 Welcome back to the 21 Convention 2019 of Orlando, Florida. Our next speaker is the author of Hard Times, Create Strong Men. He's also the 2014 winner of the Rich Dad Hall of Fame. He's also a real estate investor and self-made millionaire. Without further ado, please let me welcome for the first time to the 21 Convention stage, Stefan Arneo. Oh, sir. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Anthony. All right, gents, in the back, this isn't like high school on the bus. Come to the front. Guys, get up. Let's come to the front. This is a better speech. It's going to be a better experience if you guys come up. So come on up. I'm inviting you up here, guys. Thank you for sitting up front. Now, today I had to figure out what kind of speech am I going to give? I haven't been to the 21 Convention before, but I got to say, guys, it's a great event. Anthony, can we give him a round of applause? Round of applause for Anthony. My friend, Jack Donovan, I saw him on Instagram. He's talking about the 21 Convention in Poland. I sent him a DM. I said, Jack, what's this thing? He goes, it's a secret convention. It's in a secret location. We can't show the guy's faces. So I said, hey, it's good. I got a go. So here we are. Now, I had to figure out what I was going to speak to you guys about today because, as Anthony said, I am a money guy. So I've made money in real estate, self-made millionaire before the age of 30. And I came up with this book called Hard Times Creates Strong Men. Anybody in here read it yet? Okay, great. So Hard Times Creates Strong Men came up with that book. 2017, it made a big splash, sold out of it twice actually. So we're on to the third run. And I was watching some of your presentations this weekend. I gotta say, I watched some of the ones on the internet, some of the most popular ones. And you guys like talking about picking up chicks. So it seems to me that's the number one thing is picking up chicks, picking up chicks. So for you guys today, my speech today is about reaching your potential as a man. And I really appreciate you took a lot of notes. The notes are for you, not for me. When you write something down, you're gonna retain 70% of what you write down. When you just listen though, you're only gonna retain 10%. So go ahead and take lots of notes today. Now my speech today guys is not the following. Number one, it's not about the 40 day water fast I did in the jungle last year. 40 days, no food, just water for 40 days. I won't be talking about that, but if you wanna talk about it, we can talk about it later. Number two, it's not gonna be about beating cancer last year in the jungle. My doctor told me I'd be dead in two weeks. She said, if you go on chemotherapy right now, you're gonna have a 2% chance of living in the next five years. I said, sorry, went to the jungle fasted, came back, cancer was gone. We won't be talking about that, although it's a cool story. We're not gonna be talking about how I had eight girlfriends at one time and was a big womanizer. I know some of you guys probably wanna talk about picking up girls. We can talk about that, but we won't be talking about that today. It's not gonna be about becoming a self-made millionaire before 30, although some of you guys wanna make money. We'll talk about money a little bit today. I noticed that a lot of speakers this weekend talked about how having money is important as a man, but not a lot talked about how to actually make money. So we'll talk about money a little bit. And the last one, this speech is not about slaying pussy and becoming a pussy slayer. Sorry, gents. But what we will talk about is reaching your potential as a man. Now here's the key. If you reach your potential as a man, if you build yourself, if you invest in yourself, if you bet on yourself and grow yourself more than anyone else, you can have all the above. You can have the health, you can have the wealth, you can have the happiness, you can have the eight girlfriends if you want that, you can have the good relationship. But the key is if you don't invest in you, who else will? This life, guys, this life that you're in right now is a game and he who invests in himself most wins. I gotta applaud you for being here this weekend because there's other guys at home eating Cheerios and watching cartoons on Sunday morning. There's other guys who are up late partying all night. They didn't come in this morning. You guys are here investing in yourself so you're doing the right thing. Now my book, the title is Hard Times Create Strong Men. Strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create hard times. Who's heard that little poem before? Okay, good. That's by a friend of mine, G. Michael Hopf. I had G. Michael on my podcast some weeks ago. He's a writer. I think he's written a ton of books and that little cycle, that little truism is the cycles of history and that cycle takes about 80 years to go around. Now I'm a real estate guy and I made my first million dollars in real estate before the age of 30. I started out with $1,200 of cash and I was a guitar teacher when I was 22 years old. I went to school. I went to school for, first it was a musician. I wanted to be a rock star when I was 16. I said, mom, dad, I want to be a rock star. I want to be a rock star. My mom said, that's a horrible idea. My dad said, that's a horrible idea, but we support you. Go to music school and then maybe if you go to music school, you can become a rock star. That's bad logic. I ended up going to music school. I went to the jazz program, learned to play the double bass, electric bass, became a guitar teacher. I took a job as a guitar teacher. I didn't even know how to play guitar, but I took one lesson right before the kids were coming in. So I teach them what I learned the last week. That's how to be a guitar teacher. Just stay one lesson ahead. You'll be fine. So I was a guitar teacher making $10,000 a year in my mom's living room. Parents were divorced. I was living at my mom's house and I had this burning desire to be rich and famous. I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be famous. Of course, if you want to be a rock star, there's some rich and famous that you want there. And so I went to the music school. I was in the jazz program and after six months I dropped out of that. And then I went next to the business school. I said, well, if I can't be a musician, maybe I'll go and I'll learn how to issue stock on the stock market and become like the Wolf of Wall Street. This is way before the Wolf of Wall Street came out. But I wanted to issue stock, sell stock. They didn't have that course so I dropped out of the business school. Then I went to computer science. I got good grades there, but I dropped out of that. And finally I went to the registrar of the university. I said, how do I get out of here without shaming my parents? She said, if you take two poetry classes, you get an English degree. So I went and took two poetry classes, got an English degree. And after school, it was 2008, I was making $11 an hour answering the phone, selling luxury hotel rooms to rich people in a call center in Winnipeg. And I was done at three, four, five in the morning so the company would pay for a cab ride home. And I realized my life at age 22 had become a complete and utter failure. I wanted to be a rock star and at age 22 I'm working in this motherfucking call center making $11 an hour and there was this big dissonance in my mind between where I wanted to be and where I was. So I lay on the couch for three months, had post-grad depression. And then finally, I read this little book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. Anybody read Rich Dad Poor Dad? I read Rich Dad Poor Dad and it said, anybody can become rich if they build a business and invest in real estate. I said, hey, that sounds good to me. I'd like some of that passive income. Anybody in here like passive income? Okay, good. We'll talk about that a little bit today. I thought passive income, that sounds good. When I go to the mailbox, I got all these checks from these guitar students, but I have to stay in this motherfucking living room and teach these kids every week. And what's interesting is the guys who signed up for guitar, they just really wanted to pick up girls. So we're teaching guys how to play guitar to get girls. That was the business. So I got these checks and I'm like, I'd like to get these checks passively without having to sit in this living room. So I ended up selling all my music gear. I went and took a real estate seminar. It was a Donald Trump two day weekend real estate seminar. Spent all my money on it. And whatever you think about Trump, you might like them, you might hate them. It was a pretty good seminar actually. And I kept going down that path. I was at age 22, $1,200 down on my very first two bed, one bath house by 28 and a half became a self-made millionaire. So we will talk about money a little bit, this speech. But the reason why I wrote a men's book is this. I've written four business books now. I have won Rich Dad Hall of Fame 2014, written several money books and business books. In fact, I'm gonna give everybody this weekend a copy of my first book, Money People Deal. We sold over 20,000 copies. Everybody this weekend, if you come to the booth, I'm gonna give you one of these. And this is how to partner, how to create real estate deals, how to create wealth. Because here's the thing, guys, write this down. All wealth is created, you will not save your way to wealth. It's impossible to save your way to wealth. Especially nowadays, I don't know if you read the news, the Fed, the Federal Reserve, is printing $100 billion a day right now. So if you're saving money, fuck you, you're done. You cannot save money anymore, guys. It's impossible to save, so you must create value. Create more, create more, create more. Maybe you wanna write a book. You gotta create value. Maybe you wanna be in real estate. Create real estate deals. You have to create now, because the Fed is gonna print you into oblivion. So I had this career in real estate investing, became very good at flipping houses, built a multi-million dollar portfolio for myself, nice passive income. And then what happened was I went to the jungle and I fasted for 18 days one year. I had some health issues. My colon was bleeding. I had ulcerative colitis, so I wanted to cure that. I went to the jungle, fasted for 18 days. So no food for 18 days. I came out of the jungle and these young little boys that were working for me, 20 years old, 21, 22 years old, ganged up on me, these little employees of mine. So I came out of the jungle. I'm standing around the boardroom, talking to my staff. I had a staff of eight at the time. And the young boys said, I don't like you. You're mean. This isn't my dream. This isn't what I wanna do with my life. I'd rather go traveling. All this bullshit. And I thought I was coaching my 15 year old girl's volleyball team because that's what it sounded like. And I said, what the fuck are these young men saying? Where did these guys get this stuff? So I sat the men down. I had a three hour lecture with them of how to be a man. Never thought I'd be having a how to be a man talk with my staff. Three hour lecture. Another day went by. We did another three hour lecture the next day. The boys need another tune up. And what I realized after six hours of lecturing these young 20 year old guys on how to be men is that the boys never had fathers. That's something to write down guys. We're living in a fatherless society right now. The boys never had fathers and their fathers never had fathers. Now it doesn't matter how good your mummy is, your mummy can never teach you how to be a man. Your feminine school teacher, who's a woman who teaches you how to sing songs and play the xylophone and music class is not gonna teach you how to be a fucking man. It's never ever happening. So I sat down and started to write because I didn't wanna give the speech again. I never wanted to give the how to be a man talk ever again. I said I'm gonna write this down into a book. I went to my condo 11 days later. Hard times create strong men was written. Now this is a 624 page book. I think it weighs 800 or 900 grams. That's about two pounds for you Americans that don't know what grams are. I'm Canadian by the way. It's a two pound book, 151,000 words. It's what is a man in money, sex, religion, politics. Those four powerful subjects, gents, yes or yes? Yes. Think the young men might need to know that. Now it also has lots of violence. It also has killing. So it's rated R. It's not for pussies. It says right on the front. If you're easily offended, burn this book. Don't read it. We've had zero book burnings by the way. So zero have been burned, 98% five star reviews on Amazon. So I wrote this book because the young men didn't have fathers. And what this talk is, the hard times create strong men talk is this is the talk that a father would have with his son in the garage, away from the women, away from his daughter and away from his wife. Now gentlemen, is that gonna be a different talk than the politically correct? I love you mommy and I love you daughter talk, yes or yes? It's gonna be a little different. It's gonna have some fucking swears in it. It's gonna have some naked girls. It's gonna have all the good stuff that you guys go to Hollywood and you pay 15 bucks to see a movie on the weekend. So I made sure I had an illustrator draw a whole bunch of naked girls and cool shit in the book so that when you're gonna spend 15 bucks at the movies to go see some titties, you can come see it in hard times, create strong men instead. We're competing with Hollywood. Jack Donovan said a brilliant thing on the weekend in his talk, he said, we are competing with million dollar budgets for attention. So we have to make our content good. We have to make our books good. We have to make our stories good so people wanna read it. Now I'm gonna say it again. This is the cycle of history in case you didn't get it the first time. It's an 80 year cycle. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. Now if you haven't got the book yet, page 401, I've got this cycle of history. I'll break it down for you here. Every 80 years, this is something to write down, every 80 years, humanity forgets everything it knows. Because what happens is, the people who lived through World War II, my grandmother who's 99 years old, bless her heart now, is blind and deaf, lived through World War II and all the horrors of it, is now dying. She doesn't wanna live anymore. She'll be gone soon. Bless her heart, great lady. But the people who lived through the communist Russia, the 20 million people killed in communist Russia, they're not around anymore. The people who fought on D-Day, they're not around anymore. The guys who had to bust into the death camps and bail out all those skeleton people that were emaciated from not eating, they're not around anymore. And what happens in our society is, every 80 years, we forget everything. So we repeat history because we forgot. We forgot how bad communism was. We forgot how bad World War II was. We forgot how bad it really was because hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. Now, for those of you who can't see, 1940 was the last time we had hard times create strong men. If you wanna know where you're at in history, just take your current year and subtract 80 years. It's 2019, subtract 80 from that. What year is that? 1939. If history repeats itself, are we gonna see some bad shit pretty soon? Yes or yes? Why? Because we forgot. History is the same story over and over again with different costumes. That's something to write down too, gents. History is the same story over and over again with different costumes. So 1940, every part of the poem is 20 years. So the first generation, hard times create strong men. This is the World War II generation. This is the greatest generation. When they were 10 years old, they were in the Great Depression. When they were 20, they were in a war. After the war, the men came home, one arm, one leg built a house with his bare hands, married his high school sweetheart, sired four children, worked at a factory for 40 years, paid for everything. Did he complain that he didn't like his work? No, and nobody fucking asked him if he was happy. He was killing Nazis on the beach with a bayonet. His friend was lit on fire. The boat beside him got strafed by a stuka and sunk. When he was 10, he was in the Great Depression. He was hungry. Do you think he whined like a little bitch? I'm hungry? He went through the fucking Great Depression, you guys. We got all these soy boys and the millennials. I'm a millennial now, I beat on millennials. But we complain, oh, this isn't that fun. It's not engaging enough. It's not something I want. It's not my dream. Fuck you. Nobody cares about your dreams. Guys in history, nobody asked the men if they were happy. Zero times they asked the men. I like the Navy SEAL we had up here before. The walking arms in the ocean, in the freezing cold water, nobody asked the Navy SEALs if they were happy doing that. And if you're cold in the water, come to Winnipeg where I live. It's pretty fucking cold, minus 40. You pull the handle of your car, it rips off. We don't have homeless people because they just die. 1940, hard times create strong men. 20 years later, we're in the boom time, 1960. America was the superpower of the world. Key is was, write that down. America was the superpower in 1960. That was the golden age. I'm gonna talk more about why it was the golden age. It was literally gold. 1960 is the mad men era. That's where everybody had purchasing power. Everybody had money. A man could go get a job at a factory, not be so smart. Marry a woman, have a house and a cottage and a car or two cars, they could have a white picket fence. They could have a dog. They could have two, three, four children. Guys, are those days gone? Yeah, the American dream sadly is dead and I'll tell you why. It's because the fucking Federal Reserve is printing $100 billion a day. No matter how hard you work, you can't beat that. So we're gonna talk about some ways that you can. 1960, so strong men create good times. We go to 1980, this is the peak. Good times create weak men. This is where Wall Street comes out. Starts doing bullshit with our money. We're off the gold standard. Things start declining. 2000, weak men create hard times. You got bullshit like George Bush just having wars for no reason. You got guys like Barack Obama being president in that cycle and look where it takes us. 2020, hard times create strong men. So guys, are we gonna have some problems pretty soon? If 80 years is a cycle of history, is it gonna get bad soon? It's gonna get bad. Here's the thing, there's an 80 year cycle of war. So if it's every 80 years, what are we gonna have? A war, now really war happens every 20 years. There's a big war, but the big war is every 80 years. So four cycles is the big war. Now, 80 years before World War II, what war was that? American Civil War. So we've had a civil war in America, guys. Could there be another one soon? The way the politics is going in this country, the left is getting violent and the right is probably gonna get violent too. It could happen. There's another cycle I want you to know about I put in the book. 250 years is the lifespan of democracy. So write that down, 250 years is the lifespan of democracy. And we have an 80 year cycle of war, which is ending in 2020 and we have a 250 year lifespan of democracy. America was born in 1776. So if you add 250 to 1776, you get 2026. Now what happens in history, Aristotle said this. He says that masculine republics give way to feminine democracies and feminine democracies give way to tyranny. America's a republic, yes or yes? Is it giving way to feminine democracy right now? So what's gonna happen next? Tyranny. So some of you guys might not like President Trump. He might be Emperor Trump. And you laugh, but there's a couple ways to do that. One is martial law. If it's a war, you don't change the president. That's one way. Another way is he could elect Don Jr. and then become the prime minister like Vladimir Putin did. Putin, as the president of Russia, was supposed to step down, but he's still there. Julius Caesar in Rome. Do you remember Rome? He became emperor by doing that. Guys, could this happen? Yes or yes? Okay, I'm just giving you numbers from history. This is history. Now, about you being a man, there's a story that's very important. It's called Jack in the Beanstalk. Whose mom he read that to them when they were younger? Okay, Jack in the Beanstalk. So Jack is a young man and he's entrusted to his mother. He lives alone with his mother. Soyboy Jack, millennial living at home with his mom and his mom, single mom, is poor. Our single mom's poor today still, guys. Don't date single moms. You know, laughing at my joke, that's a serious thing. So Jack's at home with his single mother and he's got his mom's last skinny cow and he's supposed to take this cow to market and trade that cow in for something important. So she says, Jack, you're the man of the house. You're gonna now take this cow and trade it in for something. He takes the cow to market and he trades it in for some magic beans. He comes home and he shows his mother what he bought. He says, look, mom, I got these three magic beans. And she says, Jack, you're such an idiot. Takes the beans, throws them out the window. You go to bed with no supper. Next morning, Jack gets up outside the window. There's a magical Beanstalk. So Jack gets out the window, starts climbing up this Beanstalk and up the Beanstalk is a castle. And inside the castle, there's a giant. And the giant is huge. He's booming. He says, Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread. And in this castle, Jack finds three things that make him a man. He finds the singing harp and he steals it from the giant. He finds the golden goose that lays golden eggs and he steals it from the giant. And he finds a princess locked up in the castle and he steals it from the giant. The giant finds out about this, chases Jack down, Jack runs down the Beanstalk, chops down that Beanstalk. The Beanstalk falls down, the giant falls, breaks his neck and Jack has become a man. He is now Jack the giant slayer. Now you guys might be wondering why the fuck is this guy telling me a story that my mommy told me when I was seven years old or five years old? Here's what it means for you. What makes Jack a man? Three things. Number one, the singing harp. What does that represent? That's a man's calling in life. Write that down. It's his calling in life, his vocation. It's what he is meant to do in this life. Now independent from his vocation is the second thing on the list, the golden goose. The golden goose represents his ability to make money. The goose that lays the golden eggs. Now notice this guys, the vocation, his calling, his passion is different than his golden goose. So notice how this old story isn't saying follow your dreams, baby, you'll be a rock star. No, this story is telling you get a fucking job, dude. And in your off time, you can do your passion. So there's your passion, your vocation, which is separate from your golden goose. And because Jack now has a golden goose and a vocation, he now has his woman, his princess. Now some of you guys complain about women, they're cruel, they're expensive. I had a friend who asked me once, he said, Stefan, have you ever paid for sex? I said, well, Majid, we always pay for sex with time, money, effort, energy. Sex isn't free, do we agree, gents? Yeah, it's difficult to obtain sex. In fact, you have to earn sex as a man. We're gonna talk more about women next. This speech today, guys, is all about money and all about women. The book's about money, sex, religion, politics, but I watched what you guys like. You guys just wanna talk about sex the whole time. So I'm giving you some money because you're gonna need money to get the sex, but I know what you guys like. I get it, I like it too. Okay, what makes Jack a man? Now there's two more things here. The moment of becoming the man for Jack is when he takes responsibility for his life and he chops that beanstalk down, slaying the giant. So he becomes Jack the Giant Slayer. Now guys, the giant in your life, that's your problems, man. That's your demons. That's that insurmountable hurdle. I think the giant is actually Jack's father, kind of like Star Wars, Darth Vader versus Luke Skywalker, because every man has to kill his father and marry his mother. Write that down. That's called the Oedipus Complex. We're all trying to kill our father, marry our mother subconsciously. So Jack kills his father, marries his mother, and the moment he takes responsibility for his life is the moment he becomes a man. Now here's the trick question, guys. Are there guys out there? Are there motherfuckers out there who are 60 years old and still haven't taken responsibility for their life? Yeah. My father's one of them. So I had the weak man as a father. My mother divorced him. He wasn't making enough money. Guess what? That's a real thing, guys. If he don't make enough money, what's your woman gonna do? She's gonna say, fuck you. You're the man. Get the money. Now they talk about equality and feminism and women's rights and all this stuff. Guys, do women really want to be equal with you? No, women are hypergamous. Write that down. They're hypergamous. They want someone better than them. Do they want to actually split the bill with you? No, they want you to fucking pay. They want to know how hot they are. They want to be protected. They want to feel feminine. So you have to be the man. Now my father is 60 years old, still hasn't taken responsibility for his life. Are there guys out there who are 11 years old, their father's dead and they gotta be responsible right now? So is being a man about age or is it about responsibility? It's responsibility. So the moment you own everything in your life and you own even things that aren't even yours, that's when you become a man. And the size of man you are is in direct proportion to the amount of responsibility you take. I'm here talking to you guys today. This has nothing to do with my business in real estate. I just feel a need to talk to the men because we are really fucked up. Five years ago I would have never imagined writing a men's book. 10 years ago I wouldn't even imagine that there would be something like this or we would need this. But guys, is it really fucking bad out there for men right now? It's really bad and you know a conference like this and all men's conference shouldn't exist because we should have proper fathers and we should have proper uncles and a local group of men that mentor us. I have a coaching and mentoring company that shouldn't exist but the men have been weakened in society. The men's groups have been disbanded. They're even putting girls in the boy scouts now. So girls have girl scouts and boy scouts now. And the men have no scouts. What the fuck? So it's harder than ever to be a man guys, harder than ever. Now the number one lesson in the book, first lesson in the book is a man's purpose is his work. Your masculine purpose is your work whereas a woman's feminine purpose is her family. Nobody respects a stay-at-home dad. Are there any stay-at-home dads here? If there were they wouldn't put their hands up. Okay, a masculine purpose for a man is his work. And here's the thing about your work guys, you might love your work, you might hate your work. 70% of people hate their work but it's manly to work. And maybe you're a guy who just sweeps floors, you better be the best damn floor sweeper. And maybe you're the guy who gets to stuff boxes, dildos into boxes at the dildo factory. But you better be the best dildo stuffer. Or maybe you're the guy who dips the dildo in the dye so it's got a nice pink penis head and you screw that on. You better be great at that job. Because if you're great at that, you're gonna get promoted to the next job at the factory. And eventually you'll get promoted to something you actually enjoy. So a man's purpose is his work above all things. And it's your duty to become as rich and powerful as possible. Some of you guys say, oh, I'm not interested, real estate. I don't need more money, it's okay. Now here's the problem gents. Women demand the potential of a man, a good woman. A good woman will demand your potential. Maybe you're making a hundred grand a year, when you start jerking off in the basement to teen porn and playing video games, your woman's gonna yell at you because she wants your potential. She wants you to make 200 grand a year. She wants to become better. She wants to become fitter. That's what a woman, when a woman's nagging you, that means she loves you. You might hate the nagging or maybe she withholds sex from you. You might hate that, but she's demanding your what? Your potential. And if you start wasting your potential as a man, that pisses women off. And if you piss her off enough, what's she gonna do? She's gonna go fuck some other man and now you're a cuck. Damn, it got quiet in here. That's serious because women are looking for the alpha tribal leader. They're looking for the king. And if you don't represent the king or at least a man who is in the pursuit of his potential, you're disqualified from women. So there's a big carrot and there's a big stick there. The big carrot is you get the woman, you get better women, in fact. The better you are in your potential, you're gonna get hotter women, harder to get women, more women. I used to not be able to get a date when I was 22, 23. And now I have a problem where women are just pulling in. In fact, I'm wearing this suit from one of my Instagram fans. She picked me up in LA. She said, I wanna take you out. She bought me this suit. That's some next level shit, guys, when she's buying you a velvet suit. I know, I know, bro. I didn't know that was a level. So it's your duty to become as rich and powerful as possible. Now here's the thing, guys. Your potential is 16 times what you currently make. Write that down. 16 times whatever you make in your life, 16 times is your potential. Because the average man does about 30 minutes of real work a day and the other seven and a half hours he fucks around mostly. And I know that because I'm a performance coach. I'm a real estate coach. I'm a business coach. You probably do about half an hour of real productive work. The rest of that you're fucking around. I wrote hard times, create strong men in 11 days. Some guys go, wow, how'd you do that? I was productive for 11 days. Now here's the thing. Some of you guys are not that smart. Some of you guys are not that pretty or handsome. Some of you, your potential will only be to run a gas station. And you'll be damn good at the gas station. That's your potential. Other guys are gonna have potential to be a billionaire. Other guys are gonna potentially be a great artist, a great writer, whatever it is. It's you versus you. That's where your potential is at. It's not you versus other men. Every man in here has a different journey. Every man has a different vocation. Every man has a different battle to fight, adventure to go on and beauty to win. It's different for every man. It's you versus you. That's one thing I love about the Navy Seals. I've had several Navy Seals on my podcast. And in the hell week, they run the men until they break psychologically. And then they keep running them and they break again and they break them again and they break them again and they break them again. And they want the 50 guys who can break the most. So if you can do 2,000 push-ups, they want 3,000. If you can do 1,000 chin-ups, they want 2,000 chin-ups. They just want the guys who can break the most. And that's your job, guys. You've got to be living just outside your edge a bit to the point where you're breaking. You don't want to live where you're breaking, but just be a little bit outside your edge. So you're always pushing your potential. I put up some Canadian numbers here because the American numbers are too high and too crazy. I don't want to freak you guys out, but this is something that the average man I think should be able to hit. Top 1% income earners. This is like normal people numbers. This isn't rock star superstar numbers. I put up the American numbers last night. Top 10th of a percent, $2.7 million take-home pay. That's some rock star shit there. But for the top 1%, guys, 250 grand is a top 1% income in Canada. That's a country with 35 million people. Top 1% is 250K. Top 4% is about 100 grand. Top 5% is 80 grand. Now here's the thing, guys, the men out there who have families and wives and women out there are really seeking the top 3% of men. Write that down. Women are seeking the top 3% because the top 3% of men can afford a family. And I tell this to my sales guys who live and work in my office, I bought a mansion. The young sales guys rent rooms from me in the mansion. It's the premier of Manitoba's house. For those who don't know what the premier is, that's like the governor. So I got the governor's house and I rent the rooms to young boys and I say, if you guys aren't making 100 grand, you can't afford a girlfriend. And you can move out when you're married. When you're married, move out. Stay away from the whoring. Stay away from the drinking. Stay away from the drugs. Get on your purpose. Get good at your purpose. So you need to be in one of these categories. Top 5%, top 4%, top 1%. How many of us in here want to be top 1%? Okay, now here's the key. If you want to be top 1%, I had a great guy on my podcast, Corey Ulyth out in Vancouver. He runs Grant Cardone Canada. You can get to the top 4% by training and discipline alone. Write that down. Training and discipline will get you to the top 4%. It'll get you 100 grand. But the transition from the 100 grand to the 250 grand is a key thing. That's where you have to get your whole life together. So that's usually where a guy gets married or he gets a girlfriend. He stops whoring. He stops drinking. He stops gambling. His home life is together. His meals are made. His bed is made. That's when he goes from 100 to 250. So it's interesting because women, when you add a woman to a man's life and she's demanding his purpose and you're living on purpose, that's where you're gonna go up to that 250. And even think about this. A stay-at-home mom or a stay-at-home wife, if she can get you from 100 to 250 grand, what's she worth? She's worth a buck 50. So why would you send her to work to be a fucking secretary for 30? Yeah, round of applause for that. Think about that. Right? And think about this. You get tax splitting advantages and a stay-at-home mom is worth 80 grand. So if your wife isn't making at least 80 or 100 grand, tell her to stay the fuck home and you can go to work and start hitting these real numbers. And guys, 250 grand to even live on that nowadays? Fuck, man. I make way more than this and I'm like, how the fuck do people live? I was in LA for a month. I was in Hollywood. Dude. There was a $45 pineapple at the store. Fuck. I don't know who's eating that pineapple, but not me. Now there's three things you need here guys to get wealthiest from my friend Dan Lok. I want you to draw this triangle down. Number one thing you need is a high-income skill. I teach house flipping. I teach sales. I teach negotiation. Those are all high-income skills. A high-income skill is something that can make you 100 grand or more. Might be copywriting. Might be marketing skills. I don't know, whatever your high-income skill is. Some of you guys are engineers or computer science guys, whatever. High-income skill is number one. Once you have your high-income skill, you gotta learn to invest in high-yield investments. This is where my company, Black Card, we train real estate investors. So if you're somebody who wants to be a real estate investor, by the way, this is me without the beard. I have the beard, went to the jungle. If you're somebody who wants to be a real estate investor, have passive income, you want the high-yield investments or you wanna flip houses, this is a place to go. Training with us is not cheap. The real coaching starts at 19,000, goes to 73,000. But if you spend 19 and make 60, is it a good deal? Of course. Now here's the thing guys, it's not for bitches. If you're a bitch, don't apply. If you're somebody who follows through and you have some integrity and you believe in yourself, then great, it's for you. If you're somebody who doesn't follow through and you're worried it's a scam, then stay home because you're the scam. You see what I did there? Seriously guys, that's an important thing. If you think something's a scam, that's a mirror looking into yourself, you're the scam. Because you're the guy with no integrity who doesn't follow through. Damn dude. Third part is you wanna build a scalable business. So once you have your high income skill and your high yield investments together, then you build a scalable business. You might never get there. Scalable business is where you become RFR. Anybody know what RFR stands for? It's an investing term. Really fucking rich. Write that down. If you wanna be RFR, really fucking rich, you build a scalable business. But don't do that first because if it doesn't work, you're gonna be broke. Now I wanna talk to you guys a little bit about the only real money in history. I brought with me a gold coin. Now who in here has never felt gold before? Everybody in here is fucking holding gold like a pirate? Like come on, who hasn't felt gold before? You sir, come up. Come up, run. Don't have a lot of time. Come on, come up here. So in my pocket here I've got real money. This is gold. Stand up here, come up. This is gold. And this is fiat currency. Fiat means fake. This is a Canadian dollar. We have coins in Canada. We don't have the fake $1 bills. So when you go to the strip club, you gotta put 20s in instead of ones. I know you guys are putting the ones in here in Florida. Okay, put your hands out, man. Okay, what do you wanna feel? Real money or fake money? I'll do the fake first. Okay, this is fake fucking money. Feel the fake money. Okay. You ready for the real money? Yeah. Fuck. He says. Okay? Go sit down. Thank you. Give a round of applause. Now here's the thing, guys. It takes 1800 of these Canadian dollars to get one of these gold ounces. The Canadian dollar is 70 cents on the US dollar, by the way. So it takes 1800 of these. Now the government prints on this. It's gonna take 50 of these. 50 of these to get one of these. Is the government lying to you? Can we get a big yes? The government is fucking lying to you. It takes 1800, not 50, because we're off the gold standard. That's a big problem nowadays. Big problem for you, because back in ancient Rome, gold never changes value, by the way. Write that down. Gold never changes value. It never goes up. When you see the price of gold go up, what that means is your money became weaker. So in ancient Rome, you can get a fine toga, a haircut, and a pair of sandals for a piece of gold. In today's world, you can get a finely tailored suit, a haircut, and a pair of shoes for an ounce of gold. So gold never changes. But here's what changes. Look at this, 1968. Gold, write these numbers down. Gold was $39.31. It took you at minimum wage of $1.25 to make a piece of gold. 31 hours to get a piece of gold. At McDonald's, being the dumbest guy ever, flipping burgers, 31 hours. Today, federal minimum wage in the United States, by the way, it hasn't gone up in the last couple of years. $7.25, nobody can live on that. It takes you 174 hours to get the same gold. It used to take 30 hours in the 60s. Now it takes 174 hours. Guys, can you work and make it these days? Can we say no? No, so you have to start owning some real estate. You've got to get smart. You've got to become entrepreneurs. The new opportunities in the world, e-commerce, apps, content, building a brand, the new opportunities, entrepreneurship, are better than ever. Write that down. The internet has made it better than ever for new opportunities, and it's become worse than ever for traditional opportunities. If you want to work in a factory like your grandfather, impossible. But if you want to open an e-commerce store or a brand, or you want to write a book, or you want to travel the world and be an influencer, whatever, that stuff is better than ever. Because we're in a global world now, and the rest of the world hasn't figured that out yet. Now here's the scary thing, guys. This is about on page 300 or so in my book. In 1968, in today's purchasing power, an average man making minimum wage made $103,000 US a year. That's how much stuff he could buy. When you see Trump with the Make America Great Again hat, is that fucking great? Minimum wage is $103,000? Fuck yeah, I'll quit my job right now and go work at McDonald's. No stress, right? No stress, you're just the burger flipper. You're not even the manager. Okay, today, same burger flipper. I went to McDonald's last night, $13,000. That's just a 90% cut in pay. Write that down, 90%. If your employer took 90% of your pay, what would happen? You would get your gun, and you would shoot the place up. Now guys, look, I'm Canadian. I love America. I'm all about America. Why do they keep wanting to take the guns? It's because this shit is going on. The government has stolen 90% of your purchasing power, and this is going to get better or worse for your kids. What do you think? It's gonna get worse. How much worse? It's gonna get all the way worse. How many of us feel this when we go to the grocery store? Less groceries, same amount of money. I used to work for Frito Lay. We put chips on shelves. Less chips, more money. You open the bag, it's all air. Who notices that? Yeah, I know. This will get worse until this happens. Write this down, until the average man camp by bread, the inflation will get worse. Right now, the Federal Reserve is printing $100 billion a day. This is gonna get worse and worse and worse and worse until, this is the Russian Revolution, 1917. What happened was, Russia lost World War I, the army came home, the people were in the streets, hungry, they couldn't buy bread, and they said, we want some bread. The Tsar said to the military, shoot the people, and the military turned around and shot the president. They shot the Tsar, which is Caesar. That's what Tsar means. The Caesar, the emperor. They shot him. They sent, I think it was eight assassins for his family of eight, or it was 11 assassins. Like, they sent an assassin to kill his baby. They sent an assassin for his wife and one assassin per kid. That's how much they hated him. And after that, guys, what happened? 80 years of communism. The government killed 20 million of its own people. Could that happen again? Yeah, that was 1917, bro, that's not that long ago. French Revolution. The people couldn't buy bread. It got very, very violent back in Napoleon's times. And what's this? American Civil War. That's 80 years before 80 years ago. There used to be a currency called the Continental. Is that currency around anymore? Write this down. Every fiat currency will go to zero value eventually. So guys, do you need real estate? Can you say hell yeah? Yeah, you need real estate. Because real estate holds its value. When you have rents and money coming in every month, that holds its value. Does rent go up, by the way? Rent always goes up. When the government prints money, do buildings go up in value? And you can pull that money tax-free with a refinance or you can trade it in. Guys, all the laws in this country favor the rich. And the government wants you to do two things. Provide housing and provide jobs because the government is too stupid to do those two things. It doesn't know how to create a job and it doesn't know how to provide housing. So all the tax breaks in this country are for people, actually every country, are for people who provide housing and jobs because the government doesn't know how to do it. Now some of you guys have been scammed. You're concerned, oh my God, Stephen Arnie was teaching me real estate, it's funny. I talk about money, sex, religion, politics, violence, and killing online. No one says boo. 98% five-star reviews on Amazon. As soon as I talk about making money, people are like, he's a scam? Fuck you, you're a scam. Scam alert, write this down. Many people have fallen for the 40, 40, 40 scam. The 40, 40, 40 scam is where you work 40 years for $40,000 and then at the end of your days you retire on 40% of what you couldn't afford to live on in the first place. Commonly known as a job. J-O-B stands for just overbroke because your employer will pay you enough to keep you there but not so much you can leave. Do we agree? That's called a job. And then the government comes in, takes half your money in taxes. That's what they do in Canada. In Finland they take 60 or 70%. Here it's not that bad but do they take a big bite? Yeah, and it doesn't go to the roads, motherfucker. It goes to the central banks. People say, what about the roads? No, it goes to the central banks. This is a study done in Harvard in the 50s. They had a class of graduating men and they followed them for 45 years. Harvard graduates, at the end of 45 years 1% of them were wealthy, 4% were financially fit, 5% were still working and the rest were either dead or dead broke. How many of us want to be the 1%? Well guys, you got to start investing in yourself like the 1%. Now you guys want to talk about women because that's what you guys love the most. This is my book called The Oracle. It's coming out before Christmas. This is hard times for women. I had so many women read hard times because I said it's not for women. This book is not for women. As soon as you tell women they can't have it, what are they going to do? They're going to read it. So I ended up writing The Oracle, The Queen, The Princess and The Whore. It's the fourth book in the hard times series, the series of four books. It's about the four types of women. I'm going to teach you guys a little about women. Now here's the thing, what women want. There's an old story from the middle ages that goes like this. There once was a handsome knight and he was riding through the countryside and over yonder in a field he sees a beautiful virgin, a maiden. So he gets off his horse and he rapes her. This young girl runs into the local town. She's crying, oh my God, I just got raped and the night he struts in like he's the man, when he gets to the gates of the town they arrest this young knight and they bring him into the court and the queen says, sir knight, did you rape this young girl? And he says, yes, I did. He's a raping knight, but he's an honest knight. And she says, very well, if that's the case, you shall be put to death one year from today if you do not find out what it is that women want. And so the knight is free to go for a year on probation and he has to find out what it is women want. So he goes all around the countryside asking, what is it that women want? And some people say women want money, women want babies, women want houses, women want freedom, women want, turns out they want everything. How many of us can identify with that? Everything and all at once. Touch me, don't touch me. You've heard that. So it's the last day of the year and he's not sure what it is that women want in this old beggar witch, this oracle says, sir knight, I have what you desire. He says, tell me. She says, well, if I tell you, you have to marry me. So the knight says to the oracle, I'll give you what you wish if I'm saved. And she whispers it in his ear. So he goes to the court last day of his probation. And the queen says, sir knight, do you know what it is that women want? And he says, yes, I do. And he tells the court and the queen goes, damn, that's the best answer I've ever heard. You're free to go. And he leaves, he starts to walk away. And then the old beggar witch comes up and says, sir knight, sir knight, we have an agreement. And the queen says, what's that? This knight agreed to marry me if I told him what it is that women want. And the queen says, very well, is that true? And remember, he's an honest knight. So he says, yes. And that knight there to be married. And so they're in their wedding bed that night and the oracle leans in for a kiss. She says, sir knight, sir knight, won't you lean in and kiss your bride? And she's ugly and she's old and she's disgusting and her skin's hanging down and she's drooling and she's got a googly eye. And he's like, oh my God, no. And she says, sir knight, please, please, won't you kiss your bride? And she wants to consummate that marriage with sex and with a kiss. And he's like, oh my God. And finally she says, sir knight, won't you lean in and kiss your bride? And he leans in and kisses her and she becomes this beautiful young maiden and they live happily forever after. And you might be wondering what it is that women want. Gentlemen, get your pens. This is ancient knowledge. Women want mastery over their men. But there's a paradox. If it was so easy, why don't you just do whatever she wants? She wants mastery over her man that can't be mastered. And men, we want a paradox too. Our paradox is the virgin whore. I know, I know, we want to defile the virgin whore. That's what all the pornos are made out of. Cheerleader porn, babysitter porn, teen porn, two cheerleaders, two babysitters, whatever, that's the virgin whore. And girls, what do they like for porn? 50 shades of gray. Christian gray, he's a billionaire. He's ripped. He's got a six pack. He's got a helicopter. He's a billionaire. And somehow he takes this little 21-year-old girl that's the ultimate hypergamy. And she masters him somehow. This little 21-year-old secretary masters the great Christian gray. So women want mastery over their men that can't be mastered. Now there's four types of women. Oracles, queens, princesses, and whores. Women are born princesses, and depending on their virtue and their purity, they either become queens, they become married, or they become defiled and they become whores. Now in our society these days, guys, are we living in a whore world now? I don't even think they make virgins anymore. They're just not even made. So if a woman becomes married and she becomes the queen, that's your queen demanding your potential. And then one day when her husband dies, she'll become the oracle, the old grandmother who's very wise and she's seen it all. Women drive men into the future. Write that down. Women drive men into the future. If you want to reach your potential, get a woman. She will drag you there kicking and screaming. Four types of men. Kings, knights, warriors, slaves. Now all men, we are born slaves. Write this down. A slave is a man who doesn't know his purpose and he works for another man. You become a warrior when you find your purpose and you start to struggle with it. It's a key word, struggle. When you become good at your purpose in a depth you become a knight. And then one day when you're married you'll become king. So how it works, gents. Here's the hierarchy of desirability. Masculine power and feminine ethics, feminine morality. The women are valued depending on their morality, how pure they are and moral and ethical. Men are valued on their power. A slave wants a whore. A whore wants a warrior. A warrior wants a princess. A princess wants a knight. A knight wants a queen. A queen wants a king and a king wants the oracle. Notice that we always want one better than we are. Especially women, they're hypergamous. Now here we have 10 men and 10 women. Uh-oh. Gentlemen, out of these 10 men, how many are disqualified from having any women? Let's be generous, half. Okay, so half of you motherfuckers, zero women. Okay, if we had 50 men, 50 women, half of the guys, you're out. You're not handsome enough, you're not rich enough, you're not tall enough, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Now, out of these men, how many of the men are going to have most of the women? Yeah, so we've got two women no one wants, the bottom of the women. And then these two rock stars are gonna take these eight women. Is that unfair or unfair? Yes or yes? That's unfair. So how many of us wanna be one of the two guys? Time to invest in yourself, gents. Now notice this. The guy who's a 10, he ends up marrying the nine woman. The nine woman goes for the 10 man. Why? She wants someone better than her. So then the eight woman, who does she go for? The nine man. The seven woman goes for the eight man, the six woman. She goes for the seven man, and this goes all the way down. And the 10 woman, what happens to her? She's a cat lady, because she's looking for an 11, and there is no 11. You guys feeling me? Okay, two cat ladies on the bottom, one cat lady on the top. And then those two girls, they're cat ladies too. Everybody has 10, they have two children each, the game resets, okay? So half the women, they end up without husbands. Half the men can't even get a woman if they try because they're janitors or whatever. And then we got these guys in the middle. Now here's human nature, this is something I learned coaching. This lines up perfectly with what I just showed you. 50% of people do nothing. You sign up, some men say, oh Steph in that real estate looks like a scam. Fuck you, you're a scam. You might be one of the 50% of people who does nothing. You give the guy the best guns, the best tools, the best everything. You drop them in, 50% do nothing. Why? Mommy issues, daddy issues, psychological problems, spiritual problems, whatever your problems are. 50% of people do nothing. 47% of people do the bare minimum to survive if you whip them. So if they have a manager whipping the shit out of them, they will do the bare minimum to survive. How many of us have seen that in reality? Okay, is it making sense to you? The top 2% of the 47 are superstars if you whip them. And if you stop whipping them, they get fat in the off season and they can't get back on the court. And then you've got 3% self-whipping superstars. So guys, which ones do women want? That 3%. So if you're one of the 3%, who has the power when it comes to marriage and picking a mate? You do. All women are competing for that 3%. I like the hat, make women great again. It's true. If they want to get married to that 3% of producing men, time to become great again. I'm gonna finish up with this last concept here. So here's the hero's journey. This is from my book, The Oracle. By the way, you guys enjoy this information? Yes. Okay, good, thank you. Oh, almost got some clapping, thank you. So here's how every man's journey works. He starts at the bottom as a slave. And then man finds his power. Man will find his power by becoming good at his work. Write that down guys. By becoming good at your work, you will find your power and your confidence in life. His power will put him into darkness. I got this curve, this is the hero's journey. Power will put you into darkness. This is where you have so much power, you don't know what to do with it. Now you're a whoremonger and have eight girlfriends. Now you have a gambling addiction. Now you're drinking, smoking weed, because you have too much power. Write this down guys. When your power exceeds your ethics, you'll destroy yourself. When you have more power than your ability to manage it, you will destroy yourself. Inside the darkness, you'll have to face your demons. That's the real issues in life. If you can kill your demons, you'll find your ethics and then you're ready for a woman. But we have to go through a lot of shit as men to qualify for women. We have to go through power, darkness, demons, ethics. Women who are born powerful with their breasts and their hips, their vaginas and their legs, they got power on day one, so they've got to learn to be ethical right away. The woman's journey and the man's journey look different. When you find your woman, you'll marry her and you'll reach immortality through children because we all wanna get laid, get paid and live forever. That's what we all want. Get laid, that's the woman, get paid. That's your purpose, your money and live forever. That's reproducing with children. How many of us notice this is every story ever told? Hands up. Every story ever told is this story. Star Wars is this story. Odysseus is this story. The Aeneid, the Bible, every story is this. It's the only story ever told. And what ends up happening here is it's a cycle. You go from power to darkness to demons to ethics, which will put you back into power, back into darkness and that goes around and around. Just like hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times. This is a cycle. You'll go through it over and over again. I wanna finish up with this quote, one of my favorite quotes ever. It's from the movie Wall Street. Man looks into the abyss and there's nothing staring back at him. And in that moment, man finds his character and that's what keeps him out of the abyss. I wanna thank you guys for being here today. I'm gonna offer everybody in here a book, Money, People, Deep, if you wanna come to the booth, come get a book. If you enjoy this information, please get a copy of Hard Times. They're for sale today. Check out Black Card University and I wanna leave you with this, the self-made man. You guys are all here seeking something and what you're seeking is your potential. Do we agree? A man's purpose is his work and your duty in this life is to find your potential. And on that journey, I say this, you're self-made and you are on a journey. I salute you in the pursuit of your highest and greatest self. Thank you very much for having me, gents. Come visit the booth. Coming up, Anthony. Are you taking too much? I'm just gonna talk. If you got time, I got time. Do you guys wanna do some questions? Yeah, come on back, yeah. Let's go, guys. Move. How do you think the coming recession that's likely to happen the next couple of years is gonna affect asset prices in the short term and then in the medium term? Is it gonna be like 2008 where there was this enormous real estate crash in large parts of the US and then it went back up or is it gonna be a different situation? I think there's two scenarios that are gonna happen. One is there's either gonna be a petrodollar issue where the US is the only country in the world that can export fake money for real goods. You guys should write that down. The US exports fake fucking money for real goods. So everybody else in the world has to produce real goods and trade real goods, whereas the US prints fake money and they get real goods in return. So if there becomes an issue where China, Russia, Iran and some countries with air forces that can actually fight, decide they don't want the US dollar anymore for oil, there's gonna be a real fight and a real problem. The other issue that could happen is there could be some sort of American civil war. And I don't know what that is. So those are two events. By the way, if you guys wanna read more about that kind of stuff there's a book you can read called The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe. They've got those predictions written out. This book was written forever ago and they've got the cycles written out all the way back to the middle ages and they even talk about the petrodollar. They talk about all this stuff I'm talking about. I'm not a genius, I just look at the trends. So here's what's gonna happen. Interest rates are going negative right now which is fucked up. It's never happened in history. Interest has been 7% forever, last 300 years has been 7%. Right now you can see interest rates going negative. The Fed is printing more money than ever to stimulate the economy. We're probably gonna see the stimulus keep going until Trump becomes president again. I think he's gonna become president again because nobody on the democratic side of the aisle is smart enough to even compete against him so you'll probably have a Trump second term. And what happens with the US election on the second term is that's when they let the economy go. So if you recall, 2008, new president came in and then they let the strings off the economy and it dipped. So we could see that happen again. I think we're right in that like six month kill zone right now where something's gonna happen. But here's the question. Is it gonna be inflation in which case assets go up in value when money goes down in value? Or is it gonna be deflation where the money stops moving? Or is it gonna be stagflation? You know, that's where it stops moving and it slows down. You don't want that. My guess is probably gonna be inflation but you don't know. So the number one thing to invest in is yourself and your skills. If you invest in yourself and your skills and you know what to do, you know how to sell, you know how to raise capital, you know how to negotiate, you know how to build something then you can ride the opportunities. I don't think anyone asks that's gonna save you. I don't think gold's gonna save you. I don't think real estate's gonna save you. I think your skills is gonna save you. So invest in yourself. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Hi, so you mentioned Dan Locke in your presentation as someone who may have influenced you. Who are some of your other mentors that kind of helped you along your journey from being a high school music teacher to just where you are now? So I've spent $425,000 on mentoring in the last 10 years. So every year that's about 40 grand of spend. When I was 21, I spent 10 grand to go to Palm Springs. I spent a week with a billionaire named Bill Bartman and he was a millionaire twice billionaire once and that's where I learned how to raise capital. I learned how to write a loan proposal, all sorts of things. So Bill Bartman was a big one but dude, I mean, I buy everything. I go on Amazon or buy 20 or 40 books at a time I'll buy every book on Audible. I'll go to all the classes. Like I just go to everything because I figured out this equation guys, it's cheaper for you to spend money on yourself than to not spend because the biggest cost in this life is your wasted potential. If you're worth 250 grand a year and you're making 50 and you don't spend 10 or 20 grand on courses to get to 250, you just lost 200 grand. But because it didn't flow out of your hands, you didn't see it. So dude, I say just take everything, man. Go with your passion, learn to sell, learn to negotiate. Dan Locke, he's a cool guy. I know him a little bit, he's been on my podcast. You know, he's got a sales program. That's a cool program. I got a program. Go find someone that you like and start working with them. And guys, don't be afraid to spend money. You've got to spend money if you want to level up. Thank you. Thank you. Any more questions? Yeah, I have a second one. So a lot of the speakers here have mentioned failure as a mechanism to kind of build upon for success. Like, can you just describe some of your kind of setbacks and kind of how you worked through them and like what you've learned from them? Yeah, so I got a book at my table called Hard Times Two. Last year I had colon cancer, had my entire colon cut out. Doctor told me I'd be dead in two weeks and I went to the jungle and fasted out that cancer. When I came back it was gone. So that's pretty fucking scary, man. I mean, when you think you're going to die, that's the ultimate. I've been on the edge of bankruptcy a bunch of times. Haven't actually gone bankrupt, I've been on the edge. I've lost an engagement, I've lost a fiance. I had a girl that completely broke my heart a couple of years ago, wrote a book about it, letters to a scorpion. After that I wanted to die and boom, one week later got cancer. So a dude, I've been to the bottom on health. I've been to the bottom on wealth. I've been to the bottom on relationships, spiritually, emotionally. I've been to the bottom on all of them. And what's cool about that is when you get to the bottom of them, your ego dies and then you become kind of invincible because you're not afraid anymore because you already fucked it up. So I'd say to you, man, I got a letter I wrote to myself in letters to a scorpion and it's called Break the World. And it's a letter I wrote to myself as a younger man. I said, listen young man, the only things I've regret in life are the things I didn't do and things I didn't do soon enough. Those are the only regrets you're gonna have. The didn't do's and didn't do soon enough. And don't be afraid to break the world. Break your body, break your business, break the bank, break it all because you can fix it all. But the only thing you can't fix are the things you never did. Thank you. Thank you. That's all it's time we have. Give it up one more time guys. George Bruno and the 21 Report were at the 21 convention, the final event of the decade. And I'm having a conversation with Stefan Arnio. Welcome. Thanks for having me George. Absolutely. That was a great presentation. You just came off the stage. What is your impression of the audience and of the event so far? I love the event, very high quality men, diverse group of guys. I was doing my own research watching, I think the top three videos that Anthony sent me in. Seems like you guys like talking about picking up chicks. So I had to put some picking up girls in the presentation and then I noticed that no one this year is speaking so much about money. So I brought the money and the real estate to the table a little bit. And I thought it was a good match to bring the money and the girls because without women there's no reason to get money. Right, right. I thought it was a good pairing. Thank you. It was how you pair wine with certain meals. I feel that your speech was a very good pairing. And talking to a lot of guys on the way up here to the studio, most of them really loved it. That's great. There was a visual, too. I would see guys and I'm like, so what did you think? They go, pooh. They did this, pooh, like their mind was blown kind of thing. And I thought, wow, good. Good, that said it all. You know, I had to cram a 16-hour hard times, create strong men book into an hour. And then I split it up with the Oracle, my new book, the Oracle, the Queen, the Princess and the Whore. So I wanted to bring what is that 20, 30 hours of content into an hour. That's hard to do. And somehow I finished it right on the nose. Yeah, fantastic. All right, well, rather than talking about the presentation, because people will see that video. Right. And digital is forever. So people are going to be watching that for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years. Let's talk about some other things. You're an author. You've written a lot of books. Tell me about the first book you wrote and the most recent book. Great. So my first book I wrote, this one here, Money People Deal. And it was 2011. I was a struggling young entrepreneur. So I was like, oh my gosh, seven years ago. So I was my mid-20s. And I had some success. I owned some buildings. I had some passive income. And I was starting to flip houses and stuff. And I went to this seminar. And this guy said, hey, you've got to learn to write a book. And I thought, oh, I have an English degree. And you know, I'm thinking, oh, well, I can write. And sure, why not? So I ended up buying this $3,000 How to Write a Book course. And I went home. And it sat on the shelf. And I didn't do anything with it. And then finally, somehow I got fed up. And I took, I ended up writing 120 blogs in 120 days. And I took the top 30 blogs made into this book called Money, People, Deal. And within the year, I raised $5 million of capital for my real estate deals. That book launched my coaching company, my education company, which is my passion now. And then it sold over 20,000 copies. And I'm from Canada. Canadian bestsellers, 3,000 copies. We've done 20,000 copies in Canada. So it's been a real success to build a platform off of a book like that. Teach people how to raise money, how to build a real estate portfolio. My newest book, it's the Hard Times series. So Hard Times Creates Strong Men is the first book in that series all about power and being a man. The second book in the series is this one, Dead Man Walking. It's all about darkness. The third one's about demons. And the last one's about ethics and women. That's the Oracle, the Queen, the Princess and the Whore. So I ended up with this Hard Times project, never planned on writing about men. But I found that the men were so screwed up, so weak, didn't have fathers. And I just, I just been doing this out of a labor of love and passion. It's great to come here and talk to you guys. Because this is the perfect audience for the Hard Times project. Yeah, yeah. As far as recruiting men for learning, you are a huge proponent and a student yourself. You invested a lot in yourself. You continue to do so. And you asked men to do that for themselves. What can a man do when he invests in himself with your product, your training? What does he get out of it? What depends. I mean, at the lowest level, guys just get in books. A book or an audio book, if you're a guy you don't have a lot of money, a book or an audio book is a great thing to open the mind, right? It's almost like an appetizer. If guys want to get a little more serious, maybe they come to an event, like 21 Convention or one of my classes. We do four classes a year. We teach how to get started with real estate investing. I don't have a Hard Times class yet. I might end up making one who knows. And then at the top level, we do very high service coaching. And those classes start, or those packages start at 19,000, go to 73,000. But those classes, I mean, the starter ones is we literally walk you through getting your first deal done with on your own money, real estate deal. So you'll make, you'll spend 20, but you'll make 30 or 40. And then the top level, I coach, they're called platinum students, and they do a dozen deals a year. So somebody wants to be a full-time investor. We can get you to that point. And I've got some students who are taking home a million dollars a year. So my top students are taking home that. Other top students are making three, 400 grand, but they're doing work. You know, those guys are, they take, it's almost like a cake mix. They take the cake mix home, they add the water, they add the eggs, they put it in the oven, and they get it. If you buy the cake mix and you don't make the cake mix, you're not gonna call it Betty Crocker. It's like, Betty, what's up? You know, you gotta put it in the work. Sure, sure. Who was your biggest influence? Oh man, I've had so many over the years. You know, I mentioned on stage that when I was 21, I was really struggling. I had divorced parents, so I had a weak dad. He never could measure up. And I started studying and getting hungry and reading a lot. My mother taught me how to read. She said, read every day before bed. That was just, that was the deal. So I started reading and reading. I read Rich at Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Changed my life. And I had five grand in the bank. I'd saved up as a good heart teacher. I had five grand in the bank. So I ended up spending on seminars. I put myself $10,000 in debt to go see Bill Bartman. And he's one of the top entrepreneurs of all time. He's on the same list as Henry Ford. I spent a week with Bill Bartman. It was 10 grand to go. And I did not have the money to go at all. I was staying at a five-star hotel. I bought myself a lobster club sandwich at the restaurant because I wanted to taste what it was like to be rich. I wanted to stay there. And I remember I bought this lobster club. It was like a $17 sandwich. And I see Bill Bartman behind the stage eating a $5 foot long for Subway. It gave me some context, right? Because it was billionaire. He's eating a ham sandwich from Subway. I'm eating this lobster club. And I realize, wow, the rich guy's he's rich, but he's frugal too. So that was a really great experience. It reminds me of Trump who loves McDonald's. Yeah, and KFC. He's eating KFC on his plane at McDonald's. And why not? The Big Mac is a great burger. So why not? It was a really great experience because what happened was years later when I actually had the money to stay at that hotel, I went back and I stayed there. And I actually belonged. I could actually afford it. But back then, I always say this to people. I say, go get a really expensive hotel room. Some are $700 a night, $500 a night, and taste it. Taste that life and you go home and you've got the taste in your mouth and you're going to work harder tonight. Reminds me when I was in Poland. I got upgraded to business first class. And it was just phenomenal. Just unlimited everything. I just had my own little concierge, light attendant. And I thought it was a random thing. Then I thought about it for a second. I'm like, there is a method to this madness because it makes flying anything less suck. It does suck, yeah. Absolutely. And you know what I said to my assistant? I said, look, I'm 33 now. Put me in first class, business class. I don't even care how much it costs now because I just don't want to be in the cattle car in the back where everyone's farting all the time. Like put me in the first class. Even hotels now, I used to stay at the Hojo, the Howard Johnson, the shitty hotels. And now I'm like, give me the nice hotel. I'll spend the money. Like I'm 30. I'm hurting a little bit. Let's get something nice. Yeah, sure, sure. What's next for you? Oh man, George, that's a big question. Well, we're starting to license out the Black Card University for people who want to create their own coaching company. So we're starting to license that out. I'm probably going to do another two books this winter. I'm going back to the jungle, do another 40 day fast this winter. What jungle? Costa Rica. So I'll be in Costa Rica not eating for 40 days, just having water. I'm probably going to pump out another two books in the next six months. And then I'm doing a media tour and a PR tour. I'm just promoting hard times. And I'm going to figure out what is next. I'm thinking maybe a private equity fund, maybe a hard times class. I've been in this, I got these stabilized. I had cancer last year. And the doctors told me I've been dead in two weeks. I went to the jungle and fasted. That was a big gamble. And I ended up coming out on the other side, but it kind of smashed my goals. It smashed my vision. It smashed a lot of things. And the last year, I've been kind of floating a little bit. I grew a beard. I grew my hair out. I look handsome on the front of this magazine. But I'm a jungle man now. And I think there's kind of like you said, there's a method to the madness. Like there's a reason for all this to happen. And I think part of it is making me think bigger and getting me out of my little town of Winnipeg. I think I'm gonna spend half my time in LA next year and half in Winnipeg. So I don't know, man, I'm in this space. I'm doing a lot of spiritual work. I gotta clean this up. Yeah. I watched Grant Cardone grow to what he is today. And it's amazing. It happened in the past five years. It wasn't the grant that he is now. And a lot happened in five years, an awful lot happened. So I don't think he, I think five years ago, I don't think he would have even imagined that what he is now, I don't even think that was on the Blackboard. Yeah, well, and that's the thing. I'm keeping myself open. I got this diagram on the back of dead man walking. And this is God channeling through man. It makes his heart shape, which is unconditional love. And I'm kind of open to the channeling of that. I know I'm gonna go on a 48 fast. Every year I fast and I completely change everything. So I'll come out of the jungle after listening to the universe, God, whatever you wanna call it. And I'll probably have some brilliant ideas and I'll have a very clean body and everything will be great. But I commend Grant. He's done a lot of work on himself. And I'm even gonna do some of the things he did. I saw him speak in August in LA. And I got to hear the real story. The story he tells off the camera. And real, real big balls on that guy. Yeah, he burned the ships. No doubt about it. He burned the ships. Yes. You know, there was no turning back. Two or three weeks ago, I went to see Dan Penya at University of Pennsylvania. Another interesting fellow. Love him. You know much about him? You know what? I was hanging out with Jason Capital in LA. I don't know if you know Jason. He's a student at Dampania. And then Dan Locke, another friend of mine is a student of Dampania. And I've seen his clip where he says, I got some vagina cream. You put it on your vaginas. Cause you're a bunch of posties. Yeah. You know, I like him because he tells it how it is. And I aspire to be like Dan Penya one day. I'll be that old man telling you to reach down and tell him if you feel a pair of balls. Yeah. It was interesting because we've seen this really tough Dan and then he went for about a good two hours at Penn. And then he says, well, I guess I have to stop because my wife over there is giving me dirty looks. And I'm like, ah. And that was refreshing. It was like he went from Dan Penya to being a husband. And he wasn't being like, you know, this wussy kind of guy. He was being a considerate man. Right. And you know. He was reading the Oracle. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I thought that was really interesting. She's giving me dirty looks. So I need to cut this short now. So and I thought that was really neat. And they stayed around and shook everyone's hand. And that was kind of cool. Women. Let's talk about women. All right, man. Let's do it. Yeah. The 21 convention started out. I joke around as a, you know, I say it was like a how to get laid seminar, which I think can be talked like two hours. Get laid, get paid, live forever. That's what we all want. That's it, right? That's it. But a whole weekend, three or four days talking about that, I just think it creates a one-sided man. And we've evolved. And now we have spiritual. We have ethical. We have moral speakers. We have Socrates got up and spoke on how to change a diaper. I mean. Wow. You know, so many different things have happened. And it's evolved. What do you see as the future of men's events like this? Well, I think there's four parts. There's the physical. There's mental, spiritual, emotional, right? So I like the fact that they're making it a little more well-rounded. Because picking up chicks and slaying pussy, that gets you so far. Like I had eight girlfriends at one point. I went into the PUA, the pickup artistry. And I was also a hardcore salesman and a traveling speaker and a hardcore negotiator. I have books written on all that stuff. Selling and negotiating. And a man can kill himself with that stuff. Like actually, it's as dangerous as heroin or alcohol. Super dangerous. So that's actually part of how I got cancer was I fell in love with one of those eight girls. She had a boyfriend the whole time, didn't tell me about it. So for three years, I'm chasing her on. And I looked in the mirror, I said, I want to die cancer one week later. If you want to die, you will die. And I'm convinced of that now is when you want to die, you'll die when you want to live, you'll live. And that's bar none. Like you'll just do it. And so I think in hard times creates a strong man. I talk about what is a man in money, sex, religion, politics. And I think that there is more rounding out of men now. Talking about those four topics, those are the hard topics that Stefan Mullen you will tackle or even Jack Donovan. He has some spicy stuff. I got lots of spicy stuff. We didn't go too spicy today. I kept it kind of basic. But I think that what I love about what you guys are doing here is that the conversations here are those father-to-son conversations that aren't happening anymore. I said on stage, this convention shouldn't exist. The father taking the son out in the garage. Yeah, in the garage. And we should have men's groups locally where I go to the Winnipeg, whatever, and you go to the Florida, whatever, whatever the local thing is, and the men we get together. And that has been systematically destroyed in the last 50 years, right? And so this is a very important thing. Now, here's the sad part is the guy's got to fly. It costs money. Guys are afraid of that. But you do have the online platform. So I'm glad the conversation is going towards these more difficult topics. And I'm glad that I think society itself is starting to open up. Like Ellen DeGeneres recently, she had the George Bush thing. Her and George Bush were saying together. And she said, look, we're having a discussion. I might not agree, but we're having a discussion. Thank God there's a discussion. Because money, sex, religion, politics, people don't talk about those. But what I'm finding right now in the marketplace is men and women are searching for meaning. And meaning has been lost because we took religion out. We took the Judeo-Christian route out of society. And then even some new religions, like Scientology, they're like, they banish that. That's the last religion you can be prejudiced towards on the whole face of the earth. So they took Scientology away. They took Christianity away. They took Islam away. They took, well, Islam is cool right now. But they took everything away, so there's no religions. And now man is struggling to find meaning. Woman is struggling to find meaning. And that's where the Hard Times series is coming in, is I'm talking about the power, darkness, demons, and ethics of humanity. And it's freaky. It gives me chills, because it's almost what a religion would be talking about. But it's not a religion. And it's the stuff that's in the Bible. Like, this is actually, I got to say, this is the second best book out of the Bible. Well, dude, it actually is like the Bible, but it's not, you know, thou art and written in this middle language. It says, fuck shit and piss, and has naked girls. And it's funny, church people like that. The religious community likes it, but they don't like the rated R nature of it. But dude, the Bible was rated R. There's like incest and sodomy and killing and genocide and slavery, all this dark stuff. But I think that what's happened with the Christians or with the religious people is, they only show the good side of Christianity. They don't want to talk about the darkness. And so what's cool about this is I like that we come here and we can talk about the darkness and the stuff that, you know, maybe they don't want to talk about on the mainstream TV or they don't want to talk about on YouTube and they're getting shadow banned. And I appreciate that you guys have security and guns and, you know, secret location. That means, when Anthony told me that, I never heard of this convention. And Anthony told me that, I was like, fuck yeah, man. You know, this is a bit of danger, oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, you were surrounded by more firepower than you can ever imagine. Yeah. I mean, it was amazing. Yeah, yeah. And you know, you've been surrounded by firepower since you walked in the door. Oh, I love some of these, you know, Jack Donovan and Stifan Mullen, you showed up to them. I go up to the sources and hard times. And it's cool because I've been joked on Stifan Mullen one summer. I said to him, I said, dude, I've been joked on your stuff one summer. It was all I did. It was just, I just watched his stuff and I ate butter chicken in my apartment. And that was it. And then, you know, Jack Donovan, I've been joked on his books too. And he's incredible guys. And it's really cool. I'm one of their peers now. I'm on the stage with them, which is super cool. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? When you go from reading someone's books to sharing the stage with them. Never would have imagined that. But I also kind of felt, this is that goes back to that belief of living or dying. I remember I had the belief, I want to be on Stifan's show. Well, Stifan was just on my podcast. He has my book. I saw the podcast. It was great. Awesome, thank you. Well, we got to talk about him, which he never gets to talk about. He's interviewing someone else. And we got to hear the truth of Stifan Mullen you. Yeah, that was a good, good broadcast. Love it. What is the pain in your life? What is the wound in your life? Well, I think I suffered from things that other men have suffered from. For the first part of my life, well, from my teenage years, I suffered from my parents' divorce. And I remember I was 17 and my mom was like, hey, I'm divorcing your dad. And I actually feel like I caused that. Cause what happened was I went to work with my dad and I came home and I complained about my dad. I said, mom, dad works like four hours a day and I don't understand what he's doing. And we had this like female bitch fest. Me and her, I was a teenage boy. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. If I go back a time, I'd slap myself. And so my mom ended up divorcing my dad because he wasn't really working. He wasn't making money, all this stuff. And that divorce, I remember I said, it's okay, I'm 17, I'm an adult, I can take it. And that fucked me up hard, man. And I think at any age of divorce with your parents, it ruins your archetypes. So you're a perfect man, you're a perfect woman, no matter what age, when you find out that's untrue, it destabilizes you. And then another thing that really shattered me was I was engaged to a girl when I was in my mid-20s. I loved her. You know, I was her first kiss, I took her virginity. I loved her, loved her, loved her. Her dad had a lot of abuse in her. And we got engaged, bought her a house, took her to Disneyland, Disney World, four trips a year, did everything for this girl. And I ended up, the wheels fell off the bus and I ended up with a broken heart and I became a merciless womanizer, horrible womanizer. And I had eight girlfriends. And the woman went in the other direction. I became, I call it the dark night. Men are slaves, warriors, knights, kings. I became the dark night. I had power, I had money, I could travel, I could fly in different girls on different days. I'd have one leaving the back of the hotel, I'd have a different one in the front. And I became a very, very bad man. And then that manifested into cancer and then I'm here now. So I've been, I said on stage, I've been to the bottom in money, almost bankrupt, I've been to the bottom in relationships, you know, where you want to die. I've almost been dead three times in the last year. So I'm running out of stuff to be afraid of George because like I've actually broken everything and fixed it all now. So we're running out. It reminds me of the movie. One of my favorite movies of all time came out probably four or five years ago called La Grande de Valetza, The Great Beauty, an Italian film. About a man who he created the social scene, like social scenes in Rome would not exist if it wasn't for him. And he turns 60 years old and he realized, wow. I mean, he had rooftop parties and he was the man. And it was about his come to Jesus moment. And he had a friend who he was with a buddy who didn't have two nickels to rub together. And the man said, well, I gotta go now. And we're gonna watch TV. Me and my wife are just gonna watch our favorite show on TV. And then this man who was the life of Rome, you just see his face sink because he just wanted to veg on the couch and watch a show with a woman that he loved. But he had 100 women, people chasing him everywhere. But he envied his simple friend who just wanted a sandwich and to sit with the woman that he loved. And it was just, if you get a chance to watch the movie, it's profound. Someone like you will extract so much out of this. Dude, I mean, I watched this other movie, Phantom Thread. You ever see that one? Yes. Yeah, Phantom Thread. I'm watching that movie. Yeah, I'm watching the movie with my mom at her house. This is when I had cancer. So I just had my colon cut out and I got a fricking poop bag hanging from me. And I'm watching this with my mom. And my mom loved that because she could just ward over me. And we're watching the Phantom Thread. And I'm looking at this. And this is a rich guy. He's got a castle in England. He's making the dresses for the richest women. He's got all these people working for him. He's a rock star. And I think he has his ex-wife working for him. And she's sitting at the table and she's like, don't put that there. He's got his little whore that he got from the diner or whatever. And I'm watching this. And I'm like, God damn, I'm watching myself like this master of this one thing and he can't just get the basics of life. Like the guy's a rock star, but he's like, you know, it's like a savant. Like he plays the most beautiful piano but pisses his pants while he's playing the piano because he can't do the basics. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm feeling this guy right now. Wow. So. That was a very profound move. I'm surprised that it didn't go further than it did. It's a tough time. I mean, it was a great film. Like it was a film, not a movie. Yeah. You know, people are watching the Avengers or the fucking fifth Spider-Man make like over and I watched Spider-Man start out for the fifth time. He's black now and disabled. You know, every type of Spider-Man, but Phantom Threadman, that was a good move. Yeah. What advice would you give to someone who's got the Doritos and Crusted Finger Tips and living either in the mom's basement or in a flop house somewhere, it's a little rack hole of an apartment. And he has a little spark of desire that doesn't really believe in himself. And he's sitting right there, actually. Right there. In that camera, he's right inside there. Talk to that man, give him some hope in the step in way. Well, I mean, it sounds so serving, but I tell him to read hard times, create strong men. And I get testimonials every day from men who go, wow, I've been banging my girlfriend for eight years. I'm finally gonna marry her after reading hard times. Wow, I couldn't get a job. Now I'm on my purpose. So that book, I would say get hard times, create strong men, start investing in yourself. You know, if you're living at mom's house, move out at all costs, it'll wake you up. I mean, that's what you need, bro, is a wake up moment. And hard times, create strong men is that hard dad talk that you probably haven't gotten a while or ever got it. So get started with a hard talk and let's go. Slaying your personal darkness, climbing to the top of the mountain, we talked about that today, a conversation with Stephan Arneo. Thank you, sir. Thanks, George, appreciate you. What was your experience so far with the 21 Convention? Oh, I was dead, I was dead. Professional, all across the board, really good energy with a lot of people. And I just like, it's a very positive direction. This, George, this has been a first class event. It's fantastic, you guys run a really tight ship. I've been to a lot of conventions over the course of my business career and I can tell when things are well run and when things aren't, and this is a very well run operation, I was very impressed. It's pretty incredible to see where Anthony's brought it, especially from last year, which was my first year here, and to see the upgrades he's made, it's been incredible. I've got my notebook, and with every speaker, I've written down about two or three lines under each of the speakers of just, just the key prime stuff that I got. That's good. That's good. It's very surreal, man, I'm really enjoying it. I'm happy to live in such an era where such a thing like this is possible. I have never seen a group of guys like this. A group of 200 men were focused, squared away, working on their values, just never met a bigger group of wonderful guys. It's kind of neat, because I've been to a fair amount of conventions in my day, but you never see one where the guy's like, here you can just see Ed Latimore talking to Tanner about boxing. Yeah. And then you tell your boxing experiences, everybody's kind of pinging off each other. It's nice. It has been fantastic. And it's been four days of guys all on the same page, working in the same direction. Fascinating meeting some of the people, hearing their stories. Yep, you've got people traveling from other parts of the world to come here just to see some of the speakers. That's amazing. The thing that's impressed me is everybody here is very serious. They're taking it close to their heart. What a great convention. Thanks, George.