Jason Tartick - Author of The Restart Roadmap & Host of Trading Secrets | Why Your Parents, Your School and Your Job All Lied to You About Money

I want to understand why money is a thing that nobody talks about. We weren't taught anything about it. We weren't taught about it in our school system. Not only were we not taught anything about it, we were taught not to talk about it. We've created these barriers of money. And the problem with those barriers, it puts us in a position where we can't learn about other careers and how other people did it. Why is there so much shame around it? When we don't talk about money, those who are benefiting the most are the biggest and largest corporations in the world. Today's guest is Jason Tardik, entrepreneur, investor, and best-selling author. After a decade in corporate banking, he stepped away to build a career and financial education platform. He's helped millions rethink their careers and financial future through his best-selling books and top charting podcast. In this conversation, he shares why financial success starts with changing your mindset, understanding money, and making better career decisions. Where do they start learning about money, First and foremost, I think you can't start looking outward until you learn inward. How do you like de-risk that reinvention when you put 30, 40 years of your life into the version of yourself that's not happy? I would highly recommend to give out. When in doubt, give out. That's going to connect you. My fitness pal is a success story partner. Now, here's something I've noticed after interviewing hundreds of founders, the ones that are performing at the highest level, the ones that are truly winning. They aren't just optimizing their business or their calendar or their team. They're paying attention to what they eat. And the ones who aren't paying attention, they're usually the first ones to burn out. 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That's podcast.myfitnesspal.com. Code SCOTT. I want to understand why money is a thing that nobody talks about. It's a great question. My quick answer is we weren't taught anything about it. We weren't taught about it in our school system. And in fact, not only were we not taught anything about it, we were taught not to talk about it. So imagine the most important asset in the world that drives our economy, the global economy, decisions we make, how we live. And in no way, shape or form is there any system in place to teach us about money. So how do you talk about something that you know nothing about? And then when we do talk about it, we're told to bury it, right? You get a credit card statement you didn't pay off, throw it under the mattress. Don't talk about it. Don't talk about what you make. How dare you? Oh, and then if you start to have success and you want to talk about it, now you're bragging, you're boasting, you're arrogant. So we've created these boasts. barriers of money. And the problem with those barriers is it puts us in a position where we can't learn about other careers and how other people did it and what they're making today. As a result of that, we are having huge financial issues in this country, especially when you look at a house to house basis. It's also interesting how there's so much shame around it. Like growing up, you know, you don't talk about money. You don't talk about how much this thing costs. You whisper about it. And then when you get a job, you don't talk about how much everyone is making. And it's frowned upon. Because you don't want people comparing salaries, God forbid. You actually understand what everyone else in your office is making. Why? Why is there so much shame? And I don't know. Just because it would make sense that we talk about the most important thing that drives... You know, where we live, how we, you know, raise a family, how we go on vacation, how we take care of our, you know, our health, our wellness when things don't go right. Like it's all it's all of its money to a degree. If you don't have money, it's very hard to do anything. 100%. Why is there so much shame around it? I think everyone had their own theory to this. I think my theory is it starts at the top, right? When we don't talk about money, those who are benefiting the most are the biggest and largest corporations in the world, right? So employees aren't striking every single day. They're doing what they got to do. They're staying in their nine to five. And I think in general too, when you think about finance, it's really interesting. Like If I had a tooth right now that was completely infected, I would feel that pain point. I would cancel everything that was going on in my day. I'd immediately get it taken care of. The financial system has created a very interesting situation where you can deal with a little drip of pain every single day, but it doesn't hurt you enough that you really have to address it. And it's set up that way because when you look at credit card debt and you're working at 30%, 40% interest rates monthly... they're making so much money. So if some of these large institutions who a lot I support, I invest in, I have my money with, if they start correcting the solve for that, that's a huge profit center that's gone. So I think if we all started talking about money more, we would have more education to where we can make it. We would earn more. We would spend smarter. And I think what's interesting now is with AI and the way world's shifting is like those worlds are coming down right now. Those walls are being broken. But I think if you ask the why, I think the thesis is it's set up for success at the top. And at the bottom, it's not. And I think we have to inverse that pyramid. And I think at the end of the day, when there's more transparency around it, honestly, I think at the end of the day, everyone will win those at the top and those working their way to get to the top. At the end of the day, the more you talk about anything, the more you understand it, the less confusion, the more you can use the tools and the system to your benefit, including money. And that's the one thing that I think you do a really good job of. You focus on money. I don't know, de-shaming the conversation around money. You get people talking about it, which is, I think, so useful. It's one of the most useful skills to understand. You polled 250,000 people. You asked them to define the S&P 500. 91% couldn't. That's so scary. Because you think about all the people that give investing advice on social media when if people just understood, if they just put money into the S&P 500, it would outperform most investment vehicles, most money managers. It's one of the most like, you know, in terms of ROI, it's probably one of the best places you can put your money safely. And 91% of people don't even know what it is or can't define it or don't. So we're obviously failing. Yeah, big time. I mean, just for perspective, I always love analogies when we talk about finance because I think it helps people click. Saying the word investing in any way, shape, or form and also not knowing what the S&P 500 is is like going into a car and not knowing what the brake is. Like you can't say the word investing or that I want to invest or that I'm interested in investing or I want my money to grow and not know what the S&P 500 is. That's truly like driving a car without knowing what the brake is. And so, like you said, there's so many financial influencers out there or educators or whatever it is. And people get so caught up in crypto and day to day and get rich quick. And it's like we got to slow down and learn the basics first. And the financial transparency piece, which you mentioned, is huge. Like what I have found so interesting and where it kind of started from, honestly, was, well, it started when I was 16. My grandfather was an oral surgeon and he got taken advantage of by his financial advisor, who's actually still in prison. But he always said, you know, he always tells me when to buy, always tells me when to buy, never tells me when to sell. And then he started to do more looking into it and lost about 40% of his net worth. And so him at 16, he brought me up, showed me every dollar he made. He said, you need to learn how to manage your money. There's one thing I'm going to teach you before you leave this world. No matter what you do with your profession, you're going to know money. And for me, that's where it started. But then a funny connection to that is 2018. I had 10 years in the banking industry. I have an MBA in accounting and finance, working with companies that earn $100 million plus in revenue. And I get off the show The Bachelorette. And all of a sudden, people start, brands are coming to me, you know, and I'm doing these ads. And the big thing back then, if you remember, was swipe up. Remember swipe up? So then all my boys are calling me. They're like, oh, here's the Bachelorette boys. Swipe up, swipe up, right? They're just chirping me left and right. And so I said to them, I said, okay, that's fine. I'll take your shit. Okay. I use that product, first of all. So do you. But how much do you think I made on that swipe up? You're like, I don't know, 100 bucks? And I was like, how much do you make on a monthly basis? And the one kid responds. He's like, I make 10 grand a month. I go, I made more than you made in a month on that swipe up. Then you see the look in the other side. They're like, wait, what? And it hits them. And I think what's cool about that scenario there is there are so many industries. There are so many places that people are making money in different ways. Yet we just don't talk about them. And then when we do, you get that look. And I love that look because the look is like they saw a ghost. Yeah. And to me, seeing that ghost is beautiful because that ghost is opening up your world. It's things you talk about. It's taking you outside of what your perception of success is. It's breaking your blueprint for what you can do and how you can do it. And it creates that spin in your brain, that creative spin of like stimulation, which to me is like one of the most beautiful things in life. So it fires me up. I love that. And I think that you had some great exposure to people that reshifted how you looked at life. You said your uncle was the person who sort of taught you finance and then obviously made your life event appearing on a show like The Bachelorette and then you get these brand deals. So you had these, these things that happened that made you look at life differently and made you look at career differently and work differently and money differently. When somebody doesn't have those things that happened to them, what's your advice to them to start looking outside of what they know? Because like, I feel like most people, the lives they live are the lives that their parents set up for them or their closest influences set up for them. And there's nothing wrong with that. For most people, their parents, their guidance counselors, their peers, they're all well-meaning when they say, this is how you should live your life. This is how you should make money. But at least what I found, for a lot of us, the playbook that worked 20, 30 years ago doesn't work the same way anymore. The way we build careers, the way we make money, the way we retire. So for somebody who is brought up in a family, this is the way you should set up your career, your education, everything. and it's not working the same way that it worked for their parents. They feel like their life isn't as great. They can't afford the same homes their parents afforded at their age. They can't afford the same – all of this stuff because cost of living is up. Where do they start? Where do they start learning about money, about different job opportunities? How do they sort of open their eyes to the world? First and foremost, I think you can't start looking outward until you learn inward, until you look inward. I think you got to understand when it comes to career success and career achievements and financial desires, you need to look inward to see how your childhood shaped you to have the relationship with money and career aspirations that you do. Because I think at the end of the day, we are born into this blueprint. I think the blueprint that we are born into is shaped by our community, our family, our friends, our aunts, our uncles that put these different conceptions into our head. And then we go down this blueprint that we're told to go down in life. Whatever that means to whoever's listening to this, right? I could tell you what my blueprint was. My blueprint was stay in the box, check the boxes, do well in school, be social, be the captain of your team. Don't get in trouble. Go to get your education, take out a loan, pay the loan, get a good job, get promoted, retire, right? That was the blueprint. And I think when it comes to financial lessons and career lessons, how do people achieve them? They achieve them by breaking the blueprint. I'm sure if you look at your podcast, every guest you've had on, I could say for my podcast, every guest I've had on, There's one commonality between the billionaires or maybe the reality star that just came off the show or the big entrepreneur. And the commonality I have found is they have all shattered the blueprint that they were born into and that they were told by society they should live it. And I think that's when lessons, that's when massive growth happens. You'll fall on your face, you get your ass kicked, all these things happen. But growth comes from conflict and comes from disasters. That's how you learn. What I would tell someone back home that's like, what do I do right now? The first thing I would do is I would say on your note app, in your phone or wherever it is, jot it down, write it down. Spend one week focused on where you actually spending your free time. When you're not tied to a desk, when you don't have to be at a meeting, where you have to be present. Maybe it's not when you're with your wife or girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever. When you have free time and free will, what are you doing? What are you consuming? What are you watching? What are you buying? Why? And I think behind all of those things, there are multi-billion dollar industries. And I think to myself, why aren't people pursuing in some level of degree an area of interest that connects to where they spend their free time? You want to be an accountant? Be an accountant. Go be an accountant for the NFL if you're a football guy. Right. And I think when people start breaking the blueprint, start thinking differently. That's where a lot of these lessons come in. That's where a lot of these learnings come in. And then today, I mean, it's just like there's just no excuse. Like back in, you know, 50, 60, 10 years ago, even with you and your podcast, to understand what you had to do on YouTube and understand what you had to do to build a podcast, you would have to go like talk to professors or find textbooks or do research. Do it with AI these days? I mean, everything is at your fingertips as far as information. So you got to get hungry, too. You got to get hungry. You got, I love this. You, you think about what your passions are or what your interests are in your free time. And that's what you should like pursue and follow and, You know, I've thought about this a lot because I feel like when we're growing up, we all kind of know what we like to do. We all have like this, like for example, like every job I've ever had, I love being like the teacher. I love it. I love teaching. I love, you know, when I was working corporate job, I was like, I'll train the new dude, like I don't care. And now I do that for a living. And like, I just defaulted to what I actually liked and then I pursued it long enough where it turned into a viable career. Sure. So you were in corporate. You were really good at banking. You had a panic attack at one point. And I'm bringing this up because I want to tee up sort of where you came from versus where you're at now. But I also want to highlight something. So there was a point where you are obviously doing well financially, but it's not what you want to do. I think that I'm going to make a huge assumption. 9.9 out of 10 people still wouldn't switch careers if they went through the same thing where they don't enjoy what they're doing. They're still not loving the day-to-day, but they're making good money. And they're like, you know, I'm checking all the boxes. My parents are proud of me. I afford the nice house, nice condo. I have a mortgage on the home. Like, yeah. And they just feel trapped. It's like the golden handcuffs. Doesn't matter if it's a lot of money or a little money. Like the life is working out the way that it's supposed to. So your life was working out. You still made a huge pivot. So talk me through a little bit about like what happened with your past finance career. But also the advice for somebody who's in that spot, who's having panic attacks. They don't want to be doing this job next week. But some of them end up doing it next week. Yeah, I think the storytelling here is huge because it all led up to the big panic attack I had. I wrote this. That's how I opened my first book, The Restart Roadmap. So I'm in the banking industry. I'm grinding. I've been promoted like seven times. I've moved four times. You tell me where to be in my career at this point, I will be there. I don't care what it takes. I'm going to be there. So this is 2017. You'll hear that I talk openly about finances because it's something I preach and I ask people to do. My show, because I think we can learn from it. But 2019, And I get a knock on the door to move from New York to Seattle in my banking position because I was really good at business development, bringing new clients on. So I'm like, guys, that's a big move. I don't know anyone in Seattle. Well, they offered me $110,000. And the base salary was like $165,000. And then you can make up to like 3, 4x your actual base in the job. So you're 29 years old. You can make a half million. This is 2017, right? So this is almost 10 years ago. So pretty good. So I go out there. What I learned quickly is that when you say yes to everybody and you become what everybody else wants you to become, you lose a lot of connection with yourself. When you lose connection with yourself, you are an empty suit. You are a house of cards. And that's what I was. I was talking the way I was supposed to talk. I was looking the way I was supposed to look. I was acting the way I was supposed to act. And I was in a big meeting. I'm the youngest guy in the meeting. There's a CEO there, CFO there. We're pitching against other banks. We've got to win this business. I'm just about to start the pitch. I go to turn the page. Here we go. Boom. I immediately go, where's the bathroom? CEO looks at me like I got eight heads. What do you mean where's the bathroom? I'm like, I don't feel good. Run to the bathroom. And just imagine this. There's 18 people there ready for me to perform. It's like a Broadway show and you are starting to sing. You are the live act. Everyone's in their seats and you cancel the show. And I go into the bathroom. I close the door and hit the deck. Passed right out. Got myself together, go back to the chalkboard, get through the meeting, white as a ghost, feeling awful. And I walk out of there just like, what the hell was that? And immediately that night, couldn't sleep. I'm up at four in the morning. I remember this too. I don't know how much I've shared about this. It was four in the morning. I'm up in the middle of the night. I have two roommates at the time. And I was like, I can't let them hear this phone call. And I went into my car outside and I called our health insurance nurse hotline. And I was like, I don't know what happened to me today. This is what happened. And now I can't sleep. And they're like, we would suggest that you see like a psychologist or a psychiatrist about that. So I did. And then I got beta blockers and I got Xanax. And I said, okay, this will solve my issue, right? So I put beta blockers and Xanax and Altoid cases in my pocket. And I said to myself, anytime I have a panic attack, something happens, I'm going to just take it out and take one and I'll be good. It'll put me at ease. Well, that worked until I took out my Altoid case and someone asked for an Altoid. I'm like, oh, I can't give you one of these. So then I threw it in Listerine cases. So I did everything to actually mask the problem. And that's where therapy helped a lot. And so what I realized is that there was just such a disconnection between who I was as a person and what I was trying to achieve for everyone else. And when you continue to self-sacrifice and you continue to live your messaging and your work and your life and your finances and all this through everyone's expectations, not yourselves, you lose yourself. And when you lose yourself in some way, shape, or form, you're going to crack, you're going to break. Maybe it's passing out at a CEO's table. Maybe it's a breakdown. Maybe it's your relationship at home is struggling. Maybe you start to say, I can't lie to myself anymore about maybe habits or addiction. It's going to break. Yeah. And so for me, that's what happened. It broke. And so the biggest piece of advice I'd give to anybody out there is the only way that you'll know if this is your reality is if you look in the mirror and you can be honest with yourself. And for me, it actually took masking it as long as I possibly could. Because I've always connected showing emotion and showing vulnerability, especially in the workspace, will break you and it will make you a liability. And you don't want to be a liability in a world where bureaucracy is what dictates a lot of your success. And what I actually found going on a reality show of all things is... is that the vulnerability of putting myself out there, while so risky, created deeper connections and stronger conversations and more education impact in my life than I've ever had before. So this whole entire life I've been living is to mask what I'm feeling, because I feel as though if I'm vulnerable, it's going to create a liability for others. And then I go on a reality show recognizing that my vulnerabilities empowered a lot of people, connected me with a lot of people, and put me in a different trajectory than I'd ever bet on. HubSpot is a success story partner. 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Um, And thank God that whether it was therapy or through understanding whether or not it was a show that helped you, maybe it was everything all at once. But I'm worried about the person who is in that situation, who continues to self-medicate and is more scared of reinvention than... being scared of self-medicating and continuing on the journey that they're already on, although it be self-destructive. When I say self-medicating, it doesn't really always mean literal drugs. It could be you sort of mask your feelings at work and you're always stressed out, so you take it out on the person at home. It could be drinking. It could be anything. Um, the point I'm trying to get to is how do we make reinvention less scary for people? You went on your own journey and through a variety of, of, of very fortunate circumstances, you were able to reinvent yourself. And now you're in a spot where obviously you're thriving, incredibly happy. Everything's working out. But for somebody who is at that precipice and really struggling to decide, OK, I have this $500,000, half a million dollar career. I'm stressed out. But if I, you know, work a couple hours later, even though it causes stress at home or if I have a drink, it takes the edge off, I can survive it. That's not good. That's not a good place. But that's what I was saying. We're like 9.9 out of 10 people. Probably especially for people who are in like the high performing, you know, super ambitious category, which a lot of people listen to this show are. They and they're trying to figure out how do I reinvent? How do I become somebody new? How do I how am I actually fulfilled and happy in my life? is the first step therapy. You said the first step maybe is taking a look at yourself in the mirror, but how do you like de-risk that reinvention when you put 30, 40 years of your life into the version of yourself that's not happy? I think you're right. I think exactly what you said is correct. I think majority of people, especially in the United States, self-medicate, distract, disassociate. As a result of that, they just completely dim their light. Like we all have a light. Each one of us has a light. And I think life and career and obligations and responsibility, we dim our light to meet the expectations we need. We need to have everyone else. And now our stage is gone. And now everything we want in life is gone. Yeah. And so you asked, what is the piece of advice I'd give? I think first and foremost, anyone that's struggling out there with their career, anyone that's struggling in life, anyone that's self-medicating, anyone that is not connecting with themselves and they're being dishonest to yourself, I would highly recommend to give out. Slow down and go give out to someone. Perspective and peace is a really good way to get connected to yourself. So there is nothing that will help you connect to yourself more than giving to a non-for-profit, volunteering your time. When in doubt, give out. That's going to connect you. The second thing I'd say is work backwards. You talked about scary. I look at myself and I think about on average United States, we live 78 years. 29 years of my life. I spent doing all of those things like disassociating, trying to make everyone else happy, self-sacrificing. There's a part of me at 37 that feels very sad for that. That's 29 years of disconnecting with the person that I wanted to be. I also feel very fortunate that I now have the 7 years, 8 years of learning lessons and growth in life that I've always wanted to live. And I didn't go through the entirety of my life not realizing that. And so for anyone right now, it's a stop and work backwards. You got 78 years. Subtract your current years on right now. How many you got left? How many chapters you got left? How many more shots you got? How much time you got to give something yourself? And I think perspective and gratitude is everything. And I think working backwards creates perspective. And I think going to do something to give out when you're struggling, when in doubt, I think that's going to give you a little bit of perspective. And I think to break that, you need gratitude and perspective. I love that because like people have this sunk cost fallacy, right? I put so much energy into who I am already. Yeah. But then you realize, okay, you've done it for 30 years. Cool. You still have a lot of time left. Like you still have a lot of, this is like a Gary V message. Yeah, for sure. Wake up. Wake up. Reinvent yourself at any time. Oh, and just look at the history, the amount of people that have done what they've done at the ages they've done. It's unbelievable. And today, one time you find a way to shine your light just on your phone, you could literally change your entire life. Like if you find your light and you pick up your phone and you decide to share whatever that light is, instantly. overnight. Look at the two biggest movies out right now. They're from YouTube creators. You're seeing crossover like you can't imagine. I just interviewed this guy, Chase Damore. He was on a reality TV show, 16 of them, then became a professional boxer. He's now a heavyweight professional boxing champion. Today's world is the definition of crossover. It's the definition. So like now more than ever, it's like wake up and get it out there. You have so, so many resources and availability. Those layers that would block people and impede people, whether it's music, it's art, messaging, it's speaking, it's educating. Those layers are gone. I always think I want to ask you a little bit about like sort of your reinvention. Yeah. But what's the most funny to me, just to sort of highlight a point about how important it is to reinvent yourself if you feel like you're not in alignment with what you do for a living. So you had anxiety and these panic attacks with one job. Now you run five companies. But but. It's all working out. It's like you're thriving now. You're not having panic attacks anymore. This is how important alignment is. Stress, but not having panic attacks. It's a huge difference. Big difference. It's a fun stress. It's an excited stress. It's like the stress when, for any athletes listening, it's like the stress in the third or fourth quarter to the third period where you're like, we got to get out there, like shaking in excitement. So yeah, it's a different kind of stress. So obviously life wasn't working the way you wanted it to, making half a million dollars a year. But it's like, this is not it. This is not it. You know, a lot of people listen to this show. They are entrepreneurial. A lot of them are actually in the position you were in. They are high paid. They are successful. They have no idea how to start a company, how to build a company from scratch. So what were some of like the first steps that you took to reinvent yourself, but also figure out where you wanted to spend your time on? I think the biggest thing for anyone that they have to do is you can't take on risk if you are tied up. So if your obligations and responsibility are deep, you have to find ways that can reduce your liabilities and reduce your obligations. How do you do that? First and foremost, you have to reduce your cash outflow and you need to create a window. Like in the entrepreneurial world, you know all about burn rate, how much cash you got until your business is broke. You have to look at yourself like a business. How much cash do you have that you can go take a shot at a different career? Yeah. For me, what I did was took the wildest shot. I got asked by my bank to be in this Gilda's Club bachelor auction. They picked 30 random guys. You had to ply and stuff. All different ages. You get up on stage. You wear a tuxedo. People are all dressed up. They bid on a date package to go on a date with you. So I came out ripping and roaring. I started stripping old time rock and roll. And I went for the most amount of money that night. And that video somehow got sent to ABC. One of my best buddies who's actually getting married this week, he called me eight months later. He's like, yo, I got the craziest call last night. I was like, so did I. I was like, what was your call? He goes, what was your call? I go, does it have to do with the rose? He's like, oh my God, we both read The Bachelor. We both got recruited to go on The Bachelorette. And to me, you know, what are some takeaways from that? Like when you take shots in life, you never know what's going to happen. You got to put yourself out there. And of all things that really helped me connect, I just remember when we were week two in The Bachelorette and you're doing these interviews, ITMs, and there's producers asking you all the questions in life. Tell me about your ex. Tell me about your life. What happened? Right. All these things to like hear your story. And in the middle of the interview, the producer just shut down the studio. Shut off. We're done. Just gets up. We're out. I'm sitting there in the chair. I'm like, what did I do? And everyone laughed like this camera guy left. She said, that's the problem, Jason. You didn't do anything. Everything's perfect. There's no issues. Mom and dad are great. I got nothing here. I don't know what to work with. Like, you're not literally letting me into anything in your life or to this conversation. And I think with all this stuff that we're talking about, it's a lot of like you build up these walls and these walls are meant for protection and they're meant for safety, but it's really just hurting you. And so a lot of these conversations that we're having about career navigation, life navigation, I think breaking down those walls that you've built to help protect your head and your heart are probably some of the first steps as well. So you break these walls down through The Bachelorette. Obviously, you have to break some of these walls down. Oh, it's all out there. You're making out on camera. I mean, that shit's crazy. You have no walls anymore when you put your love life on TV. I bet you that helped you take more risk in your regular life for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think in general, it's like you realize you go to your kitchen table tonight, talk to your significant other. And what are you talking about? It's like, oh, you know, this guy down the street just got promoted and this couple just got divorced and this happened over here, right? Yeah. And all those things are happening in everybody's lives. It's just on the stages that you live in the public life. Those happen louder, but it's the same stuff. So I would encourage people the second you could just, and I do this on my podcast all the time. I'll do it when I get to interview you. It's vulnerability empowers others to become vulnerable. Like when I tell you what I make and I'm telling you through a lens of intention, that's to educate and not to brag, boast or flex, but to truly educate that allows people to think like, you know what? I should talk about this. And I think vulnerability is like the greatest power because it creates connection. And connection is what creates the depths within ourselves and the depths within ourselves are what puts the best version of us out there. And we just go through so much of life masking that. And yeah, weird that a reality show is what kind of woke me up. No, but I think that, listen, I think that you were forced to put down those guards, to be yourself. I think that that's, I mean, most people go their whole lives, truly, by being one person in public and one person in private. And, you know, everything happens for a reason. Like the bachelorette was a little bit serendipitous in the sense that it forced you to be yourself in public. And I think I think that's a superpower. Like if I think about, you know, why all of your businesses have been successful, why your podcast successful. And I'll even take it back to me, like why some of my content has gotten better over time. It's you put more of yourself into it. You stop putting up a mask. You just say what you think, not in like a malicious way, but like you just open yourself up. You have candor with everybody because if you have guards up, whether or not you're trying to start a business or you're trying to close a deal or you're trying to date somebody, if you have guards up, it makes everything, I don't know, more complicated. Like it doesn't move as fast. Sure. Truly doesn't move as fast. Like if you're trying to start a company, If you are genuinely passionate about what you do, and you know this, you start a company, you're trying, I mean, most important thing you do is learn how to sell, because you're selling to your customers, your investors, your employees, to bring them on board. If you are, you know, masking all the bad shit and not putting everything out there when you're trying to hire somebody or when you're trying to get investment, Either you're not going to get the investment or it's going to come back to bite you in the ass later. But you know this. If you're fully transparent with how things are going, good and bad, you attract the right people into your life and people are everything. 100%. But if you have all these guards that you can't do that. You can't do it. You said you hide all the bad shit and that just brought me into another place that hit me hard, which has been part of my growth. is anyone that's out there that's find themselves struggling or not advancing it the way they should i would say also lean in so hard to your critics like seek feedback from everybody do you have to take it no but to me like what i learned when i got on a platform is you can't hide from your bad shit because there are going to be people in noise they're going to hit you from every single level i have been punched in every single direction from head to toe in some area of my life by putting my life out there Some of those punches I think are a joke. I laugh. I'm like, that's nonsense. Some of those punches hit hard. And so, you know, I own an agency and we're signing some people from Love Island. And one thing I just told the individual that we're working with, I said, in the next few years, you are going to grow individually, spiritually, mentally, professionally in a way that would usually take someone 10 lifetimes. Because you are going to get so much energy your way for the good and bad. It's going to force you to learn why are you reacting to this the way that you're reacting to it. And you're going to grow as a person like you've never even believed. And so being on the show, finding critics actually is what's helped me understand why is it hurting so much when someone says that or does that or does that. How can I improve that? Oh, that's nonsense. And so I would tell people at home, don't hide the bad shit. Get the closest people in your life. Start there and be like, I want you to be brutally honest. What do I need to be better at? Where do I struggle? You know how uncomfortable that is? But it's that discomfort that creates growth. But you know this, dude. When you find those people in your life, you hold on to those people. Oh, it's the best. So many people, I mean... I get frustrated with good feedback because I'm like, that's not helping me at all. It's great, but it's not really helping me. I'm like, carry this shit apart. What's good? What's bad? That's what I want because I'm not going to grow if everybody around me is saying, Scott, you're killing it. You know what? I'm not Joe Rogan. So until I'm Joe Rogan and I have a $100 million Spotify deal, there's shit that I can do different. That's the way I look at it. A hundred percent. I think the best way to do that is ask questions. So if you want feedback, if you're trying to learn, just keep asking questions. Bachelorette happened. Obviously, huge reinvention in your life from corporate to now you're on this show. You have exposure. Like the world knows you more or less. And then you're trying to figure out what's next in your career. So this is when you start, in no particular order, but Red Ridge Capital, Restart Consulting. You have the All Access Business Networking, Monday Market Newsletter, Trading Secrets Podcast. So again, five businesses, way less anxiety. So how did you think through how you wanted to start becoming an entrepreneur? What did you want to build first? It sounds like, because I think your mom was an accountant, if I'm not mistaken. So you didn't have you had a different but similar upbringing to me in the sense that there wasn't like this huge entrepreneur influence in your family. So how did you think through what to start? My my grandfather, I talked about him once already. He went to my great grandfather and said, I want to be a singer. I want to be an artist. And my great grandfather said to him, not in this family. You're going to be an accountant. You're going to be an attorney. You're going to be a doctor. Pick one of the three. And with my parents, they were both in the corporate world, worked their asses off, just retired. Congratulations to them. But entrepreneurship isn't in their family. And so in that respect. And so for me, it was I got off the show and then I had to learn my brand really quickly because apparently you have a brand when you get off a show and you're on social media and you're trying to find your way. And I don't think any entrepreneur can find any success in the world if you don't know your brand. So how do you find your brand? I think one good step is think about someone that you look up to. Let's do it. Who's someone like that you look up to? The household figure, someone that you inspire to be, someone that's a mentor in your head. In my head, a mentor would be Tim Ferriss. Okay, Tim Ferriss. Define Tim Ferriss' brand in three words. Hmm. Innovative. Easy, yep. Smart. Of course. And helpful. Helpful. I'm sure if I asked you to come up with another 10 words to describe his brand, you could do it instantly. Now, what's your brand in three words? Trying to do the same thing, dude. I would try to do the same thing. That's it. Because I always looked at him. He's a great author, great business person, great podcaster, great investor. And he just tries to teach people. And there's a few influences that I had. Him, Seth Godin was another one. But when it comes to people I look up to that have built great podcasts and great brands, he's one of them. He's like on the Mount Rushmore of... podcast for me. Exactly. I love it. Now, when I do that exercise, and let's say I'm doing it at a university or I'm doing it at the headquarters of like TikTok or Procter & Gamble, nine out of 10 times when I put someone on the spot like that, I'm like, right now, tell me your three words. They fumble. I mean, it's like, it's a disaster. And the reason is, is that we, no one knows your, like you, most people go in life and they don't know what their brand is. And so what I would encourage anyone to do is think about someone you look up to. Let's say Taylor Swift, whoever it is, whatever the person is, they, you can come up with a hundred words, certainly three words. And those who have achieved unbelievable brands are people that have understood what their brand is. And so I always say for entrepreneurship, you got to understand your brand in three words. Under those three words, you could build so many categories. So for me, that's what I did when I got off the show. And then I started building a brand on social media. Then I started building a brand with the podcast. with the networking group. And then what I started to realize is I want to continue to make brands. They're going to help me be successful in the things that I want to do, but also help others in the same area. So I started an agency. I was like, I'm talking openly about how I'm monetizing my social media. So people would come off to me after the show is asking me how to do it. I'd spend all the time with them. Then I said, wait, I could do this better than a lot of agencies. Now I own an agency where 14 employees represent 75 people exclusively and broker deals with all different public figures across the country, A-list, D-list. And so I look at entrepreneurship like a spider web. Every play that I make from an entrepreneurial perspective will connect and help one of the businesses that I have. And this is like not a new model. This is what private equity companies do, right? They roll up companies and they find other companies that are under their portfolio that can help the economies of scale of another company that they own. I look at the same way. But I don't think you could start anywhere in entrepreneurship, anywhere in any capacity until you know your brand so solid in three words. And you could focus on dialing in your brand because your brand will be your storytelling for your company, for your employees, and for everything else. I love this is such good advice because I think that a lot of people who want to start a company, I've never heard it said like that. I've heard it said different ways, like you should find your icky guy, you should find your purpose or your North Star or your whatever. But I think a lot of people, they put no thought into themselves and they just think this seems like a smart business. I'm going to start it. Or this seems to be trending. I'm going to. find a way to vibe code an app with AI, or I'm going to even start an AI business. And then I think that what happens is because they haven't done the work that you're suggesting they do, which I think is very smart. They start building something. They hate it. They don't put themselves into it. It's too much work. It's... they find a million reasons to quit because probably they haven't figured out what their brand is. So the work they're doing has, they don't even enjoy it. It's like, it's not, it's like they, they probably started to make money, right? That's it. They started a business to make money. Then they hate it. And I don't think you can ever just start a business to make money because I think the gap between when you start and when you actually make money as an entrepreneur is too damn big for just the pursuit of money to carry you over that gap. And I think the North Star thing is a little bit of a stretch. Like the North Star is going to change every single second because everything is changing every single second. So if you're focused on the North Star when you start your business, that's going to be night and day from where you're at today. I think if you don't have your brand and you can't believe in yourself, there's no way that you're going to get to any North Star. I think, and just look at history, like who has done it. Okay, look at The Rock. The Rock has known forever that he's an entertainer, that he's jacked, that he's huge, that he's different. He didn't know what space he was going to be. He didn't know it was going to be WWE. He didn't know he was going to be one of the biggest actors of all time right now. That North Star changes, but the one thing that he knew is when he was broken and out of it, that he was going to continue to be the best at what he did because he believed in himself. But you can't believe in yourself if you don't know your brand. So I think it starts with you first. And your business is your brand. Your employees are your brand. Your mission is your brand. And that North Star is your brand. And it's undefiable until you've got your brand locked down. You know what I mean? I think look at some of the greats. I talked about Taylor Swift. You could like her. You could hate her. She's one of the most successful entertainers of all time. One of the best lyricists we've ever seen. She was canceled a million times. She was down and out. She had the world against her. But she just knows her brand better than anybody. And that's why she connects with so many people. And the North Star changes every single second. Now it's the biggest wedding of all time. But I don't think you start with the North Star. NetSuite Next is a success story partner. So they say that every day your business is late to using AI, you fall two days behind. and the competition is only moving faster. So how do you keep up? Well, fortunately there is NetSuite next. Now you probably already know NetSuite. NetSuite is the AI powered business management suite. It's trusted by over 43,000 customers. It securely connects all of your data, financials, inventory, commerce, HR, CRM, into one single source of truth. 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My fitness pal is a success story partner. On this show, I speak to tons of high performers and the people that sustain that high performance, not just sprint and crash and burn, but they actually sustain, they all treat nutrition like a system, not an afterthought. The same way they treat revenue or hiring or product, it is key to their business. They pay attention. They look at the data. And that really stuck with me. And it's how I started thinking about my own health and wellness and what I put into my own body. Not in like a restrictive diet way, but in a data way. See, most people take a look at daily calorie total and they think they have the full picture. That's just one number. The MyFitnessPal app, Premium, it shows me macros. That means proteins, carbs, fats, broken down by meal. So I can see, am I getting enough protein at breakfast versus dinner? 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So start your GLP-1 journey today at Noom.com. That's N-O-O-M.com, Noom. Lose for keeps. Initial one month subscription from $39 plus tax and $99 plus tax per month thereafter. Cost of medication not included. Final pricing depends on program selection. Results based on a January 2026 analysis of 14,203 NoomGLP1RX program members who logged weight over a 40-week period. Higher app engagement was associated with greater weight loss at 16 weeks. You know, I love you start with the brand because in the brand, even when things don't go right, if you know what you're meant to do, if like, if you are so confident, you're going to keep going. You're going to keep doing it. It's just going to be a different north start. You're going to have to pivot. Okay, so you run these five companies. What makes somebody good at being able to run multiple businesses, let alone one business at the same time? One business is tough enough. How do you run five businesses at the same time successfully? It's very hard. I think the number one thing is you have to prioritize and be really good at telling people no. So when I go into every single day, I know what the top priority is, and there's a lot of things on the bottom priority that don't get done, and people get upset, and that's okay. You have to care a lot about what matters and your mission and your impact, but you also have to not care about what people think of you. Like you have to continue to look at the lens of your company and your vision and your purpose all the time. And I think the biggest thing is you have to have an unbelievable ability to multitask. Like if you can't juggle three things in today's world, you better learn how to juggle because you got to multitask in today's world. You just have to. And I think there's also an element of. you really got to be able to find the empathy to connect with others. Because we're living in such a digital age where things are becoming so robotic. And I think that those are, that are really connecting like their hearts and their heads with the people that they work with and the people that they share with and the people they work for are the ones that are thriving right now. I look at our agency and it's, it's truly feels like it does feel like family. Like, and I think it feels like family because we care so much about each other and we care about the group and, And that's so important to me. In the age of AI, human-to-human connection is more important than ever. Ever. I think we're feeling it too. And I'm curious how you work with creators and how they... I'd ask, how do you help them? Or maybe they don't even need help, but... How do you keep that human connection with online talent when everything is AI and everything is digital? What are creators doing differently? You mentioned it in your business. So you focus on having empathy and truly building a family in your business, which is very hard. A lot of people say it's almost impossible to do because it's still work. So I would ask the question from sort of two angles. Sorry. As an entrepreneur, how do you create that level of connection with your team in an age of sort of like remote and AI and online? But then the follow-up, I know it's bad, bad habit, two questions in one, but I'll ask you and you can just go for it. But then the follow-up is you work with creators. So how are you seeing creators keep that human connection with their audiences? So the underlying idea we're trying to figure out is how do you keep human connection with people in an online world? I think it's, and this is one of our values at Rewired Talent Management and one that I hold with my employees too, is one size fits none. Like customization is key right now. And I think with AI and digital, it's becoming so cookie cutter. It's like everyone's a manufacturing plant, optimization, efficiency, copy, paste, copy, paste. And to me, I think the way that you win with employees, the way you win with people in your life and the way you win with people that work for you is customization. And I think no one should be managed the same. No one should have the same output. Everything has to be customized. So I think that's one. I think the creators that I work with that are able to connect with people the best are the creators that have been able to identify relatability in the strongest, purest, most authentic way. And so the best creators out there are the ones that start with content and messaging by saying, I would share this to my friend. If I put this out there, I would share it to my dad, to my loved one, to someone that means something to me. And I think that's the big word. The biggest word I would say is relatability. Those that are the most successful and build strong communities are find ways to message through relatability. That could be through comedy. That could be through education. It could be through entertainment. It could be through just electric vibes. It could be through any of that, but it's relatability. What did you say about customization? One size fits none. One size fits none. Yeah. That's so scary to me as somebody who just thinks about how do I scale and how do I grow as quick as possible. But I think that's really smart. But even the way you scale would be different, right? Like think about how many companies you've built and companies you've invested within the growth stage. How different is the scaling process? It's changing. It's different. It's got to be customized to that specific situation, to those leaders, to those people. Um, it's funny because so Paul Graham, um, from, from Y Combinator, he has this famous essay, uh, basically the essay that it's like, it's, it's old, old, but it's about doing things that don't scale. It's about doing things when you're trying to build a business that can't be copy and pasted easily. So that means, it can mean a whole bunch of different things. It could mean you're customizing something for a customer, or it could mean the way that you lead somebody is different than the way you lead the rest of your team. Or even the way I think about this podcast, like the conversations that I have, I don't want a cookie cutter, you know, questions for you versus the next guest. You need to, for podcasts, you have to have a vibe. You have to understand, like, where's the conversation going? You know, it's going to go in this direction. Wasn't planned for. Totally cool. You take it there. But I think that too many people try and over-optimize and try and cookie cutter right out of the gate. then it creates subpar output. So too much cookie cutter is subpar content, subpar business. And I've never really thought about it that way, but one size fits none is a really smart – it's difficult. It's very difficult to lead like that. Because imagine if you were trying to build a team and every single one-on-one you had with every single person in your team was the exact same question. You'd be like a robot. They would have no connection, no real connection to you. Exactly. And I think then you have the, how do you scale one size fits none? You have to teach those that work for you the same messaging modeling. So they have to bring that to their team. But I think copy paste is just boring. Like I don't want to do things in my life that are boring anymore. Like that's, that's, that just sounds like hell. You know, I want to, I want to do things to me that are like, just like bad-ass or cool. I think one day, hopefully I'll be able to have a kid. And I think like. And hopefully son or daughter will be like, wow, that's cool what he's working on. Because I enjoy stimulation, creativity, change. And so copy paste to me, scaling, you know, in that way, I'm just bored by that. I'm sure I can make more money doing that, but it's boring. Do you think too many people optimize for money? Yeah, 100%. And not fulfillment, not happiness, not. Yeah, 100%. I think majority of humans do that, right? And I think those who are that optimize for happiness and define what success is and what it means to them are those that are just that are winning in life. But yeah, I think so. I think so for sure. I also think money, we talked about in the beginning of this podcast, something we haven't brought up yet, but just in general, I think money has been weaponized so much and weaponized in really toxic ways. I think it's weaponized relationships. I think it's weaponized in ways that people that do well, they're shamed for it. And so I can see why people get scared of money, get scared of talking about money because so many people weaponize it. And because we weren't taught anything about it, it's very easy. It's very easy to weaponize someone. It's very easy if I wanted to like take a shot at Scott. I'm just like, oh, Scott cares about his money. And people are like, yeah. Right. It's very easy to use money as like a tool to like shame people. And I think, I don't know, it's a wild world we live in. You mentioned the too many, and I agree with you, that too many people optimize for money. Do you feel like it's because people don't know how much money they actually need? Is there another? I mean, like that's one idea that I think is really powerful. Like knowing your number. Yeah. And enough. I think that's big. If people are struggling with knowing your number, just take your monthly, your annual expenses, multiply it times 25 and you can live the current life you live right now if that's the number you have. So if you spend 100 grand a year, then you need 2.5 million and you could live off that the rest of your life. So find your numbers big. It's interesting because I think that most people, again, especially an ambitious crowd that's trying to build, trying to make more money, get the promotion, build the business. They have no idea how much money they actually need to live the life they want to live. And then they're doing things like... working and putting their health at risk because they're never stopping, never taking a break, or they're building a company the wrong way, they're taking shortcuts, or they're raising money when they shouldn't be raising money, when they should just have like a nice lifestyle business. Because I don't think many people think about if I'm, they think I need $100 million for some ambiguous reason to live this, I mean, no, if you make a, if you start a business, you make a million bucks a year, and which is, you know, still in the, you're in the 0.01% of the population on earth. That's an incredible amount of money. But how many people flex on Instagram a million dollar per year lifestyle business? Yeah. No, not like nobody flexes like a million dollar per year. Everyone's talking about 20, 40, 50, 60, 100 million, billion dollar. Like it's so ridiculous. But a million dollars, you'd have such an incredible life. Totally. And if you actually are entrepreneurial and you built a business the right way, it's not easy, but it's definitely not impossible to hit those milestones. No, not at all. And this is, we're just not taught about finances because it doesn't matter if you make a million. It doesn't make any matter if you make 10 million. It's what you have after your cash outflow, right? So that's all that matters is what are you earning versus what are you spending and what is left over. And you only need whatever you're spending today. If you want to keep that lifestyle times 25. So if you want a hundred million, well, that better be because you spend 4 million a year and you expect to spend 4 million the rest of your life. So other than that, it's an ego play, which, you know, that's a whole different conversation. You learn from hundreds of conversations with high net worth people about not just money, but wealth. And I think this is a Naval quote, if I'm not mistaken, that you should seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is the most important thing. So what do you learn from these people about wealth creation? And maybe just highlight the difference between making money and truly building wealth. The biggest difference is making money is, of course, like your earnings, right? And you're chasing the dollar. Those who build wealth look at a dollar like an employee. Their money is just employees. So I'm not talking about people. I'm saying they look at the money they have and say, I'm going to make that money. Go work for me. I'm going to put it to work and get more money and put it to work and get more money. And those who have the highest net worth in the world are those who have been able to leverage by getting capital to use it to have it go be employees for them. And I'm not talking about people. I mean, think about the money like it's got a hand and feet and it's working for them. And those that are chasing earnings, it's a tough thing. It's a tougher way to build wealth because a lot of wealth is accumulated in today's world by equity. And equity is built by taking capital and reinvesting. So that's the biggest difference. Those who are truly wealthy know how to make money work for them very, very well. And then the lesson from the people that you interview on how to build wealth, I mean, this comes down to really one of the first things I mentioned was understanding the S&P 500, like the 500 most successful companies in the U.S. But what's the lesson for somebody who's trying to build wealth? So they're making money. the first step is they invest it, they go to a financial advisor, God forbid, they invest in crypto. I'm joking. Where do they actually start to build? How do they think through, I'm making money, how much should I put aside? How much should I invest? Where should I put it? Because, I mean, everybody will have a different answer, but I'm sure there's like an underlying theme across a lot of the conversations you have. Yeah, I mean, I think in general, kind of what we talked about, you can't customize the solution finances. And there's so many cookie cutter solutions out there that you can't customize. First and foremost, from the ground up, got to pay all your bad debt off. That's number one. Number two, you got to, right? I mean, that's Dave Ramsey. pay all your bad debt off, period. He likes a snowball model. I like avalanche model. Put your debt in Excel file. Whatever is the highest cost debt, go for that one first. He would tell you go for the smallest balance. Different models, different strokes. Get your bad debt off. Then what you got to do is build an emergency saving plan, understand your monthly expenses, and put three to six months aside. Once you've done that, you're going to have a lot of money. you're hopefully maximizing all your pre-retirement savings, your Roths, your 401ks, your IRAs. You're then using things like HSAs, triple tax advantage accounts. Once you have all your pre-tax tax advantage accounts lined up, you have enough cashflow to be investing. The biggest thing you got to do is you got to understand your risk tolerance. So it's like you can't go to a casino and not know how much you want to spend. You go to a casino, you got some people who won't spend anything and they'll just get the free drinks. You got other buddies who will put 10 grand on rent. in general, those who have higher risk tolerance where it's calculated and properly allocated are going to see massive, massive returns. If I invest in S&P 500 versus alternate assets and those alternate assets are tied to KKR and BlackRock, those who are willing to take the risk investing in alternative assets will have a much greater yield on their portfolio. But those are some of the simple steps, but you can't make any moves until you understand your risk tolerance Man, the way to build wealth is a million different ways to do it, right? It's through real estate. It's through your own companies. It's through investing in others. It's through investing in yourself. It's reinvesting. There's a million ways to do it, but you got to get the foundation right before you can build a house. Like you can't customize your mansion unless you know the floor is right. What's the worst financial advice that you hear? Get rich fast. Like, it's just, that's how you'll get burned. I mean, when you're chasing guilds and chasing guilds and you're trying to get rich fast, that is where people get absolutely smoked. If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good. Like, I've learned that the hard way. I've seen a lot of people learn that. But yeah, you cannot chase get rich fast. You will get screwed over. Because also anyone that's done it, like think about it like this. In a get rich scheme, anyone that's going to do it successfully are those at the top, right? It's going to be Elon Musk. It's going to be the biggest players in the world that have the biggest power. They're going to get rich first on something that's quick. Then it's going to pass down. By the time you've heard of it, it's too late. And this is actually a really interesting point. So what you just pointed out was it's not even like a get-rich-quick scheme. It's, for example, when SpaceX goes public, Who do you think is making money off of SpaceX going? A perfectly legitimate IPO. It's not going to be the people that are the retail investors that come in after. And if I'm not mistaken, it is like it's tanked recently, which is expected. We were, you know, me and a couple of friends were joking around and laughing at how long it was going to take. I was like guessing like a week until it like shits the bed and just totally tanks. It was like two weeks. But... Any kind of retail IPO where you are not the insider, you don't have the information ahead of time, you didn't get in like 10 years ago. Outside of maybe like NVIDIA, which is a unicorn and a total like if you got in early, you kind of have like a horseshoe up your ass, like a little bit like good for you. But outside of that. It's very rare. It's very rare when you hear about it in the news. What does Buffett say? He's like, you know, sell the news or. Oh, yeah. Sell the news. Yeah. Well, he's big on like blood in the streets. Invest when there's. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So like when there's when when you hear it in the news, which is where most retail investors get excited about, like with crypto, with certain IPO, it's already too late. It's already too late. So this is what you're talking about, the people at the top. This is not like a get-rich-quick scheme. It's like a, oh, I think I'm going to get rich because of this perfectly legitimate opportunity. You're not going to get rich quick. It's not the investment strategy. Yeah. More than 80% of the entire market is owned by 10% of the United States, right? So 80% of the more than 80% of the entire market is owned by 10% of the United States. So those are the 10% of that 1%. Those moves are happening. Those, like, they're the ones that are going to get the fastest returns. The rich will continue to get richer, especially in the world that we're living in. And so I just think by the time it gets to a retail investor... If you're taking a shot at like massive, massive yields because you think you got an angle, good luck. You know, I've thought about this a lot. Like where can people not – the whole podcast, by the way, is disclaimer, not investment advice. Yes, yes, 100%. But I was thinking about where can people put money because I put money into like on AngelList, like super early stage seed companies. 100% betting. 100% expecting all that to go to zero. Yeah. But on the off chance that it actually returns, you get like a 50, 100 X. But the point is, this is how VC firms work as well. They invest in a whole bunch of different, you know, kind of like shots in the dark. They have like their theses and they're smart, but a lot of it goes to zero. So I was thinking that's not a good place for people to put money. And I was trying to think of all the different places you can put money. And I kind of got two ideas and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. And you probably have your own opinions, but yeah. You know, you either know something better than anyone else. So it could be crypto, could be real estate. It could even be early seed stage tech company, but you have to know it better than anyone else. You have to be dialed in and you probably have to lose a lot to learn the lessons that are actually going to make you money in that category. That's like the first thing. Or the second thing is like, I'm very bullish on entrepreneurship and investing in yourself. Like that to me is like the highest ROI. In fact, I have this, I always get conflicted when I have like extra cash just lying around. I'm like, should I put it in a startup or should I like just like hire somebody new and like put it back into my business? And usually I default to finding, even if I wasn't looking for somebody, I'll be like, you know what? I should find a way to spend this money in my business. Let me think outside the box as to what our current plan is because some way that's going to compound in the future. I'm very bullish on investing in yourself and entrepreneurship is like the highest ROI activity. Yeah. I mean, put in perspective, I could invest my money blindfolded. The reason I don't actively invest my money is because let's just say the yields I get on my money is, let's just call it like 8 to 15 percent. I know that when I invest my money on my businesses, my yield is going to be much greater than 8% to 15%. So opportunity cost of time, I have a professional managing my account because I know me investing in myself is going to provide much greater return than the alternative assets that he brings to the table and what he does. The biggest thing is like, if you don't know if you're an accredited investor, you need to understand if you're an accredited investor. How do you know if you make over $200,000 a year, $300,000 in a married relationship or your net worth is over a million dollars? You're an accredited investor or likely an accredited investor. Do your research, talk to your professionals. But that allows you to get access to other financial tools and resources that unaccredited investors don't. And so I also think the game is build wealth and get access. That's part of the game when it comes to financial investing. Understand if you're a credit investor and then make sure that you're using those tools appropriately. It's like being a Delta Diamond member and you get all the benefits. When you're a credit investor, you do. And those people get the first look. So one thing I did is early on in my career, when I started, my earnings was going up significantly. And I was still in the wealth building stages. I knew I wanted to get access to those things that I couldn't get access to as a retail investor. So I went and pitched, I won't say the name of the group, but it's like an ultra high net worth group of a very reputable firm. And I pitched them as to why they should bring me on. I in no way, shape or form met their minimum financial criteria or net worth criteria. But I was telling them about upside and network and all these things. And they're like, you're in. And I've gotten access to different investing opportunities that I never would have gotten if I didn't get into this group. And so, you know, That's big. What's the piece of financial advice that worked for our parents that no longer works for a younger generation? The model of save, save, save, save, save. We're getting crushed. I mean, for 20 years, from 2000 to 2020, we were living in a 0% interest rate environment. I mean, that's crazy with no inflation. Now, actually, savers are getting crushed. Like you're just losing money on your money every single day. And because we weren't taught about investing, we don't know where to put it. So I think the savers are actually getting smoked. And I think one of the things is we, again, we weaponize things. We think if someone's a spender, it's a bad thing. If they're a saver, it's a good thing. There's a lot of, if you are a spender, there's a lot of things that are actually really good about your habits. Like you take risk, you know how to invest in things that matter to you. You know what makes you happy through money. Like a lot of savers struggle with those things. If you take those same principles as a spender and apply them to investing, you can crush. So I think our parents taught us all about save, save, save. And while it's very important that you spend less than you make, your money is getting diluted by the second with this inflationary environment. Just for, you know, what you've built out, you said your dream is to build a studio, then a network and then exit with the agency. So I just want to understand, again, you're thinking about your future, you know, your brand, obviously, but your future. So how do you map out the next five, 10 years of what you're building? Yeah. So what we're doing at Rewired, it's very, very customized. It's very unique. It's very different than all the other agencies. We're advised by talent. We're owned by talent. And the purpose there is to reapply efficiencies immediately back into the talent. And so what do we do as a boutique agency? Well, we have to build the other lines of business. We have to build our media group, our podcast network, our We have to continue to build something that is so significantly different from our peers and then exit at the right time. We've had the right conversations with those that are interested in acquiring us, but we've passed on all those yet because we just still haven't built it to the level that I think we need to build it at. And in a space where all the big players, WME, CAA, UTA, are now all getting into the creator economy with the old traditional models of managing, I think it creates a really unique impact. opportunity for the customization. And so to me, we're still in the building phases, exiting, that would be amazing. And to me, that's the continued dream. I mean, the also, the cool thing about the areas that I operate in is that there are so many different missions, like the mission of the agency is to continue to build it and exit it. The mission of the podcast is to continue to find financial systems, literacy and teachings in places that weren't there before. Yeah. Right. So for me, it's greater than just an exit. It's impact. And it's also like the end of the day, time is everything. And I have financial freedom and I love the flexibility in my life. Like if I wanted to cancel everything this week, I could. I'm not going to because I love what I do. And so I think still having that financial freedom and flexibility with time is so important to me, especially as I get older, especially as hopefully I have kids. To me, that's that's everything. So there's the professional financial angles that are important, but there's also what happiness is to me. And that's becoming greater than just work and having the ability to be flexible with that's huge. When did you realize that happiness should be optimized for not just money? Probably in recent years, you know, I think in recent years, um, I think what I learned very quickly is that happiness is a product of freedom and freedom is where money comes in because I don't look at money as something where I can accumulate more and buy things. I look at it as freedom and access to more time and flexibility. That's how I look at money. It's a tool for freedom, flexibility. Yeah. You have a very healthy perspective on a lot of different things. I'm being dead ass serious. Yeah, I'm being very serious because I see a lot of people who would be our peers who are in build mode. And I don't hear them speak like you speak. That's nice. Yeah. Until maybe much later. Until they've sold companies for huge amounts. But... By then, the sad part in some cases is they have only optimized for money for the majority of their life. I mean, I'm talking about people that I interview. A lot of these people, they're like 45, 50, 55, worth tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars and have billionaires on the show. And they've only optimized for work their whole life. And I don't know if it's an easy question to answer. Hopefully you have some wisdom for people who are listening, but... Why do so many people who are ambitious optimize for just money and success and achievement when you, at a pretty young age, have figured out that, yes, I can make money, but there's so much more to life than that? I don't see that in many people that I interview. I think there's a financial piece and then I think there's an ego piece. There's a mental piece, we'll call it. The financial piece is a lot of those people are chasing, chasing, and chasing so hard, especially in the early years because their balance sheet doesn't actually provide them cash inflow. So a lot of people will have massive net worths, and a lot of that's equity in their businesses, and they have so many liabilities against those businesses. One thing that I've been able to do now really well for 10 years is bring in significant cash flow while investing in my own company. So I'm able to bring in cash flow from my creator work, from my podcast work, that's at a seven figure level. And I now have a company that I don't have to take salary out of and can continue to reinvest in. So I think from a financial aspect, being able to manage really good cash inflow while investing in businesses creates a little bit of a healthy space. And then I think the ego and power, like would I love to exit our company for $100 million? Sure, that's a dream. But like $100 million based on the lifestyle that I live, I won't be able to spend that based on how I live my life and how I know that I'm going to continue to live my life. That's just going to be generational money. So now I'm chasing something that is so much larger than the next, let's see it, 40 years I got left on average. So I have 40 years left working backwards. Do I want to continue chasing something that I won't even be able to really enjoy the fruits of my labor? I also think when you come from like a middle-class family, you start making significant money. Um, The perspective is nice to have 10 toes down from where you came from. And I think you got to ask those people that continue to chase and chase the billions, what are you actually chasing? And where does it end up? What's the result of it? Because if you go walk in any graveyard in New York City, whether they're billionaires or they're worth a million dollars, worth a hundred dollars, I can almost guarantee 99.9% of those people you don't know and won't remember. And then I would tell people, go ask, what's the name of your great-grandparents? Majority of people can't answer that. Name all four of your great-grandparents. Right? It's a little hard. Now name all four of your great-great-grandparents. Right? That's your fucking family. Excuse my name. And you don't know them. So it's like... What is the power and ego of this drive that you're trying to achieve? And what is it actually doing for the greater purpose of your life? I love it. Where can people find your podcast connected to social? I'll put everything in the show notes too. So podcast is Trading Secrets. Anywhere on social media, it's Jason underscore Tartik, T-A-R-T-I-C-K. And then the agency is a very fun project, Rewired Talent Management. We work with all different niches, all different creators and public figures. And, And come check out the podcast with Scott. He's coming on Trading Secrets. I appreciate you having me. I appreciate you for coming on, dude. Last question is, you know, you've given over so much wisdom. You've gone through reinvention and now you're thriving entrepreneur from corporate to entrepreneur. But if you could only pass on one piece of wisdom to your kids, the most important thing, it doesn't have to be business advice, but just life advice. What would you want to leave them with? I think the biggest piece of advice I would give them is no one can take anything from you. So many people live a life, and I've lived a life, where you get so worried about what someone says or what they think or what they share. And then you want to try and control the narrative because lies and deception or manipulation are occurring. And when you have success, that's inevitable. And what I have learned is that in life, no matter what happens for the good or the bad, no one can take your character, no one can take your integrity, and no one can take anything from you except yourself. And in life, you have choices. And it's the one thing we can control in a world where there's so many uncontrollables. And I would say, own your choices, always lead with integrity and character, because you can control it and no one in a million years can ever, ever take it.