Economic Ninja (2:21)

I like money.

Josh (2:22)

We can talk about money investing. You know, our company war plan helps People make a lot more money. Yeah, but there's like more steps.

Economic Ninja (2:30)

What are you supposed to do with it Through a really incredibly simple set of steps? Because it's usually the most easy things that actually create the most value. But because people think they're too easy, they never do them and implement them.

Josh (2:42)

That happens in business too. That's not, I mean entrepreneurship is so good at taking a simple thing and making 32 steps out of it.

Economic Ninja (2:49)

Oh yeah.

Josh (2:49)

You know, I guess with investing too.

Economic Ninja (2:51)

Well, it's like with anything, you know, people put value on dollars rather than value on time and ideas. You know what I mean? Like I just, I don't want to spend a lot of time doing something. I want to figure out how to do something with less time so I can move on to the next thing.

Josh (3:04)

Well, every really wealthy person I know values time over money and poor people value money over time. They give away all their time for a little bit of money. And wealthy people give away a little bit. They spend a lot of money to get back their time.

Economic Ninja (3:18)

Because anyone knows it. It's true. I'm sure anyone that hears this phrase is going to shake their head, nod their head in agreement, but you can't get time back. But yet the people mostly that nod in agreement are still giving up their time for money. Yeah, they don't understand that.

Josh (3:32)

Yeah. There's so much like. This is going to be a long session. I want to go slow. I want to cover mindsets, you know, orphans, sons and kings. I want to talk about religious programming, false beliefs around wealth. You know, the people I love to serve the most are the good hearted people, the ones that feel guilty for succeeding or they want to make things harder than they need to be subconsciously in a lot of cases because they feel guilty if they succeed in its effortless. Can you relate with that?

Economic Ninja (3:59)

See, see, I get emotional, I tell you, because as you're telling me that I think about all the times I self sabotage myself.

Josh (4:05)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (4:05)

You know, and it's just you can't ever get that time back. So when you understand the things you did in the past that were wrong and you, there's got to be a point where like I'm never making that same mistake. And there have been many times in my life, especially with investing, where I was doing emotional investing. I lost my, my nest egg. Not my net worth, but my nest egg three times. I had to go back to my wife and tell her that, oh, it was so rough. And it wasn't until 2017.

Josh (4:29)

Tell us about that. I mean, what do you mean by emotional investing? Just take your.

Economic Ninja (4:34)

Yeah. Emotional investing is what. I break the world's investors into two categories, the retail sector and the institutional sector. Institutions are conglomerates like banks and hedge funds that hire people from Ivy League schools and well trained backgrounds to build systems of investing that work constantly. Right. And there's all these checks and balances and they're usually run by people that don't have a degree. They're running all of the people because they have vision. Right. Difference.

Josh (5:06)

It always happens.

Economic Ninja (5:07)

It's so true.

Josh (5:08)

Like the 7th grade educated entrepreneur has an army of PhDs that work for them.

Economic Ninja (5:12)

That's where I'm headed. So my point being is that, yeah, that's that systems in place and you have the retail crowd that tries to get rich. Like the people that either run the institutions or do business with institutions. And what happens is they buy things out of emotion. The first emotion is I'm going to buy this because I got a good hot stock tip or crypto tip. It's going to go up. And when it doesn't, I sell it because I must have been wrong. I'm the failure. I sell it before the bleeding gets too much and I'm dead, My investment's dead. And then I try and throw it back into another one emotionally to try and catch back up.

Josh (5:44)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (5:44)

And it keeps cascading. And I did that so many times to where I would. I had like 22 side hustles in my life as I was a fireman. And so I had time and I would save up chunks of money, 50,000 bucks, $100,000. The last one was $300,000 that I had built up from working off duty when I wasn't at the fire station. My wife was already angry that I was, you know, consumed six or seven days a week. Excuse me. But I keep coming back and I lost it all. And so I had to make some really big changes. And what changed me was actually in 2017, the cryptocurrency revolution. I invested. Sorry.

Josh (6:27)

This is good.

Economic Ninja (6:30)

It makes me laugh actually, because cryptocurrency broke me because the cycles were so insane. The amounts gained in one day or lost in one day. I bought $10,000. The Bitcoin. I'll never forget it. My First Bitcoin was 500 bucks. My first Ethereum was $50. And I bought XRP at 2 cents. And the reason why I bought them was because I had written down a note that I needed to buy XRP at a dollar because the Lord told Me to do it. I'm sorry. Not xrp. Ethereum. Buy Ethereum at a dollar. I'm at the fire station one night and I wake up to the audible voice of the Lord. I'll never forget it. It was like four in the morning and all I heard was a whisper. Why didn't you listen to me? I jumped up, scared as all get out to a calm voice. And I knew exactly what he was referring to. I called my chief, woke him up, and I said, I'm going home sick. I need to go homesick. Took some sick leave and I went and bought my first Bitcoin at 500 Ethereum, 50 at XRP at $0.02. Immediately. The next week, it fell by like 30, 35%. And because I was doing something that I felt the Lord was telling me to do, I held. I didn't sell emotionally. From that day on, I was on a path of never losing again. And it transformed the way that I looked at markets. And one of the most amazing things was that $10,000 went up to 100 grand about five months later. The most amazing ride I'd ever been on, right? For the first time in my life, I took a win. I pulled $40,000 out of the crypto. So I had 60 grand left. I pulled it out and I bought silver with it. I don't remember what price, like 18 bucks an ounce. And I told my wife and I said, today, I didn't realize I was declaring something. Maybe I was. We will never lose again. I said, this 40,000 now represents four times what I originally invested. Now, the funny story is from September that year, when I sold and pulled that 40 grand out till January, it went to a million bucks. Never once. I mean, I would think it, but I would never feel it. That's a difference, right? I would think, man, if I'd left that extra 40 grand in there, it had been worth like 1.4, 1.5, whatever the numbers are, a lot more. But I never felt it because what happened was the energy and excitement of winning that day when I pulled out and I said, I invested 10, I now have 40 plus, whatever, like the house money, like gamblers say. And that was the thing I was gambling all the time before. Then I turned from a gambler in investing to an investor. And an investor is always asking themselves one question. A good investor. How much money am I putting in and when am I getting it back? Whether that be through tax advantage, cash flow, or a rate of return rising. That's the most important. When do I get My money back. Retail is how rich am I going to be? Win, Lambo, all those things. And I started investing like that, and I started separating my money. Like that day, I pulled it out of crypto. I put it into precious metals, but I had both. Then I started a stock pool, a bigger stock account. Right. And I tried to keep them all level, but one would just, boom, explode in value. And I would pull some off and from that day, and I would put it into something else and then something else. And before you know it, I have these nine asset classes that I'm running. And. And it was amazing.

Josh (9:54)

What an opener. Right.

Economic Ninja (9:55)

Sorry.

Josh (9:56)

It so good.

Economic Ninja (9:58)

Like, it's just crazy. I feel that emotion. It's, like, hard to let go. And I screw that up on my channel all the time. People say I'm crying. Like, I'm just. I do it for views. It really is a part of me because I still feel it.

Josh (10:12)

Yeah. You know, I heard Alex Hormozy talk about how the biggest dopamine hit or sense of satisfaction he ever had in his life was when he had accumulated 100,000 doll in cash. And when he. I think he sold his first. He sold Jim launch for like 46 million. And that felt less than that first little win. And I think that's similar to how you feel about that 40,000. You pulled out your principal plus four times, you know.

Economic Ninja (10:39)

Yep. So that's an interesting story because he's 100% right. Because what happened was my story was, you know, 10,000 to a million in one year in crypto. But I had never felt the same than when I started the YouTube channel. And I actually had accumulated $100,000 in a bank account because my wife used to get very angry. When I was 24, I believe I just turned 24, became a millionaire because we started buying real estate in the year 2000, and by 2005, I had accumulated 14 properties. That was the most I knew of. It's nothing in comparison to a lot of the gurus out there. Right. But I started rapidly selling them in 2006 because there was a real estate crash coming, and very few people understood. As a matter of fact, I got to explain the whole concept to Robert Kiyosaki. And it was a weird thing right there, because even them were like, oh, we think something's up. And I'm like, nope, it's happening.

Josh (11:32)

At the time you talked about in

Economic Ninja (11:33)

the exact time, in 2006. Yeah. Robert. I was scanning with him. Tony Robbins. Nobody knew who Tony was. And all these people And. And they're like, so this guy thinks the real estate market's crashing. Why don't we. Why don't we see? And they asked me, and I got to speak to 10 thought leaders in the country. And Robert turned to me and he said, I think you're onto something. I think you're one of the smartest guys in this room. And there's this. We're one of those conventions, right? But we were off stage and it was like, I've hit my stride. That got knocked back another decade. But I sold all my properties except for three right before the crash, mid-2006. And then we got to ride that wave. And I started learning about cycles. And so when going back to the Alex Hormozi thing, the making the million dollars, I was a millionaire on paper in 2324. Got knocked down to about 250,000 by 2008. 2010. Started a handful of side hustles. My favorite one was a palm tree business. Growing palm trees during the Great Recession and selling them out in my backyard. I had a thousand of them. Like, I have a photo to day of Google Earth of me. You could see me in a wheelbarrow with a thou in a track house. A thousand palm trees all around my house. It's really cool. But it wasn't until I started the YouTube channel and I had amassed $100,000 to put in our savings account. That was a real feeling, because that savings account, my wife said, stop saying we're millionaires. We're not. And I would say, oh, we have a million dollars in real estate. Or. And then, you know, in 27, oh, we have a million dollars in crypto. She goes, that's not a millionaire. And I said, well, what's a millionaire? She goes, a million dollars in the bank. I'm a. You're. You're nuts. And she didn't like that. But I. That's a crazy thing. Like, no investor does that. Right. But when we put $100,000 in the savings account, I said, I'm not going to touch it. And that was a big. Yeah, it was big peace. Because I am the eternal investor. I. Okay, this is something else that changed. Retail thinks they have to always be investing.

Josh (13:30)

Explain what you mean by that.

Economic Ninja (13:31)

Retail.

Josh (13:32)

Yeah, I know.

Economic Ninja (13:32)

Retail is the average person investing by themselves. They don't work with money. Yeah, the retail investor. And so they're doing things by themselves. Sure. They may be part of a group online, or they may have a buddy that's buying stocks with them, or they Talk about it, but they're not thinking like institutions, because retail investors. Actually, it's not my idea. I don't know who I heard, but smart people buy at the knees and they sell at the shoulders. They're talking about emotional waves. And retail usually moves in on an uprise in the stock market, precious metals, crypto, whatever it is, at the shoulders. Because by then, this two thirds of the move on a stock chart represents enough time for the average person to go, all right, this is a sure thing. This is what happened in the roaring twenties. All right? It started in 1920.

Josh (14:19)

Stock market's legit.

Economic Ninja (14:20)

Yeah, stock market's legit, started 1929.

Josh (14:23)

It's totally going to be safe.

Economic Ninja (14:24)

We're going to crush it.

Josh (14:26)

Let's.

Economic Ninja (14:26)

You know what? Let's add leverage. So because of greed, because most retail are led by greed, 99% of retail investors are greedy.

Josh (14:33)

This is like a hot take. We were talking about this before the interview about how. And I'll just get to the punchline. It is what it is. I've met more arrogant and greedy poor people than I've met arrogant and greedy rich people. I'm not talking about online perception. I mean, people I know.

Economic Ninja (14:51)

For real. Yeah.

Josh (14:52)

And that might, like, rub people the wrong way, but it's at least subjectively true to me. And you were talking about how greed is why these retail investors are. So they're failing.

Economic Ninja (15:04)

Yeah.

Josh (15:05)

Explain and expand on that.

Economic Ninja (15:06)

Yeah, Well, I think greed and so ego is an interesting thing. I have an ego because after my mom passed, nobody believed in me, so I had to believe in myself. So I faked it till I made it. Honestly, successful people know one thing better than most people, and that is that they don't know anything. Because every time they learn something, whether it be a new book, a conference they spent, or a mastermind, or a course, it's something they like. Oh, my gosh, I didn't know. And all successful people are looking for is a little nugget.

Josh (15:35)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (15:36)

You told the story about a mastermind where a ton of money is spent and literally within like 30 minutes or two hours, some guy slams his book, goes, I got what I need, and got up and walked.

Josh (15:44)

That was Alex Becker. He sold hi rose for over $100 million.

Economic Ninja (15:48)

Oh, gosh. And Alex has got a sweet.

Josh (15:50)

He literally never went back. Yeah, he walked out of the mastermind that he paid a lot of money for. He's like, I got it. And he locked himself in his house and built the company scale. This is like a five year time window and $100 million.

Economic Ninja (16:00)

And you know what? Something I'm going to bounce around a lot. There's something that maybe Alex doesn't know that would be awesome. If you watch this one thing, it's not only the nugget that he got in words that he heard, but it's also because of the frequency of the people in the room that he was in. And most people don't know that, because when you get around the right people, all of a sudden you're saying something, and I'm envisioning an idea, and there's this frequency between us that can't happen over a zoom call. It is a spiritual thing. And that's why I think and not to get super hyper spiritual, because I'm not just do it.

Josh (16:34)

Get super hyperspirit.

Economic Ninja (16:35)

God says, do not forsake the assembling of the body, the church together, because every single one of us has a gift. And it pulls on each other's gifts to pull them out. We're supposed to be doing something together. There's power in numbers. But what's also neat there is that story of the Bible where they're all like, hey, God told us to take this city. And they're like. They get all of them together like, well, crap, I got family coming. Or I'm sick, my foot smells. They're like, ah, crap. Like, well, who wants to go take the city? God wants us to take the city. That's our city. And they're like, oh, gosh, you know, I got to make animals to feed. And they're like, fudge. All right, all you guys go home. Who's left? There's like six of them or something like that. I'm like, can we just. Let's go take the city and. But that's all it took.

Josh (17:13)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (17:14)

So, like, people are always waiting for this grand plan God to give them some special business partner or something. You're just like, all I got to do is move.

Josh (17:20)

My theory is God doesn't even get involved until you move.

Economic Ninja (17:25)

Oh, I agree.

Josh (17:26)

Like, slay like David. Story of David and Goliath. David, he got like five stones. He only needed one to kill Goliath. He got five because he had so much faith. With no evidence that this would succeed, by the way. But he had so much faith, he knew he was going to kill him, plus all of his brothers and all this stuff. And I don't think God got involved until the rock left his sling.

Economic Ninja (17:47)

Oh, I agree.

Josh (17:47)

As soon as the rock left, maybe there was A little divine intervention or something. But that's a principle for us right now.

Economic Ninja (17:53)

Amen.

Josh (17:54)

Action creates clarity.

Economic Ninja (17:56)

One for per giant. And taking them out. And taking them all out. God's like, you only need to take out one.

Josh (18:01)

Yeah, he's like 125 pounds, probably.

Economic Ninja (18:03)

And you know what's funny, though? Because you only have to take out one because the rest. Behind him. They're behind him for a reason, because they're cowards. They only feel strong because they're behind the giant, you know, and that's the thing. Like, you know, like, when I first started a YouTube channel, my wife told me. She goes, what makes you think you have what it takes? And I said, I'm a millionaire. And she goes, no, but. But you don't have. You don't have a degree. You know, she would say these things lightly. Boy, those. Oh. If you want to talk about fiery darts or my parents or my. My family, my co workers, what makes you think you're. You know, I had a guy at the fire station one day yelling, you didn't even go to college. You aren't a financial expert. You should not be telling them, like, well, I'm the richest person in this room, genuinely. And people like, you're such a jerk. I'm like, oh, I'm just trying to show you guys how to make more money. I'm doing it. Like, here you are. And they would get. And I'm like, the only thing that

Josh (18:53)

matters on anybody's resume is results.

Economic Ninja (18:56)

Exactly.

Josh (18:56)

That's it.

Economic Ninja (18:57)

Well, that's just funny, because I don't.

Josh (18:58)

This is why academics hate entrepreneurs, by the way. Oh, college professors that never ran a business that teach about business, despise people that drop out of school.

Economic Ninja (19:07)

And academics are taught. Okay, that's a funny story. I'm in Chicago. Two academics are getting married. This is not the start of a joke. Dead serious. They go literally to me one day, we're having drinks, cocktails before the rehearsal dinner, having fun, getting ready to figure out which chicken dance version I'm gonna do. And no joke, one of them says, travis, just so you know, you keep calling us by our name. We are to be addressed as academics. I kid you not.

Josh (19:31)

They wanted you to say doctor so and so.

Economic Ninja (19:33)

Yes, because they were English teachers. I'm not kidding. And it's interesting.

Josh (19:39)

I have secondhand embarrassment for people that demand to be called doctor if I'm gonna call you doctor. Cause first of all, respect is earned. Second of all, if I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna Start referring to all the tenured plumbers as Master Plumber Joe. Ooh. Because it's the same thing.

Economic Ninja (19:56)

Mr. Joe.

Josh (19:57)

Right. Or Millionaire Travis when I talk to you. Because yes, it's true that getting a PhD is hard. So is making tens of millions of dollars. When you're a firefighter, no one believes in you. So is becoming a master plumber or journeyman electrician. It's all the same thing. But for some reason, the arrogance and pride in that sector is like peak, you know?

Economic Ninja (20:17)

Isn't it weird though? Have you ever seen this to where you know someone is about to become a millionaire just because of the way they talk?

Josh (20:23)

Yep.

Economic Ninja (20:24)

It's just like, boom.

Josh (20:25)

It's like some people are inevitable.

Economic Ninja (20:26)

Yeah.

Josh (20:27)

There's a lag period.

Economic Ninja (20:28)

Yeah.

Josh (20:29)

And maybe it's this long. Maybe it's this long. You absolutely know.

Economic Ninja (20:32)

At least I can not only it's a learnable thing and you can teach it. And anybody that feels that they can't get there mentally can get there. Like you want to talk about, fake it till you make it.

Josh (20:42)

Because it's based on principles.

Economic Ninja (20:43)

Yeah. Like godly principles. Like your tongue is a two edged sword. It's there to build you up or cut you down. And so you're like, I am going to succeed. I am going to get the proper business partner or I am going to find the right financing. I'm going to find the right way of selling and increasing sales. Like, you just got to speak it. And it's not like lame date.

Josh (21:02)

You can say it before you can see it.

Economic Ninja (21:03)

Yeah. Because then what happens is it opens up a part of your mind that was actually closed off because of negativity. And it's a real thing.

Josh (21:12)

It is.

Economic Ninja (21:13)

It's incredible. And that's what gets me super stoked.

Josh (21:16)

I'm embarrassed it took me so long to accept the immutable truth that it's a real thing. Because when I was a poor business owner, I just wanted like, give me the tactic, give me the tactic. Do I use red or blue on my flyer? Do I, you know, do it? Do I run my ad on Tuesday or what I wanted? Tactic, tactic, tactic. Transformation has to come from inside, not from outside. You're not gonna change your life from an external thing. This is why 80% of lottery winners go bank within five years anyway. You have to become different. You have to think different, you have to speak different.

Economic Ninja (21:46)

Yeah.

Josh (21:46)

And I didn't get it. And I would hear stuff like this back then and just like turn the channel, you know, whatever it's like, no, no, no. Get. Tell me the. You know what I'm saying? Because you can give the right strategy to a person that isn't addressing what you're talking about, and it does nothing for them.

Economic Ninja (22:01)

I'm going to sound super cocky with probably all these stories, but I'm trying to give a teaching moment. There's. I was at a fire station one day. Can I talk about shoes? Can we talk about shoes?

Josh (22:10)

Yeah, sure.

Economic Ninja (22:10)

Okay. You're like, no, yeah, Absolutely.

Josh (22:13)

Nothing's off limits.

Economic Ninja (22:14)

We're at the fire station one day, and there's this guy, jacked and ripped. Now, I've never been really buff. I think I. I'm pretty much still about the same weight I was throughout my entire fire career, right? Like, I think I'm 15 pounds heavier than when I got married 25 years ago. So I've always looked like this, right? A fireman. I can still move guys, pick them up, do all that stuff, right? It was usually the small guys that were jacked and ripped that, you know, hey, they did the drill, okay? The average fire, they can't pull the average firefighter out. No way they're pulling me out, right? But I'll grab them by the back of the ba and haul them out. Well, there's one of these guys one day, just to assert himself, he looks down on my shoes, and he goes, what should be embarrassed to be wearing those shoes? And I. I used to shop at Big 5 all the time, right? And I still do. And. And I had big five tennis shoes. I'm like, what's wrong with my shoes? And he's like, so cheap. I'm like. And I look at him, and I goes, is that where we're at now in our relationship? He goes, what are you talking about? I'm like, why just talk about shoes? I'm like, is there anything else you want to insult, or. I'm like, how do you feel today? And he's sort of thrown off. And I go, okay. Want to talk about shoes? You got nice shoes. Those are probably 100 bucks. Mine are 20. He goes, yeah. He said, I have two kids. You don't have any kids. I'm like, I have a house to pay for. You got yours from your dad. So what else we got? I'm like, you got your college degree, right? You brought that up a few months back. I don't have my degree. I didn't even pass high school. I'm all. But yet you and I get the same paycheck because we have the same job and you sat quiet, and it was like. There was this point in my life where I. Because my whole life, I was always bullied. Always. You want to talk about chip on my shoulder? Always bullied. Right? What I started to realize that there is certain people that you're never, ever going to make happy, you are never going to impress. You're never going to be able to help if you truly want to help them. Right. They're always going to have a problem with you. And I got to the point where I just said, I don't need this anymore. It was the weirdest thing, because growing up, getting bullied as a kid, a lot like, really bad stories. When I grew up, I really didn't like bullies. And there are a lot of times where I've almost been never allowed back in countries because I would see somebody getting bullied, and I'm just like, well, okay, no one else is stepping in. I'm gonna step in. Right? But that was an emotional response and a physical response. And then I got to the point where, like, the emotional or physical response wasn't the right thing. I was in the Rowden crowd, even standing next to the wrong person. I started really realizing that, and I stopped caring so much about what those people thought about me. And rather, what I did was say, look, these are all my strengths. I'm gonna put them out in the atmosphere and see what sticks and hope for the best. And that really did work, like just taking all of my strengths and going, look, these are my strengths. They're not bragging. This is the reality. I can help you with this. I can't help you with everything. Going back to successful people know every day, I just realize I know less and less and less.

Josh (25:21)

Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is Socrates. He said, the only thing I know is that I know nothing. I first heard that quote in my 20s, and I thought it was the dumbest thing I ever heard. I didn't get it. Like, that's stupid. That makes no sense. What's crazy is when you're dumb, when you're ignorant, you have certainty over the wrong conclusion that you've come to. You have, like, more certainty, the dumber you are in a lot of ways, if you know what I mean. Meaning, not only did I think that that quote made no sense, I was totally certain that I was the guy that knew the truth, that that quote actually didn't make sense. Of course, it's embarrassing now because the more you know, the more you should become aware that you know nothing.

Economic Ninja (26:01)

That's how I feel when I'm around you.

Josh (26:02)

Have you heard the island thing? The island and island. It's like, if. If our individual knowledge is an island and it keeps growing, then the shoreline of our ignorance grows with it. I heard that somewhere. And it's like. And it makes sense now, right? And it's really sad because if we could. I don't want to skip. We're going to talk about greed, but these people that are so sure that the plan that they're doing, the path that they're on is, like, correct. I just want to give a warning. Like, be careful of your own certainty when you're not fully educated with stuff, when you haven't considered other perspectives or people listen to an interview like this and they're not a believer, and so the brain shuts off and they miss the gold. Right. Or people or a Christian will listen to it and they don't like the fact that you had cocktails at the dinner party and they turned their brain off and we're missing it everywhere. When you're around successful people, everything about them is different. Their language is different. The way they talk is different. The thoughts they think is different. The content they consume is different. The actions they take is different. Usually simpler.

Economic Ninja (27:02)

Yeah. You make me feel stupid in a great way. No, I'm dead serious. Like, we spent some time in Thailand. We went to Thailand together. You blessed my son. Amazing. You already know that. Try not to get emotional about this, but like the stuff that comes out of your mouth because of the amount of time that you have devoted to learning more from successful people, either in person or through books, watching podcasts you continually absorb. And I get caught. Like, you just realized in this interview. I always want to listen more, but I get caught up into talking. Like, yeah, you really sounding like a total jerk.

Josh (27:36)

You don't sound like a jerk at all.

Economic Ninja (27:38)

Okay.

Josh (27:38)

I think everyone can relate with this.

Economic Ninja (27:40)

Yeah.

Josh (27:40)

I mean, who doesn't want love and underdog story? What's hard is that everyone doesn't give a crap about the underdog until after they have extreme success. Then everybody acts like they knew you the whole time.

Economic Ninja (27:51)

I got the ultimate, like, arrow and my dad will probably never see this, so I can say it. My dad's still alive and I love my dad to death. But, man, the one thing that he did that hurt me more than you could believe was I always disappointed him because he always wanted me to go to college. Right. It's just still in a lot of baby boomers head you go. Because their path was the right path back then. Because back then you were handed a job because a pension. Yeah, exactly. A defined benefits pension. They don't even realize. Yeah, yeah. Young people don't know what that means. Old people don't know what DC or defined contribution means. I don't know.

Josh (28:29)

Defined contribution.

Economic Ninja (28:30)

So defined contribution. So defined benefits plans were, you know, after the Roaring twenties, the Great Depression, and then the rebuilding of the nation, we started giving out defined benefit plans, meaning you come to work for the company, you work this many years, you're going to make this percentage of your, your paycheck for life until you die. And that ended in the mid-90s, early 2000s. We went to D.C. which is defined contribution, meaning you are going to work for our company and we will let you put a certain percent into a retirement of your own money. We'll match a little bit and the government will give you a little tax break. And that's getting harder and harder to do. And the two societies, there was a huge tear between the, the baby boomers and the next generation to where? Or my generation, our generation and the baby boomers to where we can't contemplate each other's situation. We just can't even. And now with inflation, what's funny is a lot of defined benefits plans. Like my dad, he thought he was doing great. He retired like 103% of his pay. Right. And he owned everything. He's now just making a seat. They didn't account for inflation. An inflationary wave. Ironically though, the reason why baby boomers got paid the most was because in 1998, between the mid-70s and early 80s, there was a massive explosion in interest. I mean, inflation. And in the early 80s, state, local, county and federal government started giving massive pay increases to keep up with that inflation. And then industry had to keep up with that. So the baby boomers actually were part of one of the easiest generations during wealth creation because that inflation in their paychecks created inflation over the long term in housing. So that's why it feels like they're super rich, but they're not. They actually have golden handcuffs now, actually can't leave their house. They can't sell their house and go because most of them don't own their house. So yeah, it's an interesting thing. But my dad said one day, he goes, you're never going to be more than a blue collar worker. Those are fighting words to me.

Josh (30:30)

It hurts so bad, especially from your father.

Economic Ninja (30:32)

I was already a millionaire. I said, damn millionaire. He goes, it doesn't matter. You never got your degree. That was the best and worst thing I've ever been told. And from then on. And he did say, Larry's all. It just seems like all you want to do is prove me wrong. I said, all I will ever do is prove you wrong, dad. And that, that we have a great relationship. I love my dad, but now he's gotten. And you know what sucks? It never gotten to the point and starting the YouTube channel. Same thing is I like your stuff, but I don't think you should be out there giving financial advice. I'm like, dad, I'm multimillionaire now. Doesn't matter. You don't have a certification. You don't have that degree. It wasn't until he would see people recognizing me on the street. And then, same thing with my wife. Same thing with everyone in my life. It was when, you know, you'd get recognized like, dude, we're in another country or we're not in your hometown, or, you know, they would like, oh, wow, you know, and that's a sad thing, you know. So, yeah, here we are now, you know, and so you. I go with you. I put together this amazing group of guys, most of them Christians. We go to Thailand to discuss business. It was like the ultimate mastermind because it didn't cost you anything other than you fly over. You don't gotta spend a hundred grand to get in that group. I was like, let's just put my own group together. And we spent what, like two hours every morning eating breakfast and talking business. And I wanted to show everybody what I thought value was, you know. So back to the shoes, you know, we're both wearing. I like your shoes. I like mine. I got mine in Thailand. They're really. It's really comfy. But it's because the shoe's an interesting thing because it's all about perception. And like that one guy in the fire station was mocking me for my $20 shoes, even though I had to buy a house that he didn't have to buy. I am paying to raise children that I love, raising kids that he doesn't have to. You know, I'm like, is that what you got? And so it was just an interesting time.

Josh (32:25)

Well, it kind of circles back to the very beginning. We're talking about, like, broke people having bigger egos than wealthy people on average. That's my opinion. Or being more greedy. You know, Hollywood frames entrepreneurs and business people as the bad guy in a lot of movies, the big evil rich guy. And then if you grow up middle class or lower middle class. We grew up in poverty. It's really common that you start believing that if someone has a lot of resources, they did something bad to get it. Someone had to get hurt for someone to get ahead. Or the illusion of an economic pie when it's really more like a garbage garden. And I do want you to hit on this greed thing, because back to investing, these types of mindsets, they think they're being pious, they think that the system is built against them, but they just lack wisdom in the system in how to do it right. And they wouldn't recognize it in themselves as greed is why they lose every time they buy an investment. But you do.

Economic Ninja (33:21)

So, okay, so ego, greed, and all this stuff is really interesting because I like to teach people how to become the 1% at anything. So I did a video a little while back about why pennies were going to be taken away. Actually, this was two years before the government actually took pennies away. And I'm like, hey, they're going up in value. So this is what I want you to do. Go and save all of take 1982 pennies and older. They're actually worth like two and a half cents at the time. Now they're worth way more than that. And I said, just start tossing them away. Just put them in a bucket. I told them how I was at the fire station one day and all the guys are playing video games. And I'm sitting in there as they're playing video games in the day room, and I was buying boxes of pennies. This was 10 years ago, and there were 2 cents. So I was opening up rolls and just taking all the copper pennies and throwing them into a bucket. And the guys are just mocking me like, oh, when's enough enough? You know, why don't you play video games? I'm like, well, I'm watching and I'm. And I'm just sitting there. I'm like, you know, you guys realize, like. And this is the cockiness. They would say, but it's just a fact. I'm like, you know, if you guys would listen to me, I. I'm literally worth a million bucks. And I'm sitting here putting pennies into a bucket. Or they get mad because I would wash guys cars. I would at the firestorm, like, hey, anybody want to wash your car? I'm like, 25 bucks and I'd wash their cars. So they're inside playing video games and cooking, and I'm washing cars. And they were like, oh, the chiefs. You know, get the chief Sort of like, you know, I own a. He owned a subway, and he saw he was the bomb, and I cleaned his rig. And I'm like. I'm like, you guys know I'm not doing it for promotion because the guy doesn't like me, and he's demeaning me by, like, I'm gonna pay him to. And I'm like, well, chief, I'm richer than you, but, yeah, I'll wash the car. And so one day. One day, another chief walked in. He goes, you just think you're so that. And that by that point, I'm washing the Porsche.

Josh (34:57)

Your own Porsche?

Economic Ninja (34:58)

Yeah. And I'm like, what's wrong? And they're like, I know what that thing costs. I'm like, I bet you don't. And he told me a number, and I'm like, no, Chief, this costs less than your Ford F150. I think that's when I really got messed with them in their mind, because they couldn't. Like, but that's a Porsche. I'm like, yeah, but that Porsche costs less than your Ford F150. I know exactly what you paid for it.

Josh (35:18)

You bought it smart.

Economic Ninja (35:19)

I bought it used. Yeah. I bought it after it had already been depreciated by somebody that leased it, that couldn't afford to buy it. So I just paid cash. I'm like, yeah, no, it costs less than your Ford F150. And that's when they're just sort of messed with. Right. Well, going back to this, the copper penny thing, I like to teach people that, like, when you want to be the top 1%, go be the top 1%. Well, let's say XRP, everybody knows about that cryptocurrency. Right?

Josh (35:40)

Right.

Economic Ninja (35:41)

To be in the top 1%, you have to own, like, something. Like, it's like. Or top 10% is 10 grand now in today's value.

Josh (35:48)

That's it.

Economic Ninja (35:48)

Oh, yeah. Like, you would have been in the top 1% if you would have owned XRP when it was like, 18 cents, just 10 grand. Boom. Now you could say, I am in the top 1%. You could be. You could blow away the national average if you just put $600 into a savings account and go, I am blowing the national. That most people have less money than me. You're like, what do you mean? Like, I have $600 in my. And they're like, you're an idiot. You don't got much. I drive a really fancy truck. I'm like, but you don't own it. And it's already went down in value. So it's actually negative. I have $600 in my account. And it's funny because people don't get that like. No, that's the truth. The national savings average is less than

Josh (36:22)

$500 is what it's some of this just behavioral psychology. Like it's hard for people to think long term.

Economic Ninja (36:28)

Yeah.

Josh (36:28)

Or have you heard stories like Chinese companies have 500 year business plans. Certain cultures thinking long term. In America we are like instant gratification central.

Economic Ninja (36:38)

You know, because we're a consumer nation.

Josh (36:40)

Right.

Economic Ninja (36:40)

We devour.

Josh (36:41)

We devour. There's a, in business consulting there's a term called. This is a psychological bias called present focus bias. And it's. We basically value things that are right in front of us more than things that are going to be later.

Economic Ninja (36:54)

Right.

Josh (36:54)

And investing requires a long term approach to it.

Economic Ninja (36:57)

Yeah.

Josh (36:57)

And I don't know, how do we help the people?

Economic Ninja (37:00)

Well, it's funny, when I started my construction company at a construction company in a cryptocurrency, not mining, but I ran validator nodes, right. So I'd get paid for running notes. Technical. But in both those I had a one page SOP of what happens if our revenue drops by 50% in 30 days. And in that I would say I had to lay off this many people and I have to do this, this and this. And then also I had another document of our long term savings strategy where I wanted a certain amount of months of run rate for our company in the bank. Not to keep paying employees during a downturn, but also to keep our cool head to be able to strategize why is this change happening. You know, and most companies don't do that because most companies are built on debt. Because the way our tax system is built, it keeps them in debt. Because corporations have to continually pay tax on two things. All of their profits throughout the year they got to pay tax on and then they get taxed on inventory. So the government has built a mechanism to keep companies in debt because they can never store up. They say it's anti monopoly laws, but really it's a way of continually taxing and keeping people barely at the edge. And business owners, if they were to build a policy that yes, I'm going to pay the taxes and I'm going to set that money aside in either a specific asset or cash for an emergency and have this policy of what to do in the downturn, I would be a lot better than 10 times 10 other. Know anyone in my industry but nobody thinks like that. Because we are a debtor nation and that's how we were raised. Whereas Chinese and all these other groups, these other cultures. This is why immigrants just crush it in America, because they are just so grateful. And they come from a level of gratitude. Like we were in Thailand. We were talking to all the people there, and they work seven days a week, 12 hours a day. My heart just bleeds for them because they're amazing. I would go back after a year and they go, hey, what's up? And they'd say they recognize me and they see thousands of people a day. But it. Because we had that connection. Because I would talk to them about their work ethic and how impressed I am. Yeah. You know, most businesses owned by women, we're.

Josh (39:10)

No, I didn't know that.

Economic Ninja (39:11)

Yeah, like that. Most people don't. When we were there, I don't. We didn't talk about that. Most businesses over there in Bangkok about work ethic.

Josh (39:17)

You know, you've heard it said, blue collar people like to say you got to work hard to get ahead.

Economic Ninja (39:22)

That's right.

Josh (39:23)

And that's true.

Economic Ninja (39:24)

Yeah.

Josh (39:25)

But hard work is not the determining factor of financial success. It's a requirement. You gotta work hard. But there's something missing. There's no leverage. I don't know if it's an education thing or just a culture thing or if it's an ego thing like we talked about. There's probably all of that. But what are your thoughts on that? Because when I lived in Costa Rica, our gardener made $2 an hour. And I always pay him more, a lot more, because I felt guilty. But that's what it cost. And he worked his butt off.

Economic Ninja (39:51)

Well, so you brought up blue collar work harder to get ahead. White collar's the opposite. But just as dangerous, white collar gets out, let's say white collar, lawyers, doctors, professional services. Right. They say you've got to go buy the fancy car and the fancy house right away so that you can get ahead. So they're an image. It's not just working harder to get ahead. It's an image. I talk to lawyers all the time that watch the channel, and they say it's like a disease. Like there's an actual real statistic out there. If you took a plumber, a guy that left high school, became a journeyman as soon as he could, he would become a millionaire. I think it's like in one third of the time that it takes a doctor to. Because doctors and lawyers end up buying a fancy car and a fancy house and have A golf membership before they ever get close to, you know, and it's, it's scary how much they lose. And so that it's like, it almost bred into them in college in these Ivy League colleges. And so I think it's really interesting.

Josh (40:50)

It goes along with the ego. It's all ego. But it also goes along with the, you have to call me Dr. Sarah or whatever you're talking about.

Economic Ninja (40:57)

Oh my gosh. In English. And what was even worse about that story, they were head of at one point the Colorado State University system, and they were making about 89,000 bucks a year. So I'm like, not only are you full of yourself, I mean, full of it. Like there's, there's nothing of substance there. I go, you, you don't, you, you don't make the money to, like, what? Like, I just don't understand it. But that, but that, they're taught that to us.

Josh (41:22)

Business too, like delayed grant. One of my biggest influences when I had my first company.

Economic Ninja (41:27)

Yeah.

Josh (41:28)

Was a guy had a window cleaning business. People look down on window cleaners. They shouldn't because, you know, homeless guys will clean your windows in the, in

Economic Ninja (41:35)

the intersection with the dirty, dirty paper towels.

Josh (41:38)

But this guy, you know, he runs a $30 million business now. And. But even with his window cleaning business, he was still paying himself $500 a week when he was doing like 100,000amonth, you know, so he had a over a million dollar run rate with his business. And I just always thought that was interesting because the poor mindset is to like publicly frame yourself as successful as soon as possible.

Economic Ninja (42:02)

Yeah.

Josh (42:02)

I mean, to get the new truck or the bass boat. I always joke about jet skis and hot tubs. It's like, I worked for it, I worked hard. I it. And they're like sacrificing so much more than they realize by doing it. And me too, like, I've done that. Like, making money, keeping money are two totally different skill sets. We help people make a lot of money, but then they're just buying fancier, shiny objects for people that don't even like them.

Economic Ninja (42:24)

You were telling me about somebody that took you for a helicopter ride. I knew exactly which helicopter. And I turn around and I'm like, why haven't I bought a helicopter yet? And I'm like, well, I don't need it. And I'm like, could I live by percentages? I go, I told my wife a long time ago, I said, look, as long as I'm only spending 2 to 3% of what I make good. But if I want a fancy car, I just need to get my 2 to 3% up to that point. And that's literally how I live. And what's been really tough on me and I have not handled it well, responsible, maturity wise, is learning about all these influencers that look like rich people. They are not. And it's really driven me to show people, not to expose those specific people. They already know who they are, but it's like they. You'd be surprised who you think is rich, who isn't. Like, we've talked about Bentley's, all these fancy cars before, and people pull up in them and they're treated a different way. They're treated a different way when they got a Fancy watch on 100%. But that Bentley, that costs as much as less than a Yukon, because if you buy it right. That's right, because they fall off a cliff just like everything else. I went into one of the biggest, most famous watch stores in the country. This was three years ago. And they go, what can I do? I'm like, oh, it's gonna sound like a sort of a douchey thing, but I want to buy the cheapest Rolex you got in the place. They're rolling their eyes like, oh, great. And why? I'm like, well, because I'm gonna prove it on my YouTube channel that there's a thing called the Rolex indicator, and it's rolling over. And he goes, no, sir, Rolexes do not go down in value. I'm like, I bet you got hired in 2010. And he looks at me like that was a lucky guess. But he goes, I did. I'm like, what did you do before that? It was a similar conversation I had in Lamborghini dealers. And I'll tell the Lamborghini story. It's even better because he got hired around 2010, 2011. And what did you do before that? I was a golf pro. And I go, why did you leave me a golf pro? And he goes, well, it's a funny thing, you say that. When the Great Recession hit, we found out that not a lot of people paid for golf. After that, they recessed. I'm like, well, what do you think's gonna happen to Lamborghinis? And he just looked at me. I'm like, see, the sad thing is, golf people usually paid cash. How many people buy a Lamborghini cash? He's like, and I'm all. Before you answer that, what's your number one client? And he goes, well, it's a split I'm, well, let me guess. And he goes, crypto boys and youtubers. I'm like, well, that's about to change. And so it's the same thing with a Rolex. And now we're seeing the facts, like the sales are falling off a cliff, prices are diving. And Rolexes and Lamborghinis and they don't have the value because people assign a value. And so like what you're doing with business, you hopefully, you know, the reason why people listen to you is because they know the value. If I listen and spend this much time listening to them or I spend this much money to have him coach me, I'm going to get this much value. And then. But it's not the slot machine, it's not a Lamborghini. But they go, I've now assigned a value. That's what successful people do. I know the value. Like I paid a tax guy and he won't even let me tell people, like, how much I paid him. Right. It's a good clip. I was like, but it was the first time in my life I said, done. I'm doing it because I know he can save me money. And he saved me, No joke, 40 times that much in taxes because he brought in, he goes, okay, we're going to bring in this tax attorney, this specialist over here. We're going to do invest in this company. We're going to do this. And I'm watching all this going, this is brilliant. But I knew because there was that value.

Josh (45:58)

And I met him in Thailand.

Economic Ninja (45:59)

Yeah, you did. Yeah.

Josh (46:00)

He's a really cool guy.

Economic Ninja (46:01)

He is, actually. He doesn't even know I'm like right down the street from him right now, but he's really busy, so.

Josh (46:05)

Yeah, well, poor people have a hard time recognizing value. Yeah, they, you've heard stories of people in inner cities, you know, killing people to steal their shoes, you know, because the shoes are so valuable and that as a status or watches or whatever.

Economic Ninja (46:19)

Yeah, yeah.

Josh (46:20)

And it's like, but that's not real value. Or, you know, in the. I have a couple software businesses and then we do consulting and all these things. And the people that are like, the $99 customers are the worst customers. The $100,000 customers are the best customers. Because $100,000 buyers recognize value. They know how to apply what they've learned to get value. And the $99 people are like, I forgot my password 30 times a week, you know, and they complain. And in 1/100th of 1% of the hundred dollar product, they Bought could change their whole life. But they don't apply it, they don't consume it.

Economic Ninja (46:53)

Yeah. I got to show you something. This never happened in my life. My volume is all the way down and my phone is freaking out. This never happened. Okay, so we're gonna turn the phone off. I apologize. I've never seen this in my life where my volume is down and it will not turn off. Sorry.

Josh (47:10)

Let's transition over to the nine buckets.

Economic Ninja (47:13)

Oh yeah.

Josh (47:14)

And you know, because we help people make a lot more profit. A lot more profit. Like, like, like buy a helicopter. More profit. Right. Not that. So everyone should buy a helicopter. But it's still like it creates oxygen and choices.

Economic Ninja (47:26)

Yeah.

Josh (47:26)

Profit is the big domino for a small business. Meaning it solves. It makes every other problem in business either irrelevant or unnecessary because your employee issues go down. When you have more profit, you can invest and scale and buy equipment. You can make a mistake marketing. You can play the game like everything is easier when you more profit. This is where you come in. What should they do with the money they're making? What's your philosophy?

Economic Ninja (47:49)

So when it. So this is really exciting because I didn't think we were to talk about this. So business is really important and it is actually one of the greatest wealth bucket generating buckets. You could have. I call it buckets. You could basket, I don't care box. But you have to compartmentalize your money, your wealth, right. And inside your business you do, you go, hey, look, we have this product line that makes us X. But we also diversified into this. Or maybe, maybe our business was so profitable we started a second entity. We bought our office a bought an office space instead of renting. And now we're. The money goes back and forth. Right. But we're building wealth. So this business has all these little boxes, you know, inventory, real estate, all this different stuff. But then business owners actually don't know what to do outside of that. They don't. They pay themselves. What I'm finding on the tax side, they pay themselves way too little of a. Anyway, so I started to think taxes. But what I'm saying, they don't know what to do outside. Sure, maybe they've got a house, they got a 401k, you know, a solo 401k maybe, or a Roth robs or all these cool little tax things that their business is still paying for to optimize. So that means they've got stocks, they've got some real estate, maybe a self directed IRA with some crypto, but they don't truly know how to be investors outside. And I started this program, the Ninja 9, because you need to actually have a handful, nine separate, separate asset classes. One's a cash asset class where you have cash ready to deploy in each of these, a safety basket, a, a gold and silver. You know, stocks, your job and your business are two separate boxes. And then you're supposed to actually look at those every six months. There's a way of actually judging if one's getting too full. And you need to siphon money out of that and pull it out, pay the taxes or get it into something else tax free. And then you manage it. And what happens is it rewires your brain to always be winning. Because I teach economic cycles. Like in this last one that I started teaching was I teach about the broad macroeconomic cycles like how politics and governments affect world economics. Then I talk about niching down into what just like one country's economic situation and its cycles. Then each asset class has its own cycles. Like right now everybody's talking about gold and silver because it's taking of them all off. But I tell people, I said there's only been three times the last 50 years where gold and silver have actually spiked versus the dollar. And it's about a year and three quarters, two years span. And then it collapses back down again because the government's going, no, no, no, no, we're not going to. We want to keep printing crap money and you thinking it's valuable. So they figure out ways they're doing it right now where they have a glitch in the stock market or they say, hey, we're going to change margin requirements. They always smack it down. Well, everyone's talking about it, they feel rich and they're about to lose. They're actually going to lose more money than they invested because they're going to keep buying as it goes up. And this can get smacked down, right? I mean, literally, it's out in the news right now. China's smacking down the price of silver and as they actually rose the price too, just, you know, I think it's really exciting. But my point being is that this system, Ninja 9, it keeps your mind so focused and so is winning. Because what's happening is as the gold and silver bucket's going up, you're like, whoa, that's only supposed to be a max 15% of my net worth. And now because the price has just doubled, that's 30% I am forced to sell. And the system forces you to take a win. And it does something to your DNA. Because most people, nine times out of 10, people can tell you tell you a false prophet. They don't know real profit. They could tell you nine different scams out there, but they couldn't tell you a real good, solid program. My point being is that they can always tell you bad things, but they can't tell you good things. When you start getting forced in a system to take profit, Profits. I've got to take profits and not. Yep, sure, it could keep going up, but I'm taking my profit. Right. I'm getting back my initial investment plus some. And then I'm dispersing it into the other asset classes. Because gold and silver always run reverse of what real estate does. So real estate's actually on the downside. And gold and silver up. And I hear it all the time on my YouTube channel. I can't believe this guy's trying to tell us to sell something that's going up and buy something that's going down. You're just like, this is why you lose. You know, so that system. And I see a lot of business owners that just don't know that. Like, they know their business well.

Josh (51:59)

Yeah. And they also, just so you're aware, like, small business owners also rarely delineate their wages and their profits.

Economic Ninja (52:09)

Oh, yeah.

Josh (52:10)

That's why I like that you bucket your job and your business as two distinct things. Because it is two distinct things. Even if you don't have a job for someone else and you have a job for yourself, those are wages. Right. As your company scales, you should pay yourself a market rate wage.

Economic Ninja (52:23)

Yeah.

Josh (52:23)

The profit is only what's left over after paying yourself a market rate wage. Most people are like, oh, I made 100 grand in profit. No, you didn't. You made $4 an hour because you work nine days a week. Right?

Economic Ninja (52:34)

Yeah.

Josh (52:34)

And there is no problem. You know what I'm saying?

Economic Ninja (52:35)

Well, check this out. So a lot of business owners, look, I'm not a tax professional, but I hang out with a lot of them and I go to tax conferences and stuff. A lot of people are underpaying how much they should be paying themselves in wages because their CPAs don't know the difference. Difference of how to maximize things like solo 401k or Roth robs or back end things that actually the tax system, they're really smart. The irs, they go, hey, if the more you pay yourself, there's a point where it's diminishing returns. We'll let you put more into a different type of tax Advantage program, the more you pay yourself. It's based on how much you pay yourself. And a lot of business owners are paying themselves the bare minimum when in all reality they're going to get. If they get nabbed in a, in an audit, they'll get. Gets clipped real quick. But they're actually paying more in taxes because the. They keep thinking, well, if I pay myself a big wage, I'm paying 15.3% on that money. Like, yeah, but if the more you pay, you're able to do this other backdoor thing with your money, with your wages, and then you actually save more in taxes because a lot of people aren't getting their full. What is it? Tax deduction. That 20%. I'm completely banking out, but there's this specific deduction that all entities and businesses get to do, but it's up to 20%. Most people think it's an automatic 20%. I'm on camera, so I'm forgetting it. But it's this business deduction for having an entity or just a straight business. And most people don't know. If you go to a special line on your tax form, you'll go, wait a minute, why didn't you get my full 20%? And it's because they didn't pay themselves a certain, certain payroll and a certain percentage up there. And so it's funny because I've got people in my tax courses and I'm not a tax guy. I just have brilliant tax people in my tax courses and other tax professionals are taking these courses going. I never do that. And it's so cool because, you know, we're on the right track, you know, so it's just really neat. Qualified business deductions. Qbi. Qualified business something I. Yeah, but I don't remember what the I stands for.

Josh (54:34)

He's got the I word.

Economic Ninja (54:34)

Yeah. Learn what the I word is. Yeah, but anyway, it's, it's. This is why you, you know my tax guy and he's. Yeah, the brainiac. He loves this stuff.

Josh (54:42)

Yeah, but I mean, you only meet people like that. When you put yourself out there, you start putting yourself in intimidating rooms. You, you're not trying to, to, to peacock yourself as being the man, you're trying to be the guy taking notes. You want to be the dumbest person in the smartest room.

Economic Ninja (54:56)

I met him at a tax conference. Real story. The only, the whole crowd, it was myself and three other people that were not tax professionals or tax attorneys. So that is exactly what I'm talking about. Like the people that Watch your stuff. Are already really ahead. They're smart because they are. They are paying with either their time or their money. People like yourself that know a lot about one specific thing or a handful of things, and they. They want to get that information out. Right. Most people that I interact with on YouTube, they don't do that. They have a poverty mindset. So they're like.

Josh (55:33)

A lot of people consume content as a form of entertainment, pretending like they're being productive.

Economic Ninja (55:38)

True. But I've seen the opposite where I see comments and people that I know that say, I've never bought a course from you. I just get all the free stuff off. And I thank you so much. You've changed my life forever. I have more, no joke, more money than I ever have. And I never say it to them by thinking I'm like, what would have happened if you would have committed $200 to a course? Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just like.

Josh (55:58)

Well, people that pay pay attention at a different level.

Economic Ninja (56:01)

Yeah. And I didn't. I didn't really know that. And I got warned about that.

Josh (56:04)

I don't know. We're not saying his first name or is it Fine?

Economic Ninja (56:07)

Or Z?

Josh (56:07)

Yeah, we'll call him Z. So Z. Right? When I first met him on the trip to Thailand, we're just getting to know each other. I start explaining Frap to him.

Economic Ninja (56:15)

Yeah.

Josh (56:16)

And he's like, oh, my God. Right? This is a high level person. Right. But here's the thing.

Economic Ninja (56:22)

I love how he does it too.

Josh (56:23)

Explain the first ad I ever ran for Frapp. A guy in Dallas contacted my team and got my personal number somehow just to tell me. He's like, this is the most simple, elegant, brilliant thing I've ever seen. He had a $60 million company. I'm like, you're not my avatar. I'm helping the little blue collar Main street millionaire people. But what happens is the smaller businesses don't recognize the value the same way as like a Zeeshan who's like, I literally sketched out a high ticket offer for him, which is one of the frat moves, and a decoy offer. And the way we frame and choreograph it, he was just like, his head's exploding, melting out of the side of his head. Because he gets it.

Economic Ninja (56:59)

He does.

Josh (56:59)

And he'll go make a million dollars because of an airport lounge conversation in Beijing or where'd we go? Hong Kong? And then someone else will hear 40 of my podcasts talking about frappe and not do it.

Economic Ninja (57:12)

Yeah.

Josh (57:13)

Same with Investing, right?

Economic Ninja (57:14)

Yeah. So I was speaking at a conference, Silver symposium in Vegas one day, and a man walked up. I call him Black Al. His name's Al. He's black. That's how I remember people. Right. It's in my phone. All these different things, but Al's name is Black Al Gulfstream. The reason why I say that is because when I met him, he came up and he goes, I want to tell you thank you for everything you've done. You're so inspirational. You know, all this stuff. Can I take a photo with him? Like, yeah, no problem. And then I see his. This screen pop up and there's a picture of him on a jet. And I'm like, oh, that's a cool photo. And he goes, oh, thanks. You know, that's a really cool story. You know, bought that a while back. And I'm like. And I'm taking photo. I'm like. He goes, yeah. He goes, that was a really cool time in my life because I bought it because I always wanted a Lear jet. It was a G6 or no G3. And he goes. And he goes, by then I had 60 units, doors. I'm like, Whoa, you have 60 doors? And I'm like, which course did you buy? He goes, your real estate course. Well, and that changed your life. He goes, yeah. And I'm like, how could you got a jet? You got 60 doors? Like, tell me about yourself. He starts telling me about himself. He's like this super. He speaks in front of crowds of 5,000 all around the world. Like, the most positive person I've ever met. And I'm like, how did you get something out of my course? And he goes, you brought me back to basics. Like, what are you talking about? And he goes, he started telling me the things in the course. I'm just like, why would you spend 200 bucks on this course? He goes, goes, what is. All the things you said had value on YouTube? Like, I'm sure. 200 bucks. That's a joke. You know, I paid more than that. Like, you know, we talk about high ticket offers. I'm like, how do. And it's like. But they get it.

Josh (58:43)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (58:44)

And it's like, how do you wake people up from that poverty mindset? Like, I would. I wouldn't spend 200 or $2,000 or. And I'm like, even with a guarantee or try. Because they just. They're stuck.

Josh (58:54)

Yeah. I. I don't know if we can wake people up, but we can continue to be the alarm clock.

Economic Ninja (58:59)

Yeah.

Josh (59:00)

And hopefully someone watching this is like, oh, because I know for me, like, I. I don't just like, get stuff.

Economic Ninja (59:06)

Yeah.

Josh (59:07)

You'll hear something the 17th time. And it hits.

Economic Ninja (59:10)

Yeah.

Josh (59:10)

And you know, it's better if it's on the ninth time or the third time or the first time, but it's just a progressive, progressive thing.

Economic Ninja (59:18)

I wish you could have met Al. You're going to meet him on one of these trips. The other part of that story is we went to lunch. I'm like, I got to get to know this guy. Like, how did. And I'm listening to his story. And I said, you need to start a YouTube channel. No joke. You want to hear crazy? He goes, okay, you said it. I'm going to do it. And he goes out and next week starts a YouTube channel. He goes and hires a production staff and starts it. But you know how he started the channel? First off, he got grew over 100,000 subs in one year. Incredible. Like, whoa. And I said, if all you do a hundred videos, I'll interview and help you with your channel. By then he already had 100,000 subs. It was because every video started with that picture of him on the jet. Because I said, I'm like, you gotta put that in the channel because your story is impressive. And so he would show the photos of him speaking or the B roll in front of thousands of people and The Jet and 100,000 subscribers.

Josh (60:09)

Let's talk about that. The perception of authority or real authority. Let's talk about that.

Economic Ninja (60:13)

I know where you're going with this one. Well, it's because I'm on a street corner with cardboard.

Josh (60:17)

It's just true that it's called an authority signal. Like a nice clothes or a nice watch or whatever. Any kind of fancy or wealth associated thing. The car you drive, the way your wife looks. Should this stuff matter?

Economic Ninja (60:32)

I wish it didn't.

Josh (60:33)

Yeah, but it does. It's a real. It's the reality of how humans are. And you could have the most brilliant person with a YouTube channel giving advice 20 times more valuable than that guy's advice. And he has the wrong thumbnail. He doesn't understand the strategy of the game of attention and all this stuff. And no one will hear his stuff. No, it makes me sad. That's why.

Economic Ninja (60:53)

Yeah, Fox News is blocking me. No, it's true. I want young people to know this more like, you've watched my son go through this metamorphosis because he's like, I don't like fancy things. Like, yeah, no, we get that. But let's, let's try and Jedi mind trick the public. And let me teach you something early that I wish I would have learned. And that is if you learn how to wear a shirt different. Were you with me at the tailor? Did you go, you eventually had some shirts made, right?

Josh (61:18)

Yeah, I had a whole custom suit made.

Economic Ninja (61:20)

Okay, sweet. And I told him, I said, look, if you'll just the difference of buying a shirt off the rack, let's go over here, let's buy a shirt and have some young men make us a shirt which are going to change your life because you're about to pour into their economy and you're going to pay them more than they would have ever made in a month working down the street. Right. There's these guys have real skill. They're your age, tailors. Right. And I said, let's put on a tailored shirt. Shirt. You were there when my son tried that one on and he just, he stood up straight and he went, whoa. And, and the guys are like, man, you look like you've been in the gym for a month. Because it was tailored. And I said just that little. There was no Louis Vuitton or anything like that. This is one of the shirts actually, you know, cost what, 50 bucks over in. In.

Josh (61:58)

But it's got a custom inlay in it.

Economic Ninja (62:00)

Oh yeah.

Josh (62:00)

Initials on it.

Economic Ninja (62:01)

Yeah. You put your.

Josh (62:02)

And it would fit to your body.

Economic Ninja (62:03)

Yeah. It's 50 bucks. Right. And, and it looks better than when you just get something off. And I both just that little bit and you're treated different. And he saw it right away. His, he walked back into his friend's job. His best friend in California is a mechanic. And he literally went, whoa, dude, you've been working out. That's my son's like, oh my gosh.

Josh (62:24)

And it's like, I wish it wasn't that way, but it is that way.

Economic Ninja (62:26)

Yeah.

Josh (62:27)

I mean maybe we can spend a few minutes too talking about like shame programming around money. Like, is it good to accumulate wealth? How much is too much? Is that a real thing? Is it fictitious? What your thoughts and views are on that? Because we both came from humble backgrounds.

Economic Ninja (62:44)

Oh yeah.

Josh (62:45)

And it's something I've always wrestled with. And what I notice is the, the good hearted best small business owners punish themselves unnecessarily on their success journey. You know, they make things harder than they need to be. Or, or it's just they're in this trapped cycle. You know, a lot of times about they don't want to, oh, I'm not gonna price gouge my customers. It's like, it's not price gouging. You need profit, you know, you're not evil. I think it's your moral obligation to create profit. I think the natural state of God's world is profitable. Everything's like a garden.

Economic Ninja (63:16)

Well, if you wanna talk about that, we gotta talk about tithing. Because one thing my dad did for me is he taught me why it was important to tithe. And he told his testimony, he shared it with me. And when I started tithing and my wife started tithing, the whole world changed. And it wasn't a get rich quick scheme. It was a we're going to be okay. And then it turned into after a while of, we're okay. Lord's providing for us. You know, we get to keep the 90%, the 10%'s his. We went into this mode of like, well, now we're not under a curse. What can we do with this? Then it went to, like, I really enjoy. Because once you give away 10% to tyranny, tithe money has no hold on you anymore. You can't be greedy when you're tithing. Because then what happens is my dad would actually call me greedy. He's like, when's enough enough? I'm like, it's not enough. I'm like, I can't feed a nation if I'm making a million dollars a year. I'm like, I need more to feed a nation. And so being able to help people gets more and more. And it gets. It actually turns into a job. Actually, that's a whole other thing we talked about, like, you know, being really responsible with where you're sowing your tie. Just not randomly throwing it out there. Cause I want it to be in fertile ground. I want it to help people, you know, I want to help abortion stop people, you know, widows be taken care of and the hungry fed. But not in a way where it creates dependency. But once you start doing that, you start the kingdom response to giving. And businesses can do this. Actually, you want to be a successful business? Be like Chick Fil a. What does Chick Fil A do they. No, I think if Hobby Lobby pays off church mortgages and Chick Fil a does something else with their money, right? They actually give. Like, look into the In n Out Giving program. Those companies. Yeah, in and Out Burger. Those companies that have godly principles to build and help other people with a percentage of their revenue explode. You can't out give God, they say, right.

Josh (65:06)

But even people that aren't Religious at all.

Economic Ninja (65:08)

Yeah.

Josh (65:09)

Understand this principle.

Economic Ninja (65:10)

Yes, exactly.

Josh (65:11)

Secular atheists that are really wealthy.

Economic Ninja (65:15)

Yeah.

Josh (65:15)

Tithe.

Economic Ninja (65:17)

Yes, they do.

Josh (65:17)

Because it's like a law. See, this is a thing like gravity. Yes.

Economic Ninja (65:22)

Yeah.

Josh (65:23)

It's true at the macro, it's true at the micro. It's a principle. It's sowing and reaping. It's a real thing.

Economic Ninja (65:29)

Well, even demons have to live inside the world God created. They all are bound by certain things, you know, and that's, it's a real thing and it's really cool because what happens is it frees a part of your mind because a greedy greed and emotion, which are feeling of loss, all that stuff that I always deal with, but way much more in my past that actually kills your brain cells and keeps you in a negative sort of a deficit. Right. Whereas when you have that freedom where you're giving, you're able to actually create ideas and so into the creation of ideas. I do that with the Lord all the time. I mean I was, you saw what I was saying to our wives. Like I came here expecting an answer answer this weekend. Like I'm expecting a breakthrough from God. Like so we all got to get together and talk and just allow God to speak. You know what I mean?

Josh (66:17)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (66:17)

And, and that's why I come expecting. We should all do that, you know, I mean anyone that follows you expects an outcome. Right?

Josh (66:26)

Well, that's that. I love one of Myron Golden's teachings about like the only difference between anxiety and anticipation is if you're choosing because both of these are faith. Okay? Anxiety is a faith based thing and so is anticipation. They're both faith. All belief is faith. Anxiety is when you're fixated and focused on an undesirable outcome. So you're expecting something bad. I call it, he calls it a ufo, Right. An undesirable future outcome. And when you're fixated on something negative, even though it's fictitious, it's made up, okay. You're literally inventing and making up. When you fixate on it, you're going to fight what you focus on. You find anticipation. He describes it like, you know how on Christmas Eve when you're a little kid, you can't go to sleep and you only get two hours of sleep, but you wake up with more energy than ever before.

Economic Ninja (67:18)

Right.

Josh (67:19)

It's because you're living in anticipation. And anticipation creates energy, anxiety steals energy. And it's a very simple shift. Right? I mean, it's simple, we get it, but we have to think about what we Think about, about. Or we don't notice that we're doing it right because we're programmed. You know, all the beliefs all of us have are installed and programmed. Babies are only born with two natural fears. The fear of falling, the fear of loud noises, everything else. Like you think that you're being logical, you think that you're being, you know, reasonable, but you're not. You're running a program. Most small business owners are living and with this low grade anxiety all the time waiting for the shoe to drop, waiting for the thing to go wrong. You're getting on an airplane saying, I'm so excited for, for this breakthrough that's coming. I am, I'm so excited that this move I'm gonna make. And you're doing it in faith, just like they are. They just have inverted negative faith.

Economic Ninja (68:06)

Can I. I love how you talk. And I wanna talk about something I like about Myron in a second, but. Or I'll probably forget it. Can I add one more thing that a baby's afraid of?

Josh (68:15)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (68:16)

They're afraid of their support system being taken away. When our children were young and we put them in the crib and we would move, leave the room, who were they? For some they would freak because it was instantly we were gone and we were never coming back. They didn't know that as business owners or just people trying to navigate this world, we are dependent on a system that's here to supply us something. And I said it in the beginning of us talking about ego. And when my mom died, I had nobody left that believed in me. And remind me tell you the Ferrari story. The day I bought my Ferrari, my grandmother. It's an interesting story, but it's every. I had to create my own. I had to fake it until I made it. I had to become my own. Ego at a certain level is very good. At a low level because no one's here to believe in you. You gotta do it yourself. You don't have a support system.

Josh (69:07)

I mean, I totally agree. I don't even know if I would label it ego. I think all of us have to decide what delusion we choose to live in. Because all of it's a delusion.

Economic Ninja (69:19)

You're right.

Josh (69:20)

And so. So someone called Steve Jobs. Back in the 80s, someone was being interviewed and they said that Steve Jobs lived in a reality distortion field. He was just oblivious. Or my business hero, R.G. letourneau. I got his book over there. He lived on 10% of his income, gave away 90. He had 299 patents. When he died. And funny enough, he got an honorary degree at 76 years old even though I only made it through seventh grade. Yeah, he doesn't need the degree. He had 299 patents. He invented the offshore self moving oil rig. And he's probably the reason we won World War II because of his heavy equipment. But I digress.

Economic Ninja (69:56)

Just a little side note there.

Josh (69:58)

So I don't know. What I'm saying is everyone's living in a reality distortion field.

Economic Ninja (70:03)

Yeah.

Josh (70:04)

The person you see at the gas station, that has negativity. I saw a guy one time walk into a gas station and he bought $18 worth of lottery tickets and $2 in gas.

Economic Ninja (70:14)

Oh, I know some.

Josh (70:16)

Oh yeah, I saw this. It blew my mind.

Economic Ninja (70:18)

Yeah.

Josh (70:19)

And he believes things that to him are absolutely true. And I'm going to make assumptions on what he believes because I don't know for sure. But he probably believes that that's the only way out.

Economic Ninja (70:30)

That is right. It is for him.

Josh (70:32)

Yeah, that's what he thinks.

Economic Ninja (70:33)

Yeah.

Josh (70:34)

And because he thinks that it is true.

Economic Ninja (70:36)

Exactly.

Josh (70:37)

And that's what you're talking about. So I don't know if you had ego problems. I think you, you made a decision to step into a positive delusion of what your future could be.

Economic Ninja (70:46)

Gosh, someday. We have to talk to my best friend because my best friend made it to the second level with lotto tickets. Because he wins every time and he loses because he gives it right back. I've seen it happen 50, easily 50 times in my life where he gets

Josh (70:59)

a windfall and then buys more lotto tickets.

Economic Ninja (71:02)

He's got the car full of lotto tickets. He doesn't win with them. He'll put, put a thousand dollars into, or even a hundred dollars into a slot machine. $2,500 comes out within minutes and I'll pull it. And he runs it all the way down.

Josh (71:17)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (71:17)

It is greed the second level of the thing. It is. It is. Yeah.

Josh (71:21)

Is it greed? I mean, what. Break that down. Let's talk about that.

Economic Ninja (71:24)

Greed comes from a lack of knowledge.

Josh (71:26)

The slot machine literally is one thing, but we do versions of that same thing everywhere.

Economic Ninja (71:31)

God says that my people perish for lack of knowledge. And what people think about perish, they think dying. But perish is actually living. Not to your full extent.

Josh (71:40)

It's like a slow degradation. Like a food Perishable.

Economic Ninja (71:43)

Exactly.

Josh (71:43)

Perishable food. It rots.

Economic Ninja (71:44)

It's like the parable of the wise ruler that gives a certain portion to all, you know, ten of his servants. Comes back and he's not. He's very pleased with the ones that did something with it and brought in an increase. He didn't care that one made five times, one made double. He was just happy with both of them equally. He was angry with the person that didn't do anything with it. And that's perishing. You know, we have all this amazing opportunity, and I used to. I now know it from getting a certain level of success where you get frustrated and angry with people that don't live up to their potential, but all they do is whine, like, just get out of my way, I'll go do it. Like, I feel a need to serve people. People, right? And a lot of people, especially people that are poor mindset people, they're like, I can't believe you charged for this. The other day. I. I was getting harassed all over the Internet, right? And people like, I can't believe you'd give into this. But I'm like, I'm gonna do this as an experiment. I'm gonna show the results. Everyone's saying I'm a scammer because I sell courses. So here's a course for a dollar. And I explained the only reason it's a dollar is because the company that's hosting, because you have to watch the lessons in order or you'll screw it up. Right. You just won't get it because people like to go to the end. Like, I just want the fast thing. Yeah. So I had like 20 videos. You got to watch them in order. And so it's a dollar to host it here. It was my worst performing video. Not on numbers, obviously, dollar amounts, but on the amount of people that signed up. And then what I did is I raised it nine times to nine bucks. And I sold more. I raised it again to 29, sold more, same exact course. And I'm like, nobody has an excuse. It stopped putting value to dollars. But it is sad because I got talked. The people are trying to talk me out of being the low ticket king forever and saying, you need to go higher because people won't lose their. I know it sounds funny. When people spend a lot of money, they don't lose their password to the program. You don't know how many people are like, you scammed me.

Josh (73:39)

They write that sucker down.

Economic Ninja (73:40)

Yeah, I logged in and it's not there. I'm like, well, you logged in with a different email and the software doesn't want you to repeat the email because they don't want friction. And like, the whole thing, you just Misspelled it. And like. And they're screaming, yell at you. You look at their account, they've got five different accounts, five different misspelled. You're like, oh, gosh. You know, it's like, okay. And I just like, here's your money back. You need to leave and not come back. Like, you deny me? No, you don't have the. It's not that you don't have the brain power. You don't have the patience to. To actually work through your own issues. Yeah, it's interesting. So, Myron. I gotta tell you what I like about Myron. First off, everything. The coolest thing you ever did. If Myron ever watches this, he'll laugh. You got to show me a couple of his first videos. This was cool. Myron is so polished. He think you and him, you could just rattle off stuff. And Socrates said. I'm like. I'm like, where are you getting this? Is this a Bill and Ted video? Like, I don't remember. I love it. No, because you're so polished and you're so prepared for what you're about to go and the next part of your life is. It's awesome. And Myron's the same way. But you showed me his videos when he first started. Same exact message.

Josh (74:53)

Exact.

Economic Ninja (74:53)

But different clothes, different backset, less attention. And I fought. In YouTube, I wanted to be the opposite because I couldn't stand the guys with the Bentleys and the Ferraris and the suits. So I literally would say. I said, if this guy's got a whiteboard, I would call out some famous YouTuber. I said, I've got cardboard. And I would sit on the side of the street and I would talk about finance on a piece of cardboard.

Josh (75:17)

Did you really?

Economic Ninja (75:18)

Yeah. You didn't see those videos?

Josh (75:19)

No, I never saw that.

Economic Ninja (75:20)

Oh, yeah. If this guy's got a Lamborghini, I got a Trigini. And I went and bought a tricycle. And I would do videos in. You never see this.

Josh (75:28)

That's good marketing.

Economic Ninja (75:28)

Really. It was actually pretty cool. I would. I would just cruise around bank of America parking lots and do live streams, and people would be pulling up like, dude, what are you doing? And I'm like, there's a camera we're live in front of. And at that point, views were crazy. Like, there's like 20,000 people watching right now. We're talking about bank of America doing this and this and this. And I'm like, cool trick, man. Like, sweet. And I just cruise around, and then I would just dress up like, Hippies and stuff like that. And then most of my videos were in cars because I'm like, I know my word worth as an entrepreneur. I know my worth as a father and all these things. I'm like, well, I'm not going to try and impress people. But the sad thing is that didn't make the impact for some people to make the change. But I did find that the right people that looked past all of that and listened to the words made changes in their lives. Yeah, that was cool.

Josh (76:18)

It is. It's such a weird thing, you know, at a certain point, point, if you actually care about the people you're called to serve, you gotta show up. You know, I think Paul said, be all things, all people, so that some might be saved. And it's like if, if, if you gotta have a clickbaity thing because you have a lot of money. Your followers don't even understand the kind of money, personal income you make. Business owners get confused. You say a million dollars, they're like, oh, I hope my business does a million dollars in revenue someday. No. Millions of dollars a month in personal income is a different level. So I'll leave that alone. But if it requires you to get their attention so you can serve them to do something, it's like, do you love the people you're called to serve or not? Are you gonna choose, like, this ego thing and, like, play it? You know what I'm saying? We talked about that before.

Economic Ninja (77:07)

It's so weird getting in the media to where, like, directors of financial. I've had convers. It's so hard to explain without, like, divulging who I've talked to. There are people in this world, in the media, in the finance space, that know things about me, and I know things about them they would never want exposed because they put on this perception and they would never want me on their show because it would get awkward. You know, it's so weird. And we're in such a weird world,

Josh (77:45)

but they get all the. The attention.

Economic Ninja (77:47)

Yeah.

Josh (77:48)

And so it's like if we're on a rescue mission to educate people. Look, the world's full of fake gurus. The world's full of liars and charlatans.

Economic Ninja (77:56)

Yeah.

Josh (77:57)

How are we going to break through the noise? Because the masses of people are totally consumed by it. And it's not their fault. They don't know. And so they're living in anxiety. They have a lack of information, their fear. They have program for their parents. I want to go on a rescue mission and snatch these people Out. But if I don't learn how to market louder and get in the game in terms of just raw attention getting, I can't help them.

Economic Ninja (78:23)

I just want to be someone's cheerleader. The problem is my energy gets expelled and I'm no good to the masses if I'm trying to convince one person or a small group of people why they're already successful. Just see, what did Jesus say when all the people needed to be fed first thing he said, and they're like, hey, we defeat. What do we have?

Josh (78:45)

What do you have? What's in your hand?

Economic Ninja (78:46)

What do we. Can't multiply nothing.

Josh (78:48)

Right.

Economic Ninja (78:48)

Can't do crap with zero.

Josh (78:50)

Right.

Economic Ninja (78:50)

You know, it's like literally God created math. Right? What's zero times zero? That's it. You got to have something. What's one times zero? One. And then once you realize that, what's one times two? And then it just goes exponential. And so I think it's exciting once we realize that. But yeah, and I'm in a weird spot where my channel's not doing what it used to do because, you know, I warned us some crazy things and I got the phone call and, you know, and so rather than worrying about that, I'm going, all right, Lord, what do we do next?

Josh (79:23)

You said some politically incorrect things. You said some correct things that were deemed politically incorrect and they punished you.

Economic Ninja (79:30)

I said that something really bad was coming and it did exactly like I did. Yeah. They called. President saw it. It was really exciting times. It's weird when you get, this is a weird world, man. Every single one of us. I didn't make it through high school and I'm talking to the world like, how cool is that?

Josh (79:46)

208 million views. But I mean, that was just on one channel.

Economic Ninja (79:51)

Do you know how cool it is? You want to talk about ego for like stroke and ego. We could do a video right now and say, hey, I'm in this city. I'll meet you guys all at Embassy suites tonight at 8. And we'll have like, be able, like within a couple hours. Like 30 or 50 people show up.

Josh (80:04)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (80:04)

And we just all talk like, that's super cool. You're gonna be doing that pretty soon.

Josh (80:09)

It's a big responsibility. It's super cool. And it's like, I view it as it's stewardship of humans.

Economic Ninja (80:17)

Yeah.

Josh (80:17)

And so we don't want to be inauthentic and be what we're not. Because a lot of content creators or entrepreneurs are trying to create content to scale. They end up becoming a slave to the expectations of their audience.

Economic Ninja (80:25)

It's.

Josh (80:26)

Instead of being just staying on mission and all that.

Economic Ninja (80:29)

Can I tell the story of how we met?

Josh (80:31)

Sure.

Economic Ninja (80:31)

And the story of the vending machine? Okay, so you want to talk why? You need. You need to be very genuine in your life. So somebody that I looked up to, that I wanted to say something nice, said something, didn't act the way I thought they should act. Right. Okay. And I turned around. I'm, like, stunned. The whole audience there is like, what just happened? I'm like, I don't know. And I just turn around. I'm like, well, that's weird. God. And I'm like, I came here expecting to Las Vegas, and I'm expecting to have a divine encounter. I actually thought it was that person. And so I'm going down the escalator, like I said in the beginning of this interview. And I'm like, well, Lord, I'm still expecting. And I run into Josh, like, five minutes later, and he goes, hey, aren't you? And like, yeah, like, you know, and can I get a photo? Because I know somebody that watches your channel, and maybe you'd seen a couple of them.

Josh (81:17)

Yeah, I had.

Economic Ninja (81:18)

Yeah. And so we take a photo together, and I'm like. And I just stop and I go, like, with just about everyone, except for the one time I was racing to an airport because I had to go to the bathroom. And. And. And I like, hey. I go, do you have any questions for me? Do you want to talk? And like. And you even said, like, aren't you really busy? And I'm like, no. I mean, that's was what I'm here for. So we're just talking, right? I didn't know all the people you knew. I didn't know who you were and stuff. And. And I'm. I leave, and I'm with a couple other social media guys, are really fancy, and they're dressed real fancy, and they're like, what are you so happy about? I'm like, oh, I just met this guy, and I pointed you out from across. I think we were in the press room. I don't remember where we were. VIP room. And I'm like, hey, look at. You know. And he recognized me. We took a photo, and he's really cool. I learned this from him. And I asked a little bit about your background. I think I learned about your window washing company in that conversation. Very first time we talked. Well, then. Then I go to the Vegas airport, and I'm a little stressed because wife Needs to eat. Gotta make sure they're fed, right? Kaboom. And it's like, I could just eat jerky treats or whatever all day and soda and. So we're looking for a place, not finding a restaurant. Little stressed. And I run into you, and you are literally laying down, like, sleeping head up against a vending machine on the ground of the Vegas airport. And. And I sort of walk up and it's just funny because I think about people that want to attract other people, and they look for rich people that are driving fancy cars. I didn't know anything about you. And I walk up and like, hey, your kids are chilling. They weren't feeling well. They're, like, on their phones and just like, everyone's knocked out. You're asleep. But I stopped, and rather than go get my wife fed and us fed and stuff, and I'm like, I just wanted to introduce my wife to you. I'm like, I thought it was so cool that we got to meet. I got to know a little about you. Took a photo together, and I never knew who I was talking to. I didn't know. I didn't know your background. I look at your background and what you know, and I'm just, like, in awe. Like, I just want to hang out with Josh. I just want to get to know Josh. I would tell my family about you and I to the point where Aiden was probably like, okay, dad. And then we go to Thailand, and my son's just like, dad, I learned so much from Josh, and I'm just like, like. But that, that was because I'm nothing. And I really, as. I like that, all through this interview, I'm like, well, I really sound like a cocky person, but I'm really not. And I, I, I just, I just want to get to know people, and I want to be around people. And, like, I've gotten so much out of our conversations. Can you imagine if I would have acted? And I walked away and said, that's my divine. In my divine meeting, ironically, the person that offended me for a second was one of your best buds.

Josh (83:54)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (83:55)

Because you're like, I'm like, like, this is so weird because I meet you and I'm so stoked. And there's this other guy, and you're like, what do you mean? Like, that's not him. His personality. And then later on, he said he was sorry, but it was like, it was just a total misunderstanding. But if I would have been. Now think about this. I met you minutes later after getting rejected, and I had to Walk this other way. Another direction. Still looking positive. I probably would never met you if I would have just. If that guy would have given me 60 seconds of his time.

Josh (84:22)

Time.

Economic Ninja (84:23)

Think about that.

Josh (84:23)

I didn't think of it that way.

Economic Ninja (84:24)

Yeah. I, I. Well, I'm just coming because I turned around, I stayed positive. I was going down the escalator, praying and going, that's weird. Where's my divine? But if, If I would have talked to him for 60 seconds, you wouldn't have been in the middle of that walkway that I was going to. There was what, 5,000, 10,000 people there.

Josh (84:39)

Yeah.

Economic Ninja (84:39)

We never would have seen each other.

Josh (84:41)

Yeah. That's crazy.

Economic Ninja (84:43)

And now look at our friendship.

Josh (84:45)

I know, dude.

Economic Ninja (84:46)

And. And I'll still be able to connect to that guy someday, and we'll be able to laugh and stuff, but.

Josh (84:51)

Yeah, And I think I. One of the reasons I relate with you so much is you have a heart for the little guy, and you even endure a lot of abuse from the little guy that doesn't understand.

Economic Ninja (85:01)

Yeah. I probably shouldn't pay attention to how

Josh (85:03)

much you're helping them. But the other thing is, is I don't have a networking strategy. I don't.

Economic Ninja (85:12)

Well, you're building one.

Josh (85:13)

It's pretty awesome. I think the next level for me is to have a formal strategy. And so God's been working on me. I'm like, be louder. Level it up. It's okay to let people know where you're at, what you're doing. Like, it's uncomfortable for me. So me sitting down.

Economic Ninja (85:28)

Good at it when you do it. Let's see those skits. You're so freaking good at it.

Josh (85:33)

Me looking like the homeless guy on the side of the airport was kind of my MO.

Economic Ninja (85:36)

I didn't say that even for years. You literally looked like a homeless guy. I'm not joking. I'm not trying to insult.

Josh (85:41)

No, I did.

Economic Ninja (85:42)

I didn't want to say say that,

Josh (85:43)

like, on camera, but I almost made it a point because of my own chip on my shoulder against people that think they're fancy, but they're really not. My wife and I have a saying that nothing is as it seems. One thing you'll learn when you get around all these fancy Internet people is that nothing is as it seems.

Economic Ninja (85:58)

That is correct.

Josh (85:59)

The amount of money they make, there's needs to be an asterisk next to it.

Economic Ninja (86:03)

Y.

Josh (86:03)

There's a whole bunch of financial engineering and exaggerating and all kinds of stuff. Not always, but usually.

Economic Ninja (86:09)

Yeah.

Josh (86:10)

And it's very disappointing. And then, so like, I respect. I remember I worked at Chase bank in my early 20s for a year and a half as a personal banker. I don't know if you knew that. I had my series 6 and 63 and I was like learning some stuff. And the richest guy in our little town was a farmer. And he had two and a half million dollars in his checking account, which in the year 2004 was a lot of money. And he drove a beat up F150 and he had dirt on his overalls and he come into the bank and my job was to do account reviews with people. A personal banker at these banks. It's a sales job. That's what it is. They just put lipstick on it, make you feel like you're. Oh, yeah, wealth advisor guy. All you do is you sell a menu of stuff to people and if they have too much money in their checking account, we want to get it out and invest it in something. And I talked to this guy and it was a huge epiphany for me because the same day, I remember the last time I saw him, I looked at his account and he wouldn't do anything. He just wanted to have the cash. Right. This other guy comes in a BMW 8 Series, whatever, the highest one. Right. This guy had $15,000 in his account, and he did an account review with me and he made a lot of money. He had a really high income, especially to my brain in 2004. Right.

Economic Ninja (87:29)

Like 350, 400, something like that. Yeah. Okay.

Josh (87:31)

It was like Jeff Bezos money. Yeah.

Economic Ninja (87:33)

No, I get it. Yeah.

Josh (87:34)

To me, the same thing. It's like upper middle class. He spent all of it, plus extra.

Economic Ninja (87:39)

Yep.

Josh (87:40)

His wife spent five to ten thousand dollars a month shopping.

Economic Ninja (87:43)

Yeah.

Josh (87:43)

She didn't go shopping. She'd take her friends, buy airplane tickets, go to Vegas to go shopping, to come back to our little town. And so they were just consuming and consuming and consuming. I heard Russell Brunson talk about how there's two people, tips of people, there's producers and consumers.

Economic Ninja (87:57)

Yeah.

Josh (87:57)

And anyway, anyway, it just, you know, all this stuff dovetails together, you know, so part of me wanted to be like the unassuming millionaire guy. Part of it's a chip on my shoulder against academics that think they're fancy. And so I'm overcompensating being extra, being less than fancy.

Economic Ninja (88:13)

Yeah.

Josh (88:13)

I would meet people even after I had, you know, a really successful software company. And I've built and sold four companies and all, and I'd still introduce myself as A window cleaner, you know, because it's like. I don't know. It made me feel good. And what I've only recently realized is that me, I. Acting like that is actually a form of my own ego. And if I really love the people I'm called to serve, then I got to put it out there more. And even though I wish, you don't have to flash success, I'm gonna do more of it because it's real and it's true and it's okay.

Economic Ninja (88:43)

Yeah.

Josh (88:43)

And I don't have to feel bad for succeeding. And if I care about the people I'm serving, it gets their attention.

Economic Ninja (88:49)

Yeah. We had that moment with my wife, actually, because the whole. Stop calling yourself a millionaire. And one day, it was a little recently. A couple years back, Chase kept canceling all of our wires. And by the 6th, my wife was coming unglued. And I'm like, this is because of this. She needed to hear it from a banker. And so we went in, and she. It was to the point that we would wire money to an account, and we would just go, hey, we'll be outside. It'll be canceled in about 10 minutes. And we'll be inside. You can call your supervisor. I'm like, sir, we know what we're doing. It would be cancelled. Finally. She's like, I want to know right now. So they got somebody really high up at Chase on the phone. It was a conference call. And they go, we are very sorry, but you are investing more money than 99% of our clients in this specific field. And we can't believe that that is a real thing. And my wife looks at me, and I said, told you.

Josh (89:44)

Do you work with private banking now with Chase?

Economic Ninja (89:46)

We do. It doesn't matter. They. Yeah. Like, with crypto, they were like, nobody buys that much crypto. And then I got canceled from Gemini when I made a sale. Actually, nobody publicly knows this. Gemini canceled my account because they said, there is no way somebody owns that much crypto. And I said, I bought it from your exchange six months ago. And they're like, we don't have the right or the ability to look at that. They thought I actually stole it. And because they were going public and.

Josh (90:14)

Well, there's good problems to have in life, I guess.

Economic Ninja (90:17)

Yeah. And we. Yeah, I didn't say anything publicly about it because one of the owners of Gemini is one of the owners of another company. So, like, we stayed quiet. But, yeah, it's like. That's weird. Yeah. Like, when you. You're at a Certain point in public and you got all these people trying to sell things and now coin. Yeah, it's weird life. Like I went, I was in Singapore one day with the crypto.com people and then coinbase people and they're like, you know, hey, you know, do you want to do a video for us? And you know, we could pay a lot. I'm like, no. I'm like, because I offered to do a video, I wanted to interview them. And they're like, well, you don't want any money? I'm like, no. And I'm like, I own your, the part of this part of your business. And they're like, what? And they're like. And I'm like, no, I just want to do an interview. Like I, I. And they look into my stuff and go, oh my gosh. And like the coinbase feel like you're the real deal. I'm like, I don't get paid to do this stuff. I just like talking about it because I invest in it, you know, and it's this really cool, you know, but it's a weird thing when you see all these fake people out there pretending to be something and you're like, I still can't buy real stuff. Like nothing about me is real. You know that. Like nothing like, you know, I mean,

Josh (91:21)

high end luxury goods and things like that.

Economic Ninja (91:23)

None of this stuff. Most people don't even know that that's

Josh (91:26)

a real tailored shirt. It just didn't cost much.

Economic Ninja (91:28)

These are real leather shoes. Yeah, but the, these ones you just go buy in another country and they are 1, 1/10 of the cost in America.

Josh (91:35)

I bought cologne when we were in Thailand.

Economic Ninja (91:37)

Oh, how'd that work out? Is it permanent?

Josh (91:39)

Perfect. I bought my son Tucker this Versace cologne. It smells exactly the same.

Economic Ninja (91:44)

He's probably got girls like he's knocking them off now.

Josh (91:47)

Well, he doesn't get out much, so not yet.

Economic Ninja (91:49)

He smells amazing in his bedroom.

Josh (91:51)

His sisters are like, okay, you smell less homeless today, Tucker.

Economic Ninja (91:55)

Right?

Josh (91:56)

Congratulations.

Economic Ninja (91:58)

I'm trying to teach my son that too. He's like, now he wears cologne all the time.

Josh (92:01)

Yeah, yeah.

Economic Ninja (92:02)

Just don't pay that much for it.

Josh (92:04)

Do you have any, any closing thoughts, final words? I mean, if you're to look in the camera to a good hearted local business owner who feels like they're called for more, but maybe they're beat up and they're torn down a little bit, they know that there's something there. They feel exhausted. They don't consider themselves an investor. That's the person what would you just say if you had to speak? Life.

Economic Ninja (92:25)

First off, you are called for more. There's no doubt about it. Every single person has a call calling. Very few people answer that call. Second, if you're beat down, it's because of the crowd you're around sometimes you're not going to have a cheerleader. You're not going to have anyone to clap and cheer.

Josh (92:44)

Ah, yeah,

Economic Ninja (92:50)

Sorry. Sing about my mom.

Josh (92:51)

My wife always says, be very cautious of people that don't clap and cheer when you win. How good is that?

Economic Ninja (93:00)

I've lost a couple friends that I thought were really good friends because my success took off and that's when our relationship ended. That's the hardest thing. But then the ones that you find that really do. Yeah. Cheer you on. That's awesome.

Josh (93:16)

You know how rare it is to have someone genuinely clap and cheer when you win?

Economic Ninja (93:20)

You're almost impossible.

Josh (93:21)

Like they. There's nothing in it for them. They might be in a down and out spot while you win, but they are more excited than you are. You know how valuable that relationship is.

Economic Ninja (93:32)

It rarely happens. So that's why I was about to say, and I got choked up. There's gonna be times where you're that only person. So what you have to do is you need to go and be that person. I told my son when he was really young, I said, if you want to be successful, you just need to do two things. Do something at your age that people five years older than you would never contemplate doing. I learned this when I became a fireman really young. Right. Because people will want to be around you because you're doing something that they wish they could do. So he became a pilot. He saved up to become a pilot when he was 17 years old. Did it all by himself. Wow. Number two, be friend. Be a friend of the friendless. But understand the limitations that at a certain point they can suck the life out of you. But do everything you can to be friends with people that have no friends. And then what will happen is God will elevate you. And he started doing that. He actually started doing that with people that had mental disabilities in high school. And he started friending them, the people that nobody wanted to hang out with. So he would invite them into his friend crowd. And there were times where as they got older, into college, they would suck them dry. Others, they wouldn't. And he would see the benefits of other people wanting to become friends. Friends with him. And, you know, and so those are the two things of success that I Could. I could do, say is do something that, you know when people said, what do you want to do with your. Oh, I say it all the time when I go into grocery store. Did you find everything you needed? I said, still haven't found that million bucks. I don't say it anymore now because I did. But I used to say that when I didn't have the million dollars, I said, I'm still looking for that million bucks. And they go, are we all.

Josh (95:04)

Can you find it before you can see it?

Economic Ninja (95:06)

That's right. And I said, I'm going to find it. And it's everywhere. So if you're feeling beaten down, I know it sucks. This is probably not what you want to hear. Go deeper and go find someone that you can help. Because there is nothing better than the joy you get from truly helping someone else. And then God will supply the rest. It's like sowing. It's reaping and sowing. If you sow your time, you receive time. And I'm talking about sowing time. Not like I'm going to work and spending my time making money. It's going and helping someone. If you sell your money, you're going to receive money. It's just this thing, like gravity. So that's all I got.

Josh (95:46)

I have no final words. That was absolutely amazing.

Economic Ninja (95:48)

Did I say it like David?

Josh (95:50)

You slayed it like David.

Economic Ninja (95:52)

It's really hard doing an interview like this because it's awesome.

Josh (95:55)

It's annoying.

Economic Ninja (95:55)

I feel cocky, but I feel I love hanging out with you.

Josh (95:58)

We're helping people. Hey, go follow the economic ninja on YouTube and maybe I can twist this guy's arm and we can make some more content in the future.

Economic Ninja (96:08)

Be awesome.

Josh (96:09)

Take care and God bless. Bye. Hey, do you want to weaponize your brain and go all the way with profitability? Are you finally ready to apply FRAP to your business? Look, you might think you understand, but you don't. When you get in community, you get in proximity. Belief is transferable. There's power in these groups. Go to frappe.

Economic Ninja (96:31)

You can figure out if running a

Josh (96:32)

frap chapter is for you. And if not, join a frap chapter because there's more power in community. If you're Ready, go to frappchapter.com.