I just had so much fun doing that. Then I realized you don't have to be in Los Angeles to do that. Just checked out Vegas, realized how nice it is in some of these areas of like Henderson and Summerlin. Really liked it. I'm inside anyway. You're talking about like go to the beach and the mountains.

We don't do that.

How many people in LA really go to the beach? No one goes to the beach. Sure you go to the mountains, but every now and then. I'm inside anyway.

So like- Might as well save on property tax, might as well save on all these things.

The quality of life there was so much better. The house was way less expensive.

Way bigger.

Twice the square footage. I was able to have a larger office. My office, in Vegas was like four times the size of my office in LA, was able to also have a podcast studio in my house. At the time Jack was living with me, he had a bedroom there. So like I would say half the house was an office and that was like an entirely separate part of everything like you know walking you have the kitchen everything and then this left side was office. It was like Jack's room. He was editing. He was doing the podcast.

Yeah.

Podcast. Like it was perfect setup. But then also it's like, there are no potholes in the road, there's no traffic, everyone is really friendly, it's a really great community. I know all the neighbors and like in Los Angeles, you might know the people on either side of you and that's it. It was so like closed off. Vegas was like very friendly and nice.

Perfect for you, yeah.

Yeah, so immediately I knew like this is the right choice and I would say every now and then I do miss The weather here is obviously better.

Yeah.

But I don't mind the heat.

You're inside all the time anyways.

I would say the biggest difference though, I like the people here. I feel like here you get a wide range of people, perspectives, ideas. It's like this melting pot of different cultures that you don't get as much in Vegas. And I missed this sort of like free spirit entrepreneur There's something different here than you get in Vegas and sometimes I feel in Vegas you get in your own little world It's like just doing one thing and then come back here and like Get to meet and see other people who are doing like much bigger things and it's inspirational for.

Me to see maybe moving back out in the next year or two, huh?

No, just come out more, but I could come back for work yeah, and I could you know come back here for a few days and jet right back home. That's cool. I'm happy with that.

That's good man. I'm curious about what is the psychology that happens for you when money comes into your bank account, when you get a check, which I don't know if you get checks anymore, but when money enters the bank account and you get paid on the 20th or 21st. Yeah, sure. YouTube money every month or whatever it is, sponsors come in. When it enters and you see it come through, is there an emotional connection you have to that dollar amount?

Yeah.

Or is it neutral? Is it, is it, is it? exciting? Is it fun? Is it scary? What is the feelings that you have?

So immediately, because it's really hard to separate what I have in my bank account versus what I'll have left over after tax. So whatever money is in there, I just mentally will do. And I, you know, do quarterly taxes, but like, anything that comes in, I just multiply that by 0.6. And I just assume 40% is gonna be gone for taxes, accounting, miscellaneous fees, just random stuff, just average 0.6%. And then I take what's left over of that and then I multiply that by 4% and that to me is how much that money will last for the rest of my life. And so I do that with everything. So for every $100 I get, I have 60 cents left or sorry, 60 cents. For every $100 I have $60 left, 0.4, I think that works out to be like, $480 or whatever it works out to be. That's my passive income. I'll never go below that. I invest everything. My actual personal expenses and cost of living is very low. Everything I do is either for the business, discretionary, personal is almost nothing. It's like everything gets invested for the most part that's left over from that.

And how does it feel though when you're analyzing this, you see the dollar amount come in, you multiply, you do all these things, does it excite you? Do you feel abundant? Do you feel like, okay, everything's on the right track, do you feel scarce ever?

I'm sure I definitely, everyone tells me I've got like a scarcity mindset because I'm so much like when I get something, I don't want to lose it. But I've also been very conservative in terms of like building wealth, saving money, in terms of like investment returns, like everything, I'm like, if I just can average four percent, like I'm fine or even three, usually three percent. But no, for me, I just think like I've always increased my lifestyle based on really the three percent rule of like I could spend three percent of what I have invested every single year regardless of how much it makes three percent. What can I buy with that? And then even of that I'm like, okay, well I still want to save half. So it's like really the one and a half percent rule. But it gives me something to look forward to that I know it's sustainable. Like whatever I want to do, as long as I stick with that, I can get new experiences, I can work my way up to something else in a way that I don't have to worry about it running out and I just feel safer that way.

Yeah.

Because at least what I've seen from real estate, so many people just like blow all of their money. I remember this one person who was well known and was making $5 to $10 million a year and they were having difficulty qualifying for a house, making $5 to $10 million a year because they spent it all. Now, their view, I'm sure, was, I'm just gonna keep making money. Like, it's not an issue. And they've gone on to have a successful career, make a lot of money. But for me, I could never be at a point where, like, I'm spending that much. I'm like, that's the threshold. Like, you have to, because you never want to go down. I think it's really hard to scale back. It's very easy to scale up. So I've always made sure to like be very careful of once you get used to something, like it's hard to go down and it's very easy to go up and you don't want to set the bar too high, just in case. So I've always been like really cautious about like what I do and just knowing that, you know, lifestyle inflation is a thing and how could I curb that in such a way that is sustainable but still gives me something to look forward to.

How often do you make emotional purchases?

Almost never. I don't think there's any purchase that I make that's emotional.

Really?

No, I mean the only thing that I bought without money in mind was my aquarium. That was the only thing that I did not... Yeah, I didn't look at the price tag. I don't care about how much it costs and I'm not getting any return on my money. That was the only thing but I built that into like what I have invested. I'm like, okay, if I have X amount invested, that'll pay for the aquarium and X amount invested in addition to that will pay for all the maintenance, all that stuff. So I just factored it in that and worked towards that being a goal.

What were the three biggest lessons that doing real estate sales taught you about life and business in general?

Yeah, I would say not giving up because with sales, it's like you you have to stay on it and learning how to differentiate between, like read people, I guess is a big one because I got fooled so often. Like as a young agent, you don't realize how many fakes there are out there. Like people who will just waste your time and pretend to be buyers. I had this dude and I was so naive and looking back, I was an idiot. He walked into the open house and told me that he was in the market for like 25 to $50 million homes. The guy wasn't like, you know, representing himself in such a way where he could afford these houses, nor would a guy of that caliber, realistically, trust an 18-year-old kid who's like brand new to show up. Show me 50. Chances are they have business managers, they don't even show up to the houses first. They have assistants do it first, and then they have people vet it, and then they show up, and they're very discreet. This guy was very flashy about like, oh yeah, I did this, and my company does that. talking about, I had no idea. So I'm sitting there showing him houses and every agent is looking at me like, is this guy pre-qualified blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh yeah, he's good. Idiot. And I remember one agent, I would consider her not a mentor but she really took me under her wing and she had a listing and she's like, bring them to my listing and I'll feel them out for you. And she was there anyway. And so he came there and she started asking him questions about like his proof of funds. He literally goes into his car and his trunk and pulls out papers and hands it to her. And she's like, this is proof of funds. It was like a Word document the guy just printed out saying like X amount company blank, this, this. And afterwards she's like, this guy is fake. He's not real.

He's not a real buyer. And then- But you'd already spent 20.

Listings showing him 20 listings. He was an idiot. Yeah. But then you also ruin your name in the process of like any Time you bring a buyer by, these agents remember that. They know, oh, this is Graham, he's the kid who brought by this really bad buyer. He wasted my time. I spent hours setting up this house and their time is valuable. My time, I got nothing to lose. And this guy, meanwhile, was just, I think he was just dreaming and he was using it as inspiration and he would spend like two hours at the.

House just laying back. Oh my gosh. I was an idiot.

Oh man.

Okay, so learning to read people. never giving up, being consistent.

Yeah.

But you can't never give up unless you know how to read the right person, know what their really intentions are. What's another big lesson you think you learned from real estate?

I loved it. I don't know, there's something about it where I just felt I could do this 24/7 and it never felt like work. It's just like what I enjoyed doing. I got so excited every day to wake up. Like, you know the feeling sometimes where you had just like a really good day and you can't go to sleep or Like, so excited. Yeah. Yeah, like maybe like a Christmas morning where you can't wait to wake up, like, you know, you're going to Disneyland or something like that. That's how I felt going into work. I just enjoyed it. Like, I would wake up early and, like, be excited every day to be able to go and do real estate and, like, learn and be around these houses. Because for me, it was so foreign to, like, walk into a $5 million house, get to be around people who could afford that. And, like, everyone I saw, I was like, what can I learn from this person? I just found it really inspiring.

Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, it really opened up my mind in terms of like what's possible. And so I really believe that like having access to Los Angeles just gave me that world view of like it's insane the possibilities that are out there. Yes. And just believing that, hey, if these guys could do it, why can't I? And you would see that they're nothing special. It's just they've got good at a skill and you don't need to be like this super human person.

I'm curious about your thoughts on money and relationships. How has lived. How has been living an extreme Frugal Financial lifestyle supported or hurt you in intimate relationship with your girlfriend?

I don't think it's ever hurt.

It's never hurt.

I don't think it's ever hurt. Even, like, just dating in general, I think there are. There are cheaper ways. do everything. And people that know me in general, they kind of would know what they're getting into. Right, right. They're not expecting you to do something. Yeah, it shouldn't be a surprise. But I would say a lot of the things that you would do in a relationship, they're either free or they're very inexpensive. I think it's more important to spend quality time with the other person versus like, hey, we're gonna go to this fancy restaurant. I think there's a time and a place for that, for sure. But I think at least for the first, like, the dating period, it doesn't have to be expensive at all. And with Macy, it's been really nice because she's, I don't want to say she's as frugal as I, she's okay with spending money on certain things if she feels like the value is there versus I'm always like the cost, like, oh, but the value might not be there for this. We could get 80% of it. I want to stay with her. I've definitely loosened up because I could afford it, but a lot of the things still, it's like she enjoys contributing. I appreciate that. I think some of our trips, it's like, you know, she's got credit card points. She's like, I opened up these credit cards, I got the sign up bonus, like, it's a free trip, you know? So a lot of things like this, they don't have to cost money, but I will say I have loosened up Really? With Macy, just in the sense that I don't fret over like a $60 dinner anymore. Like five years ago, I was in that $50 dinner, $60, and be like, well, we could do that for cheaper over here. I'm gonna eat a little bit at home and I'm gonna go there, get one, like bad. It's really bad.

Do you wish you would have changed that? If you could go back, would you have done it differently? Had more balance?

Probably not. I mean, I'm sure there are things going back where I'm like, yeah, I should have done that. It was stupid. Like one time, I know I'm gonna get hate for this, but there was a car meet and I had budgeted it and again, like, it's different if you're making like 20 grand a year. I was probably making 100 grand. And I had budgeted that day only for gas. I didn't have enough for the food. And they're all driving through Malibu and they're going to like this fancy place for lunch. I got a Subway instead. And, you know, we sat down at the table and I asked the server really nicely because it was like a row of like 20 people. Like, can I eat my Subway here?

Oh my god.

And they were totally cool with it. And I figured the tip that I'd leave them is Way less than what I would have spent on this meal that I didn't need. I wanted a Subway. I didn't want to spend $50 on anything. So I just left the tip instead. There you go. And I ate my Subway. They were totally fine with it. I forget what it was. It was a restaurant in Malibu. There were 20 people at the table. I don't know how big the bill would be. But, you know, anyway, like that's the stuff that I, you know, in hindsight, it was cringey to do. Oh, the other thing I would do all the time is if I were out with friends and there's extra food they weren't taking it home, I would.

Be the one being like, you would take it home. Box it up.

Everything. But I would get a whole meal out of that.

That's great.

Yeah. A whole meal.

I need to take more stuff home. That's what I need to do.

Nothing would ever go to waste. Even when we go out with the Oppenheimer group, it was usually the six of us.

Oh, they had lots of good food then.

And Jason was the type Order everything.

And then you take, you got meals for a week.

Yeah, but because he likes to be like, I'm gonna have a few bites of this, a few bites of that, a few bites of this, and then there'd be like half a meal there. And he would just say, oh, I'm gonna get it. No, I'm gonna take it all home. And that, like, I put it in the fridge and I'd live off that for days. So that's, that's a lot. Like, when I made one of my, how much I spend in a week videos, I think my, like, grocery bill is like a hundred and something dollars a month. for food.

I don't know how you do that.

But now a lot of that was subsidized by like eating really good food, but taking it all home and then divvying it up throughout. It's like a meal prep, but it's food that would have gone to waste.

Yeah, yeah. I'm curious, what do you think are the biggest money myths that keep a lot of people broke? Oh.

Money myths that keep people broke. I don't know. I always feel like that you could die tomorrow is a common thing that I would hear a lot of people say if they're like, I'd rather just live now than my perspective is that you can always live tomorrow, too. Like your chances of living tomorrow, knock on this, much higher than passing away. So I think plan for tomorrow is a probably better approach statistically. I feel like you can live just as easily in your 30s and early 40s as you can in your 20s. I'm sure the experiences in your 20s are different. Looking back, I still feel mentally I feel like 23 to 25. I don't think I've grown up since then mentally. I still feel the same age, except I need more sleep now. But I feel like now, I've done so much saving throughout my 20s that now I can finally loosen up to a certain extent.

Buy an extra piece of sushi. It's one piece.

Yeah. I still look at prices. We went out to sushi the other day, I saw a $28 roll and a $15 roll. I'm like, with the 15, I get two of those, which is one of those. I'd rather the two, so I got the two.

If you had to go back.

And.

Just imagine your 18-year-old self, how do you know?

32.

32. So imagine 14 years ago and imagine that you, in a hypothetical world, you had to become a millionaire in half the time. So you had to hit your first million in revenue and sales coming in in half the time from 18 to that time, right? As opposed to when you were, I don't know how old you were.

That was 26.

26. You had to do it at 22-23.

Right?

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It would have been YouTube for me. Yeah, because every day after real estate, I wouldn't watch TV, watch YouTube. That was my version of TV. This was like 2008 and...

Early YouTube.

Very early YouTube. But that was like, I would come home and just watch YouTube videos. That was what I enjoyed doing. I noticed back then that there was no business or entrepreneur content on there. And what really solidified it for me was Rob Dahm. He's a car channel, posted a video about how he was able to buy a Lamborghini Diablo, a 2001, and he made a video in his garage, like way before I liked the Ty Lopez stuff, like way before. But he made a really inspirational video about how what he did for a living to afford a Lamborghini Diablo and was so honest about it. And there was a guy before him. His name was Robert Hilmer or Himmler. I don't know his name. I can't remember his last name, how it's pronounced. He drove a green Lamborghini and was selling a program or a course or something about how to get rich or something like that. There was some speculation that it was like family money or something like that, but he, I believe, owned a car customization shop or something like that. So Rob Dahm made this video basically saying, I'm gonna just tell you what I know for free. I have nothing to sell you. And this is my story. And he posted it. I was so inspired by that. That for me is like, I wanna do that. And what really hit it off for me was that I sent him a message on Instagram. He maybe only had a few thousand subscribers at the time. Or sorry, not Instagram, Facebook. I sent him a message. I'm like, Hey, I love your content. And I could pull it up here if you wanna see it. But my original message back then was like, there's a huge market on YouTube for this type of content. If you double down on this, it could be huge.

Really?

Yeah. I bet I could pull it off.

So this was a video he put on YouTube.

Yeah.

But you messaged him on Facebook. He was just doing a couple videos.

He wasn't doing it consistently. Correct. Hey, Rob. Message from a fan and fellow car enthusiast. I've been watching your videos from before you had 10,000 subscribers and love your videos. I'm so happy how far you've come. You'll be hitting 100,000 subscribers shortly. You've definitely been a great inspiration. I have two questions for you if you have the time. Then I asked what camera might you use? And then what did you find gave your biggest break? Was it uploading content regularly? Was it car videos? Was it inspirational? And then I said, just a comment, I believe you could have a great career in motivational speaking and business. There's a big market for young people who don't relate to Tony Robbins and who have never heard of Napoleon Hill before. Just food for thought, this would be a big opportunity. And then he responded back, he gave his answers and said, I want to be a motivational speaker without actually being a motivational speaker. Haha. And then I said, you know, I think you could take these very, very far in that direction. But that was more than 10 years ago. But I wanted to do that, but I didn't have the courage to do it. Why didn't you have the courage? I didn't have a Lambo. I know how stupid it sounds, but I felt like who would listen to me? What did I have to offer? Like Rob had a business and a Lamborghini.

It was credible.

Yeah, what did I have? Looking back, it's stupid because I could have, I felt I needed either a million dollars, a Lamborghini, something, a show of success because back then that's what you had to do on YouTube. It was like Lamborghinis just got clicks and me starting my career in real estate with 150 grand in savings or still a lot. Looking back, I could have said how to make 100 grand by 20 something. I didn't have the courage. I felt like I would embarrass myself. But had I started back then, I would have been so early. And it was just a feeling like I wanted to do that, but I just didn't put it off for years. So this is something I'm really excited.

You'Re talking about this because I think a lot of people don't have the courage to do the thing they really want to do because they don't feel credible or ready to do it. So what would you say to people who are like, well, I don't have the money. I don't have the credibility yet. I'm just getting started in this thing and I want to start talking about it or creating content or doing whatever, writing a book about it, but who's going to listen to me? What would you say to those people?

You just got to do it. It got to a point for me where I guess the intuition of like, I want to be doing this, why am I not? Started getting to a point where I just felt if I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it. And then I thought to myself, would I look back in the future and regret not doing this? And I thought, yes. And so I just, I secretly made a YouTube channel and filmed a video during an open house. And I'd like just with my iPhone, one took it and, well, I did multiple takes trying to get ready for it. Because people would walk in the house, I'd like put my camera down. But I just posted one video and I was like, I'm just gonna post it up, see what happens. And I had no idea what I was doing, but I learned like as I was doing it. you know, I had the window right here. So I had like realized if I shoot against the window, like I look too like, you know, dark and if I go here, lighting's better, like minor things. Then I looked on YouTube, like how to edit a YouTube video on YouTube, learned iMovie through there, like how to edit a good thumbnail. I could just see what's working and like Derral Eves was a big one for me, like learning the about like SEO and stuff like that, like how to rank. Michael back then was just to rank on the first page for different key search results. So, like, I wanted to rank first page for passive income, how to be a millionaire, real estate. The first one I ranked was 2008, it's so niche, 2008 Lotus Exige S240. And there were like 20 videos on there with like 20,000 plus views. And I was like, I want to be on the first page. So I made my video, Lotus Exige S240 review, you know, 2008, something like that. And I slowly watched it just climb and I shared it online and like that didn't help but like over time it just kept doing better.

Yeah.

So I just, you've just gotta start.

Do you feel like you have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset?

I don't know. Probably degree of both, I would say. I don't like loss. Some really like Risk adverse when it comes to stuff like that. Like I'm okay losing a certain percentage because it's like, okay, if you have $100, if you lose a penny, it's not that big of a deal. So it's like things like that in terms of a percentage don't faze me. But just in general, I'm really against loss. So like whatever I get, I'm very conservative with it because I want to make it last. So in terms of that, I would say a scarcity mindset. there is some abundance though in terms of like bigger opportunities and pursuing, I would say passions, not afraid to do that anymore. But yeah, financially, I'm just very conservative.

Yeah. What's the investment you've made that had the biggest loss? Financial investment. Like in an asset class.

Oh, an asset class.

Like stocks or crypto or real estate. Did you ever lose a bunch of money that you're like, man, I put 100 grand in.

Are we talking dollar amount or percentage?

Dollar amount.

Yeah. Very stupid when I bought Robin Hood stock. That was probably the worst loss.

Individual stock.

That was an individual stock I, I picked.

What'd you put in it? Roughly.

200 Grand.

200 Grand. How much you lose?

It's down like 60, 70 by the time I sold.

So 150 Grand or something.

Yeah, that was, that was. That was stupid. It still was in the ratios of like, what was acceptable to me in terms of a percentage. But it was stupid. I mean, it was just like, that was a gamble.

Was that an emotional loss?

It was when their stock dropped. They saw a substantial drop, and I'm like, people are still posting their screenshots on Wall Street Bets. Robin Hood has a lot of cash. They're not going anywhere. There's so many places to pivot. Take a risk on this. And I think I put 100 grand in that. And then it dropped even more. I'm like, I'm gonna double down on.

This because oh, man.

Stupid. That was stupid. But again, like in the big picture, we're talking about, you know, if the portfolio size is, let's say, 8 million bucks, like we're talking about, like, you know, 200 grand total of that. So in a percentage, it's like not that bad. But when you think of the dollar, I don't think of the dollar amount. Like, I basically want to throw up. If you're like, Ugh, it's the worst. That was a stupid one. Now, I do have others that make up for it. Sure, sure. Other side, I think Enphase at one point was up like 400 and something percent. The original Tesla I bought was up 2,000 percent. So like I had, winners on that.

That's big.

And I sold almost all my Tesla, too, back in March. The high. Which was luck, because I sold it to buy a Tesla Roadster, and then I just kept selling it afterwards because I was like, well, now I sold this, I may as well just reinvest it in the S&P. And I'm like, I'm still getting an equal exposure in the S&P, just putting it there and it's safer. And that was just luck. But I also had the opposite of that. I sold my original half. My original half, I think I sold in 2020 when it had increased threefold really quickly. Looking back, I mean, that's still way cheaper than it is today. Like, oh, well, you win some, you lose some. So that's why it's like individual stocks, such a tiny part of my portfolio, but looking bad. It's a stupid, I would have been better off just putting all of it.

It is fun.

But, yeah, I mean, you get it out of your system.

Yeah, of course. I'm curious, you've been talking about your prediction on your channel for what's going to happen this year. A lot of financial experts have been talking about, you know, the prediction of a potential crash, crisis, all these different things in 2023. If you could, based on all the information you have, all the research you've done, you've done, you do so much research in every video, and you know a lot of these experts and what they're talking about. If you could have a, you know, magic ball and see what is going to happen in 2023 over the next 6 to 12 months, what do you think is likely to happen?

Gosh, I have no clue. I mean, anything that I think is going to happen, just like the opposite does always. So I've just accepted that the best thing that I could do is, like, look at historical data and just extrapolate based on that over the next 10 years. I think 2020 has shown us like everyone is wrong. Like no one could have predicted what would have happened. No one could have predicted the Fed turning around as quickly as they did. It was like pumping in that much money. Yeah, like all of that was so sudden that like there aren't models that exist to account for stuff like that. So I just think, yeah, in terms of that, I have no clue. Yeah.

What are the experts saying? Are they saying there's gonna be inflation?

There's gonna be... What's funny is that whatever you wanna see, you could find experts saying exactly that. So when you look at S&P 500 estimates, there are people guessing for the S&P to end at 5,000 or to end at 28. And so, like, if you could find reasons for and against anything, I think the general consensus seems to be the S&P is probably gonna be like 34 to 36. Seven by the end of the year, that's like the average. So I think a lot of people take the approach, well, if the downside risk is that, but the upside is right now I can make 5% of my money in treasuries, like that seems like the better option. From my perspective, this is just what I think. I think if treasuries are paying 4.5% to 5% risk free, it makes it very enticing to put your money there over stocks. There has to be a risk premium that's built in where people find more opportunity in stocks to take that risk to make it worth it. I think the same thing also applies to real estate. If properties are generating 5%, but someone's making 4.5% risk-free, locked in for the next two years, that's more enticing.

Sure.

So I think there's got to be enough of a divergence between the two. Stocks have to be so cheap to want to take the risk in that versus, like, well, I get 6% guaranteed. if the S&P was trading at 1500 right now, everyone would be like, oh, I'm going to buy that. Screw Treasuries. So I'm interested to see how that'll play out. I think a lot of people are waiting for the Fed to pivot, to pause, or to maybe even reduce. I don't think they're going to come out and say that that's their plan, because as soon as they do, then the market goes up and everyone starts spending again. So I think the Fed has just got to play their hand close. I think a lot is they're looking to them.

And a lot has happened in the last couple of years with crypto, NFTs, and now AI coming in. A lot of them are around AI. What's your thoughts on crypto, NFTs, AI in terms of building wealth for the future? When it seems like there's been a lot of scams and all these different things and get rich quick schemes and people losing a lot of money, how can people use these tools or should they even consider them? to build wealth in the future?

I never understood NFTs. That was the one thing that I really tried to get into it. I wanted to buy a Crypto Punk, but I just didn't. I thought it was neat to have the original, but Crypto Kitties was the original one. I never really understood. I never got into NFTs. Crypto, I've had an on and off relationship with because I bought Bitcoin originally. 2017.

For how much?

1615, 17. And I like they traded it because for me it's like everyone is talking about Bitcoin and at the time it went from basically $1,000 from when I started making YouTube videos to 17. And so that whole rise people are calling me make a video about Bitcoin. I didn't get it. I'm like, I don't understand it. And I thought when I made that video, like I'm gonna buy a Bitcoin. and see if I understand firsthand what it's about. And maybe like me buying into it, I could just feel firsthand what everyone else is feeling. That helps. Sometimes when I'm talking about something, it's hard to talk about something objectively without having been in it. And then once you're in it, you could kind of see like you put on the goggles and you see like, wow, this is what everyone else sees and experiences. This is why they feel this way. So I bought a Bitcoin, but I was like, I had so much fun trading it because it was like 24/7. It's like you could be there at like, and I was just having so much fun like 2 o'clock in the.

Morning, like checking and going up and down.

But I was making like these little 20, $30 like profits. Like it went off and I just sell and then I place a limit and then like buy and like do this, but I just like trade it. and then from there, I just spread it amongst a whole bunch of like, you know, crap coins just for fun. But I don't just really focus just on Bitcoin, really.

So where do you feel like AI is going to be coming now for building wealth? Do you think anything is there around?

I think it's probably too early. I worry AI is going to become like the next hypey sort of thing, and I could see it going in that direction. I don't know how that'll come about, but I could totally see like a year or two from now, like AI become the next like crypto boom, NFT, Web 3.0, all these things, yeah.

Something like that.

I think like with crypto, I could see there being a huge future in that in terms of like the blockchain and like its use cases. I think I'm surprised they haven't created a digital dollar yet. Like I think that's coming. I think it's gonna get to the point where everyone, like you get a social security number, you get a wallet.

I know.

And they know exactly how much goes into that wallet, how much goes out, where it goes. Like imagine every dollar has a tracking device in it. That's great. And they could see like, wait a second, you received this dollar, you got paid from this person, but you paid it out to here. Why wasn't there a tax? Why didn't you claim it? I think it's all gonna get to that point in the future. There's gonna be no privacy. Now they can't get away with physical money at all. for probably quite some time. It's always gonna be legal tender. Like imagine trying to like scrounge up dollars from them.

Like you're not gonna get a good meal. There's some restaurants that don't take physical currency. In LA, yeah, it's getting that way.

Where it's only through the app. They just don't, you know. I think they're gonna make it so convenient and they're gonna build so many walls around using cash that people are gonna go, oh, I'm gonna pay attention to it. So I think cryptocurrency is going to provide an option for them to do a digital dollar. to track everything. And they'll know if they'll try to curb anything and just track it. So I could see it going in that direction. So I think it's a ton of opportunity. I also think someone else had mentioned this. It makes sense to me. Verifying luxury goods. If you want to buy, let's say, a Ferrari, you have something on the blockchain that says you are the owner. This is built by Ferrari. Here's all the details. Buy Louis Vuitton bag. and the replicas are getting so good. You want to verify it's that, here's a little NFT thing that comes with it. You can scan it and you are the owner. It belongs to this.

Right.

So I could see that.

That's interesting.

So that's where I think it's going, but I think we're just in that initial boom phase and it's going to develop and I think the potential is huge. And that's why I don't know if Bitcoin Ethereum is going to be something that stands out like an Amazon of the.com bubble, or if it's going to be a, Geocities where it's like nobody uses that. So I don't think we know quite yet, but I do think there's a ton of potential in that. AI, I don't know. I'm not smart enough to understand it.

I don't know anything about it.

So yeah, I think it's really cool. What I was saying in my video yesterday, I think it's going to get to a point where AI is going to be able to create any video you want. Like imagine you searching and getting a tutorial for anything you need. and it's created in AI. Like, here's an example.

Like, here's an example.

Yeah. Like, here's an example. But it's gonna be so lifelike that you're not gonna know this isn't a person making a video. Like, imagine you're changing a car in a 2006 Toyota Prius. You type in YouTube, how to change tire 2006 Toyota Prius. You're gonna get videos of people who've made that, but it's not gonna be, maybe not gonna be a 2006, it's gonna be a 2005. It's not gonna be the same color. There's gonna be an intro, fluff, all that sort of stuff. But imagine if you type that in. AI could create that video based on the blueprints of that car, how to change a tire, and it shows your exact car, a 2006 Toyota Prius, how to change the tire. Here's what you do. Here's where the tool is. Here's this. Here's what you do. And if you have a question, how do I get the lug nut on when it's too tight? And it creates a video, how to get the lug nut off that's too tight. But that's why can't it do that in the future?

I think it can. I've got a couple of final questions for you. What's your money goals? If you could predict, it's 2030, seven years away.

Seven years, yeah.

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I mean, I feel like I'm already there, but like it would be cool to be able to make a million a year in passive income. I think would be really cool just from investments. I think would be a neat goal to have. I think it's doable.

What do you need to make a million dollars a year in passive? How does the calculations work for you?

Probably about 25 million invested in relatively safe investments.

Real estate, index funds.

Yeah, I'm talking net. So net of all mortgage payments, just purely profit a million a year.

So you think you need 25 million in assets?

Maybe less if it's a Real estate, you could probably do that with like 15 to 20, depending on the property you buy and if it's triple net and how much work you're doing on that. So I think it's doable. It depends on the investment, it just depends on what's the opportunity at the time. But I like having a split between index funds and real estate because I feel like they're different enough where I'm not too concentrated.

Sure, sure.

That's cool. But that would be just a goal if I'm saying anything.

A million a year. Probably passive income. It's pretty inspiring. You have a lot of sushi with that.

You could, yeah.

Would you start spending more with that million in cash? Would you look at it as like, now I can spend on whatever, or what would you think about then?

I have no idea. I'd probably get a bigger aquarium. Realistically though, I would say traveling first class, which you could do with credit card points, but being able to do that more frequently, I do want to travel. I think that's a goal of mine to do one day. I really want to do van life at some point. Van life. I'm like, yeah, I really want to.

Get a nice van and go around the country.

Yeah, I think take the podcast on the road. That'd be fun. Do van life, I think would be so fun. I'd like visit all 50 states. I think would be really cool. Spend six months doing that.

That's cool.

Travel, I think would be a lot of fun. Bigger aquarium. But for the most part, like I'm, I think at this point I just want to buy back my time and just be able to enjoy the things. Like the other day, It sounds stupid, but like it was a weekday and I just wanted to read a book. Like I never wanted to read a book. Like I don't, I'm not a reader necessarily for books. Like I'll read anything online. Like if it's on Reddit, I'll read the whole thing. But I just felt like reading a book. But I was like, well, but I got so much work I need to do and like I'd feel better getting caught up and like ahead than I would reading the book. But I really wanted to read the book. So I think I'll probably lean more in the direction of like taking more time. Like even doing a trip like this, like a year ago I wouldn't have done it because I'm like, I'm so focused on I just need to make videos and anything that distracts me from that. I don't think I was my happiest doing that because I like, I just felt so stressed. Like, you know, there's just, just random things that I was not fully like in the moment for because my mind was constantly thinking, like YouTube videos. What would be a good title for tomorrow's video? Like, be like people around having conversations and I'd be there. And I'd be present, but like there's like that 20% of my brain that's thinking like YouTube in the back of my mind. It's always there. I don't think it's gonna go away, but I would like to scale back from that a little bit. Get you out there more in the moment.

We'll have to get you out there once every couple months then for a couple days.

I think so.

That's good, man. Graham Stephan show on YouTube, you've got some amazing content over there. I love it. You've got the podcast as well. which is really exciting. How can we, iced coffee hours, go off the podcast. You guys can see it both on YouTube. How can we be of best service for you? You got over 4. something million subscribers now. What can we do to serve you?

I don't want anything. I would just say if you want to subscribe, that would be cool. Subscribe to your channel. I don't know. I just say just I'd subscribe to your channel. Like at this point, I'm fine. I would rather just, you know, guys, subscribe here on this channel.

It would be really nice. Subscribe to both of our channels.

Yes.

This is one of the questions I ask everyone at the end is called the three truths question. So imagine another hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on earth. You live as long as you want to live and you accomplish everything. Your money goals, life goals, they all happen. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your content with you. So no one has access to your information, your content, YouTube, whatever else you create, it goes to some other place when you die in the future.

So it just gets deleted?

It gets, well, maybe it's just we don't have access to it. It's somewhere else. Hypostatic.

It's private.

Yeah, it's private. It's on Listit. But for whatever reason, you have the opportunity to share three final truths with the world. Three things that you know to be true that you would share as lessons to the world. And that's all we would have of your content left. What would be again, off the top of your head, those three truths for you?

I don't know. I don't know if there's like any absolute truths out there.

Or just lessons that you would want to share. Three?

I would say, gosh, like probably self belief, like believing you can do something is very important. I think people are drawn to confidence. And so if you could learn how to be your best self and accept that, I think that would go a long way. And I think the less concerned you are with what other people think, usually the better they think about you because you're not afraid to be yourself. I think everyone is scared to be themselves. And so when they see someone else, else, just like, you know, not caring. Other people look up to that in a way that so many people can't do. So I would say like those things universally for me have been true.

That's cool, man. Final question for you before I ask it. I want to acknowledge you, Graham, for your commitment and dedication. It's been incredible what you've created over the last, you know, five years on YouTube. Every week you show up and give something inspiring, informational and entertaining. and I know it takes you days of research and days of work and you're doing a lot of it on your own and you've helped a lot of people, educate them, learn and learn about a scary subject for a lot of people, which is money, in a fun way. So I really acknowledge you for how you keep showing up. Thanks. And I know it's a lot of work and I know it's, you know, you're probably going to figure out how to make it happen in the future at scale, but what you've created in the last four or five years has been really inspiring. Thank you. So like now for your efforts, your intelligence and your creativity. It's really cool.

Thanks.

Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Oh man, I would just say honestly to help others. I think if you make an impact on someone else's life and it's a positive impact and you could, they have a good feeling towards that. I think there's nothing better than that. Anytime I meet somebody who's like, yeah, I bought my first house because of you and my credit score is great. Then I turn my finances around and now I have like 10K in the bank and I was broke. Just the impact, because I know how that would feel for me. For me, meeting Rob Dahm for me would be one of those moments where I'm like, dude, you have no idea how much you've helped me. Just your video on how to buy a Lamborghini was like, set me off. And I'll remember that for the rest of my life. And so just having that for other people, I think is so insane. It's hard to put into words. But it's so neat. And then you feel like you've got a friend. And so everyone I meet who's like, if they watch my videos, I know they're like into personal finance, investing, building wealth. Chances are they're an entrepreneur. And so like we're instant friends because of that, like no matter what their background is. It's just neat and I've never had that before.

I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis house. I really love hearing the feedback from you, and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. What's up, podcast listeners? It's Tinx, host of the It's Me, Tinx podcast. Join me weekly on It's Me, Tinx as I dive into topics like relationships, why it's okay to feel lonely, fighting summer comparison, and pop culture's hottest takes. I don't shy away from getting candid about my personal experiences, and I want to share all the advice I have learned with you. I'm even joined by some of my friends like Claudia Oshry, Connor Wood, and Amanda Hirsch each Friday for our new Office Hours episodes. You can listen to It's Me, Tank's every Monday, Wednesday and Friday wherever you listen to podcasts.

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