 And welcome everybody here to the Independent Investor Channel live. This is a real special treat for me to draw 2020 to 2022 years end, put it in the books. It's been a rough year for stockholders and investors alike. And so to put this thing in perspective and put it in the rear view mirror, reflect on what has worked, what hasn't worked. There's been a lot of what hasn't worked. That doesn't mean that there's not positive that can't come out of years like this. And it is incumbent upon the intelligent investor to make sure that you're making those observations, that you're not just getting emotionally drawn to the underperformance, the losses in the portfolio, making sure that you're being critical over your own program and looking for ways to improve. It's that simple. And this project is, it's evolved. I have involved as an investor. I've evolved in what I feel like is going to really get through to people and provide that opportunity for folks to seek out those things in the market that can work as fundamental themes with also understanding that there is a level of ownership that you must take over your own investments. If you really want to make a go at this furthermore, it is also incumbent upon the Independent Investor to make sure that they're taking ownership over their program. There should never be an opportunity in Independent Investing where you don't take personal responsibility for the actions that you take as an investor, hence the name independent. It's times like these where we look at it and we're like, I don't understand what the whole benefit is. The idea here is that you make a lifestyle shift and Independent Investing all too often gets misconstrued and people will come into YouTube and will try to understand what it is that they can just do because they don't want to make investing a lifestyle. They don't want to make the fundamental shifts and it's not hard. I do this stuff and this is who I am. And I think there's a lot of people out there that also can resonate with the idea of making those essential lifestyle shifts and you're not going to live the life of glitz and glamour and I think a lot of people try to aspire to that without even really understanding that that is probably even a much more shallow and a whole lot less fulfilling way of pursuing life than the one that I advocate for filling my life up with all kinds of things that help progress me forward. Now, for a lot of people that's not good enough and I totally understand if you cannot resonate with my message, no problem. There's 500 other voices on YouTube that you can go to to seek whatever guidance you're looking for, whatever information you're looking for, whatever get rich ideas that you can find out there, no problem. The independent investor project is quite dynamic. I profile companies on the channel. I started doing that a couple of years ago and I really enjoy it. That's kind of my guilty pleasure on the channel. It is the most lucrative thing that I do. Me personally, I'll close down 2022 having the best year on social media that I've ever had. For me, that helps really validate the project for me from a financial perspective and if I can really be locked in to identifying who out there I would like to get to. Look guys, it's incumbent upon the independent investors to identify early on in their life that this is something that they want to pursue. If you can honestly say it out loud, write it down, say it into the mirror, whatever you need to do to convince yourself that this is going to be a lifestyle shift for you. It's going to be something that you could pursue. My net worth could have a thousand different ways be spread across a bunch of material bullshit over the course of my life. People would have ooed an odd, I guess. People would have maybe considered me successful because I've got a lot of, I don't know, steel and aluminum sitting out in the driveway or perhaps maybe I have a big fancy house next to the other fancy houses in the neighborhood. I like to dig a lot deeper and pose the idea that nothing is that cookie cutter in life. Nothing. Your own individual path to this is going to be uniquely individual to you. I wouldn't even want to walk my own path that I've had in my own life. That's how crazy it's been. It's been pretty difficult, the road that I've been on, very, very fulfilling, very rewarding life lessons that have pulverized me into the dirt only to see myself built back up, learned from it, come back stronger. That is absolutely what I would empower you to understand this, that your own life, your own life force or whatever it is that you bring to the table in whatever corner of the world that you bring to the table has those unique opportunities. Not everything has to be glitz and glamour. Not everything has to appear as if you have just infinite opportunity in front of you. As a matter of fact, those people who actually overcome what they perceive to be obstacles in their life are those projects that I really like to drill down on because those are the people who will appreciate it more. And I'm not talking about making millions of dollars and coming back to me and saying, you know what, Ryan, you were right, man. I'm a millionaire now. I'm absolutely steadfast and happy in my life. No, that's not what it's about. This project on the independent investor channel, I think sometimes gets misconstrued and I'm the best person to actually explain what it is that I feel about this channel and am I pursuing 50,000 subscribers? Well, at this rate, after 2022, I might have lost subscribers this particular year. And it's of interest to me to understand why is it that I'm not a likable guy. I don't really know, but here's the thing. From my perspective as a channel creator, I'm already successful. I felt that way when I started this project and I was fumbling around filming myself with a GoPro, you know, polishing my unabated message to people and those evolutions on the channel are things that I reflect upon and I'm very proud of now because anybody who's watching me now is getting an unabated understanding that being individual and not just coming on to social media and getting the secret recipe to passive investing or the secret recipe to stock market investing in way of dividend growth investing and getting that perfect portfolio, challenging the idea that that's not even possible, right? Begs to challenge people to really sit back and say, you know what? Ryan's drawing a blank palette. Okay, he's not going to paint the picture for me and I won't do that because if I paint the picture for you, it's going to mean a whole hell of a lot less for you and I can't do that. All I can do is speak along those themes in understanding that it is not as easy as just picking up that golden ticket and punching your spot in line with the inevitable millionaires of the world. There is a reason why very few people are able to achieve personal wealth, financial security, personal wealth and well-being into their future. It's because they do not have the holistic picture dialed in. Make it a holistic goal to enter into 2023 and add one additional element to your life that's going to speak to this idea of holistic well-being. Okay, being an independent investor only speaks to the unique niche of being holistically vested into this project. Okay, and I'm not saying that you need to take a diet or make a New Year's resolution to do something that you feel like you're absolutely incapable of doing. Okay, I think this idea of personal accountability with regard to your finance scares a lot of people because a lot of people think that they cannot live without the lifestyle that they've grown accustomed to. The spending habits that we get used to are the very benchmark that we're using now to identify with this looming recession coming up in 2023 and that somehow we can't live whole hog on the high, right, anymore. We need to identify what are those things that we need for living. Okay, and there's a whole range of those things that I think sometimes we have this basic range of necessities in life that if we just get a little bit off of that range of acceptance of what is, you know, what is accepted to be normal that we go off kilter and we think that somebody's, you know, really jockeying with our lifestyle. What I mean by that is we're probably doing all right. Okay, what is a recession in 2023 really going to look like? I'm a student in the market and I would contend that the stock market has been working to price through some volatility for the last 24 months. 24 months. You know, the Dow Jones industrial average will close down 2022 down 3%. Three. Doesn't really sound like a recessionary figure. When you talk about the 20% off in the S&P 500, you also need to talk about some of the same stocks that are also make up the NASDAQ composite, which was the hardest hit index this year, down 33% this year. Now the S&P off 20% does represent the fourth worst year in the history of the stock market and it is the worst year since the 2008 financial crisis. Yeah, okay. All right. Really doesn't seem to be quite as bad as that in my assessment. There's a lot of people right now looking at this down 20% and pouring themselves into the S&P 500. Okay. If that's what you want to do, no problem. You're probably going to get your 6% to 9% growth next year out of your S&P investment. Mark my word. That's my projection. I don't think that we're going to come off of this 20% year and be down again. The odds of that happening are pretty light. Odds are in our favor at about 80% to actually have an up year next year. So if you're an odds maker and you want to just go ahead and think that you want to take advantage of it, I like the idea of being a little bit opportunistic on markets, but not to gain the market next year, rather to identify that if you are truly investing and making a lifestyle opportunity at this, then you take a look at the strategic opportunity that you may have to inject some capital now for the long term. That's what makes more sense to me. I see that there's a lot of people jumping on this whole S&P 500 bandwagon and I would be careful with that. I've done away with professing that there is one style of investing that can fit all. Now, I do think that there's some styles of investing that can fit the vast majority of people. In other words, if you're a non-investor and you're looking to get involved, chances are if you knew nothing about stock market investing, passive investing through a broader index will probably be your best bet. In other words, a total market type of an ETF or index fund, maybe even a managed mutual fund, if that's your Bayley Wick at the end of the day, you're going to be the one to take ownership over the management fees that you'll pay over those more expensive products than the index funds in the ETFs. However, I think that mold does fit the majority of people because I think a monkey can do it. You just don't need any expertise to do that. You don't. Now, you'll be your own worst enemy because if you enter into the S&P, you will have indefinite full control over your ability to get the sell button at any time in your future. That's a lot of what a lot of people cannot resonate with that power to look at the stock market and say, you know what, it's powerful. Ryan talks about it being humbling. It's very powerful in that it's a great wealth building mechanism, but is it really that great because without the proper coaching, mentorship, and perspective on the stock market, it hurts most people. That's how powerful it is because they don't know how to apply the governor and just say, you know what, there's all these infinite stocks out there and they all seem just so amazing. All these YouTubers out there telling me that I've got to buy this one over here and this one over here and this one. They're so convincing and they're so incredibly motivating. I just love them. I love them so much. I subscribe to their channel because they're going to get me there and you start levitating out of your seat as you start to gravitate toward these temptations and ideas around this very core thesis that can work for the majority of people and that's just buying the diversified financial markets. The S&P is on sale right now 20%. That's the fact of the matter. I'm a big S&P investor. I have a good amount of wealth at this point, 45 in my life. I do have about $425,000 in the portfolio. It's off from the highs. It's been a pretty tough year for me, but a good majority of one of my biggest holdings is in the S&P 500 spread across three accounts. I do own total markets. I do own the NASDAQ. I do own small caps. I own the sectors. I own a lot of dividend stocks and value plays and some microcap debut that has just been an absolutely tough year in the microcap space and I'm hoping for some better days ahead of us in 2023. But to speak to people and really have them understand and if they hear me, they hear me. It's the few people that do. You'll benefit for it. For the people who are finding it convenient to unsubscribe from the channel, I presume that they're probably highly on investors, perhaps maybe. Perhaps maybe there's some people who got involved with me right from the beginning through referral and really haven't been with me from the beginning, which I feel just as devoted to you guys as you should to me. Is that fair? I'm a small enough channel to where our relationship should grow together. I think that's special. I'm not sure if other YouTubers look at it that way. I do. I do. And I think it's important for us to continually monitor our progress and to reflect back upon a year that's been a terrible year. Identify for yourself whether or not it was too much for you. If it is, then it's too much. Be honest with yourself. I think a lot of people don't gravitate with this idea that most people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and even 50s should probably never even identify with the sell idea. You should be building wealth over the majority of your life, building wealth. Now in the index funds, you never have to sell those. Never. Okay? When you start to get into more of a speculative type of arm of the portfolio, certainly. There is some more opportunity there to take profits when applicable. But I don't remember the last time I took profits. I'm looking at a portfolio right now that's recessed in value and we need more favorable markets. That's what we need. But it doesn't change my approach. It doesn't change my lifestyle. It doesn't change my devotion to the craft. It doesn't change my devotion to trying to help people understand that if you are going to succeed at this deal, that it does have to be more of a commitment than just I'm going to tune into YouTube and find out what this guy's doing and what that gal is doing. And I'm going to do exactly what they're doing and then I can go on with my life. I can go on and continually to frivolously spend. I mean, I was spending so much this holiday season that I actually swiped it once and felt the heat coming off my credit card. I'm just going to continue to do that. Now, Ryan's not the guy for me because he's actually calling into question the fact that maybe I should let that thing cool down before I use it again. Maybe take on a little fiscal discipline. I don't know. Maybe get a little bit of organization in your life. It's all right. If you can get yourself a companion. I tell you, I invited Matt on the live stream tonight and he'll probably come on next week and do the year-end review. He had a commitment this evening with some friends, but ask yourself, what is it about you that makes you special in way of your degree or your potential to create wealth for yourself? Is it your job? Is it your companionship? Is it your health and well-being? Is it the fact that you're going to be around for 100 years? Right? Is it your location? Is it your opportunity? Is it the fact that you come from a family of means? No problem. I don't hold a grudge for people with that. As long as you appreciate the opportunity that you've been provided, that's all right. Some of the people I know who actually come from means they're some of the hardest working people because they feel an obligation to do it themselves. But what are those attributes that kind of make you, you going into 2023? What are those few things that you can identify to help you moving into what everybody's talking about as an inevitable recession in 2023? We're going to talk about that. We're going to reflect on 2022. Give you some ideas about how you can soldier up a little bit going into 2023. You're going to need it. It's all good. But I have a feeling that the worst is behind us. Q1, Q2 2023 is probably going to be a lot of the same. We will see and until the Fed pivots, we're going to be in the same pocket with each other trying to fight through the minutiae and make some sense as to why we do this game. Be back with me in just a moment. It's an awful kind of comment coming through. Man, we'll highlight it here. Mimo, I really appreciate that, man. The measure of success, I guess, is if you can come on and get through some of the brash jokes that I throw out there. I got to try to be somewhat entertaining. I am 45 years old and for the younger community to come in and resonate with me is a hard press because I can't win them over in seven or eight seconds. The real thing that we're striving for is to get to those people that can generate some wealth. You do not have to be the smartest person. You can be a complete screw-up. You can have a willingness to change. You mentioned family here. I think it's a cool topic to bring people around together and I'm just the guy to do it because I challenge the ideas that most people have about how important financial security is, how important financial stewardship and discipline is, the potential for making it a lifestyle change. Once you take on some of the learnings of applying financial stewardship, it becomes second nature. It's not difficult anymore. It's not manufactured anymore. I dollar cost average more than the average bear and I do so without even thinking about it. That's like getting into the car and putting on your seatbelt without even thinking about it. We want to make these good common practices so commonplace that you're addicted to it to a point where you don't think about it. You can focus on other things. That's the key is once you resonate with that idea, you're like, all right, there's a little bit of trust here. Ryan seems like he's got my back a little bit. I have your back enough to start a little bit of fire enough to put you on a trajectory to where you can start to validate it for yourself. I come on here with all kinds of passion. Where the hell do you think I get that from? It's because I've made way, way less than six figures. Never pulled down six figures in my entire life. Never. Had a pretty good year this year in the Independent Investor Channel, but we had some payroll and we had some expenses. We're going to have to figure out how to get those down. The profit that was made was fantastic, but combined with my regular income and my wife's income, we're not even close to six figures. To have the money that we have saved up is just a testament to the power of the mind. Now, if you can resonate with that idea and say, Man alive, I do make that six figures, but I don't have a dust savings in the bank. What gives? How can Ryan have that? Or how can some of my other friends that don't make the money that I make have that type of painter saved up? The idea here is to challenge what it is that you think you need in this life because people are like, Man, it was a down year. Thank you for that comment, Man. I really appreciate it and thank you to you. Happy New Year to you. But a lot of people, Man, when they're looking at their own personal program, they have a difficult time breaking it down in a way that makes sense for them and that's the whole key here. That's what we're looking to do is share those stories and those things with people that can really help them. Now, going into the potential for recession, I think this is going to be somewhat of a lesson. So if you guys don't want a lesson, you guys can tune off now and go, I don't know, I'm into suits now. It's kind of a cool. I didn't know that show existed. You guys should have recommended it to me a long time ago because you knew that I would dig that, Man. It was very cool. I think I'm Harvey in another life. But anyway, you guys can move on. But anyway, as we're approaching this 2023, I don't know how tough this recession is going to be. I speak about it tongue-in-cheek and I do not buy into the cliche of what everybody would have you believe about what you need to feel or fear about a recession. My bottom line and tough love would suggest that you need to toughen up a little bit. Stop buying into everybody else's fear. If you want to know about fear, fear is like not having enough money to support your household and having others that depend on you. That's fear. Fear is not some manifested thing where the group of us can't go to Walmart every single day and spend $500 or best buy or go to the movies three times a week and go out to eat five times a week. That's not recession, guys. And I think sometimes we bleed over in this idea that because our luxury lifestyle here in the United States is going to be compromised, that somehow we can tag a risk. No, no, you're fine. Calm down and just get over yourself. But I will give you the tools for those people who live the status quo lifestyle and oh my goodness, Ryan, please tell me what I need to know to help myself. I will help you. Here it is. Have an emergency fund. I've lived and died by this philosophy. It's one of those things to where I think it can resonate with the masses. This is what differs me from if you as an individual go in and sit down with a financial planner. I think an emergency capital is, if nothing else, great for peace of mind. It's great. I look at my account. It doesn't move. I look at my investment accounts. They move every day violently. I was down as much as $1,700 today. I ended up down $96. I was happy. I was like, right on, man, I'm only down $96 at the end of the day. We had a little, I don't know, Florida hook at the end of the day, and it actually finished close to up after a pretty down day all day. But to understand the psychological buffer that you'll have by having that emergency fund set aside, I think is important. And to just have that to kind of chew away from a little bit, you don't have to take a home equity line of credit. You can just borrow from the bank of, in my case, Ryan, at zero percent interest rate. If you can find a better interest rate where somebody's going to pay you to take their money, so be it. My program gives you a zero percent interest rate because you're borrowing from yourself. Amazing reverse psychology on yourself, how you can actually reverse and flip the script on it. No, I'm going to go into the bank and I'm going to take a loan for 10%. No, drop that idea. Okay. We live in way too much debt in this country and it's really, really sad to be honest with you. All right. Having that emergency fund is super important. They say three to six months, whatever. Look, if you're married and you have two sources of income or you have multiple income streams, I counted the income streams that I had on the independent investor channel this year and I was amazed. I was really amazed. I'll count them now for you. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13 sources of passive income that come in just over the channel. That's it. Okay. Now, with those things, do I need to have as much cash on the side? My job is pretty secure. I will end up having a pension when I retire. I'm a lucky guy. I'm freaking lucky. So when I talk about, oh, I've never made less than six figures, I'm fine. I don't need your sympathy. I'm freaking fine. I'm probably doing a hell of a lot more fine than a lot of those six figure folks out there that think that they've got it made. We'll see. We will see. All right. But need to identify what your essential spending is. Okay. Insurance, home, rent, or house payment, car payments. Guys, geez Louise, if you've been subject to buying these cars over the last year, you're probably overpaid for a used car. Okay. And unfortunately, I do put that in the essential spending because you got to get the work. So putting those aside, now these two are kind of length. It's essential spending and your emergency fund are kind of linked together in that your essential spending can help you identify how many months of emergency funding that you may need put away. Okay. So kind of important there to identify and then insurance, health insurance, things like that. Okay. So those things are important. What are super important to you? Now, there are certain things that are going to be considered additional spending or what I consider to be luxury spending because a lot of people come there like, I have to have my cell phone. No, you don't. No, you don't. Okay. We all lived without the iPhone for many, many centuries before the beginning of 1990 or whenever they came out, which was just revolutionary. Actually, I think it was around 2000, actually. You know, I remember a time when I had the Ram cell, the brick, right? And it was good for 20 minutes of battery charge and you could make one phone call and have the plastic antenna. You guys remember that? Yeah. It wasn't an essential. Okay. It was a luxury item. It was cool. But those items are not luxuries. They are luxuries. They're not essentials. Going out to the movies, eating out. You know, can you save on your grocery bill? I don't know. These are all things that you can kind of charge yourselves with as you go through and work this time, this hopefully a little bit of downtime that you may have to actually start to get yourself in order for coming up into 2023. All right. You can reduce your additional spending, if possible. Go through some organization. I've been doing, I ran a couple of reports this year for the first time. One on the personal side, one on the business side, the LLC side that I have, keeping those two separate. This was the first year that I ran the business completely independent of my personal income. I wouldn't have had that if I didn't have the foresight to continually try to evolve in my craft. Okay. So whatever it is that your craft is, I don't know. But if it's work harder at work, if it's to do, you know, go for that promotion or take on a side hustle, whatever it is. Okay. What I've been able to identify is there's a lot of people out there that if you need me to tell you, you're probably doing all right, then you're probably naive to the fact that you're doing just fine. Okay. You're doing just fine. If you have a job and you have some insurance and you have a car, maybe you have two cars, which is a luxury. Okay. Then you're probably doing just fine. But just spending some of this time to organize, and here's an idea that I typically use the end of the year for, and it sounds kind of morbid, but some estate planning. Making sure that you can ask that question. If something were to happen to me, would my assets be dispersed in a way that would be in my interest? And theirs. All right. So having those discussions now and making sure that those assets can be dispersed upon in a timely manner, avoiding probate, I'm not going to get too much into the insurance and the will and the living trust, which is the best document that you can possibly draw on. Now, if you start a living trust and you have no assets, it's not going to do you any good. Okay. A living trust is an umbrella. And then you can fund that living trust with multiple assets, a business, land, retirement accounts. You can even put your will under your living trust. That way you have that shield. You can name that administrator over that trust in the time of the estate owner's death and passing. You can have that sent to the administrator and the point on that to make sure that those assets can avoid probate and they can be distributed as the errors wish them to be. So I take this time to do all that. I think it's important, but that's it. That's the game plan coming into 2023. So have a drink, celebrate with me. I'm going to get to questions now. If you have burning questions to ask me, please do so. Okay. I'm an accessible YouTube fella. Okay. Do not call me a YouTuber because I'm not. I'm coming on here and I'm talking to my sure Mike and having a jack and coke with you guys because you're all just freaking great people. Okay. That's it. Don't expect any more or any less from me. All right. That's a fun project. If it ever stops being fun, I'll go ahead and hang up the project. That's for sure. Becky, great to see you. Happy New Year to you and yours, man. Very cool to see you. All the best to you in 2023. Very cool stuff. Mokey's in the house. Appreciate you coming on. Last week, that was a lot of fun, Mokey. Thank you so much. It's interesting how we can buy cars that we know are going to zero and don't put a panic yet. Marcus cratches. Well, that's the perspective and I don't think we'll ever get through to people. I hope we do. I just want to give people more credit than what they are given credit for. However, they earn this reputation of being awful, awful crazy sometimes, where we'll celebrate somebody who will go and buy that big jacked up truck and it's just incredible. It's like, but there's nothing sexy about, hey, look, I just built a $75,000 portfolio. People are honestly kind of standoffish about it and even, dare I say, kind of jealous. Now, they might be kind of jealous of the truck too, but they're going to be like, dang, this is bad ass, dude. Wow, they have the stepboards that automatically come out. That's a necessity. I'm going to put that in the essential spending category. I'll tell you what, next time I go get my $75,000 truck, I'm going to insist to have that because that's nice. You've just sold me on it. That's fantastic. I sit across from people every single week and try to sell them on the idea of investing for their own future all the while to get a lot of hate and a lot of really unsubscribed. This guy's not going to help you. He's terrible. He's boy. He's this. He's that. When all I'm trying to do is have you understand what Moki's talking about and draw a distinction as to what is socially acceptable and what is not. Investing needs to be more socially acceptable. We need to identify with this idea that retail investors really need to do a lot to improve their status in the investing community. They really do. Buy and hold forever. There's the goods for you. Just buy assets and hold them because you are 100% convinced that you're buying into a program that will provide you financial security and if you start it on the inception, you buy that first 10 share block of S&P 500 that that can be built upon from generations going forward. You can start that legacy now. If that's not attractive to you, maybe me and you just don't resonate with the same things but I do think that there's a lot of shallow thought that would buy into this idea that the more you have and the more you show off, the more successful you are. I tell you what, I know a lot of people through the channel that are not flashing the pants people that are not flashy. They have worked 30, 40 years of their life and they are millionaires and they are not flashy people. I think the idea is why don't we wake up and stop trying to achieve everybody else's idea of what success is as opposed to just sitting back and saying, I'm not really sure if I really need this. Here's what I think I would like to have in success and answer that question as to why you invest. A lot of people maybe got over-levered in 2022 and they shouldn't invest because it's affecting their health. Answering that question to say, look, I just want some financial security. What is the best way to get there? Be honest with yourself. Deploy that plan. Stick with it and stay with it over the long term. That's it. Very cool stuff. It says Tacoma is an asset. It's a dream truck for me. I'm very happy. I joined my military service 18 years ago. I was half depressed when I did because I believed so wholeheartedly that I put myself under a lot of pressure to succeed. When was the last time you guys, not you, Jamie. I know it's your time. Appreciate the comment. Happy New Year to you and the family. How much ferocity do you have? Am I the one who's sick? Let me know. I don't know. People come on and they're like, Ryan, you seem angry. You seem intense about this category. I am intense for people. I think people really need to take heed and have some perspective on this deal and understand that maybe it's not as bad as they think. Maybe they don't need to fall in line all the time when society would have you just falling in line. Super important, man. Carve out your own path, man. Super important, all right. I got Ken in the house. Ken's great to see you, my friend. It's a heck of a backdrop you got there, man. It looks like my upbringing. Looks like you're at my farm where I was brought up. Oh, Looking Glass, Oregon. Looking Glass. Yeah, it's tiny. Thanks for your hard work. Oh, I don't know. Define hard work, my friend. I've been there. This YouTube opportunity, I think there's people in my generation that would appreciate the fact that I kind of scoff at the fact that this is not hard work. It's a mental game. It's always me trying to stay above board and trying to further the conversation to understand that I'm being edgy, yes, but getting to people. And I know that's the secret pre-pedigree. And I don't buy into a lot of it on YouTube. I certainly do not sell out to what I need to be to be some huge successful YouTube fella on YouTube. That's not what I'm trying to do at all. But I'm building the project naturally. If you were going to align who it is that I was supposed to be in this life with what you're seeing, you're seeing the goods. I was meant to do this. So hard work. I do that with my profession. This for me is kind of a break. And I love talking to great people. I love the ability to bring people together if I can. If I have the tools and the capacity to do that, then it's an honor for me to do that. And the success of the channel is not determined by me. It's determined by the people who come in and they consume the message. I'll look to you this coming year to add to my experience. My lesson in 20 is to take profit from a big winner. You bet. That is a hell of a lesson, actually. Some of the most successful trading that I've ever done is swing trading value companies that I didn't mind owning for the long term. So I would enter into the companies and swing trade them and take my 5, 7. Let me try to get this back focused in, guys. There we go. And take my profit right away. These markets just haven't been conducive to doing so. And it's been one of those things to where I've leveraged a lot of those profits. I had a really, really good trading year in 2019, I think. And those profits have been leveraged into my current position in Ileon. And that's what it is. It's a stock position. I was pretty hard on my group this week during my weekly Ileon video in suggesting that it's a position in the company. If you want to buy a stock and get pissed off because it goes down 6 cents, you're missing the whole point. You are missing the whole point. I would rather just see you sell it because that's not investing at its core. Investing is investing in the company through the stock. That's the idea. And if you're not willing to see that through, then you shouldn't start in the first place. I saw a comment come through here. Brent's been with me since the beginning of time on the Independent Investor Channel. He might remember me when I was a young lad. Brent, it's great to see you, man. Fantastic. You've made my night. Thanks for popping in. I really appreciate that. Certainly don't mind highlighting a guy like this because he's certainly been very loyal to my channel. I've subscribed to his channel as well. You know, as well as I, Brent, I don't watch a lot of YouTube. I really don't have time for that. But I do appreciate you coming on and saying hi to us. And I appreciate the support over many, many years. We're going on six years, the project. And it just seems like we just got started. It's been a lot of fun. But it's kind of fun for those original folks to come in. All the YouTubers I've followed for years with solid information, even Kyle, Matt, sure, this from a YouTube feed by the darn sacred algorithm. Yeah, I don't put content out there that is very conducive to the ad schedule on YouTube, which is okay. That's why I do the profiling that I do. I enjoy it more. I just talked to a CEO today who solicit I've got accounts receivable starting in January for the project as well. If that's too much for you guys, and you guys don't like the trade-off of me coming on and doing my live stream the way that I do, and doing the profiling, no problem. If it's too much, I wish you all the best. And you can exit the channel. It's no problem. It's come and go as you please. I'd like to think that I actually earn the people who want to be here. So that's simple. Very cool stuff. Let me cruise up here and see. Becky, it's great to see you. Happy New Year. It's just a happy new year to everybody. It's fantastic. Becky's been with me a long time. She is one of my featured channels. I'm proud to feature her. She's fantastic. Her profession speaks to how cool it is to bring really cool people in from a lot of different places in the world. She's in one of my favorite states and probably be making my way down there at some point to retire, probably Virginia, right above you. But we'll see what happens. But it's great to see you. Thank you for coming in. It's really cool. And good luck to you in 2023 as we look to ride the ship here a little bit. It's been just a really rough ride. That's no problem. I knew this when I started this project that markets had an opportunity to really, really crush people. And it does. But we live to fight another day. Life was never promised to you to be easy. And investing is dang hard. It's not easy. And it's weathering storms like this. And it gets you just about strung out enough to know that the markets will never go up again and you lose all hope. And you're like, why do I do this? This is incredible. Why do I stay the course? You'll understand some day. Okay. You'll understand some day. And it won't be me that has the last laugh. It'll be you. And if you come back and you say, hey, Ryan, thank you. You gave me a little shred of motivation to stay the course. When I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have stayed the course if it were just me on an island. This independent thing, you discuss it. I understand it. But it's hard to walk this path. And you help me. And that's it. That's the whole idea here retired now had a decent job. Sold cover calls out of the money for 20 years, worked for me. Fantastic. Mitra dates been with the channel a long, long time. Great to see you too, my friend. Very good stuff. Very good stuff. Got Bobby sing in the house. Fantastic. I'm doing all my shout outs for this evening. Man, I got passive income in the house. I just got back clicking the tech Shopify Tesla. And that's sure. Yeah. Oh yeah. Text. If the NASDAQ's down 33%, there's some individual tech names, big software. I like Salesforce here. No doubt Google. Microsoft and Apple, certainly much more intriguing. Probably the closest to the split up discussion is Meta, which is interesting. I actually think that could unlock value, to be honest with you. But Meta probably is the most volatile. And it's come down the most. So probably poses one of the best opportunities too. But I've purchased some TQQQ over the last couple of weeks in a couple of strategic buying opportunities. I think you could buy the NASDAQ here if you wanted to put a strategic little dab of technology into the portfolio. Sure. I'd rather see you buy it here at down 33% than up 50%. Yeah, sure. You bet. You betcha. Cruising up here to kind of see who's in the group here. Got Phenom one. Phenom's been with me a long, long time. Very cool stuff. Very cool stuff. All the best to you and the family. Happy New Year in 2023 and many more. Many more. Your patronage on the channel is most appreciated by me. You give me light in times of darkness. That's you do. Sometimes people forget that YouTube people are human beings as well instead of just a punching bag. I throw a bunch of visceral hate at. David's in the house. Happy New Year to you, my friend. Very cool stuff. You got Eric's in the house. The shaded light. Fantastic. Jared's been with me since the beginning. Jared's been one of those really VIP subscribers. And one day, I tell you what, if I ever make it big, every single one of these people are going to get an invite to come out to the Independent Investor Ranch. Maybe I can be as lucky to have a pond and we can do some large mass fishing. I don't know. That'd be kind of fun. I have enough aspirations for the entire group. There's no doubt about that, guys. I am a dreamer and a lot of my motivation comes from the pursuance of those goals. I would highly encourage you guys to look to pursue that and very cool stuff. Got Bob's in the house here. You just have to reserve, reverse your swing trading sell and buy lower when you're in a prolonged down channel. Yeah. What got me is I'd buy Pfizer at 38. If it went down to 35, I'd just buy more, go up to 42 and then chop the entire position. Really, really successful at it there in 19. It seemed like whatever I touched, I don't think I lost. I think I told the group one time that I was on a 93% winning streak. Everything I touched could not lose and it was just the markets were conducive and I wouldn't touch these markets. I really wouldn't. I think it's tough, tough markets. There has not been a lot now. It's the shift in a market that's complacent on very, very arbitrarily low interest rates. Those interest rates have got us lulled to sleep and now this systemic shock to the market in that we need to try to manufacture a recession to somehow lower jobs growth. I saw a tweet come through from the president this evening boasting about all the jobs and I thought, isn't Powell trying to kill jobs right now? I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one who thought that in the entire United States of America. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens, but Mimo, you get an invite too, my friend. Get an invite. We'll see what happens. We'll get some king crab. We'll get some salmon. Get some nice organic grain fed beef. We'll have some hella steaks. It'll be fun. Why not, man? Very cool. David's in the house. I appreciate you. I dig the project too. I'm always trying to drive at what it is that we need to continually do to evolve the project to get to the majority of people. It really rests on you guys. If you do want to bring in new people to the general, I would encourage you to do so. That's the best way to bring in new people who need to have a 101 investing tutorial from somebody like myself who's been through quite a bit. I've been through quite a bit in financial markets and I sometimes say, gosh, has it been worth it? Could I have just not invested and been in the same place? Absolutely not. It is an absolute unequivocal. Absolutely not. It is without question that I am where I am in my life taking on the holistic discipline. Not that I've picked the right stocks or built the right portfolio. No way. No way. It is that I have looked to take on this challenge, learn as much as I can, build a portfolio that is conducive to my tolerance, dollar cost average that it is absolutely the largest contributor to my wealth. Now, there's other things that help supplement that contribution. That is the fact that I have a good job, a good family, so I get the good support and my physical fitness is top notch. This year in 2022, I was at the gym more than I've ever been in the gym in any of the previous years. Hands down, bar none. I mean in the gym at five o'clock, almost every single day, I would take usually one day off a weekend just to sleep in and I still wanted to go, but I would take the break. You get myself that opportunity to chill, but super important to identify those things. I mean, if look, if you come to me and you're like, hey man, this guy's 45 and he's talking about things like physical fitness, I'm not in shape, or he's talking about things like getting the diet and health and well-being correct, or the spiritual application correct, you could identify and say, Ryan, that maybe that's not important to me or I can tell you, carte blanche, I don't have those things. Maybe it's something to work on. If you come to me and you're like, okay, this guy's arrogant or this guy talks about this and that and you're missing the point. I've worked really, really hard to build that up enough to where I can share it with people and maybe it kind of gives you an element of what to look for in your own life, but you could come into the channel and be like, I don't do any of this stuff. What is it that I do to fill up my day? I don't have a side hustle. I don't have an investment. I don't have a relationship. I don't have anything. What is it that makes me happy? And for each his own out there for people who do different things to make them, they read, they play guitar, they're into music, they like being by themselves. They don't want to be with somebody. That's all right. That's all right. But if this thing is something that you want to resonate with and it's something that you don't know a lot about, I think if I was a new investor, I could find far and away the most information from my channel than any other channel out there. I am my favorite YouTuber. Don't mean to come across as arrogant, but I'm the only one who will watch back and actually be like, yep, that'll make an impact. Sorry. Sorry. And that's why I don't look at my project as something that I'm striving for. I'm enjoying it right now. You're getting to enjoy in the success if maybe you would feel like you would feel better about recommending the channel if I had a million subscribers. You gotta check this guy out. He's got a million subscribers. You gotta check. I would be the same guy then as I am right now because I operate on the same precedent that this channel is already a success for the people that we've reached, for the people who we have met, for the connections that it's allowed me to make, insurmountable guys. You have no idea how cool it is to, I love this project. I love it, but I love it to the fact that or in the capacity that I define in my life, it's not, doesn't consume me. It's something that I set aside that time for on Friday to come on and I throw down and I really, really enjoy it without you guys. I wouldn't be able to do it and I'm humbled and I'm very, very thankful for that. That's why I don't jam a bunch of here's my way, take it or leave it. I don't censor my channel. Anybody who can come in, they can disagree with me. It's no problem. It's not a problem at all because I just absolutely love the opportunity enough to come on and share it with you guys in the few moments that we have left this evening. I just want to thank each and every one of you guys for the continued support. I really do. I say this all the time, but the opportunity man to come on to social media and connect with people all over the world is really kind of an intangible payment to me that I really, really take seriously. I really do. Hopefully you can resonate with me if you can't, no problem. But for the people out there that have continued to support, I got Dan in the house, man. It's great to see you, man. I missed it. Does not feel like Friday to me. No, it doesn't because we're on holiday right now, my friend. That's why the very cool stuff. I do want to thank each and every person for the continued support on the channel. We're going through tough times right now. There will be new patrons to the channel once things calm down. But for people who really kind of stick with the message and understand that maybe they can get a little motivation for themselves and they do it through times where it's more difficult to stay with an investing message. In other words, there's not a lot of people coming on to YouTube. There's not a lot of people that are investing right now. Why? Because the common reaction to the stock market now, when it does things like this, is to do what? Not invest, right? Which is the very opposite approach that you need to have in this gig in understanding that these are the very times that we need to talk about what's going on and stare down the recession and say, bring it on. Let's get this recession done and over with and we can get back to business, building wealth for people. Because without investing, I think it can mean a lot for a lot of people out there. I don't think there's enough people that invest. I don't think there's enough people that understand how powerful it is and the more people we can bring on, educate up on the opportunity of investing for themselves, the absolute better off will be. That's very, very cool stuff. Oh, that means something. Congratulations, man. Very cool stuff. I'm super stoked for you. I take my promotion here June 1st of this year, man. I'm super stoked. 2023 is going to be a big year for me. Big year, man. A lot of two decades of work put in, man. I'm very, very satisfied. I'm very humbled and I'm very, very thankful at the opportunity, man. We're going to continue to beat the drum on the project. Really appreciate you guys, man. I think I highlighted everybody. I appreciate you guys making your way in on kind of a holiday type of situation. Happy New Year to each and every one of you guys. We will continue the project into 2023, hope for better times. Continue to identify with the pulse in the market where we are, how we think we can strategize and put together some programs that can allow you guys to build wealth the way that I have over time. Really appreciate you guys. Be well. We'll catch you next week on the independent investor channel the fastest 60 minutes on YouTube.