 Love to welcome everybody back to the independent investor channel live stream on a Friday here. Great to see everybody in the gallery here, always continuing to footstomp this message. I'm always really trying to dig deep below the surface, try to find out what it is that we can continue to progress in our thought, in our dialogue as we look to help all investors look. I don't know who's gonna come in here week to week. I have no idea. But for you guys that are new to the channel here, I'm one of the first financial YouTubers on. I'm slow to grow, no problem about it. I mean, I'll be doing this for the next 20 years. This is part of me. It's what I do. I approach this in a little different manner in that I'm just here to administer the business and I represent you guys. I represent the hardcore workers every day, the people who are working hard to get ahead. And really just to identify those opportunities out there for people who may not think that there is opportunity. And I am in fact here to tell you that there is opportunity out there. And I really do charge people to look within. It's an expectation of mine. It's one of those things that I'm looking to aggressively challenge this idea that retail investors cannot succeed in the stock market. I think all the time I deliberate around this. I'm 43 years old now. If I had to go back and I had to do it again, what would I do? What would I tell myself? And we're never given that luxury except for the people who might come into my message and hear me rant about the importance of hard work. Nobody wants to hear that crap anymore from the younger generation. I think the younger generation is just looking to find out what it is that they like to do with their time and that's just supposed to make them happy. I challenge a little bit of what our intent is is to challenge the idea that paying the bills might be one of those things that you might get smacked in the face with reality a little bit when you get out on your own, which I did. I don't come from money guys. So I speak from that perspective from you guys that have got a silver spoon lodged severely up your ass. I congratulate you. That's lovely. I challenge you in deriving the motivation necessarily internally because if you've been provided a yellow brick road in front of you for your entire life and all you have to do is walk it, my friend, you have no excuse, all right? But for us folks that actually value hard work and are looking to put the grind on, all right? We wanna continue to footstomp this message of understanding what works and what doesn't work, okay? Just visited an article before I came live to now I'm talking about how people got overextended last year. Real estate market was really, really up and we just came out of the latter portions of a global pandemic that really set people down. Relief was provided, but people were buying and extending into homes that maybe was an extension of what they could afford. And now they're struggling. Now they're struggling to put a few dollars in their tank. Now they're struggling with regard to the products that we buy when we go to freaking Walmart to feed ourselves so we can actually survive in this life, all right? Why don't you retool your expectations and live a little bit closer to the best? Rerack your priorities a little bit and expect maybe that things aren't going to be all hunky dory into the future. Rerack your expectations into anticipating some hard times rather than expecting all the time good times. And I think this is a fallacy, especially here in the States and I don't mean to impugn my fellow countrymen, whatever the hell that means to each his own, do whatever you wanna do. But I think we suffer from a sense of entitlement in this country, I absolutely do. And I think people have to either manufacture hard work and guys like myself can sit here dead set in front of you and tell you that the value of hard work stays with you no matter what. It is part of you, it's in your DNA, it's ingrained. I would never, ever trade anything that I've been through in my life because it's defined me. And if I could give away the goods to the community, there's people out there that relate with me, man. I've got tradesmen, I've got electrical electricians in the group here, I've got truck drivers, I've got social media personalities in the group, a lot of content creators. People just looking to make a living here, man. The common thread amongst that is, are you proud of what it is that you do? Are you proud of putting in an honest day, man? There's nothing wrong with that. And I'm hard on the new generation, I get that. That's why a lot of people don't subscribe to me. You just be like, hey, these old people, they don't need to be judging. Look, man, I'm not old, I'm fine. I've got my life squared away. If you don't want to take a little tutelage from somebody like me who is built brick by brick, brick by brick from $1 to two, to four, to eight, to 16, and so on, no problem. Good luck on your own trying to make it, okay? The beauty of social media is that you've got folks like myself who take a pause every now and then, which is what this project is all about because when I'm on my day-to-day activity, when I'm on my daily grind, when I'm at the gym at five o'clock every single morning, like clockwork, that is for me. It's for me. It's for me. It's for my family. And I expect that your guys' daily routine is for you. Every single second of every single day should be focused on what it is that you guys do. I've identified the 16 pillars that I focus in on. Mine don't have to be yours. I'm always encouraged to engage in dialogue that addresses positive thinking and positive thought. Where is it that your mind is at when you're focused on me, me, me? I've heard some comments come through the channel that are talking about, hey, this market kind of pushed me a little bit and it kind of got me a little bit depressed. Yes, got you a little bit depressed? Guys, that is a movement away from those core fundamentals in life. That's a movement away. We have to fight that at all costs. It's no way to live life. It's no way. If I have 16 core fundamentals and the stock market just so happens to go down a little bit, then it's only affecting that one 16th of what I consider to be important in this life. Does it affect my relationships? Well, if it bleeds over, certainly. Does it affect my mood? Yeah, sure, right? The stock market being down, so I'm gonna lay in bed and feel sorry for myself. No, no, that's not how it works. And we have to continually grind this thing out because the fact of the matter is, retail investors, man, need tough love. They need it. I've said this many, many times if more people would come on and share a testimonial of success, I charge this group right here, this very community that comes in every single Friday, are you gonna be the core nucleus of independent investors? Those that answer to no one except for themselves, are you gonna be that sample set? I would suggest perhaps that the information that we put through puts us in a potential to be a cut above, to be above what the status quo delivers. And that is people overextending, overspending, having poor perspective, not thinking about a successful mindset. I've said many, many times, guys, a lot of people will say the mind is strong, the mind is weak, it's easily manipulated, it's easily influenced, you have to continually fight that stuff. When was the last time you took a step back and defined what it is that's important for you in this life? If you do that, a lot of the things that I hear come in trickling through the channel and look from my perspective, we've been up week over week over the last couple of weeks. I took a little downturn today, gave back four grand today in the market, which actually would have put us up in all the accounts. We'll do the portfolio reviews, guys, but you have to keep this thing in check, you have to. And the reason why I've always done this project six, since six years ago, we're in year six, standing on the precipice of going back to the home of the independent investor channel, New York City, I'm super excited about that, man. I'm super excited about the prospects. Things really shook loose for me at my career, man. It only took 17 years, hard work, hard work, yep, yep. And I was convinced 100% that I would not make it, 100%. I'm a realist, I'm a realist, and it happened, it happened. You have to put yourself in that opportunity, man. Here's the thing, you can work hard your entire life. You can work hard just like a washing machine. You can work hard just like a dishwasher. And let me tell you, the sheer reality in this life is such that you may not make it working hard, okay? You may carve out a nominal life, you may have a family that you value, you may have other things that's more important to you, you may not make it on the financial side into millionaire riches, that of which here in this society is a measure of end all be all success. You can be a complete fruitcake and have half of your mind and have no perspective and be a complete asshole. But if you've got a few million dollars in the bank, man, you are a figure and a pillar of success in this society. I beg to differ, all right? But you have to keep perspective about this thing, guys. You have to stay locked in on this. And where there is opportunity, you have to keep it in check, you really do. You have to prepare for the bad times and every second of every single day, that you have that goes by can be minutes spent toward that end. I run out of time with my day. Successful people do that because they've got so many different things in way of organization. If I ran down my agenda for you guys for today, you'd be amazed. And I'm consistently and continually evolving my schedule to get more productivity in my day than the average bear. And that's really the key is to try to carve out what it is in this life is important for you. In this video, man, we're gonna address some tough love, man, I'm gonna dig deep for you guys, really looking to make an impact. I really am. Household debt is skyrocketing in this country. We can't seem to get out of our own way. Prices pump go up a couple bucks and we lose our freaking mind. Our dependence to everybody else providing this life is amazing to me. And when that life hiccups a little bit and doesn't go quite as the way we planned, we freak out, we freak out. Oh my God, life is over. No, no, no, the sheer reality is you're living it right now. You're living your best life right now. Get to work. Some of you guys right now need to really convince yourself, man, you've gotta convince yourself. And I'm deriving a little bit of motivation, man. I really am. I use motivation from the community to turn that back and let you guys know, look, everybody in this community is doing at least one thing in this life that is independent to them, irrespective of what everybody else in this community is doing. And that right there, my friends, is the special aspect of this. You bring to the table different things. I've got one right here. My boy, right here, petroleum engineer. Great guy, self-made millionaire, under 30 years old, man, he should be proud of himself. He's hitting me up, right? And he's like, Ryan, man, this market got me, right? And when you manage such a huge portfolio, when you're that young, how many people out there could have the perspective to take a few hundred thousand dollars of downturn? Ask yourself, right? This will make us stronger, but this is the reality of it, okay? And this man knows how to invest. He knows how to invest, and he's very strong in the mind. But even the strongest of the mind, myself included, get caught up a little bit sometimes in getting used to a conducive market. And when it rolls off, it's a jar. It's like, hmm, this is interesting. What's going on here, man? This doesn't feel too good, you know? And it's like, okay, I can handle this for a week. Maybe two. Okay, a month, I'm over it, right? And then it prolongs and stacks on top of each other. And you're like, you know what? I can do without this whole getting a bootle. Maybe I should start retooling my thought process. And maybe I should just go all index funds. How about that? No, man, the secret is much simpler than that. See, here's the funny thing. Stock market investing, and thank you, Matt, it's great to see you, my brother. Stock market investing is not hard work, okay? That's the funny thing. I don't care what level of due diligence you do. I don't care what you've got yourself convinced on how good of a stock market investor you are, okay? Stock market investing is a luxury. It is not a right. I've said this many, many times. I've never heard it from anybody else, but that's the God honest truth, and that's how I feel. It is a luxury and not a right, okay? So it doesn't mean because you've tripped and fallen into a luxurious activity, that it's gonna pan out exactly the way that you set forth in your mind the way it should work out for you. The chances are it's gonna mind FU, and it's going to do to you, and it's going to deliver results that you never saw possible, okay? We're gonna teach you some of the defensive strategies that go into building a program. I started the live stream tonight talking about if I could go back and do it all again, what would I do? I would index my money 100%. That's the God's honest truth. So for these people out there, these young people who think they've got it all figured out they're the woke generation. They were born with all the answers. There's no reason to seek out any more answers because they're already enlightened. I will tell you along the financial realm. If I was going to define my life and define what it is that's important to me, I would get a pad in the paper and I've shared through my Viper group specifically, my 16 elements of those things that are important in life. But as far as the financial piece goes, if you have $500 of starting capital and you wanna start yourself on the road to financial success and freedom into your future, index your money over the course of your life and spend the rest of your life focused in on those elements of life that are truly gonna bring you happiness. When's the last time you actually put some real time into seeking out or maybe even finding a relationship, a meaningful relationship? Well, there's nobody out there for me, Ryan. No, no, no, that's not the question. When was the last time you truly, truly looked into that? The rewards can be insurmountable to have a family. When was the last time you truly looked at either upgrading or finding employment that you can be satisfied with and can provide you some upward mobility? When was the last time you truly looked for something like that? And I didn't say, bought into the cliche, that because I like to draw and color and do my side project, that this is what I'm gonna do and this is what I was put here on life to do. Let all that crap go, okay? You have got to carve out a living for yourself. It's super important, guys. Super important. And the quicker you can figure that out, finances can be the easiest thing that you ever engage in. And if you engage in it right, and I'm gonna give you the secret sauce to my approach, if I could go back and I could do it again, we could build a community of Howard investors that would rival all, they would rival all because we would not be succumbed to the volatility in the markets. We would not become emotionally charged in stock market investing, right? This has been tough on me. And I've had to rely on my risk tolerance to the market. Yes, in a capacity that would probably rival all, right? It would probably shake out 100 other investors if you took and provided them my portfolio and said, here you go, this is now your money, but you can't touch it. You have to react in a way that whatever the stock market doles out, that is what is going to be rendered in that portfolio. I think you'd have a failure rate of 100. And I think there's probably an easier way. There's merit and discussions too. The level of commitment that I have to indexing my money in my portfolio, it's super important I have a commitment to the dividend to growth strategy. I just pulled my TSP for all of you government workers out there and military workers alike. You guys can get on there and you can sign into the new TSP. I gave my spiel last week about the new funds. I would leave it alone. I would leave it alone unless you saw something that I didn't see, it's suspect in my mind. You've got to switch over to another site to opt into a mutual fund program. And I just think BlackRock got greedy on this one. I think people responded and said, we want more options and they didn't know what the hell they were talking about. And BlackRock said, okay, we'll provide you more options but we're gonna charge you an arm leg for that. I think the best thing you could possibly do is just stay the course with your indexing of the core funds. Those core funds were, those were incepted to make sure that people had the best chance of building financial wealth for themselves and their families going forward. But that is available for all you guys. I really appreciate you guys stopping by, man. I'm all freaking fired up tonight, as you can tell. I'm gonna try to lay out the goods tonight. I've got 40 more minutes left on the fastest 60 minutes on YouTube and I aim to please tonight. Gotta find the perspective. That's what this game is all about. It's all about perspective. Think and grow rich, okay? It's one of my coolest books. I've got it right down by Napoleon Hill. It's one of my favorites. It's ready to pack. We're prepping to pack and move to New York City. So I'm super stoked on that. I'm gonna try to keep the downtime to a minimum on the channel. This is part of my DNA. This is part of what I feel like is part of my calling. That's why I suggest perhaps that I would do this channel no matter what. I do thank YouTube. I thank them for not promoting my stuff but also at the same token providing me a conduit to come on and provide me a microphone and a voice. It's just that simple because traditionally, people like me would never be able to have that voice and I believe my voice reciprocates. I believe that my voice actually represents those hardworking peoples out there that may not resonate with the YouTube thing. In other words, man, alive. This is Ryan. This is a hella entertaining and shit. That's funny because I'm not a damn YouTuber. I'm not. It's just funny. I like to speak around this topic. I like to teach. I like to coach. I like to mentor. I'm very motivational in my dialogue but I'm also not polished with my approach. I don't do skip jumping every two seconds to keep your attention. I don't do that. I don't karate chop you to death. If I wanna take a drink of coffee, I damn well will. I don't want people here that don't wanna be here either. I think people have unfair expectations of what they expect of others to provide them success. How's an oxymoron for you, man? Seriously, help me. Help me get the success that I seek in my life. Doesn't that just seem stupid? There needs to be more people out there calling for individual responsibility like I do. Individual responsibility. Look, if you make it and I'll tip my hat, the coolest people that I talk to are those self-made people. The self-made people even that don't even really even see it themselves, man. I put Matt on the table. I'm super proud of the guy and I don't mean to be condescending, man. He's a professional. I get it, but I'm 20 years, 18 years older than him, 14 years, something like that. I don't mean to be condescending, man. I'll pay the guy a compliment. He should have that, but at 30, I didn't have that perspective. I couldn't have done that. I couldn't have looked at this and said, man, maybe I need to take a step back and check my compass. There's people all over the world that would never even dream of having the opportunity to take one single dollar, even one US dollar and put it to work in the market for the hopes of a better tomorrow. And that's the perspective that we really need to operate. I think we bastardize that every single day. I understand in this society, in advanced societies, et cetera, and it's never enough for people. It's never enough. Always gotta one up the next person. Always gotta get that next new car. You get the car next year. You know damn well, you're gonna be getting another one because you always gotta be cycling through the image. Cycle through the image, all right? All right, what did Bruce Lee see about the image? Destroy the image, destroy the man, right? Into the dragon. I can't believe Bruce died right before that movie came through, man. Pretty amazing, but some of the struggles that successful people had to go through with discrimination, with really, really fighting, coming from nothing. And so when you wonder where the fight comes from, well, it comes from a very special place. And in my dealings, that doesn't discriminate. Opportunity does not discriminate, but here's the thing, hard work alone is not just gonna get you there. It's gonna take a little bit of timing and it's gonna take a little bit of luck, okay? Hate to drop the misery to you, but look, one out of those three categories, you can actually control yourself, okay? Through hard work and through devotion and dedication to whatever it is that you do to seek out, you're gonna put yourself eligible to enjoy the timing and potentially enjoy a little bit of luck, okay? And I tell you what, man, with all of the hard work that I've put in over my life, I look back and I got into a rut where I was like, well, I just expect bad things to happen all the time. So when the inverse of that happens and something actually good happens, it takes me a while to let it sink in. It really does, because it's like, man, alive, this is good, man. This is good, why? Because the root of it is, no matter what my mind says about how bad it is, the truth of the matter is, baby, it's all good. It's all good. It's all good, man. Yeah, we've got something special here. We really do, man. We're marching towards something great. I personally am, again, when I'm away from this opportunity, I'm working really, really hard to preserve what it is that I am trying to do in way of building wealth. It's a building wealth. You wanna get involved in the stock market and get lucky? Is that what you wanna do? You're in the wrong place. I'm not gonna teach you how to get lucky. I can't do that. You wanna get lucky? Go to Las Vegas for a week. Now we're talking. Go to Vegas. Blow it out. I'm down. I'll be there with you. I'm all good, baby. I'm all good. I don't just drink coffee. It's cool, man. Fantastic, Omar's in the house. Here's the last comment. Just decided to throw it up here anyway. Ryan as highly on is going to buy Glider trucks to do their own powertrain. I don't know. That's a good question. It'd be interesting to see how this story transpires. Stevie has caught a little bit of favor over the last couple of weeks, and it's been nice. It's been really nice. I think the Davos address, Thomas Healy finally dropped his interview this week, which was fantastic. I thought he did a great job. Couple key points in that interview that I picked up. I picked up when he was talking about the OEMs because all they wanna do is sell diesel. If you had to be listening, they'd pick up on that because he said it as a sidebar when the camera wasn't on him. And also the fleet owner talked about, well, if we could just get drivers in the truck, I thought Thomas Healy should have jumped in there and said, truck drivers have no problem getting into my trucks because, and it was before that, where he said, have you actually driven an electric truck? They're actually phenomenal, right? And that one fleet owner was talking about the aesthetics of the truck, which I've talked about all the time as being a real game changer. And Thomas at the end of it actually doubled down on it and said, I wanna change in anything with the truck. It's still the same damn truck. It's still a Peterbilt, man. And it's beloved in the organization. Drivers aren't gonna have to get used to anything other than it being significantly quieter. But that's interesting. I have to look at that. Omar, thank you for sharing it. I appreciate you, man, really do. Let's kick in here, man, look at some portfolios. Rule real quick with either review and I'll do it quickly because I'd really like to engage with you folks tonight. I wanna stay on the plane. I'm always obviously fired up today. I just feel like there's a deeper meaning to why we're doing what we're doing. I feel like if we can empower one investor at a time, if we can reach one life out there that feels a little bit of spark and motivation to do good things in their life, they just don't know how. The financial piece is right smack on the top along with health and wellbeing and diet. It's right in the middle of my hierarchy. Right above that is my spiritual actualization and I enjoy that at different times in my life when I'm doing different activities, okay? Whether it be exercising, whether it be a nice win in the stock market where you're like, man, right on that worked out. Those are the times, man, that lets you know that it's not all bad, okay? It's worth reflecting on and it really is worth taking those small moments. Now they don't last forever. That's the problem is people think that they just can live on this euphoric cloud the rest of their life and that's not the reality. Expect to be coming off of your euphoric cloud, okay? Expect that it's not gonna last forever. No problem. Get back in the grind, whip some ass, let's go. It's just that simple, okay? Don't be afraid to throw a right hook. If you need a bag in front of you, go find it. No problem. When was the last time you guys were in the gym? Go try it, man, it's riveting. It might be the very lifeblood to success as far as I can tell from my life. It makes me calmer, makes me a better applicator at work, makes me a better human being, makes me better all the way around as a human being. Being in the gym for the time that I spend and I don't wish upon anybody my work ethic in the gym because I tear it up, okay? I tear it up. But do what it is that you can do. Get that breath up, get that heart rate up, man. Get a little sweat going on, man, throw it down. And when you get done with that, it's an amazing way to start off your day. I can't get out of it, I can't, I can't, I can't. It'll start to condition your mind into thinking that you absolutely can. And once you get over that, then you actually crave it over time. It's a special thing. This one we're up just a little bit week over week. These are marginally up or marginally down. Not a lot of change. The $4,000 bill that we gave back to the stock gods, they're enjoying it tonight. The wine and the grapes are on me, okay? I'm drinking crown. This one's up a little bit week over week. Still got some growth, small cap micro growth is kind of looking like it's got a little bit of life and I'm monitoring it closely right now. I'm not in any way calling a bot, I'm at all. It's been a nice reprieve over the last couple of weeks. Cherry topped by today's roll-off. I thought that that was to be expected, but good times to come. I don't care if it comes next week or next month or six months down the line. I don't really care, I'm preparing for that end right now. I suggest you do the same, okay? Here's Roth one. This is just about a backup to that $100,000 mark. That's nice, this portfolio has not changed. I've really learned a lot through this downturn. This has taught me a lot. I'll come out of it a different investor as I would employ each of you to allow that evolution to take place within yourself. Okay, don't shut that out. Don't shut it out, okay? Don't be a pussy, okay? Don't do that, all right? Don't scoff at and throw in the towel and give up just like everything else that you've done in life. Don't do that, okay? Take the road less traveled, all right? It's okay, you do not get involved with stock market investing with the expectation that your portfolio will just hunky dory appreciate every single day. That's not realistic. I'm here to tell you that no investor is immune to stock market volatility and IE, your portfolio going down every now and then, okay? And sometimes it's a violent drawdown. Think about it in the acute. Never make your decisions in the acute. It's just part of the game. Keep your eyes to the horizon and keep that long-term perspective. That's what's gonna pay off. Even as bad as this has been, guys that have been with me for the last year or so, I've been coming on steadfast, man, beating the drum on the live stream. It's been pretty bad for me, okay? And it's been exacerbated. Hylion's been a tough holding for me. It's been tough. The portfolio has held in there. And even with all that said, I looked back on my portfolios where I was just three years ago and I was blown away. I was blown away. These accounts were around 60,000 each. 52, I think in mine and about 60 in my wife's. And that was in each of the accounts. Now look at them. And this is incurring a huge downturn, one that everybody's throwing in the towel on. I can't do this. I can't do that. Hi, this is Ter, this is, oh, oh, it's me. Oh, it's me, life, oh, it's me. La-di-da-da-da-da. You gotta tune into independent to get my life straight. No, you don't. You need to look in the mirror, okay? There's nothing that I can do. There's nothing that I can say. I try, I do try, but you have gotta find it within. To make this stuff make sense for you. It's just that simple, okay? Here's Roth too. This is mine, no changes to report. This is chugging along just as we have arranged it. You can see the spark lines that get down just a little bit week over week. No big deal. For you guys that are tuning in, you're like, man, this guy is a crappy investor. Everything is down, always. It's just always down. It's always down. God dang it, I can do it better than this guy. God dang it. I tell you what, I'll take my $1,200 savings account and I'm gonna whip some ass. Wait till I get to the bottom line. I'll show you how as bad of an investor as I am. I'm bad. I'm bad. I'm not doing too shabby. Okay? Imagine what you can do with all of your glorious wisdom. Just imagine what you can do. Imagine the impact that you can make not only on yourself, but humanity as a whole. Yeah? Start a YouTube channel for yourself. Share that infinite wisdom, man. I'll turn on, okay? Tune into me and say, man, Ryan, you motivated me to start a YouTube channel, man. You spoke to me one night. You really gave credence to my $1,200 that I've gotten savings. Or actually, maybe I looked at it and I determined that I was actually in debt. For the first time in my life, I actually was able to look in the mirror and say, I don't have any money. I've got a couple of depreciating cars in the driveway and I've got a big ass house that every now and then, usually during Christmas and holidays, I get to brag to all of my family and friends that I own, but I don't really own it. See, the bank does. But as far as my personal wealth, all of the things that I go through line item and it goes into my net worth, I really don't have a lot of that, Ryan. I don't have a lot. Mm, yeah. Build, brick by brick. When you've done that, this will all make sense for you, okay? That's the thing is I don't know if we're at a place now where I can deem retail investors to have the ample knowledge to look at the investing opportunity as commonplace. They don't. They look at it as abnormal. They look at it as an activity only for the rich. They look at it as it's gambling. Happy! It's gambling, right? We can't do that crazy. It's stocky, stocky, stocky thing. These YouTubers, they're ruining people. No, we're not. No, we're not. I started this account two and a half years ago with $1,500. It's $22,691 right now. This is passive wealth. I've never touched this. Never. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. You're lucky, Ryan. Okay, I'm lucky. You're a bad investor. Fine, I'm bad. Good. Let's look at the next portfolio. This was started about two years ago. Two years ago. This has got, I can't see, but it's got about $30,000 to $7,000. Anyway, compare that. I know that there's young people out there that are 21, 22, 23 years old who would have had the opportunity to start investing at 18, 19, 20 years old. And they would tune into my message and say, this old foggy doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't even need to tell me what to do with mine. The thing that's funny about it is I don't care. I don't care. I'm trying to help you. Make whatever decisions. If by nature of making the decisions that you have to make, you're able to render success far beyond what it is that you could have achieved doing maybe, I don't know, a path that I'm demonstrating for you, then great. I wish you all the best. The sheer reality is, and I truly believe this, I think over the next 20 years, this woke generation, this generation that seemingly just hard work they avoided. Nobody wants to join the military now. Nobody wants to join the military. I couldn't believe it. It came out of left field, man, to me. And I was like, I've been in 17 years. I said, you gotta be kidding me, man. We gotta give away opportunity that I fought for and it's been a blessing in my life for my entire life. You kidding me? Is that where we are right now? That's representative society now. Yeah, young kids don't wanna work. And I'm sure there's kids out there that are gonna watch this. They're gonna be like, you asshole. I wanna work, I wanna work hard. I'm not saying it's all. I'm not saying that. But you would have probably got that from the people who raised you. Because if you got it from society or you got it from YouTube or social media, you would believe that everybody out there is driving a viper, everybody. And I'm here to tell you, man, the sheer reality is that most people in this life will do whatever it is they need to do to discover failure. They will. Mark my word. You have to fight every single day to keep that strategic edge to stay on the front end of that wave. I know I'm a successful person. And if I digress just a little bit, my mind tells me to get up off of my ass and make it happen. That's the type of ferocity that you have to operate with. And a lot of people may look at it and say, man, this guy's crazy. I don't wanna operate at that level. I can't do that. Okay, this guy must be on something. No, I'm not. Coffee. I have coffee. I'm naturally motivated. I'm naturally aspirated. I encourage you to get there, but this is wealth building. I got a dividend email today. I think it was like 12 bucks. 12 bucks. This is a hundred holdings of the best dividends that you can possibly get. And I do share this portfolio. I put it out there on the live stream. There'll be a thousand people that watch this. It's funny. You wanna know how many people have ever asked me for this? You wanna know how many people? You'd say hundreds, right, Ryan? It's, you charge for it, right? I'd pay you 25 bucks. No, no, I give it away for free. You wanna know how many people have asked me for it? One. One person. One person. And that's probably indicative to the statistics that would back me up to suggest that retail community will never ever hold the bar or be able to hold water with the standards that are necessary to succeed in stock market investing. That's the damnable truth. Chew on it. This is why I'm so aggressive because I do believe that there is a path. I do believe that there is a way. I do believe that there is fundamentals that we can increase. We can flip the odds on their ear. We can turn it around. We can put people who see it see themselves as their best product, their best brand, okay? This is mine. You can't add it. It's mine. But think about your own personal brand. Think about that one thing that you bring to the table that's worth sharing with the world or at least admitting to yourself that you bring to the table. Look in the mirror and tell you, man, hell, I'm good at this, man. I'm good at music. I'm good at reading and writing. I'm good at mathematics. I'm good at technology. Hell, I'm not good at any of those things. I'm good at this. I'm good at this. And I can stare right across from a YouTube audience and tell you, I'm good at it. If we can increase the odds for people, man, and we can show people that way to that prosperity, that is key. If I could go back and do it again, man, I would be wealth building in this manner. This is a dividend growth strategy. Very, very simple. My top three holdings I believe are AMGEN, VISA, and McDonald's. Those are the top three holdings. There's a hundred holdings in this. Hit me up via email. I'll send you the portfolio and it's entirely free of charge. We're looking to empower one investor at a time. And if you're a new investor and you're making your way to me for the first time, either you've shut me off, which is fine. You fall into the category of people who will never get people like me. No problem. I bid you all the best. But for those of you who do tune in and you're like, is this what investing can be about? Maybe it's not what it is that I've heard it to be about. This guy breaks it down to be a lot more accessible. A lot more manageable. The portfolio I just showed you before, this one, no management, nothing. I pay zero for this. I take that back. I pay 0.09 is the aggregate of these sector specialty ETFs, about 0.09 of expense, i.e. insignificant. In the dividend growth portfolio, you wanna take a stab at what my expense ratio is? Zero. We looked to challenge a system that would charge you. The TSP, I talked about it at the very top, man. They have also sold out. I read the first article this week from Vanguard of all things. Buggles turning in his freaking grave, baby. Talking about how management is the key to a successful future and that people who go with management will end up better off over time. Now, the disclaimer was even funnier. It was as a result of a white paper trying to sell the managed service on the Vanguard side. Because if you haven't noticed, my most popular video on YouTube compared VTI to the, excuse me, if you look at the index funds and the ETFs, which are the best products that Vanguard has, kick over to their managed mutual fund side. They're actually very expensive. Why would you opt for those? Why would you opt for those? It only erodes your wealth over time and this white paper was aimed to provide visibility because everybody's hip to the procedure now, man. They're being provided a VTI product or a VTSAX product that is extremely anemic. And I think even Vanguard's getting tired of it. That's all good. I'm an independent investor, man. You give me that Vanguard product and my little Mitch here in Chesapeake, Virginia, I'm good to go. Thank you very much, Vanguard. You've just empowered the independent investor channel. And look, I come on every single week and I blow it out to a worldwide audience. So the secret's out. You wanna go with a managed financial planning institution that's gonna charge you 3% over your life. It will erode your wealth and it will cost you money contrary to what the white paper would suggest, all right? Bond portfolio hanging in there down at two, three bucks. Nothing big. This holds in. This is fixed income, guys, not a big deal. The TSP after all of that is up close to 3%. I am up and this just really speaks to all of the risk tolerance that I have had to exercise over the last year or so. Was it necessary? Was the pursuance of higher than average returns and to incur losses greater than what the indexes could return, was it worth it? Was it worth it? I would say for the masses, no. I would suggest perhaps maybe when you tune into my message and you tune into how it is I seek my exposure to the market, don't try to follow me, don't. You can take different elements and aspects of my program but I wouldn't wish anybody the challenge of following me. I can barely keep up with myself every now and then, okay? I do this with ferocity and I'm just the guy to do it. This makes sense for me. It may not make sense for a lot of others out there but this just speaks to the power of those folks out there that have the 401ks, 403s, 457s for the teachers and healthcare workers, et cetera, across the bar, 403s, right? A TSP for government workers and military alike. This is actually freaking up year over year. Right now, excuse me, year to date. Year to date, this is up 2%, incredible, just incredible. VUG here, this is the Vanguard's growth ETF. This is a good one. I started these to be a little exploratory. To be honest with you, I'm a verdict to still out. I'll still enjoy the accounts, it's fine. I typically don't like to be so spread out but I did want to explore these accounts. Robinhood does not impress me. I'm sorry. For all the 20 million lemmings that are on Robinhood, I don't know what the appeal is. I don't get it. It's like being part of a cartoon. Anyway, here's Webull. This is the mid caps ETF, 1177. Nothing too big in here. Here's secure private data. This is a good one in Charles Schwab. It was one of the only accounts I could pick up the micro cap in. Crypto, my worst trade in the last five years. Just, I went completely away from my strategy and I'm not saying this won't work out or well, I don't really give a shit at this point. I don't really care. I really don't. This was the worst investment. I've made some, you know, on the books, some poor investments and I've made up for them. Over time, I mean, three years ago, you would have said ExxonMobil was a bad investment. Look how that worked out. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. You know, some of these investments that I'm sitting on in oil right now are up over a hundred percent. It's silly, conical Phillips to name a few. Marathon Petroleum, a couple of others have just went off the hook. But crypto really just wish I would have not done that. That was outside of my profile. I'm not saying it's bad or good. I'm not saying it's bad or good for you, but for me, it did not work. But here's the bottom line, renderings here, $4.63, so I have no idea why you even follow me. I have no, here's the thing, man. I don't even care about this. I don't care. I've often said that renderings in a well-laid plan is the very pedigree that makes an investor who they are. And I'm very proud of this. And I sometimes have to remind myself of this when I go back and I look at where I was just three, four short years ago. Over the lifetime, that's a drop in the bucket. But me, I get caught up in the acute as well. And I hold myself to a very, very high standard. It's like, okay, I didn't really want to take a digression at this point, but I've weathered it pretty well. I've done everything right. I've strategically bought the market. Those two ETF funds and the dividend growth fund, we made strategic buys in those accounts. And we did it when everybody was talking about doom and gloom. So we've done it right. If it goes back there, I'll do the same damn thing again. No problem, I'll be there in the pocket. I'm not going anywhere, okay? And this is indicative of what happens when somebody remains in the pocket. And this is the commonplace methodology that is common amongst the really, really savvy investors that I earmark in the community. Matt's one of them, I'm calling out Matt tonight. He's one of those guys that gets it. He knows how important it is. He understands that as many of tens of thousands of dollars of days that he's had down, some of those days have crept up to $20,000 and $30,000 in a day down. How many of you guys could incur that? This is what you're signing up for, okay? Now if this is not for you and you don't want to be part of that, that is the sheer reality of it. Is it not Matt, okay? And he's not invested in willy-nilly stuff, guys. This is top tier products. We're talking about the Nasdaq. We're talking about some small cap. We're talking about dividends. We're talking about dividend growth. We're talking about major large cap companies that he holds big stakes in. That's just how it is. Nobody is immune to hiding from the volatility during times like this, okay? And it's revolving around these very realities that'll help make us tougher. When you get involved at that first $500 level, what is it that you truly expect? Do you expect to be at that first $10,000 at some point? Sure you do. Do you expect to be at that $25,000, $50,000, $100,000 level? Yeah, maybe a little trickier. But now I've got your attention because you're like, why are you talking $100,000? I'll never have that. You keep telling yourself that. Keep telling yourself that. In the short term, get to that first $10,000. You'd be happy that you did. You may surprise yourself about your own capability. You expect yourself to get to a quarter million dollars of net worth in your portfolio. And now we're talking about some serious stuff indicative of what a lot of retail investors are in able, unable, capable, yes, but mentally not able to do. They are capable, but they're just not mentally able. And they'll fail to meet those milestones. And then we start talking about 500,000 and three quarter million and the inevitable million now, it's ironic to me how everybody throws the million thing out. I just wanna do what I love to do, Ryan. I'm gonna be a millionaire because I'm on Instagram and it seems like everybody's a millionaire on Instagram now. I think you're gonna wake up one of these days when you're 35 or 40 years old and you're gonna realize that you're not a millionaire. And you should have probably spent some of your early life getting some of those fundamentals to find in your life as opposed to following those pipe dreams because I've always contended to get to that first million dollars you've gotta achieve your first $10,000 and let me tell you, it takes a lot of stacks of 10,000 to get to 100,000, let alone a million, okay? Some sheer reality for you and some tough love. That's the portfolio review for you guys. You get in here, rip out some comments here. I'm very cool. Rebecca is in the, she says, I'm sorry, I'm just tuning in now and boom, she gets a cameo. She's in the group. Oh, Becky's fabulous. It's just one of those incredible wealth builders that I know who has worked really, really hard over her life and is representative of a lot of others out there. And I use her as an example of the beautiful people out there that are working hard, looking to build wealth and have a financially secure future. That's it. And that is special. It really is. Where sometimes we focus on all the wrong stuff. Becky just represents all the right stuff. It's the highest compliment I can provide for this lady. It's great to see you, Becky. Thanks for stopping in. Really appreciate it. And dark shadows in the house, man. That's freaking awesome. Army man is in the house, man. I salute you, brother. That's fantastic. Love it, man. Welcome to the community. Welcome to the live stream. I appreciate it, man. Very cool. You guys have pounded in some comments here in the bottom. Let me cruise up here. See if I can get to some comments in the last few minutes. I do apologize. I was trying to say Hylion with his anime. There it is. I think Hylion needs to work closer with Plug to build the refueling right. I think you need to do some more homework. I try to stray away from a little bit of the Hylion dialogue during the live stream. I really do because I come out with that product. But my live stream has to be a lot more holistic. That way, if I have somebody that's 18 years old come in here and wants to understand a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of investing, then I can capture that mind. If they're truly willing to listen, I'm willing to meet you 50-50. I have a 50-50 rule, okay? I can sometimes go beyond 50 because I'm very motivational, but you've got to be willing to render some reciprocation, man. Okay? And I will be quick to say that I will not do it for you. I will not. You're going to have to be the one to do this for you. But I try to keep the live stream a little bit more neutral on my application. And there's my brother. Appreciate it. Give him a little cameo time while I take a little drink. We're building up a pretty special network here, guys. If you don't sense that there is something going on here, it's not just about me. It's about a wonderful network here that we're part of. And we're all trying to build something special. At the top of the iceberg, those network patrons like Kyle and a few others are really trying to accelerate that so we can leverage up into the next level and really take our message to a grander audience because I do enjoy the live stream, but to be honest with you, the message that I put down every Friday is worth a hell of a lot more than what I get, at least in way of monetary compensation. The reciprocation I get from people saying, hey, I enjoy it, gives me motivation, et cetera, et cetera. That's all great. That's lovely. It's really satisfying for me to get that, but this has the power to change lives. And I don't say that apologetic. I do not. People need to get kicked in the face with reality. They do. And I deliver that every Friday. I do. And if you don't like it or that seems pompous to you, then you can go find whatever it is you're looking for on YouTube on 500 other opportunities because you're only going to find one I do, only one that I can guarantee it. All right. That's simple as that. All right. Ryan should run for mayor. I'm a little above a mayor level. I really am. I think I'm enjoying being the CEO of my own company right now, to be honest with you. This runs my way. Right now I'm running really lean to be honest with you. I'm a little disappointed. I think if I had more time in my day, remember how I talked about my day is focused on raising kids and swimming with them at the pool. I have to devote time to that guys. I don't have time to wake up and just start cranking out YouTube. If I did, I would. I just don't have the time, nor do I want to devote the time to this. That's why you get my very best on the Friday live stream because I'm fired up to produce content. I really am. But right now I'm kind of lean and I'm getting a bridge to something a little bit better once time kind of progresses a little bit. Portfolios have a chance to really solidify what it is that I'm talking about. The verdict is out with me. If my program doesn't work, I will shut the independent investor channel down all together and I'll give you to the whims of the ways of social media all the way through. You can tune into and put a hodge podge meet Kevin and Jeremy with financial education and Graham Stephan all in a pot and you can mix them up and you can drink that Kool-Aid all you want. Like I said, there's only one of me. There's only one. And I know for a fact there's people after that watch me that are like, you know what Ryan? I hear you. I do work hard. I'm glad that somebody comes on and actually has a voice for me. And I think that's special. And I'll continue to beat that drum cause I do believe that it is in fact special. Catching the live from UK fantastic with the heck times that they're man it's on my bucket list. We really want to go there. And once I hang this deal up, man I will be attending. I will be over in Europe for a prolonged amount of time undetermined at this point. But I certainly have some business here and the UK is certainly at the top of that and my significant others bucket list for sure to check out. I appreciate you coming in Ross. Thanks a lot, man. Really appreciate it. Was reading how Trevor men voted. Of course he does. He doesn't want to ruin the value of the shares that he's been bestowed for being just a complete asshole of a person, right? Luck and timing. Okay. I never accused Trevor Milton of being a hard worker or being a good person. Luck and timing turned him into what? A multi-million, multi-millionaire, 100-millionaire. I don't think he's a billionaire, but luck and timing did very well. The unfortunate part of for Mr. Milton is he's probably one of the most hated people on the earth. Yeah. How would you like to wake up and have that type of karma? That's lovely. What contributions did you make? Well, I lied to millions of investors. That was my contribution to society. Just lovely. And Victor's in the house. Great to see you, my friend. Look at a couple of minutes left here cruising through. I was kind of on a rant tonight, and I do appreciate you guys giving me the long leash to unleash the fury tonight. I really do. Ross has great message. I thank you. Eric retired in 2008. Yeah, but he's still working hard, man. It's all good. Eric's the man. Dude, I love this guy. He reminds me of my people when I talk to him. It's awesome. It's really cool. Yeah, I'd love to have some backyard barbecue with this guy, man, for sure. We're live after Ryan's. There's the Daisy chain. If you guys want to keep the party going, man, to make sure and kick over. This is the top of the pyramid that I talk about with regard to our network on social media. It's not just me. The war is too big to fight alone. And I have really bought into this philosophy that what Matt can say in his message or Kyle or Jason or some of the other ones in the close knit community that we have, then you can hear it from these guys as opposed to just my singular message. And I support them 100%, man. These guys are my brothers and some of my sisters here as well as some of the female content creators here also in the group. I saw Rebecca in the group as well, some very, very astute investors building wealth for themselves and their families. So I really want to thank you. I take this opportunity to last 45 seconds to invite you to what has been an interesting growth spurt in the Viper group. Our VIP group is very inexpensive. Cost you a few bucks a month. If you do join the Patreon group, I give you free access to the WhatsApp group, which is really the flagship day to day comms that we have. It does make you eligible for a meeting with me via Zoom for a coaching and life session, whether or not we look at financials, review, budget, et cetera. I'll look at it with my lens and we'll have an open candid discussion just like this forum that we're doing here. I would invite you to check out those venues and others as well. If you haven't checked out my podcast, please do so. Everything will link to those opportunities on the front page of the Independent Investor Channel. And in closing guys, I really wanted to hit home. We scratched the surface all too often on this project. I revolve around the same core message, but in a thousand different ways. I revolve around this core nucleus and I'm a big proponent on results and not so much words. The live stream is full of karate chappan and grab you by the ears and a lot of words, but I'm very, very keen on providing that tutelage guidance and coaching and mentorship for that opportunity for people to realize real success in their lives, real financial building, real wealth, not pipe dreams, not luck. Minimize those necessities for luck and timing and put luck on your side by adhering to those tried and true fundamentals that I've been proven to work over time guys. You're only gonna hear it from me in my way because there only is one I too on social media and in the grander world. And I just appreciate your guys's continued support here week over week. We will be back next week on the Independent Investor Channel fast to 60 minutes on YouTube. Guys, be well, take it easy. We'll catch you next week.