 Hey, what's up Dreamers? Welcome back to the Dream Green Show where we're bringing dreams to life through smart financial investing. Today, we're revisiting a crucial topic with a 2024 twist, how understanding three key principles transform my wealth journey and how I could transform yours too. Basically, how I became rich and you can too. I literally started from nothing. So it's a story that's close to my heart, guys. It's a story that I once lived and that I believe can inspire change in your life too. So whether you're a long time viewer or joining us for the first time, this is a video that you need to see, that you need to hear. It might not be the video that you wanted to see, but this is the video that you needed to see. It's about breaking cycles, leveling up and forging your own path to riches. So let's go ahead and dive in it. But first, go ahead and hit that thumbs up button. It's completely free and it really helps out this channel more than you can even imagine. For the price of zero dollars and just a click of the button. Guys, you really are helping me out and I really appreciate all of you guys that's tuning in and watching this journey. Alright, so first up, let's talk about the power of knowledge that is the first key. The world around us is evolving rapidly, right? Especially in the finance world, if you're running in the same circles hitting the same roadblocks, it's time for a change. You see the first step to getting rich is access to information, knowledge. The right kind, right? The right kind open up doors and break barriers. It's about understanding where you are, where you want to be and what steps you need to get there. Knowledge isn't just power, it's the roadmap to success. And that's why I have to update this video because this step in 2024 has become so much. I'm talking about so much easier. It's almost cheating. I'm telling you, you're going to bypass years of what I had to go through in just a couple of weeks and maybe just a couple of months. When I had to, I'm telling you guys, it made it so much easier. Just stick through the video and you're going to find out. So let's take a look. Back in the day, I had my fair share of struggles. I've been where you might be right now, juggling bills. Well, you actually got it on stuff to have to pay bills. I didn't have anything to my name. So it was tough, guys. So let's rewind the clock a little bit. There was a time when my financial situation, let's say it wasn't ideal. It wasn't the best. I'm talking about a time where my dad basically consisted of rice. I'm telling you, I had plain white rice, brown rice, rice with salt, rice with some rosemary on top, rice with garlic powder on top. I had any kind of rice you could think of. That's why I had to eat. That's the only thing I had at the time, right? Days when my refrigerator wasn't working, when I had to use an ice chest. The ice chest was my only option. Imagine having to go to the corner store relying on a bag of ice to keep your food from spoiling. That was my reality, right? My friends, my roommates, we were all in the same boat. I looked to my left, he ain't a boat. Look to my right, we all in the same situation. We were stuck in a cycle of financial stagnation. This wasn't living, it was survival. You guys might be experiencing the same things right now. You look to your left, you look to your right, everyone in the same situations. Everyone being in the same situation for the last five, six, seven years. Ain't really no growth within your circle of friends or circle of communities. It's time for a change. And that's when it should hit you and that's when it hit me. Something had to change. I realized I needed a strategy, a new strategy, a new way of thinking. And most importantly, new information. That's when I dove into the world of investing, finance, business, books, online courses, videos. I'm talking about hours we spent reading books, online courses, all of that. I observed any information that I could and trust me, it was a game changer. So when I was learning all of this information, my friends started looking at me real. They were like, man, this dude, he's a nerd for this stuff now. He was a little investor buddy. Now, he all into that community. I was bringing them back the information saying, hey, this is how the rich do it. This is how the wealthy do it. This is how you grow wealth. This is what I'm learning. I'm giving you guys the information. And they was like, ah, man, whatever. We're going out to the club this weekend. So when my friends, that was going out, they was partying. There was clubbing. They was buying bottles. I was literally buying books, buying online courses, spending money, right? On online courses, spending hours doing research on YouTube, leading me to Facebook groups for investing, Instagram investing pages. So now, you know, if you view one ad on Instagram, Instagram going to keep running. So I liked when all those investor ads just kept going through my IG timeline. I love that. It kept me on track, right? But anyways, look, I dove into every resource that I could find, the one Buffett's of the world, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the online courses you name it. I was a sponge, soaking up all the information. Everything about stocks, businesses, how money works, how money really works. This wasn't just about making money. It was about understanding it. It wasn't about making money. It was about understanding it. I had to say that twice. Now, here's where it gets so much easier in 2024 with AI, right? 2023 was the beginning way. 2024 is going to be even crazier, guys. AI like chat GPT. You could literally go to AI say, hey, summarize this book for me. Hey, you could go to chat GPT. You could type in and say, hey, I make $36,000 this year. Write me out a plan, a very detailed plan on how I could save $1,000 in six months. Give me a budget for my meals. Give me a budget for entertainment. Give me a budget for my bills. Give me a budget for everything to wear in the next six months. I would have $1,000 saved up. Man, that took me so long back in the day. You could do that in a single sentence and a click of a button within AI. Summarize books, online courses, market dollar analysis. And here's the kicker guy. Chat GPT is completely free. 2024 is going to be crazy. So all those years and hours I spent, you guys could do that and a click of the button. That's why I have to update this video because it's become even easier. This AI boom, man, it can make you millions. So you don't have to do all the hard searching. It's right there to click your fingers. So knowledge should not be an excuse anymore. Hey, I can't afford this online course. I can't afford this book. I can't afford this seminar. Knowledge is not an excuse anymore. You guys can find any part, anything that you need to know at the click of a button. So get rid of the excuse of knowledge. So the key point of number one was knowledge. Let's move on to number two, right? But here's the kicker guys. Knowledge without the right mindset is like a car without gas in it. It's not going anywhere. So the second step, the second point to becoming rich was transforming my mindset. Transforming your mindset. This was about seeing beyond the immediate gratification. Looking at the bigger picture guys, the mindset is where the real transformation happened. It's a shift from living paycheck to paycheck to planning for the future. It's about seeing your money, not just as a means to an end, but as a tool for growth. It's about delay gratification, understanding that the fact that the financial choices you make today will shape your tomorrow. Now, y'all know my philosophy that has made me rich over the last few years is that I only buy things that I own or from places that I own. For example, let's say I have friends out there that have a thousand, two thousand, three thousand dollars worth of Nike shoes, right? I would not buy any pair of Nike shoes unless I own one single share of Nike inside of my portfolio. I'm not saying that you have to be filthy rich inside of your portfolio. You have to get started somewhere, but let's say I won't buy Coca-Cola unless I own one share of Coca-Cola. I won't buy Pepsi unless I own one share of Pepsi inside of my portfolio. Now, in the grocery store, you can own Walmart. You can buy tickets and move WMT. You can buy Target. There's a lot of things out there. Now I would not buy anything out there unless I owned it. So like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, I used to go out and buy the same iPhone that they released every single year. I would pay a thousand dollars for an iPhone and I did not own a single share of Apple. That just didn't make sense to me, guys. So what I did instead of buying a thousand dollar Apple iPhone, I would buy a thousand dollars worth of Apple stock every single year until I just had to upgrade for the iPhone. Then when I did upgrade for the iPhone, I felt okay because I was a part owner of Apple and I had them inside of my portfolio. Let's just dive into that just a little later. So I used to see my friends splurging on shoes, technology, things that give you a momentary high, right? Just, ooh, I got this cool thing. I feel real good. I used to do the same thing chasing that short-lived happiness, that short-term gratification. I feel happy for a week. Then I feel like I have to buy something else again the following week in order to feel that same happiness again. That's a very, very weak mindset. After my financial enlightenment, my approach to spending money transformed drastically. So instead of blowing money on depreciating assets, I started to invest into depreciating ones. Let's talk about those $1,000 a month shoes purchases, right? Imagine if half of that went into the stock and said, only a piece of Nike instead of just wearing it that shifts you from a consumer to an investor mindset. It ships you from a consumer to an investor. It's about building wealth, not just displaying it. And this brings us to the third most crucial step, ownership. Wealth isn't just about how much cash you have on hand. It's about what you own. Stocks, real estate, businesses, assets that will work for you. Because if you just own one share of any stock, just one share of any stock, you are now part owner of these companies. Now I could go and buy some Nike shoes, right? Because I'm now part owner of Nike. I could go buy a 12 case of coat because I'm now part owner of coat. I'll tell you guys, it feels completely different once you get started. If you watched the video from two years ago, let me know down in the comment section how much different you feel now that you're owner of these companies, right? So now that we're in 2024, the world has changed again. And so have the opportunities, right? The stock market has involved, new industries have emerged, and the way we invest has transformed today. With platforms like Moomoo, Weeble, Robinhood, and other investing platforms, it made becoming an investor so much easier. Right now, guys, there's no excuse. I promise you guys, this is the one thing that you need to do right now. And once you guys are going to open up an account, you could go down to the description, click Moomoo, sign up, deposit $100, and you could get up to 15 free stocks. 15 free stocks that got a 5.1 cash sweep interest. That is by far the easiest way to get started. I'm going to leave a link in the description to Moomoo as well. I mean, to Weeble as well. You click that, you sign up, deposit $1 if you want to. Anybody can find a dollar. It's not that hard to get started. You deposit the dollar, you could get up to 12 free stocks with Weeble. And you could keep those stocks inside the platform to decide to use it. Or you could sell all those free stocks and re-job your money. Guys, this is literally free money. Now, this is how different it was. Back when I made this video, two years ago, you could get five free stocks. Now, you could get 12 free stocks. The opportunity has not been any better since then. I'm telling you, the game has changed. Investing where it has changed. And for you to get started with free stocks, that is the best opportunity to get started. You guys need to do that now. So, even if you already have Weeble, sign up with Moomoo. Get free stocks. If you already have Moomoo, sign up with Weeble. Get free stocks. All right, so now that you have your broker, I want you to only start shopping or buy a stores that you own and have inside of your portfolio. And I promise you, your spending habits will change. If you only have $25, right? If you only invest in $25 a month and you start off with that, that's fine. But once you start to see how your money is actually starting to work for you, I promise you, you're going to find a way to turn that $25 investing a month into $50 a month. And then once you see that money start to work with you, you're going to turn that $50 of investing per month into $100 per month. Because now you are building wealth. You are building wealth by becoming part owners of these companies. Just having a little money on you, right? Just having a little money on you does not make you rich. Now, with you having appreciating assets in your portfolio and your money that you can even pass down to your kids, that makes you rich. Now you are creating generational wealth to where your kids will never have to work a day in their life. So for example, even if you have a whole bunch of money, right? Hey, I'm not broke. I have $50,000. But you don't own anything. And you're keeping all $50,000 inside of your Wells Fargo account. And at the end of the day, over the entire year, you're going to receive your .001 interest in your savings account. So your $50,000 at the end of the year is going to make you $50,000 and $10. Over the course of a year, just because you got your money inside your account, are you rich? No, you just made $10. Your money is not working for you. Now let's say if you just took a half of that $25,000 and invested that into the actual company, Wells Fargo, right? Now you're a part owner of the bank that you bank at and check this out. Wells Fargo is a dividend paying stock. That means four times a year, they're accordingly paying dividend stock. That means four times a year, they're going to pay you dividends for saying, hey, thank you for investing inside the company. They pay it back to their investors, part owners like you. And they're a dividend at risk of cash. They increased their dividends every single year for the last 25 years. And they have a dividend rate of 4 something percent, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong. Down in the comment section, I'm pretty sure I'm wrong. But just off the top of my head, guys, now you're going to be making $25,000 for payments per year in dividends in their stock to go up over time. That's a appreciated asset. Could it pull it back? It could. But history shows that if you're looking at good quality companies over the last 60 years, Wells Fargo has been doing okay, right? So there you go. Now you're making more money. You have your money working for you. You have your money. Wells Fargo could appreciate you. You have your dividends coming in for Wells Fargo. And guys, if you say, hey, I don't know what to invest in. I'm a new investor. Well, they have these things called ETLs, like VRO and QQQ. VRO tracks the top 500 companies in America, right? So if you buy any ETL of any stock and you want to get started, VRO might be the easiest to have the America's top 500 companies. Therefore, you'd be covered. You could go to any store buy anything that you want. Nine times out of 10, 10 times out of 10, that company is going to be inside of VRO or the S&P 500. And that has you covered with America's top 500 companies. So that would be the easiest way to get started is to invest inside an easy ETF that covers 500 companies inside of one portfolio like that to consume with VRO or QQQ. QQQ chops the top technology companies. VRO tracks the top 500 companies in America. Therefore, you would be covered. You could go buy Apple products, Nike products, Coca-Cola Pepsi. You could go buy anything you want. But me, if I was getting started, that would be the easiest way to go. So in 2024, the principles remains the same, but the context has involved, right? The world's faster. It's more connected. Opportunities and stocks, crypto, even starting your own venture is at our fingertips just like that. But without the foundation of knowledge, the right mindset and the focus on ownership, navigating this world can be, it could be overwhelming. And that's why you guys need to subscribe so you don't miss out on any future videos and update videos so you don't miss out on any crucial information. But yeah, thank you guys for joining me on this journey today. If this video has inspired you, hit the like button. Hit the subscribe button for more empowering content and share it with someone, right? Share it with who you think might need to hear this message. Your support means the world to me and it helps bring the Dream Green show reach and inspire to more dreamers like you. So before I sign out, I want to let you guys go down in the comments section and let me know how, if you started your investment journey back when I made that video in 2022, let me know how has it planned out. If you're one of those people that invest inside Nike, go buy all the shoes, the $1,000 worth of shoes and let it depreciate and don't own any Nike. Let me know down in the comments section. But if you're that Nike guy that buy Nike shoes and flip those for a bigger profit, kudos to you because there are people out there that are hustlers that's a side hustle, right? You have to actually know how to side hustle. It is a skill. So I'm not talking about you guys as buying shoes and flipping them. I'm not talking about you guys. Talk about the guys that just buy shoes to look cool and then they depreciate and then they broke again. That's the people I'm talking about. I'm not talking about you guys as flipping shoes. Kudos to you. But yeah, I want to hear all about your investing opportunities and journeys down in the description. But other than that, I'm Zeke. Thank you for your time today to bring you to Dream Green Show and I'm out. Peace.