← Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Turning Liabilities Into Luxury ft. Pejman Ghadimi | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby
00:48:14
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- [00:00]
A
Most people learn to live below their means. Pejman Ghadimi teaches you how to turn your means into millions. From being declined to clean floors, to managing a Fortune 500 bank at 18, to pioneering the online education space in alternative finance. PJ isn't your typical entrepreneur.
- [00:21]
B
Absolutely nothing. I don't cold plunge. I don't do shit.
- [00:25]
A
In this episode, we talk about the hidden math behind exotic cars, how watches can outperform real estate, and and why most people stay broke not from lack of money, but from lack of mindset.
- [00:37]
B
Do you know how many times I've lost money on cars before I realized how to not do it? You know how many times I bought the wrong watch to tell my students not to buy that one because there's a Wrong One?
- [00:44]
A
From McDonald's rejection to multi million dollar collections. From immigrant hustle to industry dominance. Welcome to Coffee.
- [00:52]
B
Appreciate you having me on.
- [00:54]
C
It's a pleasure. It's an honor. I know you. You're a busy guy touring around, you know, probably your third podcast at the.
- [01:00]
B
We were in LA and I was like, you know what? We got to try to make it out if we can. And I've heard nothing but great things. So I'm excited to be able to share some knowledge with your audience.
- [01:08]
C
Thank you. Thanks for coming on. So I like to start every show the same way with every one of my guests. And pj, what's your morning routine?
- [01:15]
B
None. I don't do anything. Like, nothing. Like, absolutely nothing. I don't cold plunge. I don't have a specific breakfast. I don't wake up at a specific time and build five businesses in five minutes in the morning and then go to sleep. Again, nothing. Like, you know, I. I've found that creating structural boundaries like that usually is a state of the mind that needs discipline. And I have enough discipline that I don't need to follow a specific routine to have a great life experience and be able to still achieve everything I want to do. As a matter of fact, I like the freedom of not having an obligation by any means for anything. And if I wake up and I don't want to do something on my schedule or calendar that day, I just don't do it. Like, I literally piss off everybody because I ignore, like, my obligations sometimes because I'm like, I'm just not in the mood. So I'm not just not gonna do that. And I know it sounds like a really bad business practice sometimes to be like, oh, well, you add all these things here and you don't want to do them But I feel like what people pay for when they pay for a service or they want to work with me or anything else is they're paying for the experience they're having. Like, they're going to have an experience, and it's about getting them to that next level, regardless that it's about cars, watches, or anything else. And so if they don't have the best version of me because I'm in a bad mood that day or I don't feel like doing something, they're not going to have the best experience with me. So I'd rather piss them off for the moment and get them better results rather than try to force myself to do something I don't want to do that day. So no morning routines, no nothing. I actually had a reel that went viral on Instagram when I was like, I don't do.
- [02:53]
C
I love that. I love that. You know, I. I love to ask that question because everybody, every single guest has a different answer. Like, the guest before he was like, I take a drive. I mean, I've had guests tell me cold plunges. I've had guests tell me the most elaborate, you know, Zen moments. And I'm like, yeah, listen, different things.
- [03:13]
B
Work for different people. You know, like, there's people that need to sit in front of a tree and meditate for, like, 20 minutes in the morning to feel good about their life. And it's like, that's good. I mean, I'm not telling someone how to live or what to do, but I just feel like.
- [03:24]
C
So you know about the. The real life tree where you meditate in front of it? It has like a.
- [03:28]
B
No, I was just guessing.
- [03:29]
C
There's a whole thing I've heard someone actually does that.
- [03:31]
B
It's like, I believe someone does it.
- [03:33]
C
Like. Like, that's a thing. You know, that was actually. Someone told me that on a podcast, too. Like, you know, the tree has some sort of frequency that they can feel during meditation. I don't even know.
- [03:45]
B
I would say there's a cartoon for every tv.
- [03:49]
C
So you're. You're in the online coaching space, but, you know, it's not just online. You dominate that space. You started as the first person in that space.
- [04:00]
B
So I really did. And a lot of people don't realize that because they see me on the Internet and they're like, oh, you're doing coaching. So, first off, I never sold coaching. In 2007, I started before the podcast was around, before people were doing these things. I started doing interviews with really successful people under a brand called Secret entourage. And I brought together an online like academy of like the best in each industry and everything else. And people would basically share their stories and I would build community around the young people who didn't have access to formal education because I never went to college. And I was like, here you can learn from great people online who have done great things. Regardless of what you want to learn. There's a guy who's an expert, so. So I would vet people, bring them in and that was it, that was the story. That business became a big thing even though it took three years to really figure out how to like get an online business going. Because it was my first online business. I had a background in finance, in investments and cars, watches and art. And I at the time just decided to teach entrepreneurship, help people just have a better way as a pet project, hobby that turned into a super lucrative business three years later. And I realized how to unlock basically selling education online. So this is where that transition happens. Say, hey, I do this as a project where I like to help people learn business, entrepreneurship, awareness, consciousness, but I don't want to make money doing it. So I said, I'm an alternative asset guy. I know cars, watches, art, values beyond anything people know. And I had a lot of experience in that space. So I said what I want to teach is I want to teach people finance, which is alternative financed things they don't hear people on TV talk about, things they don't hear their teachers talk about. And I've been very successful doing that. So I was like, I'm only going to teach when I'm super experienced at. And that's what I started teaching online as it pertained to coaching and building communities and brands around cars, watches, art, as far as making money with these things, not flipping cars, like how to actually buy an exotic car or a luxury car, drive it for free, get rid of it and get rid of this idea that you have to pay to own a car. And the same thing with watches. How to actually turn watches like they like into a profit center to actually wear them, enjoy them, but when you don't want to make money off of them. So the whole goal was, since I grew up poor, how do I teach people basically how to live 10 times better than live today and have the expenses they're going to have anyways, but how to turn those expenditures into actual like parked money that turned into profit. So turn your ass, your liabilities into assets basically. And so be having been in finance my whole life, I was like, that's what keeps people Poor. They just spend money. But the answer we keep hearing is always like, well, the way you get rich is you spend less than you make you eat less than. I'm like, this is, like, this is the stuff that, like, no one wants to spend less than they make. Like, everybody wants a ton of. And nobody wants to actually, like, sit there and be like, I'm going to wait till I have $10 million to buy a yacht. No. And then I'm going to have nothing again and be broke. No, of course not. So there's an idea that we don't wait, right? As a human. As a human species, we're built in a way that we just don't want to wait for things. We're instant gratification monkeys. We want the car now. We want it before we even earned it. So I understood that human behavior was, like, basically a flaw in the way we've been brought up by society. So I said, if I can teach people that there's a way to literally use that flaw to your advantage and learn that instead of just buying a car because you really wanted a cool car, buy the right one. And so you can keep buying cooler cars and it won't financially hurt you. If you've always wanted a Rolex, buy the right one so that you can keep buying nicer Rolexes and park your money. So even though your income as your child obviously goes up into adulthood and you start making big boy money in your 30s and 40s and you start becoming a real guy, well, at that point, you don't want to be like, oh, every year I made 30, I spent 28, 35, and I'm in debt. You want to be in a place where, yeah, I learned to make $10 million, but I also learned that I only spend, like, 50 grand a month. That's it. Even though I'm making $10 million. Because all my other expenditures, which are most people's, like houses, cars, watches, and things they buy that are expensive, can actually be transferred assets that just park money. Like, we do this with real estate already. We know this. We're like, I buy a house, it's a store of wealth, and it eventually goes up. But people don't realize this is out there for cars, watches, art, and all the other luxuries that they are conditioned to want to buy but look at as expenses.
- [08:29]
C
So, I mean, I know that you can't give this to me in an instant form, but what's like, a couple practical ways that someone can implement this right now on this show, like, without Having to, like, go through, you know, a month of courses.
- [08:46]
B
So the course is on a month in six hours. They're very short, straight to the point. That's why they're super effective. And we've been.
- [08:53]
C
That's it. You buy a course for six hours.
- [08:55]
B
Six hours, that's it. The main. And this is why I'm really good at it. So my chosen purpose is to be a teacher, not a marketer. Some really good at teaching stuff. And this particular concept, I narrowed it down and every year I improve it. And I don't even charge more money. So any. If you. If you bought one of my courses in 2007 or 2008, that same course is still around today, which is insane. And it's now better because every year it's been improved and you've never had to overpay or pay for it again. Because I improve it just naturally for all my students. That's why I have so many students globally. But, you know, I'm devoted to, like, teaching this. And I don't teach anything I'm not an expert in. I don't teach today crypto, tomorrow morning routine. Next day I have something new. Because I think yoga is where the money's at. Like, I teach the same thing. I've done the same thing literally, since I was like 19 years old. So, like, I'm 43 now, and that's all I know. I breed, live and fuck alternative assets. Cars, watches, art, you know, that's it. Like, buy, sell, trade, understand all the values, the futures. What's going on? I predicted during COVID that all the cars would be worth more money. Everybody said it was crazy. My car collection skyrocketed like, five times. I basically made an extra $20 million. It was crazy. Like, people don't pay attention to what's out there. But I'll tell you something, your cars during COVID No, I didn't flip them. I bought an extra $6 million in cars. Like before COVID before, like, the crash. Meaning before people actually realized that, like, the country was closing and because everything was on discount and everybody thought the pandemic was going to take over. But I was like, supply chain in Europe is completely distorted. They aren't going to be cars when the country reopens. People are like, you have no idea what you're talking about. I was like, I've been doing this for like 15 years. I was like, I know what I'm talking about. Car dealers that have been in the space 20 years were like, you're wrong. I was like, fine. I put all my money where my mouth is. I started buying a ton of cars, like right before. I was like, here's all the rarest cool cars I can buy. I was like, I'll buy all this. People are like, this guy's crazy. He's going to take his, he's going to just lose another. All this money. As soon as the country opened, all the shit went up like 300%. So I was like, yep. I was like, good. Now the same people that thought I was crazy were paying me 200% on the same assets I was buying. So, you know, the reality comes down to this very simple concept. If you want to apply this to your life, you have to basically break down your living expenses into large expenses and small expenses. Perishable expenses are the normal things like your travel, your food, you know, like these things you're going to do, great experiences you're going to have. Your money's gone when you pay for stuff like if you buy it and you don't use points and your travel is gone. Whatever you buy, it's, it's over once you get off the plane, right? Like you used it. Same with food. You go to restaurant. Wherever you spend is gone. If you can divide your life into expenditures that are like your must haves, but that are large purchases, your house, your car and your watches or jewelries or things you want that are large purchases and make those purchases in a smart manner where the actual item retains its value by buying the correct one and stop chasing price. You can usually park money in these assets similar to savings accounts. And while they're not always going to go up in value because they have utility and you're using them every day, what they're going to do is they're going to store your wealth. And so if you can do that, you can basically cut down your expenditures by like over 80%. And what I try to teach people is which cars should you be buying, which watches should you be buying, which decoration on your wall should you be putting to ensure that the money you're spending isn't going away? So I'll give you a good example of this. You have a Range Rover. Most people like Range Rovers. They like Those kind of SUVs, luxury SUVs, we call them. You can buy a range rover for $100,000, for example, slightly used, you think you got a good deal, you're excited. That range rover in three years will be worth $45,000. So if you, you will have lost $50,000 divided over 36 months. And that's your cost of ownership for that particular item. Now to someone they might say, well, it's only $1,000 a month. Because most people are pre programmed to only think monthly costs. Like what does it cost me to own this per month? What I'm telling people is the more you follow the pre programmed nature of what they've brainwashed you to, believing that your monthly payment is your expenditure, the less you understand how life really works. Because what if, I'll give you an example. If, if you bought that car for 100 and you ended up selling it for 50 grand, you lost 50 grand, right? This is a 50k loss. It's black and white calculation. What if you actually bought a Lamborghini SUV, which you want more, and your payment was $2,000 a month, but the SUV was 200 grand because it was double the price, but by the time you sold it, it was also 200 grand. So what would happen is every two grand payment you put in that car would go in the equity of the car. So at the time you go sell your car and you go, okay, I don't want this, like, just like the Range Rover, I want to get rid of it. Let's say there is out of that two grand payment, fifteen hundred dollar of it was equity. The five hundred was your interest, whatever that is. All those fifteen hundred dollars, they're not parked in the car like a savings account. So when you go sell that car, suddenly they're like, oh yeah, here's your check for like 60 grand. You're like, wait, why? Like I just made my payment, I drove my Lamborghini, why are you paying me back? Well, I'm just paying you back because your car is worth the same money you paid for it three years ago, two years ago. And the argument is the depreciation schedules of exotic cars are significantly different than luxury or just normal cars. Normal cars depreciate to zero, exotic cars don't. Historically, a Lamborghini depreciates 10 to 15% in its first two years and stays at the same value for the next 10 years.
- [14:25]
C
Wow.
- [14:26]
B
Right? So people don't understand that, so they just go, oh well, a car depreciates every year because older it's got more miles. But that's not true. Exotic cars have very different depreciation classes. And there's two reasons for that. A lot of people are getting richer every year than they were the year before. And they're not always making more cars to accommodate them. So. And the price of New cars for Lamborghini, Ferrari, and everything keeps going up every year. So even though today you could go in a dealership and say, I can buy this new Ferrari for 5,500k, the previous generation model can be bought for 250 and has an avid following of people who will still buy that and market with it. And so because you have such a high demand for each generation of exotic, you always have retention of value. And so people don't realize this and keep thinking when you talk about exotic cars or watches. Oh, you know, my old cousin said that his Lamborghini used to break down because he had one back in like 95. And I'm like, yeah, cars are not what they were in 95. The industry wasn't what it was in 95. Audi wasn't making Lamborghini in 1995. You know, so people weren't don't understand how things work. And so they alienate what they don't think they can afford. And one of the reasons we have so many students is people come to me and they realize, I didn't know I could afford a Lamborghini at 23. I'm like, yes, you can. It's actually more financially responsible to own a Lamborghini than to own that Range Rover. And when they realize that, they're like, holy shit, you know, that's crazy. Like I can actually go buy this Lamborghini. I'm like, yes. And then they're like, there's a bank, they'll give me a loan even though I'm just 23 years old. I'm like, yes. And they're like, why would a bank give me a loan at 23 to buy Lamborghini? Because the banks now know that those cars depreciate a lot less too. So they love investing in those assets in their portfolio more than they like doing a Honda Civic or a Honda Accord or whatever they call Honda's these days. I don't even know what the models are, but you get the idea.
- [16:19]
C
So we just got the free course right now, almost.
- [16:22]
B
But I didn't give you the secret, which is exactly how to calculate the values in the cars you need to actually buy.
- [16:28]
C
Yeah, no, but you know the gist people can buy a Lamborghini, not worry about it, as long as a couple years old.
- [16:32]
B
Correct. Well, if. Assuming they're buying the right one, because dealers are really smart and they could make 30, 40k margins on those cars too. So if you don't know how to buy them, you're buying the dealer margin. You're losing the 30, 40k anyways. So, yes, there's a strategy to this and to not fool people. Is it simple? No, I wouldn't say simple. Is it easy? No, it requires you to actually do some research and to understand what I teach. Like, it's not like a lot of people misunderstand what I do, and they think, oh, you're just teaching people how to buy low and sell high. No, because there's a usage component to a car that you're not accounting for when you buy low and sell high. A dealer for a watch or a car, buy something and resells it immediately. We're telling you, you have to buy something, drive it for 12 months, and then resell it. How will you know what it's worth in 12 months? How will you know what extra miles do? So all these things all play a role in the equation.
- [17:26]
C
And then you started your first job managing at McDonald's, and then you switched. You actually ended up being a manager at a Fortune 500 bank. Now, what did rejection teach you about the system and about yourself?
- [17:42]
B
So I got. Declined a job cleaning floors at McDonald's. I didn't actually have a job at McDonald's. I had no green card. They wouldn't let me clean the floors for $3 an hour. I got a remodeling job. I became director of the company by 18, and I became the youngest bank manager in America at 18. That was my big, like, real corporate move. And there is a. There was a very interesting phenomenon of being that young in such a position as an immigrant and as someone that didn't earn that job. It was more like I had a lot of sales background. That's how I got myself into that job. And I think the most important thing that, you know, I. I learned from that crazy corporate America thing is that a lot of people look at jobs as a negative. They're like, you got to build your dream, follow your companies, and you. I'll do all that. And I'm the opposite of that. I understood very young, and I still hope a lot of young people understand this today, which they don't. Jobs are incredible places to earn skills, and your market value is determined by your skill base. So if you have no skill, then go get a job. There's nothing wrong with it. But as soon as you get a skill and you've proven capable of that skill, then check the marketability of that skill, if you like doing it and against what it's worth in a better company now that you're Experienced if your company doesn't recognize it. And then eventually, can you sell that skill by yourself to people without, you know, on your own if you're willing to take that chance. But a lot of times people want to sell an unknown skill they don't have to, people they don't understand in ways they don't know, and they think that having a morning routine, talking to a tree will help them do that better. So there's this whole disconnect between the process part and the reality of, like, what it takes to, like, really make it.
- [19:31]
C
And that's where you've really mastered is the process.
- [19:34]
B
Yes. The willingness to understand that even if there is a longer dream or goal you have, there may be processes and steps you need to take to get to the starting line, not to the finish line. This is where there's a significant disconnect in human behavior towards success. People think they're at the starting line of everything they start. They're not. You see, in my life, being an immigrant with no money, single mother and no green card and nothing, at the very beginning, I was in a negative 100 stat, not at zero. And I understood that I was at a disadvantage. So I was going to have to earn my way to the starting line before I actually started working on something I wanted to work on. And a lot of people don't realize that. They think they're at zero. So they go, I'm at the rock bottom. I'm like, no, you're actually negative. You're like, in the river on the side of the road. You're not realizing that you're not even on the road. You're not even playing the game. And they're like, well, what do I have to do? I'm like, go work a job for six months. And they're like, oh, but that doesn't pay or get me to my goal. That's not what I want to do. Well, you might have to do things you don't want to do to get enough data or enough money or enough skill to get in front of the line and to be like, I'm ready to play now. So, like, you can't go and gamble when you have no money. You have to get some money to come gamble. What do you do to get that money? Well, most people are like, I want to gamble without the money. Or like, someone give me money and I'll prove that I'm a good gambler. I'm like, no, you got to learn how to gamble with your money first. So you have to Prove you can make money to get at the table, to sit there and play cards. Like, so a lot of people, there's that huge disconnect with young people. They just don't understand that.
- [21:06]
C
It's fascinating because everybody's trying just to get rich quick. And I'm sure you encounter that a lot every day because you're teaching people and you've made people very rich. And I think your. Your thing is like, I teach people how to make millions.
- [21:23]
B
Well, I create millionaires was my IG handle when I started Instagram, because I felt like I had so many millionaire students I had created through watch, trading or. Or learning basically alternative assets or even about entrepreneurship that I was like, oh, I'll take that name. I thought it was incredibly cheesy. And it was so necessary because I understand that no matter how cheesy things may be, marketing is marketing, and it's necessary to get people's attentions. So at the time, you know, like, that's what I did. But one thing that's really important in my brands and in my business journey is authenticity. And so if I hadn't had the track record I had, I wouldn't have picked that name. You know, if I hadn't actually created millionaires, I wouldn't have cared. A lot of people are like, well, now it's like, I create billionaires. I'm like, I haven't created a billionaire. I'm not a fucking billionaire. Why would I care, like, about creating billionaires? I can't do what billionaires. I want to know. Yeah. The point is, like, I have. If I haven't done something, I'm not going to teach someone how to do it. Like, it doesn't. That. That's fraud. So to me, the. The concept was really simple. Like, it's like, I've made so many students rich over the years. When I started on Instagram, I was like, I'll make something catchy like this. It actually hurt me more than it helped me in the long term because there were a lot of cartoon characters that didn't know me on the Internet that were like, oh, another guy selling courses. And I was like, a lot of people actually don't realize we have one of the most successful course selling business in the country, because we've had it for over 15 years, and they don't see that, you know, so when they see a course, they're like, oh, he's selling another course. I'm like, same course I've been selling since 2007. Like, nothing's changed. And they're like, oh. I'm like, yeah, same one. They're like, oh, so you actually have a community? I'm like, yeah, there's like hundreds of thousands of people in the community. So it's not like. Then the thing we like learned yesterday.
- [23:05]
C
Is, is that a community on school?
- [23:07]
B
W. No, none of them. We have our own platform that we founded back in 2007 and we custom code everything. So we have huge communities that are basically ran on our own websites. These are not third party websites. These are not sold to new people that have come with their new high level platform. These are not their. Like, like, look, school is great. Homozy is a fantastic guy. I think it's really smart. But at the end of the day, that's someone else's customer in teaching, you know, your stuff on someone else's platform. I was never interested in that. I was interested in teaching people and helping them get better. I wasn't interested in selling them courses. Courses were just an educational tool. Just like, you go to college, like, some colleges care about you succeeding. Some colleges are like, it's another student in the door. It's 40 grand a year. I don't give a shit. You know, hopefully he'll make something out of himself. My thing was I needed results. I needed students that had results. Because at the time when I started teaching, don't forget that this was very early in 2007, 2010, that era, people didn't believe in cars and watches. Like, I was 10 years ahead, trying to talk to people about, like, there's money in this stuff. And they were like, crazy guy, like, talking about Ferraris, making money. Like, are you insane? And I was like, yeah. And I was like, there's money, I'm doing it. They're like, yeah, bullshit. I was like, okay. So that took 10 years, literally, to convince the world to like, this is real. 10 year track record online since day one. What are you gonna say? Like, it's not working. I'm like, I just showed you it's working for, like, all these people. It's working for me. So, like, people are now starting to, since 2020, have really, really opened their minds to, like, okay, he's not crazy. And he's saying something and he's been doing it. So he has a background in it and it's been working. And Covid 5 xed our business, you know, so, like, it was a big thing because people are stuck at home. They wanted to learn new things. Watches became mainstream. They saw their friends driving Ferraris and They were like, something's going on in this world. Like, something's happening. And they wanted to join. So it became a big, big shift for us.
- [25:02]
C
Yeah. You know, even, even now, if you, as you tell this, like, I can't imagine the amount of people, even listeners, like, this is bullshit. There's no way that watches can make me a ton of money. There's no way that art can make me a ton of money.
- [25:17]
B
I said this on a podcast yesterday where it was a two hour podcast, so we had a long time to talk about it. Wealth triggers two things in people. There's only two things that it triggers. Envy or curiosity. That's it. So if you sit here and you're like, okay, I have a $30 million car collection. Cool. There's only two people, two types of people that are gonna listen to that, what I just said, right? As a statement and say, either that guy, I'm envious. Like, I don't care what he says. Full of shit. A scam artist or two, someone's curiosity is going to be triggered. How? Who are you? What do you do? Like, I want to understand.
- [25:54]
C
You do have a 30 million.
- [25:55]
B
Yes, I do. But what I'm saying is that's the only two things that come from that. So anytime you share any information with someone and it comes from a place of something they don't have or they want, or they. You could stay here and be like, I'm worth this, I do that. I have this. Whoever's listening is only going to have those two reactions. Either it's an immediate. Doesn't matter what you say. It's immediate envy. And it's like, anything you say is void and I'm not going to hear it. Or two, it triggers curiosity. There's a reason there's a 1% pool of people that are really rich. And when I started teaching online, I didn't understand that. I thought that reason was just like, oh, people just don't have information. They don't have knowledge. And then I realized over the years, because it was new to me to teach online too. I've realized that when you teach people around you, it's easy to be like, oh, look, I'm seeing you. You're here. You're real. You know, I'm like touching your car. I understand you're a real person. But when you teach people online, there's this degree of separation from like, is it real? Is it fake? How do I know it's your car? How do I know it's this place? How do I know it's your house. Like, all these things are there. It's smoke and mirrors a lot. So there's this huge, like, opportunity that I had over 10 years to understand that no matter what I say, no matter what I do, I'm not going to appeal to all people. And there's going to be a large group of people who either don't want to change and are going to use every excuse in the book why it isn't their fault they're not changing or they're not rich, it's someone else's fault somewhere. Their parents, their teacher, their governor, their president. Something somewhere, what was me mentality, something somewhere is preventing them from being able to do it. And. And like, oh, but you started. You had some money thrown at you. No. Oh, but you started. You went to a good school. No, but, oh, so there's something else that's a scam somewhere. And that's why I always say there's always envy or curiosity. So curiosity. And what matters is teaching people that if there is money on the table, it isn't your job to figure out. This is the dumbest thing young people do, is, hey, I'm going to get the next. You just told me what to do. Is that where the money's at? I'm going to go try that. That's the wrong mentality. Curiosity is important because all it does is it validates one more way some random person out there made it outside of yourself. So when I was poor, I would pay people 50 bucks. I'd be like, come talk to me for like 30 minutes. Tell me what you do. Guy was like, I'm in shipping logistics. Other guy was like, I'm a doctor. I'm this. I didn't care. I didn't want to become a doctor or go to shipping and be like, I want to ship freights. And that's how you make money. But he was like, there's a guy out there who I don't think is that much smarter than me that figured out how to make millions of dollars in freight. Another one that figured out how to go to school and become a doctor, another one a lawyer, and another one figured out how to sell cars as a car dealer and is making money. So I'm like, if these people, which I don't think have any competitive advantage over me, somehow figure this out, then whatever it is I want to figure out, I'm sure I have a path to doing that. And 4, 3, 50, 100 people validated. They found their own path. And that's why curiosity matters.
- [28:53]
C
When do you think really, that that level of curiosity spiked for you?
- [28:57]
B
From a very young age, because I was poor and there was. Look, when you have nothing, you have to understand this. Again, let's go back to envy and curiosity. I'm a person that doesn't have that much money. I'm very young. I see a guy in front of me driving a $200,000 car, wearing a $30,000 watch. I have nothing. My human value is dog shit. Like, I'm literally going to work trying to create value so they can pay me $5,000 every two weeks. That guy is wearing 30 grand on his wrist and driving a $200,000 car. There is something unproportionally wrong with that in the sense that, like, not wrong in a bad way. There's a lot of curiosity to that. That. I don't want the life I have. I want what he has. Yeah. So if you turn envy into curiosity, then the more you see, the more you believe you can too. And that's all it was. It was paying attention to the world around me. And it was that the world around me was incredibly good. And it was. People were having a good time. I wasn't having a good time because I was struggling working. So instead of looking at it as envy, like, man, I wish I was that guy. I was like, I'm 10 years away from being that guy. I just got to figure out, like, how to work extra hard so I don't have to be this guy anymore. And people don't understand that. Like, they. They just look at that, and they're like, I wish I was that guy. Like, because he has a. And look, you drive around here, we're in, like, Newport beach, the same thing. You drive around here. There's two worlds that exist. There's two worlds that exist around here. You. You got. You go to local steakhouse I was at last night, there's, like, 50 exotic cars in the front, right. You go down the street to the supermarket, ain't no exotic cars. Like, there's two levels of. Of lives going on right here in front of you every single day. It's like two different dimensions happening.
- [30:41]
C
And by the way, there are many levels.
- [30:43]
B
Yes. To that game. Yeah, exactly. 100%. Like, super poor or super rich and, like, private jet and everything. Yeah.
- [30:49]
C
The people that are rich in those groups, like, they're like, they're 100% millionaires. And then there's billionaires.
- [30:55]
B
100%. And look, I've been at all. Scale of the Game. I've been at the I don't have $10 to use, you know, to the point where now I don't really have a million dollar problem anymore, you know, so, like, there are different variations of your evolution where you'll learn that your awareness enhances at each stage of the game, but you need to remain curious about the next stage. And if you don't know what you don't know, you need to make sure you don't judge what you don't understand. That is the number one reason I've been ultra successful in everything I do is it's because I never judge what I don't understand. If someone comes to me and they go, I made a billion dollars in aviation. I don't go, I have an opinion of that. Without understanding anything about aviation, I just shut the fuck up and I go, I don't know anything about what you do, but I'm curious now, you know, like you just said, you made a billion aviation. What's the name of your company? Let me go, like, research that on my own and see if there's some way you've done something that it can either apply to my life today or that I can understand. Maybe there's a new industry I didn't know existed or something I wasn't paying attention to, but you clearly did it. I'm looking at your life and I'm like, okay, maybe I need to really pay attention to this.
- [32:04]
C
That's why I love doing podcasts, because I had no idea that people could become millionaires flipping watches.
- [32:12]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [32:13]
C
And you know, me being an entrepreneur now, I'm kind of stuck and pigeonholed into my vertical. But I'm looking out for my kids. Like, I live in Newport Beach. How am I going to keep my kids in Newport beach without me flipping the bill? That's what, like, that's on my mind.
- [32:26]
B
And listen, arbitrage is not hard, man. Like, they understand. I'm sure you told me earlier, your kids do baseball cards or basketball cards. Yeah, exactly.
- [32:33]
C
Yeah.
- [32:34]
B
So that's the same thing, except you're.
- [32:37]
C
Just flipping a bigger.
- [32:38]
B
But watches are more mainstream. They have a larger audience and they have utility. Like, if you asked 100 people on the street if they owned a watch, had owned a watch, or would own a watch, you would have 90% of people at some point or another say I've interacted with a watch. But if you ask the same question to have you interacted with sneakers or like to collect sneakers or a baseball card or some Pokemon card, you would have a much smaller percentage. So you go after the arbitrage that's much more likely to help you, Especially when you're new in business. You go after the arbitrage that's much harder, such as, like, cards and things like that. When you're really experienced in business because you have a wider spread and you have more discipline around the engagement of buying and selling. So you never go to buy things to. To buy and resell that are hard to resell when you're new. You do that when you're an expert, and that's where the big money's made. You know, it's like if you can flip a car for 50 grand versus buy a jet and sit on it for six months and maybe it works out and it doesn't. Well, you can't afford that when you're new. You know, like, you might do that when you're, like, fucking loaded at the end because you're like, hey, I can go and buy a jet and be like, okay, did it work out? Fuck, nobody bought it from me. I'm going to wait, like seven months now. Maybe there's a new buyer. I'm going to renovate. I'm a spend an extra 300 grand in it, and then I'm like, I flip it and I make $2 million on it. It works because I have the experience, the discipline, the patience, and I understand that. Like, I'm taking on a big project. And on the other hand, I could, like, flip a FERRARI in like, 10 seconds, make 30, 50 grand. I could repeat that 10 times, make the same amount as the plane. But in due time, you have to keep evolving so you stay ahead of the trends. And. And if we know aviation becomes a trend in the next 10, 15 years, where more people are now flying private, there's more planes on the road, on the, on the skies, there's more opportunity. This is the same thing we looked at in 2000 when we looked at cars. People are like, who's going to buy Ferraris in 10 years from now, in 2008, I'll never forget the financial crisis. You know, you're an idiot, pj. You're buying Ferraris in the middle of a financial crisis. Who would do that? Like, why? So same thing they told me during COVID Because you can't stop money. And that's the power of capitalism. You can't stop it. So even if money has bumps where, oh, the markets are crashed, trillions of dollars, you're telling me people are going to stop trying to get rich you're going to tell me people are going to stop trying to live in bigger houses than neighbors? You're going to tell me people and the way we are designed as humans, we are going to keep saying we're all going to drive electric taxis and we're happy with that? Of course not.
- [35:02]
C
That example that you said, there's pretty much the same example I use for mortgages. Like, people are like, oh, the market's tough. Like, so you're telling me that you can't sell money because we're in the business selling money and we've had, you know, probably we're. Right now there's only a hundred thousand active loan officers. There was almost a million, right? 900,000 loan officers dropped.
- [35:28]
B
Yeah.
- [35:29]
C
They can't sell money because the rates are too high. As if people stop needing.
- [35:33]
B
Right. Of course, they're always going to need it. It'll change how it looks. Your customer profile will change, but the game doesn't change. It just evolves.
- [35:42]
C
It just evolves. Excuse me, now, how is, like, technology change? Like, because we're heavy on AI, we're heavy on automation. Is that, is that changing your business at all? It's still the same game.
- [35:52]
B
Zero.
- [35:52]
C
Because you don't market, really. You don't market for coaching, you don't market your products, you don't advertise barely.
- [36:01]
B
So. And yet we're killing it because we focused on results and because the students are having results, they're going to tell 10 other people that they need to jump in on this. So that's the key. That's why I said I'm a teacher first, I'm a marketer second, which means that I like teaching. So I focus all my effort on quality teaching that results in. In the future, like marketing from word of mouth or from people wanting to be part of this. And at the end of the day, think about it. I'm in the most beautiful, successful business in the world. I'm persuading people that they need to buy Ferraris and wear Rolexes. Like, they'll do this shit on their own anyways. They don't need me to persuade them to do that. Like, before you knew me. At some point in your life, you're like, I'd like a nice watch. At some point in your life, you're like, I like that design of a car better than this car. Or, I like a G wagon. I'd like a Ferrari, whatever that is. You already have that in your head. So that's why I'm everyone's favorite like secret drug dealer, basically, because I'm facilitating their ability to get what they always wanted in life and do it without going broke and without ever overdosing. And it's a really powerful strategy that I knew back in 2007. I was ahead of time, and I would take 10 years to learn to position myself so that it. It would be in a position to really grow.
- [37:14]
C
So now, like, you were ahead of your time back then thinking about cars and watches. And what are you thinking about now for the future? Like, what's an unconventional project coming up? Like, what. What do we have to look forward to?
- [37:25]
B
So I own a lot of businesses in this industry, from banks lending to car dealers, watch traders and watch jewelers, et cetera, to one of the largest auction houses in the world for watches. I'm into this space in more ways than people can ever imagine. Like, they think in their eyes, because they see me on the Internet promoting courses, they think I just sell courses. So, yes, we have one of the most successful course selling businesses in America. But our main real, I would say, competitive advantage is we're inserted in every aspect of the business. And the next thing we're doing, which is going to be pretty controversial, is we have created the world's first. Are you ready for this prenup? That's right. A prenuptial agreement between a car and a person in the world. That's right. Isn't that crazy? Like, why do you get a prenup for you go get married and you predetermined, kind of. What would happen if you got divorced, right? You'd be like, if things don't work out, we hope it does, but if it doesn't, this is what I'll pay. This is what you'll get. This is how things will play out fair. So you go, I feel better now going into this. So we understand that one of the biggest fears people have is, what if I can't sell my car? What if I buy things and I'm not good at doing some of these things, and I can't get it? So we created basically a contract between this new company we built and people. We say, if you want to buy a Ferrari, if you want to buy a luxury or an exotic car like we teach you to do, we will actually write a contract. Even though you don't buy the car for me, because I'm not a car seller, you're buying the car from any dealer. You can actually get an exact prenuptial report for what that car will be worth based on an algorithm we created in the next 6, 12, 24 months based on the mileage you want to add. So hey, I want to buy this Ferrari 458. I'd like to add 5,000 miles in it and I'd like to keep it for two years. I'm buying it for 250. What will it be worth then? It'll be worth 265. Wow. I'm going to make money? Yes, we guarantee it. You do. You can actually go in and buy a contract that guarantees that my prenuptial agreement is real or I'll pay you exactly what I said on there. So if you can't resell your car for what I promised you, you'd get in two years with those states, like with X amount of miles the way you told me you wanted to drive it, I will buy your car for that exact dollar. Wow, isn't that crazy? Like to guarantee basically ahead of time that you know you're going to need.
- [39:48]
C
Like private equity for that kind of.
- [39:50]
B
I'm really a lot richer than people.
- [39:56]
C
Yeah, I mean you're gonna have to. But that could blow up pretty quick. I'm telling you, a couple hundred people.
- [40:02]
B
No, no, no. We are hoping for. Because remember, the exotic car market is not as big as people think. It's not like thousands of people buying cars that care about values or buying exotic cars that matter. We, we anticipate that if we can sell 500 to 1,000 contracts a month over the next five years, then we are going to reinvent the way people look at 12 month leases without having to rely on a bank. So our goal is to basically create a really large billion dollar company around the idea that car values and predictable car values are something that don't need to rely on leasing and banking and they can rely on a third party company that isn't insurance, but yet does a lot of the same thing. Gives you peace of mind that you actually can determine what you're going to lose or gain on a car ahead of time. Making better decisions when buying your next luxury or exotic car.
- [40:55]
C
You know. P.J. we're wrapping up. I have a couple last questions for you. Because you're recently married, you got a beautiful daughter. Now what's a personal goal that you have for yourself, A business goal that you have for the business and a goal that you have for the family. So three prong questions.
- [41:14]
B
So my personal goal for myself always is to constantly prove myself wrong every single day I wake up. So that's. It continues to be my goal. It's the only goal I know in my life, which means that every day I wake up, I hope that today I can prove that I was wrong yesterday so I can be better tomorrow. That's my goal. Because if I can prove that I'm wrong, then I can improve. And if I can't prove that I'm wrong, then I'm living the best possible truth I have. And I think that's my key to how I look at life every single day now. Goal for businesses is we've spent 20 years. I own collectively everything, but my team and I have spent 20 years the same team. From the very beginning, we have built an ecosystem so large that the world can't see. It's like an iceberg. They see the surface. They don't see this scale of what we built under. I'm hoping the next five years, people will start to see how large and how deep our roots go in the game and how high our valuation as an organization has become. Not just because we don't want to sell what we built ever, but the idea is how much influence we have in the space. Much more than people will ever understand. We've kept that in the shadows. We hope in the next five years, we've been able to bring it out in a way that really impacts all industries and keeps people accountable in those industries for good. And then, you know, as far as family go, you know, my goal is I have one daughter that's three years old. I have another one, I have another child that's hopefully on the way soon. I hope that I can give them a much stronger baseline to start off of than I had so that they never have to. A lot of parents want their children to be start at the bottom, learn labor, learn hard work and everything else. I'm the opposite. If I built the world, I want my kids to start at the top of the world and go even further to other planets. I'm not really interested in bringing my kids to the bottom of the barrel and be like hard work, the way I learned. So I want to compound success and compound knowledge, and it's not to push them to be in this industry. They'll do whatever they want in their life, but it's to give them that compounding knowledge that no one gave me because we didn't have it in my generations prior. So I'm the most successful person across all my generation of families. And what's most important for me is to have broken that cycle that we've had as a family, which is always to Be poor, to be this and that, and to be able to sustain that and grow that the next 300 years.
- [43:45]
C
I love that. Now, my last question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?
- [43:54]
B
That I've lived the best possible truth I could have lived my entire life. And that while I can't, no one knows really the exact answer to what happens. We all have our own definition of what the next phase is. I made the best possible experience that I wanted to have, authentic to what I believed I should have, and I make no excuses for it. And it doesn't have to be liked by others. It doesn't have to be acknowledged by others. But like I said, if I wake up every day knowing my truth and knowing that I can prove myself wrong or not from the day before, then I've lived the best possible variation of what I had the tools to live. Maybe in 10 years I'll know I was wrong. Maybe in 20 I will. Maybe there'll be a shift. And that's the goal. The goal is to have a shift in the direction that as you discover more information, some people are set in their ways. You know, it's like, what I know is what I know, and that's where I'm going. My job is to know the least amount possible so I can learn the most the next day. So I prove myself every single morning if I was wrong the day before or not. Like, did I. Did I learn something new? Was I negating myself in my value system and my worldview and everything else? And there's a lot of exciting aspects of being wrong, often because, you know, you hold your highest truth. So other people can't prove you wrong because you've already proved yourself wrong at the very beginning of the day.
- [45:17]
C
I love that. You know, as we grow in wisdom, we just realize we don't know anything.
- [45:24]
B
That's exactly. That's what I'm saying. And that's the powerful part. Even looking at my first videos back 10 years ago, you know, I'm like, a lot of people are like, wow, you look so weak or retarded or whatever. And I was like, but you know what? I was in front of the camera, so it's okay. Because I didn't expect to go and create a perfect product from the beginning. I didn't expect to wake up and be like, I just pulled out a perfect YouTube video. Got like 10 million views. Oh, I got it. That's right. That's. That's the Path. No, I had to do a video with 10 views. I had to do another video with like 200 views, another video with like 10,000, to get to a video with 5 million. So these things come with time. And what we don't realize is we want the validation that we're doing a great job without putting in the effort. And that's what I've broken in my own life cycle. I don't expect that. When I held my first meetup for my community, two people showed up, bro. Two people. And I still did the meetup. Then five years later, the same meetup had 600 people show up. We didn't have room in the venue. They were outside, like trying to get in. It was fucking chaos. Like, we had one in Santa Monica, the fire department show up and like shut down the restaurant because they were like, yeah, too many people in this restaurant.
- [46:31]
C
They.
- [46:32]
B
So like, if I didn't do that two people meetup, we wouldn't have had a 600 people meetup. And what I'm trying to argue is that so many people get discouraged because their efforts, being so small, yield such small reward. And they go, that's just not meant to be. It wasn't it. Do you know how many times I've lost money on cars before I realized how to not do it? Do you know how many times I've bought the wrong watch to tell my students not to buy that one because there's the wrong one? It doesn't matter. Like, everything we do is a progressive game and if you're not good at it, it'll eventually, really, really hurt you. But you have to still keep going, you know, and that's okay. You still have to do it. No matter. If you believe you're on the right path, then you have to understand that the experience you bring to that path by practice is eventually going to make you efficient on that path and eventually put you in a position of power on that path. But that's all you can do.
- [47:22]
C
I love that. I love that people want to get in touch with you, how they find you.
- [47:25]
B
Real simple. LearnFromPJ.com is my core website where I share all different things I do. They can also go to, of course, exoticcarhacks.com watchtradingacademy.com or anywhere else so they can pick up my books on Amazon.
- [47:39]
C
Love it. Thank you. Pj. Thanks so much for coming in, flying in for the show. We appreciate you, man. You're a legend. You're a legend in this space. I'm, I'm I myself. I'm gonna be a student.
- [47:49]
B
I hope so. I hope. See you in a Ferrari. What a richer Melanie said very soon.
- [47:53]
C
Thanks, pj. Thanks for coming on.
- [47:54]
B
Appreciate.
- [48:01]
A
Sam.