 And we are live here on the independent investor channel, a very, very happy independent investor channel, what a killer year, like we're 27 days deep in the year. What a difference a year makes not only to gloat stock market investing is really not like that. I've taught on this topic for many years now on a social media venue that I expect that when people come in and they hear what I'm putting down, they can kind of resonate with it. I venture to guess that a lot of people come into YouTube and they're like, yeah, right. Yeah, right. Same old song and dance. Okay. What do you have for me, Ryan? What do you have to sell me? What do you have to try to manipulate me into thinking that you've got something that's special or more special than the next? People used to be in duped. No doubt about it. People are used to being taken advantage of, especially with this topic. Money is a funny topic. It's tough to get right. People struggle with this all the time. And since the beginning of the channel, I've always held on to a fundamental core of my channel that I have seen hinted around, mostly avoided, not given its ample attention with respect to its importance. And the core that I speak of is self-directed investing. I was enthralled. And I'm about to refer you to one of the coolest pieces of content that I saw through Netflix. And it's about the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, Madoff Monster of Wall Street. It's going to be required watch if you haven't watched it. If you watched it, I could not take my eyes off of the TV screen. I was enthralled by this story and how it came to fruition and how it lasted for multiple decades to pop at the mere $68 billion, level $68 billion. And you say, well, give me a primer, Ryan. Give me the elevator pitch on what the core thesis of that was. Basically, the individual took a lot of people's money and never invested the money, told them that they were being invested, ginned up fake statements of trade confirmations, et cetera, sent people fake statement of these made up trades. Basically, if you know about a trade and you know that 3M at the beginning of two months ago was trading at X and that it goes up X number of percentage, well, then you can just manufacture that trade on paper as if you entered real dollars into that trade. And then, hey, guess what? That manufactured or made up profit is what you actually report as being a contributor to your funds performance. And it was amazing. The guy never lost money. There was a couple key injects that I took away from it that there was a statistical guy out of a firm in Boston who looked at it. It was about 20 minutes where he was like, this is bullshit. It's a total scam, right? He was a statistics and I think a derivatives analyst which requires very in depth algebra and statistics application to figure out. But he looked at it and he looked at it and compared it to the actual market data and what was being prescribed on the year to year performance. Actually, I think it was a month to month performance ledger that was provided to him as data to speak about the made off performance over that set of months. And he was very easily able to kind of dispel it and say that around 6% of the time. Did it even merely reflect what the market was actually doing as opposed to the numbers that he was declaring he was getting? Bottom line, he never ended up investing the money for people. And this went on for decades and the money actually permeated to Europe. Some of the most wealthy families royalty in Europe were part of the made off hedge fund. And I kept thinking to myself, why and how there was so many smart people out there and there was a few times where those very smart people came in and they were questioning the very particulars of the fund and what they were generating. And I think the year over year performance kind of sifted out at around 15%, which is interesting to me because there was a few customers that would acknowledge the fact that he was getting a consistent 15% a year, which a lot of the money managers will acknowledge that it's possible as a run off as a one off or a two off depending on the level of risk that you put on the table, but consistently beating the market even in that capacity at around 15% is impossible, especially when you're generating numbers that provide contrary market activity to suggest that you're making positive returns month over month and never having a down year. And the disparity between the large down drafts in the market from a month perspective and the fudging out of a positive number in the Ponzi scheme that was the made off Ponzi scheme, what was the real tell there so I just wanted to make that opportunity available. I didn't get it referred to me I just came across it I watched it, and I was absolutely enthralled from the beginning, and I hate to sit across from an independent investor community that are very loyal to to me. I don't care if you're loyal to me or not saw a video tonight from strongman personal finance and he was like God I've got 10,000 subscribers, and they all hate me, and I were when he said it I was like, so what. Who cares like I don't really think he cares, but I certainly want you to care about yourself. I do. You don't have to be so devoted to the independent investor channel in so far as you're looking for that way that I do business to somehow segue into your business doesn't work that way. And I had to challenge the idea that as a self directed investor. Am I vulnerable in this capacity, because you question the level of trust that would have been necessary to spend or to send in a lot of cases. Multi millions in some cases tens of millions and in the cases of the hedge funds that did business with made off hundreds of millions of dollars to the made off Ponzi scheme which ended up going into the advisory side of the business which was the Ponzi scheme in and of itself. What was the key element of that the key element was trust through reputation. So you could say either one of those two things were both contributing to establishing this false pretense for potential clients to understand that if I sat across from an independent investor audience or a grand or YouTube audience or even in some cases. Some of our large YouTube channel content creators I see a little bit of made off ask, you know, made off ism being put through the channel to because it's the same recipe. People are interesting way way too much to other people and that's what just differentiates my channel from the rest. And I hate to suggest that I've found the needle in a haystack or suggest that I have a good idea, or a damn good idea, or a channel that somehow needs to be provided a cut above the rest, but but but I'm here to tell you guys. In any case, when there is a level of trust to that degree, and there were little tidbits of evidence, especially in the statements that were sent out every month they just looked suspect. They came off of the dot paper printer, and they were sent out to the clients and that in that regard it looks like it came from like the early 1980s late 1970s printers but there were indications. The problem is I think with money is that money blinds people to all too often see what it is that they want to see, and not necessarily what they need to see. Yep. Yep. If you come into the Independent Investor Channel and you choose to see something that's not really here, that's why I explain all the time that my message should come across different. It should come across as genuine. It should come across as non scripted because I'm absolutely passionate about this idea of people taking their own money into their own hands. 100% in an industry that would tell you that that's absolutely false in an industry that would have you believe that you're the trust that exists between client and institution is still intact. Well, what about the people over four decades who contributed to the $68 billion Ponzi scheme. The irony in that whole thing is that anything that flowed through floor 17 which was the advisory side of the made off Ponzi scheme actually never got invested. Not $1 from what I could tell in the video not $1 actually entered into the stock market. There was an investigative reporter who went down to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Mind you, this was during a time where there were a lot more people. I've been to the stock exchange three times myself. And now it's just all electronic trading booths and it's like one person sits like job of the hut and controls everything. No, no, it wasn't like that when this investigative reporter went down to the down to Wall Street started talking around. Nobody had ever placed a trade through Wall Street and that didn't gin up enough of interest. I think another key point to focus in on is the information that was disclosed about the shortcomings of the Sleeping and Exchange Commission during this entire Ponzi investigation. Quite frankly embarrassing. They admitted to the same in the chronicling and I don't want to ruin it for you. But certainly a takeaway from from understanding just how difficult it is to catch somebody doing this type of thing. Even when there's a sticky note that's provided to the SEC by Bernie made off himself and saying here I'm basically turning myself in and the agent that took the information failed to follow up on said information. So he was able to walk out of the police station and downtown Manhattan and and not an area of follow up was was rendered. He waited around in his office. It said he said for a week stressed out about it. He knew he was caught never got a follow up never. And we entered into what was the financial crisis of that time and it actually prolonged the Ponzi scheme for that much more very intriguing. And I don't mean to draw a distinction by by by any means I could be just fine without this project. I would be the same person without it. But with it with it I believe that we're delivering a message that I think a lot of people on the onset here and they think that it's crazy. They think that it's not available in nature. They think that it's such a novel idea which it is it really is the idea of taking your God given money that you've earned yourself and actually controlling yourself is a novel idea for a lot of people. I've got Matt in the house. Matt's absolutely preppy to this idea to suggest look I can deal with losses and I can deal with games. But as long as I own those decisions. I can definitely live with that. But what I can't live with and what a lot of people they incur or they they compromise on is the ability to justify other people making those mistakes for them instead of taking ownership themselves. In other words they're their own worst enemy. They're afraid of the decisions that they would make. OK. But as long as somebody else makes those decisions with reputation. And yes I want to trust because again I want to see what it is that I want to see. That's possible in this relationship. Even if it doesn't materialize in nature. Right. We want to trust that other individual. And if they make a mistake I'm more apt to forgive those mistakes if it is somebody that is that is a strange to me or I haven't trusted with this piece of business. I for one and I don't know if you guys see it my way. Consider my personal wealth sacred me personally. OK. And I think sometimes I'm viewed as maybe paying too much attention to this topic or you know spending too much time on this topic where certain people don't spend any time at all. But I think the interesting part about that is in the real tell for me is the interviews that were done by the patrons and victims of the made off Ponzi scheme. You tell me that once you've built up that portfolio and you have an image that that money is there and will be there when you need that money. And all of a sudden that gets surgically removed from your reality. It's not there anymore. What you thought was reality was actually a facade. What you thought was reality for many many decades and in a lot of cases in generational. Pass on to the next generation. And in one case there was a three generation. Pass on from one generation who had passed on thinking that the that the reality was real next generation took the same thing. Thought that the reality was real or that the vision was real and passed on to the third generation only to find out that now there's no way to go back and even explain that those people bought into a complete lie complete lie. And so when people come to me and they challenge the idea of self directed investing. They challenge the idea that people are smart enough to rule their own personal destiny to rule their own personal finance and stewardship and discipline. I come back to this reality right here to the tune of sixty eight billion dollars still the highest recorded Ponzi scheme in the history of the world bar none period. There's no larger sixty eight billion dollars. They alluded to the potential of there being another. I don't see it. I just don't see it. Sixty eight billion dollars where the reputation was so iron clad to build up this trust on the other end and in the middle was nothing but a facade. Nothing but a facade. I'm not here to sell you on self directed investing. I don't get any compensation for that. I just found that I found the most empowering piece of information when it came my way over ten years ago and the results speak for themselves. I have some pretty good rest assured assurance to understand that yeah I don't have my wad sitting in a pile in the bank but I am certainly entitled to that money being with a legitimate financial institutions. That's why I talk all the time about you know the reputation of the top brokers TD Ameritrade Charles Schwab Bank of America Merrill edge which is mine. Hedality. Some of the large more established brokers there's many others out there. I hate to even mention JP Morgan you'll understand. The famous account that was really the most integral with the Ponzi scheme was actually mentioned and it was owned by JP Morgan which should have generated some red flags with regard to the activity within the account. It didn't it didn't because you look again in the trust in the reputation is there. Why would you ever think to question such a such a dynamic reputation that for many many decades had the ability to metastasize beyond the actual person itself. The person in and of himself ended up being an absolutely horrible person I mean a really horrible person the actions dictated that it's okay for me as a human being to look at that and say man alive that's pretty bad and slippery slope. Too far to turn back. You know I don't know. It's not in my heart to judge as far as to go so far as to say that I'm in a place to judge. But based on the activity and the chronicling of how things unfolded over four decades to take 68 billion from people who interested their life savings to that type of thing. Really does in my mind speak to the sheer intent of this small project on YouTube what it's intended to speak about who it's intended to reach and to acknowledge what little if any motive exists for me. I don't care if you don't like me. I don't care if you subscribe to my channel. I don't care if you don't watch the interviews that I do over the channel. Something that's different than me is I do what I want. I'm not trying to appease viewers. I'm not trying to appease YouTube. I'm not trying to sell out to the man. I don't care. I have a core thesis that I believe in wholeheartedly. And I felt like there was some vindication when I watched that to suggest that my people wouldn't have been problematic and that and I say my people knowing that if they carry forward. The idea of holding yourself accountable for the decisions that you make right you can only blame yourself when you self self identify yourself as a self directed investor and one that wants to take control of their own money. So very very cool stuff guys we got a heck of a gallery in here. I'll get to some questions please if you do have any questions leave them. We've started off 2023 in a bang. I really am very encouraged. I've been so busy I didn't even have a chance to review portfolios. We're doing quite well we're chugging right along. It's fantastic. NASDAQ has started the year up 12 percent already in 27 days. Oh what a difference a year makes and what a difference it makes when sentiment shifts. It absolutely does that in the stock market. And if you learn the cycles you can profit from it as a self directed investor guys be back with you in just a moment. I watch the fluctuation of people who come in and out of here it's kind of funny. You watch my eyes click up on what I'm watching people come in and out right now we're holding at 30 holding at 30. That's funny. And if people don't get like constant entertainment somebody will like be like I'm out of here man I'm not going to sit here and watch this guy have a drink. I worked hard this week. I'm not going to say a word until somebody leaves. Now they're all coming back in. OK now he's talking about something interesting. Very cool. So how we all feel about 2023. Much better. Talking to had a couple of CEO interviews this week. One with stallion discoveries. It was a lot of fun and we just dropped a box royalty for a continued interview. You guys do me a huge favor. Honestly go check that out. It's a big support network on the channel. It is how I kind of make money through social media. Everybody kind of finds their niche. And I think it's great. My private group is fantastic. It's one of the coolest things that I do. But it is. It is not lucrative of a project. It does just enough to support itself. And I'm totally cool with that. I'll keep that going. Got some wonderful people in that group and I want to keep it going. And that's exactly my intention. But to go in there and support those interviews. I don't know. Give the kind of interview a try. If you don't like what he has to say just from a genuine education perspective. I just talked about taking ownership over your program. Understanding what these CEOs have to say. You don't think I'm learning myself up. These are not like the B team CEOs. These are the bosses. And Vox Royalty is a mere hundred and twenty million dollar company. Not small potatoes. Stallion is just over twenty four million. Not too shabby either. These folks are well educated. Fantastic people. Looking to push their story forward. And in the back of my mind when I release those videos. Yes I get paid for them. If that turns you off don't watch them. But there's a phenomenal content contained within those. And I tell you what guys if you ever wanted to support the channel and understood that what I'm trying to do is foot stomp that. I don't really care if I get it next year or five years from now or 10 years from now. I won't go anywhere. Because I have the right mentality about this project. My heart is in the right place. It's not a project. It brings me a lot of joy to understand. That the message that we're putting down is not intended to sell you on anything. Rather to introduce you to a concept. That I feel like a lot of people could resonate with. If they only knew existed in nature. Okay. Outside of just a general hey did you know that you can actually invest on your own. Or hey do you. How do you feel about the idea of taking control of your own money. You're a cringe. Most people would be like I don't know. And they would cower down and they would admit that they don't know anything under the sun. And that investing is like gambling and why they knew a friend that lost $200 one time. And that's it. They'll never invest on their own. And that surface level type of judgment on on on the deeper. Psychology of financial markets and understanding that. You don't have to invest every net every piece of dollar that you have. You don't have to invest every dollar that you have. As a self directed investor it. Almost. Demands of you to exploit all buckets. And all potentials of wealth building. Built to cash. You know. The very irony in going in and sitting down with a financial planner is at the end of the day. They want to get from you as much money as you have to give them. Most of the major financial planners if not all of them are reputable. And they do demand your trust. And they are trustworthy. To an extent. To an extent. The fee structure would make sure that they get theirs. I've taught along these lines. And so where we put a Bernie Madoff and the Ponzi scheme on one end of the spectrum. Right. We have the legitimate financial planning institution on the other side of the spectrum. Does that mean that you're going to be able to seek out the services of an Edward Jones free of charge. In other words they're not going to extract from you $5 over the course of your life. $10. $100. $1,000. $10,000. Try six figures of wealth. Six figures. One investor. Times how many clients. Right. This is the core that I speak of. And. I don't like to speak along the lines of a no at all. That doesn't do anybody any good. But at least look at it. If you have the courage to pull. The fee and disclosure structure of any major broker out there or any of the financial planning institutions out there. You'll be amazed at what you see. Most people are unwilling to do that. They want to continue to live this idea that they are doing the right thing. Even if the truth of a matter is that they're doing a. Little bit different of a variety of the truth that they have made up in their mind. Okay. The closer you can get to the optimal you in your mind. And make that optimal you a reality in real life. The better off you'll be in life. Okay. You'll start to see the results that are indicative of that perfect idea of what you expect out of a plan that you put into motion. And demand to see results out of and can actually trust the merits of those results. Trust the time that's being vested in that program. I don't think that there's a second wasted in self directed investing. Whether it be reading a book. I'm doing it for me. Whether it be studying up on different products. I'm doing it for me. Whether or not I'm studying up on how to deal with volatile markets that we dealt with in 2022. I was very, very proud of the fact that I weathered 2022 like a champion. I expect that the masses can do the same. I really do. In reality, I understand that a lot of people will succumb to the pressure. I get that too. We're human beings. I understand it. I understand that you're going to make mistakes, but if you're going to make a mistake, make it hard and make it because of your own deficiencies. Okay. Don't allow other people to make those mistakes on your behalf to give you the convenience of escape. I'm going to leave that out. Okay. That's the best piece of advice under 30 minutes that I can actually give you. I'm not, I'm not supposed to use the word advice. So I won't. I'll just say words of wisdom. Okay. Words of wisdom and you always have the right to disagree with me and what I'm trying to put down and what I'm trying to show people. Eventually. I'm going to have one, two, three, four million north of in the bank. How much more validation do you need? That's another thing that kind of caught me with the Chris, Chris, strongman, personal finance video. I like Chris. I think Chris is a good guy. I think he comes on, he spits venom, et cetera, generates churn on YouTube, et cetera. That's great. I hope he goes to 100,000 subscribers by doing that. I won't do that. No way. Am I a shill, the push of stocks? Absolutely. I'm going to talk about an investment that's right for me and highly on missing the point altogether. Missing the point altogether. And somehow there's some protection baked around that in that it's a crappy company. But if it goes up, I'm still a crappy person. I don't care what you do with your money. I don't care. So I think the point is kind of being missed. So what if meet Kevin came on and said buy Tesla 105? Who cares? People have made 68% since it bottomed at 105 or whenever six. I don't think it got below 100. I think it got close. But if people made money with Tesla by being opportunistic on catching a falling knife, which you're not supposed to do, if you did that, you made money. How is that a bad thing? And I often cringe when people say there is one way to do things and that is the way that it needs to be. Stock market investing does not allow you to do that. It's way more dynamic. We talk about the simplicity of investing in the major indices. We talk about that all the time. And yes, I do concede that the majority of people out there don't need to be playing any other game except for buying the major indexes. I own them all myself. I practice what I preach. I own them all myself. Do you think owning the Nasdaq last year was hard? Yes, to an extent, but it's a major index built to buy and own. Buy and own. Never to be sold. Vanguard's total market index, VTI, it's meant to be bought and kept forever. Get it to your kids. Build up wealth, monitor it, watch it grow, fund it when it's down, fund it when it's up. Very, very simple. The S&P 500, how many times do you watch CNBC and hear them talk about the S&P 500? S&P 500, major index. This is where I think the majority of people should live. Is it because I choose not holistically to live in that environment and just put all my money in VT that I'm somehow a bad guy? Or that somehow it doesn't have the potential to materialize to a place larger than VT in a certain capacity, in a certain singular place? Highly on, for example. If it goes out of business, it goes out of business. I eat crow, I'm an idiot. I'm a terrible investor. If it goes up, I'm a terrible in a person and a terrible person, right? And it speaks nothing to my ability as a stock market investor. I don't think any of that matters. I don't think any of it matters. I think discussion and awareness and information about, for a lot of people, these companies just exist. They just exist. So the sheer reality is we're still defining on the social media landscape what it is that we can define amongst the cesspool called the OTC markets. If you want to tell me that all 10,000 stocks on the OTC are bad companies, fine. That's your position. From the perspective of 99 or above percent of those companies are probably bad. You still have a certain amount of those companies that will end up doing wonderful things for the earth. We're covering a few of those companies. Again, if they all dissolve away, fine. No problem. But I think we're chronicling some companies right now that are pretty interesting and comparatively to some of the companies that I chronicled all the way going back to 2021, which did not work out that well. I just had somebody hit me up about one of my companies that I invested in the fall of last year. I'm still investing in them. They've gone down pretty heavy. I didn't put that much in them, but it's not because I'm down that somehow I should endure scrutiny for the stock going down. It's just that the stock is down. That's it. I have the maturity to handle it. People feel like it's in their best interest to come in and potentially man say, hey, this wasn't a dud. This doesn't make me a millionaire overnight. No, not yet. If you've sold it, well, you've sealed your fate. You know exactly where you're going. That trade rendered zero. Nice job. I like to keep my activity open for the idea of the fundamentals playing through. If nothing has changed fundamentally in two months, two months means nothing in the stock market as far as I'm concerned. There's a ton of comments at the gallery here, guys. Scroll down to the bottom. I got Richard Ait in the house. Great to see you guys. Yeah, Cherie, good evening to you. Thanks for making your way up. They're very cool stuff. See, Bob says I made 10% on Tesla. Stop being a broke idiot, Bob. I just don't think that that judgment has a whole lot to do with what we're trying to do here. I look at that and I'm happy for you. I'm genuinely happy for you. There's no like, hey, you made a dumb investment. No, no, that was a smart investment. 10% annualized is much more significant than the 10% that you made in what, four days? I'll take a guess at it. Three days. You saw an opportunity for a stock that was driven down by probably some level of drama. See, I'm not a big fan fundamentally of the product that they have. I don't like Tesla cars. And I understand I deserve to be stoned for saying such a thing. I think they're ugly. I don't think the quality is there. And I have zero, zero motive to go out and fall all over myself to buy an EV. I have no desire to do that. Okay. I'd rather have the capability of throwing my Tacoma into four wheel drive in the snow and actually using the utility of the vehicle rather than joining a cult. And I think there is somewhat of a cult mentality in Tesla. I do. I follow the shortcomings with the quality of the interior. And I just can't wrap my mind around being excited about the product itself. Okay. There's other deeper aspects of Tesla. I get it. And I wish you all the best. I wish Bob would come in here next week and he'd be like, right, I made 100%. I'd be like, that's awesome. The stock market investing is like that. And I don't come onto YouTube and say, you know, this is my way. If you do something contrary to my way, you're somehow a broke idiot. I don't say that. I don't think that has any place. I know a lot of people that are don't have money. I know a lot of people that do have money. I know a lot of people that have money that are very, very smart. I know people that have money who are very, very stupid. Okay. So what gives? We're all just trying to make the best sense out of this deal that we possibly can. And I, I don't know. I think that's pretty cool stuff, man. I think that's pretty cool. I've done this with Tesla many times. I know that's pretty cool, you know, and for Bob, it's cool. I mean, Bob's, you know, I think Bob's like 30, 32, 33, 34 years old. So, you know, for a guy of his age to be taking the time that he has and engaging in a little bit of swing trading. Hey, I like it. Be very cool, man. It'll be something that he'll be able to carry into retirement when he's a little bit older. All right. You're the man, Bob. It's awesome stuff. Very cool. Crew's up here. Matt Money's got a comment here. I always like to highlight Matt's insights. He's a really, really good dude. He says, I'm bracing the volatility. Absolutely. They're going to, they're going to, they're going to be raising a 25 basis points next week. There's no doubt. That's why the market rolled off today, in my opinion. Several central banks have stated that they are going to pause interest. Drake Heights for now. I don't believe that, which I believe is the reason for continued push on US equities. I don't think that's going to happen. We can place a little friendly wager on it and suggest that I think they're going to go a quarter. And I think they're going to go another quarter. I think if they're going to hold off, they're not going to go to five and a quarter. I think that's what's going to happen. Right now we're at 475. I think they go to five. And again, I think, or four and a half. And I think if they're going to hold off, they would hold off on that last quarter point, which I think that they just held and reserve. I think they do need to continue to raise. I do. I think inflation is rolling off. I think the labor market is too hot. And I want to, I want, I think that they look at this, that this was a once in a century, which it was inflationary situation exacerbated by us saw statistic tonight. I think you probably saw it too mad. I think it was over Twitter, 40% of the current money has been printed over the last two years in the history of the country in the last two years, 40% staggering. And we want to bitch and complain that inflation is a problem. I want to make sure that the Fed gets this right. If there's a little bit of overshot, which they usually do, even when it's not warranted, if there was going to be a time where they were going to overshoot on interest rates hike to try to curb inflation, I think this would be it. I think to your point, I don't think that they remain high forever. I don't think that they should just be quick to pivot and start quantitative easing either. That's just my opinion. This will knee jerk BS. I think this pattern of satisfying markets from day to day, I don't think Jerome Powell plays ball. I think a lot of people expect him to play ball and he doesn't. This is not his agenda. But we will see. I do think they go a quarter. I hope I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, no problem. I think that'd be great. I think with the signs that inflation is rolling off, I think it is positive. I think that's why we've got the tailwind and stock market. I don't think the tailwind and the stock market actually provides dovish ammo for Jerome Powell. I think it's the opposite. I think if we're going to hear anything next week, it's going to be a hawkish tone. So stand by for roles a little bit. I'm satisfied with a little bit of insurance pay dirt that we've been able to build up over the last couple weeks. And God bless America. What can I say? We're going to live to fight another day. And you're not, I know, investing around what the Fed does and what they don't do. But taking an educated guess on what we think they're going to do next week is probably an order. But I think the major steps to raise interest rates are behind us. I think that that was quick, fast, furious in 2022. I think they did a really, really good job of doing it. And I think they needed to do it. I really do. The ever clear boy is in the house. Good evening to you, my friend. Very good to see you. Very cool. Look at that smile. Fantastic. I think it costs a lesson about trusting the pros with my money. When TRP bought into Rivian at IPO at $100. A friend of my job 401k became the sixth largest position in the fund. Wow. Now that's something else, man. Yeah, it's something else. And that's not like they're just trying to position the holding to reflect the percentage of holding that it should reflect. So they weren't trying to do you wrong there, right? It was a legitimate move by a legitimate sponsor of a 401k. But I tell you what, man, it just makes you think about the potential. Look, I have a 401k. BlackRock manages it. Do I trust BlackRock? Yes. Great. Do I believe what's going on based on reputation that there are things going on at BlackRock with my 401k that I trust are in my best interest? Yes, I do. I do. Am I being Judas? By providing that explanation that I trust here, yes, BlackRock A and B to do what it is that I said that was the very downfall trust and reputation in the Madoff scheme. I think if you take my advice and you watch that film, you'll be more the wiser to it. Having sat through my deliberation and understanding my process on this very topic, I think you'll watch it and you'll be like, wow, maybe Ryan's not so bad. Maybe he's not such a bad guy. And I think that is something that caught my attention today when Strongman Personal Finance released that video and said, I'm just trying to hit here to help. I actually truly believe that he has tried to do that. I really do because I think it gets way too hyped up, where we get into this habitual activity where we have robes, tens of thousands of young kids who are like, past luck, past luck, past luck. That's all they know because it sounds really cool. And they speak as if Elon Musk is like their father. And it just makes sense to the young community and that's where it stops with their due diligence to invest in this company and come on to YouTube and find that stock guru who's willing to buy into the narrative and provide them that false sense of what it is that they are looking to pursue. I won't do that. You will get no ass fluffing from me. You will get no such thing. I rely on life to mold you and kick you in the teeth every now and then. I wish a good kicking for a lot of people out there. You'll come out of it stronger. You really will. I'm trying to reduce vulnerability in people. I'm trying to allow you the ability to identify your potential to stand on your own two feet. Truly not think that you're standing on your own two feet but actually standing on your own two feet and understanding that the very reality that you see in front of you, the reality that you see in the results that you pursue and validate for yourself are attainable on a path that is not very commonly traveled. It's not. And for the people that hang out with me for a few minutes on a Friday, this isn't a big deal. 60 minutes? It's not a big deal. It's a drop in the bucket for somebody. How many live streams have I put through YouTube? 1,000? 500? I don't know. 400? If you caught one of those, one of them, one would have the potential to give you an idea of what I stand for. What I stand for is personal empowerment. That's what I stand for. Correct personal empowerment, personal empowerment that is truly striving toward real tangible results to believe in something that you can almost taste it, to reduce vulnerability if not all the way eliminate it. Stock market goes away altogether or in trouble. But the tried and true idea that we're identifying with those institutions out there that do have the best opportunity to provide us that trust, like J.P. Morgan. I'll tell you what, they provided hella trust for four decades to Bernie Madoff. And they got off Scott Clean. They think they paid $2 billion. Scott Clean, $200 million, $2 billion, who cares? It is what it is. It just speaks to the obvious disconnect between regular people and institutions, which is an element of that film that I really want you to relate with and kind of ask yourself, you know, am I a player? Am I on the inside or the outside? I think most of you guys can agree with me and identify with those people who being independent are outside the system. I just sneak in the packed door when it's convenient to do so, and then I leave as quickly as possible. I can't remember the last time I was in a physical bank. I don't need to waste my time with that activity. I don't need to do that, right? That's the system. How it is that a bank of America can have a building, a physical multimillion-dollar business on every street corner and NERIA will you find a customer in Bank of America anymore? How is that? I employ you. Use the banks for your benefit, and the second that they want to charge you a fee, go to the next bank that's not going to charge you a thing. Bank of America must really love me because I get all kinds of wonderful service. And I tell you what, my statements do not look like the dot matrix that you'll see in the Madoff monster of Wall Street Chronicle. My statements are legit. And I take some level of comfort in mitigating my potential vulnerability. I'm very, very careful over my money because I feel like any financial decision that I make is making those decisions on behalf of multiple people, my family, because I don't care about the money. I don't care. I don't. A lot of moms and dads have told me, we're going to blow every cent we have because we want our kids to work for their money. Fair enough. I respect your decision. That's not mine. It's not mine. I'm going to give my kids an empire. Indeedy. Play sites in the house. Fantastic. Great to see you. This is one reason why I hesitate to manage other people. Oh, yeah. I haven't stoned. I mean, boy, oh, boy, don't. You do not want to dabble in this. Manage your own. It's the safest route. My independent investor story is just a tutorial of my own personal evolution as an investor. I don't know what it is. I do portfolio reviews off of my stuff. You'll notice that I don't do stocks of the month anymore. I leave that to JT wealth. She's fantastic. Even before February 1st, giving us the five stock picks, that's going to change your life for February. I don't buy that stuff anymore. It's garbage. It's garbage. It doesn't do any money any good. It's wonderful for clickbait on YouTube. Fantastic. Ryan, you used to do that. Yes, yes, I did. I sure did. And I've evolved to a better place. It's a waste of time to Matt's point. It's a waste of freaking time. I don't do it. So I'm still doing it. That's your thing. It's your thing. I have the creative latitude on my channel to define the message that I want to put through. And when I critically evaluate that and I can't find any type of rational explanation for it, then I'll keep putting out those fundamental videos that get like 230 views. And laugh about it in the back of my head because I just don't care. I just do not care. All right. I don't know. Perhaps. I don't know. Trust and reputation. What cryptocurrency has the best reputation right now? Bitcoin, right? Trust that it's going to exist into the future and have a use case. You do what you will with that. I've already made my decision. I'm good. But it's cool stuff. Got to Emma Moore in the house. Good to see you, man. Very cool. Welcome. Good evening to you, man. It's good to see you. Jared said self-directed is the way to go. It's tricky. I think, you know, what I try to guard against is people who are not prepared to take on what I prepared for for 20 years before I took on the challenge of self-directed investing. I hope we do a good job of breaking down those barriers on the channel for people. I really hope we do. We strive for that end. It's a very, very difficult life challenge that I've put myself up against. From a singular perspective, I'd love to hear other people talking about it. But I look through YouTube and I've never found another channel out there that speaks about self-directed investing like me. That's why I laugh sometimes. Again, strongman, personal finance. I'm picking a little professional fun at him. I like the guy. I really do. But the fact of the matter is buying VT in a managed IRA is not the same as owning it in a self-directed IRA. And that's just where he's blinded by the fact that he thinks everybody's a broke idiot and they need to be told to buy VT. My angle is very, very simple in letting people understand that it's not what you own necessarily, but how you own it. I'm right. I've been doing this a long time. I don't have funny Sherlock Holmes looking people coming onto my channel and jumping up and down for me because I'm awesome and needing to validate my thing. And oh, my God, you found the second coming of Christ. It just makes sense to me to eliminate fees in your investment accounts instead of pay them. He would disagree with me and think I'm off base and that there is no difference between a Roth IRA when in fact there is. Again, it's the reality that you choose to buy into. I sleep well at night. I'm good. Absolutely. To feel like in some large capacity, at least YouTube gives us the opportunity in a large capacity to make a large, large impact on people. Daniel, good to see you, my friend. Very cool. Wrapping down here as we get to the end. Crime driver of schemes is always greed. I think that's a really fair point. It's an obvious point. That was obvious within the first like introduction to the thing. And then I started to think about, okay, if Madoff is the sole owner of culpability in this, is there any inkling of culpability ownership with anybody else? If the SEC had intervened eight years sooner, would the impacts have been lessened? Yes. If individuals who did have insight based on observations that were disclosed during the documentation that they received, et cetera, et cetera, if they had just had certain people throughout their, and they did, they had people throwing up red flags and it just was not received in the way that it needed to be received by the regulatory agency. Could greed be defined as an individual with a spouse saving for their future? Being naive and entrusting to a degree that is deemed irresponsible to an organization that they would suggest they've done due diligence on, but in reality they've bought into what it is that they want that institution to be instead of what it truly is. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I was enthralled. I highly encourage you guys to catch the content. Man, it was very, very good. Certainly does justify and speak to the point that we try to make all the time on the channel here. And again, I believe that we're doing that. I'm going to scroll to the bottom here and see what we're after here. I got Matt in the house. Great to see you. He says great stuff. It's great when we put the responsibility where we think that the responsibility needs to be. That's what's great about it. If it just so happens to be me that delivers the message, no problem. I was entrusted with a gift to do that. I'm rough, brash, dry humor. Yes. Guilty is charged. Am I perfect? Nope. I'm the only YouTuber on YouTube that's not perfect. The only one. I watch some of these YouTubers and I'm like, man, you try really hard to be perfect. I refuse to do that. I've refused to do it since the beginning. There might have been a phase there where I'd try to come on and be like, this and look just perfect. Split jump edit. This and that. Some of the old school people, they love that about me. They love that fact that I just don't buy into that. I don't. No. I rewatch my stuff every single week and I'm the most entertaining YouTuber that I watch. Am I self-indulged? Sure. Call it what you will. But I actually resonate with what I'm putting down more than anybody else out there. I could watch the four stock picks or the five stock picks for February. Disagree with every one of them. Have I received any value out of that? Perhaps maybe some entertainment. Some visual stimulus, which I think probably has something to do with it because I've been doing stock market investing my whole life. I don't know how to say this fact. It doesn't FN matter. It doesn't FN matter. I can look at a whole swath of portfolios and perhaps maybe justify Costco and some of them. Others, not so much. Not so much. By the broader indexes. You know what I'm saying? I think proper 19 forgot to drop a decimal. I will send you a refund, my friend. That is extremely, extremely generous. I have to think of something to send you, man. If you did end up doing this, man, this conversation is absolutely gold. Loved every second of it. Ryan, I figured it's only a few minutes a week, right? I would ask something of you guys. I've already asked you to watch at least if you don't watch the promotional content that I put down. Myself and Kyle just had a great conversation. Leave a comment and say hello. I appreciate the effort. That's my time. Given to you, you can watch that content free of charge. There's $99 worth of content in that very interview. That I can guarantee you. That is a very cool thing. That is the historical high tip that I've ever got. I'm humbled. Thank you very much, man. I would say that is something that deals with post-traumatic syndrome. There's a lot of people in need out there. What we're talking about here on the channel is spiritual improvement for people that I think and I don't know any of you guys. However, I do note, if you resonate with my message and you come in with my message, that you're in a place in your life when you're trying to get to that fine tuning of your You know if you come in and you're angry my message is not going to resonate with you If you come in and you don't have a career like I do and I resonate with my message is not going to resonate as well With you it's not going to happen Okay, but for those people out there that are kind of striving for and trying to fine-tune that motivation on the top end I think there's some reciprocation that can be had by listening to somebody like myself That I hate to come on and admit it to a social audience I kind of got my stuff together. I really do a very happy man I've got myself together in so far as where people want to immerse themselves in a lot of cases in their money I like to teach upon the idea of actually separating from your money put it in a box Focus on all that other cool stuff man. That's super important in life And that's what'll get you there. Okay, we all are marching toward an inevitable fate at some point in our life If you understand that you can imagine yourself standing at the finish line of the race Looking back and reflecting on how cool it was to run that very race And then snap yourself back to reality and then realize that we're right here We're right here in this moment man on social media Just trying to make a difference for people man. I really appreciate you guys at proper 19 I'm serious man hit me up DM if you want me to send you some money back. That's an awful kind gesture That's very cool stuff. Donate it to a charity on down for whatever. I don't know buy some highly on merchandise I don't care. Whatever it is man. Hit me up. That's very appreciated my friend At least kick you into my private group for a year. That'd be fantastic I thank you kindly for that with that guys man. Kick it off here for this week. It's been a Crazy week for me five days again in the gym. Oh five hundred and just inviting you if you doubt me Look in my eyes and tell me if you think that I need it to be doubted. Okay. Hate me if you will no problem I don't do social media to be liked. Okay, so don't worry about that But you can catch the content and you can benefit from it If you're willing to pay attention and you've got a few things baseline criteria kind of set in motion in your life and you're Pursuing that idea that there's a potential for a better life out there for you And your families guys. I really appreciate it. Thanks for tuning into the fastest 60 minutes on YouTube We'll be back next Friday on the independent investor channel live stream man Have a great great rest of the weekend and we'll catch you next week. Cheers guys You