E47: Cousin crypto: The Scams You NEED to Know About!

0:00Social media is one of the only businesses, if not the only one, that you can start up with zero start-up costs And if you lose, it's fine. If you want to black out on Twitch on a ball of Jägermeister and pull your n*** out on the stream, you can do that. I did that and I'm not banned. But Josh Bryant, a.k.a. Cousin Crypto. A 23-year-old live streamer and a social media virality expert. The crypto genius who blew up our TikTok. With 6.3 million likes. Social media is literally like entering in the lottery. Except there is no entry fee and you get unlimited entries. Every time you post a piece of content, you are potentially setting yourself up to win the lottery.

0:36These dudes have had that net where they've had that generational wealth over generation, generation, generation. They don't lose it and they don't lose it for a reason. You buy some course from some 17 year old kid who trades in his basement and tells you he's the dirtiest trader you've ever come across. And if you get scammed, I don't really feel so bad for you. Take it as a lesson and learn. Like for me, Iman Ghazi, like that should have been the biggest red flag ever when he said he was shutting down his business that he sold courses on. Who just shuts down a business that's doing numbers?

1:03Luke Balmar talks out of his asshole as well. He's talking how he bought Ethereum at$80 or whatever. The very, very low wick went to like$50. I've been in crypto, you've been, it's physically impossible. I don't understand why people don't want to listen to the dudes that have controlled the wealth of the entire world for hundreds of years, but would rather listen to some internet kid. They'll make the argument, oh yeah, but times have changed. It's because their life is boring. That's what everyone tells me that's going to happen to me, right? I'm 23, I live in Dubai, I'm Jack. I probably hate me too.

1:32What's the best way today to make as much money as quickly as possible without scamming people? I think that the greatest financial opportunity that we'll ever see in our generation is...

1:50So how are you doing man? Good bro, like I said morning coffee so go straight through me. Need to unload some fuel but other than that I'm doing good.

2:01we're recording this podcast from dubai bit of a mission to get here yeah absolutely i think it's a bit of a mission for a lot of things in the city dubai is like road system and maps and everything like i used to live here as a kid for a few years i remember it being fucked back then it's still fucked completely like you're trying to go from one place to another it should take like five minutes and it'll be taking 30 minutes because the basically way to get there is you miss one exit it's over it's over you know you're driving an extra 20 minutes like you say you're adding that to your time it's definitely one thing they got to work on and the traffic is outrageous especially the last few days like i've been here like it's just people say it's kind of a new season like like oh man it's not even winter yet imagine november december i don't want to be on the roads you want to be on the roads or you don't want to be in dubai i don't want to be on the roads maybe nah because it's the weather's good you know everything that's perfect that's prime time in dubai that's why the traffic is so bad but i hate traffic what do you think about dubai in general so i mean obviously like there's like anywhere you know there's pros and cons and like what's most that's what i've learned right is whether you live in the us africa dubai like there's going to be things you love things you hate but you got to find out what's like most important to you so like for me big crypto dubai is very crypto friendly the us was not uh safety is a huge thing.

3:26Dubai is safe. Where I was living, Houston, Texas was not. So of course, there's like the whole side of like the flashiness and everything. And it's kind of like contradicting myself because I've got to watch the cars, all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, I feel like I wouldn't even have it if I didn't live in Dubai because you feel that pressure here because it's so normal. You know what I mean? So I don't love that side of things like, you know, the fakeness of it. You know, it's almost like, you know, everyone in designer, all that kind of stuff um so that's the one part that i don't like but again like when you turn like look at it in terms of like what's important you know i'm 100 safe here i can do what i love you know there's lots to do the best gyms in the world so for me overall definitely a great move and of course you know they got the zero percent tax versus in the u.s you're paying 40 short-term capital gains so for me it's not a forever place just a couple years cash injection network meet some really good people here i've met more people like ballers in dubai in the last like six months than i ever did in the u.s in seven years so that's something i think that is definitely a plus because obviously you know your network is your net worth how much do you play the dubai game actually even if it's kind of against your kind of south african you know roots and values i don't play it to be honest i can't because for me like my most important things are like morals and ethics you know especially being in the crypto game i should have a net worth of 20 mil plus you know i should be 20 mil liquid but like i have i can't be scamming like that you know so and it's even here like if you want to play the game you got to be a bit of a dark horse you know like you got to do things that you ain't willing to do and like i'm just not gonna do that like even like i was talking to you the other day i barely even like collab with people and stuff just because yeah it could benefit my personal brand but i don't care enough to like i don't like i'm not gonna do it with someone that I don't like or something just to get those views you know and you have to be very careful because you know we always say building a reputation takes 20 years and it takes 20 seconds to destroy and in crypto yeah it's a freaking minefield and in crypto in Dubai I would argue it's even worse because my question like I was thinking about before was crypto is great in Dubai but how much is it attracting the wrong type of crypto people because of the kind of like great I mean, we both know the answer, right?

5:45Yeah, it's disgusting. I've met some of the biggest scammers I've ever come across, and I just want to punch them in the face. You know, they're like these 20-year-old stick figure, little nerd-looking motherfuckers, and I'm just like, I know that they've rugged like 20, 30 mil plus, right? And they think they're the shit, and now they're with hot girls, but it's just disgusting. I absolutely hate it. People that don't deserve money when they've got money, I hate it with a passion. You know, you make it legitimately, you come up, even like there's plenty of people that I don't like, that I don't agree with, like their opinions and stuff, but they've made a living legitimately, even whether it be, you know, selling courses, because obviously courses are kind of controversial, but you know exactly what you're getting when you buy a course, you know, someone's going to teach you something.

6:31So you're not legitimately, I call it ethically scamming. So like, you know, there's a lot of people like that that I don't agree with, but I respect it if they've made the hustle and they've done it legitimately. But the dudes like that I've met here, the meme coin guys, the NFT rug pullers, I just want to level them. What do you think about the whole, this big trend in social media the last couple of years, where you are actually selling the fact that you were so successful and there's a bunch of people who have done massively well. we we both know them people kind of like see them it's almost like a cult you know i it's basically the principle is i have a consulting agency or marketing agency and i it's probably doing decent you know but like we both know that a marketing agency or consulting agency is not very scalable so you you're the ceiling of how much you can earn every month is going to be there is a ceiling basically it's not that much you know maybe a few tens of thousands or maybe 100 ,000, but you're not going to retire of that in three years, right?

7:30So you are doing that, but then you're selling online, on social media, the fact that your life is amazing, you travel by jet, all these lifetimes that people love to see, right? But at the same time, you're kind of scamming them because you're accumulating followers, telling them that you got rich of this agency that you have, but then what you're actually doing is you're saying, I'm kind of anticipating the future, ethically scamming, or kind of really scamming people to then be able to sell them a course on how they can get the lifestyle that I have now, but that I don't really have now actually because I don't have it yet, but I'm selling you this because that's how I'm going to make my money off this course that I'm selling you so you can also reach this financial freedom and have the jets and the planes and the mentions and the woman.

8:21Yeah. So, I mean, look, I'm a firm believer a natural selection, right? So if you, I have no problem with courses, if they are going to actually provide some form of value, because obviously there are people out there that are going to sell you something for 500 that is worth tens of thousands, right? Like for me, example, I've been in the space for seven years. If I put together a course for$500 and I teach you everything that I've learned, I show you the scams that have scammed me and I ultimately save you a lot more than$500, nothing wrong with that. But going back on the natural selection, you know, you buy some course from some 17 year old kid who trades in his basement and tells you he's the dirtiest trader you've ever come across that's natural selection and i don't really feel so bad for you you know what i mean so even again bro like you know iman godzi i he does absolute numbers right he's the king of courses and some people are so delusional that they don't think he makes his money from courses it's just a course business he's gone and shut down his sass agency that he was making all his money from he didn't make any money from that it was all from the courses but at the same time look I know when I see his content he motivates a lot of young dudes he gets a lot of dudes out of situations they can't get themselves out of and so at the end of the day like I don't think he's scamming and you know like I respect it so like that's the difference for me between dudes that are like ethically scamming versus just straight scamming so if you're going to provide some form of value I don't think courses are the problem I think the problem is people over promising saying I'm going to change your life with this course like you're never going to have to work again blah blah and it's just bullshit and there's nothing in it so again it's the same as like school like you know I'm paying in the US$50 ,000 a year in tuition for college and I'm sitting in a lecture about business and my dude pulls up on an electric scooter for fuck's sakes you know like and this dude's about to teach me how to make money so what's the difference between paying that 50 G's a month versus paying$500 from someone who's already made money in the space that I want to go into, you know, you just got to work out, has this person made money from courses or have they made money from legitimately doing something?

10:24So like me, for example, I've never had a paid group. I've never charged for any money. Um, if I've ever taken promos or anything, I've disclosed it and it hasn't been many. So like everything I've done since I've been on social media free so like you can't make that argument that i've made money from courses and all that because i haven't done it you know so let's say i then did decide to pull up with a course you now know that i've already made my money before that so for me you just got to work that out has this person made money from courses or have they actually made money previously and now they're just doing courses how can people find this out um it's i mean fairly simple you know so now i've been in the game for a while whether it's crypto stocks farts or just anything in general once you've been on social media for a while it's pretty easy to identify right like you can just tell if someone is sitting there and all they're doing is selling you the dream and you know it's just big promises and lambos and this and that probably not legitimate if they sit there and just drop knowledge after knowledge after knowledge you just need to watch more than 10 minutes of their content to work out so that's why i said you know i'm a big believer in natural selection and if you get scammed by some fucking idiot take it as a lesson and learn because whether you got scammed by that dude or you got mugged in the streets you were destined to lose your money you know yeah so it's basically is this person trying to sell me something and being too insistent about it or is this person like dropping shitload of information for free and saying oh by the way if you want to know more you can learn more exactly 50 bucks a month or whatever 500 bucks for one off i mean like for me iman godzi like that should have been the biggest red flag ever when he said he was shut shutting down his business that he sold courses on you have who on this planet just shuts down a successful business you know even if you don't want to do it anymore you sell it you who just shuts down a business that's doing numbers that's crazy for me the big red flag was uh i was watching an interview i did in december 2021 where he was saying at the freaking top of the previous bull run he was saying oh man i made like first you you shout your net worth like i made like 10 or 12 mil this year i'm like second i'm like how did you make that oh i invested one or two mil in this crypto thing and then i leveraged myself on nexo right so basically i used leverage and then and then so basically means you're over leveraged on crypto at the top of the bull run and then the guy asks where do you think we're at do you think it's still going up or it's going to go down he says oh no man this shit is going to go up like like this is just the beginning and then you know like the dude got wrecked one way or another and if he's still super successful it means that the money must come from the courses obviously yes do you know uh do you know luke balmar yeah so luke balmar as well look uh that's an interesting one i like him a little less again i respect him for what he's done and he's clearly put up numbers but luke balmar talks out of his asshole as well he went on a podcast with ahmed mcmood and he's talking how he bought the bottom the covet crash ethereum at uh like 80 or whatever do you know what it wicked to like the very very low wick went to like 80 dollars i went and checked i i bought the bottom luckily and it was one and 110 like i couldn't even get it lower so he sits there and he confidently says i was buying ten thousand dollar order blocks worth of ethereum literally at a wick low so like that's that from i've been in crypto you've been it's physically impossible if you understand the game yeah absolutely absolutely or you bought the ups for example me i bought the absolute low like at one 110 of east after getting wrecked 80 percent of my net worth on bitmex that same day so like the reason you feel like it's the law is because you're so destroyed yourself already there is always a part of the story that people don't talk about yeah and that's the thing i don't understand online it's because i feel like people really appreciate and love honesty right and they're going to trust you much more but like for some reason these successful people iman or luke like they never talk about their losses they never talk about like oh man no no For me, I was really lucky.

14:15You know, I feel like it's not possible. Even for me, like, it doesn't mean that he's a full-blown scam or anything, but he means that he's talked out of his ass about one thing. What else is he talking out of his ass about? So now it's hard for me to look at him and believe anything that he says, you know what I mean? And then at the same time, he sells a$1 ,000 yearly membership and sells$10 ,000 per an hour call. So is that where the funds are coming from? Good chance. Most likely. Good chance. so like you know you see all this stuff online and again it's very easy you asking how do you identify these people right there just go watch that podcast go check the price that it went to on the exchange it's in the first 10 minutes of the podcast too but you need to have the context of the industry or the thing you're in which is why so many people get sucked in and kind of like i want to say scam but like they get sold very quickly because everybody wants to become rich overnight right yes that's why crypto is going to go up forever there's gonna be these cycles because people want to get rich overnight.

15:12And the other thing that I believe with natural selection is all these people are looking at people like me, Iman, Luke, all these dudes in our early 20s, and they're taking us like, you know, like word for word. Meanwhile, you got people like Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock. You got the Rothschilds dude. Like, they're all published books that talk publicly, and no one gives a shit about them. I don't understand why people don't want to listen to the dudes that have been in power for hundreds of years, that have controlled the wealth of the entire world for hundreds of years, but would rather listen to some internet kid and they'll make the argument, oh yeah, but times have changed.

15:45These dudes have had that net, they've had that generational wealth over generation, generation, generation. They don't lose it and they don't lose it for a reason. It's because their life is boring. It's because their life looks boring and if you look at the most successful people on earth, people I interview, their life is boring. They say, my life is boring. I wake up in the morning, I go smash work. I don't go party all the time. I'm not with all these chicks that people are selling you online. this is not the lifestyle it's not possible my life has to be boring for me to be successful otherwise i would not be successful gotta say no to the hoes you gotta say no to the hoes bro that's one thing i'm bad at is like how you say no to the hoes in dubai um so it's like there's a fine line right like i've learned like i just straight up i work best when i'm not in a relationship when i've got that tunnel vision and as fucked up as it sounds right like i'm a firm believer in being uncomfortable you want to be uncomfortable the second i'm in a relationship with a girl that I like, all hell breaks loose because now I'm comfortable.

16:43I have no problem just laying in bed and shagging all day. I'm not motivated to do extra stuff. But let's say I end that or even better, she ends it with me, it doesn't happen very often. But now I've got the fire, I've got the fuel. So it's like every time I end up finding myself in that situation, get a little bit comfortable, you just gotta snap it off. And you have to say no, because the way I look at it, right, I'm 23. That's still so young on the spectrum. anything for me like men we mature like like we're fine wine right we just get better and better with the years that come so I'm looking at it at 23 I'm like dude even if I don't hit it big time in my head what I my definition of big time for like 10 years I'm good like there's no point a lot of people have that fear of missing out right they want to go to college they want to get drunk I've done both I've lived both lives so for me going to college getting blackout in a basement that costs fucking nothing there's no ac the girls got stds versus waiting grinding your off and then partying on a 20 million dollar yacht in dubai with ukrainian and russian models is worth the wait it's worth the grind do you think this will make you any happier than the girls in the basement with the stds 100 why it's just what do you think is the dream that you're being sold but actually you're going to realize man at some point maybe it's because you're super young still but like the happiness comes from simple things and i want especially with your south african you know values that you told me that you have like this very respectful values that are completely different from dubai and from what you've seen in the u.s probably probably you'll go through all these phases yes i've been through them too and then i was like kind of like you get lost there too and you realize man happiness comes from having a mission as you said working and struggling towards that mission and never actually getting to my goal and the day i get to my goal it's kind of over what the do i do with my life yeah and i've had a couple of days ago we were releasing in a few days jordi alexander who made like a shitload of money is like one of the big crypto figures and he talked about the fact that you don't want to make your wealth too fast because if you make it too fast you're basically lost and what do you do afterwards and then you have all this feeling like imposter syndrome that come along that we never thought would exist but like i think we both experienced already yes no so i actually i do 100 agree with you i don't think that that's like because that's what people think they're going to get that and then they they sit it's definitely not the case you're not going to be set when you got a hose on a boat in dubai but it is better than the hose in a basement with stds so like it's you know it's not like it's definitely i agree with you happiness comes from the small things it comes from your drive your mission your passion and we even spoke about this the other day, I definitely had imposter syndrome and I definitely felt lost when I got to where I wanted.

19:30Like I never expected, right? You are like three years ago, four years ago, I'm living in a frat house with four other dudes and you know, the basement stories and all that. So I go from that to making the money that I did in the span of like a few months, a year, even though I'd been grinding on this since 2016, I made my money very quick and very fast. And it was more, more money than I ever thought I was going to make. So now for like six months, I find myself lost. I don't do anything. And there's like a 21 year old at the time, 22, like that's not how life should be at all. So for me, that's definitely, you know, it's life.

20:05You never going to really figure it out. Like I see a lot of older people talking, you know, they're 35, 40 and they're still like, you know, I'm still figuring shit out. So for me, you got to try and not put too much emphasis on that. You just got to have a mission, a goal, and then just keep driving and just work it out because you never know where it's gonna go people people make a lot you know when you make a lot of money especially quickly like it's kind of I won't say it's easy right because it's often like a paper for a few years we always say luck is when preparation meets opportunity and there's pretty much no better way than your story you know social media and then in fitness and then moving into crypto and then being in a bull run and then it happens but like actually this wealth comes from like all this preparation you've put in and all this work you put in before right it's kind of the easy part is actually to make the money but to keep it is hard how you how did you manage that or how good were you at that my biggest fear is being average that is my biggest fear hands down it outweighs any fear that i have and so because i've always got that in the back of my mind like that's what keeps me awake at night is like i haven't i haven't achieved enough same thing before I'm always looking at the bigger picture so although now you know especially someone my age like I see that kind of money yeah I could have gone and got a Mansuri Uris and bought a house and just pop bottles at the club but for me I'm so fearful like I'm almost stingy you know like I need the for me to spend that kind of money I need 50 mil plus like I went and bought my dream car bought an apartment and that was it like I only spent what I could 100 I knew in the back of my head i can 100 afford to spend because the last thing i'd ever want is going broke especially because that's what everyone tells me that's gonna happen to me right all these dudes online they hate it you know i'd probably hate me too i'm 23 i live in dubai i'm jacked i'm on boats with the hose i'd probably be mad as well so they will you know a lot of people prey on my downfall so i'm like you know whatever it takes i will prove you wrong how do you date in dubai if you're stingy um well that's tell me about the dating game in dubai because it's a riz bro you just you just need a little bit of riz and make these hoes laugh because especially here your competition is so slim like you are yeah you're competing with dudes with money but you're competing with bums like at deep down like they are bums you know what i mean so yeah they think they like that but wait till they find like a normal person that can talk to them that can make them laugh then they love that absolutely back to the basics yeah back to the basics i'm telling you bro don't ever compromise yourself with someone else so like i mean and i in dubai i end up finding girls from like other places that come to dubai the girls that are here like you import them exactly that's the classic thing we talk i talk about with all my friends here or even in singapore it's like oh man like the best ways to import actually yes so you don't get into this like weird game where where like women are basically way too spoiled and the whole game is kind of fucked up because as much as women who would have sex directly would kind of lower the price of sex right for all the other women these dudes who are like kind of sims and will overpay and offer some fucking bags or whatever cartier yes to this woman they're basically lowering the the the value of what being an actual man is by doing that yes and women they think that's normal if i can get this stuff like why would i not get it and we would probably do the same if we're a woman yeah oh no i don't think it's the woman's fault i think it's the men's fault like especially here again these dudes have so much money they don't know what to do with it um you know maybe if i was them as well and like five grand was like shekels to me maybe i'd do the same thing you know i don't know but for me it's like i can't it's the most i hate that i absolutely hate it with a passion and because like i'm so open about it you know i'm telling them i'm i am paying for shit dog like i'm not i'm not doing any of this i think they almost somewhat respected because also they've never been told that you know like especially a lot of the girls yeah they've never been told oh i'm not gonna get you and uber to come meet me this and that you know so i don't know it works for me somehow it's the accent or it's something but accent the testosterone and the fact that you look yeah something you know confident something it ends up working but for me uh yeah it's not my main focus though of course now like i saying i just want to build next few years just completely build so that because also another fear of mine is i don't want to be seven years old with my nutsack hanging on my ankle playing golf like that doesn't sound like fun either so you know I want to be young with my money having fun and especially with you know friends and family so for me I'm not too stressed about short term missing out on the fun missing out on anything because it will come back what do you recommend to all the dudes out there who are in their early 20s and actually think the same way as you and actually the same way as I've always been thinking which is I don't want to make all this wealth or money when I'm old because I'm not gonna be really able to kind of make benefit of it and kind of use and enjoy it what's the best way today to make as much money as quickly as possible without scamming people i think that the greatest um i think that the greatest financial opportunity that we'll ever see in our generation is going to be with crypto 110 and the fact that so many people have written it off just adds more and more confluence to what I believe.

25:23So again, people think that it's over, but we just move in cycles, right? That's how it is. And I truly do believe that the fiat system will collapse. So even when Bitcoin goes to hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's not going to be worth all that because fiat currency is going to be so inflated and all that. So I still think that with altcoins, of course, you know, it's also a lot of high risk, but that's how this works. If you are not willing to sacrifice money to make some, you're never going to make it. So for me, I genuinely think that crypto is the best opportunity that we will see for a while.

25:56And even on top of that, there's 2023 money has never been easier to make. Like for example, you go and grab a long formatted clip from the internet, like Mr. Beast, you go copy and paste it into an AI website. It chops up the clips for you, gives it to you. Boom. You put that in your account. You're in America now. you can join the creative beta program where they're now paying big on tiktok you get a few million views of video which is going to happen because it's mr beast boom so just making content of other people's content even if it's not like super ethical like there is so much money to be made by being very efficient right i see like these young dudes that are deaf they're probably sub 20 years old they make six figures every month doing those snapchat things like the um you know like rolling a ball into glass and just like the stuff that like retards watch you what i mean like the stuff that like people that have got nothing better to do you know they sit there and they hook that one in the morning watching these videos dude those kids are banking six figures a month like the amount of opportunities absolutely ridiculous i have two questions related to that yeah let's take them one after the other the first one is crypto related and then and then we'll go to like monetization right what's the real game in crypto today to make money what should people understand about the actual game so this is some real sauce but one of the best ways to make money is ICOs and IDOs now I've been trying to get on ICOs since 2017 and 2017 I wasn't a social media figure or anything so it was a lot harder to get allocation so again my biggest fear is being average even though I feared the camera as well I said no fuck this it's worth it if I can get allocation if i can do all this stuff so boom get on social media if you want it bad enough you will do it especially in the crypto space our competition is so narrow and no one is dox the people that are dox the fat as fuck like it's it's it's an easy niche to grow into right to inspire people it's not that hard actually there's no one is an inspiration that's true everyone's a scammer so like for me it's like crazy so i would then you know i would try and build a social media presence even if it's through AI clips, whatever, if you've got followers, if you can bring some form of value to the table, you will get allocations.

28:13But regardless of that, you can still get allocations, just not enough. So I think ICOs, IDOs, you get one or two of the right ones, you're going to change your life forever. You're going to 100x your investment, 200x. Unbelievable. The next thing is just being early to trends, right? So you have certain trends that go off, AI, meme coins, whatever. That's something that people don't talk enough about in crypto. You could buy the best project out there if you are late you're fucked you got no hope you got absolutely no hope so like some of the best things i look for in the bull market is a solid product with a team that has already known that has created projects before and very key aspect they are doing paid marketing they're going to pay these broke influences to pump the shit out of it that does not work in a bear market though because what happens when you are paying these influences in a bear market they're getting a shitload of tokens there's not enough liquidity driving the price up they're dumping their tokens and ultimately if the bull market doesn't come around in time that project will never take off so you definitely don't want to be doing that in a bear market but like in a bull market like a paid marketing like that is absolute money but if i recap that because i was thinking like something similar if i recap that the actual ideal case is you build some sort of influence so you can get some allocations yes and either you actually pay for the allocation right Either you're kind of being given some tokens or equity as an advisor because they know that you have a network or a following.

29:37And probably now, when no one gives a fuck about crypto, is the moment to actually look at that. Because if you buy these tokens too late in a bull market, even if the product is good, just because the timing is bad. And there is vesting on these tokens, which means that you receive these tokens after three or six months. And then every month, like a certain amount of tokens. you actually could have have almost everything right but the timing and still get fucked right timing is everything in crypto it is quite literally what will make or break you so but definitely i think that that if there's just to summarize that get gain some form of social media presence so that you can add value to the table don't be a victim and think it's unfair that the influencers get allocation and you don't we get allocation because we provide some form of value we bring value to the table we can bring clients to them so just do the same you know people want dunk on influences this they get this they get that do the same it's jealousy just do the same so i think that that would be probably the best way to make money in crypto it's going to give you the best advantage what would you recommend to someone who's been thinking about kind of being a producer of content or creator instead of just being like the you know bottom 99 of people who are consuming but are still kind of struggling at the idea of i was like that for years because of my Swiss values, you know, don't like showing up too much or like talking about, I mean, you don't have to talk about numbers or like net worth, right?

30:59Obviously, that's what people like the most. So it's kind of challenging. But people were still kind of stuck at, man, I really think I have a good message out there. But like, I feel it's wrong to just like show my face there and like just start to talk as if I know shit when literally no one knows shit, especially in this industry? Social media is literally like entering in the lottery, except there is no entry fee and you get unlimited entries. Every time you post a piece of content, you are potentially setting yourself up to win the lottery, to go mega viral and your life will never be the same.

31:33I spoke about this, but the most recent example, this girl on TikTok called TubeGirl, started recording herself in the subway in the UK. Within a week, she's now partnered up with Mac, which is one of the biggest cosmetic brands. She's at Vogue Fashion Week. She's got all the biggest brands, Coach, Dove, all in her comments. She's doing interviews on BBC. So it's like, if that's not enough proof to take the leap of faith, I don't really know what is. Because at the end of the day too, social media is one of the only businesses, if not the only one, that you can start up with zero startup costs.

32:07And if you lose, it's fine. There's no downside to starting social media. If it doesn't work, you're in the exact same position that you were before. If it does work, you're never gonna have to work another day in your life and you'll become your own boss and you just post content for free and you find a way to make your personality strong and out there. All you have to do for a living is be yourself. So for me, the leap of faith is so worth it. It's unbelievable. And I'm sorry, just to add on, you know, you're talking about it's hard because of numbers, this and that. The beauty with social media is there is no blueprint.

32:39There is no requirements. You can do whatever you want. You find a way to post your content where you don't have to post your numbers. You don't have to talk about that shit. I don't do it. You know what I mean? People can see that by the way that I live, the things I do, they know that I have money. I'm not out here yapping about how much money I've got, and you don't have to do that. You can do whatever you want to do. If you want to black out on Twitch on a ball of Jägermeister and pull your nuts out on the stream, you can do that. I did that, and I'm not banned, but I did that, you know?

33:10so you start social media right but and then maybe one video or two blow up but actually there is a way to become um to go viral frequently yeah and that's what mr beast really understood he actually said i start a new account without my face without my voice i could get to 20 or 50 million subscribers on youtube within six months because i understand exactly how the game and the algorithm works right what's your kind of framework because you've been really good at that virality first on uh with fitness on tiktok and then crypto twitter obviously you do things very naturally but there's probably a few things that every time you build some content you're like i should have these three or four things in there so it's more likely to go viral people think i'm retarded but like i do shit in a specific way so that it does go viral right um i just have no desire to impress people so I don't care what people think of me.

34:03But there's, of course, certain ways to go about it. So like for me on TikTok specifically, that is where the brain cells have shrunk the most. That is where, you know, people cannot, their attention spans are in the toilet. So those first three seconds of that video are crucial. Started off with something like, you know, I hate fat people or the, you know, this is the best opportunity you're ever gonna have. Like, it's gotta be a hook. It's gotta be a strong hook. You started off with that, now you finally got people interested um there's certain things again you know you you fuck with people's emotions right you tell them things that they want to hear you tell them things that they don't want to hear for example give me two examples that they want to hear they don't want to hear for example you know like greatest opportunity of our lifetime is upon us you know if you play this correctly you are going to be set for life that's all that people want um something that people don't want to hear, you're fat as fuck and it's ruining your life, you know, and then go into a video about how that's doing that.

35:05So that hook is very important. Again, like thumbnails, clickbait, all that kind of stuff is important as well. And then now, especially with people doing it, mass producing your content is important, right? So having multiple different accounts, having multiple different editors and posting it, preferably all over the world, you know, know you get different sim cards posted boom boom boom and so like for me though when I first started strict when I was doing the best numbers was when I had no idea what I was doing I genuinely just started posting whatever I liked and like what I thought was going to be cool and so like you were saying you know people are so full of shit online I think that that was like refreshing for a lot of people to see was that oh like this dude's like me so relatability is actually a huge huge part going viral if you are relatable people are going to watch you and think oh this dude's just like me i can do what he's done so being relatable definitely as well that was almost something i missed that is up there with something that i would recommend doing for sure you said that uh especially on tick tock right people are kind of retarded yes like i can see it with what go viral on our podcast like and the comments of the people i'm like and how crazy people are and like they attack the guest or they attack me and i'm like it's cool he gets views right but that's not enough there's a lot of people out there who have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers and don't make that much money how do you turn retardedness into actual money so for me the most important thing is adding some form of value providing some form of value to someone's life because if you do that you're going to build a cult following you can see these people on tiktok they just stand there and they dance and you know they make stupid skits and they might be funny but people aren't going to remember that right you help someone lose weight that's been struggling to lose weight they're going to remember you you help someone make money that was broke they're going to remember you so the number one thing is adding some form of value to their life whether it be you know one or two of those examples and there's plenty more out there so that and then two i would 100 like especially if i was a girl i would do everything in my power for the next year not even if you smart a couple months learn everything that you can about finance pick a niche stocks crypto forex whatever and start posting content on that kind of stuff because in our industries they are 99 male right so you are a smart girl preferably hot and you are dropping knowledge your views are going to skyrocket and to monetize with like uh anything to do with money anything finance the monetization is so much stronger there so but no matter what it is bro fitness stocks forex anything you can monetize it you just need to be smart about it and so like the way i would go about doing that is create catchy content create a cult because if you have a cult that's the most important thing they're going to do whatever you say goes so then you can approach brands you can be like look these are the numbers that i have on x and y this is the engagement that i have if i talk about your product you are guaranteed to get at least 10 thousand clicks to your website you know and reach out to brands and also remember that we make the brands right without us without advertising without marketing the brands are nothing the brands are absolutely nothing so usually they'll lowball the out of people but at the end of the day it's just not the case yeah like talking about the woman example is very interesting because we had irene zhao on the podcast and she was really great at that at building a following on instagram and then switching into crypto, kind of the same time as you and growing a big following on Twitter.

38:44Yeah. She played the game really well. And talking about cult, like the other day, it's a really good example with you because we're having this coffee and then there's this dude literally interrupting us for like 10 minutes. And the dude is not a TikTok retard. He's like an entrepreneur who has multiple businesses here and he's just like, oh, man, I love your content. And then basically, he didn't even realize that I was there. it was just all like and I was like what the fuck bro like what's that so you've been really good at that actually creating or at least starting a sort of cult yeah no it's definitely worth it I mean stuff like that like that makes me like really happy with what I've done because like you say you know this dude wasn't a sped he had multiple businesses definitely older than me you know and he's asking like valid questions so when you come across this and like you say you know he just pulls up and just starts chatting and it's because I come across like it's so like comfortable online and so approachable so you also don't want to be that dickhead you know that no one wants to talk to or anything you want people to be your friend because that way they'll actually feel like they are your friend but you can't be everyone's friend because at some point when you get a big following and everybody's hitting you up all the time like it's for your mental health it's just impossible 100 so like even for me my audience is legit 99 male and it's because i talk about foul things and like you know it is what it is i end up meeting like a couple cool girls through social media like the kind of girls that I'm interested in right like you know like uh stay at home cook and clean have my kids and I'll do everything type girls like that that my content kind of attracts um and some of them get it but again if a girl like for example the clip where I'm saying hose and this and that they're gonna see that short formatted clip on tiktok whatever and they're gonna be like fuck this guy this guy's a woman hater when I actually love women you know but I just I have a goal and I have a purpose and at the end of the day the best audience to have is young males they are the ones that are spending the dough so so maybe the all this investment you're doing in social media the biggest ROI will be to find that stay-at-home wife exactly bro future exactly 100 best investment and return on investment ever yeah and i'll teach you how to edit my content and shit and then i'll just then slam it out you grew you were born in south africa how the hell did you yeah born in zimbabwe zimbabwe but you're south african yeah so i grew up in south africa pretty much my whole life how the hell did you end up in dubai living of content saying a lot of shit out online so i ended up moving south africa obviously you know it's been deteriorating for a while and i was fortunate enough i never came and i'll talk about it as well i never came from money money but my parents were always well off like always did okay like i never had to worry about where food was coming from or anything and so we got a visa to the u.s moved to the u.s i went to school there did all that kind of stuff um now fast forward to the point they're not doing so hard anymore their businesses went under and everything so um yeah i've been i mean supporting myself since i was in college you know since i i got to that point where you grow up you know and most parents will tell you we're not paying for you anymore to live with us this and that so yeah went to the u.s went to high school there did a year and a half of college it just wasn't for me again like you study business entrepreneurship what do you think about it it's the most useless degree out there to be honest with you because i believe that you are either born an entrepreneur or you're not it's not something that you can really teach and like i say paying 50 grand a year and a dude's pulling up on a 20 electric scooter and i'm sure what the fuck you know that's the same reason you don't get a fat trainer to teach you how to lose weight or work out you know you want the dude actually never left university because he went on to do a phd and then just started to teach there and so teaching you entrepreneurship i remember in my master we had an entrepreneurship class and the woman was there actually did a phd in entrepreneurship and that's the reason she was our teacher and after we had this uh i was a bit of a fucker like you but like a bit less strong but we had we had like an entire term uh 12 classes on entrepreneurship and at the very last minute of the last class she asked does anyone have a question and i just raised my hand and i said do you really believe we can teach entrepreneurship and she had just like spent three months to teach us entrepreneur to teach us entrepreneurship everybody laughed and everything then she started yeah of course you can blah blah blah because look at me i've done a phd entrepreneurship but like i worked for my family business and i was like that's me already yeah so like for me like i find that crazy you know like how are you listening you know those are not the people you want to end up like so why are you listening to them like that's you know the same way people listen to young kids on social media today and think that these these kids like mastered life i mean i feel like that's why we end up doing well right is because kids my age look at me and they're like shit i would love to live in dubai unemployed and on boats and driving g-wagons and you know so it's like yeah i do have that so like fair game um but yeah you know so like i studied entrepreneurship did about a year and a half and it just wasn't for me you know i was so excited to go to college when i was in high school if you had asked like my peers, you know, who's going to be the frat douchebag, they would have said me, but I got to college and I just outgrow, I outgrew that partying and fucking around real quick and just realized that I wanted to do more with my life.

43:56So then COVID hit, I worked out real quick, right? You're either content consumer or a content creator. I said, let me become a content creator. And if it doesn't work, it is what it is. I'm just in the same position I started. So I texted my little brother because he was on TikTok. I didn't even have TikTok on my phone. I said, send me your three favorite fitness guys. Send me three guys. I watched their content. I was like, oh, this is shit. We can do it. So then I went and bought some Psalms, some like performance enhancing drugs. I stopped drinking because I was an alcoholic. So basically steroids.

44:26Basically. So, but untested and unregulated steroids. So even worse. And I mean, and I was a genuine alcoholic, like blacking out four days a week. So I put down the liquor. I stopped doing that. And I just started working out and I got in crazy shape, crazy fast. And I started posting my journey. And the key thing that I told people was, I'm not here to like sell you a dream, tell you I'm this coach, you know, that I've got all the answers. I'm just showing you what I did to lose weight, how I lost weight, how I got jacked, what I do. And so that's literally, for me, that's the best way to approach things because now you're never lying.

45:01You're never looking over your shoulder. You know, all these fake gurus and shit, constantly watching their back because they know they've bullshitted. Like Balmar, he's bullshitted. Now he's got nailed. versus if you just said, oh yeah, you know, I bought Ethereum, this and that. You don't have to come in here with horse shit. You can just be straight up and straightforward and people will respect that. The real people will understand it directly. Same as people who really built a business, we understand, oh man, these do understand the game and the thing. Yeah. So, I mean, I just started with that, just started with fitness.

45:30I made good money. I was sponsored by a few companies like my dream supplement company that I always used to use. They ended up hitting me up and I was like this is so sick like this is unbelievable did that for a bit and then of course I'd already been in crypto for years like since I was I gave presentations on crypto in high school before anyone even knew what it was like that's how early it was here you can ask anyone bro could ask our sound guy he knows what bitcoin is back and when I started talking about it no one had even heard of it so even my investments teacher this was the class and he's sitting there and he's going, oh, I might buy some crypto.

46:07Like this sounds interesting. So that's like how early I was with that. Started talking about it there. Then once I made it on social media and I had a name, I was like, yeah, I'm going to talk about it. Because again, I didn't get into crypto so much for the money. Of course, that was an aspect of it. But because I understood the message and I understand and I believe in Bitcoin. So I then started posting content about it on TikTok. And of course, I was a bit of a character. You know, I'm sitting there in a frat house with a popcorn ceiling no shirt talking about bitcoin that got put on the twitter and like you say who's doing that on ct no one so it just started going and like when i was 17 i interned a little bit with charlie shrem who's one of like the ogs of bitcoin the founding father type thing and when i first got posted on twitter people were like uh you know this kid's funny but he's spastic charlie retweeted it and he was like nah like this kid is next up and so that gave me you know i'll be always be appreciative that that always that gave me like quite a like solidifying name you know like oh maybe this kid is with the shits so i mean yeah and then from there i just kind of took it with every day i try not to look too far into the future because it'll scare you you know you just need to have your end goal you don't need to know how you're going to get there but for me if you just work towards it every day it's you're delusional to think that you won't get there same same way that you're delusional if you think that you're going to get somewhere without doing anything it's not possible what's your end goal um my end goal is for sure financial freedom forever like what does that mean um i mean it's hard to kind of tell because obviously i'm still 23 and you know with inflation and everything but i'd say like give me i don't think i'll ever be satisfied if i'm being real i don't think anyone's ever satisfied so but for right now like my number is 50 million give me 50 million i'm chill so that's more than enough for me my family generations and you know all that so but like you know everyone that i've talked to that's ever successful and same as me my goal that i had previously i've already hit it but now i feel more empty than ever like i want to keep going you know what i mean you're attracted to all these i mean you've done this steroid stuff you've been drinking a lot you attracted to crypto attracts a lot of kind of gambling addicts people who are very addictive yeah do you think you have a very addictive personality unbelievably addictive personality so like i used to even be very heavily addicted to weed like all day every day and one of the main reasons i didn't move to dubai is because i thought i wasn't going to be able to get off it and so funnily enough the only way for me to get off it was to move to dubai and have no choice and now I feel better than ever but definitely addictive guy for sure how do you balance addiction or having a very addictive personality with actually being performant in life discipline I don't think there's any anything else to it other than discipline you just got to want something better than you want that addiction so like again for me my biggest fear is being average I know that if I just get hammered and I smoke weed and I fuck around, I know that I'll end up average.

49:16You're insane to think otherwise. So for me, yeah, that was hard, like withdrawals for weeks, tweaking, always thinking about it, but not as much as I think about being a bum. So you got to find out what like really drives you, what really pushes you, whatever your message is, and make that stronger than the addiction. Is there one thing or specific event that happened that made you realize, man, I'm at the freaking rock bottom and i need to stop all this shit or i get my shit together so the thing is i never even really got to too rock bottom and i don't think you know you need to wait for rock bottom but what ended up happening was i was smoking so much weed that it just started giving me like anxiety like when i was in high school but i would go you know lunchtime would come we'd go to the car take a couple of bong rips walk in a class drop a presentation like it was nothing versus then how it ended up in the future like I was tripping balls like I'd smoke and I couldn't go out in public so I started noticing especially like a common pattern with people that smoke is that we don't think it's that bad for us makes us creative all this horseshit and I genuinely did believe that while I was smoking until I came off it and after weeks once it was out my system that I really feel like oh wow like my life was down bad and it's just again it's it wasn't like any traumatic event or anything that really happened but it just you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out if you're drinking and smoking all the time it's probably not great for you you know yeah like it's probably not great you know there's nothing good that's going to come out from that people talk about oh but joe rogan smokes and wizz khalifa smokes yeah and guess what they're also worth a hundred million so don't chat that shit if you're worth a hundred million you also do whatever you want but you're not you're living in a basement what's your key takeaway for people of your age today?

51:01Key takeaway for people of my age is that we have unlimited opportunities. You know, we're so young and I feel like so many people are afraid of failing, but failure is guaranteed. It's 100 % guaranteed. You are going to have to pay the price. It's the same as going to college. You have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get that degree. But now you're left with a worthless degree. You might as well put that money towards a business, investing, whatever. and from because for me the upside is there and you know we're young we don't have families to take care of we don't have you know kids at home and a wife and a mortgage that we have to pay so like you can fuck up like it's more than okay to fuck up as long as you learn from it because if you just keep going at it and you keep fucking digging eventually you will hit you know your gold mine it's insane to think that you won't so for me we have so much time a lot of people also feel like they don't have time like dog like you early 20s you have so much time especially as a male you know women expire straight up you know once they start hitting that 20 28 29 like you better be looking to settle down men we just you know we mature with age we make more money we become more wise all that kind of stuff so for me time is our friend you know you can afford fuck ups and just you also got so many people afraid of social media about what people are going to think it's not going to matter when 10 years from now you're sitting with 20 million and you don't have a job and you get to do whatever you want so take the leap of faith for sure you gotta risk it amazing thank you so much for your time man appreciate you bro