 Guys, welcome back to the channel. A lot of you guys have been with me for quite some time now, been sharing my investment journey for about five years on YouTube. I was one of the first YouTube channels out doing financial information. I've done it my way the whole way. My channel has been very special to me. It's been a great project to roll out, share my journey. As a blue collar worker, I've worked very hard. A lot of the reasons why the eight ways I'm going to become a millionaire within five years or going into 2027. Really, I've got some kind of short to medium term goals to get me there, share with you guys and disclose. A lot of the pedigree that's got me to my first half a million will absolutely put me over the edge here and get me to that millionaire status and beyond. I think it'll take another 10 years to get to the second milestone, which is 10 million, to be honest with you. I think that'll be significantly easier. I don't see these philosophies and approaches to stock market investing changing a whole lot over the over the coming years. This is what's worked for me. Can they work for you? Yes. I don't come on and I tell you specifics about, hey, do this specific thing and it's going to guarantee you wealth. That doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. A lot of people want to play into that vein. I don't. I'm a little bit more realistic with my approach. I'm going to tell you that a lot of the success in my life has become by sheer nature of my mindset and determination to take the few dollars that I have been able to earn over my life and leverage those dollars to work for themselves. That's really the key and the strategy that works for me. But there's a lot of fundamental takeaways that I'm going to share with you guys. These are the most interesting videos that I put forward. They're also the least popular on YouTube. That's all right. I've always maintained creative freedom on the independent investor channel and I don't shy away from those messages that people need to hear and not necessarily what they want to hear, but it's stuff that they need to hear on really taking on a little bit more personal responsibility, a little bit more granular in the trenches type of application that's going to really work. And they work for the masses that they are scalable. It's not one of those things that I lucked out and fell into a large bit of wealth or, you know, my YouTube channel exploded and made me a millionaire overnight. That's farthest from the truth. I think for a lot of people there's going to have to be some degree of hard work that goes into your program. If you're going to rely on luck, good luck to you. I mean, I'll be the first to, you know, to wish you all the luck in the world. I mean, if you're going to play the lottery every week, I wish you all the best. I'm just more realistic with my application. And dare I say, you'll lose with that approach. This is an approach you'll win with and share the eight things, eight ways in which I'm going to approach the million dollar mark in five years or less in this video. First one is the passive investing rule of 72 really at a half a mill. You're looking at an annual rate of return here of about eight to 10%. Anywhere within that mark puts me on a doubling cycle put me at a million dollars. Very, very simple philosophy here with my passive investing approach. I've always aggressively funded my accounts to the max of my ability. Now max funding is relative for all people. In other words, if max funding for you means a hundred dollars a month, then that's what it means for you because that's the level of surplus capital that you could afford and still remain within budget and live your life with some sort of, you know, appreciation with some sort of ease in making sure that the sun can cost or met and that you can identify parlay that surplus capital into an investing routine for yourself. And it just, it works as I've evolved over time and my salary has increased at work, the side hustle work that I'm able to garner a few dollars here on the side here and there. I've been able to put those dollars as few dollars as it might be to work to work for themselves. And the snowball effect over the last five years for you guys that have been with me now over the course of the channel and have evolved with me. There's a lot of people who are garnering wealth right alongside me even at a more accelerated pace than I am. Wonderful, absolutely. We celebrate success on the independent investor channel and we encourage to get involved with a community of wealth builders to where the success is duplicated many, many times over. You don't have to just come in and copy what it is that I do, really the renderings and the learnings on the independent investor channel is to understand how you can take, deploy strategies for yourself and make them work at the ground level for you, put those real results into your portfolio, not that you lucked out and put a strategy that's already died on the vine from some other type of application and lucked out on it for yourself as well. That's just not how wealth is usually generated, usually buying into those tried and true philosophies of buying into a program and investing every single month, that's something that you've got to do. Passive investing is one of those things that you just have to devote yourself to and you have to adjust your habits and your day-to-day lifestyle to help support that to really just depends on where investing falls on your priority list, which is going to be the renderings of a well-laid program and how well you can execute on that program. Number two is to actually continue to fund the accounts. I dollar cost average the accounts pretty aggressively now. Again, as things have increased a little bit, the dollar cost average is going to help supplement and really help to embolden that rule of 72 to where if we think that we can get there in five years or less, there's going to have to be some accelerated opportunity there, some conducive markets are actually going to have to help a little bit in that bottom line. The surplus capital is going to have to be available there to continue to get to that millionaire mark and so to continue to dollar cost average, now it's always one of the prouder moments for me when I can actually look at a bucket and say, you know, I've been funding this with $25 a month, maybe I can push that up to 50. Those are the pieces right there that mean more to me than finding a new stock or a new ETF that I want to invest in over the long term because it shows to me that I've identified a little bit more surplus capital. Maybe I've come a little bit more solvent on the inflow for the income that I can devote those dollars to the DCA strategy and it's super important, man. It's one of the top eight. I'll continue to do it. I've done it my whole life. I would encourage each and every one of you guys out there that if you're just looking to buy a stock and then just sit on it and do no level of infusion of that said equity, you're really missing out because the dollar cost average strategy can really help you, yes, buy the equity at unopportuned times when the equity is higher, but also those opportune times when the equity has digressed or come back in value and you're able to pick up those shares at a lesser of an amount and over the long term it makes a huge, huge difference when you're able to pick up those shares on a dollar cost average basis at lower prices. It just helps accelerate that wealth even more toward that goal that I've got aggressive goal, man. I'm a blue collar worker, guys. I've been given nothing. The ability to take your dollars and have those dollars work for you is really the tried and true pedigree of a successful mindset going forward and making sure that you're giving yourself the best chance to get to that elusive millionaire status that a lot of people just will not achieve in their lifetime. They just run out of time. They failed in certain categories, maybe a little bit of a lack of discipline perhaps in certain spending categories, certain application, getting invested late in the market, getting aggressively, too aggressively invested, maybe losing, taking two big of haircuts on the portfolio over time and those are things that are absolutely worth avoiding over time. Number three is something that I'm very, very proud of and this is to pursue career opportunities and the stability that exists therein. I cannot tell you how many people were on track the running successful businesses, very successful, very lucrative businesses, but they failed to recognize that the investing piece and the savings to cash allowed for some emergency cash to be put aside there. So when those life events, sometimes unfortunate life events, maybe some large operational types of things, operations, hip replacement, maybe a heart condition, something happens that you just cannot foresee in life and you fail to prepare for those events. And yeah, things were very lucrative on the business side, but unfortunately, things get really top heavy. You're making those renderings, you're making exuberant purchases and really getting top heavy and you're not appreciating the holistic approach to life. So when those life events happen, they can really cut into that, that, that top heavy type of approach. And I think for me advocating for those folks out there that, you know, I don't do YouTube at all for a living. I do this for fun. I do it to take up some of my free time, which everybody out there, if they're realistic about the amount of free time that they have, could absolutely supplement to side hustle like me. This is a lot of fun. I enjoy doing it. I do it when I want. And when I don't, I don't. It's really simple. But my career is something that I'm very, very proud of. And it's something that gets scoffed out a lot with the new generation, you know, hey, I don't want to get a job. I don't want to get a salary. A salary is something that you give away to give away your dreams. You know, it's interesting. The advice that are given by multi-billionaires out there for people like me who don't have billions and have to work for a living. It's interesting that those people from a position of convenience always have all these funny catchphrases that, that, that, that, that seemingly make all kinds of sense for me in that I'm supposed to quit my day job and just go pursue something that maybe I'll like, maybe I'll want, I won't. Maybe it's the pursuit of money, but it's a very shallow pursuit of that money insofar as not having really any value in or, or, or worth in what I do. I love what I do. I love the security. It provides me and the family that I represent is a lot different if it's just me and I have all the ability to go and just, just yolo my program onto some pipe dream and, and, and, and maybe lose it all. And then maybe what do I start over at that point? And I think there's a mixed philosophy. It's really interesting. I'm always quick to applaud those successes of people who, who, you know, seemingly take a chance and it works out for them or they're pursuing a dream in whatever capacity they pursue. But I think there's something to be said there about the people who aspire to getting just a job and aligning maybe perhaps with what you desire to do with that job because it can provide an enormous amount of security, a lot of different leave paid leave. And for me, the pension on the back end for when I enter into retirement guarantees me a nice safety net in that investing for me is almost arguably optional. And that is the crazy part about it. And if that's not motivation enough to look into the prospects of grabbing a long-term type of perspective and giving yourself the option to maybe at some point, yes, walk away from that job. If that's what you choose to do, but to start on the onset with some level of dream in pursuing some sort of self business or entrepreneurial type of a dream. And I think a lot of people misconstrue that as well. I really do. You work for YouTube. So if you think that by running a YouTube channel, you're somehow reinventing the entrepreneurial spirit, I hate to break it to you, man, but you work for the man too. And for me, a big portion of me is to continue to advance, to continue to up those DCA contributions as that surplus capital starts to impact my weekly or bi-weekly salary that I get. And I maintain the lifestyle that I become accustomed to, which is easy enough for me. I run a very simple lifestyle, very simple. Number four is a big one. I touch on this in the channel. It's one of the most popular things that I talk about. 12 percent of my portfolio is allocated to a more speculative angle. And I understand that I'm kind of going against some of the fundamental approaches to the market and value investing and just opting for the best of the best value type of philosophy in investing in those quality companies. I believe that I am. I believe that the speculative element to the portfolio, although in the short term, as of late, has really kind of put a damper and really kind of put a drag on the portfolio. I really think that this could turn on and change within the next five years. And this has a potential of changing things within the next couple of years. So without that speculative element to the portfolio, I really am relying on those tried and true methods of the Rula72 and gaining that compounding growth over my wealth over the next seven years, right? To achieve those potential goals before I hit 50 years old. The speculative category kind of changes the game a little bit in that you're going to have to deal with some severe volatility, which was what I'm doing right now. But I really think the prospects over the coming years in each of these specific categories, new school banking, highly on in the EV space, you've got to attack global there with the tobacco free and nicotine free products. I think we're on the cusp of the wave here, cyber security with secure messaging. Some of these aspects that I'm invested in really speak to where I think the future potential is in these companies. And like I said at 12%, these can accelerate hundreds of percent at a time. So where I'm looking to garner an eight to 10% rate of return over the passive element, this small 12% engine that could that I consider to be and deem the speculative element to the portfolio can really be a game changer in the portfolio. And it's one of the ways that can absolutely help me. Now the double edge of that sword is that if it doesn't work out, which my conviction lies pretty heavy on these companies, they really do. If it doesn't work out the way that I think that it could or should, then obviously that could be a drag on the portfolio and draw out the time that it would have taken to make up those dollars. And it'll just spread out the time that it'll take to get me that millionaire mark. But it goes both ways. It really does. And I found in life that if you are going to be willing to put some risk on the table there, it's amazing to me how it's really got the potential to be a game changer. And I have in a lot of capacities in my life identified that a lot of those times that you put that risk on the table, you'll lose in a few scenarios. But it's where you win really helps you accelerate that wealth going forward. And I can't stress the importance of that speculative investing is not for everyone, but it could be down the line in due time. And for me, I just so happened to be sharing kind of the investment of a lifetime that I've got with you guys on this journey as one of the eight things that's going to really help get me to that mark or even better potentially accelerate me to that mark using the speculative element of the portfolio. Number five is to stay engaged. A lot of the reason why I do the independent investor channel is to keep me pulsed into the portfolio through awareness. The live stream that I do every Friday with as much passion as I do. I love doing that. I love to be or at least be in pursuit of becoming a master at my craft. And if you can teach investing or teach anything for that matter, it really does holistically make you a better steward of your application. It makes you identify different elements of your approach that can be fine tuned over time, maybe added to I've got two elements of my nine buckets that I'd like to add to precious metals being one of them and alt investing being the second through guns and ammo. So those two elements of my existing nine buckets crypto cash passive investing dividend growth investing really have set me up for the potential to earmark where can we take this thing sports cards and memorabilia. That's one that I don't talk about all the time. It's one that I do enjoy. And I do have a fairly robust collection of sports cards and memorabilia, but to continue to stay engaged and stay hungry on this program. And I can't imagine life in any other capacity than to continue to pursue my passion. A lot of people look at me and they think, well, you know, you're crazy, you know, you're way too passionate about this. I don't know. I don't apologize for who I am. And I don't expect you guys to do the same. But I think part of the absolute reason why I am where I am today is because I pay attention and I am aware. I, you know, I'm aware when I make mistakes. I'm aware when I have successes. I have a very short memory about monitoring the market. I have a very, very unique perspective on financial markets and I do stay engaged and I do stay hungry. It seems like the more money that I get, the more hungry I get on the plan and the process that I put in place on the onset to render those types of results in my program. And that's what keeps me going. It really does. And I'm always asking the questions of, hey, what can we do better? What can we do to improve upon the portfolio going forward? So staying hungry is one of those eight reasons as to why we're going to make our mark in five years. The next one may surprise a lot of people out there and you guys are going to think I'm crazy. I've had a few comments come through the channel and they're like, you know, Ryan doesn't just come on and talk about, hey, invest in A, B and C and you're going to end up doing great. And I shut the channel off. I think if you don't maintain a healthy lifestyle and you're looking to move into your golden years later on in life, I look at life as kind of an evolution of coming into this world, not knowing dilly squat about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And it's the definition of that thing over life. I think a lot of young kids think that they've got it licked and I beg to differ. I think life has an enormous amount of lesson to be taught if you're willing to press, press, press and understand where those limits are for yourself and understand what it means to pursue or to evolve in your application. But it doesn't mean anything unless you're healthy. It doesn't mean anything. And you know, if I'm setting myself up here to accumulate wealth only to incur some sort of health condition later on in life, it does no good if I'm not looking to strike a healthy balance between a healthy lifestyle with diet and exercise sounds as cliche as it is. But there is no escape from those two things. You want to try to take a shortcut on those two things? Go ahead. Speculative investing is kind of like a shortcut in investing. And yes, indeed, it can absolutely work out for you. But taking a shortcut on your health and personal well-being is something that only you know the truth. And you know, whether it be a walk or whether it needs to be to cut out a specific vice in your life, whatever it may be, what are we doing, what we're doing for? Are we doing it so we can die early with a big pile of money that we don't get to enjoy later on in life? You have to approach life a lot more holistically and make sure that the wealth that we're looking to garner later on in life, we're going to be around to not only enjoy it, but also to appreciate what it took to get there through a healthy lifestyle. So number six is to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I hope you guys can resonate with that. Very, very important. And it does absolutely contribute to asking the why we invest and to contribute why it is we're pursuing those goals with such ferocity. And I will add this, maintaining a healthy lifestyle actually makes you that much better of an applicator in your approach, if you are approaching this at your very best. And your mental mindset is that it's very best. If you don't run like a Ferrari, but you expect yourself to run like a Ferrari, then your expectations are ill-founded. You've got to train your body like a Ferrari if you want to run like one. Otherwise, you need to check your compass and make sure that you have realistic expectations about this gig. All right. The next, it goes along with spending, maintain a controlled budget. We've been kicking ourselves a little bit for not enjoying this real estate market over the last couple of years, but we cannot blame ourselves for the decisions that we make. We uproot every three, four years being a military family. So we take those decisions very, very carefully when we're looking and we're evaluating the prospects of putting three or four or $500,000 on the chopping block only to have a home for three or four years at most. And with the prospects of moving out of said home and bringing somebody else in as a renter tenant, that really changes the game. I've been there, done that. I don't have a problem with it. As a matter of fact, I enjoy that. I really do. But finding somebody that's going to carry that level of overhead only so I can just maintain or make a few hundred dollars over and above the house payment that I'm putting out there to carry that three or $400,000 note on the home really doesn't equate for me at this particular juncture. Now on my day-to-day spending, having a controlled budget, living within our means, cutting out those certain vices, living on somewhat of a budget, buying groceries, keeping the restaurant tab down to as low as a minimum as we possibly can are those life lessons out there that anybody can resonate with. I would presume that a lot of people are just out of control with their spending. Average household debt, about $14,000 to $15,000. That is on an average, guys. That is unbelievable. It is viewed that a debt to income ratio of 20% is healthy. Mine is zero. Mine is zero. I carry no debt and I have two credit cards, one of which has a zero balance. The other one I use for everything, and that's it. That's the limits of my credit. I make a lot of money for buying the things that I would have otherwise bought myself. I would highly encourage you guys to look at the same if in fact you're responsible enough to take on that type of responsibility within your application. But to operate on a controlled budget, guys, if I become a millionaire, my lifestyle is not going to change. I may treat myself with one of those luxury items that I've always aspired to. I don't think a $50,000 Corvette at that point is really going to be that big of a deal to be honest with you. Hell, who knows? Maybe my mental approach will have changed at that point and I will have substantiated or justified other expenditures at that point. But certain things that we aspire to in life are really as a condition of the habits that we deploy day to day. I tell you, there's nothing that I can say in my application and especially for you guys that has contributed any more to where I am in this particular juncture in my early forties than running on a controlled budget, appreciating those dollars that I got on the onset and every raise, every promotion, everything that I've ever able to get in way of surplus capital and just maintain that level of habit every single day with my spending and working on a controlled budget has absolutely contributed to this bottom line in my ability to come across and tell you guys that I'm a blue collar guy and projecting to make that million dollar mark in less than five years. That's the goal. The last thing, probably the most important thing, and I think this got to deliver this really, really surgically to people in understanding that people make their own fate. They make their own fate and the power of a positive mental mindset cannot be overstated. If you expect to make wealth and you do not think that you can make wealth, you will never make wealth. If you cannot envision yourself in a better place, then you will never be in that better place. If you cannot imagine yourself and give yourself the benefit of the doubt in breaking bad habits, then you will never be able to break those bad habits. If you cannot envision yourself as an investor, then you will never be an investor. If you can never imagine yourself as being able to improve upon your ability, capability and tolerance to the market, then you will never evolve as an investor. And you'll reach into your later years and you'll look back over your life and you will in fact be subject to regret because you will look back and you will say, you know, I could have done these things. I was capable of doing these things. I absolutely could have done this, this and this, but I never ever at the time where I could have thought about those things gave myself the ample credit to say I can instead of I can't. Guys, if you appreciate the message man eight ways become a millionaire in less than five years, I will be sharing the journey with you guys along the line as I always have been. Five years ago, I had total portfolio value of 75,000. Look where we are now. And this is by nature of deploying the eight things that I've outlined for you in this video. Thank you for sticking with me for the totality of it. Leave your comments at the bottom of the video, subscribe to the message, hit the notification bell, bring anybody on that is looking to just get started in the investing world. I'm at a milestone right now that's a big one, half a million is a big milestone. And I'm already earmarking that next big milestone. And for many, many people out there, it is the ultimate pinnacle of all milestones for anybody that doesn't come from money is working with a monthly salary, a blue collar salary, one that requires you to extrapolate every penny out of every dollar that you have toward that end goal. Bring them on to the channel, man, we'd be glad to have them guys. Thank you so much for tuning in to the message and good luck in your investment future.