"People Are LAZY!" Billionaire Exposes The BEST Ways To Make Money In 2026 (& Why 99% Will Fail)

26:24Just buy a load of umbrella because the umbrella very rarely. You want to hear a statistic that I just Googled this other night laying in bed? This will show you how bored I am. What percent of life insurance policies do you think are paid? Probably more than 50%. 1 % ever pay. How do they do that? People live. Oh. I'm saying at a certain point, my insurance, the term insurance starts to burn out. Also term insurance. That's all you want is term. You don't ever want to, if you, if you, if you start buying whole life or annuities or any kind, you're getting where the insurance agents make the most money, whole life annuities.

27:10It's a, it's a racket. All you need is term insurance. The younger you are, you don't have a pre-existing condition. When you go in, hey, I had a lesion here. Oh, you got to get it done early, early, and it's cheap. And then when you do it for your liability insurance, you buy a load of umbrella. Because the more you buy of umbrella, the cheaper it is. It's the cheapest insurance. Those first layers are the most expensive. There's not many claims paid. Above the umbrella policy. Above the main policy.

27:44Graham Stephan:you very rarely get into the umbrella. What's the best way not to be a target? Like we've heard from people that if you're not searchable and if they can't find your assets, it makes it less likely that a lawyer is going to see this and want to take your case. Well, I'll find your assets. How do you find assets? That's what I do for a living. I sued some doctors one time. They thought they hid their assets. I took$6 million out of their bank account. The funny thing is he comes to me. He's like, you know, I said, look, your insurance company, you know, he goes, how? I told him how he goes, what should I do?

28:21I said, there's a lawyer over in Tampa named Dale Swope. He's a bad faith lawyer. You need to go hire Dale Swope and sue your insurance company for bad faith. And I'll testify for you. He went hard. Dale Swope, Dale Swope made the bad faith case. He got six million. He got his six million back. And guess what happened? This guy now invests with me in my deals. The doctor that I took the$6 million from because I got his$6 million back. But he got his insurance company. How could he have remained invisible to you? Well, some people could. I mean, I basically was like hunting and pecking. Where did he go wrong?

28:56How could you find it when he thought you could?

28:58Graham Stephan:I just kept hitting banks and all of a sudden I hit one bank and there it was. In his name? Or was it in an LLC that he had -

29:11Graham Stephan:This is another level. Well, it was$6 million. The wife was the office manager. I saw her make a deposit. I go, there's the bank. Then I had the judgment, and I served her on the bank. I already got the verdict. I already got the judgment. I got the judgment. He thinks I don't have the judgment. Wasn't that his fault, though, for not disclosing? Because you're supposed to do a disclosure of assets. So wouldn't he disclose? He doesn't have to do that. Okay. I mean, we hadn't got to the point of in aid of execution. That's a different hold. You get the verdict, and then you start deposing in aid of execution.

29:51Then they start moving shit around then.

29:53Graham Stephan:Got it. I had a guy one time that we hit for$22 million in a commercial case, and I drug his ass to bankruptcy court. He wouldn't turn over his laptop to the judge, and the judge put him in jail. And as he was being taken off to jail, he's like, I will give you the laptop. I will give you the laptop. And the judge's like, well, then you better get him the laptop, and then you get out of jail. And I got the laptop, and I got the$22 million. Wow. What do you think about irrevocable trusts in terms of asset protection? Well, the word is irrevocable because now you're locked and loaded and the person you've given it to turns out to be an asshole or a drug addict.

30:44Irrevocable trusts are usually for your children. And what do you think about them for asset protection? It's just your money's gone. You just know it's gone. Yeah, it's very good, but it's not yours anymore. If it's irrevocable. Correct. Yeah, then it's just not yours. Doesn't mean you can't draw on it, though. No. It all depends. But again, this is getting above my pay level because when I did mine, I hired a lawyer in Palm Beach, Andy Cometor, who represents the richest people in Palm Beach.

31:14Graham Stephan:And how does he set up your estate? Is it through land trusts? It's hard to explain except it's really, it's there, but I can get to my money, but it's harder for me to get to my money. It's not like I can just sell something and do it. I control it, but I don't control it. but I control it. It's just another layer. Look, I'm also married with joint tennis by the entirety. Is that true throughout the entire United States? It all depends state by state. Okay. Everything's different. I mean, California is different. Florida is different. Everything's different. It's like divorce. In California, Florida is bad.

31:54You get divorced in California, in Florida is bad news. You're getting divorced in Montana. That's good news. Is there any tort reform that you would support or policy change that you would support that would make being a personal injury attorney less profitable, but would make the overall? Let me tell you something. Tort reforms, State Farm doled out$5 billion to their stakeholders. there's never been tort reform ever in the history of America that they say we're going to have tort reform and we're going to have mandatory rollback of rates never once when you vote for tort reform you're just making them richer and they're you find one time where there's been tort reform tied to a mandatory rollback of rates when that happens I'm in how common is it that someone with

32:51Graham Stephan:money can bully someone else into either settling or quieting them down or just scaring them. Now, we all know someone who's had an account hacked, information stolen, or been harassed online. My roommate Kevin is one of those people. His identity was stolen. Hi, I'm Kevin, and I got my identity stolen. And you may think that this will not happen to me. Well, that is exactly what Kevin thought. The truth is your personal information is out there way more than you think. And that's why we use and partner with Delete.me. Delete.me removes your information from hundreds of data broker websites, so you're not tracking it all down yourself.

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35:38Graham Stephan:Again, that's evenrealities.bio slash icedcoffee. you can scan the QR code on the screen or just click the link down below in the description and use the code ICEDCOFFEE. How common is it that someone with money can bully someone else into either settling or quieting them down or just scaring them? I don't see it. I mean, I just don't see it. You know, the thing about money is there's something more powerful than money the truth and our jury system jurors can figure it out but it costs money to get to that point like we see what's common on youtube is that you have some creators who want to silence other people and they do it through lawsuits and some of them i would say valid and i think they're in the right and some of them are also not and it's someone with a lot of money who's i don't like what they say i'm gonna sue them for this it's i'm just gonna keep milking it what you got to remember is these stories you hear take on a life of their own and a lie of their own.

36:42You hear stories that just aren't true. You heard the story about the McDonald's hot coffee and they got$5 million and they just brought it in and it's just terrible. We need Torah for them. Well, guess what the true story is? The true story is before they got that verdict of$5 million, it had happened hundreds of times. And how did it happen? They heated the coffee up at 140 degrees. Why do they heat it up at 140 degrees? So it would stay warm by the time you get back to the office. And it kept happening and happening and happening and happening. And by the time the case was finally resolved through everything, the person got like less than a million dollars.

37:25But the whole story was a lie. But hot coffee was like the poster child for tort reform because people heard a snippet of a lie and then spread the lie. Remember how you'd whisper in kindergarten and then whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper, and go around the table? And when you get back to this final guy, what he says is not even close to what he started with. That's what happens. And guess what? We live in a conspiracy theory world. You know, Hillary Clinton's got, you know, underground. Not only, she eats babies. She eats babies. Obama's a lizard person. Or a lesbian. Michelle's a man.

38:09Michelle's a man. I mean, all of it. That's the world we live in. And that's bad for my business because that those distortions in fairness i just want to defend myself on this one i know a

38:23Graham Stephan:lot of these people personally and so it's like me talking to jack and sometimes i know the other person involved as well i know them both personally and i could see well in fairness i would like to sit at the table and ask the questions and get the real facts because people that are that feel like they've been over tend to tell their story a lot differently like if your wife is a she doesn't think she's a she thinks you're a

38:53that's what i tell them all the time but but you're her true now going back to the topic of your business and success forbes estimates

39:04Graham Stephan:your net worth to be one and a half billion dollars how do they estimate something like that how do they know i don't know you don't know how they try to source that i think they try to source, they go, how much of the firm does he own? What would he be taken out of? How much of the firm does he own? And by the way, net worth's all bull. I don't consider anybody a billionaire that doesn't have a real billion in the bank. Guess how many people have a real billion liquid? How many? Yeah, I don't know how many. Maybe 20. Papa John was one of them. He doesn't have, No, no, no way. He said he put a billion dollars.

39:43Graham Stephan:He sold for 1.2 and he said he put a billion in dividends. Dividend stocks are earning 5%. That's what he told us. I think it's on the record. It's on video. Well, then tell him to show you his financial statement where he signed it. My financial statement's got every dollar, every brokerage account. Look, Kanye West was a billionaire. That wasn't a billionaire. they're like hey we're going to extrapolate he's making 40 million a year and that means it's a 25x and 25 times 40 is 1 billion you're a billionaire it's this they're just each other off a billion for me is when a billion's in the bank do you have a billion in the bank i'm a billionaire it's a powerful statement a real one One of 10.

40:3620. 20, give or take. Because most people have their net worth in their businesses. And they say, okay, we're making 30. What's the girl? Rihanna is a billionaire. She ain't no billionaire. She's got some kind of makeup company that's making 30 or 40 million. And they're giving her like a 40X. and it might the company may not be around kanye had all this money because he had the the reebok deal or the adi whatever deal until he's the bed and then he was working that you know now he's so billionaires look there's nothing that stops the music like the word billionaire there. It gets clicks. That's why you're here.

41:32It gets clicks. This is, I mean, I really appreciate the transparency. This is fascinating. This is like, we're pulling the curtain back at Wizard of Oz. And not going to pull back. Listen, I am the most authentic person you're ever going to meet. Because when you start bullying, you're just bullying yourself. And guess what? If my banks hear that, they're going to know if I'm bull**** or not. So when you say a billionaire, you mean you pop open your brokerage account or you pop open your business savings account. And it just, however many, I don't even know how many euros that is.

42:09Graham Stephan:I'm sure through foundations and trusts and. I'm just saying, you know, but I'm saying most people don't have it. They have it in real estate. So how did you become a liquid net worth billionaire? Where did the money come from? I have an attraction business that does 33 million a year in EBITDA. I've made a fortune in real estate. I had a billboard company that I sold. I had an advertising agency that I sold. What are you selling all these companies for? I'm curious how much - I sold my billboard company to Lamar for 13X. And then your real estate portfolio, how did you make the money there? How much money do you have in real estate?

42:49The only thing I ever put on my financial statement is my basis. A lot of people believe it themselves. They go, hey, I bought this house for a million dollars, but it's really worth three million. Why? Because you could sell it. I would say the same as a stock. But there's appreciation of equity. Maybe something is worth what somebody will pay. Correct. So on my financial statements, the only thing I put on my financial statements is my basis. And you don't account for appreciation? No. Because I'm not going to do myself off either. at what age when i sell it when i sell it and it goes liquid then it goes into my brokerage account and that's real money then and until it goes in my brokerage account it's not real money to me the guy that you know the hero of mine is guy that started patagonia oh yes yvon chouinard that's the guy you ought to go interview i would love to love to I've seen him speak one time.

43:45He's the one I heard, I'm not a billionaire. They made him a billionaire. He said, I'm not a billionaire. I don't have a billionaire in the bank. It's so funny. Even Jake Paul said the same thing,

43:54Graham Stephan:that he wouldn't consider himself a billionaire until he has a billion liquid. Yeah. When did you become a liquid net worth billionaire? Recently. It was recently. Yeah. Liquid. And the main things that contribute - Well, don't forget, I'm also, I've got children. I'm making my money, but I got four children that I'm fanning out. serious money to. And where do you think most of your net worth crossing that billion dollar mark came from? Was it appreciation of stock? Was it the active income from your law firm? Was it the real estate? Law firm. You also have a lot of profitable businesses besides the law firm.

44:32Graham Stephan:What do you attribute these ideas to? And why do so many of them seem to hit? Well, some don't. I mean, I've had some, I've had a few losers. Look, Warren Buffett is only his, his whole net worth and success is basically 11 or 12 stocks. It's not what you would think. It's not this bunch is like this. Uh, I feel like I have a pulse on what people want and what people like. I'm also risk adverse and debt adverse. Like when I, when I do my businesses, if I don't have the money, I'll go get partners or I'll do a private placement memorandum. And when I started building the attractions, I raised the money, OPM.

45:15People in real estate are much more risky than me because it can just take you down. And then what I do is I call it, I got the A side and the B side. The A side is my cash that I use to invest. The B side, once money goes over to the B side, it's never ever touched for the rest of my life. all it does is throw off, you know, 4 % tax-free-ish. So if I got a hundred million, I make four. If I got 200 million, I make eight. If I got a billion, I make 40. And what are you making that with? Tax-free bonds, T-bills, and interest rates. Between three and 4%. Some of it's tax-free, some of it's not.

46:00Graham Stephan:What are the differences that you've seen between the type of people that make millions, tens of millions, and hundreds of millions? Is there a personality trait? Is there a mindset that they have differently? Look, everything is different, but I would say that the people who really get filthy rich are patient. I didn't make a million dollars until I was 41 because I was pouring everything back into my businesses. Some people pour it into boats and Ferraris and whores. And I'm like, that's a non-performing asset as far as I'm concerned. So the mistake they make is they want to get rich quick The biggest mistake they make is greed Greed is not good Greed is dangerous And by the way And I have been greedy and made mistakes And it goes like this How do you know if you're being greedy?

47:02If it's too good to be true It's too good to be true If you see somebody offering, hey, we're going to pay you 11 % interest, run. It's a lie. If I could take everything I have and have only invested in an instrument that gave me 8 % compounding, that's all I would want. That's all I would need. But don't you think that you go from a place when you have less money of like trying to gain appreciation, rapid growth to the point of asset protection and capital preservation? Like there is a kind of tipping point. Well, the book I like is The Tortoise and the Hare. I'm the tortoise. And so what's the most amount of money you've lost due to greed?

47:49It really wasn't lost money. It was I lost, I wasted my time. I went with some people who kind of, me, I mean, to put down what I lost, I lost so much time around with them.

48:03Graham Stephan:Were there red flags or something that you should have identified? Always. What are the red flags? Here's a red flag. Let me explain it to you in Kentucky terms. You ever been walking in the woods and felt your foot slip like that? Loose ground, yeah. No. You're like, was that dog? Ah. And then you keep walking. And then you keep walking to your car. And you're like, as you're walking to the car, you're like, no. That's probably pine needles. That's probably grass. That's probably wet leaves. Because we don't want it to be dog. We don't want there to be dog on our shoes. And then you walk to the car.

48:40You've been thinking about dogs the whole time. But by the time you get to the car, you convince yourself it was leaves or pine needles. and then you get in the car and then you shut the door. Y 'all know that smell I'm thinking about right now? All three of y 'all know that smell I'm thinking about right now. And here's the lesson for everybody out there in Podcastville. If it smells like dog, there's dog in life and in love. And we can sense it, but the reason we don't is greed. we're so crypto. And I don't know if you all are crypto people. No. A little.

49:23Graham Stephan:I like Bitcoin. I mean, 8 % of his net worth in Bitcoin. I have like maybe 1%. And listen, when Lamar Odom is selling Bitcoin, I'm out. Everybody that sells Bitcoin, you know, got gold chains on, medallions, and a Russian hooker. I'm not, and maybe they're going to make money. I don't know. But to me, crypto's dog for me. Now, some people, Donald Trump is making billions. He makes it even when people lose because he gets it coming and going. I mean, he's smart. So I look at Bitcoin, and why do we do Bitcoin? The same reason they bought the tulip bulbs. You know the tulip bulb story? Okay. So everybody out there listening, Google tulip bulbs in the 1600s.

50:11Everybody's buying tulip bulbs, tulip bulbs, tulip bulbs, tulip bulbs, tulip bulbs. was the tulip bulbs were crazy high. What I look at the lessons from tulip bulbs is to me, tulip bulbs are crypto today. To me, why were people buying tulip bulbs? I still can't figure it out. You ask somebody who's investing in crypto, how do you make money with it? What's the deal? How do you make? If I can't figure it out, then I just don't do it. To me, if it can't be explained to me, And listen, I've investigated crypto because I'm greedy. But what happens is it's called herd mentality. When I grew up on Kentucky, I'd go down to my uncle's farm, and I'd look up on this field, and all of a sudden I'd see a bull start running up the hill.

51:06And then I'd see some other cows start to run up the hill. And then before I know it, they're all stampeding up the hill, hundreds of them. And they get to the top of the hill. And they're all looking at each other. And I was a little boy, and I was like, you know what they're saying? What the fuck are we running to? To me, that's crypto. To me, that's tulip bulbs. We're just following the bull. But in terms of red flags of people, what do you look out for specifically?

51:35Graham Stephan:And when you first meet somebody, what do you look out? Tortoise shell glasses that invest in crypto. The 8%. 8%. 8 % in a Bitcoin ETF. Well, look, it's gambling. It's gambling. You live in Vegas, it's gambling. But the book I wrote called Life is Luck, Lessons from the Paperboy. Here's what life is. Life is, since you're from Vegas, I want to speak your language. Life is a casino. And you walk in and there's all sorts of games to play. And there's some lottery games over the years as well. Now, there are games to play and there's games you shouldn't play. You should not play Keno. It's fun, though.

52:17It's fun. But never with a measurable amount of money. Yeah, it's an entertainment. To me, Keno's crypto. If you're going to play a game, you probably should play blackjack. And then when you play those games, there's rules for those games. There's the book. I'll give you a test to see if you're really from Vegas. You get two aces. What do you do? Split. You got 15 and they got 10. What do you do? Hit. You got 15 and they got five. Stay. Those same rules in the casino are the rules in life and business. Location, location, location. Undercapitalized. All the rules are there. But sometimes when you start drinking and when you get blinded by greed, you say, you know what?

53:12I'm going over to the keynote table. So you're saying that you need to look at this person's life pretty holistically and see how they're spending their time. If there's anything, you kind of like investigate the entire car, like a pre-purchase inspection. You look at the car and if like one little thing is wrong, you're like, okay, well, maybe this person that maintained their car perfectly, actually, you know, they didn't. You look under the hood, you see one little thing wrong. You can assume that there's more problems. When I look at the people in the crypto industry, when I just look at who they are, what they're wearing, what they're wearing.

53:42Not you, not you, not you. He's not in crypto. He just owns a Bitcoin ETF. No, I'm not looking at you. I put eight, yeah. No, I'm talking about the sellers. I'm talking about the guys who are out there, you know, preaching it, selling it. Lamar Odom. I saw a conference, Lamar Odom walking out of a crypto convention. I'm like, I'm out. But why do we do it? The same reason they bought the tulip bulbs. the same reason bernie made off i had a guy i had a friend of mine one time he kept saying hey you need my aunt got in this deal with this guy in new york and he's returning 12 interest i go he goes year in and year out i go that's what yeah it's hard to get in but my wife my my aunt got in so i got in with my aunt and blah blah blah blah blah and he kept always waving this thing is you ought to put some money in with us i said it's too good to be true 12 percent And I'm just telling you, 2008 comes, everything crashes.

54:40I said, Seth, how did you do this year? Well, 11%. How the f*** is that possible? He goes, he pulled out of the market and did some puts and some calls, and we got 11%. Were you in Madoff? No, no. I like selling options.

55:01Graham Stephan:He tells me all the time, buy puts and sell these calls. I never say buy puts. Okay. I say sell. Okay. But listen, young people are reckless. You have to learn. You got to get burned enough to, you know, get old and fat like me and you won't be doing that. But so Seth called. So that's the deal. Seth had everything in it. $12 million. Oof. That's all he had. I get an email from him on the subject. I said, SOS, call me. I call him up. what's wrong? He goes, you're not going to believe it. I go, what? He goes, you remember my aunt's fund that I was telling you about? I said, yeah, the 12 % kind of knew the number.

55:44He goes, yeah. He goes, it was Bernie Madoff. I repeat, if it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true.

55:53Graham Stephan:How does that apply to people, not on crypto, but just in general, in terms of who you do business with and who you want to partner with and who you want to keep in your life. As I'm sure you've seen, we're down to the last few weeks of summer, which means your schedule is about to get a lot busier whether you're ready or not. And naturally, your health could start to slip, which is why we partnered with AG1. AG1 is a daily health drink with a multivitamin, pre - and probiotic superfoods with antioxidants, just one scoop, eight ounces of water. It helps maintain energy and support immune health.

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57:08How does that apply to people?

57:10Graham Stephan:Not on crypto, but just in general in terms of who you do business with and who you want to partner with and who you want to keep in your life? You can tell the most about a person by the people they surround themselves with. That's Machiavelli, The Prince, the book. I look at people and I look at who they surround themselves with. Character matters. Morals matter. Decency matters. You know, a liar is a liar. A cheat is a cheat. And they cheat and lie in different forms and fashion. So you can size them all up from all of that, just their lifestyle. And we know bulleters and non-bulleters. But.

57:52And what overtakes us is our greed. And we just want that money. And we don't want to miss out. We just don't want to miss out. Look at my book, Life is Luck. The average person that plays a lottery plays at like 400, spends like 400 something dollars a year. 40 % of Americans don't have$400 in the bank today. But they're all out there trying to take this job and shove it. And they're all chasing something that's just not going to happen. It's just statistically not going to happen. Now, I'm in a business that I know is going to lose money. I own racehorses. And I know that I am probably not going to make money in my lifetime with racehorses.

58:47but I enjoy it. But I also know that when I write that check, that money's gone. Now I've had some luck because I had a great horse named Ultima D. Her father was scat daddy and she lives with American Pharaoh. And once a year, me and Pharaoh match up and then we get a colt or a filly and that horse is worth a million bucks. And I split the money with the, you know, my friends from Ireland that own a Faro and Justify. But by and large, you know, horse racing is gambling. So what's the best investment you've ever made outside of investing in your own business? Well, the attractions have been gigantic.

59:29So that was the best investment you've made? That was, but that was me. I built them. I invented it. The whole, the upside down houses and all that. Yeah, I invented that. I've had some good things. I had some land that got condemned for a school. Condemnation is great because you don't pay taxes when your land's taken from you. I had some land over here and they wanted to build a school on my land. They took my land. So I was so happy that they did take my land. So what did you pay for and what did they buy it for? I forget exactly, but I didn't, I mean, I mean, it was like a, you know, 15, 20 X because I bought it a long time ago and, you know, had a little trailer parks on it.

1:00:14And, uh, but look, I made my money on me.

1:00:17Graham Stephan:Now, how much of this can you teach somebody in terms of entrepreneurship, drive motivation versus is just genetic that you were born with this desire to build something, to be good in business, to forge your own path? Well, the reason I called my book, Life is Luck, Lessons from a Paperboy, is because, you know, you all are too young to have been paperboys, but I guarantee you, you and you, when you were 11 or 12, you were hustling something. I don't know what it is. I can just tell by looking at you and talking to you. For my generation, it was the paper route. You're 11 years old. You're 12 years old.

1:00:57You're 10 years old. I had to buy my route. I had to go down to the second National Bank election and get a loan with my grandmother's son. And then I had to buy my route. And I had to get up in the snow and the sleet and the rain and the heat every day. And when somebody didn't get a paper or missed a paper, I had to go back and give it to them. Then I had to collect the money. I think a lot, that's why I call the book Life is Luck. I think some of us are born with an entrepreneurial seed. that's as powerful as Shaquille O 'Neal being seven foot one and built like a Mack truck. There's no way I could be Shaquille O 'Neal because I'm just physically.

1:01:37Hey, me too, man. Well, me and you, we're the point guards. But that just happens in life. And by the way, the reason I call the book Life is Luck, there's so many things that are out of our control. just being born is trillions and trillions and trillions to want the country you're born in we have no we have no control over that what what's the country you want to be born in the united states of america we were born here for a lot of us being born white was and we had no control over that and as you keep going good looking people this is going to do very good because good-looking, good-looking, this do good too.

1:02:21Good-looking people are usually the CEOs of companies. If you're tall, you have a better chance of being president than you're short. Me and you are not going to be president. He could be president. Height, it's out of our control. There's so many things out of our control that come back to us. And then you go, well, you got to work hard. If you work hard, that's true. But some people are not built to work. Of course they are. No. In the jungle today, a lion will be born and a sloth will be born. The sloth is incapable physically of working. He wakes up like this. I mean, the only thing he can do is eat and go down once a day and go back up, go to sleep.

1:03:01The lion is born and he's a king that day. If that door opened over right now, a six-month lion walked in his room, me and you'd be jumping up on the table scared jealous. If a sloth walled, then we just kick it out of here. And everybody thinks it's all hard work. This, oh, I'm, I'm successful. It's hard work. Let me tell you this about hard work. The hardest working people in America are the ones who make the least, the least. You ever dug a hole with a shovel? You ever tried that? As a kid. Yeah. Could you do it?

1:03:32Graham Stephan:Not more than a foot or two. Yeah. And lay some frost on that ground. Sometimes I see these people with squeegees on this up there, suctions. Yeah. And you're looking at them, you're like, well, he's from Guatemala illegally because nobody's getting up there. And he ain't getting paid worth his shit to do it. He has to do it. So the people who want to pat themselves on the back for being successful, there's a lot of left turns, a lot of right turns, a lot of U-turns, and it can go good and go bad. I know this. if I got started again, had to do all over again, I don't get to be who I am. Something would happen.

1:04:10If Bill Gates was born today, he's not Bill Gates. Somebody else would have been Bill Gates.

1:04:14Graham Stephan:What do you recommend to the people who feel like they've got dealt a bad hand? They're here in America. They want to be successful. They want to make a lot of money. They just say, I don't have the resources. What I would say to them is this, you always have the resources. you always have if there's a will there's a way and in the book i wrote life is luck i lay out a roadmap to finding luck finding luck improving luck return on luck turning bad luck into good luck making failure your friend there's all sorts of ways to do it and that's what the book's about. But the main way you do it is you are constantly, constantly looking for opportunities.

1:05:03It's never going to happen sitting at your house eating peanut butter and jelly. I got a chapter called Never Eat Alone. There's a book called Never Eat Alone, which was very good for me. If you're sitting in your office, not going out and hustling, it's not going to happen. If you're not out giving a speech, it's not going to happen. If you're not out networking, it's not going to happen. And so in the book, I lay out all sorts of things. Now, when people say, I don't have the money, when I built Wonderworks, the first time I built Wonderworks, I did not have the money. My first real estate development was called Heritage Square down at Kissimmee.

1:05:35I did not have the money, but there's something called OPM, other people's money. And what you do is you find a deal, you lock the deal up, You get a private placement memorandum and you go out and you pitch your idea to your friends who have money. That first deal I did, I was raising$10 ,000 increments. And guess what? Harry Square was a success. Now I've got these investors who will follow me. Then I did when I built Wonderworks. Wonderworks was millions and millions and millions of dollars. I didn't have millions and millions of dollars. But I would tell the people listening, OPM. I wrote another book one time called You Can't Teach Vision.

1:06:21There are visionaries that we all know about. Steve Jobs is a visionary. Bill Gates is a visionary. You know, there's visionaries everywhere. That's the wrong term. Because visionaries just have an idea. There's a big difference between a visionary and a vision maker. Big difference. Once upon a time, after church, we'd go to Denny's and get crayons for the kids, and the crayons would roll onto the floor. I'd be down there picking up crayons. I told my wife one time, I said, you know what I need to do? I need to invent a crayon that doesn't roll. About six months later, we come in. There's a crayon made out of a triangle.

1:07:09I held it up. I went, I go, look, this is my idea. this is my f***ing idea and what'd she say you should have done it but I was a visionary but I wasn't a vision maker and by the way there's a big delta between visionaries and vision makers and they're called vision blockers you know I'm going to go patent these crayons with our money no you're not or your friends guess who doesn't want you to be successful most of your friends most of your family would rather have a total stranger win the lottery than you because people are eating up with jealousy and envy so you got these what i tell these people first of all if there's a will there's a way and there's the vision is not the the deal the vision is just the beginning and you got to jump over these vision blockers to get to be the vision maker.

1:08:04And you know who the number one vision blocker is? You. Fear. Fear of failure. I would tell them, listen, failure is not a problem. Because when you fail, you learn so much. You now know the next time what you're not going to do. And you know what you're going to do. and I've had failures. I opened up an attraction in DC once called the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. It was just unbelievable. It was fantastic, but it was a bad location. It turned out I shouldn't have ever gone to DC because shit was free. And I built this magnificent, magnificent attraction called the National Museum of Crime and Punishment.

1:08:48I didn't lose money, but I didn't make money. I'm just paying the rent, get a little bit, you know, dribbles. So I closed it. Like, you know, it's not worth it. But you know what I did? I took that failure I said, this was good. I took all the stuff, all the content from my attraction in D.C., and I went over to Pigeon Forge, Smoky Mountains, 13 million visitors a year. I found a location. Instead of having no building or an office building, I built a thing that looks like a prison, 1 ,800 prison. Instead of calling it the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, I called it Alcatraz East. When you finish up at Alcatraz East, the last three, four things, you see JonBenet's bicycle, you see the Murdoch golf cart, you see Ted Bundy's VW, you see John Dillinger's sedan, Bonnie and Clyde's death car from the movie, and OJ's Bronco.

1:09:38And this attraction is unbelievable. I'm printing money at Alcatraz East. Everything's the same. The Bronco's there. Everything, I just moved it. Location, location, location. If I had let failure beat me, but that thing makes about six, seven million bucks a year. And all I did is just move the stuff to a different location. Most people don't because when people get beat, they become defeated forever. When I get beat, I get back up. That's what I tell people. What impresses me is the volume of successful entrepreneurial things that you're doing from the upside down houses, the different hotels, the banks, you know, Alcatraz East.

1:10:34I'm curious, you don't have enough time yourself to be doing all of this. Like how much of this is your vision and your plan and your decision making versus you just hiring out phenomenal operators? And like, what does that mean to be an executive and to find and manage talent? Well, first of all, it's all me. All the ideas are mine. Wonderworks is me. Alcatraz East is me. The bank. Do you have a council that you run these ideas by? Me.

1:11:04Graham Stephan:Who do you look to for advice? Do you ever go to someone else and call up Steve? I read books like crazy. I devour books. And I had a seminar in Vegas and I brought Dan Martell. Dan Martell. Yeah, we've had him on the podcast. He's a genius. Yeah. And I write about that. I write about him in my book. Look, you only have so much time in a day. What I try to do is I try to find people around me that I call send-delete. It's a person I know if I send something to, it's done. I can delete it. I call them send-delete. Then when I find a send-delete person, then I give them a task. because remember this, everybody's got to have a specific task and responsibility.

1:11:45If everybody is accountable, no one's accountable. So when there's a f*** up, we know who f***ed up. You find a send-delete person. They emerge out of nowhere. You can't tell who's going to be send-delete and who's not. And then once you get that send-delete person, then you delegate ruthlessly to execute your vision. You buy back your time. You pay these people. I just hired a guy from Amazon for my AI because I got to figure this AI. I don't know what AI is. I mean, I failed basic math, but I'll pay this guy a load of money from Amazon to figure out AI for me. And you just have to do that. So I get the vision and then I got the team around me and then I have them execute and I delegate ruthlessly.

1:12:48Now, all these ideas, remember this, I don't fish, I don't hunt, and I don't golf. To me, that's off and off. I hunt money I fish for money that's out of the time you take golf and hunting and first of all I don't want to shoot a deer because I can taste the fur I don't want to fish and you know catch and release and rip the fish's face off or eye out and throw him back oh look how good I am you're swimming around with no eye for the rest of your life I don't want to do that in golf when Tiger Woods is hitting the ball in the water I'm just not interested in trying to perfect that. There's nothing you're interested in outside of hunting money?

1:13:34Oh, a lot. I love to read. I love the beach. I like tennis when I was young. I was your guy's age. Well, there we go. So you play tennis. Yeah, I play tennis when I was your guy's age. I played a load of basketball, played basketball three days a week. I played in three man leagues. You get to be my age. You can't play. You know, you can't be. When I see guys my age playing basketball, I'm like, stop, stop, stop, stop. It's embarrassing. I went across the street to one of my grandsons the other night, and he was shooting free throws. And I went, I said, because I could usually really hit some free throws.

1:14:04I go to shoot a free throw. I didn't hit the net. Well, maybe with a little practice. Well, but you ever heard of muscle memory? I started researching muscle memory. And then I'd try to do it again. I really heaved it, and I didn't even hit the rim. But, you know, when I was your guys' age, I played a lot of basketball. I played a lot of tennis. and uh so yeah i have those those interests and uh i probably exercise four or five days a week an hour mostly walking or uh recumbent bike or the elliptical but to me hunting and fishing i just don't get it so i don't feel like i'm losing anything there nothing yeah putting me in a tree stand waiting for, I got so many deer at my house, I could lay in my pool with like 20 deer this morning.

1:15:02When I left my house this morning, there was these deers laying in my front yard. I rolled the window and I said, have a good day, guys. You're at the right place.

1:15:12Graham Stephan:I don't want to eat them. Speaking of money, you previously mentioned that you believed that income inequality was one of the biggest problems of America. And I'm curious from your perspective, why is that? Because the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the system's rigged. Now, and listen, I'm taking advantage of the rigged system. When Trump got elected president, I bought a new G500. Why? It's almost free. I mean, when you do the math, I'm like, It's crazy These hedge fund guys have carried interest It's all stacked that way But here's what happens When the poor get poorer And the rich get richer There becomes an uprising And you're seeing it now It's called the democratic socialist Progressives There's two types of envy There's benign envy Which is You take that envy and you channel it it to motivate you.

1:16:19You take that as a motivation. And then there's what's called malicious envy, where you're just so mad. It's just not fair. It's just not fair. They got all the money, I got none. And then political leaders, they take that malicious envy and they turn it into socialism. They harness that malicious envy. You know the new word now, oppressed. We're oppressed. We're oppressed. They almost turn into a political movement. We're oppressed. And that malicious envy turns into socialism, which turns into communism, authoritarianism. Castro Hugo Chavez it all started as malicious envy and all throughout time if the rich people in this country don't understand at the end of the day that malicious envy turns into a movement and they just take it Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake they cut her throat I'm tempted to write one more book called The Castle and the Moat it goes like this there's this castle where the 0.1 % live and they got everything.

1:17:40Then there's this moat, deep and wide. And in that moat, there's electrical eels and piranhas and sharks. It's deep and it's wide. And that's the middle class. And then outside the moat, there's the barbarians at the gate. They want in. They want to come get it. But the people in the castle keep drawing the water in for themselves. They got pools inside. They're drinking. They're taking a lot of baths. And the water starts to go down.

1:18:15And the eels die. And the sharks die. And the piranhas die. And then there's not even water. And the barbarians just walk across. And by the way, that's what MAGA is. They're mad. But on January 6th, they went to the castle. They went to the castle because they're pissed. MAGA's pissed. And guess who let them in the castle? A lot of the cops. Because they're pissed off at who they're guarding for. If we're not careful, if we let this moat sink and the middle class go away, we've only been around for 250 years.

1:18:59Graham Stephan:So what's the solution? Because a lot of people would say the solution is we have to tax more. I don't mind taxing more as long as it's tied to, like I talked about Torah reform, as long as it's tied to what Bill Clinton did. He's my boy. You know, that we got to have a balanced budget. This is not sustainable. The national debt is not sustainable. At some point, we're going to be Greece. I would say tax more, but tied, like I said about tort reform, tied to rate decrease. I would also say tie it to a balanced budget. I'm happy to pay more taxes if we can balance the budget. You know, and look, I put my money where my mouth is.

1:19:49In Florida, I ran a constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage from$8 to$15 an hour. And guess what? It passed. Mm-hmm. people can't live on$8 an hour.

1:20:00Graham Stephan:What do you think, if you could control the minimum wage, what would you make the minimum wage? If you could just snap your fingers and that's what it is? Well, if I could snap my fingers, it's different strokes for different folks. If you're living in New York City, there's one. If you're living in Columbus, Georgia, there's another. You can live like a sheik in Columbus, Georgia. You can have a mansion in Columbus, Georgia, the same money that wouldn't value New York City. So that's kind of the problem is that, you know, living in LA and living in Mississippi. Now, if a business can't afford to stay in business by paying an increased wage, should they deserve to exist?

1:20:38No. Listen, here's a stat from the soon-to-be, I'm number one on Amazon today. Congratulations. For self-help books, Life is Luck. 25 % of all businesses fail in the first year. 43 % fail within five years and 65 % fail within 10. And that doesn't even account for, they'd have been much better off just working for somebody than going on this, you know, having this juice bar. When I see juice bars, I'm like, what the, I mean, how many juices you got to sell? So the first thing is, but we all want the, we all have, we all dream the dream. We want to own the business. And if you're going to open up a restaurant, you're most likely going to fail.

1:21:30Graham Stephan:And what if the minimum wage increases and then some businesses just say, all right, fine, we're going to hire overseas. We're going to pay less over that. I do. Listen, I got 1100 people in my call centers. El Salvador, where abogados.com goes to. The Philippines. Belize. I'm doing it. And by the way, in El Salvador, I got lawyers working in the call center. They're making more money with a law degree working in my call center in El Salvador. Sure. So why not then pay people here the$15 an hour? Hey, by the way, really quick, if you want extra content just like this, as well as early access and a bonus post show posted every single week, feel free to join as a channel member to get immediate access to all of that, as well as early access to everything else that we post, along with priority responses to all of your comments.

1:22:29Graham Stephan:So if that sounds cool, feel free to join. Would love to have you on board. Thanks so much. We'll get back to the podcast now. So why not then pay people here the$15 an hour? Oh, I do. The reason I do use El Salvador mainly, primarily, is because it's just an incredible pool of Spanish-speaking people with college degrees. It's also less expensive. Yes. It's win-win. It's not only less expensive, it's more effective. If I can pay less for more, I want it. So it's interesting. We asked Kevin O 'Leary about a year ago what the minimum wage should be, and he said zero. And he said zero because the market should determine what they're willing to pay for a task.

1:23:16Graham Stephan:And if someone doesn't want to take the task, that's fine. If no one wants to take it, the person has to pay more to entice people. What do you say to that sort of philosophy? I believe that we have a moral responsibility to do the most for the most with the least. There's a lot of sloths out there, and there's a lot of sloths with children. And at the end of the day, there will be an uprising because there has never not been one. At the end of the day, if you let the moat go to dirt, there will be an uprising. It is in our best interest. And look, in the world that I look at in the future, I'm not probably going to be a part of.

1:24:06There's going to be a, with AI, there's going to be people who get paid to do nothing. Because there's not going to be jobs, I think. I tend to believe that AI is going to balance the curve quite a bit. I think it won't be as bad as we think, but it's going to eliminate jobs. Look, I just hired a guy for a lot of money from Amazon because I got to figure out AI. And guess where I'm using the AI first? The call centers. What do billionaires financially owe to the people that are struggling financially? Look, I'm not a guy that wears my religion on my sleeve, but I believe that my money belongs to God.

1:24:45I believe that what's happened to me has been so—I have been so lucky and so fortunate that I believe that my money belongs to God. I believe if I did it again, I would never be where I am. I believe that one different turn would have changed everything. And I truly believe that. And I know this. I don't live a big lifestyle. other than the jet. You know, and I have houses, but they're not, you know, like that one you showed me. And the food I eat, I like, you know, I like, like, you know, cube steaks with smothered onions and fried potatoes and cabbage. You know, just country food. You don't need a lot.

1:25:27You know, what's the difference between 100 million and a billion as far as lifestyle if you get rid of boats and, you know, Rolexes? See, I got nothing. The wealthiest person in the room. This is going to get clipped. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I got it. You know why I don't need it? Yeah. You know why I don't need it? I got an iPhone. So, what?

1:25:52Graham Stephan:You're actually putting your watch on that? Yeah. What kind of watch is it? What is it? What is it? Mine was a gift from Brent Navarro. It's a Rolex Datejust. Listen, my brother Tim, when he was alive, one time, you know, he's always wanted a Rolex. and I don't want one for myself, but he always, he was the one that was paralyzed and he ran my call centers for me before he passed. And one day I'm down on Park Avenue over here in Winter Park and I started drinking and I get drunk and I go down to the jewelry store and I bought Tim a Rolex and I forget what it was, what I paid for it years ago. And I call him up, I say, come down here to Park Avenue, let's have a drink.

1:26:31He comes in and I handed him the Rolex and he started crying, which made me start crying because he was so happy. And he's sitting there with the Rolex on his wrist. I go, look, just between me and you, what is it about the Rolex? What is it for you? He goes, I'll never forget these words. He goes, it's like having a Rolls Royce on your wrist.

1:27:04I'm like, I got an iPhone. I actually, I don't disagree. I don't disagree. Says the person wearing a nice watch. But the only reason I bought this watch was actually to spite Graham. So that was.

1:27:16Graham Stephan:And mine was a gift. Mine on the back says 2 million subscribers. It was a gift from a subscriber. Look, a lot of people. A lot of people wear them to pull ass and, you know, get women, get men. But here's the problem with all of it. comparison is the thief of joy. We look and we want, there used to be a guy in this building, his name, he's dead now. His name is Mick O 'Brien. And this guy lived a high life and he had this unbelievable car and he had this unbelievable girl. And it was just, I mean, it was, it was just, and I was over there going, what am I doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? I'd see Mick.

1:28:00I'm like, what am I doing wrong? I'm pulling up in a Previa van with four children. And then all of a sudden, one day Mick just collapsed. The building he had, there was IRS tape around it. The Ferrari was rented. The whore was rented. And at the end of Mick's life, I represented him in a social security case. But that guy took so much of my mind, so much of my space with envy going, what am I doing wrong? Why is he making so much money? He wasn't, but he was in my head. That's why they put blinkers on horses, blinders on horses, so they can't see. If your listeners can do anything, put blinders on because all the glitters is not gold.

1:28:53It's usually not gold at all.

1:28:56Graham Stephan:Now, one thing I was really curious about that we were talking on the way here in terms of income inequality, if we balanced the money, everyone had the exact same amount over enough time, would we see the same distribution of wealth in that the people who are good with business will grow their money? The average person is going to end up spending it, not investing it. And is that a problem of the person? or the system? The person, because listen, at the end of the day, adults are really children. Like I told you in the beginning, the reading level in America is seventh grade. You see a guy walking down the street, you think he's smart, he's a seventh grader, or six, or worse.

1:29:38Just because they're older doesn't mean they're smarter. So we're dealing with grown-ups that are really children. I asked my wife one time, I said, let me ask you a question. If we could give up all our money, and everybody in the world, all eight and a half billion people could have a house, three bedroom house, white picket fence, grill on a back, full refrigerator, and we'd have it forever. I said, would you do that? And she said, let me ask you a question. I said, what? Would the houses be air conditioned? I go, okay, yes. And then she goes, yes. I said, what if the houses are not air conditioned?

1:30:23She said, no. She needed AC. And I would too. That's called utopia. But utopia doesn't exist. You mentioned that 100 million is the same as a billion. I'm curious, before 100 million, are there any actual lines you could draw from zero million to 100 million and where life takes? I think the number that makes you golden is 30. Why 30 million? 30 times four is 1.2 tax-free. If you can't live on 1.2 tax-free, I can live like a sheik on 1.2 tax. I can't have all the houses. But if you give me a house paid off and$1.2 million a year, I can live like a sheik. So it's 30 million. I won't have Rolex.

1:31:1830 million plus a paid off house. 30 million and a paid off house. The first thing I tell everybody listening, consumer debt, you pay off before you put anything in the bank, before you, any consumer debt, car debt, anything with crazy interest rates, credit cards, you pay that off.

1:31:34Graham Stephan:You and Dave Ramsey. Oh, I'm Dave Ramsey all the way. And then, and then, and then this, this is, people will argue with this. Then I pay off the house. I haven't had a mortgage since 1988. I had a case that I settled, David Vega versus Key Capital Leasing. It was my first big case. I took the money and I bought a house, and that's the last time I've ever had a mortgage. The number one payment every month in every household in America is a mortgage payment. You pay off the house, you get$30 million, you put it in tax-free bonds. And why tax-free bonds? Even in the Great Depression, less than 1 % of the tax-free bonds defaulted.

1:32:13people will pay to flush the toilet. Water, sewer, electricity, tax-free bonds, and nothing's foolproof. But I believe that the magic number is house paid off, no consumer debt,$30 million, tax-free bonds,$1.2 million. You're making$100 ,000 a month tax-free.

1:32:40Graham Stephan:Now, what do you say to the people, though, that say that investing in the stock market long-term is going to yield more than the 4 %? They're right. They're right. They're right historically. But look, I would say two things to them. I'd say there's two books that are Bibles to me. One is A Random Walk Down Wall Street, and the other is Black Swan. And what I'd say about A Random Walk Down Wall Street, as long as you're disciplined, and I'm very disciplined. Every month I put 500 in this deal, 500 in this deal, 500 in this deal. Dollar cost averaging is very important. And as you get older, you reduce your stock.

1:33:22So like if you're 70, you know, you maybe have 70 % in tax frees and treasuries and 30 in stock. And then, but as you're younger and you start taking the weight off. So when you're, how old are you? 36. 36. So you would have, you know, 70 % in the stock market because you got time. And if your dollar cost averaging, and I've been in this, when it's crashing, I'm happy. Sometimes when it starts to crash, I start putting more in. And when it starts crashing even further, I put even more in because I got time. Warren Buffett will tell you that. Time takes care of everything. And even if it crashes, you know, loses half, that's okay.

1:34:09That's good if you're young. It's not good if you're 70 because you only have the winning to pick it up. And as long as your dollar cost averaging, you're going to be okay. And so that's, that's what I would say. You know, my children are, you know, your age and they're in the stock market. They're slowing it down a bit because it's too frothy right now. But what we're praying for is the stock market to crash.

1:34:33Graham Stephan:That's what I'm hoping for too. Yeah. Now, my introduction to you, by the way, was in the Jubilee video where you debated 20 people. Okay. What did you learn from that experience? That malicious envy is on the rise. What was most surprising to you about talking with those people? There's jealousy and envy and they don't want to go out and get it done themselves. They're just kind of pissed off. Were you surprised by the video? Once you had completed it, you went home, then you saw it posted all of the people's recounting of their thoughts on the conversation to those that don't understand. There was a 20 V one.

1:35:11So it's you as a billionaire and then 20 people asking you questions. And it got a little bit combative at times. And then the video ended with one guy saying, well, what's stopping you from directly helping every single one of us here? We took time off of our job to come here to film this. You say you help people. Well, here's a direct opportunity to help us. And you gave them$100. And that seemed like it was the end of the video and it was a happy ending. That part ends. And then it goes to everyone recounting their experience on set talking with you. And most of them said, yeah, you know, he seems like an okay one.

1:35:43But generally speaking, billionaires are parasites or it's like parasitic in nature. Or the other person said, yeah, he gave me$100, but not all of these other people. He didn't give them$100. I'm curious, like your experience onset and then watching that afterwards. Look, I've given money away. I give a lot of money away every year. Like right this minute, we're building at the Coalition for the Homeless, we're building a wing for women and children. I'm building a Boys and Girls Club in Tallahassee. I just built a food bank in Appalachia. The food bank here in Orlando is called the Morgan Morgan Hunger Relief Center at Second Harvest.

1:36:18rich people have a moral obligation because I believe that most of what's happened has been lucky. And maybe just like being the paper boy was lucky. And I do believe what Bill Dimitri told me that the money does not belong to me. It belongs to God. And so, you know, they're always going to be, well, it's not, you know, if I had his money, I wouldn't give, you know, you give money away. And they're like, you know, Oprah, Kate in Hawaii, Oprah gave a load of money away. And they're like, I have, you know, Oprah, you know, Jeff Bezos gave the food bank like 25 million. They're like, that wasn't enough for a guy.

1:36:55I mean, no matter what you do, you're, but you can't, you can't, you can't, you got to put the blinders on. You got to do what you can do. Yeah.

1:37:04Graham Stephan:Did any of those people ask for a job afterwards or come up and talk to you and try to get advice from you? No, but one, one kind of called me later. I thought she was wanting to phone, but I kind of got this phone call. I'm like, what'd she say? You know, I really enjoyed meeting you. Why'd you give her your phone number? She left me a voice message on my phone. I didn't give her my phone number. Oh, she just called the office. Yeah, she went to my voicemail. I didn't talk to her. She said, I met you at Jubilee. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. I'm like, then you're thinking, this is a crazy person too.

1:37:40Graham Stephan:What's really interesting, I really like the Jubilee with Patrick Bett David. and with pbd he made a really great argument and someone said well why don't you hire me and so he offered this person a job and they disqualified themselves so i want these benefits and i want you said would you would you consider moving out oh yeah consider showing up at this time and leaving at this time would you do this would you do that because they were lamenting about not having a job that was not marketplace it's very difficult and then he said this is what you would need to do if you wanted to work for me they said no he's like okay i'll I'll tell you two stories to kind of go hand in glove with that.

1:38:14You ever heard of that shoe company, Zappos? Zappos. Zappos. I forget the guy. I think the guy's dead. Tony Hsieh. He's dead now, right? Tony Hsieh. But Tony Hsieh used to do this. When you give people a job, he'd offer them$2 ,000 to quit the first day. Dan Martel did the exact same thing. He stole it from that guy then. Yeah. I had Dan at my convention. And so I looked at him like, that's smart. because, you know, why train those people if they don't want the job? Look, we're living in a world where there's a lot of people that just don't want to work. Here's a real interesting story. Getting people to come back to the office was just like, I mean, nobody wanted to come back to the office.

1:38:59So I said, you know what? So these people didn't want to come back to the office. Here's what we're going to do. you can work from home but guess what we're going to put a camera on your computer we're going to put a camera up your ass we won't look at you it'll be a pixel the first week 23 people quit oh my gosh it's not that they don't want to work from home they want to work and the people who want to work from home now we're like well here's how it works if you qualify we're going to have a camera on you we're going to be monitoring you closer than we would and we've got we we measure keystrokes we have this productivity score that's incredible and look what's going on is a lot of people just don't want to work and they're pissed off, but they really need to be pissed off at themselves.

1:40:01How do you justify that when you also say something like most people that are not successful or financially comfortable just lack the capacity? If you say someone lacks the capacity, it sort of implies that they don't have the ability to become financially comfortable. But then if you say, oh, they have the ability, but they just choose not to because they're lazy or they just don't want to work, then like what is the actual, you can't come up with a solution if you have two different symptoms. I mean, there's no perfect solution for all this, but I do believe you have to say, look, you're going to punch in, you're going to swipe a time clock, and we are going to make sure and measure your productivity.

1:40:47And if you don't want to do that, go somewhere else. I mean, at the end of the day, I am a very strong with a capital C capitalist, very strong capital C. What does capitalism mean to you? And what capitalism means to me is because the way we've set up our country, we became the greatest country in the history of civilization. That's what capitalism means to me. There's no civilization that's ever measured up like we have. And so to me, the proof is in the pudding. I'm seeing this civilization crumble with malicious envy and the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. So it's like it's we've seen this movie.

1:41:35We've seen Marie Antoinette. Who's to blame, though? Because if the rich are draining the middle class. Well, the politicians are. You cannot be given that the rich should not have these tax breaks that like carried interest.

1:41:48Graham Stephan:I don't think I. I carried interest is such a small amount. It's just one thing. Look, jets, deduction for jets, all of it, not having a balanced budget. I don't think that's what the poor people care about though. I think for me, it's the display of wealth. When they look at Jeff Bezos with a yacht, like whether or not he got the deduction with the yacht, I think with the amount of money he has, he would buy the yacht. I mean, Oh yeah. Listen, listen, during the, during COVID people were pissed off at David Geffen. He's out there on his yacht and they're all drinking champagne. It's, it's, there's two types of envy.

1:42:21Remember I told you there's benign envy, but the big one is malicious envy. And when they see you two boys walking in with the Rolexes, they're pissed because they don't have it. It's just, it's comparison is the thief of joy. It's just why I don't know.

1:42:41Why it rains. I kind of know, but not really cloud, but it's envy. It's jealousy. There's an emotion. What about me? And look, I remember when I was your all's age, you know who I really got pissed off about? Monarchies. God, I hated kings and queens. Still do. Why the fuck is Prince Harry getting money just because he was born? He's a piece of shit. The wife's worse. Monarchies. why does a monarchy why does a democracy need a monarchy i mean what if if they got rid of king charles and what what would happen what happens to the country nothing they get more money

1:43:30Graham Stephan:to me it just seems like the internet has really just led to a concentration of wealth because you could leverage in such ways globally that you never could before so you get extremes but then it also seems like politically it's easy to weaponize the outliers to get votes. And now they've weaponized that. But it's even worse than that because what social media has done is there's people pretending to be rich that aren't rich. One time I had a guy call me looking for a bankruptcy lawyer. The next week I see him on social media in Las Vegas in a limo with champagne. pain. He'd called me the week before to BK his business.

1:44:12It's the pretending of wealth. There's a book that I tell a lot of people about, and not many people have read it. It's called Richest Stand. You got these neighborhoods in America, and the author calls it Richest Stand. You got Upper Richest Stand, which is the people with the real money. You got Middle Richest Stand, and then you got lower riches stand, but they're all living in the same zip code and they're all going to the same school and they're all trying to keep the lower riches stand is trying to pretend that they're upper riches stand and there's this competition. And what happens then, you know, credit cards, they go to Neiman's, they go to, you know, it's, it's your, it's the envy is looking, you know, I want, I want the watch.

1:44:57I want the dress. I want the designer dress. It's envy, and the envy turns malicious because nobody wants to say, it's my fault. They want to find a reason for it not to be their fault because nobody wants to say, look, here's the real reason. I'm a lazy slug. Have you ever heard anybody say that? Not that I could think of. Well, I claim that I'm lazy sometimes. Well, you didn't shave today, but that's kind of a look. I actually did. I shaved my neck. That's a look. That's a look. That's a look. I tell my kids. I trimmed it. Yeah, look. Did you trim yours? No, he's like. But, yeah, nobody is ever going to, everybody's going to have an excuse.

1:45:47They're never going to say, look, here's the real truth. I just didn't work. I'm lazy. No, they're going to say the system is rigged. The system is rigged. And the rich are getting richer, and the rich are taking care of each other, and the poor are getting poorer, and poor old me. I'm in the poor section. Nobody wants to take personal responsibility. The best way out is, of course, work. Work, work, work, work, work, work, work. When I worked at Disney, you know, or Christmas Day, you got triple time. And I'd work as long as they wanted to me on Christmas Day because I can open up presents later, but I can't get triple time ever.

1:46:37That's what I always thought.

1:46:39Graham Stephan:I would think that I would just celebrate Christmas the day after, the day before. For triple time? Absolutely. Yeah. Even for double time. Well. A Thanksgiving day to celebrate it the day before. Yeah. Of course, but, but, but there's something, listen, there's also, there's that, that thing, you're the paper boy. What did you do to make money when you were 11? Anything? Yeah. I worked at a, it was a fish marine aquarium wholesaler and I love, I was really big into aquariums. And so I worked there after school for free fish and coral and I loved it. I wanted to skip school just to work. Here's what I tell my kids.

1:47:14If work is work, you're f***ed. I love to work. I love to work. And I love money. And the two go hand in hand. If work is work, you're f***ed. The people who are the most successful, you know why you're successful? I love it.

1:47:32Graham Stephan:Even this to me, it never feels like work. Somehow we make money by doing this. You must be making a lot. You got a lot of viewers. But if work is work, that's why you're skipping in here. And that's what people need to do. They got to find out what they love. You don't go to make money. You go to do what you love. If you do what you love, then work is not work. That's another secret thing. For me, when my brother got hurt, there was a lot of things that happened in our life. And then I wanted to go get revenge for my brother. So I have, I've had purpose from the very beginning and it's never, I've never, you know, I, I hated when Fridays would come because back then we didn't have internet.

1:48:20We didn't have nothing. You know, I was just like, you know, with a, you know, tape recorder at home. I mean, Fridays would come, I would be depressed. Everybody else is skipping to the parking lot. I'm like, I wish it was Monday because I have so much to do. Yeah. Who is the most famous person in your phone that if you were to call them, they would pick up? Bill Clinton. And how is that, like, to have such a powerful network? One thing I noticed in doing my research of you is that you remain very warm to people, and probably because they want to remain warm to you as well. Which it does, I don't know if that turns out to their benefit, but it seems like you remain very warm to everybody.

1:49:03And I'm curious, like how have you strategized this? Was this by plan? No, I think what happened for me is I'm Irish and I love people. So being warm is like it's who I am. I love people. I'm a connector. I wonder how the average viewer can use this, what you've done to their own benefit. Like how you built a good network. What can they learn from what you've done? Bill Clinton told me something one time that I think they can learn because I learned from him. I said, what's your secret, President Clinton? He said, here's what I do. Everybody that I meet, I treat them like this. There's an election tomorrow, and they're voting.

1:49:49And I'm on the ballot. And I treat everybody just like that, even when I'm not running. And he said, I call it one at a time. And that's what I do. everybody I meet, I'm running off for office. They're voting and the election's tomorrow one at a time. It's not mine. It's Bill Clinton's. And has this served you very well? A lot of people say your network is your network. It's made me. That's my talent. I'm not, I'm not smart. I'm not academically smart. I don't believe that. It's true, but I'm very, very smart, smart. I'm very street smart. I have x-ray vision. I can smell blood. And so, look, I'm not good at standardized tests.

1:50:39Thank God my wife is. So kind of she balanced us out with the kids. We got smart. But I'm very, very street smart. And my social IQ is off the charts. So I believe those. When you said you're not very smart, I thought first. There's different smart. Here's how smart I am. I'm smart enough to know what I'm not smart at and smart enough to go find people who are smart at what I'm not smart at. The most dangerous person is the person who thinks they're smart, but aren't smart. I know what I'm not smart at. I know that, but I know what I'm very smart at. So if you have x-ray vision for people, I would love to know what you think Graham and I can improve on.

1:51:25What do you read from us? Well, you're tort reformers, and you're misinformed about your information. You're getting third-party stuff. You're business people, so plaintiff's lawyers are not your favorite people. You think the system could be rigged against you because of, you know, greedy. But the thing you're good at is you're relentless. You're tenacious. You're tenacious. No means yes. No's got to mean yes. If no means no, you're... Mm-hmm. And I don't think you two take no for an answer. And you're both smart. And, but you tend to be conservative, I think. I agree with that. I don't know if I would agree that I'm a tort reformer per se.

1:52:15Well, I'm not, I'm not, I don't know. I'm just, it's like trying to guess your weight. Right. This is, this is just what I heard. and we know people closely that are in the industry on both ends. Oh, I know, but we may have dealt with some stuff. But you're hearing lies or not lies, but just it's not true. Look, they say there's an insurance crisis and we need tort reform. They got it in Florida. And then the next day, State Farm issued$5 billion to their stakeholders. It's all a lie. Insurance companies are liars.

1:52:47Graham Stephan:I do agree with you that even if we were to change this, I don't think the insurance companies would ever say, oh, wow, we just saved all this money. Let's lower policies. I don't think that's ever going to happen. That's why I told you as I get this broadcast, what tort reform would I tie it to? I've been in this business for a long time. I've never had one tort reform where the rates got rolled back. They were promised to be rolled back. I would agree with you. Just the opposite happened. It went up. It's never stayed flat. It's always gone up. And the insurance companies have a great business model.

1:53:18If they lose money, they raise rates. I have one more question for you. And by the way, they don't just lose money paying claims. They lose money buying real estate and buildings and hedge funds and all sorts. But when they lose money, they just raise rates. And they say, it's John Morgan that's causing this. Yeah. And the militias envy.

1:53:37Graham Stephan:It seems like you have a great relationship with your kids and your wife. Yes. What do you attribute that to? And what's the best relationship advice that you could give for someone who's married? The best thing I say about children is your child is one friend away from total disaster. Remember I told you if you smell dogs, there's dogs. I've had to remove two children from my children's life along the way. It was the best thing I ever did because both those kids turned out to be exactly who I thought they were. The second thing is you have to have rules and real consequences. You can't just pick.

1:54:11You got to, you know, really do it. and then the best thing is you just got to spend a lot of time with them I mean I lived in I lived on sports fields I lived at the beach I lived you know in batting cages I you know they were in the car with me constantly and there's only this one window that you get and when you get to my age and you look back at the tranches in your life the tranche that was the best was when you're your children the time with your children until you get to be about 15 in a car. But from the time they're born until they're 13, 14, 15, that is the best traunch you're ever going to see.

1:54:49And the kids are baked by the time they're five. After five, the cake is baked. You've got to spend a lot of time from the beginning to five. And then you just have to love them. But you have to have consequences, and you have to be steady. I mean, one time Dan, I told this, I was on a podcast yesterday, The Breakfast Club. And the guy said, well, because Dan was with me after I did Morning Joe. And he said, well, give me an example. I said, well, look, you know, one Christmas, Dan came home. Dan's 37. He's y 'all's age. Dan came home and had Christmas break. And I said, Dan, I think you've been smoking marijuana over Christmas.

1:55:30He goes, no, I haven't. I said, I think you have. Well, I haven't. I said, well, I think you have. He goes, well, I haven't. I said, well, we're going to find out. because I got a peat kit back in the bathroom by the pool room. Go pee in the cup. Okay. I said, let me tell you this. If you fail, you lose your car for the semester. If you want to admit it, you lose your car for a month. There was this moment where he's just standing there looking at me. He finally just reaches in his pocket and he throws me the keys. And that was that. I drug tested the shit out of him. Because, you know, I use marijuana every day.

1:56:05I mean, if I don't have, I mean, I float to bed. I mean, I'm flying on a pink dragon when I go to bed. But when they're young, that can fry their minds. You know what stoners are like? They're just real slow. And I wasn't going to let that happen to them. And, you know, I had one boy, Matt, who's, you know, a star now, but he was a surfer, and surfers smoked dope. And I just drug tested the shit out of them. Mike and Kate, I didn't have to. Dan and Matt, I did. all children are not the same, but you have to have consequences. One time Matt was playing the all-star game and I was coming upstairs and he was talking to his mother because his mother was late and I heard him scream, shut up, shut up.

1:56:48He didn't know I was there. I walked in. I just slapped him down on the floor. I said, the day's over. Go, go, go take your all-star uniform. It's over. It's over. You're not going to tell your mother to shut up. And I called Joe Strada, the coach. I said, Joe, that's not going to be there for the All-Star. John, you can't do this to the team. He's a shortstop. I said, I don't give a fuck about the All-Star game. I give a fuck about this kid. If you win today, we'll be there tomorrow. They won today. We went the next day.

1:57:17Graham Stephan:And what about you and your wife? How do you keep a solid relationship with your wife? Well, look, marriages are tough. One time we were interviewed and the interviewer said to my wife, have you two ever thought about divorce? And she said, yes, just never at the same time. look marriage is an unnatural situation because you got two people that have and my wife's very smart and very strong-willed but uh here's what you need to understand i've seen listen i've seen so many people get married and get divorced and all this i just decided you know what i'll have rough patches but i'll get past those rough patches because i'm just going to stay married to the crazy I know than marry the crazy I don't know because all these bitches are crazy.

1:58:06And I'm crazy. It's bitches and guys. We're all crazy. I stay with the crazy I know and love.

1:58:15Graham Stephan:Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We really appreciate it. We'll link to your book, all your information down below in the description. We really appreciate your time and giving us extra time on top of it. Thank you everyone for watching. We're in a rush. We got to go. Yeah. Until next time. 2.7 million is what I paid for the car. And what do you sell it for? I sold it for... No. And I will drive this car more than anyone's ever driven a Conex section. What's the craziest thing you've seen in the car market? Where to begin? Sold! Million! There's more money in the market than ever before.

1:58:50Graham Stephan:You believe that maybe some of it's fake? I know it is. Anyone who's in the business knows that there's some fishy stuff that happens at those auctions. I had a plan. I had an idea. I turned a$600 video camera into$10 million. What triggered the audit? I owed like a million dollars. Holy crap. I was in a dark place. It was tough. Then I'd just have to turn it on for the camera. Is marriage on the horizon? Soon. When are Strad Kids gonna happen?

1:59:28We'll be right back.