Shutdown Blink, Condo Reality, Court on Faith, Baseball Bets

Washington Democrats blink. The Senate advances a deal to end the federal government shutdown, but drops the health care demand that sparked the fight in New York. A decade of flat condo prices makes the math brutal. Renting and investing may beat buying a condo by a mile. At the Supreme Court, a Rastafarian inmate asks a basic question, what is a right worth if there's no remedy? Baseball reels as federal prosecutors allege a pitch by pitch betting scheme involving two guardian pitchers and a self made millionaire says two simple habits. Spend smarter, own your ideas, build real wealth without 80 hour work weeks. All that and more today. Welcome to filtered with TJ Walker. Hi and welcome. I'm TJ Walker. It is Monday, November 10, 2020. Five markets were closed yesterday, so no update there. Let's dive right in to issue one. Senate edges toward reopening but drops the health care demand. The Senate has taken the first real step to ending the 40 day shutdown, advancing a bipartisan funding plan, 60 votes to 40 votes. The compromise would reopen government through late January and promises a December vote on extending affordable health care premium tax credits. But there's no guarantee those subsidies pass. According to the Associated Press and the New York Times, a small block of Democratic moderates broke ranks, citing mounting harm from grounded flights to delayed SNAP benefits. Those are the food benefits. Senate Leader John Thune said, quote, the time to act is now. Senator Schumer, the Democratic leader, opposed the deal, vowing, quote, we will not give up the fight. The package would reverse mass federal layoffs and ensure back pay. It still needs a final Senate vote, action by a House that's been out of town and the president's signature. As one negotiator put it, the pain was simply too acute to keep holding out. The political fight now shifts to whether Republicans will actually vote to keep health cost down. Okay, so what's the real message here? Democrats cave because they do feel pain. They feel pain for their constituents. And the administration says pain, we love pain. The more pain, the merrier. The political fallout of on this is unclear at this moment. Anyone who tells you otherwise that it's a clear cut win for one side or the other is blowing smoke up you know where. Yeah, the Democrats caved and it might make it look like Trump gets a real big win. But if 20 million Americans see their health care costs double next year, that could bring disaster for Republicans in the midterm elections. Let's dig a little deeper here. This is a complex issue. There's no doubt about it because by all accounts, most Democrats in The Senate are really trying to stop what they see as sort of a bizarre overreach and authoritarian overreach by Trump in every aspect of life in America, every aspect of the economy, civil life, legal life. They are fed up. They want to put a monkey wrench in things. The problem is trying to convince the American public that autocracy is a problem or that democracy is under threat. It's too abstract. It just does not resonate in the polls. So the Democrats, a month or so ago, coalesced, a couple of months ago, coalesced around this idea of, let's just pick one issue. And the issue is continuing benefits to 20 million Americans to help them with their health care costs. Because if they don't get a continuous. It's not a new program, it's not asking for new big government, it's simply asking for a continuation of the subsidies 20 million Americans received. Otherwise their health care cost will double. And the estimate is that some 5 million Americans simply will not be able to afford any health insurance. So that was the issue. The Democrats coalesced around Trump. And this is one time you can't accuse Trump of chickening out or no taco here. He stuck to his guns and said, nope, I'm not going to negotiate. Take it or leave it. Increase the debt ceiling or I keep the government closed and meanwhile, I'll just start firing permanently federal employees. I can do what I want. I'm president. And the government shut down. That was his message. And this is a time when you could say he did stick with it. A handful of Democrats came to the conclusion that Trump's not going to change. Meanwhile, we're the party that's supposed to protect tens of millions of Americans, primarily women and children, who survive only because of these snap, these food stamp benefits. So if he's not ever going to give in, we have to minimize the pain and suffering of tens of millions of Americans. That was their logic. So that's why they're stating that, in fact, they're willing to essentially throw in the towel and reopen the government without any promises of continuing the healthcare. Now, they did extract some minor concessions where there's kind of a promise of a promise to have a vote on something in December about extending tax credits for the healthcare plan. But really that could change at any moment or be forgotten in any moment. There's also an additional political dynamic. There are a lot of Democrats now who are saying, of all the reasons to try to oppose Trump, why do we want to oppose the Trump administration if what they are about to do is going to destroy their political popularity. There's a school of thought that says when 20 million Americans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene's own adult children, see their health care cost double next year, which it's scheduled to do, they're going to go crazy. Talk about an affordability crisis. Talk about inflation. That's going to be 100% inflation on healthcare cost for literally tens of millions of Americans. So there are a lot of Democrats who are saying, look, I understand why we want to say no to Trump, while we don't want to give him a blank check to continue eviscerating the federal government. But why do we really want to help him politically? Because if he gets what he wants, what he says he's asking for, the dynamic is such that tens of millions of Americans are going to see their health care costs double. They're going to see essentially 100% inflation. And most of these people live in so called red states, Republican states. So it should actually harm Trump and the Republican Party the most if they get what they want. So there is a lot of complexity into the political dynamics of this situation. That's why I'm being totally honest and transparent with you here. I am here as a sane, sensible centrist. I'm not carrying the water of any one political party. And you're gonna hear a lot of spin from Fox, msnbc, other commentators saying this is a clear cut victory for this side or a clear cut loss for that side. It's not clear at all at this point. Yes, a case can be made, in fact, that this could really harm Republicans and that the Democrats had a huge, huge win from this shutdown by hammering home again and again and again, the President wants to double your health care costs next year. It has resonated with the public. Polls now show that most Americans, even most Republicans, favor extending these health care benefits to the 20 million Americans who would otherwise see them end. So the Democrats have done a good job of communicating the message that this shutdown, it's not about sending protesters to or National Guard to Chicago or to Southern California. That's not how this shutdown has been defined. It's been defined as the Democrats are standing up for Americans not seeing their health care costs double. So that message has been hammered up every single day for 40 days. And that's one reason why a lot of polls show that a slight plurality, I don't want to oversell this, but between 10%, maybe as high as 19% of Americans favor the Democratic position and fault the Republican position on this Government shutdown. But again, I don't want to oversell this, that the Republican Party, the White House can now sell this. As we stood up for fiscal responsibility, the Democrats caved. I am the strong leader. I stood by my guns. I didn't cave. And the Democrats came to me. That's leader. They can sell that message. And for many Americans, it might resonate as well. What do you think? I'd love to hear from you. And please don't just give me the partisan spin now. Everyone has political beliefs, and most of us, if we're not a member of a particular political party, often align our votes with one or the other. But I'm interested. What is your honest take on this government shutdown? Because as I've outlined before, there were always, always three possible solutions. One, the Democrats say, okay, we'll give you whatever you want. Second option was the Democrats had their own proposals saying, let's just do everything as we've been doing it, not cut the health care benefits for people. And the Republican Party and Trump could have accepted that easily and opened the government up 40 days ago. The third option was the Republicans had the power at all times in their pocket. All they had to do was run the United States Senate in a more democratic way and pass a rule that says majority rules, 51 votes that passes. They didn't do that. So there's always been three options. So whatever spin you want to give me, please, or whatever perspective, don't just give me the political spin that it was just one party's fault. That is all I'm asking for. Okay, so I've just been alerted by my producer that we have an echo problem. I'm going to sign off. Quick note to my producer, Hakeem. I'm going to just sign off on my cell phone feed. We're doing that as a feed through for our TikTok friends. Yeah, I'm just going to eliminate TikTok, Hakeem, does that make sense? If you could let me know in the private chat. Okay, I'm going to do that. And question for Hakeem, is the echo so bad? We should really restart the whole show? Because we slice and dice this show and distribute it on all social media platforms in many ways. So do we need to restart the whole show? Apologies for those of you who were nice enough to stop it. Okay, so Hakeem says no, we will. We will continue with the show. Lots more to come today. I appreciate your participation. And we'll be back after these commercial words, Filtered is brought to you by the following Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise want to become a better speaker, leader or communicator? 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This next one is not a story that you've seen splashed across every headline and every news website and your local or national news, but I do think it is important. Let's dive in Condo Reality Check why Renting and Investing be buying for many one in three Manhattan condos sold at a loss over the past year. According to Brown Harris Stevens analysis of 2,500 resales. Prices per square foot are roughly flat from a decade ago. That's right, 10 years ago. Prices have not gone up once you factor in inflation and transaction cost. Report author Jonathan Miller put it bluntly, housing prices in Manhattan have been relatively flat for 10 years. Coverage summarized by the Daily Mail and CNBC shows buyers from 2016 to 2020 were most exposed, often selling below their cost. Add today's higher fees, taxes and soft demand and speculative gains look shaky. The big takeaway in pricey markets, the rent versus buy math, can favor renters, especially if they invest the savings. Our head to head numbers show a disciplined renter ends up far ahead of a buyer who purchased a median New York City condo 10 years ago, even before you account for special assessments and time on the market. In New York real estate, timing and carrying cost, not just sticker price drive outcomes okay, so what's the real message here? This idea. You've been sold every single day for most of your life. Renting is always throwing away money. You've got to gotta gotta own your own house, your own apartment, your condo or you're a poor fool is absolutely erroneous. It is complete BS and the math proves it. You make a lot more money in New York City in the last 10 years if you rented versus buying a condo. Let's dig a little deeper. So here's the. I want to go through this math. This is important. It's a little bit complicated. You know what's not complicated? Just repeating the message of, oh, I don't want to throw money away. Renting is always throwing money away. It's always better to own your own home, apartment, condo. It is not true. And I'm going to walk you through the numbers here again. According to numerous surveys, numerous media reports, the condo market in New York City, one of the priciest places in the country, if not the world, has been flat for 10 years. So if you bought a condo 10 years ago, thinking, well, I'm so much smarter than these fools who just pay rent. Let's see who's a fool and who isn't. And let's go deeper than this religion that Americans are taught that you have to buy in America. And it happens in other countries too. We are sold this idea almost with religious fervor. You're not a real person, you're not a real adult. You're not marriage material quite often, unless you own your own home or apartment or condo. That's what we're told again and again. Now the problem is it makes a lot of other people richer. It doesn't necessarily make you richer. Okay, let me show you some of the math right here. So let's go back to 2015. If you bought a median price condo in 2015, that was going to be about $1.2 million. If you put 20% down, that's $240,000. You had a $960,000 mortgage, and at that time you could get 4% fixed 30 year term. Now let's look at your monthly expenses. So your monthly mortgage and everything else is $4,583. Your HOA and taxes, 2,500. So if you're the owner, you're shelling out about $7,083 a month. I know this is boring. You know what? That's why other people are getting rich off of you, because most people don't want to do the math. Now, the renter, for the very same square footage, the very same number of bedrooms, a comparable building is going to spend only 4,500amonth. So it's $7,083 for the owner who's supposedly getting rich because they own their own home versus the poor SAP who's renting, but only spending 4,500amonth rent. Now you're saying, well T.J. but you know, at the end of it you'll have all this equity and that will build wealth. Let's look at this. Now imagine the renter, if it's a smart renter, instead of paying that $240,000 as a down payment, takes that money and puts it in a low cost S&P 500 index fund. Because again, if you're the same person with the same financial resources, you could do one or the other. So this person in our scenari puts that money in an S&P 500 index fund. Now the monthly savings, $7,083 minus $450, $4,500 is $2,583 a month. All of that goes into their index fund as well. So let's look at how this plays down the renter's portfolio. The down payment compounded with 10% a year, which frankly, it's done better than that. But let's use the more conservative estimate of 10% a year. They've now made $624,000 from that investment. But that's not all. The $2,583 extra that they would have spent on their mortgage and tax payments each month if they had simply invested that for 120 months. And let's just assume only 7% after fees and tax and everything else. That's $447,000 they would have gotten from their return on investment. So the renter's total is $1,007,000. Now the owner's position's a little different. Let's say they sell their condo for 1.2 million. Again, that's what it's happening now. People are selling their condos for the same price they paid for it 10 years ago. You've got selling cost, 8%, brokerage, free taxes and fees. So you're losing $96,000 right out of the gate. So net sale is $1.1 million. The mortgage balance after 10 years is 756,000. The cash out 348,000. So the owner also paid HOA and property taxes about 300,000 over 10 years. So let's look at the real head to head situation. The owner, the so called brilliant wise business person, the responsible adult, only makes $348,000. And this is where people lie to themselves. They fool themselves. Well, you know I still came out ahead, you know, I still came out $348,000 ahead. No, you didn't. You always have to compare what would have happened if you'd done a similar housing situation. It's still an apartment with two bedrooms and you'd invested the money. So the renter made $107,000. When you, excuse me, $1.1 million and $7,000 over this 10 year period, the owner only made $348,000. So the renter is ahead by $722,000. That's right. If you could go back in time, if you could get in a time machine and decide, do I want to buy this two bedroom condo in Manhattan or rent it, you would be almost three quarters of a million dollars richer today if you had not bought. You'll never in a million years hear any real estate agent be honest and tell you that. I'm sorry, some of my friends are real estate agents. But as a wise man once said, people have a very hard time understanding what their paycheck sort of demands they not understand. If you make a living, and that's a paraphrase, if you make a living by deluding yourself into something, no matter how many times someone walks you through the facts, you're going to say, well, no, couldn't be true, don't understand it. The facts are there. And more and more Americans need to realize that. I lived in New York City for 20 years, never bought, thank goodness, I never did. Now, I wasn't getting rich in those years either. I wasn't. I didn't have the excess capital to do all the investing. But I can tell you there have been certain periods of my life when, like in the last four or five years when the stock market has soared where, thank goodness, I didn't have so much capital tied up in housing. And I want to be transparent with you, I did recently buy a house. So I'm not saying it's always wrong to buy, but I am saying in many cases, if you're doing it for financial reasons, you're fooling yourself. You're deluding yourself. I bought a home because I wanted to buy something that was unique, that I could make any way I want. And I put in a lot of extra, frankly, luxuries that I would not have been able to rent. But if you're renting an apartment, they're all basically squares and boxes in any city. So it's completely irrational to buy an apartment or a condo in many, many cities. I won't say all of the Time. But a very high percentage of the time, most people are unwilling to sort of walk through the map, as I just did. I urge you, think about it now. So there is a caveat. Some of you are saying, well, TJ it's forced savings and if I don't have that mortgage, I'll just spend the rest of the money I won't invest. Okay, there's some validity to that. But $722,000 you're losing by doing that. That's a lot of extra lattes. That's a lot of extra lottery tickets if that's how you spend. That's a lot of Knicks basketball games you could buy with an extra $722,000. And that is how much you would have saved if you had not bought a condo in New York City 10 years ago and it simply rented a comparable apartment. I'm not saying instead of buying this big, beautiful six bedroom condo, you got to squeeze your family of five into a studio apartment and live in a slum. That's not the comparison. It was a true, true apples to apples comparison. So the reason I bring this up is you occasionally see a story like this, but it's a minor, minor story and it's seen as a footnote somewhere. Whereas every single day, every cocktail party you go to, every real estate agent you talk to, everyone's always talking about, oh, I bought this house. I'm going to make so much money. Oh, I sold this house, I flipped it. I made this money. I made this money. It's absolute not nonsense if you don't compare what you would have made if you had done the absolute easiest, laziest thing you could have possibly done, which is take that same amount of money and just throw it in an S&P 500 index fund, which requires no hedge fund managers, it requires no special connections, it requires no monitoring CNBC looking for stock tips. Any moron. And I consider myself a moron, because that's what I do. Any moron can do this. And you come out vastly ahead of those who thought they were so smart buying condos. Many communities buying a house is equally ridiculous. So please, the real lesson here is you've got to discern information that's being sent to you, the propaganda that's being sent to you when you're told again and again and again, this is the best way to invest your money. And only a fool does it the other way. You need to ask yourself, who's gaining from this message? Who's losing? Have I done my own math and really done. The math where people fumble is they think, okay, if I just pay rent every month, at the end of that I have nothing. If I pay a mortgage every month, at the end I have a house I can sell for a million dollars. That is simplistic thinking and it's an absurdity. And I hope this math helped prove it to you today. Lots more to come today on the show. We've got many issues we got to go through. It was a big weekend and a lot in the news. More to come back in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substack.com jwalkersuccess and stay in the loop. For years people have asked how they could get one on one coaching from me inexpensively. Well, now you can. Anytime, anywhere. With the TJ Walker AI clone. It's like having me in your pocket ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it. It responds like I would based on my real world coaching of thousands of leaders and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker AI it's not just smart, it's personal. Wanna support the show? Skip the ads and buy me a coffee. That's buymeacoffee.com tjwalker. Hi and welcome back to Filtered. Can you sue for shorn dreadlocks? Supreme Court Test the remedy the Supreme Court is hearing a case from Louisiana that asks a stark question. If guards violate an inmate's religious rights, can he sue them for money? According to the New York Times, Damon Lander, a Rastafarian, arrived with a court ruling that protected his dreadlocks. Guards threw it away, strapped him down and shaved his head. Lower courts condemned the act, but said a federal statute may block damages or claims against state officials. Lander's lawyers argued the court already allowed money damages against a federal official under a similar law and that without damages, officials can ignore religious rights. Louisiana's attorney general condemned the shaving, but says the statute differs. The justices will decide whether principle without a remedy is really a right at all or just a promise. Lander says his dreadlocks are central to his identity and faith. Cutting them felt like a violation the law was meant to prevent. So what's the real message here? Rastavarian was sent to prison. They shaved off his dreadlocks, he says. This is violating my religious rights. Okay, we got to decide as a country, can you just say it's my religion? I Get whatever I want. Or are we going to say, you're in prison now? There's a lot of inequities and problems with our legal system and our prison system in the United States. But the idea that you can just say, what's my religious belief? I should get away with anything. What if I said I believe in TJ Farianism and in my religion I have to just eat caviar and steak and drink champagne all day long? Should that be respected by the prisons? I don't think so. Part of prison is you've got to live by our rules now, not by your own ideas of what the best is. Let's dig a little bit deeper here, okay? This is a controversial issue. There's no doubt about it. You may say, well, I don't really like Rastafarians. I don't know why you'd say that, but certainly some could. But you may say, well, I am a member of an orthodox particular religion where we're not allowed to do any work or touch on Saturday, or I need to be allowed to pray at 2am when the prison law says I have to be asleep. You may belong to a religion that says I have to have metal objects with me at all times. And the prison may say, well, we don't allow inmates to have sharp metal objects. They could kill someone, they could commit suicide. Here's the problem that's a bit nebulous. The United States is based on the premise of we're not here to establish any one religion. We are supposed to be a secular nation. The problem of course, is, what's a religion? If Your religion is 2000 years old and you could say, hey, I'm just doing what my parents did, my grandparents did, and that's a part of me, you basically get a pass. But let's not forget the whole concept of faith is you have no proof for this. If I decide I want to have a religion where Mickey Mouse is my God and I have to shout I love Mickey Mouse at the top of my lungs at 3am every day and I have to wear nothing but clothes with Mickey Mouse and I have to wear Mickey Mouse ears all the time, you might say, well, T.J. that sounds like B.S. to me. That doesn't sound like a real religion. But my question then would be, who gets to decide what a real religion is? There is just as many facts showing that Mickey Mouse created the world and is an all knowing, all powerful God as there is for any other religion saying their God is all powerful and all knowing. It's very, very speculative at best. So I'm not a big fan of going out of your way to intimidate people, be obnoxious to people. Certainly I'm not in favor of torturing people whether they're in prison, inside or outside. But I am troubled by this idea that you basically can do whatever you want, get whatever you want, get all sorts of special privileges and perks in society whether you're in prison or not, simply by saying, oh, it's my religion. Because it shows a fundamental disregard for the growing class of people in America and around the world who are not really fans of religion, who don't believe in religion, who think it's all kind of silly superstition. It's not respectful to those people. And according to some polls, that's as many as a third of Americans and it could easily be a billion people around the world. And many, many of these non religious people are simply frankly tired of they get no rights and all someone else has to do is say, oh, it's my religion, I want this. And everyone is supposed to bow down to give it to them. So put me in the camp of, hey, you go to prison, you're going to be made to sort of do what everyone else does. If my religion says I'm supposed to sleep till noon every day, I can't just say that when I'm in prison. If all the prisoners have to get up and leave their cells at 6am to go to breakfast, I'm gonna have to do that. If everyone else has to have their head shaved, I'm in favor of shaving everyone's head. Now you could say, well, cj, that's easy for you to say. You don't have a lot of, you don't have a lot of skin in the game there. Although maybe that's the wrong metaphor. But I think the far bigger problem when you're in prison is you're in prison. And maybe focusing on things like hair shouldn't be your main priority when you're in prison. It should be figuring out what did I do in my life to get here and how can I really change something in a profound way so that when I get out, I don't end up back here. More stories, news analysis in a moment. Imagine having a communication coach who never sleeps. Meet your new secret weapon, the TJ Walker AI clone. Go to TJWalker AI and start getting custom coaching 24 7. No scheduling, no hourly fees. I train presidents, prime ministers and Fortune 500 CEOs, but the same exact communication I've delivered to world leaders is now available to you online anytime@mediatrainingworldwide.com whether you're speaking on camera, pitching a client or handling a crisis, you need these tools. These aren't fluffy motivational videos. They're practical, battle tested techniques to help you speak clearly, competently and persuasively. Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and take your communication to the next level. Welcome back to Filtered Pitches for Sale. Feds charged two Guardians in alleged Betting Rig Scheme According to the US Attorney in Brooklyn, guardians pitchers Emmanuel Claes and Louis Ortiz have been indicted for allegedly coordinating specific pitch speeds and bull or strike outcomes to benefit betters. Prosecutors say co conspirators won at least $450,000 with individual props tied to single pitches on dates spanning 2023 to 2025. Major League Baseball says it alerted federal law enforcement and is cooperating. Both players were previously placed on leave. Ortiz lawyer calls the case weak and circumstantial and both players are presumed innocent. Of course, the bigger story is structural prop markets now price actions as granular as a single pitch, creating a tempting target for anyone willing to trade integrity for cash. If the charges hold. It's not point shaving, it's pitch by pitch shaving. This is a new thing, and it lands as baseball's commercial ties to gambling data, sponsorships and on site books are deeper than ever. Okay, what's the real message here? It's not just Major League Baseball, it's all Major League Sports are corrupted. They are now rotten to the core because gambling money is filtrating every inch of it. And the league owners who think, well, we deserve to have billions and we're going to keep everything else clean and tidy over here are fooling themselves. This problem is going to get worse and worse and worse until it is outlawed completely. Let's dig a little deeper here. Now, I'm not a sports better to my knowledge. I've never bet on a single game in my life and I got to have no regrets about, you know, how much money I've lost gambling on sports. $0. When I do watch sports, call me quaint, call me trite, call me old fashioned, I want to actually watch the sport and enjoy the craftsmanship of the players, the athleticism, the competition and the thrill and drama of who's going to win, who's going to lose. I thought that was enough, but apparently it's not. We live in a culture where people feel like, unless I get that adrenaline rush of putting $2,000 on the big game. It's really ruining a lot of things. And at some point, you got to ask yourself if you're allowed to bet on every single pitch and make money on it. And if the team owners can get their big percentage of deals from all these gambling companies and the leagues themselves can make billions of dollars. And you're a player, and maybe you only get in occasionally, you're a relief pitcher. And you can look at the data. Let's say you've been in the league five years. You're thinking, well, statistically speaking, I got to be about a year and a half left, and I'm never going to make any more money. It's obviously going to be extraordinarily tempting to say, how can I make a little extra money? Everyone else is getting rich. I'm about to become unemployed, and I'm not going to throw the game. I'm not going to intentionally walk someone or strike out. But hey, if I just tell people in advance, my third pitch of the night is going to be a fastball, nobody's really hurt, right? Well, that's where it starts. It's a corrosive effect. And let's give credit where credit's due. Major League Sports in America, for most of the history of Major League Sports, treated gambling as if it were a sickness, as something to be avoided, as something shameful. Major League Baseball banned Pete Rose for life. You know, Pete Rose, were to come around today, he'd probably be given his own team and be treated like a hero. He's no longer with us. So again, there's DraftKings, there's FanDuel, there's Caesars. And full disclosure. I've worked with Caesars before doing media training. There's BetMGM. There's so many gambling companies out there. And let's face it's gambling. They call it gaming. It's gambling. They're all out there. They're all getting people hooked on this adrenaline rush of easy money. Wow, you can make money, you and your buddies sitting around watching the game. And come Monday morning, you're $2,000 richer than you were Friday night. What could be better? Except that's not really what happens in the long run for pretty much anyone. These teams are sponsored. They're sponsored by it. They're putting their stamp of approval. It's not simply that it's legal and we can do nothing about it. You've got Major League Baseball and all the major leagues giving their stamp of approval. The ads every two seconds during a game is gambling's good. Gambling's good. Gamble, you're going to get rich. You're going to get gamble, gamble, gamble. The players are a part of that milieu. They are a part of this environment, this zeitgeist that says everybody should be gambling every second of the day on whether someone's going to sneeze the right way, whether My temperature is 98.6 or 98.2, whether it's going to rain in five minutes. We have created a culture where it's now considered, frankly, especially if you're a young man, odd not to gamble on everything all the time. Now let's look at some of the money. There's roughly $150 billion a year on legal betting across all sports. 10 billion to 14 billion in operator revenue range. Baseball is getting billions of dollars of this. They're getting their fair share, even niche props, and if you don't know what that term is, I didn't either. But that's where you can, you can bet on, I guess it's based on the word proposition of, okay, well, this pitcher, pass pitch, a fastball or a curveball, the next pitch. You can make singular bets like that. Will this batter swing this time or not. You can make bets like that. And you can make, you could make $100,000 on that. You can also lose your house. You can lose everything. So Major League Baseball is looking at lifetime bans and suspensions. But if they're looking for a real culprit, they need to look in the mirror. This idea that you can be a billionaire sports team owner, get all these endorsement deals, revenue slices, partnerships from all of these gambling companies, and you can be a league owner and get all these billions of dollars of revenue and then tell some player who thinks, I've got maybe 18 months left in my career, oh, no, you can't be a part of this. We get all the money, but you can't. I understand a legal case can be made, but I think this is the tip of the iceberg, especially when we see whole culture of corruption embraced in Washington, D.C. these days. There's a growing attitude in our culture that says, I'm taking whatever I can anyway. To heck with not only ethics, but to heck with the law. We're seeing it from the top down. The only thing that surprises me is we're not actually seeing players brag about it. Now, obviously they're not because they are afraid of being punished by their teams, being punished by legal authorities. But can it be that far away from a player essentially starting their own club. And for $10,000 a year, you can be a part of let's just say hypothetically, I'm a major League baseball player. I'm a slugger, I hit home runs and I bet 292 a year. I'm already making $20 million a year. I'm going to start my own club. And for $10,000 a month, let's just make it a month. You get a briefing from me. I'm going to have a private Zoom meeting where I tell everyone how I'm feeling, whether I had a good night's sleep. I'm going to do this the morning of every game. I'm going to tell you how I'm sleeping, how I'm feeling, my own predictions for the game. Well, you can imagine how many bettors would say that's irresistible. And now instead of that player making 20 million a year, maybe they're making 40 million a year. Sound far fetched? Yes. Legal? Right now? No. But the way we see norms continually eroding in our society at every aspect of culture, it would not surprise me one bit more in a moment after these words Want to communicate like a Pro? Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com Millions have already transformed their speaking skills. Why not you? This show doesn't run on a lot of corporate sponsorships or big media backing. It runs on caffeine and your support. If you like what you're hearing and want to say thanks, you can buy me a coffee. Really? Just go to buymeacoffee.com TJ Walker it's quick, it's easy and yes, it helps cover editing, hosting and staying relatively ad free for as long as possible. Buymeacoffee.com tjwalker your 3.95 makes a real difference. Get rich without trying two habits that actually move the needle, according to one. A self made millionaire says two low friction habits helped him build wealth without working 80 hour weeks. According to Cindy Lamont at Yahoo Go bank rates the media company entrepreneur Matthew Tran, founder of birchberry, credits a minimalist wardrobe and creating intellectual property on clothes. He stopped chasing trends and bought a few durable pieces, saving thousands of dollars and mental bandwidth. He credits this for helping making him rich. He said, quote, instead of always refreshing my wardrobe, I buy items that I know will last for years, he says. And that discipline spills into other spending. The bigger lever is IP intellectual property. Rather than only selling shoes, he built assets, patents, designs and trademarks that earn royalties. I've been able to license certain product designs and materials he says, so money comes in even when he isn't launching new products. The takeaway isn't magic. It's systems. Reduce wasteful spending, then own something that pays you. So what's the real message here? All sorts of successful people are going to put on their guru hat and tell you what will make you rich. Sometimes it's good advice, other times it's things like wear the same thing every single day and it's completely irrelevant to their success. It's just a personal preference. Let's dig a little deeper here. Now, certainly there are well known successes like Steve Jobs and someone following his footsteps. Mark Zuckerberg, who pretty much wear the same thing every day, wore the same thing every day. Former President Barack Obama did the same thing where he said, I didn't want to have to tax my brain making more decisions. I had to make so many decisions as president. Steve Jobs had to make so many decisions as CEO of Apple. They didn't want that cognitive load of figuring out what do I wear today? So they wore basically the same thing every day. Obama wore a white shirt and a dark suit, a blue or a gray suit. No decision to be made. But is that how they became rich? I think you've got to be very skeptical about that. Now, this particular entrepreneur I was not familiar with, Matthew Tran, but apparently he's successful. You always have to wonder when someone says, here's the reason for my success, is that why? Or is that simply a correlation? So many successful CEOs, especially tech CEOs in America, say it's because I'm smart and I work harder than anyone else. Well, there are a lot of people who work hard. I have a certain family member I can think of who is an insanely hard worker, never able to build net worth because she wasn't in high paying jobs. So it can't simply be that a lot of people who are wildly successful had tremendous luck. A lot of them are the beneficiaries of various biases in society. Well known podcaster, investor, entrepreneur Scott Galloway is very upfront saying the smartest thing he ever did was be born in the early 1960s as a white straight male. That was the big thing that helped him because it helped him get a free pass on so many aspects of life. It made him instantly credible in so many business situations. You may think that's politically correct claptrap, okay? But I do want you to be skeptical. I want you always looking for secrets of how to be successful, learning from others, learning from successful people. But then you've Got to filter it, which is what this show is about. Filter it for what is truly meaningful and what isn't. Because, let's face it, if it were wearing the same thing every day making you successful, a lot of homeless people would be really successful because they wear the same thing every day. They only have one pair of clothes, so that obviously can't be it. I do think, as a basic principle in life, something that makes a tiny, tiny. Far less than 1% of a difference, at least for me, is not spending a lot of time on clothes. I invested in a tailor from Savile Row in London. Sorry if this sounds like I'm bragging many, many, many years ago. So when I get dressed for you every day, I do change my clothes, but I have a different suit for every day of the week, but I'm not spending any time thinking about it. I. This suit is, I believe, 18 years old now or 17 years old, tailored to me, and it fits perfectly. And I don't have to think about it. This is, I believe, the. The Monday suits, since it's Monday. So I have seven suits. I've got a handful of identical blue shirts, and I don't have to think about it. It's right there. And most of my suits were all made 15, 10, 15, 20 years ago. And by investing in quality, they hold up well. And I don't have to spend any of my time shopping or very little time shopping. Is that why I'm successful? Is that why Steve Jobs is successful? That's a teeny, teeny, tiny part. Because Kim Kardashian spends a lot of time shopping. She has a lot of clothes, and they're not all 15, 20 years old. She's wildly successful. She's much more wealthier than I am. So clearly spending as little time as possible on clothing is not the solution. I do think having focus is helpful and not scattering your attentions to just doing what everyone else does, which is spending all your free time either shopping or watching entertainment. I do think there's something to that. Now, the second critical reason he gave to his own wealth I do think is valid. He created intellectual property. And that's just a fancy way of saying you wrote a book, you wrote a computer program, you wrote. You create an online course. You created videos that continue to get views on YouTube or TikTok or other places. You created something. You created a movie, you wrote a song. You created something where you put it in a format, audio, video, text, bits in a computer that people can access while you're asleep. I do think that for most people, that is, if not always the best solution for generating wealth. One, they should have a part as a part of their wealth building practice. Because if you're just selling your time, it's much, much harder to make money. It's not impossible. If you are a lawyer at one of the most successful prestigious law firms in New York City or London, you might be making $5 million a year. And you're not selling any books, you're not creating software. You're using your intellect, but you're selling your time. So it's untrue that you cannot get rich from selling your time. If you are a manager of the largest nonprofit hospital your community, at least in the United States, statistically speaking, you're likely to be the highest paid person in your community. That's right. Being a manager, you're not creating intellectual property. Having said that, very few of us can climb the ranks of being the number one administrator of hospitals in our entire community. Very few of us are going to be partners at top law firms in New York City or London. Whereas any of us can create online courses, books, videos, software, and you can do it without gatekeepers. The number one factor in my own wealth is creating intellectual property. I have created not one or two or three online courses, but if you saw the ads earlier, you already know I've created more than 300 online video based communication skills courses and personal development courses. You can do the same thing. You don't have to have a fancy microphone or camera, and you can do it with your cell phone. So I do think that. I won't say it's easy to make money from intellectual property, but it is the easiest thing you can do. If you already have one job and you're working as hard as you can, and you're already trying to save money, and you're trying to build wealth, and you're trying to restrict time you waste just watching video entertainment. Spend an hour a day creating something. It might be a novel that never sells any copies, but at least gets you into the habit of creating intellectual property. In our modern era of everything interconnected on the web and being able to reach anyone in the world and a potential marketplace of 8 billion people, I'm still a huge, huge fan of creating intellectual property as a means to building wealth. Okay, that concludes our top stories of the day. But as in most cases, there's more going on in the world than we can squeeze into five issues. So what I like to do every day on this show is go into a grab. We call it a grab bag section of the course where I look at other stories that merit attention but we can't do the full deep dive. This one from across the pond the BBC Shakeup Davy and Ternus Resign the BBC was rocked by back to back resignations. Director General Tim Davy and BBC News chief Deborah Turnus are out amid claims of serious and systemic bias. The immediate spark was a Panorama edit of a Trump speech that the corporation now plans to apologize for. Davion says the decision was his, but says leaders must take responsibility when mistakes erode trust, especially when funding talks ahead. It wasn't his decision, it was an outside production company. I should make that clear. Insiders told the Guardian. It feels like a coup. While Turnus pushed back on the idea of institutional bias as she stepped down, the battle over the BBC's neutrality is now front page and political. So let me boil this down for you cuz that was a bit convoluted. What's the real message here? The BBC put out a documentary that edited together actual words said by Donald Trump on January 6, 20202021 and it made it look a little bit more like he was fomenting the riots and getting people to come there. By all fair minded accounts, he did foment a riot, but they edited it together in a way that pushed the needle just a little and now heads are rolling. So we've seen political correctness, right wing political correctness run amok here in the United States where media people see their entire careers ruined because they've said something that doesn't make the current President of the United States look good. Now we're seeing that very same principle imported across the pond. That's new. I gotta say. That's kind of weird. I didn't think the British were that worried about offending President Trump, but apparently they are. They've got their own version of MAGA over there and the BBC is this, it's this odd thing. We don't have anything quite like this in the United States, but it's funded in part by attacks on every television. So they have a strong funding base and they still get a lot of money from everyone. So they have to be accountable to everyone. So members of the media around the world I guess are now on notification if you criticize the current administration in the United States. But people are going to be coming for your jobs Next issue. Texas Senate Race Telo's Instagram follows Axios reports that Texas Democrat James Tellarico, who is branding his campaign as being a man of faith. And apparently he's a very devout member of a particular religion. Popular in Texas, he follows several adult performers and only fan creators on Instagram. Now his campaign says the account follows back high follower supporters without vetting and stresses he hasn't subscribed to any adult services. And if you haven't seen this guy, he really looks like a guy who does nothing but eat apple pie and drink warm milk. I mean, this guy looks really, really wholesome. That's a part of his brand. So it was a bit of a oops moment when somebody, opposition researcher, reporter started fishing around and saying, hmm, he's following the sexy ladies who are basically strippers and adult performers and have onlyfans accounts. Now, for a candidate courting religious voters, the optics are tricky. Is this hypocrisy or social media non story? I think that this is basically, it's not a non story here I am talking about. I think it's a one day story because anyone who's ever been on social media knows it's always going to be tempting. Someone says something they like, something about yours, let's say they've done it three days in a row, they've left a nice comment. It's not mandatory. But you do feel pressure. I know I feel pressure sometimes to follow them back. And if you're saying you look carefully in research and do opposition research on anyone you've ever followed on social media, nobody does that. So this is a one day story. It makes the Democrat look bad. And I'm happy to share with you stories and information that make people look bad of any party because I'm here as a sane, sensible centrist. But I do predict that this is not going to be a big story now if it turns out he has an only fans account and spends, you know, $10,000 a month on, on getting somebody to, to undress on only fans. Yeah, that will be a big story, rightfully so. But simply following people who have, shall we say, questionable careers or shady careers, I don't think that's enough. In an era where many political figures have millions, tens of millions of people following them and they follow back a million, I don't think that's going to happen. Okay. In other grab bag stories, AP reports that President Trump issued a full unconditional pardon to Rudy Giuliani, his former attorney, the former mayor of New York City, by the way, somebody I voted for when he was running for reelection in the late 1990s. Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, the Various attorneys who worked for him and multiple fake electors. He's framing prosecutions tied to efforts to overturn 2020 as a grave injustice. Now, this covers any federal laws these individuals may have broken. Now, interestingly, none of them are being indicted now. They're not actually under federal scrutiny. This is sort of a proactive thing, saying, you better not touch them. And even after I'm out of office, you can't get them because a pardon is forever. This is another example of Trump being consistent with his messaging. He has, and I got to give him credit, he's having a lot of success. He's continuing to share this message, to spread this message, that January 6th was not an insurrection, it was not an illegal, violent mob that desecrated our capital, even though it was. He's downplaying the fact that an individual was killed on January 6th from this mob, this violent mobile. He's downplaying the fact that one of the police officers died the very next day from stress revolving around this attempted coup. He's trying to get people to forget the fact that he sort of implied it would be a good idea if they just went and hung Mike Pence, his own vice president. And he's continuing to send this message that he did in fact win the 2020 election, which he did not do. If you believe in a fact based world, if you believe in things like gravity, if you believe two plus two is four, then you cannot believe this idea that Trump somehow legitimately won the 2020 election. He's trying to shape a zeitgeist where that is considered the truth. And by putting out pardons for people who willingly lie to the American people, who use the full power of the federal government to spread this lie. It's a part of his messaging campaign to rewrite history, which is what authoritarians do. They're good at that. It's what dictators do. They say, I'm the dictator. If I say black is white and white is black, you better say it or off with your head. This is another example of this. And I think if you are an American, it doesn't matter if you're a Republican, a Democrat, a conservative, a liberal, a maga, a progressive, a far, far left libertarian. This has to be wildly offensive to you. It's only acceptable if you are a member of a cult, because cult members say whatever Dear Leader says is right. Last big grab bag issue of the day. New York Times says Democrats win on cost of living, sharpen pressure. That was their message in the elections that happened last week, where they Won bigly. It's put pressure on President Trump who's alternated between embracing affordability and dismissing it as a Democratic talking point. A Democratic Congress claims of no inflation, cheaper gas and cheaper Thanksgiving collide with voter anxiety over groceries, housing, insurance and shutdown linked snap delays. The communications problem is simple statistics versus living experience. Now, the Democrats faced this last year. Joe Biden was saying, look, inflation has come way down, number one, which was true. And the inflation here in the United States was actually lower than almost every other major economy in the world. It was lower than inflation in Europe. So you should be thanking me. The stock market's at an all time high, unemployment is low. So Joe Biden was making that argument and it didn't work. People said, oh my, gas prices are higher, prices are still higher. And so they lost. And his self appointed successor, Kamala Harris lost. Now Trump faces the same issue. When you're a challenging candidate, it's very easy to point and say, well, look how awful things are. You're not held accountable for it. But it's different when you are the incumbent. The biggest polling favorability rating for President Trump during the campaign was people trusted him on economic issues as a businessman to bring down inflation. And to many people, especially when you factor in the tariffs, which is a tax, they're seeing things are more expensive than ever. So he's losing credibility there. So it's make no mistake about it, President Trump is a skilled communicator. He's very good at creating his own reality. But can he convince the American public that he's literally making things more affordable? When they're seeing with their own eyes prices going up and boy, are they about to see the price of their health insurance go up. If they are some of the 20 million Americans who currently get some health subsidies, it's going to be a difficult sale and it could be what determines the 2026 elections. We'll be following that very closely. That concludes our grab bag section of the show. So we're going to end as we always do these days, which is taking questions from you every single day. At the end of the show, I take a question from one of you, typically one of my students in one of my online courses, we try to get away from the news of the day and focus on things that will really help you as it relates to communication skills and personal development skills. So I'm going to take a question of one of my students now, but you can always post your own questions too. And I read your questions. If you post it live I'll see it, but I typically respond to them within a day or so as well. So let's go to the questions today. This one is coming from Adego, and Adego is a student in my complete storytelling course for speaking and presenting. The question is, how can I conquer my persistent challenge in crafting compelling stories and transform it into a strength that elevates my communication and creativity? Well, the way you get better at any skill is by practicing and doing it regularly. Many people say, yeah, I want to be a great storyteller and I want to improve my storytelling course. But they tell themselves that's only for a long speech or for a keynote speech or for a once a year speech. Great storytellers don't do that. They realize every single time they have an opportunity to open their mouth, they focus on communicating one idea useful to their audience and they package it with a story. Bad communicators say, well, I got to communicate all the data and maybe I'll open my speech with a story that's funny. Or I'll end the speech with a story. No, if you want to be a great storyteller, you need to get into the habit of illustrating every single point with a story. Ronald Reagan, the former US President, was a master of that. He used to have a rule with his speechwriters. He gave them an exact metric. It was something like, I don't ever want to speak for more than a couple of minutes in any speech without telling a real story about a real human being. And that's one of the reasons why he went down in history as the Great communicator. Okay, Adego, hope that's helpful. Thanks so much for your question. Thank you all for watching today. Please do me a favor. If you got any value out of this show, please let me know what it is. Leave a comment if you're watching this on demand on any social media platform. Leave comments Sign up for notifications. Please subscribe if you're one of our new listeners on any podcasting platform, please follow us or subscribe to us on that podcasting platform. You will not be charged for any subscription if you subscribe to us on itunes, Spotify, or any of the platforms. And if you really want to do me a solid, please leave a review, say what you liked out of the show, and give other people guidance too. Thanks so much. See you tomorrow.