BIG ALERT: How To Prepare For The CHANGING WORLD ORDER That Has Begun! | Ray Dalio

By world order, I mean the system that's in place run by the people who have the power, and then they determine what the system is like. You change orders, usually by wars.

And what do you believe will happen if we don't prepare for the changing world order then?

I think that there's better than an even chance of a bad— this video.

Is brought to you by Athletic Greens, and we'll hear more from them in just a moment. I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness. Really? Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes. You have this incredible new book out, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order. And I want everyone to get this because it is full of such rich information and context to really your predictions of the future based on what has happened in the past. And you have been dealing and understanding with the ideas of wealth, money, management, investing, and really how nations have been shifting this wealth over many years. And you've been analyzing this for a long time. And all the content you've been putting out there lately has been blowing people away. Some people, it's exciting them. Some people, it's terrifying them because they're not sure what is coming. But you really share that there's three main things. that we should be paying attention to right now. And one of them is that.

The.

Abundance of printing with money right now. And you talk about this concept that cash is trash. Can we start with this first principle that you've been talking about and what we should be aware of that's coming?

Sure. To put that in context before we get into the cash part, Yeah, I'm a global macro investor and economics markets and politics and geopolitics all matter. And there were three things that are happening, you pointed them out, three things that are happening in our lifetimes that never happened in my lifetime or our lifetimes, and that I learned before I had to study past periods. And those three things, as you point out, are the creation, a lot of debt and money. The second is the amount of internal conflict that we're having over money and values and what that's like. And the third is the changing world order with countries like China and Russia competing with the United States in a way that didn't exist before. So back to the point that you're making about that money, it's a basic thing. Everybody agrees we need more money and we need more spending. But if you spend more than you earn, you have to borrow. And that creates debt. But at first it's credit, so it gives you buying power. Right. But you have to pay it back and that becomes depressing. And so in order to avoid that, central banks can print money and buy it back, right? But when they do that, that depreciates the value of money. So what we had was a lot of money and credit go out to a lot of people, a lot of buying power. Everybody, when they got it, they thought, oh, that's great. And somehow they seemed surprised that when they spend it, the prices of everything go up. Okay, but the truth is that if you divide the amount of money and credit that's used for spending by the quantity of goods produced, you can calculate, well, the prices will change. And so that's what's going on. And that's what went on in a giant wave, the Federal Reserve and the government together, a giant wave. And that produced a giant amount of inflation, a giant amount of inflation.

Is it 8.5% right now? Is that what it is?

Yeah, well, it depends. I mean, if you, it depends which number you're using. It's between 7.5% if you use year over year, or if you take the core inflation rate, It's closer to 12 and it's rising. There's some temporary influence, but it's basically because of the amount of spending. You can measure the amount of spending, not because of the bottlenecks.

And for people that maybe are hearing this inflation and have been hearing this recently before we finish the first point, for a lot of people, when I grew up, I never understood what inflation even meant. They didn't teach this to me in school. They weren't teaching this in high school, college. It really wasn't a thing that I learned. I just heard it and knew that people were worried about the cost of things increasing. Can you explain what that actually means to us? For someone who's making $70,000 a year in the Midwest, what does that mean to them?

Well, buying power is what matters, right? And so what happens is when inflation goes up, faster than your other sources of income, you lose buying power.

Okay.

But what happens is somehow that seems more acceptable sometimes to people than if it was just taken out of your pocket. You see, if they, let's say, raise taxes or take it out of somebody's pocket, Everybody complains whoever's had the pocket taken out of. But if it comes through printing of money and everybody gets checks, it's more acceptable. But what happens is those who are holding money, like money market funds and bond funds, lose the buying power of that. So think about those bond funds. Those bond funds are down about 10%. and inflation is up over, let's call it 8%. So they lost 18% of the buying power. So it releases, it relieves debt. We think of it as meaning higher prices, but to some extent, that's a rich man's perspective because they say, oh, now I have to pay more. But the reality is you don't get more stuff. from that higher inflation. And so it bids it out of the hands of some people. And that hurts the people who don't get it, because it's really... So that's what's going on. You lose buying power. And so we're seeing a time now where you're going to lose buying power to inflation, and now you're going to see the Federal Reserve also tighten money, tighten money and credit and raise interest rates. And when they do that, that creates less buying power. Because when they, you know, they say, okay, now you can't spend as much money and the prices are going high, but they do that in their crude way of trying to reduce inflation. But you get it from both ends. the higher prices, and then the higher interest rates you have to pay, and also, and the higher debt service costs, and also less availability of money. So it's a squeeze, like the squeeze that happened in the 1970s.

So does that mean, I mean, if someone is hearing this and they're thinking, okay, inflation's going up, the buying power is going down, this is squeeze, is this going to happen for five years, 10 years? Is it eventually going to, level out? What should we be expecting, do you think?

These things go in paradigm shifts that quite often take a relatively long time because everybody's mindset is in a paradigm shift. Everybody's mindset is in a certain place and they're doing certain things. For example, investors think that cash is safe. and they don't pay much attention to inflation. And then what happens is they get inflation and they realize that if I'm holding cash, I'm losing buying power. So then they shift, they sell out their cash or they sell out their bonds and they put that into other things. And when they do that, that also contributes to inflation. Changes like that also happen in a lot of ways, like cost of living increases in compensation. Where in the past, when they don't worry about inflation, then they don't think about, do I have an inflation linked contract for my work? Or do I have enough inflation assets? be, oh, do I need to buy, I'm going to store my money in a house or I might store my thing. And so that pendulum swing from one mindset and one positioning to another mindset and another positioning in the early stages tends to be self-reinforcing. Those actions produce more inflation and more inflation psychology until that goes to the opposite extreme. Like in the 1970s, people were surprised about what happened because they weren't used to inflation much. Then you had the inflation, and in the beginning, it swung. And then at the end of it, they said, Inflation will never end, and everybody's position for it never ending. And then, of course, what happens is it's so bad that then the central bank goes the opposite extreme. and then they get surprised. And so the '80s was a period which was the exact opposite of the '70s, where you have falling inflation, high real interest rates and so on. And so the worst assets to own in the '70s were bonds, and the best assets to own in the '80s were bonds. So you see these pendulum swings that way.

So what would you say are the best assets to own in this decade?

Well, the best assets to not own, that's the most important thing I think, is cash, and I've quoted cash is trash. There will be a tightening here for the time being, and that tightening will have an effect. It'll hurt asset prices and so on. But cash is not the asset to hold. and bonds are not good to own in my opinion, because it's debt, it's owning somebody's debt. And you won't get a return, think of it, the interest rate will not reach the inflation rate. So that's the problem. So you'll have that or what? Then what you have to have, I think most importantly, is a well diversified portfolio of other assets. Diversification is a very powerful tool because it can reduce risks without reducing expected returns. Now, there's lots of ways of getting what you think good investments are. They might be things you know about and the local businesses and so on, or they might be stocks, or they could be maybe a little gold or maybe a little bit foreign investing. Diversification is very important to do that in a balanced way. so I would generally say that that would be what I would recommend.

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I remember going through this 'cause I didn't have any money.

When was this, right?

Oh, this was 1982-83. I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad to help to take care of my family bills. So I remember thinking, How many weeks could I live if I lost my income? And I started counting in weeks and I would try to go out because if I got hit, so I think that's the way to do it. You start to count how many weeks, can it be a month, a year, can I get up to a year? I didn't like that because of the fact that There's an obligation and it's like, oh, if I get, then I'm going to be drowning. I'm trying to keep my head against water. This is just my own bias. But anyway, count how many you can, and then assume that it's buying power over the next number of years can fall by 3% or 4% a year, or if you put it in a risky investment, like stocks or something, It could buy more. So cut that number maybe in half and have twice as much. Because you have to understand that that's your freedom. That is your safety. So that first band you must take care of, that first band, take care of that. Once you get past that and you feel, okay, I could take care of my family and I could take care of mine in a worst case scenario, then you have the freedom to then take other kinds of risk. But when you're building that portfolio, it's the same thing as when you have a lot of portfolio past that, just you want to diversify well. Because you could see what happens to the markets. Every market, stock market, bond market, most markets have had times where they've gone down over an extended period, 60 or 70% in buying power. So I think diversify, count that and build it and realize that's your saving. One thing I do for my kids and grandkids and always did, as long as I could start to afford it, was for every holiday, like Christmas or their birthday, I would give them a gold coin. And I said, I never want you to sell that gold coin until there's an emergency, a real emergency, never because you want to buy things. And the reason I did that, and they'll build over a period of time, that'll build something. And I said, don't even sell it, you pass it to your kids unless there's an emergency. Okay? And so you're building that savings. Because I think we so easily spend so much money on junk. You know, so anything that I would give them, whatever it would be, I don't know, a piece of clothing, a thingamajig, a toy or something, will probably be gone. in a year. And so the power of saving and that resource, the relief it gives you and the power it gives you is so great. So yes, save it, diversify it.

I'm going to continue to stay on this topic, but also go off a little bit because you mentioned how, I guess it was 40 years ago, you lost your money and you had to borrow $4,000 from your father. to just kind of survive and pay your bills. How much money had you built before then, before losing it?

I remember it wasn't like it was a ton.

Gotcha.

You know, I was fairly early in my career. I had a small investment business. I don't remember what it was exactly, but it wasn't a ton.

I'm curious how you, from having some money to losing it, how you then went on a 40-year, four-decade run of getting to where you're at now. Was there something in your mindset that allowed you to believe in yourself still?

Oh, yeah.

That didn't say, oh, I've lost it all out. You know, I don't believe in myself anymore because I just ruined my finances.

That extremely painful experience was probably the best experience of my life.

Really?

And it changed my way of thinking ways I'll describe. But let me say, before that, I didn't have much money. My dad was a jazz musician. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. And I felt, of course, rich. I had two parents who loved me. I went to a public school. And then when I was a kid, I did odd jobs and I caddied. And so when I put in the stock market when I was 12 and I got hooked on the game. So I never had much money, but then I built up some and then had that experience. And so that experience, which was also a very public experience, was very painful, but it changed my approach to decision making in really a profound way. First, it gave me the humility and fear of being wrong that balanced my audacity to double check myself and in fact, try to find the smartest people I could who disagreed with me to have them stress test my thinking. So I'm never sure if I'm right. My track record of being right is probably 70 or 75%ish somewhere in that 70%, let's say, something like that. And I'm used to being wrong sometimes. And it's painful. So the stress testing of my opinions gave me an open-mindedness to learn a lot. Also diversification. I learned how to diversify without reducing my risks. If I could take a lot of uncorrelated bets, the return will equal the average of those bets, but the risk can be up to 80% less. And it changed my, it really caused me to reflect because I remember thinking to myself, it felt like, I was sitting next to a jungle and I could sit on the safe side. There's always risk in return. And what would I do? Would I have a less great upside and be safe? Or would I go through crossing this jungle at which things could kill me or whatever? in an attempt to have a great upside, a great life, a great upside. And so that puzzle led me to do the things I described, but also I knew that I had to go have the great upside and not be constrained by the risk. And so I did the two things that I've described, but going into the puzzle, I found that it was great that to find people who could see things that I couldn't see, and vice versa, so that we were on the mission together, because people see things differently. I learned how people see things differently. Somebody will spot this or that, and then that back and forth helps you make better decisions. And if you're on the same mission with them. So one of the things I wanted was this meaningful work and meaningful relationships. And I found that that was so good that when I, you know, sort of got to the other side, like, you know, I had enough money and upside or whatever, I still wanted to stay in the jungle and I still wanted to do this because the act of, of, of doing that with people that I was doing this meaningful work and meaningful relationships with was rewarding in and of itself, as well as success. So one of the things that you can learn is that you can see through other people's eyes. That doesn't mean you accept what they say blindly. It's that you think about their reasoning. And if you do that, that's good. It also gave me a principle, which is one of my fundamental principles, which is pain plus reflection equals progress. Okay? We have this pain, whatever it is. And okay, the reaction is a negative reaction and can almost be, why did that thing happen to me? And so on. If instead, when one calms down from the pain, there is a lesson there about how reality works. Okay, it happened. Reality works that way. And then there's a thought, how do I deal with it better to produce better? What's my lesson? And if you acquire that, I used to acquire, I would acquire that, I still acquire that. And then I wrote them down as principles in my books. That's why the collection of principles, it's like a journal. Pain plus reflection equals that. And then you write down the principle, like a. And that's what the collection of principles came from. That has. So that event, that painful event, was the basis of going from, you know, where I was, which was broke, to, you know, where things, where I am and where I'm transpiring, which is trying to pass along my wealth and. And my advice to others now.

And your wisdom. Yeah, I'm curious, how long did it take for you to intrinsically not be afraid to take those actions again or, you know, build again?

I'm faced with the choice. Okay, like, I mean, literally at the time, was I going to, you know, put on a suit and tie and get on the railroad and go down to Wall Street and do a job? Or was I going to do something else? And with that job, what will that job be like? What would that mean? So as you face, we always face the choice, right? The choice is a puzzle. Okay? Like I said, you know, risk and return go together. I don't wanna get punched in the face like this again. But I want the return. and how do I do that? So that's the reflection that taught me these other things, the diversification, finding the smartest people disagree with me, working on the mission with others who could see things that I can't see, and so on. And that's what worked. So you have to solve your puzzle.

Yeah, because a lot of people say, you know, no, if you want big rewards, you got to take big risks. But what I'm hearing you say is.

Of their- that's not true.

Then what is the truth then?

The truth is that if you find individual bets that are diversifying, that your return will equal the average of those returns, but your risk can be cut by 80%.

Were you making individual, I guess, investments or individual bets back in the day?

Well, by a bet, I mean like if you say, I'm going to invest in the stock market.

Yes, yes.

You can see whatever the bet is, you can see, look back in history, it gives you a pretty good idea of how it goes up and down, what your risks are. Do that by looking at it in inflation-adjusted terms is the best way. but it goes up and down and you can see how your buying power is. And if you say, if the worst case happened, what would that look like? And I'm telling you, like I'm saying, that could be that the worst case is when you look at that is something like 60 or 70% in buying power, whether that's stocks or bonds. Okay. Okay, that's what the risk looks like. However, if you do that with uncorrelated investments, when one goes up, like when commodities go up, bonds go down, or that kind of thing, and you balance things, then you find some part goes up and another part when the other part goes down. And by doing that, you can reduce the risk without reducing the return. It's in my books. I explain it and I show it in my first book, Principles. There's a chart that explains in a couple of pages and I call it the Holy Grail of Investing. Holy Grail means if you follow this path, this will be the key to your riches. And what that is, is 10 to 15 good uncorrelated return streams.

Gotcha. You mentioned debt as well. What's your view on debt these days? Because you mentioned how you didn't want debt back in the day, but is that still something you don't want?

I always have to think about what's the worst case scenario? Can I handle the worst case scenario, whatever that is, right? Because it's also, you can be a great investor, you can be great at anything, and it'll only be one time that knocks you out.

Right.

One time will kill you. So you have to think about that. Now, it's often the case that I believe I can produce a significantly higher return, I have, than the cost that I pay for debt. So it's a logical thing to do it, and I still don't do it much. Right. Because of that. and like, and there's one thing about debt for consumption and debt for investment.

Yes.

Like debt for consumption is really bad, okay? Because it goes away, the asset goes away and you're let with this obligation and, you know, that's risky and it's stressful, you know, and it piles up. you're living above your means, don't do that. It's not a good idea. Whereas if you have debt for investment, you better be pretty sure that the returns on that investment will be higher than you have to give back in money in the form of both interest rates and the principal repayments.

What are the best, I guess, investments in your mind to use debt with?

Well, if you fund it to its term, the best investments are typically those things that you're closest to, and they fall into two types. Those that affect your living standards. Like I think owning a house or an apartment or your residence, it affects your life a lot. and the cost of it is not the cost of it. In other words, you buy it at a certain price. It's not like the thing that goes away and you consume, so you'll sell it at a certain price. And probably you'll modify it over a period of time. You'll make things and it produces kind of a forced savings that also brings you joy and brings you a better environment Generally speaking. So like I was just recently asked by a young couple, should they buy that? I forgot it was a little house or apartment or should they not? And then they sort of say, you know, if I don't do that, I can travel more. Okay, but the travel will go away. as an asset. Okay, so just be mindful where that will save and think about also the joy that the house brings you. So I sort of think that that's generally a good thing to do thinking about the total return. And then the other thing is things that you might know really, really well, but you could still take the cycle. You know, is it your own little business? How do you do that? And then can you ride the cycle, the cycle, the worst case scenario? So those are the two things that I think that are good for. And one thing that isn't good for is consumption.

Right, exactly. The whole changing world order, for people that don't know what the changing world order is, why we should be prepared for it. Is it really these main three things we've talked about the first one? Is that what it is, or is it something bigger that we should be worried about or concerned about?

These produce big things, like financial crises or civil wars or external wars. So we should be concerned about those things. Yeah. So we talked about the financial, the second one that's happening in a way that never happened in my lifetime before is the way we are with each other in terms of internal conflict that has created a polarization, which is a win at all costs mentality.

Is this nothing that you saw when you were growing up?

Oh, no, no, no. It was not like this. And I measure in the book a lot of measurements. Okay. I could tell you that the amount, but you'll see in there, the amount of political polarity and the amount of compromise. The amount of political polarity is the greatest since 1900. The amount of compromise is the lowest it's been. It's measured by how people will cross voting across party lines. There are two monoliths and they're at war with each other. okay? And we have populism, which is you have to get on one side or the other, okay? And so when the causes that people are behind are more important to them than the system, the system is in jeopardy. So you see this reflected right now in the politicalization and ideologies out of war, you know? And I'll give you lots of examples, or I'll give you a few. The risk of neither party accepting losing the elections is high, is significant. Right. How does that work if they don't accept losing the elections? Okay. The move toward power dynamics. Let's say a good example will be there is a couple of Supreme Court rulings that are coming out related to abortion and gun rights. It would not be surprising to me if those Supreme Court rulings are not followed by some states.

Interesting. Or.

Another good example would be- so.

Essentially saying we're passing a law, but then the state's saying we're not going to abide by the law.

Right. and, and, and you're seeing it's hard ball. It's hard ball. It's like, you know, Governor DeSantis of Florida and Disney, you know, ordinarily there is, okay, we do it by fighting each other and what kind of power testing each other's power almost to hurt each other. And, and that's, and so the idea of democracy is compromise and reaching across that the law and the rule is of a higher purpose than anything else. But when you get other things that are more important to people that they're willing to fight for, then you get greater and greater and it's self-reinforcing because moderates Arpu people who want to work across party lines and so on and compromise are through history, through the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Chinese Revolution, or these are civil wars. In all of those cases, the moderates are either they're hurt or they're disposed of. and you have to pick a side.

Really?

Well, but you're seeing this now. You're seeing right now that the political parties are united in one way or another. There's not much. And you better pick a side, because that's what it's like. So that can have an impact. important consequences in terms of conflict. In other words, it's power. And that's happening not just internally, and it's certainly happening internally, but it's happening externally too. But internally, there's a dynamic that is going on in which the ideologies rather than normal economics that we're used to, normal politics and normal economics rather than that, the ideologies are dominant. So for example, you think about that when Elon Musk buys Twitter, the decisions he will make regarding Twitter will probably have a greater effect on our society than the decisions the Supreme Court makes.

Wow, that's crazy.

Right.

What's your thoughts on that? Him buying Twitter and doing what he's.

Gonna do with it? It's a reflection that it's one of the symptoms, like DeSantis and Disney, like tax president, like the Supreme Court, whatever. It's one of the symptoms that the ideology that I'm fighting for the power that I have, that it's not normal economics in the usual way. There used to be normal economics was, it's all just kind of almost you don't care about ideologies or something. You're just getting an ROI and that the system will be better off if we allocate resources that way. and so on. Now it's that the system is better off if we ideologically choose the things we want and put the resources in that and that there's a power game. So it's a different game that people should be aware of.

Yeah. I mean, you said one of your quotes is a nation's greatest war is within itself. over whether or not it can make the hard decisions needed to sustain success. Is there even a way we can unite behind a common purpose in the United States in your mind? Or is it the power dynamics in human psychology is so strong that people are going to be making these decisions and not want to unite over the next few years and decades?

I have a principle which is that if you worry, you don't have to worry. And if you don't worry, you need to worry. Because if you worry about things like, if you worry because you get yourself into too much debt and you've got that, then you'll do, you won't do that. If, in our particular case, if you read about the consequences of what it's happened in history about that, and you look at the likelihood and you say, okay, we can have this kind of a conflict or we could have that kind of a conflict, external conflict, and boy, these conflicts are terrible. Maybe that sort of brings us more together because we have the power together if we don't fight each other in that way and we can compromise and so on. We have the power to produce incredible great results because We have more resources than we ever did. There's more by any measure. Life expectancy is greater, GDP is greater, technologies are greater and so on. So in a sense, our riches and our intelligence is greater than ever before. The biggest risk is how we are with ourselves. And so there are just basic things like, do you earn more than you spend? Okay? If everybody strove for that, are you being productive and earn more than you spend? Are you good with other people? Okay. So you look at, so that it's, and we're not fighting, we can compete in a healthy way, but we're not doing each other harm. We can have win-win relationships. We have a great power. But we're going to have to make a big adjustment because we're spending a lot more than we're earning, producing a lot of debt and money, it's devaluing. And we are at each other's throats. And I think that we don't do a good job of taking care of each other, even by comparison, and especially by comparison with a lot of other countries, because we don't create a bottom. a level that you don't let certain people fall below. I'll give you an example. My wife and I, particularly my wife, we live in Connecticut and she works to try to help what are called disengaged and disconnected high school students. In other words, those in the poorest neighborhoods who the education is failing and they'll drop out of school. So in this state, which is one of the richest states in the country on average per capita income, 22% of the high school students are either disengaged or disconnected. Disengaged means 22% of the high school students are either have an absentee rate that's greater than 25% in failing classes or have dropped out of school. one in five, more than one in five. So what does that mean about living in neighborhoods?

Wealthy neighborhoods, right?

Well, no, the thing about it is I live in Greenwich, Connecticut, and up the road is Bridgeport, Connecticut, not far up the road. And that's a poor neighborhood, okay? Because there's not much income in that neighborhood. In Greenwich, Connecticut, you spend $24,000 on average for a student in school, public schools. There they spent 14,000 and there are guns in their shootings. And of course, if a kid grows up in that kind of an environment where one in five, where are they going to be? Where is their income? Society is gangs. and their income is selling drugs or crime and that. And we've allowed that to happen. We've allowed that the bottom and it's perpetuating. So what's happening is that that's growing and it's encroaching. You could see how crime is changing, okay? And you could pick cities. It could be New York, it could be Connecticut, it could be Chicago, it could be San Francisco and so on. Los Angeles. It's encroaching. And so people are going to smaller and smaller enclaves, which might be terrific, okay? But that's what's going on. And it's costly. In the state of Connecticut, it costs $600 million a year for incarcerations. Because where do those people go? Okay, it's crime, and then you're trying to do it. That kind of a thing has a terrible cost. When I think about what my generation has left the other generation, it's terrible. I was just in Singapore and what they had is they had savings, a lot of savings. And because they have a large savings, the income from that savings covers 20% of their budget. Wow. So one generation is giving the other generation a savings, a good education and civility. And this happens in certain places. What we have left our generation with is debts, a broken down infrastructure and fighting. So, I mean, the answer is if we're all good with each other and we're productive, and we earn more than we spend, we won't have a problem, but we gotta get there.

What, I mean, when I was growing up in Ohio in the 80s and 90s, my, I remember my dad never locked the door. I don't know if that was a stupid or wise, but we always felt, you know, safe 'cause we knew our neighbors, you know, we're in a neighborhood close to the small downtown of Delaware, Ohio, and he was a, of the mindset, everyone is welcome. So people come and knock on the door, they're welcome to stay the night, you know, that type of mentality. And we had people stay with us who are complete strangers often. And so I kind of grew up in this mindset that, hey, the world is safe. And now it seems like if you don't lock your doors, you're kind of crazy, no matter if you're a small town or in a big city.

So what would you say if you.

Could make the decisions on three things to change moving forward? with the debt crisis, with the internal wars and conflicts from people, and this bottom that needs to rise up, what would you do if you could kind of snap your fingers?

I would say bipartisanship. If I was president of the United States, I would have a bipartisan cabinet to try to bring moderates from both sides, because the moderates from both sides together I'd have an economic program that was put together by like a Manhattan Project type of thing, in which they would, people from those both sides, not the extremes of both sides, but smart people from both sides would make changes. I have my own changes that could happen, but in which They would both increase the size of the pie and divide it well. And when I say divide it, I mean move much more toward equal opportunity, which people are productive. Like, for example, it's a return on investment if you provide good education, if you do that well. But, and I can give you many, if you provide good infrastructure, like it's really uneconomic to not have, and everybody can not have connectivity anywhere. There's certain things you could, so I would want to have a program that increases the size of the pie and divides it well, particularly to productive people and those who in some way or another can't be productive because they're handicapped in one way or another, in that productivity to provide them the assistance. So you have a civil society, but with still great opportunities to make, do great things and acquire wealth and distribute wealth. I mean, you do need it to benefit most of the people. You need the system. So that's what I would do. Then what would happen is I'd have that middle, each deal with its extremes. So I think on each party, there's an extreme, there are extremists. And now what's happening is the moderates are dropping out of the political system. So because the moderates are dropping out of the political system, we're getting more and more- Extremist. -ardent extremists who won't lose. They'll fight to the death with each other. and laws and that. So that scares me, where if we were in it together and we did that in a bipartisan, smart way that, you know, not everybody's going to love, but everybody does something, that would be the most important thing I would do. Yeah.

You're a wise man. And the third part of this, you talked about the changing world order is how really all empires rise and fall at some point in what you call a big cycle. Can you explain more what this big cycle is and what part of the big cycle the USA is in and also China is in right now?

Okay. Yeah, I'll describe the cycle. By an order, I mean like a world order or a domestic order. I mean the system that's in place run by the people who have the the power, and then they determine what the system is like. And so you change orders usually by wars because you have a conflict. And then, okay, how do you resolve the conflict? They have a war. So World War II ended in 1945. The United States won World War II. Dominantly, it became rich, the richest country in the world, having 80% of the world's money. Money was gold then. It had 80% of the world's gold and a dominant military. It had a monopoly on that and accounted for half the world's economy. And so it set the rules. It's the reason why the United Nations is in New York and the IMF and the World Bank in Washington, DC. It was the American world order because it was dominant power. Now, when you are in a dominant power, also these wars are sort of great equalizers. People come back from the war. It's not like some are rich and some are poor in the same way. There's a restructuring and you don't have the same wealth gaps and resentments and so on. And then that usually means that you have a period of peace and prosperity, peace because nobody wants to fight the dominant power. And then they work together and they produce peace and prosperity and that happens. And that's really does best in the capitalist system. in which capitalism is provided to those who have good ideas, because they say, we'll invest in you and you'll be productive and so on. But what capitalism does at the same time is it has two challenges, two problems, is it creates wealth that creates large wealth gaps, and it also creates higher levels of indebtedness. So it creates the large wealth gaps because it distributes that unequally, And then that can be self-perpetuating because those who get power, like if you have more money, you can educate your children better than if you don't, the situation we're talking about in Connecticut, you know, those parents are not gonna be able to provide the education for the kids or the benefits that the others can. And so gradually you lose equal opportunity. and you produce wealth gap and you produce resentments. And you also then create larger amounts of debt quite often. That means that that's a problem down the road. Now, what happens when you become the world's largest power, this is also always the case. It happened with the Dutch, it happened with the British, that because you're so powerful on production, you go all around the world and you are the largest trading country in the world. You get more exports than other countries, and more transactions are in your currency. And so, everybody uses your currency, which becomes the world's reserve currency, because everybody's using it. And because it's the world's currency, those who are, those want to save in it. And so, different countries save in it, which means that they lend to you in it. And that increases your debt to foreigners because when they hold a bond or they hold cash in that, they're lending it to you to get the dollars back in the future. And so that is also one of the ingredients of making a top. There are the wealth gaps, there's that. And then there's also a change in generations and generation psychology. you know, it's like the story of the three generations, you know, from, you know, whatever it is from, you know, Rags to Riches to Ragsgian or something. The greatest generation, in a sense, are those who fought through the war, appreciate basic things, you know, that kind of a thing. And then what happens is you become, when you're on top, you become more expensive and quite often, more decadent. And what I mean by decadent, I mean that you might spend on things that are not good investments and don't last very long or whatever for entertainment at the sink of buying. So for example, in the United States, I remember when we had a per capita income, which was 40 times China's, and we started borrowing from China. So Anyway, these are the ingredients and then you start to see that they cause problems, the financial problem, the internal conflict problem and so on. And then the type of fighting that we're talking about where some moderates say, well, we need to reform things and make them better. Each is in their extremes, so you classically have the populace of the left and the populace of the right who are individuals who will just fight for that side. And then you come down and you have that conflict and you have that internationally as well. So when you have, let's say, a country like the United States, if you take United States percentage of world GDP or the United States is percentage of world trade, we used to be the largest trading, exporting country in the world. But China has placed that. Where are we now? And the GDP thing, so now we have a rivalry and you have different approaches to life. And then you say, oh, maybe you're going to have a conflict. And so everybody prepares for a conflict, which almost makes itself fulfilling. So when you have this dynamic, which we're seeing, the world starts to split. because countries want to align themselves with who's going to help them financially or militarily. The ideology, if you look at history, is not as been as much an important determinant. Let's say the United States and Saudi Arabia have been allied eyes for a long time, having nothing to do with whether the system's democratic or not. It has to do with whether their interests are aligned. And those are economic and military. And so we're seeing, when I go around from country to country, and people say, okay, the leaders say, should I be on China's side or should I be in the United States' side, whichever? They say, well, if it's economic, China's more important to me. If it's military, the question is, will the United States be there when we need them? to operate that way. And it's those kinds of calculations that produces the cycle that traditionally, unless you rectify it like we all come back together again somehow and we're all good with each other, ends up causing the fight to find out who is more powerful. And then it's the war or whatever. And then there's a winner and a loser and a new world order begins. And that's what the cycle looks like.

So is there a world where we will never have war, or is it always going to be some type of war happening so that power dynamics shift and this just continues?

It's so interesting because in the mid-1600s, this is interesting, in the mid-1600s, there was 30 years of war. They call it the 30 Years' War. in Europe and they just kept beating the daylights out of each other. And that is when they invented countries as we know it. Before then, there were no boundaries.

It was winter takes all. It was just kind of this- well.

No, it was just- yeah. It was like there were no boundaries. And if you want, what mattered was power. And if you wanted something that the other guy had, you'd go get it and he'd do the same with you. And there was this constant fighting about things. And then in the 1600s, they were fighting about religion, too. You know, there's the religious reformation and the others, which also had to do with power because the church was powerful. But anyway, so they invented countries as we know it with boundaries, and you determine what goes on in your borders and so on. And of course, we've, and that reduced for the next 100 years, there were hardly any wars. Interesting. And, but they, and when the time comes, there's no universal legal system. You know, there's no universal policeman. So if you don't have a universal legal system, they've been attempts of that with the United Nations or what before that, the League of Nations, they're attempted that, but power rules. And so you're going to have tests of power. It'll come down to tests of power. Right.

You've come up with a template for assessing the health of a country and what leads them to success or failure. What are the main metrics that you've come up with to assess? And where's the USA at right now in that assessment?

I want everything that I do to not be opinionated. I want everything that I do to take measurements of health. There were 18 different measurements of health that you can see in the book. You could look at it as a health indicator. Then you could see with those, like a health indicator, what does that create the next 10 years prognosis for that? Because if you're healthy, then you'll have a better prognosis if you're not healthy. And so there are 18 of them, I won't take you through them, but anybody who cares to go through them, you can see them. But there are basic things like, first, are you financially healthy? What's your income statement and balance sheet look like? Do you spend more than you earn or do you earn more than you spend? Are you saving? What's your income statement and balance sheet look like? A very big leading indicator is the relative level of education. Those that have a more educated population, and you could see the numbers rise, you could see education levels in one country or another rise or decline in these charts. You could see how is the United States in its education, and how are other countries and is that gap, is it improving or worsening? Because education levels are very indicative of well-being and economic behavior. Related to education is civility. Civility is not... So you learn education like facts and how to do calculations and things. That's one type of education. but you also learn how to behave with each other, the civility, the idea of respect and so on. So you have a civilized society of behaving well. That's part of it. And that usually happens in the home as well as in the school system. School can't do everything. And there are, and you could see these numbers and they're a problem, okay, in terms of these kinds of numbers. civility, and we have challenges as there's some often single families that are having financial problems and don't have those circumstances. And then you have an opiate problem. You have other things that stand the way. Okay, rule of law, countries that have rule of law and respect for the law that keeps order and effectively, loss of when crime rates go up, it's probably a very good indicator is corruption levels. There's a corruption index that countries, that all countries have that you can get for every country. You can see how it changes. and as it goes up, there's a negative 52% correlation with the growth of a country and its corruption over the next 10 years.

Okay, so where's, where's the USA at right now?

The USA is reasonably good. Reasonably good on the corruption element.

Where is Mexico, I guess, may be bad.

Russia is bad. You know, it's interesting because these are predictors of the future. And what you find out is, like, if you look at Russia, I'll give that as an example, it's blessed with the greatest natural resources of any country in the world. The value of its natural resources are 40% higher than the next highest country, which is the United States. And it does a pretty good job of having an educated population, but it's cultural issues. It's not heavily indebted and so on, but it's cultural issues in terms of these things like corruption. Also, there are measures of lots of measures of bureaucracy. versus efficiency. Lots of measures of attitude. Can I start a business and make my dreams happen? You can see the differences between countries on just that attitude. And also you could see it in the bureaucracy. How long does it take to set up a business? There are statistics like that. So you'll see a bunch of them in the book.

Sure. I know when a big part of your mission is bridging the educational gap around economics for people and really people understanding about money, how to use money effectively and just understanding in general. If you could, again, I'm sharing kind of hypothetical scenarios, but if you could change some things around about how we learned growing up about money, two to three key things, whether it be in the school system or what you wish parents knew that they would all teach children from the ages of five to 15. What would be those three things that you wish children just knew more about around money?

Well, I think you said it. If there was education and experience, from the age of 5 to 15, that would change everything. We learn differently, scientists have shown, prior to puberty, we learn in an internal way. And you'll find that a number of people had their passion at around age 12, because that has to do with how the brain changes. But if you take that 5 to 15, and you incorporated it in the education system and the practice of saving, spending and so on. We, you know, you don't need a PhD in this thing. It's a, the money thing is kind of very basic, you know, if I can buy it, for less than I sell it. That's a good thing. The more volume I could do, the better it is. Then there are fixed costs and there are variable costs. So if I'm gonna build a stand, a lemonade stand, okay, what's that gonna cost me? Okay, that's a capital expenditure. Okay.

Sure, sure.

But it's all the same stuff. that you could learn, you know, at those ages and you don't. And is there a good game?

I mean, I feel like you should, your next thing should be a game that kids can learn to play. I don't know if that's the new monopoly, what that is.

I have a son which is in, his passion is ed tech, educational technology. And he wants me to do that with him. and maybe I hope one day- Yes.

Please, please Ray, please. We need a game to make it simple, you know?

Yeah, Lois, it ain't like I'm not busy, you know?

I gotcha, I understand. What will- so where is- to go back to the US and China, the big cycle, where is China at in the big cycle?

Well, China's in this stage where.

I've.

Spent a lot of, let me phrase it this way, I spent a lot of time in China starting in 1984, not to earn money because they didn't have any money, but because I was very curious. And then I got to know and like the people and I was able to help them develop their stock markets and things and so on. And that was, and I like meaningful work and meaningful relationships. That's my thing. And so I watched, since I came, since 1984 when I first started, per capita income has increased by 26 times. The poverty rate by measured by hunger went from 88% to less than 1%, and life expectancy increased an average of 10 years. Wow.

So the poverty used to be at 80%?

Sorry. 84.

You said it was 80% back in 84.

Hunger was 88%. Hunger.

Wow.

Hunger. That type of poverty, not the sure to have a square meal. And I watched how they do that. I think that there's, and so what has happened is that they have become a roughly comparable power of the United States, in some ways a bit ahead, in some ways a bit behind, and so on. And that's in most things. Okay? If that list of 18, if I was gonna go down that list, and I would say, okay, do they have better educated people than we do? Well, it depends on what, it almost goes it depends. Are we talking about public education? We talk about on average, did they have more? whatever. If you talk about a military, it depends. Is it in that region? Is it of that type or is it another type or something? But it's comparable. If you talk about technology, okay. When I first went to China, I would give $10 calculators to people and they thought they were miracle devices.

Wow.

Now, if you take it in artificial intelligence and most technologies, there depends on the one. There may be ahead in some and not. So what that means is that they've come up to be a leading competitive power. There's no other competitive power like that. Now, a lot of countries now, which is scary, are roughly comparable in military, meaning if you have a war, if we have a war with Russia, it's not like the United States is militarily dominant or so, and there more countries have become that way. We spend more and we have bases in 70 countries, but at the same time, that means we're overextended or extended, and it doesn't mean that you'd win a war if there was a war in Europe, everybody would be a loser. And there are different types of wars, cyber wars as well as military wars and the like. So what we're now having is a situation where there is that rivalry that could be good, healthy confrontation. However, History has shown when you deal with who's going to set the rules of the game, there might be disagreements. And if there are disagreements, how are they resolved? Like the trade dispute. It's not like we took both sides, took it to the World Trade Organization and say, we're going to plead our cases and then you make a decision. They didn't even think about that, right? They go to, I'm going to do this if you do this. and that's where we are, sort of. So the world is breaking up into these parts where there are two sides, kind of. Like, if you look at World War II, by way of example, you know, there are the Allied powers and the Axis powers, and then they're in Europe or in Asia, and there are different alliances in Europe than there are in Asia, 'cause each has their own, interests. And it's developing that way. So when you take the Ukraine and you look at the Ukraine and that, that's more aligned with the other side, let's call it the Axis powers, which are the challengers to the United States and to some extent the NATO powers. And you have that conflict. And you could see in a number of statistics or actions how the sides are lining up. For example, they just ask, are you going to apply the sanctions or not? Are you going to do this and that? In the United Nations, did you vote against Russia or not and so on? And you could see all those things and you could see how the sides line up. For example, India lined up with Russia. So you could see how this is lining up. and you could see that we're coming into this. There's no conversations and communications that's even polite between the two countries right now. And that's where we are. And if you look at history, that's a dangerous place to be.

Yeah. And what do you believe will happen if we don't prepare for the changing world order then?

I think that take our three things. I think that there's better than an even chance of a bad stagflation, very bad stagflation, because of the dynamics. I think I'll say one in three chance, but I think it's actually probably higher than that. that we have a type of civil war, internal conflict, in which the rules are not followed, the compromises are not made, that may be those who they find they don't accept losing an election, that there's movement of people to different states that they believe represent them better. And there's a polarity developing in the going to different states and that there's not obeying the central government. So now it becomes a power game. I don't think that to be, I'm in the business, I need to be objective. Right. Because accuracy is my thing. I have to be as accurate as possible. I'm not saying that's accurate, but I'm saying when I look at that, I don't think, my assuming that's a one in three, I think it's actually probably higher than that, that there will be that kind of a situation. And I think it's better than, higher than a one in three, I think might be significantly higher, that you get into the same conflict and the power. For example, international. For example, does Russia or the West win the war in the Ukraine? I'll define Putin winning the war as three things.

He.

Gains control of the eastern part of the Ukraine, Russia's economy is not devastated by sanctions, and he remains in power. And let's say, for example, he can attend and Russia attends the next G20 meeting. Okay.

That's him winning the war.

That's him winning the war because in the beginning of that, It was worth his cost. I mean, he wants more than that. He wants a neutral Ukraine or an aligned Ukraine, but he's not going to probably get that. But that's the minimum. Now, that's him winning the war. That's also kind of the West losing the war. Now, but if he loses the war, If he loses that, he will probably escalate, okay? Because the war is now being played as an on the ground armies to armies and with sanctions. But he has other weapons. And rather than go down, he will probably escalate. Okay, that's a game of chicken. It's a very dangerous game. And there are other issues globally. For example, you're seeing these alliances work out and you're seeing the United States, for various reasons, sort of pull out of the Middle East, and you're seeing China more move in. And so these tensions exist, and power exists. There are more countries that have nuclear weapons now than there were. And, you know, there's even talk of joint military operations between China and Iran. And so you see these sides begin to align. So if I say that there's a one in three chance of some kind of a military confrontation that scares the hell out of us over that is extremely, I don't think that sounds too high. I think it's larger than that. So that means, I think, we're headed for some risky times because any one of those things is really, is not normal. Any one of those things is not what we're used to. It's pretty bad. But again, if everybody worries, they don't have to worry. If both sides think about what that's like and say, I can't, we must come together and make sure that that does not happen.

Yeah, that would take us being rational human beings, right? And having some inner wisdom and a consciousness.

Well, that's one of the reasons I'm trying to pass along, you know, I passed along the book, which was a study for my own benefit, but I also did an animation and to try to pass it along. So to help people understand this, the animation, I put it out a month ago. It's got 11 million views. People, it's very digestible. So on YouTube, we'll have that linked.

Up in our description on audio and on YouTube for people to watch. It's really powerful. I'm curious, again, you've seen a lot in the last four or five decades of being in this this industry and this business and the financial world with everything that's happened over the last couple of years, not just pandemic, but stock markets going up and down, wars, inner conflict of countries, all these different things, cryptocurrencies coming in, the decentralization of money, all these different things. What do you even think is going to happen in the next 10 years with the whole 2030 agenda being talked about? what do you see happening over the next 10 years?

I should say that one thing I, when I did that, I discovered the three forces that I mentioned. I discovered a fourth and a fifth that are very important and big. One is that, interestingly, acts of nature in the form of droughts, floods and pandemics have had a bigger impact than the things I've been talking about in terms of cost more lives or toppled more civilizations, those acts of nature. So I think that's something probably that we have to be concerned about. But number five, over long periods of time, 10, 15, 20, 30 years, the most powerful force is man's ability to adapt and invent tremendous capability of adapting and inventing. So you'll see charts in the book and you'll see here's a Great Depression and here's a war. and as you see those things, they look like blips on the chart of life expectancy, per capita income and so on. And so there's a tremendous capacity for dealing with all the other stuff. If man can adapt to it well and, and, and inventiveness during this period of time should be kind of, I think, really great, because what we're using more and more is types of technology, artificial intelligence and so on, the ability to think and collect data and use the computer to help us with that is a very, very powerful force. Now, like any forces, it's also a risky force because it can be used for bad as well as for good. But I think the world will evolve. We will have these cycles in the world. So that's what you see. you see these cycles and then you see evolution through those cycles and adaptation. And so I expect that. But I would say there's the probabilities I gave you before that concern me. So a lot will be unknown, but we have a lot of potential and a lot A lot of things to worry about.

If you were, you know, in your, you've created so much wealth for yourself, you've been building so much and you're still very busy. It's not like you're done by any means, you're still growing. But if you were your late 30s, early 40s at this time, and you had been building a business and building a team and trying to set yourself up to be healthy in all the different areas of your life. How would you be thinking if you're in your 30s, early 40s about the next few moves that you should make as an individual?

Oh, it's very interesting because there's a life cycle and I won't, but the upshot of the life cycle is in your early years, you're quite often your happiest years and the happiest years extend just until you a bit past you getting out of school. So there's three phases. The first phase is you're dependent on others, you're trying to learn to be successful, and then you come out of school and you're idealistic. You can do everything. You don't have much obligations. You take on the job and so on. That's a happy period. Then you have a work-life balance challenge. And life is harder than you expect it to be, typically. And that notion that I'm going to be just easily, terrifically successful is difficult. And so if you take the least happy period of life by measures of happiness across most societies, It comes in really something like the 45 to 55 period. That's because you have the work-life balance, maybe the relationship that you had with your spouse is not or whatever your significant other isn't as wonderful as you'd imagined it would be. That's when the divorce rates are higher. you're overstretched, you're having to take care of your kids, and you're having to take care of your parents. It's a tough phase. That's a tough phase. And then what happens is as you pass that, it's very interesting, from 55 until the person approaches whatever that is that's gonna kill them, is the happiest period of time, even happier than the earlier period of time by records, because you become free, you're not so hung up on, am I the best accomplishment? I'm okay, you're self-sufficient, you have the choices, whatever, and you don't have to take care of your parents. You don't have to take care of your kids. The kids are grown up and your parents have passed away and so on. So that's the pattern. and so when you think about this in terms of, let's say, your question, okay, what's the advice? My first bit of advice is meditate. I found that meditation, I do transcendental meditation. I find that that gives me a calmness and an equanimity. to deal with my realities that are coming at me. Okay? Life is just a matter of choices. And I found, generally speaking, when things are at odds and there's this conflict, if you step back with a clear head, you can get most of each that you think is at odds. For example, on this work-life balance. Most people think, well, do I take more free time and take it away from work? Or do I take work and take it away from the free time and so on? But the real answer to the question is how am I going to be efficient so I get more out of a day or more out of an hour? And if with equanimity, you look at your circumstances, and you say, okay, how can I get more? Then you can put more life into life because you reduce that. But you have to have that equanimity, not a sense that stress and these things are happening to me and I'm angry and I'm upset, okay? Because that will hurt you physically. Stress is a killer. and it also won't make your best decisions. So I'm trying to give an equanimity, and again, pain plus reflection equals progress, reflection, quality reflection, not just yourself, but even asking people and looking for principles of other people who are in that same situation. It's not like this is the first time you've gone through this or anybody's got through it. So when you ask others, well, how do you deal with work-life balance or or the other things, you'll find interesting things and you'll be able to deal with it.

Okay, so meditation would be one thing.

And that equanimity and look at it and realize it's just your choices. It's not the world picking on you, but it's the world.

It's like- the world's happening.

It's reality. And that kind of, it's an approach to life. yeah.

Were you always a meditator?

I started in 1969, so I've been pretty much, you know, I forgot what I was at the time, whatever that.

Is, you know, like, wait, two years old then?

No, like 18 or something. 20 or 20 or whatever. 22.

I don't know. Yeah.

I kept that.

And so that's probably what helped you get through the, the loss, the financial loss in 1984 and kind of the, the. the public, I guess, embarrassment or humiliation that you might have faced since it was public and processing through your emotions.

I lost a son, my greatest loss, not quite two years ago, 42 year old son. Oh, my God. I would rather die. I would rather lose everything. And I had and. Okay. But it's, you know, it was. It was that. And it's like the serenity prayer, you know, surrendered prayer. God, give me the acceptance, the ability to accept that which I can't control and the power to control that which I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference and. so there. Yes. Because life happens to you. Okay? And you can't just sit there and be sorry for yourself. I mean, it. I don't mean when hurt happens that you. That you can't nurture yourself and. And take care of yourself. But then comes a period of reflecting and you have to deal with it. So meditation. and that equanimity is just so important.

I just lost my father three months ago unexpectedly, and it was, it's been a grieving process and lots of beautiful, grateful moments, but also a lot of sadness. And almost every few days, you know, a lot of sadness that comes over me over different moments.

I know it well, and here's my way I, the way I see it. Don't feel sorry for yourself feeling sad. Go into it. In other words, when I think of my son and you think about your father and there's the missing, go into that. That's okay. Because he in his way is with you in a sense. You're keeping that memory. So it's bittersweet.

Yes.

And what happens is that with time, the sweetness increases relative to the bitterness. And also learn the lesson to love and cherish all the other people in your life. Go hug them, go spend the time with them. go appreciate, you know, smell the flowers that remain, you know, because there's, there are other Joys around you and that, you know, and then realize that your sadness is because something that must have been terrific was taken away from. So you've had all that terrificness, and, I mean, better that way than not having it that way. so anyway, those are the things helped me. I, I can go at length of other things that I did that helped me out. I'll, I'll might as well say that because maybe they help your readers, too.

What's been, what's been the big, yeah. I mean, I think that's probably the, again, I don't have any kids, so I don't know what that would feel like, but I've, I've heard that that's one of, got to be one of the greatest losses for a parent to lose a child. What's been the biggest lesson for you and, in, throughout the last couple years?

Well, and I want to generalize it to you losing your father. I remember when I lost my mother for the first time, and in the early time, I couldn't imagine laughing again. And now, I mean, like, okay, I laugh and I almost have mental conversations with her because I know what she would answer. And so on. So I think it applies to all important losses. And some of the things that helped me, well, besides meditation, was to do it very naturally. Feel what I felt, whatever I felt, I would go with it. Another thing I did was I would journal. My wife and I have a cup of tea each morning and we have a picture of him there and we have some flowers. And then we journal memories of him.

That's beautiful.

And that brings those memories out. I journal and I pass it to her and she journals. And that keeps those memories alive. And then we'll give that to his daughter. And then there was a book, a little book, I forgot the name of the book that somebody sent us on grieving or mourning. And it had a series of things. We would read a page in that every day. and it was like a lot of good advice. Death happens to everybody. I mean, everybody is gonna, you know, people I love, everybody, everybody's gonna die. And to pay attention to it and know how to do it well, we don't talk much about it and we should really. So anyway, those are some of the things that helped me.

Thanks.

And my wife.

I appreciate that. That's beautiful. And to go along with that, I guess, how do you view death for yourself as you continue to evolve and grow and obviously getting older? Do you think about your own mortality? Do you think about your own death? Do you think about what you want to do with your time? Do you think about what you want to do with your lessons or your wealth or What are those thoughts on it?

Of course, it's, first of all, I accept the arc of life, you know, the arc of life and death. So it's very real. And then I, and I'm blessed with, I could do almost anything I want to do. And I'm at a stage in my life where something seems natural to me. which is a transition from my second stage of my life to my third. So I said, the first is when you're learning and depending on others. Second stage of life is others are depending on you, you're working to be successful. Third stage of life is when you're free of all obligations. So you're free to live and free to die. You're going to expose, you're going to have that and you have your blessings, my grandchildren and anything, and I can do whatever I want to do. And I find that instinctually during that transition period from my second phase to my third phase is to pass along things that I had to help others be successful without me. So, yes, that happens to do with wealth. It happens to do most importantly, I think, with principles that have helped me. Why am I doing this, this fall? Okay? Because I think it'll be helpful. And that that period of time will last a very short period of time. I think that probably, there's one more book I want to put out, which is my economic and investment principles. I'll pass that along. I think I'll be done, and then I'll go quiet and I'll just, you know, save her life. And and those things. But I find life very exciting and stimulating, but I'm approaching it with a no obligation. Like I've passed along the control of the business that I built, and I love it because I want to help them be successful without me. So that's where I am.

That's beautiful. Couple final questions for you. I feel like I could speak with you for many hours, Ray, so I appreciate your time, but I want to be respectful as well. One question about your thoughts on decentralizing money with the dollar and the euro and all these things losing its value and with what seems like hysteria of crypto, NFT, the metaverse, money in the metaverse type of conversation, I include all that. What do you see happening there in the future with crypto? I think I read somewhere that you own some of crypto. I'm not sure how much, but you've done some of it.

Just a little bit.

What's your thoughts about the crypto space, Bitcoin, Ethereum, kind of all of that in the future?

I think we're in an era of that money as we know it, which is a fiat money, is being devalued and it's going to change. The dollar's role is going to change and that alternatives are going to compete with that. So, I wouldn't want to own money when you own a dollar, let's say, is in the form of a debt instrument, so you're going to get paid back in that. And I think it'll have a negative real rate, a negative buying power and so on in almost any currency. And they're all competing. So they're all devaluing, essentially. And so money is about the medium of exchange and a storehouse of wealth that is poor portable and works in most countries. And now we'll find out what those things are. I mean, gold is an example of one of those, and crypto is an example of those. And maybe NFTs are and who knows? I think we're in a who knows phase. New things come along and then there'll be that, and I think they'll compete. and I think that people will start to think about how do I have a portfolio of those things that I can take from that are widely accepted, that I can trans and that maintain buying power. Now, there's challenges to that, like when you have a lot of volatility in it, it means that, oh, my God, my owning it is more volatile. Right. It's more risky than my not owning it. And so that drives money into sort of other things. But anyway, we're gonna struggle with that and you're gonna see digital currencies in different countries and so on. And I honestly don't know, I don't think one thing wins out. I do think that a lot of the crypto like all markets, they go through phases. And there's kind of the bubble phase where, you know, it goes up a lot and everybody believes it and the story believes it and everybody's bought it, and then you have the adjustments and so on. I think there's too much emphasis in it because the total value, you know, of Bitcoin or even the cryptocurrency is not much, is comparable to the value of Microsoft. So one has to think when one thinks of assets, I would rather think about the whole array of assets than to think about, you know, just, ooh, is it going to be that crypto Bitcoin one? I think people could be too concentrated on that. and I think that can be dangerous. So, I don't know the answer. I do know there are lots of storeholds in wealth that you can- Diversification.

Is your key, yeah.

Diversification is my key, yeah.

There's a great quote that I like, and I'm gonna butcher it, but it goes something like this. I think it's from Jim Carrey, where he says, I wish everyone had the ability to become rich and famous. and realize that that's not the answer.

Something.

Around that, I'm paraphrasing it.

That's so true.

If you could give people.

What it.

Feels like to be one of the richest people in the world and what a lot of money means, what does it actually mean if you could kind of share that for people?

I can describe what it means for me and might be different things for other people. Let me start off by, and I acquired it by an accident because it's the game that I happened to fall in love with. If you learn to play the game well, it pays well. Right. Okay. And a lot of people, I think that's true with a lot of people who are coming up with ideas and building businesses and so on. They got excited about it. It does, it works well and then it pays well. To me, it's a serious mistake that thinking that success is measured in such.

Things.

Because money has no intrinsic value. Okay, what does money get you and what do you need? Now, what I want is, well, what I want is freedom and the ability to be creative and and do that. That's what I want. But, and money helps me get that. It helps me help other people. It helps me have the impact. I like those things about it. But more importantly, I like my game. I like to play my game. Not more important, but anyway, comparably important. I think that success is having the life that you want to have. as long as you're earning more money than you spent. And that can be spending very little and having a wonderfully luxurious life. Like I watch a lot of people don't have much money and of different ages, sometimes young, sometimes older. They travel around the world, they backpack, they go to different cultures in different places. They can live in a tent or, and the most beautiful enough. You can, the most beautiful nature is available to you. Or you can be in a hostel or you can meet in so many different couch surfing and have free and freedom and so on. I think everybody should almost experience that to know that they can have their a great deal of freedom without a great deal of money. And that also, so, and that status thing is a silly thing, okay? That's like being hung up on living your life for approvals. And so don't get on the track and lose sight that, okay, what is it that you really want in your life? What is a successful life for you. It's not measured by how much money you have or how much status you have or almost that other stuff. It's measured. And, you know, like I would say, again, meaningful work and meaningful relationships. If you have something as your work that you're into and your craft and it's a thing you love and you have meaningful relationships, I think those are the most important things to make a rich life.

Ray, I'm so grateful for your wisdom, your time, and this book. I think everyone should get this book and share with friends. You can flip through it, you can go through it. It's very thick, but it's full. Every page is rich, full of knowledge. And the fact that you're spending so much time developing, curating, researching, and bringing together smart people to help you make this type of information. It's accessible for all of us. I'm very grateful for it. So I want everyone to get a copy of this book. And they can go to your website. They can follow you on social media. We're gonna link all this plus the video you made that got 11 million views in the last month alone to help people explain these things even more. I have, I have a couple final questions for you that I asked you the last time. and I'm not going to tell you what your answers were. I'm curious if they've evolved or if they're the same. So this question is called the three truths hypothetical scenario. Imagine it's your last day on Earth, many years away, and you get to live as long as you want and achieve and live the life you want with everything. But for whatever reason, you got to take all of your written audio or video work with you, so no one has access to your messages anymore. this interview is gone, it's all gone. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world, three things you know to be true that you would share behind. What would you say are those three truths for you?

Well, I think that one truth is, you know, evolve well and contribute to evolution, because it's all about evolution. Our instincts, everything that's happening is about evolution.

Yeah.

Meaningful work and meaningful relationships are the most important things. And then I would say radical open-mindedness so that you can take in all that's available for you. Don't make the mistake that the best ideas have to come from you and to realize that how you deal with what you don't know is even more important than anything you know.

Absolutely. Those. So two of the three are the same. So if people want to hear the other one, they'll have to go listen to our previous interview. Ray, I've got one final question for you, Ray. But again, I want to acknowledge you for being willing to share this information. I think it's a scary world in the financial world. People don't have the tools. I'm still learning so much and, you know, I'm almost 40 years old. I still feel like I don't know that much, even though I'm studying it continuously and, and trying different things. But for you to continue to show up the way you are at this third stage of your life, this third season, and want to create and give and teach, I'm really inspired by it. And I know so many people are inspired by your wisdom. So we're really grateful for you sharing this information with us. My final question is, what is your definition of greatness?

Again, how you're evolving and contributing to evolution. In other words, you're part of the evolutionary system and how you do that with, and that means other people and your environment.

Awesome.

Right.

Thank you. thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

My pleasure. Thank you, Lewis.

As you start to go down deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, you start to realize, oh, my God, everything that I've been told is a lie. And so that kind of pushed me into this whole painful, emotional journey of learning about money, learning about entrepreneurship, learning about what does it mean to become wealthy and how do you actually do it?