Birth to Net Worth with Scott Donnell - Episode 14

Welcome to Birth to Net Worth, where we normalize the conversation and emotions surrounding money and wealth to affect a massive change for future generations in their relationship towards finances, building family wealth as a collaborative legacy. Here is your host, Trystan Trenberth.

Good afternoon and welcome to Birth to Net Worth, episode 14. I'm super excited this week. We have a gentleman named Scott on the show. He's from a company who's— he's actually based locally. We don't have many big tech companies based locally, not many big banks, but this is where these things combine. Scott is passionate. He's a father of 3. He's an entrepreneur. And he's already served millions of kids in the sense of educating them through financial literacy and those skills. So I'm gonna welcome through Scott Donnell. Scott, welcome to Birth to Net Worth. Thank you for joining us today from all the way up the road in Phoenix.

Yeah, thanks, Trystan. Good to be here.

Awesome. So as you know, we're just gonna do a few questions, have a little conversation on your genesis with money, how you became introduced to money, how you became aware of it, and what created your mindset and relationship with money. And then we're going to sort of obviously branch out into the amazing work that you and your team are doing. And I can't wait to get to that bit. We need to talk about you first of all. So, Scott, where are you from? What was your first memory of money? And tell us a bit about your background. What do your parents do and what did you do in your younger days?

Yeah, so I grew up on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, and Oak Harbor is the name of the city. And I actually come from 4 generations of mega wealthy entrepreneurs, uh, who actually didn't pass it on. They basically gave it away, right, to, uh, others and charities and ministries and things like that. But they taught me to fish, which is to this day the greatest lesson I'll ever learn. Yeah, my grandpa started InterWest Bank. It was the largest small business bank in America, chain of banks. They they sold to Wells Fargo, uh, for about $1.2 billion in 2001. He was actually Ronald Reagan's bank chair as well. Wow. So just a long history of entrepreneurial, um, success and teaching the next generation how to do it without giving them, uh, what we would consider, uh, screw up the next generation money. So, right. But yeah, so my first interaction with money was You know, my first business was at 8 years old. I can remember selling gecko keychains, like beads turned into geckos with thread, right? I, you know, I could make them for 10 cents of beads and sell them for $1.50 door-to-door.

Yeah.

And, uh, started doing that for fun and hired all my friends in third grade to make them. And actually, it was pretty funny, uh, after a couple weeks, none of my— none of the class was going out to recess or lunch They were literally staying in class to make my keychains, and the principal heard about it and suspended me. Well, my supply line got cut, so I had to shut down the business. But when I got home, my— instead of punishing me, my dad gave me a huge high five and took me out to a steak.

Brilliant.

Never let anyone keep you from doing this stuff. So I've always creating value by, uh, products that solve problems in the world. And that's what I do today, is we take the world's largest problems and we solve them through business. So that's what I do.

Perfect. Well, that's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I think any entrepreneurial gig is based on finding problems to solve, solving them, and bringing that value to other people and, you know, causing that value exchange.

That's right.

Bigger the problem, the more people you can impact, the, the bigger the, the you know, the return.

So yeah, people say that, you know, entrepreneurs, uh, they basically just solve problems for a profit. Simple as that. And that's how you create value in the world. You know, I teach, I teach tons of kids this, like, don't let anyone scare you on the news about the economy. The economy is pretty simple. Find a need and fill that need. And start with your community, start with your friends down the street, your family. Find a problem that needs solving that you can solve at a profit. And if somebody wants to pay you more than it costs you to make the, the problem solved for them, then you both win because they're exchanging value. They're getting more value from it and you get a profit from it. You get more value from it. Yeah, make things that other people need and want and solve problems. And that's really— if you do that for your neighbor and they do that for other people and everybody's doing that for each other, that's the economy. So that's really all it is, is creating value for other people and solving problems.

I mean, you go back to the Middle Ages and things, all of the families, the, you know, that probably the mother made everything in the family. She cooked, she made the clothes, she did everything as a thing. But when you can do that solving problems and create that free time for somebody to do something else, that's the problem that you're solving, is the lack of time and the convenience of doing something and outsourcing and the who, not how philosophy of having somebody that does that quicker, easier, for less cost to provide you and make that profit margin.

That's right. I think the best definition I've ever heard of capitalism, which was coined by the French, by the way, it was like their way of trying to slap us with a bad name. But the best definition of capitalism I've heard, I heard it through Dan Sullivan, who actually wrote the book Who Not How. He's my coach. And he basically said capitalism is the ever ever-increasing trust between strangers. Yeah, so if you could find ways to have trust between strangers and systems and ways to solve problems that doesn't require a high degree of trust, then you can basically increase that, uh, the amount of transactions and the amount of value that's created.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's written some great content for sure, and I'm sure he's an amazing coach as well.

Oh, he's incredible. He's incredible. I can't wait for his next book. It's— I'm going to be in it. It's actually 10x is better than 2x, next book.

Nice.

It comes out in a couple months.

I'm super pumped for it. Fantastic. That's wonderful. So, so let's move in to what, what GravyStack is, what you do, how you're doing it, and, and how people can get involved.

Yeah, so GravyStack is, um We are trying to solve the, uh, the huge problem in America of financial ignorance with kids in the next generation. You know, 76% of 18 to 24-year-olds fail a basic financial literacy test, and that's what's created the massive debt problem, global debt problem we have. There's $2 trillion of student loan debt and a bunch of, you know, hundreds of millions of the next generation that just don't know the basic principles of how to become financially literate. And if you can do that and teach people to manage their finances and grow their wealth and make smart long-term decisions, um, and you can do it at an early age, then it has massive, massive global change. So this is a worldwide problem that, that we've identified with our team, uh, at Gravy Stack. And the name Gravy Stack is basically stack your gravy, right? Like gravy train and stack some money. It has to sound like a game, right? So what it is, is it's actually a bank account. Uh, we reinvented banking from the ground up. So it's a debit card for kids and a bank account that shows the flow of money. They actually get 3 accounts in one. There's a save account for investing and saving for long-term college or a car, whatever it'd be. There's the spend account for their debit card, and then there's the share account, which hooks up to any nonprofit. In North America. And so all that is part of the bank account. And we created something called a money machine that shows the flow of money in real time. So they could literally pull the Frankenstein lever and see where all their money came from and where it's all going. Debit card shakes and it shows them where all their expenses went, so they can start to see their money flow. You know, only, only 5% of people actually look at their monthly statements. That's one of the core problems. So everyone's worried about kids that are not feeling cash anymore, the tangible feeling of coin. Well, what they're really scared of is kids don't feel money moving. Yeah, that's, that's how we bridge to the digital age, right? So we just threw out the whole idea of checking account because it's archaic. Why do you have a checking account if no kid under 20 will ever write a check? Yeah, so we have to bridge to the digital age, and we're doing it by showing the flow of money. But it's not just a bank account and a debit card that's reinventing banking, it's a game that they play. So we have a game with 100 missions and mini games and real life challenges they take to become financially literate and independent. Yeah. So they play 100 games inside of this world called Windfall with characters and geckos and penguins and rhinos and all these crazy characters. And they're trying to free the people of Windfall from the greedy tyrant Weasel. Called Greedy Mon and his henchmen. This is for kids like ages 8 to 18, right? So they basically, they get an avatar, they go in here, and they master all of these mini games in the app, and they go do real-life challenges. And they match saving, spending, earning, sharing, investing— real investing in real stocks and diversified portfolios and mutual funds, uh, uh, protecting their online security. We have a Protect level to understand the issues with, you know, whatever you say is put up and you don't know who's on the other end of that account. So it's really helping them against predatory stuff and trafficking and evil things, right? Then we have a Borrow level, or the issues with borrowing, so that they understand what debt is and why it can get them into a lot of potential roadblocks. Uh, we have a Create level talking about how to create value around you. So they actually make products, they're flipping things at yard sales, they're doing real things. And then the traits and skills required to become fully financially literate. So they play these games and we've got the world's best on the team. So I've got the founder of Amazon Pay on our team, Gary Arnold. Yeah. We've got Yukai Chow. He's the world's top gamification specialist. He gamified everything from Fortnite to Google to Marriott, like everybody. Yeah. We've got over 4,000 affiliates ready to launch us to 90 million people. Next month in November. Yeah. And just an incredible team of like financial planners and wealth managers that are giving us the content to then turn into games for kids. Fantastic. And then the point here that people are trying to solve for is, you know, when it comes to financial literacy, schools don't teach this. They just don't. It's something they don't feel comfortable teaching at all because it's like a private thing. Banks don't care about it. They don't care about kids because the kids don't have any money. And their parents don't have a roadmap. You know, they don't know what to do. Even the best ones, my friends that are some of the world's top entrepreneurs, they're like, yeah, I screwed that up with my kids. I don't know. Like, we tried to do a bank account or a lemonade stand or something, but we are giving them a roadmap that's fun, right? Because kids learn in two ways. They learn by having fun and they learn by doing in the real world. So that's what the game really does. It's a super fun way for them to have an intrinsic motivation that mom and dad don't have to make them do it. They love it. They fall in love with it. And then they do a bunch of real-life challenges. The Subscription Hunt, where they're canceling subscriptions. The Grocery Budget Challenge, where they're saving on grocery bill. Yeah. Um, the Dinner— the Dinner Budget Challenge, where they're literally making dinner for the family on a budget. The Eat In Versus Eat Out Challenge. The Family Travel Planning Challenge, where they plan the next family trip. Gets 3 hotels, 3 car rental cars, and get the best deal. Like, just 100 things like that, like really practical life skills, like get to the heart of it. Real investing in stocks, things about real estate, things about DeFi, things about taxes, things about cars and what's the best way to think about cars. And they're just real practical challenges that kids accomplish. Starting in the game and then moving into the real world and then bringing back their results.

Fabulous. So you, you've met all of these people that are on board with you. Where was the genesis, and, and who were the— not necessarily the people, but the, the parts in the business in your world that put these together? So, you know, you got visionaries, integrators. You're obviously a visionary. You're, I'm thinking, implementing as well, to a degree. What was it around you that was the first thing that kind of made you aware that not just the problem existed? I mean, think about, were the kids at your school when you grew up, were they all of a similar sort of financial background? Were they varied background? Because some kids at school are very well off, some kids don't have anything. They know many differences. Where was the kind of first time you noticed the disparity? I'm sure your family were kind of educating, teaching you how to fish at a very early age. That might have been an awareness that you either had because you knew about it, or you weren't aware because you just thought that was natural and thought that everybody knew what you knew.

Yeah, so this is the product, this is the product I wish I had as a kid and all my friends wish they'd had as kids. You know, we're really teaching the the most important skills for life, right? If a kid becomes financially confident, they're future-proofed, right? They're ready for the real world. And that's really every parent's fear at the end of the day when they go to bed, like, have I done enough? Are my kids ready for the real world? You know, what are they missing? You know, that's the deep, deep pain point for a lot of parents. But my background in business, you know, this isn't my first company, this is my fifth company. I've had several exits solving other major world problems from biotech to Web3. But 10 years ago, it became the largest school fundraising franchise in America. It was called Apex Leadership Co. And we've grown to— we're in 40 states now, 600 employees, and we basically built a system where we were in 7 million families in tens of thousands of schools across America, still are. It's a great business raising money and teaching leadership and fitness to kids. And doing that process, you know, I was at the heart for the last decade of how kids learn, seeing what they're learning, seeing what they're not learning, more importantly, and seeing some of the gaps that we could fill. And it's nothing on schools. You know, teachers are the most selfless people on the planet. But yeah, when it comes to financial skills, it's just a huge hole, and it's something that is going to get worse fast. And it's what's crippling our economy, it's crippling our debt, it's crippling the future generations. Most kids today don't even invest. Did you know that Gen Z and Gen Alpha, which is younger than them, are the least invested, uh, generation by age ever? Wow. So you got to think about that. There's a And there's a lack of confidence in the system. I mean, kids growing up today went through, you know, the 2008 crash. They went through another crash. They went through COVID. They've now the recession. Like, you have to teach these basic skills and get them the emotional side of what the world is. You know, we did a survey with 1,000 parents, and we found not just that parents have no idea what to teach their kids on these levels, But the kids actually said that they didn't want to talk about money because it was the biggest fight in the home. Parents don't— they don't fight about sex publicly. They fight about that privately. Yeah. And the families usually come around money. Yeah.

And they say 80% of divorces are directly or indirectly caused by money because of that very reason.

Yep. And you want to— and then what parents tend to do is they want to shelter their kids from it. Yeah, so the kids hear it. They hear it, man. So this is an issue that we've seen is parents don't have that roadmap, teachers aren't teaching it, banks don't care about kids, and we have the largest generation in history as the least invested generation in history. Yeah. And you know, then you've got people that are famous talking about money, are the day trader, get this stock, get that Robinhood stock, Web3, crypto, NFT, like you'll get quick tomorrow. And that's who's famous on social media because they're peddling their Lamborghinis and their jets and their mansions and their Rolexes.

Yeah.

And it's just basically a bait and switch to the entire next generation. And so we just said, okay, how can we solve this? Now that I've seen 7 million families across America and what they need to learn, how can we build a system that actually teaches the right things? And everybody wants financial literacy, trust me. Everybody wants it, but you can't give kids more homework, and you can't give kids more blogs and studies and tests, right? Yes. Doesn't solve the problem. Like, I'm looking at this book on my desk right now, The Mathematics of Banking and Credit, The Mathematics of Housing and Taxes, The Mathematics of Trades and Professions. This is probably the best stuff that there is out there. It's not in any of the schools. It's just on Amazon to buy, but it's a bunch of workbooks. Black and white sheets, and it's like wrote over and over. Kids aren't going to do this. Yeah, incredible knowledge. So we took this and we're like, okay, how do we turn this into a game? How do we make it fun and turn into actually real life experiences that help kids grow and learn? And so that's what Gravy Stack exists to do. So any parent that wants to future-proof their kids and get them way ahead, teach them the right skills, you literally just sign up. And wild. That's it. I mean, it's not a lot of work because all parents are busy, so we wanted to make it minimal work on parents. And we're basically giving them the tools to set up a structure in the home where kids are starting to learn how to value in the home. We're actually anti-allowance, believe it or not. So we created a system called Home Gigs where kids do chores free and gigs for paid, and then parents choose from a list of things to stop buying for their kids. Toys, trinkets, souvenirs, social outings with their friends, going to the movies, 7-Eleven, the Jordans for their sports that are hundreds of dollars. If kid wants to buy that, they can save up for themselves. And so we create over 70 home gigs that we have on our list. That's an automated list that repeats daily, weekly, monthly, or one-offs. They get an email printout to go on the fridge. Kids are building gigs. It's just the right way to do it. Because if you don't make— if you give your kids an allowance, you're basically breeding socialism. And if you pay for all these things for your kids, you're delaying their ability to make financial decisions until they leave the nest. Yeah. So what you're doing is you're basically just delaying the bank of mom and dad for a long ways down the horn, and then kids get down to the real world and they're just hit with a Mack truck. Yeah. So that's why kids have to start making these decisions at home.

Yep. You doing all right? Do you need some water?

My, uh, I think my 6-year-old gave me a congested cold. That's probably what you're hearing.

No worries, no worries.

Yeah, so that's GravyStack, man.

That's awesome. My puppy's come over to say hi, and it's almost dinner time, isn't it? So, um, so yeah, so tell me about the launch. What's coming up, and, and how can parents get involved? Is there a cost associated with this? You know, most bank accounts in the States come with a fee, unfortunately.

Yeah, so we're launching on November 15th, our MVP. We have 4,000 affiliates ready to go, about 90 million reach between our investors and strategic partners. We've raised about $9 million so far to build this. I mean, it's a mega— it's a mega build, it's a huge lift. But when we get it right, and we are seeing it done right in our private beta right now, the families are crushing it. They love it. We're getting 4.5, 5-star ratings from— on every mission from all the testers. The average family in the Subscription Hunt has saved $547 in, in annual monthly expenses.

Wow.

Yeah, the average family saved 26% on their Grocery Hunt— grocery budget or grocery— yeah, savings challenge. Yeah, the list just goes on and on and on. So We're getting incredible reviews. Everybody wants to tell 3 or 4 other families about it as soon as possible, cousins and nieces and nephews. And kids are actually competing against other kids in the game as well. So they're ranked, there's leaderboards, the Wants vs. Needs Challenge, the Price is Right Challenge, where they're basically using machine learning to learn the value of over 200 products they would use every day. Um, they're making snow cones in the game with a polar bear for a profit. To get as much profit in the 5-minute time limit. They're doing price sensitivity, investing challenges, um, the list— yeah, the list goes on. So the cost, as you, you said earlier, what's the cost? So the game is actually free. We want to get this out to the inner city single mom and her kids all over the world. So the game itself, you can download GravyStack app. It'll be out at the end of the year publicly, uh, the end of 2022 for people to join, but you can join our waitlist on the website right now. Just put in your email and you'll join the next batch of families launching. Yeah. And then when people want to do the bank account and debit card, it's like $5.99 a month. So simple, not so much, you know, the price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks, um, but it's— we don't care about the price because what families are actually saving and what they're earning and what the kids are actually doing is a net-net, you know, at least a 10 to 50x return on the—

oh, and what they save in life is going to be $100 or $1,000 at least.

The price keeps our lights on, right? But we're going to be at a million kids in the next couple years. That's a billion-dollar company. So for us, we basically just want to get this out to everybody, um, of all different walks. We have the, the wealthiest and smartest people in the world putting this together for a game and a bank account for kids. So that's really our mission, is to get this out, uh, starting in the US and then North America, and then the game will go worldwide. And then as we get our banking, uh, neobank partners, we'll start launching more countries. But we have our banking all set up in the States right now, um, and people can join right away. We also have a parent group, so parents can join the Parent Platinum group. It's like $20 a month. And they can get all the resources and questions to ask their kids and, you know, breakout groups with other rockstar parents and high-level interviews from some of the world's most famous names on this, on these topics. We also have an annual ParentCon that they, they will be able to get into for that group. Um, but yeah, so we're just basically trying to change it from the ground up and give people one way. And we'll be able to highlight, you know, all of the other incredible people that you know, that we know the best-selling authors, the child psychologists, the Dave Ramsey's, Grant Cardone's of the world can come in and teach something specifically to families as we go. But yeah, uh, end of the year, end of 2022 is the public launch.

Fabulous, fabulous. So I picked up My Money Bunnies by Mike Michalowicz a few months ago, um, like a kid's version of Profit First, which I, I've— I use myself, um, and David Richter and a bunch of other people have rewritten Profit First for dentistry, real estate agents, real estate investors, and so forth, which is really great. Um, my bookkeeper runs the Profit First system, you know, which is really helpful for me, but it really is financial literacy for grown-ups. But it doesn't address the home unless you apply that to the home, or, you know, maybe siphon it down to 3 accounts instead of 5. But still, it's definitely so important to put it in a way that parents can understand. So having that parent group will be great because they're going to talk about kids' problems and relate it unconsciously to their own challenges and problems in their own adult life as well.

That's right. Yep. I think a lot of parents, you know, there's— there is a fear on this one, right? Parents don't want their kids to worry about money, even though the parents probably do worry. It's one of the biggest worries people have. And, you know, there's so many questions. This is why we're doing the parent group, because there's so many questions parents need help answering. Right? When should my kids learn certain things? When should I talk to my kids about what I make? You know, when should we start talking about net worth? When should we start talking about real estate investments, delayed gratification, compounding interest, personal responsibility? All these topics, they have a time and a place, and we're just trying to give parents the right tools to raise their kids in the right environment. So the more people join this, it's just a— it's one of those 10x returns. Just the more you're part of it and you're with other amazing families It's very topical, but parents just need that little bit of a help, right? Because they're busy trying to work, make enough money for the family, save enough for their kids' future. You know, the average cost of raising a kid is $300,000 right now. That just came out last month, from 0 to 18, off out of the nest. So, you know, there's a lot here that parents need a little bit of a boost, and, uh, I think we've got the tools to give it to them. So that's what Gravy Stacks Parent Platinum's for.

I remember it was about £330,000 when I was growing up in the UK. I mean, I can't remember what age I had that statistic, but yeah, it's amazing, the growth. And teaching kids about good debt and bad debt, or at least using it for good purposes and bad purposes, that's one of the biggest challenges, is that can be really, well, a real great benefit to people. No successful person does anything without debt. You know, Dave Ramsey being the exception, but I think Dave Ramsey's got his place for people that need the help to ground themselves. But, and if they can't handle the debt, there's a certain reason to stay in that model. But the world doesn't work without debt. Interest doesn't get created and create more wealth for the people that are lending money without debt being in place. And that's why the government are happy to have debt, because it creates more money. Creates more taxation when it's spent and when it circulates. And if kids can understand even the foundation of that, how even arbitraging debt to make sure, you know, if you've got a whole life policy, you can borrow from that, go and buy something, invest, or lend to somebody, and you can be arbitraging that. We're going to be starting a fund at some point soon, um, which is going to fund a charity. I'm starting a charity called 40 for Teens to provide free counseling and therapy services to teenagers. And also to raise awareness for parents is of depression, anxiety, bipolar, all the things that kids are suffering with. Yeah, we're going to launch a fund where I want to be able to funnel people like your, your clients into investing some of their money either in Reg CF or, you know, maybe primarily accredited investors for most of the assets. We're going by multifamily assets where people can donate 20 or 30% of their return to the charity. This sustains the charity that's another write-off for them in addition to the depreciation, the cost seg, everything else. And they can invest with their dad or their mum or their parents, because if they got a self-directed product they want to invest in this, or a whole life policy, they can then just be getting that return. And it's creating a relay race for the kids. It's not, yeah, here's 10 houses, I'm dead now, go and deal with them. I'm— we're building up a portfolio of 10 houses together. Here's a relay bat, and you've got to catch up and understand what I know so that you can carry on the flame and hand that down to your kids. So when you're 15, you're already teaching them financial literacy because it was naturally taught to you.

Yep. Yeah, that's— it's a bigger question. How do you teach the right debt? How do you— is debt good? Is it bad? Like, these are things that each family would— can individually figure out on their own. A lot of wealth has been created through debt. It's exactly right. But the statistics are clear, you know, if you have a credit card, you're automatically psychologically 30% more in spend, right? People spend 30% more with a credit card than a debit card. Now there's security things with a debit card that you don't— that you get with a credit card without a debit card because you can cancel it and all these other things. But, you know, having— I think when— if kids learn that, oh, I just want to live for now and I just want to get debt now so I can enjoy the things in life now, then they will become a slave to the lender later on in life. So debt, debt can be valuable in a lot of different ways. But I think what's happening is a lot of the younger generation is seeing this as a way to be lucrative early on, but then they just, they get into the trappings of debt. Yeah, they want to buy things for now with it. And, you know, credit card debt is escalating. It's not going down. You know, if you have a credit card, you should just pay it off every month. That should be the rule. But that's not what people are doing. They're not actually being financially literate enough to do so. And so then they just get trapped in 20% interest credit card debt, and they don't understand the difference. And then they write off debt altogether, or they have all these issues leading into adulthood. And, you know, student loans being one of the biggest ones.

Right?

Yeah. $2 trillion student loan problem right now. How do we solve it? You got to educate kids on what it really means. Like, what are you getting a loan to do? Like, what are you actually going to do to create value with that loan, with your degree? And, you know, I, I am kind of 50/50 on the whole college thing right now. I see benefits in it for sure. I see drawbacks in it for sure. Yeah. You know, some of my most successful friends never even went to college. They took that money and they put it into business and launched it, and now they're multi-millionaires. So yeah, it's one of those things that— and I have a lot of other friends that did go to college and then they're still in debt, barely getting by.

Yeah.

Anyway, so there's just a lot of questions.

Yeah, I saw a clip with Hormozy the other day talking about his friend's son. I think it was that he was talking about whether he should go to college or not. And, um, you know, he's— he, he talked him through speaking with his parents and talking to them about the fact that if I do this, then this is the likely return and the likely outcome. But if you're committed to doing that— I did a TED-style talk a few years ago about the importance of Americans getting out their own country at a young age. I'd rather my kids went to travel for a couple of years and found themselves, found what they were passionate about, and then went to college and got into debt for something they were truly engaged with, rather than just following the the lemmings towards the edge of the cliff and just doing something that they didn't necessarily engage with for the rest of their life.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of gap years for sure. Yeah, uh, having a gap year that's very intentional, you know, with travel and work and apprenticeships and creating value and learning really what you love, what you're good at. Yeah, one of the biggest needs in the world to you, you know. I see that as— people call it a calling, right? Like, what's your What's your God-given role? I, you know, I look at it as, you know, God gave us gifts and talents and things we're good at. He gave us, you know, a heart to love certain things where you're in flow when you're doing it and you just absolutely love it. And then he gave us a heart to care about certain things. What are the biggest needs of the world that need to be solved? And where those three things meet— your talents, what you love, and the needs of the world— that's a sweet spot. That's what you should be focused on. And so part of Gravy Stack is actually helping kids find that. You know, we have a sweet spot challenge where they're talking to their closest family and friends and people that know them and telling them what they think they're better at than anybody else in the world. We're teaching them what the main 180 jobs in America get paid every month. And they have to create a monthly budget to live inside of those jobs. It's a job fair style game. Yeah. They learn the value of every job. And they learn what they might want to do based on that spot. And then they figure out a monthly budget in the game. It's all gamified. They find— they, they learn budgeting through a game, man. Nobody's gonna sit at home, print out a piece of paper, and try to go through a monthly budget. It doesn't make any sense. You can't teach that with a kid. You have to make it fun. And so in the game, they help 12 characters in the game that have certain things they're passionate about and certain, you know, educational uh, degrees, and they have to go find the right job for that person and then help that person live on the monthly budget that they're going to get from the job. So it's a great way to teach it without making them like have mom and dad open up the whole bank account and tell them what they make and go through a budget, right? Yeah, yeah. So this is how kids learn, man.

Yeah, I think it's so important to, to put them in the mindset of what that person is. It breeds compassion for the other people as well, where they're more understanding about different roles. Only 180 out of how many thousands of roles that are available and unique opportunities. But I think that's a great lesson for adults as well, is to even just interview their friends, whether it's an anonymous form. I've thought about doing recently— I did it a few years ago— where I called my friends and just kind of had an honest conversation with them about where I was in the world, where they saw me, what I was known for, what I could be relied on for. All of these things just to kind of restructure myself. How am I putting myself out to the world? How does the world see me? And are those things in alignment? Not say I should align with what other people think, but what I think— we take a lot of our gifts for granted without realizing the impact they can have on others. And that's definitely an opportunity to realize that we may be having more in effect in things we're doing less of, but could impact the world more greatly by doing more of that for other people.

That's right. Yeah, you nailed it. Yeah. And the earlier people can figure that out, the better.

Yeah.

Instead of an assembly line education system that was built for the industrial age, yeah, sort of retool it to where kids are prepared for the digital age, prepared for the 21st century, prepared for a world that in 10 years, you know, a third of the jobs could be potentially automated. Yeah, how do we prepare the next generations for that kind of a world? And I think, you know, we're, we're well on the way here with GravyStack, but it's going to take a Herculean effort from a lot of different people for sure.

Yeah, what was it? Give us two generations and we'll change the way America thinks. Is that the Rockefellers? I think, yeah.

And they did. That's a, that's a truth that's age-old. I mean, there's a lot of people that want it, you know, they, they want to make the whole next generations think completely differently. About the world. They want to upend things, and I don't know where that's going. We'll see, man.

As long as they promote thinking rather than just, you know, I don't know, copying things, you know, just rote is, is, you know, it's, it's not the healthiest way.

But well, and the last thing you want to do is make an entire generation think that socialism is the best way to go, right? Absolutely. That's one of the fears I have is, yeah, if everybody thinks that, oh yeah, we— there's too much inequality, we need to shift the whole narrative and take money that's not there and give it out to everybody so everybody doesn't have to work for it. Yeah, you have equal amounts of poverty rather than unequal amounts of wealth. Yeah. And I, you know, that's I think the biggest issue that we might face because, you know, if you look at the Trajectory of History, um, you know, the next 100 years amid the American superpower. There's a bunch of books coming out on this, but the whole, the whole idea there is there's usually a cycle to American history, and that's good times or bad times create strong men and women, strong men and women create good times, and good times create weak men and women, and weak men and women create bad times. Yeah, the cycle just repeats itself. So if you look at our history, where are we at on that quadrant? You know, are we only, uh, weak people that are about to create some bad times, or are we hopefully still on the trajectory of strong men and women creating good times?

It's definitely a transitionary period for sure.

We'll see. Our goal is to hopefully extend the life of the good, the strong men and women that create good times.

That's the goal. Yeah, fantastic. Well, Scott, it's been a great pleasure. Is there anything else you want to share before we wrap up?

I think we covered a lot of it, man.

This is fantastic.

I think a lot of parents, you know, what we're seeing is a lot of parents especially, and even if they don't have kids, you know, ages 6 or 8 all the way to 18, like the This is a, this is a hot button for every parent. Yeah, even if your kids are out of the house, they're struggling in their 20s, they're trying to figure out life. If you just have— you know, I've got young kids, so I'm actually building this for them. Um, but this is a hot button for a lot of parents. And so if we can just ease their pain and give them a simple roadmap that, yeah, helps guarantee successful kids and gives that percentage of success, you know, increases it to a large degree, then we've done our job. So yeah, we'd love to have anybody who's listening that wants in go over to gravystack.com and join the waitlist, join our community, and help build it with us. It's a movement, right? It's not just us giving them something, it's all of us together working on it.

It's power versus force. That's right. Force of what's in place already, and just the power of us overcoming that and creating the change that's necessary. The British Empire and Gandhi, isn't it?

That's right. That's right.

Fantastic. Well, guys, look out in the trailer here. We're going to put up Gravy Stacks contact information, how to get hold of Scott and his team. Please spread the word. This is such an important message. This is really the foundation of this Birth to Net Worth podcast is educating the next generation, educating the existing generation so we can strengthen the future. So thank you again, Scott. I appreciate you. And I've just locked my computer, so I'll unlock it so I can end the broadcast.

Awesome.

Thank you so much, Scott. Have a great day.

You too, my friend. See you soon. Thank you for your time in joining us on this episode. Please follow these links to learn more about this week's guest. Don't forget to subscribe and to leave us a comment below. We look forward to you joining us on the next episode of Birth to Net Worth.