The Hardcore Truth From The Hardcore Closer with Ryan Stewman

0:00Common sense isn't so common anymore because we have parents that for two or three generations now have let their kids be raised by video games, iPads, computer. the school has made it to where like now there's all these grading cards, participation trophies for education and stuff like that. We're seeing the consequences of that. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks?

0:40Well, it starts right about now. What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. Hey, we're trying to make it all right in today's world, and ultimately we're bringing you What's Now. And I've been following my next guest for quite a bit on social. He doesn't know me probably as well as I know him, just for at least following him. And I'll say this. We say we take the BS out of business. I like this guy because I can see through the bullshit that you see on the internet with some of these people talking. And Ryan Steumann, you may like him, you may not like him, but you know what? He ain't full of shit.

1:18He knows what he's talking about. He's a smart guy, and he is the hardcore closer. What's up, Ryan? What's up, man? Glad to be here. Yeah, dude. Hey, just happy to have you, man. You're in my, you know, the algorithms is an interesting thing. I don't know what it says. I don't know if I just because I will say this, you know, there's there's an edge of anger to Ryan just a little bit that I feel that's like I bet you it's old, Brian. I could see Ryan like 20 years ago might maybe be a little angry and young or something. And now he's got wisdom. He's got money. He's got maybe a little power, but he channels it in the right way.

1:54But I don't know if it's hitting my eye because I don't know if I'm a little angry these days because you hit my feet every day. Yeah, I have terrible bedside manner. I could see that. I could see that. But I speak the truth. And so I don't feel like I have to sugarcoat things. You know, the lies need to be sugarcoated. The bullshit needs to make somebody feel good. I just want to be straight up, you know, and that's who I am. That's how I've always been. Some like it, some don't. And it's just, you know, that's just how I am. You don't like me, that's cool. untrend, unfollow, block whatever the fuck you got to do and move on.

2:35Yeah. But I think if people want to like the rapper, you might not always like the rapper, but like once you get inside, like the knowledge that you have is clearly there. The experience is there. And I think if people spend enough time, they'll see that it's real. But Ryan, I do like to set the table for our audience, you know, for you. I know you're the CEO and founder of Apex, but let's just maybe I'll let you use your words. You've done a lot of shows. People can go watch the episode that's about Ryan's background only, but maybe hit it a little bit of the high notes and then we'll talk about some business.

3:15So, you know, I'm a prolific mistake maker and that's how I got wisdom. And, you know, I've lived a very humbling life of ups and downs. I call it rock bottom lows and meteor ties. I was adopted at age seven, became a drug dealer at age 14, went to prison at age 19, went to prison again at age 25. I think I was in eight different maximum security institutions. I've been divorced. You name it. I've screwed it up, but I'm a good example of what can happen in life if you just refuse to be a victim, if you refuse to quit, if you refuse to give up on the opportunity that we have in front of us here as Americans.

4:02So despite all of those prolific mistakes and horrific things that I've had to endure in my life, my husband, I've been married to my wife for seven years. We've been together 10 years. I've got four kids that are amazing. I run a nice business that changes people's lives, that shows them how to overcome struggles and things of that nature. So, you know, that's me in a nutshell, just fighting the force of average on a daily basis. I have this belief that the world wants to keep your average. If you live below average, we don't give you support, welfare, free housing, grant, stuff like that. You can go get a job and live a middle class life.

4:42But when we decide to do greatness, we get into a situation where there's this gravitational pull and push against us to put us back down to being an average citizen. So when you're chasing greatness, when you want more than the average person, you're going to pay higher taxes. You're going to have bigger problems. You're going to have a lot more stress. And so I'm chasing greatness. I'm a long ways from great. I'll be the greatest I'll ever be the day that I die. But I'm chasing it. And it's not easy. No, it's not. I think what's interesting about what you just said, Ryan, is I think all the best practices in the world are set up to get average.

5:26Right. And so when you're actually chasing the top of the mountain or you have you're aspiring to things and the world is conditioning us, you know, I have to I have to out I have to I have four boys, too. So, look, I have to condition them out of what they get taught, which is to fall in line and be average. And if you want to have a bigger life, a better life, to have impact, to do things, you have to sort of take risks and break free from average. And I think that's probably what's always stood out a little bit with your content. I'm like, OK, it never felt like it was it had an agenda because it felt like it was free, like you were freed up.

6:09And but I think it was because if you want to chase past what everyone else has, you got to be willing to do what no one else is willing to do. And I feel like that's a lot of the ways you've built your business. It looks like it. Yeah. You know, the name of my company is Break Free Academy. For that reason. I didn't even know it. Look at there. I love it. Is and what what does that stand for to you? Well, I think, you know, as human beings, like I've said, we're fighting this force of average. We are fighting mental limitations. We're fighting financial limitations. We're fighting shit, everything in our reality.

6:51And so, you know, freedom means you have the time and the means to do whatever you want, whenever you want. And like in business, most people, they get into business because they want to be their own boss and then have time freedom. But then what happens for most people is they have neither of those there. They have to answer to investors, a board of directors, employees, middle management, and they have no time left over to do the things that they want to do with the money that they've made. So, you know, just trying to help people break free from all of that stuff. Ryan, what's your opinion on like the state of America and business?

7:33You know, we've got an election coming up. We're not scared to go down any road here on this on right about now. We take the BS out of business. So we're in an election season. And I'm personal. And I think you probably feel this way, like no matter who's elected, it's not going to get in the way of my success. However, I think we all have opinions about the business climate and just respecting you in your experience, your wisdom. What what do you make of the business climate right now in America? Well, this is the first time in my life, I'm 45 years old, this is the first time in my life administration and the government has got in the way of my success.

8:14And, well, that's not true. So when I was a drug dealer and I was trying to be successful as a drug dealer, the government got in the way of my success. And then because I became a convicted felon and Dodd's Frank was passed in 2010, they wouldn't allow me to do financial stuff anymore because I was a felon. So they've intervened twice, but it hasn't stopped my success. But right now, think about this. It's 2024. Just two years ago, you can make money off of Rolexes, Lamborghinis, private jet charters, crypto, NFTs, Mastermind. And dude, anything we touched, real estate, houses and cars were selling for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over list price.

9:06Interest rates were dirt cheap. Gasoline was dirt cheap. Everything you touched, you made money from. And our government got to know what these people take it all away from. There's no other time in my life. Like I was a load officer in 2007, 8, 9, and 10. And even though the mortgage market was crashing, there were still people that were making money and it was only the real estate and mortgage market that was crashing. I never seen the government come in and take everything away like they have the last couple of years. And, you know, what happens is we're chasing policy from when Congress passed an act or a law or a president puts an executive order in.

9:53It takes a few years for it to catch up. It doesn't happen immediately. And we're seeing the day that Joe Biden took office and signed 62 executive orders to undo everything that Trump did. We're seeing the results of that in our economy right now. And you're blind if you can't see that because Stevie Wonder can see it. yeah he uh uh it's funny i think kamala got like show notes from him because i watched him speak at like one of her events and it was very eloquent by the way for stevie it's stevie wonder but he said he said nothing while saying a lot of words uh yeah which is a lot of what i hear out of her mouth and uh i still really don't have a fucking clue what she's talking about and i mean I don't know.

10:36Let's put the other side in politics. Just putting that over here. Like, I have no idea. No, no idea whatsoever. I'm an independent. You know, I like Bill Clinton. I like Barack Obama. I like Ronald Reagan. And I like Obama a lot. I like Bill Clinton a lot. Bush one, Bush two was good. Trump was great. Biden's been a nightmare. And Kamala, her thing is, it's hilarious, but she just says a bunch of synonyms. She goes, we have desires, aspirations, and needs, and wants. And because we have desires and aspirations and needs and wants, there are things that we feel we should be able to acquire and have and own.

11:21It's like, are you just fucking saying the same word? Three different synonyms at a time. Get to it, lady. Get to it. Tell me something. I saw there was a comedian that did us. That's been using that bouncing around or something that talking circle. I think it's like suing the campaign because they, I don't know, claim that she's that they were supporting her or something and talking in circles like tomorrow we're going to do it. And you know, there's something about tomorrow and doing it. That's doing it. I'm like, what the fuck? That's it. Anyway, it's going to be an idiot, It's as annoying as fuck to somebody that's got a little bit of an education and experience in this world, you know?

12:03Yeah, I think I'll say this. We're this is a test of the IQ of America right here. I hate to say it. We're going to get to find out real fast where we're at. Well, common sense isn't so common anymore because we have parents that for two or three generations now have let their kids be raised by video games, iPads, computers. The school has made it to where like I was in school, if you didn't get straight A's, you got in trouble. And now there's all these grading cards, participation trophies for education and stuff like that. We're seeing the consequences of that. You know, when I was young, if you were told the stove would burn your hand and you put your hand on it anyway, they laughed at you.

12:52They were like, you're an idiot. I told you the stove was hot. And now it's like, oh, my God, we've got to get rid of the stove. It's just a completely different climate. And we're seeing we're seeing the consequences of that. Yeah. Accountability is the word. And it's gone out the window because we have conditioned everything to be convenient and comfortable. And it's great. Look, I think you have kids. We want our kids to be comfortable. We don't want them. You know, it's not that we don't want them to have a great life, but you don't learn or have a great life without lessons and consequences and accountability.

13:33and I think you've nailed it. I think we're seeing the participation trophy people are now running companies and government and other things, and so they want, like, what's crime in California? You know, you can murder somebody, you're out of jail in 10 years. They don't even report it in some of these cities like L.A. and New York. They don't even report it anymore. Like the FBI put a report out there today saying crime's down by 4%, but that's because New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Texas, Chicago doesn't report crime to the FBI anymore. So we're not getting real statistics. We're not getting the real education.

14:13We're not getting real accountability. And we wonder why we have fake-ass people running our economy that are in power. It's crazy. Yeah. Ryan, talk to me about like from a business standpoint. you know you said you're feeling it is there a specific policy or i don't know you know enlightening our listeners to because i like to be you know we have the and look i'm independent as well i've voted on all both sides of the line i i think my practicality and principles and morals probably lean right but i don't i'm not afraid to cross the aisle so i consider myself independent And but I will say this, like, is there something specific like for listeners?

14:58So we're not, you know, say we don't want to be the Kamala. We want to be specific. Like, what's the biggest thing that sort of impacted you from a business with today's client? Well, there's a couple of things. You know, I sell the business owner. So I get to hear from people all day, every day that aren't making much money as they used to. And there's actually a few things that come into play. Number one, two years ago, interest rates were at 3 % and 4%. You could go buy a rental property and you could cash flow it. Now we have to buy that thing for cash or put a significantly larger down payment down to get it to cash flow at 6.5 % to 7.5%.

15:38Then on top of that, in a lot of blue states, they have capped the amount of raise that you can put on the rent. So if you raise the rent every year, they've said, oh, you can only do 5%, you can do 10%. But they didn't cap the amount of tax increase because the property values went up. They didn't cap the amount of insurance. My properties in Florida, I've sold all of them before, and I'll sell it in November, is because I can't raise rent, but the insurance company raised my policy 300%. it so the government said fuck the landlord but we're going to take care of the insurance companies and the municipalities and a lot of business owners own real estate whether it's the office that they have or whether it's the portfolio of real estate and when that's the crops cash flowing and then an HVAC goes out or a roof gets damaged or a tenant destroys the house on the way out every dollar that they've made for an entire year on that.

16:42The second problem is, let's say in 2022, you made a million bucks. In 2023, you've got to pay taxes on that million bucks. But taxes are paid in the rear. In 2023, in April, May, June, July, whatever it is you decide to pay taxes as a business owner, depending on when you expend it, you're having a year that is 20, 30, 40 percent less as good of cash flow as it was in 2022 so now every dollar that you save has gone out the window in 2023 and you can't take the loss in 2023 till this year and this year if your business is down again you owe to where we're trailing from better years and business going down and getting taxed in arrears and it's like fuck man i'm already out of money and now they're taxing me from a year ago and i thought things are going to continue to be good so I maybe bought more inventory, maybe got a bigger warehouse, maybe went and hired more people.

17:41And now I'm not making as much money and I still owe those taxes and I got to let these people go in order to do that. I hear these stories all day, every day, man. So, you know, it's a combination of things. And on top of that, as an American, just not even a business owner, our cost of goods are up. And the reason why is because I'm in a diesel truck and diesel is traditionally less expensive than gas. But a few years ago, they started making us put death fuel on top of diesel. And now diesel is more expensive than gas. And I'm watching great companies and trucking companies go out of business left and right because they've got to charge a higher price in order to pay for the expensive diesel.

18:23And, man, when you're in a semi truck and you're burning three, four, you know, gallons to the mile because you've got a big ass load in the trailer that you're traveling with, you can't take a loss on that. You've got to make some money. So you either lower your margin or you go out of business and watch a lot of that happen, too. So the cost of goods may only be this is the live statistics we see from the government. The cost of goods may only be up 4 % or 5%, but the lack of drilling new wells, we haven't drilled a new well in America since 2017. We haven't opened a new refinery in forever, and everything's operating at max capacity.

19:01Diesel is super expensive, which means the transportation of goods to get to the floor, to get to our doorstep, is through the fucking roof. And so now we're having to pay more for that, too. So health insurance is up, property insurance is up, cost of goods is up. Even if you're making more money right now, you're actually making less money because everything else that you have to do with is more expensive. For a family of six in my house, health insurance, and we're all healthy. None of us have anything wrong with this. It's$3 ,000 a month. That's$36 ,000 a year. So if I wasn't a good entrepreneur, I either have to go take a job where they pay for my health insurance, which costs the company$36 ,000 a year, or if I make$100 ,000, I'm really only making$64 ,000 to live on just after health insurance.

19:52That's not mortgage. That's not gas. That's not food. That's not any of that shit. Yeah. Hey, dude, here's, look, we take the BS out of business. that was just a masterclass in what is happening in the economy right now that's impacting business. And number one that you talked about, Ryan, I talk about a lot. The impact of interest rates being high is having a huge impact because here's the thing, things that aren't even related to real estate, the cash that it's keeping out of the everyday market because those rates aren't so high because people aren't doing what you're saying, flipping houses, doing things.

20:29When you stall real estate in this country, you have stalled the entire economy. There's not as much free cash flow and just business transactions happening. I've been talking about that for months. I'm glad you brought that up. Well, the other problem is I read a statistic from NAR three or four days ago. 47 % of real estate agents have not pulled a home in the last 12 months. And the The median home sales for real estate agent in the country right now is two in 12 months. It was three just a couple of years ago, right? So that's been cut by a third. And, you know, traditionally hard money rates were like 8%, 9%.

21:11Now they're 12 % to 15%. The SBA was 6 % to 7%. Right now the SBA is at 12 % to 16%. You can't go acquire businesses. You can't acquire houses and profit from them. Even if you buy a primary residence, like my home, I paid a million bucks for it six years ago. It's worth$2 million right now. Prices have gone up in my area. If I were to sell that house and keep a million dollars, first of all, I'm going to be taxed on$300 ,000 of that because it's only a$700 ,000 non-capital gain primary residence. So I would be taxed on$300 ,000 of that. Then if I go buy another house that only costs me a million dollars, maybe I move further out of the city, so I'm paying more for gas, transportation, things of that nature.

21:55And that house at a million dollars costs more than my house right now with a low interest rate. I have a ranch house that I've bought for$440 ,000. and the mortgage is more money per month on that than it is for the million dollar house that i bought six years ago and refinanced 2.875 so i'm paying a thousand dollars and that's a month for a two million dollar house that i've owned for six years than a four hundred thousand dollar home that i bought just a year ago yeah dude that's this is the shit it's like we throw around all this stuff and all the people talk about things, but this is the hard reality of it.

22:39It's like, this is the impact. And so you have a guy like Ryan busted his ass, running businesses, creating jobs, doing these things, investments, but these are the impacts for him. Imagine what the impacts, talk about cost of goods, like everyday people, they're paying$7 for a loaf of bread and all this, but then that's back to the fuel, the cost of getting it there, right? Well, I mean, consider this. You make$120 ,000 a year, which historically is excellent money. Great money. But you've got three kids. So you're paying$2 ,200 a month or let's call it$30 ,000 a year for health insurance. Then you're paying 35%, 38 % in taxes.

23:28So you're really living on about$35 ,000 to$40 ,000 a year after gross taxes and health insurance on a W-2 job with a couple of kids in$120 ,000 a year salary. It's fucking crazy. And right now, you know, I'm somewhat of a mainstream economist because I've been in the financial markets for 20 years. But anytime the Fed cuts rates, they're chasing problems. And unemployment is at an all-time high right now. You're not going to get that from a government statistic, but it is what it is. And inflation is actually going down a little bit. So the Fed cut rates because of unemployment. Companies can go out and borrow cheaper money and expand and hire more people.

24:11But any time the Fed has cut the rate, there is always in the next three to 12 months a 20 to 55 percent decline in the value of the stock market overall. So that means we're – we haven't even seen the market crash yet and the ramifications of what are to come from that because of this rate cut because they don't just cut the rate because they're like, we want to be nice to people and give them more money. That's not how it works. No. And the whole point in that is, yeah, we want the rates to come down, but we didn't they didn't need to get that high to begin with because these policies created this.

24:49Now, you know, they're they're both the they're both the cause of the disease and the prescription. That's the problem. You know that it's dangerous when you call us the problem. If I don't go create a bunch of problems, they go create a bunch of problems. and then promise us that they'll solve them. It's like, motherfucker, you get this. The solution was not to raise rates six fucking consecutive times in a row. You could have, like, yes, 3 % interest rate is ridiculously low. That was great. But anybody with a half a brain knows the sweet spot in America for mortgage interest rates is 5.5%. That's enough to keep people buying.

25:32It's not too expensive. That's the sweet spot. They should have raised from three to five and a half and just stayed there. I thought that they went to seven and a half. Yeah. And they flatlined everything else. And you don't feel it immediately. That's why we're starting to feel it now because it's catching up. Yep. Yep. And that's why I'm going to mention one of our sponsors. It's the independent center dot org. If you believe in independent thinking, you want to be part of a community dedicated to that. It's about policy and it's not about partisan politics. That's what they are about. We support that.

26:07Constructive dialogue, policy reform and improvement. We're talking policies, that stuff that you don't hear out of the mouth of certain candidates. IndependenceCenter.org, they are an official sponsor of Right About Now. We support them because we need more free thinkers and we need to talk about policies and not politics. Yeah, brother. I mean, you're speaking the truth here. Where do you see, what's your crystal ball say? I guess if you knew who was going to win the election, you'd probably have some money on it or something. But what's 2025 going to be like? Is it like, well, let me see after November?

26:47Well, I try to have a positive outlook on life. So I think Trump is going to win, but they could cheat. I think he won in 2022. too unpopular opinion but i don't believe that more people voted for joe biden than voted for obama i just don't believe it yeah uh i don't think that as many people like kamala as the media is making it out to be in the polls and stuff but let's see if she or by some miracle of the stupidity of this country she wins she's gonna be the first female president she's gonna to be the second person of color president. If she fails and doesn't turn this thing around, it's going to be a major problem.

27:34And if I was a minority, which I'm not, I can't speak on their behalf. And Obama came in and by his second term turned the economy around. He was fucking doing great. Things were on the boom. It set up Trump to come in and take it to the next level. And Bush, a white guy that obviously screwed the economy up his last four years, right? Obama, it takes a while to get things right. By about Obama's third or fourth year in, things started turning around, the mortgage market picked back up, things started working well. We needed that because we wanted a guy like you that was the first African-American ever elected president to go, hey man, we elected an African-American, you did a hell of a job for us when it was all said and done.

28:14What a great guy. We've got to do the same thing with a woman for a woman to never be fucking elected ever again. she's got to come in as a person of color and a woman and she's got to make new changes especially if she wants to get re-elected so i think no matter who wins if they have a if trump wins he's got nothing to lose he's only got four more years so he could come in and fucking god knows what put all the department of justice under investigation turn the economy around he's got a whole bag of books he can use she could come in and make herself look like she changed the world as the first person or the second person of color to be president and the first woman.