 I'd love to welcome everybody back to the Independent Investor Channel live stream here. I've been doing this project for going on five years now. Just reached an impasse just this week. Some fantastic news for you guys that have never been treated to the Independent Investor Channel live stream and they give you a culmination tonight of years worth of work and teaching on this subject that can help a lot of people. It is absolutely a game changer. It's a life changer prepared to mentally exercise with me. It may open your eyes to a lot of different things. It's going to help a lot of people. The sheer reason why I do this message is to help people identify those gaps, perhaps in your life. I'm always looking to identify those gaps in my life or those areas that I think can potentially use some fine tuning. I think the sheer focus that we put on this message every single week is of the utmost importance. I'm going to demonstrate to you guys why I think that to be the case. Why it is that you guys can come into a message like mine for an hour. It's an hour a week for a lot of people. That's a lot. I get it people's time is invaluable. I think with the activity on YouTube and a lot of people justifying coming onto social media to spend much more than just one hour at a time to come on and watch all kinds of different news feeds. Everything is right there, smack in your face all the time. It's something that we're going to have to get used to. It's something that we're going to have to try to control. I think for a lot of people my message, at least I hope this is the idea that you get from me, is that it's okay to define your level of involvement, okay? Even with me. You want to take a break from my channel? No problem. Take a leave, take some time away from social media because when I share this with you guys, what I've done up for you guys, which there's 21 patrons, I kicked off a little bit early. My tone is rather light, but this impact right here really has, it's got the potential to really, really speak to people and help a lot of people. This is the very roadmap that I work off of and as you guys go through here you might look at some of those things that I share with you and you might say, you know what, right on. I've got a few of those things that Ryan has identified going on in my pyramid and that's what I'm going to share with you guys is that pyramid to success and it's one of those tried and true philosophies of life that I abide by. It goes along the lines of the Maslow's hierarchy and I've always been fascinated by the idea that if you're looking to approve upon your life, you need to identify and take stock of no pun intended, what you have, what needs work, what could potentially need fine tuning and more importantly how they all kind of come together and they work together to provide you really that essence of life or that meaning of what makes you tick. Now, the beauty in this whole exercise is I am going to share this. These are some rather intimate insights to what it is that makes me tick and I hope you guys can resonate with this. We will be doing a portfolio review as well. It's been an up week for me kind of a tale of two weeks this week where the front side of the week was quite good and we tailed off a little bit. It was an interesting closing to the market today. I don't know what happened. Everything just kind of took one of those John Madden lefts and within the last couple of minutes I jumped into the $1,000 black and I was down all day. So it's just been kind of that for the last couple of months speaking to the volatility specific drawdowns in the market due to geopolitical types of influence as well as the interest rate discussion. And everybody's asking when is it going to be that this bull market does, in fact, slow down or even come to a halt. I typically the older I get and the more I really wrap my mind around what works in investing for people, I stray away from those types of discussions. And I typically try to put my focus on what I'm going to share with you guys tonight and for the folks that are going to catch this, they're going to catch something really, really special for a lot of people. It's going to be like a real wake up call because for me, I'm going to go through this list with you guys or my pyramid of what it is that really provides me the foundation in my life and I can sit across from the social media audience and I can tell you with 100% certainty, there was a time in my life when I didn't have any of these things. None of them, none of them. I was scraping together to meet some of these basic needs and you'll understand when I share those with you guys, you guys can look at these things and even a category just as simple as clothing. You can look at how specific garments can add into the business persona, the workout persona. It's one of my favorite things actually to buy gear so I'm comfortable in the gym. And you might think, wow, that's really interesting. It's not quite as rudimentary as just cover your tits when you go out in public so people don't laugh at you. But if you think about these aspects of your life and you think about these areas for improvement, if you just deliberately sit back sometimes and look at these different areas of your own personal pyramid, I think you can agree that it becomes a lot more apparent to you and a lot more black and white when you really put pen to paper. So really, really important, again, this week has been a life changer for me. We will be pulling chocks from Virginia Beach and we will be returning to the home of the Independent Investor Channel, New York City. I just found out yesterday morning and I am humbled at the opportunity. It speaks to the top of the pyramid that I'm gonna share with you guys. In that, a lot of the reason why I do, I do with sheer passion and affinity for life, an absolute acknowledgement to the fact that it is all a gift. And to answer to somewhat of a higher calling. And for some of you guys, you may not resonate with that. For me personally, it's what makes me tick. It's what makes me get up every single morning and head to the gym at five o'clock. Why? Because I enjoy waking up at five, of course not, nobody does. But it's buying into that higher calling. And I think for a lot of people, I think you can find that if you do buy into that higher calling for a lot of the different avenues of your life, whether it be family, whether it be what you consume through your diet. I think you'll find that the holistic approach can really be somewhat, it can be absolutely fulfilling and at times it's so beautiful you can taste it. It really is. When you touch on these different aspects of your life, it can really fulfill. And you guys are gonna understand where the financial piece fits into this as well. So as I'm going through these levels of the pyramid, once you guys to kind of pay a particular attention that my financial piece or to this structure is not at the top. It's not at the top. And I would challenge the notion that for a lot of people, they believe that it is at the top. I'm not here to judge. I think if this thing makes sense for you, I think it's a beautiful thing. I think anybody who has the courage enough to take a look at their own self-worth and what it is that they feel like they bring to the table, what it is that they want to improve upon in their own personal application with whatever it is. And trust me, guys, when I disclose this list to you guys, you're gonna find, holy moly man, these are some things potentially that I don't have right now or Ryan's right. There's some times in reflection in my life that I didn't have these things either. And now I do, okay? So if you can draw a very, very distinct distinction to when there was a time in your life when you were void of these things and you just by nature of sheer will, perhaps maybe luck, maybe you are a victim for a lack of better terms of your circumstances. You've been able to fulfill some of these basic necessities and advanced necessities just by nature of you doing what it is that you do in association with family, friends, your interaction with your career, your ability to be lucky. You ever meet those people that everything they touch, it turns to gold. You ever meet those people? I can wholeheartedly tell you that I am not one of those people. I'm not. I had a comment come to the channel this week and they says, Ryan, why don't you admit you're wrong on Hylian? And I just chuckle and I think, wow, that sure does speak from a very surface level perspective in trying to evaluate my thought process in admitting that I'm wrong. And I thought, well, if the person wants me to admit that I'm wrong and that'll make them feel better about the specific position that I hold in my speculative aspect of my portfolio, which comprises a very, very small section of this total piece in this puzzle that I'm talking about. It doesn't make up my life. As a matter of fact, I try to keep it as small of an element of my life. And that's what allows me to focus on things and really, truly take in the enjoyment that I had from going on 17 years of devoted service. And for me, it stems back to where it is that I come from, seeking my opportunity in Alaska when I was 19 years old, going to work on a fishing boat, I've never been so scared of my life, never been so scared. And those are the very things that define a person and not everybody's going to have those types of opportunities. And it's kind of cool that you get to sit and sit across from somebody like myself who is humble, not to be braggadocious. Again, I didn't come for money. So the opportunity and the allure to go up and, you know, and face down the perils of the sea in Alaska, put some money in the bank, pay for some of those college bills, you know, as a 19 year old without any filling of any of these voids. If I had drawn this pyramid when I was 19 years old, you would have just had a couple of these things filled. And at times I wouldn't have been able to fill some of these basic necessities, you know, at times. There's there's been times in my life where I haven't had income, you know, having food on the boat was the subject of my reliance upon the very operation that I was involved with. So those deeper perspectives that I share with you guys, I have their intimate memories of my past and where I come from. It gives you guys an opportunity to share with me the very top of my pyramid. And I'm going to disclose that to you tonight when I disclose to you my personal meaning of life triangle, whatever you want to call it. It really does help to define what it is, allows us to take in this life, where we put value, the understanding of how these attributes relate with each other, and it'll really help you provide clarity. That way, when geopolitical risk kicks up, when political uncertainty kicks up, when gas prices are a few dollars more at the pump, you don't fall on tilt. You take a little bit more of an objective opinion, and you really do categorize these things appropriately and don't allow them to creep into your mind and dominate your thought processes. And that's the most dangerous thing in life is where life controls you and not the other way around. So I appreciate you guys kicking in with me. There will be no head shaking tonight. Ethel will not be mentioned tonight. This is going to be one of my more insightful live streams. I do absolutely exercise the right every single week to provide what it is that I consider to be my calling. And I'm just grateful for each and every one of you guys to be part of this journey with me over the last five years of the Independent Investor Channel project. Be with you back in just a moment, guys. There's visual learners in this life, and then there's learners that they make me jealous. I'm the most jealous of people who can hear things and they have a photographic memory and me. I've got to go over it a few times and massage it a few times and then do it again and then read it again. And and then I got it. I'm I'm sharper than the average bear. It's not about it. And I can fit a lot upstairs, but I'm going to share with you the six of the baseline pyramid and the meaning of life right here for me and the meaning of life. You think that's awful, arrogant, right? And you you think you've got it all licked. That's that's the I guess dammable misery of it is that nobody does. But why is it that we need to be apologetic for trying to answer these questions for ourselves and and and challenge our satisfaction of life? And this is the very way that we do it by fine tuning over some of these things as to what what what it is they mean. That's the pyramid right there. You can take a pause on it if you're YouTube. You probably have the advantage. But I can tell you thousands of dollars are spent right here from people who don't have a very good perspective on life. But the very first row is what I'm going to go down. But I wanted to give you guys a visual representation on what I was able to draw up here. And I'm just going to go over them really fast for the bottom line. Transportation. OK, transportation means a lot to me in getting back and forth to providing a lot of the satisfaction that I enjoy. OK, it's coupled with the commute that I have to take 25 miles into downtown to get my job. If we're going to move we've got a move coming up in a couple months. Transportation will be key for most of you guys that have frequented the channel. You guys know that I don't do YouTube for a living. I am a service member which requires me to uproot my life and, more importantly, my family's life every couple of years. And we will do that. And transportation is one of those things on the midline that we've been able to really improve upon. Now, some of you guys, you know, if there's younger people, the first car that you get shouldn't be that 40 or $50,000 vehicle. OK, you just don't need it. It's a depreciating asset. But the real value in identifying those necessities in life, I wouldn't have been able to even drive to the jobs to catch the boat, to go to Alaska, et cetera, et cetera, if it wasn't for transportation. So for me, transportation fills this lower first section here. OK, the next two you might think are crazy food and water. These are basic amenities. There are people around the world that don't have these things. This is why I foot stomp this. And there's a lot of people who are like, man, Ryan, I've never really thought about that. You need to. You really do. OK, if you're lucky enough to have a connection, enough to catch my wisdom coming through social media, you're lucky. OK, there's a lot of people out there that don't have the ability to have good food and nice clean water. And those two can be scrutinized. OK, I'm very, very aggressive with my water. I only drink bottled water. I will not, over time, put into my body what could potentially end up being cancer causing later on in life. And I think water is the key to a lot of what we do. I drink a lot of water. It's super important. It's the most essential thing that we have in our lives. And clean water is something that I'm a stickler for. It's one of those funny, funny things that I'm adamant about. I typically try to stray away from. I will have a water at the restaurant only with a lemon wedge. I'm really anal about that. And if there's going to be anything that I'm going to be a stickler for, it's going to be my water. Now, the food part of it is one of those that I've actually upped an increase in my budget to put a little bit more in the amenity category, because I'm taking on more of a higher protein diet as opposed to some of those cheaper foods. The frozen food aisle, I stray away from that. I do not consume that food. The kids like their chicken nuggets, et cetera, et cetera. But aside from that, I'm really trying to look for those foods that are healthy. And they supplement higher categories in this pyramid. You just think about this for a second. If the food category is always being consumed by fast food, restaurants of sort, you're taking in way too much sodium in your diet. So those things, is there work to be done? I don't know. People are like, man, I tune into this to get the top three stocks so I can buy and be a millionaire. You know what? Very few people will be able to just hear a message like that and end up there. But the masses can absolutely benefit from a message like mine where you understand the holistic approach to this deal. Super, super important. Next on the list here, next to food and water, you can see here, whoop, it's backwards, security. Security is one of those things that kind of goes hand in hand with the home, the fact that I say all the time how lucky we are. I'm a big proponent of law and order. This is not one of those things that needs to be taken for granted. It's super important. It is a basic need. If you don't have the complements of shelter, then you're not going to have the complements of security in your life. And it is a basic need as far as I'm concerned. It's one of those things to where when I was on the boat down in San Pedro Harbor, do you think I felt as safe there as I do now in my home here in Virginia Beach? Of course not. And that's why I can dig deep and tell you guys, man. I mean, my street smarts were at the highest of alert. I saw some crazy stuff go down in the port because I lived on the boat rent-free. I didn't have money. These are things, again, that I didn't have or were slightly compromised in my younger life. So now it's one of those great things that if you can have that type of perspective, you can understand how awesome it is when you actually have those things. And there's a lot of people that have these things and they don't understand that they have them. That's a real tragedy. And we hopefully can open some people's perspective and understanding how lucky they are. And the bottom line I put fuel, this is an interesting one. And if you think, man, if you removed fuel from your life, how could you cook? How could you put anything? How could you move your car? And a lot of people, their solution is to go electric. I think natural gas is in this portion. If you have the ability to live off of the grid, if you have the ability to produce your own solar, just talk to a colleague of mine this week who installed solar panels on his roof. Those types of things are super important. Now, solar panels are a luxury when we're talking about these basic needs on the bottom line. But think about how important fuel is. It's one of those sunken costs that I identify in my budgeting lesson all the time. And when I go put fuel in my Toyota Tacoma, I give a little couple seconds of thanks because there was a time in my life where I dreaded going to the pump because I didn't have the money to put that into the tank. And now I fill it up and I don't worry about where the money's coming from. That in and of itself is a luxury, okay? And the last thing on the bottom line, you guys might think this is kind of crazy, but clothing is one of those things that is part of the sunken cost category. And you notice a lot of these on the bottom line are sunken cost categories, they sure are. Transportation is the one that gets misconstrued all the time. But clothing for me is super important. And I'm very simple. This is one of those things to where a lot of people will say, well, my basic needs can be met at Nordstroms. Bear with me a little bit here, guys, but I'm an outlet shopper, okay? TJ Maxx is my speed. And anymore they've got a bunch of crap there. So I don't really play. I really like to consume my things. And I'm more of a use case type of a shopper. I'm lucky in that my day to day requires me to wear a uniform every day. So my decision making in the morning to get ready for work is done for me. That in and of itself is a nice luxury, really is. So I strategically think about my wardrobe, okay? When I go to the gym, I want to be comfortable all the way down to everything. Use your imagination, okay? The right shoes, the right socks, the right undergarments, shirt shorts, the air pods. I got to be listening to Metallica or Ramstein when I go to the gym. Those are my two, that's what I wake up to at 5.15. And that's kind of psycho, Ryan. Hey, what's new? You don't tune in to me for me to give you the basic run of the milk goods. I give you the goods. But yeah, Ramstein gets me fired up in the morning, absolutely to go tear it up. And I was in the gym five days this week already. I will be in the gym tomorrow again at five. I've started to just roll it through the weekends because it's allowing me to operate like a Ferrari. It's amazing what it can do for your lifestyle. It is amazing. I highly recommend it. There's a lot of people out there who might just be scared the death of exercising. And I freaking get it, it's scary. I totally get it. And it's like, do I have to go and do I have to do bench press, Ryan? Now you're missing the point. If you can get on an elliptical or get on a treadmill and do a walk for 15 minutes, just give it a try. If you honestly can say it's not for me, I can't do it, Ryan. Then no problem, you've given it a chance. But I'm telling you, I'm right. If you can take on this idea of incorporating something like that, it's super important. But clothing really does play into a lot of that. You can see here how clothing plays such a little part in what I select here to come in and represent because this product right here, what I'm gonna disclose to you guys is right at the top of the pyramid, okay? The second tier to the pyramid is right here. And there's four criteria, okay? You can see those, I'm gonna explain them a little bit. Sorry, I was blocking home, but the next level. And the idea in the pyramid is that you can't move up these levels until you have the basic necessities. Eric says Def Leppard, that's another one. One of my absolute favorites, man. Hysteria is probably one of the greatest albums ever made. It was amazing how they made that album. Pretty legit, man. So absolutely, Def Leppard can get me started in the morning. That's totally fine too. But on that second tier, I talk about this all the time, man. And this is why I cringe a little bit on YouTube when people are so quick to call people who work a day-to-day job or they're part of the rat race. I think that's an escape to thinking, to be honest with you, because I'm successful and I'm totally fine and I have a job and I'm lucky to have that job. I encourage anybody out there to look at the prospects of gaining a career out there that you can be proud of, that can provide you a lot of these things that I'm talking about. It can really blossom some of these basic needs that can be supplemented just by nature of having a job. Now a job I don't put on the bottom tier. I put it on the second tier. I really do because it's a higher level of importance and there's so much varying degree between professions that it's super important for people to kind of get this one right. Choose wisely, okay? For me with my service career, it fits me like a round peg. I'm very, very intense. I get rewarded for doing a good job. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm a very hard worker and it works for me. But job is very important. Second is access to credit. You might think, wow, what's the deal there? Access to good credit. If you wanna buy a house or if you wanna finance something, requires you to do other things to compliment your access to credit in a good way. Now if I had access to credit at a 425 credit score, that would be the area of improvement that I would look at here to say, I'm a little deficient in this category. I need to prove upon that. My credit score I checked yesterday is 838. So for you guys that need a benchmark or something to shoot for, right? Credit score is important, access to credit. If the interest rate that is awarded to you is less than the average bear, you're saving thousands over the lifetime. Now credit is a dual-edged sword, okay? And I teach upon how important it is the use of credit. I've told you guys every expenditure that I have in this life goes on my credit card, every single one of them. Now it takes some discipline to deploy a strategy like that. I get paid bonuses. So all of the sunken costs that I just talked to you about, all of that filters through the credit and the credit is what allows me to engage in my consumables, okay? Access to credit. Second on that list, on that second tier is access to insurance. Guys, I just had, I shared with you the procedure off the top of my head last week. I had dental and the procedure in the same week. And this is where I think a lot of people get caught up in the rat race too, in that, well, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. Okay, great. You're gonna be an entrepreneur. And from 20 to 30, you're not gonna have any health issues. Your teeth are gonna be fantastic. You're gonna brush and floss twice a day and you're good to go, right? What happens when you turn 30? Well, I'm still healthy. I work out every day. Or maybe I didn't because I was too busy killing myself for 20 hours a day because somebody told me that that was the secret to success. And I allowed myself to be let go of, right? I let my body go. I'm out of shape now. You enter into your 30s and 40s and you start to identify a few cracks in the game, okay? Maybe I need a checkup. I don't know. I haven't been to the doctor in eight years. Wonder what they would tell me. Wonder what they would tell me if they actually opened my mouth and actually gave me a dental exam, what I would need. Health insurance, having kids nowadays. You wanna have children, right? Some insurance might help with some of those expenditures you've ever raised to children. You know, I was in the ambulance with my son. It seemed like every month when I was raising him, the poor little fella. Yeah, mm-hmm. And those bills are not cheap. Those can be a real knock to the bottom line and to not acknowledge how important insurance is in this life, which can be supplemented by the employment. Again, these things really do go hand in hand. And the last thing on the second tier is a home. Whatever you consider to be the home. Right now, I consider the home to be an apartment for whatever you guys, if you're lucky enough to have a single family home, a multi-family home, whatever it is that you have, it is absolutely a contributor to that holistic lifestyle that I talk about. That's tier two, all right? On to tier three. This is where it gets it really interesting. We're on to tier three. If you guys, for all you visual learners up there, right here is tier three. And it's made up of diet, financial health. You see the dollar sign right in the middle? That is where my coaching and education to you and the sharing of portfolios, that's where that comes from. And exercise, you notice how diet and exercise are right there on tier with that financial piece. Super, super important to focus on these things, guys. This is why I talk about them all the time. My channel typically has a very similar tone to it. And why not? Why not focus on the things that are important? I like Christopher Bell. I like him with Strongman Personal Finance. I had him on the channel right when he was a brand new channel because I knew that he was charismatic enough to make it on YouTube and the man's make it and on YouTube. But I could care less about two guys getting onto YouTube and arguing about how big their balls are. I just don't care. You'll notice that none of that fits into my hierarchy of needs. And I would expect that they don't fit into yours either. Now, am I gonna watch the debate? Yes, I will. And my filter will be on the highest of levels, okay? I will watch it. And it will probably be forgettable just like the Meet Kevin interview. It was forgettable. Why? Because they're both people. They're both human beings. And I have a hard time extracting any type of value as it contributes to my triangle and my meaning of life. But when we're talking about diet and exercise, I can't stress enough look how high it falls right on tier with the financial piece, right as we're climbing the pyramid here toward that top of the pyramid, okay? Diet's super important. You guys can look at that and say, well, I have it or I don't. Okay, it's very simple. And then the exercise piece I know for a lot of people, it's a scary proposition, but I tell you, it took me years to graduate to a place where I became really addicted. I don't like that word, but let's just say incorporated into my lifestyle. Like I have to have it. I have to. And it's just as good at any to be addicted to in this life. Three elements as we approach the top. Second to the top. Second to the top is right here, family and health. Who disagrees with me? Yeah, we deal with some disability in our family. I know people deal with mental health issues. I know people who have gone abroad and working for a nonprofit organization now, at least liaisoning with them with regard to traumatic brain injury, things of that nature, some things that initiatives that are supposed to help those people, count your blessings every now and then. It's worth taking a couple moments on a 60 minute live stream for me to tell you that. And you may know that. Some of you may need to hear it. Others of you may not understand it. And that's all right too. We're human beings. You're not perfect. You're not. And nor am I. Whenever I get away from my focus, these are the types of things that bring me back into focus. And there's people that I talk about all the time that seemingly are out of focus when in fact they should be dialed in focus on the very things that they have in this life. And they're lucky to have those things. Family and health. Family can be extended family. Some of the younger folks in the community are looking to grow families. I bid you all of the best because as far as that goes, and I don't care what your makeup and your family is, that matter. It's all beautiful if you have this in some capacity or another. It's right there at the top. It's right there at the top. All right. Lastly, I will share with you what I mean by the top of that. And in Maslow's hierarchy, talks about self-actualization. It's where you become spiritually aware of yourself and what makes you tick and providing. I put there in one word, a voice. And you guys wonder why I come on and I sit in my Nike shirt and I talk into my really cheap microphone and I try to dial in the sound and the lighting as good as I can and all these rudimentary things that I come on and I share with you guys. Make no mistake about it. The reason why, and I hope this is why, you come into my message. And this is where I think some of the messages on YouTube are really, really missing. I don't believe it's as important to them as it is to me. I believe it contributes to money. I believe it contributes to power. I believe it fulfills ego for a lot of people. I believe it fulfills a self-fulfilling prophecy for a lot of people that they have answers and they need to provide those answers to others. In other words, they profess to know things that others need to know about what they have to say and that might be their top of the pyramid, right? I don't know, to each his own. But for me personally, I've explained this top of the pyramid in something in a way that is very personal to me. This found me. I didn't find this. That's right. And if you can provide people an opportunity to come in and share what it is that I've always been insistent upon empowering one investor at a time. Look, guys, there's gonna be people who watch this who are not at the top of the pyramid, not even close. I can look at this very thing and I can say there's an absolute time in my life when I didn't have anything on these lists, even clothing, skinny dipping in the pond being raised in the country. Feeling bad to ask my mom and dad to provide those amenities for me when I knew carte blanche that they didn't have the money to provide to us. Three boys, yeah. So did we have it? Were we flush in that category? No, we weren't. I say many, many times, I would never trade the life that I've had to have the perspective that I have now, to have all of these things contributing to the very wealth, et cetera, the wealth in the capacity that I've been able to build and share with you guys to have the perspective, to understand that I have those things now, not by nature of knowing it all, not by nature of trusting others, not by nature of anything outside of just deploying a strategy that made sense for me and I employ you to do the rest now on the top of the pyramid in one word, the word voice. The only thing I would ever ask, I guess, is if you come in and you consume the message and you feel like you're finding that there is something special about it because I will not tell you what to do with your life. I don't believe anybody has that right to do that. But if you find that there's something inspiring and you find that there's something motivating in the delivery and what you get out of the message, the only payment that I would ask is that you carry forward that voice. That's the beautiful thing and I do acknowledge the power of social media and I never know who's gonna kick in here. I have no idea. It's great. I put it out with ferocity every week, understanding that there could be that person who has an absolute void in the triangle and needs a voice and through coming in and sharing what it is from somebody like myself who can sit across confidently from social media and say that I'm solely in the top, there's no doubt. I've been there a while. I've championed it for you guys and I've defined it in some capacities to be somewhat of a curse because I tell you what, when you know for a fact you are not there but you have that insight to try to think and grow rich and navigate this pyramid to get to the top of that pyramid, that's the very demon that eats people like me up. And the sheer fact that I do have that voice and a little bit of success on the Independent Investor channel and not to come and share this with you guys means the world to me. It doesn't get any better. That's why the portfolio and the net worth and the dollars and cents takes a backseat to all of this stuff, does, certainly does. And that's why sometimes I sit back and I watch others try to declare what it is they feel is important for others when in fact, I don't even know if they understand what's important to themselves. And I think before you can get it yourself, I think before you can understand what it is you value in life, I think you should probably refrain from coming on and talking about a successful mindset with others. I really do. So I would encourage each and every one of you to take the exercise, go through your own personal pyramid in life or whatever that means to you. But for me guys, I don't carry this piece of paper with me. This is right here. It comes with me and everything that I do, fill in the gas tank, hit in the gym at five in the morning, taking a promotion at work, working on projects at work to contribute to the greater good, helping people in this capacity for 60 short minutes. Glad to do it. That right there is the very fuel that drives me and I hope you were able to take a little inspiration from it. I don't do these very often guys, I'm glad to do it. These are where the goods are. This is where the people who will tune in and there'll be thousands of people but watch this debate between the great YouTube personality, the Jeremy with financial education and Chris with strong man, personal finance. It'll be funny, I'll watch it. I just typically look at those things with a different lens than most and that's quite frankly what makes me special and unique and dare I say independent in my application. Let's jump into some portfolios guys, man, let's lighten up the mood a little bit. Take a look at how we fared this week. For the most part, we were up or creeping down. Like I said, it was a split week for me. The joint brokerage account, no changes here to note. We were up just fractionally, very little change in this anyway. Just looking for the two to split. It was disappointing. Hyper growth has kind of taken a little bit of a roll off at least the latter part of this week. Highly on has kind of cooled down a little bit which does kind of impact the portfolio when it does sleep. Like I said, we're in a bridging year for highly on looking at the back half of 2023 and very hungry for information. And it's as it's turned out as we look to evolve that small piece to my money pyramid. Remember, highly on is somewhere in this lower corner here. So when people come in and they say, Ryan, you gotta get your life together. I beg to differ a bit. My life's just fine. I'd suggest maybe you look in the mirror. How about that? I tell you what, I'll send you a gift certificate to Amazon. You can go get yourself one. They're good. They're good. Some people don't like what they see in the reflection. Hopefully the lesson that I just threw down on for 40 minutes can help change your life. This is Roth number one. We are up week over week on this old girl. We're good to go. No, here, no changes too much, you know, Palantir really nice to see the entry on that. Pepsi paid the dividend this week. All companies I want to own, we're sitting really, really nice. VOO is just killing it. And in this particular portfolio, this one I believe has the B and Q. Yeah, this is the real estate REIT. It's doing good as well. Vanguard's ETFs paid this week. This was a nice little bonus. Kind of cool when all the Vanguard ETFs, they pay at the same time. So it's like winning a little dab of a lottery, you know. Now, notice the lottery wasn't on my list here. Maybe for a lot of people, the lottery is up at the very top. I don't know. I mean, good luck in that, you know, maybe you're the one Wyatt, maybe you're the one. I'm just not lucky enough. I'm telling you, some of those people that had a life for the party, but here's Roth too anyway, doing just fine. Utility's 15%, just fantastic ETF there through the VPU and, you know, the VIG with the dividend appreciation, it fits nicely. This is my portfolio. Reason why I don't go with the total stock market index here is because I've got the S&P 500 in the TSP, the Thrift Savings Plan for government workers. I do have that. And that's growing quite nicely. Here's the sector portfolio we're up. This is the one that I'm talking about. So on a $24,000 portfolio, this paid me 78 bucks in dividends. So all 11 of the sectors paid all at the same time. So it's kind of cool. I checked my phone one morning and boom, there it was. I had a nice little dividend payout out of this. One portfolio is up sizably week over week. Dividends and value rolled off a little bit. I was a little surprised on this one. This wasn't down too much. It was down 30 bucks or so, but it's actually a little bit of a fractionally down. I sure do love this portfolio. Pays me dividends almost every day. 92 holdings in this portfolio. I share this openly free of charge. If you can add a little bit, wherever it is your dollar sign is located within your pyramid. Maybe you can use some of the framework. If you're just completely lost, I did have a patron to the message ask where they can find more information and they can talk to me. I'm not going to offer coaching because if you just sat through the last 40 minutes, I don't know if you could agree. I've got my crap together, I'm good. Maybe I don't. Maybe I'm completely insane and people watch me and they're like, this guy's a complete disaster. And he thinks he's got it all licked. I was quick to say, nobody does, but a lot of people can benefit from somebody like myself, a lens that I do, helping identify those gaps in the portfolio and where that potential dollar sign ends up in your portfolio, excuse me, in your pyramid on where you would like to assign that level of value to your life. I think it's appropriately placed for me, but anyway, the bonds are up. I stopped funding this altogether. I don't fund the bond portfolio anymore. I just wanted to start it, start the dividends, start the compounding growth on this, and all these little portfolios I have strategic goals of building up over time. Excuse me, I jumped right over the TSP. TSP is doing great. I fund this aggressively. I do 20% of my income. So these are just the nuggets I throw out there for you guys and you're like, man, how much of my income am I supposed to contribute? I do 20% just to this. And there's probably thousands of other dollars that I contribute. I'm an aggressive funder. And that's another intangible that I probably won't get to in the other lesson that I had for tonight is that picking your strengths and working towards your strengths, I'm talking to some investors out there, some who just recently started investing for the first time and they're wonderful savers. And if that's your strong suit, wonderful play to that strong suit. If you think you're getting a little overlevered, some of them will hit me up and say, hey, Ryan, what do you think here? Is it a time to be aggressive or should I just be patient and not get too crazy? But having that pedigree of wanting to fund financial markets, that's something that's really difficult to teach people. And if you have it, play to that strength. You bet, it's a strength, you gotta play to it. Here's the Vanguard's growth in Robinhood. This is an exploratory account with just one ETF in there. I believe I got a little bit of Berkshire, Hathaway B shares, but the majority of it is comprised in the Vanguard's growth here. There's Webull, the Midcaps, the Vanguard. I didn't even update this, so I don't even know if it's up week over week. So I do apologize for that. I'm just now noticing that I missed it. GlobeX has taken a nice up, it was up 10% today. Again, it's the company profile of highlight over the next couple of months within the community. I'll be doing some profiling. We're a staunch supporter of the mission here, looking to up-list to the NASDAQ later on this year, 2022. So happy to help support the efforts there for GlobeX, ticker symbol, SwissF. This is just one holding here within the Charles Schwab account. Charles Schwab, I find, is a good one for those OTCQBs, the tougher stuff. I find it so difficult through my Bank of America Merrill app and a lot of others to even buy over-the-counter stocks anymore. It's not for the faint of heart. It's not something I even recommend, but I am sharing openly my difficulty with some brokers to enter into some of these securities. Whereas Charles Schwab is quite good. They've got them all available. So just a little food for thought when you're selecting the broker for you guys. The crypto here has been okay this week. So we're up just a tad, closing on about $400 up from the initial investment. And there's the total portfolio there, kind of that center nucleus. And you can kind of see how this portfolio, it fits into that hierarchy of needs, right? I always knew that I wanted to be a wealth builder. I always knew the power of stock market investing, et cetera, et cetera. For a lot of you guys, you may look at this and say, well, this is peanuts, right? And I'm looking for multi-millions. If I watch enough Graham Stephan, I'm gonna wake up one morning and there will be a Lotus Esprit parked out in my driveway. If I just think really, really hard, just think really, really hard, like Tiger Town, I'm a winner. I'm a winner, I'm a winner. I have reality coming out my ears and I am a realist in this life. And if you wanna abide by a philosophy like that, great. If you've just completely blown off the lesson that I so intimately shared with you guys tonight, then perhaps maybe this isn't the message for you guys. But for you guys that do look at this and say, wow, Ryan's kind of a schmuck. All he does is just come on and shake my ears and talk about Ethel all the time. I can do way better in hell you probably can. I'm not one of those fellows that in going to profess that people have the answer enough to sit across from you and tell you to do A, B and C in an effort to get you to X, Y and Z because they know what's right for you. I just, I cannot buy into that philosophy guys, I can't. And even this is where some of the deficiencies, I mean, between these two guys that are debating with Jeremy and Chris, I like Chris. Chris is awesome guy. Jeremy, I don't respect him at all. I don't respect his program. I don't respect how he comes off. I think he comes off really, really arrogant. But when you talk about the below the surface what you can get from a message like that. Look, there's people who hit me up and they're like, Ryan, you're completely wrong. It's for this reason and that reason I've been able to take a benefit. Great, as long as you're a beneficiary from the message then I'm okay with it. My problem is how it could potentially impact the masses. And I think the retail community does just as much to damage their ability to get ahead in life as they do to help it. And if this message at all helps inspire you to get to something like this I'm 43 years old. I did a lot of screwing up in life but this right here is indicative of a plan that just plain works. It's just that simple. You can do it too if you just deploy some of the tried and true fundamentals but it's more than that. It's about taking that holistic philosophy about life and deploying it for yourself. All right, I wanna jump in here. Guys would jump into the comments. My boy here, it'd be the first actually. So he's laughing when someone says that peanuts. How much do they have? I got crap for this. I actually came over the top of somebody who was giving me crap about my application and some fashion or fun. And I just laugh a little bit. Look, if I got enough confidence to come onto YouTube and share it with an audience I certainly don't need to get scrutiny from you. I'm okay. I'm not perfect, okay? And neither are you but the last thing I do is scrutinize others and I had this very thing happen to me this week. It's great to see you, my brother. You're next. I'll be getting in contact with you in the next couple of days. Just another one of those intangibles. I kind of fit the network of folks that I've met through social media into the family category for me. Man, family and friends. And Kyle's just one of those. He's a brilliant investor. No doubt about it. It's awesome to know the guy and me I kind of buy into the philosophy of surrounding myself with successful people and make no mistake about it. This gentleman right here, he's successful. I'd like to see him build out some of those other capacities in his life. In other words, if I get something in the mail maybe an invitation to a nice social event put on by this guy I can't think of a more deserving person than this guy and many others as well in this community. I just want the best for you guys. That's all. I can tell you how sweet it is. It's absolutely worth pursuing and hell, maybe you don't ever make it but at least you'll identify through your efforts trying to fulfill some of those efforts as we evolve and we grow and we fortify our life. It's awesome. It's great to see you, my brother. Very good, very good, obvious in the house. 3M, oh yeah, 3M's a buy, real simple. I buy 3M here. I don't want to double my position here. It's what I'm looking at right now in the taxable brokerage account. Absolutely. Eric says the BFs, the BFs, the BFs in the house. She's late to the party. The party's going on all the time, Rebecca, you know that. Remember how I talked about keeping it upstairs? Again, I don't keep this folded in my back pocket, okay? It's all right here and you're always part of the community whether or not you're here or not. It's just that simple. Whether or not you're providing healthcare services whether or not you're chilling at home whether or not you're at the gym whether or not you're doing all the things that are awesome and you're always part of the community. It'd be interesting to see how things transpire over the next coming months with my looming and pending move that I've got going on. It's one of those things to where I tell you, life's blown me a lot of different directions and it's not by nature of me being sedentary. It's not by nature of me sitting on my hands all the time that's put me into some really, really uncomfortable situations, that's for sure. And looking out for the kids and getting them into schools those are the challenges that some people look at service people and they're like, that's crazy. Well, it's because they're looking at me and they're thinking there's no way they could do it themselves. And trust me, those challenges are very, very real. But I'm also proud that we do it and we overcome and I'm probably better for it. And in my heart of hearts I actually believe my kids are too. I really do. We tote those kids everywhere we go. I don't GEO, I don't do that stuff. I put them in my back pocket and they go with me because I tell you what, friends have come and go in this life but they only got one dad and that's it. They're gonna go with me. Ashley's in the house man says, I'm very blessed to talk to this guy in person. Absolutely. I really appreciate that. I'm humbled. I would like to think that there's a lot of that in the world and my travels and I'm always interested to meet new people. And I always say there's a lot of people that do disappoint me. I think a lot of it is that they just haven't had the opportunity to be critical of themselves and how they could be a better person. I don't know. When I have people that meet me, I know how have people that meet me that maybe don't like me, that maybe they find maybe a little abrasive. I don't know, but I certainly do acknowledge that I want people to see this. I want people to see the good in bringing that to the table. And like I said about the voice, carrying the voice forward for others. And that's a huge part of my mission, man. It's a big deal. I appreciate those comments, Ashley. Absolutely. That's really, I'm humbled at that and stand by for roles this year. That'd be an interesting couple of months here coming up and no rest for the wicked. Let's go. I've got a calling and I'm dead set on meeting that and nothing's gonna stand in my way. I've been through barriers. I've been stopped by barriers in my life. I've been told no when I didn't want to be told no. And very rarely do I ever have opportunities come my way in the capacity that I had it come my way. This week, and I again, I feel like my decision making is being made for me rather than me deploying my own mental and my heartfelt application about this. It just is what it is. And I accepted the job in about 1.8 seconds. And the person who offered it to me knew that they were talking to a winner. There's no doubt about it. I don't turn down opportunity. I was just explaining that my grandfather, he retired from the Navy as an E6. He was one of the first Naval divers. So the movie, Men of Honor, the one with Carl Rischier, he went to that school before Carl went through the school to give you some idea. So you can imagine how impactful something like this is. And I had my, I don't want to be too detailed with my dialogue here, but I had a colleague of mine say, Ryan, you need to smile more. You just had a big milestone happen. Then it's like, well, I agree, but you don't understand, I'm thinking about him, thinking about that type of thing, you know? So yeah, I'll accept it and I'll do well. There's no doubt about it, but you know, it's a lot more than just me too. I represent a lot of people who have helped me and helped provide me opportunity to take on these, these wonderful opportunities to serve. And again, you notice where things like this actually fall into my priority list. And you know, I would encourage you guys to try to align those priorities. It's never too late. I constantly am going back and forth. I'm a thinker on this topic. So when I am at the gym, I'm just not thinking, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks. I'm actually thinking about things like this. I am a thinker and I love the ability to think about, fine-tuning my life, but also identifying those specific elements of the life that I can share with others and hopefully you guys can resonate with that message. Just no doubt about it. We may be off next week. I'm gonna identify, I think we're on next week and then the week after, we'll be taking a break here but I want you guys to ask yourself after receiving this message, is this a message that you can resonate with long-term? If it is, I would ask for your continued support of the message. I'm gonna be in and out of the channel. All good things must come to an end. And I will be on hiatus this summer to shelf the project, come back to the project when it is convenient for me to do so. There's no love lost between us. There's no love lost. It's been a great ride here in Virginia Beach but as I start to dial down this opportunity and establish a new opportunity in my new location, I would just ask for your continued support of the channel because your continued support of the channel is just a pledge in support of yourself and your own initiative and what you can take for the mission in your own empowerment journey in seeking financial wealth and financial security for you and your family. Guys, thank you so much. Continue into the fastest 60 minutes on YouTube. We'll catch you next week. Have a great, great weekend and be well and take care of each other and we'll catch you next week. Thanks a lot, guys.