 and it's investor channel, this is one of the most important fundamental lessons amongst many that you really need to understand if you're going to pursue wealth that is larger than what most people are able to accumulate over their life. And I think this is more fundamental. And if you had ever thought that it might be one of those things that you wanted to pursue to become a millionaire someday, these are the steps that you're gonna have to go through. There are 11, there are three stages, and there are 11 steps. And you have to complete each step to make sure that you can proceed to the next stage. And I'm gonna break them down to you in a way that you've probably never heard before. And in my trying to break down information for people that are constantly having trouble keeping $1,000 in the savings account, this is for you. If you build up a little bit of money only to have that money be subject to emergency expenditures in life, this is for you. For anybody out there that has trouble saving up any amount of money because expenditures such as things that you want or desire come into play and you have a hard time keeping any type of accumulation going because you're always whittling against that and always justifying those expenditures at the expense of your own financial program. This is really gonna help you define your investing roadmap. And I think once you understand these different milestones that can be made in your journey to financial freedom, the better off you will be. And I think a lot of people don't look at money this way. They look at it from a perspective of look, I'll never have more than $1,000 in my savings account. And if that's your perspective, you won't. It's just that simple. When you start to understand and actually think about the term $1 million and what it'll take to get there and what it'll take to break down the numbers enough to understand what those thresholds are that you must meet to get to that million dollar mark, then you'll never get there. It's only when you start to understand and really kind of put yourself in a position that, look, I'm gonna work toward these next milestones no matter how long it takes me to get there. And once you put yourself on that path, it's on. You never look back. And you start to understand that achieving milestones in your life is absolutely doable and it's doable for anybody. If you run out of time in this life, no problem. At least you put yourself on the pursuit of achieving milestones in the way that I'm gonna outline it for you guys. You're gonna wanna stick around for the totality. Do not shut this message off. It is imperative that you understand my approach to achieving milestones in your life and where you specifically are in the timing in your life based on your age and your income. At any given point in your life, so you can gauge the process and you can gauge the progress that you're making on your own financial journey. The first is the starting amount. Starting amount starts at $500. So you can actually have step one completed if you've saved up $500 of starting capital. And the reason I say this is because anybody can get there. If you're serious about investing and you do not have $500 of invested capital, get there. It's just that simple. It's gonna be hard love until you can provide some sort of validation for yourself that you are serious about a wealth building program and get yourself that first $500 put away in the market. And for a lot of people, they can have this instantaneous. They can meet this one out of 11 milestones that you need to achieve that million dollar mark instantly. So I'm giving you one on a silver platter for free, $500. I consider it to be the starting capital amount. Starting capital gets you off the launching pad. I've said this in a number of different ways, but if you are indeed serious about it, you gotta find a way to scratch together that starting amount. And I contend that for a lot of people, this can be somewhat of the scariest of prospects because it puts them on a road that maybe they're gonna have to change their thinking, change their spending discipline, change their approach to money altogether, and that is the truth. And for a lot of people, that is a scary proposition, but if you can get over that mental barrier, get that first 500 put away, the better off you'll be. The second is your first doubling cycle, and that is a thousand. You got $1,000 of capital put to risk to the market. That is indeed your first 2X. You've doubled your first initial investment to $1,000. This is another one of those milestones that if there's new investors out there being like, I got you, Ryan, man, I've got a thousand bucks ready to go right away. Well, then that's two of your financial milestones to be met toward that million dollar mark already met in a matter of seconds. So you're two steps out of 11 towards your million, not too shabby, and we haven't invested or talked about any investments at all. We're talking about fundamental thresholds. And for a lot of people, it's really just as simple as breaking down the information in understanding and saying, I can do that instead of always I can't or I'm used to not being able to, all right? The next one is the first 5X, and that's 2,500. This is a little more difficult, but still I insist that there are people out there with that first 2,500 dollars to say, look, I understand what Ryan's talking about with getting off the launching pad. 2,500 dollars is critical, man, I've got that. Now, that is the first three financial milestones that need to be reached on your road to a million dollars. 2,500 dollars for a lot of people, this is doable. But again, they get so caught up in their day-to-day spending that maybe they have no problem getting up to 2,500 in the savings and boom, they take a vacation or boom, they've got an expenditure or boom, they've got a car improvement or a fix or repair that needs to be done. And they're always cycling through that money so fast that they don't divvy that money up and strategically earmark that first 2,500 dollars for investment purposes only. You've got to be shivering, hungry, cold, wet and tired on the side of the road, man, before you justify tapping into your retirement savings. Is that critical and it is that sacred? And you have to be that aggressive about your application in understanding that it is that important to maintain the integrity of the very roadmap that I'm looking to define for each and every one of you guys. The next is 5,000. And again, it starts to come into this category of 5,000 is a little tougher, this can take a little bit more time, but indeed it could be even the fourth milestone that can be met in a matter of seconds to where, look, I get what Ryan's talking about, I wanna invest, I've got five grand, I'm in, I'm gonna start. 5,000, I'm in. Four milestones down, right? And you're on your way to your first million dollar opportunity and getting to that financial freedom that we all seek. We just don't know how to define the roadmap for ourselves and this is how you do it, but the 5,000 really does denote the first 10X of your money. You've been able to dollar cost average this if you had to work up and start with that 500 initial starting capital because you didn't have that 1,000, 2,500, 5,000 to boom, throw at the market. You did start with that 500 and start building your money slowly over time at 25 or $50 every month. So it'll take a little bit of time to get there, but once you do get there, that $5,000 bill that you've got that is put to risk to capital in the market represents your very first 10X of your original milestone of $500. So think about it in that way. The next one is the toughest milestone to get to. I've said this many, many times and I charge any investor out there that is part of the independent investor community as an empowered investor to get to that first $10,000 of capital that is put to risk to the market. It's a very, very important milestone of very few people under 39 years old to actually have about one in five that make under 39,000 per year, about one in five people have $10,000 put to some level of investment program for themselves. And a lot of those are tied up in employer sponsored 401K types of programs that you just contribute to. And it's kind of a no-brainer approach to putting money away for yourself. The $10,000 is a tough one. I've broken down milestones on the channel many, many times. I've walked through every single one of these milestones minus the big one. And I'll talk about that as I get toward the end. But as I advocate for people out there and I try to make the message less about myself and more about what you can do to walk the same path that I've walked and have this be a reality for you. You gotta get to that first $10,000 market. It's very, very important. Many schools of thought out there would say, I wanna get to a million, I wanna get to a million but they're stuck in that rut and they can't get that first 1,000 or 2,500 put away and put to capital to risk. So you can't put the horse before the carriage, man. You cannot get to that million before you get that first 10,000. So let's focus on that first 10,000. And if you need to granular think about each of those milestones in exclusivity, do it because it'll really help you break down meeting milestones, giving yourself that credit at the time and then earmarking the next milestone to be made. The next one is an interesting one. And the first four stages that I talked about, 500, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, those are the beginning stages, okay? That really brings you up to that first $5,000. But once you reach the $10,000 mark, now we're talking about five figures of wealth. And this is where it really starts to be interesting and it really starts to put you in a kind of a realm of your own. I call this stage the no man's land stage. Technically I dub this the intermediate stage because the beginning stage, you're just getting your feet wet, you're understanding how your money can fluctuate up and down in value. But to enter into the intermediate stage, there are only three steps in the intermediate stage. And the first one is that $10,000 milestone that I talked about, the next being 25,000. And you might think, goodness man, it took me so long to get to the $10,000 mark, it's gonna take me forever to get to 25,000. If you think that way, then you will never get there. And that's really the key is understanding that what it took to get to 10,000 is the very same thing that it'll take to 25,000. And you'll be amazed at how the compounding effect starts to kind of take hold here. And your money starts to actually work for you. And this is where you might think that it'll take you a long time, you're getting a pretty good help now in this snowball effect that is starting, whereas in the beginning stages of welfare building, it's all a lot of manufactured dollars. You work for $25 and you contribute $25. You work for $25 and the next month you contribute 25 and it's all dollar for dollar. Now it's a little different. You might increase that contribution level to $50 or $100 and those $100 are flowing in the real dollars, but you're getting a little bit of help on the capital appreciation side in that the snowball effect is really starting to kind of roll toward those goals, irrespective of what you do to help it on the dollar cost average schedule, i.e. adding to it every month. So this is the phenomenon where it really starts to happen in the intermediate stage. You're not used to it because again, this is taking people that are not philosophically trained to understand the different thresholds. That's why I'm giving them to you now, but if you've learned anything in the beginning stages, you've proven yourself through the first four stages of wealth building that you can in fact identify and meet different thresholds as you approach your wealth. And the last one in the intermediate stage is $50,000. It is a nice stage to close out the intermediate stage of investing. It really is that stage that is kind of still in no man's land a little bit. This is where the thought of, look, I could go buy a Corvette right now and just end it all. I've got my dream, I'm out, I fall off the wagon, I fall on tilt and I'm completely out because man, that independent investor guy, he's awesome. He got me through the first seven stages of wealth building and I'm awesome. I'm rich, I've got $50,000. This is where it really helps to have perspective, really learn about and understand. This is where you've become kind of an expert on your own application in meetings, financial thresholds. Mind you, this is closing down the intermediate stage and it's entering into what I consider to be the advanced stage. Really important to get into that six figure stages of wealth and that's where that compounding snowball effect really starts to take hold and really starts to accelerate you toward that finish line. But $50,000 is kind of a token figure, to be honest with you. It's a nice threshold to get to. It really does represent for me and I hope it does for any other investors. A nice size of wealth that kind of closes down the beginning and the intermediate stages of wealth building and really sets you up to the best that I can set folks up and scale the investor mentality for people to enter into the advanced stage with the very best chance of reaching that seven figure milestone that we're all achieving. But after the $50,000, we enter into the advanced stage and the next one is the six figure threshold. So with a rule of 72, that $50,000 should double in between seven to 10 years based on the rate of return that you're going. No problem. The whole idea is that a certain number of these steps that I discussed, you could have just right made happen in a matter of seconds. These thresholds could take a number of years to progress through as you get to that million dollar mark. But the six figure mark is a big one. It really is, it's a nice milestone. Me personally, I hit three milestones in three different accounts, each of which were $100,000 milestones. So three different advanced milestones on my larger accounts. They were big milestones, multiple milestones met in a lot of different buckets. I met the $50,000 in 2021, I met the $25,000 which is an intermediate milestone and then many other beginning stage milestones in some of the initial accounts that I started in 2021 just to march multiple accounts toward that end goal. But the next is the quarter million dollar mark. The final stages that are the advanced stages, they really do take time. And this is really where you need to put this stage or put the plan kind of on autopilot. You really do need to lengthen out your expectation because it's not gonna happen overnight, avoid temptation. Hey, you've got all kinds of money now, you're in the advanced stage, you're a six figure investor, you can just fall off tilt or make extravagant investments. And this is the stage where you run the highest risk of going backwards. And so you gotta be careful with that as slow as you're gonna move forward on a nice anticipated rate of return, the better off you'll be in making sure that you're gonna meet those goals down the line but a quarter million nice round number. This is total portfolio value here and then a half a million. I actually hit that one advanced milestone which is step 10. I have one step to go toward that million dollar mark. So I'm at step 10 out of 11 right now in my own personal portfolio. The reason why I disclose that over YouTube is I'm a blue collar guy. I've never made over $100,000 in a year. I'm a salary worker, I love my job, I love my side hustle. We are savers, we do budget our money and we do save fairly aggressively. And this is where I am at 43 years old. Could I have done better? Yeah, probably. Could I have done worse? Yeah, probably. Could I have just not embarked on this journey in the first place? And that's really the scary proposition that I really wanna hit home with you guys is, are you in that camp? Are you in that camp of people who are just putting it off till tomorrow always never to really start the program and get some of those initial stages knocked out that I talked about in this plan. But the last plan going from $500,000 is that $1 million mark and you've made it. Now, whether or not you make it or not is not a measure of success in my eyes. I think money and how you break down money and the pursuit of different financial thresholds in my opinion does not define your level of success in this life. However, from a financial perspective, we all wanna have more in the future. We all want to have that financial security, which is my personal goal. And to give to that million dollar mark will absolutely solidify for myself some of the things that I potentially want to do into the future by meeting these milestones. And I've just kinda walked you through my mentality of the 11 steps and the three stages necessary. So 11 total money thresholds and the beginning and intermediate and advanced stage. I'm at step 10. So I invite you to embark on this journey with me whether it be you at step one or along with me as I share my tutorial through the Independent Investor Channel as an empowered investor for you guys at step 10 looking to take that next step into a seven figure portfolio. Guys, if you enjoy the message you wanna make sure and subscribe to the channel hit the notification bell, leave your comments at the bottom of the video bring anybody on that you know needs the money explanation and a quick tutorial the way that I've outlined for you in these 11 steps and three stages this should excite anybody in understanding that they can do it. They don't always have to enter into a vicious cycle that so many people get caught up in their money to where they just enter into a habit forming behavior of earning and spending and earning and spending. And I think if you can really identify these steps and say, you know what, I can do it too. I'm the first to tell you, you absolutely can. Thank you so much for tuning in to the message and good luck in your investment future.