Ryan Pineda - Entrepreneur & Real Estate Investor | Don't Go Broke Trying To Get Rich

My early stages were way harder than I would guess 99.9% of people. Ryan Veneta began as a professional baseball player with the Oakland A's before pivoting to real estate, where he's invested over $100 million. I was 21 years old when I started business career. My career wasn't an entrepreneur at that time, it was as a baseball player. I couldn't depend on my parents. I had to depend on God for everything, because I had nothing. As the founder of Seven Businesses generating seven to eight figures and a social media powerhouse with over two million followers and one billion views, Ryan inspires others to achieve success through the wealthy way. So, I ask in prayer, what should I do next? I was a substitute teacher making a hundred bucks a day, because that was the only thing I could figure out that I couldn't actually make me money. And I did that. I probably lived off, call it, 20 grand a year, for about three years. I was in a way worse position than anybody that I've ever met. In terms of how much I was making and the things I did. And I had to figure out side hustles and things just to survive to continue the dream. I think budgeting time and money and resource is so important to this. And honestly, if you're doing everything right, it's just now compounding time. Ryan is on a mission to share his story and empower others to build wealth and purpose. This is Ryan Panita, and this is his story. A lot of people go broke on every aspect of their life trying to get rich. It's hard to get a rich person give themselves a prize, because they think they got it all. It's to be really great at something. You got to really focus and go on. Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clare. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. They have great podcasts, but they also have great tools for entrepreneurs. That's why I've worked with them for over three years now. I want you to picture this for a second. You're at a party and someone asks you what you do as a marketer. And this is a lesson for marketers and even people that don't classify as marketers because at the end of the day, everybody has to figure out how to talk about the product to grow their business, whether or not you're formally trained or you're a solo printer, you have to market. Now marketers have a tough job because it's really hard to describe what a marketer is. Because if you think about what a day in the life of a marketer is, you have to generate leads, you have to score them, you have to contact them, you have to create content, you have to gather data. And tomorrow, you have to do it all over again. And then you have to wonder if it's even working. Marketers are spread way too thin. Anybody that does marketing is spread way too thin. Now, HubSpot has a collection of AI tools called Breeze to help marketers. They have features like content remix where you turn one piece of content into all these different assets. You can also pinpoint the best products with predictive lead scoring. So you can know who's actually going to buy your product or service. You can level up your campaigns with KPIs and analytics. So your day to day as a marketer becomes less busy work and more driving revenue through the roof. So remember, everybody at the end of the day has to be a marketer. And more importantly, you'll have a way easier time describing what you do at parties. If you want help marketing your product or service, if you want to grow your business, visit HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more. How do you make sure that one does not outbalance the other or take over your life more than others? Because you care about business, you care about real estate, you care about faith, you care about family, do you believe in balance? Or do you feel like there's some things that certain seasons in your life have to take precedence over the other? Have you wrestled with it with this kind of thought? This is a really deep question, especially for the first one, because I guess trying to explain my thought philosophy is going to be somewhat hard and off to explain through some stories. But long story short, I believe you can have balance, but I also don't think you should have balance. And the reason is, I wrote a book called The Wealthy Way, and it's kind of about that. Time management and balance for all the areas of your life. At the end of the day, if you're working all the time and you're making great money, but you're losing your health and you have a heart attack or you get divorced or you have no faith and you're spiritually dead. Well, dude, it doesn't even matter. Why'd you even spend all this time working? It literally means nothing, right? No amount of money is going to save you from your health if you're at the end of your day. And I've had many guys who have really worked and ruined their families, and they neglected their family throughout the whole time of building, and it's like, dude, that ain't it. Would you go back in time and do it differently? And they're like, yeah, I mean, it wasn't worth it. So on that end, I think that yes, you should have balance in all these different areas. The question becomes, well, man, how do you prioritize which one in what season? Because that's what we were talking about before. It's like, well, you know, when you're in build season, you know, you kind of put off some other things while you're in build season. And that's the part that I say, no, I mean, that part I disagree with. And to actually just make my philosophy really simple, you know, you mentioned faith as like a big part of what I do. And, you know, you saw us having a meeting. We were actually having a meeting about everything we're going to do on the faith side of things, you know, next year in 2025 with all of our events for a non-profit. And, you know, there's a Bible verse. It's Matthew 6.33. Seek first the kingdom and his righteousness. And all of these things will be added to you as well. So my belief is actually anti-balance in that. If I only focus on the kingdom, if I just focus on pursuing Jesus, the rest will all be added to me. That's what the Bible promises. So I got to really ask myself, do I believe what the Bible says? Or, you know, do I think that I need to like reinvent it? Because that's what a lot of entrepreneurs do who say they're Christian. They try to reinvent it. They say, well, I got this thing over here that I'm doing. And, you know, maybe I'll make some time for God. That is literally the opposite of what the Bible says. The Bible says devote all of your attention, all of your heart, all of your mind, all of your soul on Jesus. And the rest will just happen. I don't need to plan it out, but that's a hard thought to wrestle with when you can barely pay rent next month. So you have to understand that when I want to pull, I want to pull this wisdom because I think it's beautiful. But I also want to understand how this applies to somebody who's in their early stages of building. Because also when you first start out, it's very difficult for you to think of anything outside of even money. Forget it, even like God, Jesus. It doesn't matter what you believe. At the beginning, you believe that you just want to make a lot of money. And you realize that money doesn't mean that much anymore. And then you want like freedom. And then you eventually want to not even have to worry about money or even slightly working. You just want to have complete freedom to choose whatever you want to do. And I think that that's what most people optimize for when they start. And then they go on this journey and then they start to evolve. And then they get to where you are. Where now you can say I can focus on Jesus and all the other things will come after I focus on God and Jesus. But when you're starting, it's very difficult to put that principle into practice because you just want to optimize on work and you want to optimize on hustle and you want to optimize on closing your next client. So what's the lesson for somebody early stage in starting that is like, that's a great idea in theory. But ultimately, I have to make my business work. Yeah. Throw one for my energy towards. Well, let me say this. You know, people have asked me, dude, you know, what about in the early stages, where you work in 80 hour weeks, what were you doing? What was life like? Well, I can tell you my early stages were way harder than I would guess 99.9% of people's. So, you know, I was 21 years old when I started, let's say, my adult business career, you know, had no money. I was a minor league baseball player making 1200 bucks a month. That was only half the year too. So I made literally $7,000 a year. That was my income. And, you know, I was a Christian then. I grew up in church. I understood like God always comes first, not my career. And you know, my career wasn't an entrepreneur at that time. It was as a baseball player, right? And I had no idea how I was going to pay for bills. Because also in 2010, we just came out of the great recession. There were no jobs. They're, you know, my parents lost everything. I couldn't depend on my parents. They lost the home I grew up in. Literally, I had no support or income other than $7,000 a year. And that wasn't even guaranteed. Because guess what? I could get cut tomorrow, right? Like, it's not my business. You know, if I'm not good enough, think you're rid of me. So I had to depend on God for everything. Because I had nothing. And it's like, all right, well, how am I going to make money? Lord, like, what do you want me to do? So that's the first thing that I always do. It's like, I ask in prayer, what should I do next? And that's every step of the way, whether I was broke, whether it's today, and I'm still like, well, okay, look at all these different opportunities. How do I discern what's the best opportunity, right? But long story short, in those early stages, man, I lived on, I became a realtor in 2010 as well, sucked, made like no money doing it. I was a substitute teacher making $100 a day. Because that was the only thing I could figure out that I couldn't actually make me money. And I did that. I probably lived off, call it 20 grand a year for about, man, three years. And I ended up getting married during that time too. So this is another myth. So I have no excuse. I mean, look, you can't hear to hear the truth. But that's one of the things that drives me crazy is when guys wait, especially in their single, they're building their careers, and I'm like, guys, you can never say that you have to do it, because I'm telling you what I did. And I was in a way worse position than anybody that I've ever met today. In terms of how much I was making and the things I did, because I still pursued playing baseball for eight seasons, making $7,000 a year. Eight years from 21 to 27, I was married, I was making that money, and I had to figure out side hustles and things just to survive to continue the dream. And that's what I did. I started flipping couches, which was a revelation from God. I didn't learn that on YouTube. There was no TikTok. It was just this idea that he planted in my head. I'm like, oh, I could probably flip couches and make money. And then, you know, I remember I was praying on our one year anniversary. This was in 2014. I was like, all right, flipping couches has made me like good money, but I'm not going to do this the rest of my life. What should I do? And then I hear real estate. And I'm like, real estate? I already failed at real estate. What do you mean real estate? And then sure enough, it was flipping houses. It was different than being a realtor. And so I maxed out all of our credit cards for 50 grand, flipped our first house, and you know, I made $25,000. It was crazy. But that then led to the next stage, you know, and a flip A making a bunch of money. And then COVID hits, and I'm about to lose it all, because I had 50 house flips going on. And, you know, they're talking about everything crash in during COVID. They're like, oh, well, the economy's going to burn all the stuff. And I'm like, dang, I got like $20 million worth of property right now. And it could all go to zero. And I can lose everything I've ever built. I was like, what do you want me to do, God? And I'm like, all of a sudden, I hear YouTube. I'm like, now ain't the time to be making YouTube videos. Like, I got way bigger problems than making YouTube's and TikTok's. But that was what I heard. And then sure enough, that leads to, you know, all these other things. And then, you know, my point is, every step of the way, I've been seeking God first, and he's always provided even with nothing. And, you know, so I just want to make sure people understand that this is not something to pursue later. I don't think a lot of people think that way, though. I don't think a lot of... No one thinks that way. I don't think a lot of... Like as you're saying, I'm being like super pragmatic. I don't think many entrepreneurs seek inspiration in God before they build a business. And why do 99% of entrepreneurs fail? Because they do what everyone else does. So when you say to somebody, and this is a very interesting topic, because I've actually spoken to a lot of, I've spoken to a lot of rabbis, preachers about Godlessness and society and its implications. But it's never been from the lens of God and business together and helping that creative process to build something new. Yeah. So when you sort of ignore what everyone else does, and you're not looking for product market fit in a traditional way. Yeah. You're not going on Reddit and solving problems that people have. Yeah, and all of a... All of a... What else a huge tam? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's what everyone does. So what you have this... You have this belief system. You have this faith system. You have this idea that comes to you. What's your process for making it work? Yeah, great question. So to talk about the first part, you said of like everybody's doing it the same way. Like I said, why would you... Why would you be surprised when everyone has the same results? Most entrepreneurs fail. They have to go get another job. 90 plus percent of people are living paycheck to paycheck. So currently, the way that you're told doesn't work. That's clear, right? There are outliers and those outliers force it to work by just doing it to the extreme. Yeah. Right? I'm like, they're ain't... That ain't for me, you know? Like that's literally not what the Bible teaches, right? And here's the other part. Like on the other hand of it too, the Bible doesn't teach anything about all the other myths we're told. Like, hey, we should have this number for retirement. We should know our financial freedoms so we can just chill and do whatever, right? Like every single person in the Bible worked at something until the day they died. Work never stopped. The first thing God did was give Adam a job. He said, you're going to go work. Go tend to the fields. So I love work. You'll never hear me talk about retirement because I'm just like, dude, what are we working on next? I think you're the same too, right? Like we love to work and it's hard for entrepreneurs who love to work to not work, right? We're not like lazy society where they don't want to work. Like we're like, yo, myself, include, I'm like, I could work 80 hours a week. A thousand percent, and I enjoy it. Yeah, and enjoy it, right? But I also understand that God gave me these parameters of how I'm supposed to live my life. Not because he's like, bro, I don't want you to have any fun or anything else. It's like because this is what's going to help you live the best life and live the way I designed it for you, right? You have parameters in your business, but that's why we have KPIs. That's why we have core values. That's why we have SOPs. It's because this is how you should do it the right way. The Bible's just a SOP for life. And so, you know, for me, when I look at a new opportunity, once again, I go through my SOP and I do what it says, right? And so for me, first thing is prayer. Hey, you know, God, what do you think about this opportunity, man? I got this guy Scott here and he's thinking about doing this business with me, right? And I'll see if I hear anything, right? The next thing would be leaning on wise counsel. I mean, we call this mentors in the normal world. But, you know, for me, I don't want just normal mentors, but I want Christian mentors too, because they see the world obviously very different than normal people, right? And so they'll catch things that don't necessarily make sense from a worldly perspective, right? I mean, somebody can look at it and say, dude, that opportunity with Scott is like amazing. You guys are going to be able to do this. The product market fits great. You guys already have all the customers. The upsells, the asset like, dude, everything on paper looks great. And then somebody else can look at and say, hey, honestly, dude, like it sounds great, but I just don't feel right about it in my spirit. And there's nothing else that can be said at that point, right? Because it's just like, at the end of the day, there are things that make perfect sense. That if you go down that path, and I've done it before, where I've rejected my gut, aka the spirit, and I'm like, bro, this is the best opportunity ever. And it's led me to the biggest lawsuits, the biggest headaches, the biggest problems. And it's like, then there's things that I avoided so much trouble. And I just knew I was like, I don't know what it is about that, but I'm not doing that. And then it comes out, you know, you're later, as you're saying this, I'm thinking through, I'm thinking through some ideas that I actually think you pull this wisdom out of the Bible. I think they're very applicable to people that are not religious. Because what I speak about quite often is when you're starting something, you have to build your life and architect your life in a way that you can continue to do that thing and improve and iterate and learn and sometimes pivot or whatever it is. You have to be able to do that thing for an extended period of time to avoid burnout. Exactly. And that means structuring your finances, structuring the hours that you can commit to that thing so that you're not running a relationship with your wife, yet your husband and your kids and all of this different stuff, right? So what I think that you are saying through your interpretation of the Bible is the Bible is setting up this framework so that you can actually be successful in business because you're approaching it through the right lens. Mm-hmm, 100%. You're approaching it with the relationship with your family, with your kids intact. You're not like over indexing on business because, again, through wisdom, thought down by a book that is thousands of years old. Yep. You are understanding that all these other components are important in your life. And when you structure a business in a way that respects all the other things that are important in your life, that's the business that's going to be there in 10 or 20 years. That's the business that you continue to build because you're not destroying everything else around it. 100% right? And I think that from just a practical standpoint, right? It comes back to, you know, what are my priorities and core values? Mm-hmm. And a lot of people you would talk to would say, well, yeah, family's a priority to me. And I'd say, okay, let me see your schedule. Just show me your calendar. Let's just literally, this would be the most radical thing. Let's just count the hours you spend with your family. Let's count the hours you spend, you know, on your health. Let's count the hours you spend with God. Let's count the hours you spend in business, right? And let's not even count the hours you waste in business, because we know that a lot of 80 hour guys, I mean, they could be 40 hour guys if they were just more efficient. And so, you know, for me, that's what the wealthy ways all about. It's taking the things that you say are a priority in your life and making those things first and then building business around that. So, for example, you know, like I was saying, I built all of this like with the same framework, right? Like I didn't have money. My time was extremely limited, because I had to play baseball, leave six months out of the year, wall simultaneously building a business and having, you know, a new wife and, you know, all these things. And what I realized was, when I made the main things, the main things, everything else fell into place. Just like the Bible verse said, you know? So like to give practical knowledge to those listening, for the last, man, let's call it 10 years. I've been flipping houses for 10 years. My schedule really hasn't changed. I don't work on the weekends. I didn't want to flip my first house. I still don't today, okay? So it's not something that came I earned. I didn't earn. It was in the plan from the beginning. So I don't work on weekends. I don't work past five o'clock. So every day, this office closes at five. Most of my employees leave. Some might finish up some stuff. But we all leave because I want my employees to have the same mindset I do. Like, I don't want them to get burned out. I don't want them to lose their families. I don't want any of those things. Like I genuinely care about them. And so, you know, in order for that to happen, though, we got to get super efficient while we are here. You know, they know that. I do not have any tolerance for wasting time. If I see people wandering around not doing anything, like, what are you doing? Go sit in your office and make some calls. Go get some sales. Like, there's something for you to do. Like, there's a price for this lifestyle that we get to have with work, life balance. You know, yeah, you only got to be here from nine to five Monday to Friday. But guess what? You better be working extremely efficient, you know, nine to five. Like, I even told him today I go, look, this week, we got Thanksgiving and, you know, we don't have to come on Friday. We have three days to work. All right. You got to get five days of work in the next three days. Y'all don't need hour lunches. You don't need any of this stuff. Get what you need to get done this week. I'm not asking them to go work till seven or eight tonight. I'm just like, get what needs to get done. Hold yourself accountable. And so, you know, we do that. And then even for me, on my faith, from the beginning, every morning, I read my Bible, I pray, I meditate, I remember I scripture. You know, I didn't learn all this about scripture because, you know, I just watched a YouTube video. I've been doing it for 10 years in a row every morning for an hour every day. And it starts to become more and more clear of what's true and what's not. And then you also have 10 years of hindsight to say, well, I took a path. They took a path. I'm pretty happy where my path is. Yeah. And, um, you know, we have Bible study on Wednesday mornings. We go to church on Sunday. So it's like, it's important to me to do those things. And it's also important for me to get home at five to have dinner with my family. It's also important for me every morning to work out. So I'm still in shape even after I'm done playing. Um, and I'm just efficient, man. It's like, dude, we're going to go film a pod. We're going to film a pod here. I got a couple more meetings. I got to do Monday. And then guess what Friday? I'm golfing. I'm hanging like everything is like, yeah. So why did people? You've built this super efficient machine. It's like, respect. I love it. I think that's the way business should be. I don't generally see super efficient machines. Well, really ever, but I mean, but if you look at the, if you look at the companies where people actually go home at five, yeah, they're enormous companies. Yeah. There are companies that are well over $100 million in revenue. If you are like a sub $10 million company, that founder, owner CEO is expecting people to work nonstop. Yeah. And of course, I don't like the environment of the sub most sub $10 million companies. Obviously, this is not a hard and fast rule. But I mean, it's tough to build a business. Yeah. And owners and owner operated companies. They try and extract as much out of people as possible. And they expect their team to care as much about their company as they do, which why should they? They never will. I don't own it. So exactly. So why do you think, I mean, so now we have the theory. You talk about efficiency and you talk about balance, you talk about things that are important. So you go into building a business, knowing all the things that are important to you. That's great. But why were you able to be successful when so many other companies don't operate the way that you operate that don't operate with those limits on time and time and office and focus on office? Well, I think it's a few things, right? I mean, obviously, when you're talking about spiritual supernatural things, there are things that just happen that other people just don't get to be to have the benefit of. Like, I can't say that every door that's been open in my life has been a direct result of how hard we work to how much we earned it. But it's just simply been a gift. Like, I can't even explain how I know so many big people, like almost everybody in the business space who you see on social media. And it's not because I'm anywhere close to their level. I don't have a hundred million dollar company. Yet, I can text them all. They all come here. They all respect me. They come to meet in my office and we film. It's like, a lot of that is just favor. And it just is what it is. And so I think God gives favor to those who are obedient. Like, that's a promise in the Bible as well. It's not just like, oh, well, Ryan, we'll give him this. And you know, like, no, there's this level of stewardship. You know, the Bible promises that, if I trust you with a little, I can trust you with much. And so if I was good enough to be able to still be obedient, fall in when I was making 1200 a month, how much more could I do if we're making 1.2 million, you know, a thousand times it, right? So that's one level, right? And a lot of people won't understand that. So, you know, what are some other technical things? Well, I think that number one, longevity comes from the things you were actually talking about. Of, dude, like, let's just budget this out. Like, what's actually sustainable, right? What, how much capacity do I have to work? Like, what, how many hours am I willing to do this? Like, at a sustainable level, it's not going to ruin my life. We can keep at this. Number two, you know, how much financially can we devote to this, right? I mean, I don't come from the startup world where, you know, people raised millions of dollars to just burn it and lose money. I have never lost money. That's not a good strategy. I've never raised money to start any business. I've each strapped everything. So it's like, yeah, we better be making money from day one. That's how I operate. So I think budgeting time and money and resource is so important to this. And honestly, the third one is, and you hear this all the time, it's just like, at that point, if you're doing everything right, it's just now compounding time. Like, just do it over and over again. It's going to be boring. Just keep doing it. Make me keep making the videos. Keep calling the sellers. Keep talking to the clients. Keep throwing the events. You do it enough times. You look up five years later, 10 years later, and you're like, wow, look how far ahead we are than everyone. Look how many people dropped off. Like, look how many people were like a flash in the pan. Like, they started out way ahead of us. And then, you know, they went bankrupt. They fell off. This thing happened or they burned out. Like, you see that all the time. One of my favorite quotes you've said is, your why has to be bigger than your fear. So I have to ask you, is God your why or is there a bigger why than even that? No, yeah. It's just simply leading people to Jesus. I mean, at the end of the day, actually, I want to add it. That's something on to that too. Okay. How do you bow? So say, that's a great why. Yep. But how do you balance that why versus providing for your family as a why versus yeah, achieving the highest version of yourself and the most quote unquote successful version of yourself? All right. So this is once again going to be kind of controversial. But I actually do not believe that it's biblical to even have like your own goals. So, you know, when you talk about the Bible, right? One of the things that it says is, you need to die to yourself. You become a slave to Christ. Like your old self dies the moment you become a Christian. What does that mean? Well, it's like your old self dies. There's only the new self. Like when people say, man, I'm trying to follow, you know, God's will, but I have my own will and my own dreams and my own ambitions. How do I like that God's will with my will? The reality is there should be no your will anymore. There should only be God's will. And if you're following what God wants you to do, that's all that matters. And you're going to trust that he's going to provide. He always, I mean, there's, it goes back to how do I balance my family? If I truly believe God's promise, you know, Matthew 6, 25 through 26 talks about how, you know, look at the birds in the air, right? The birds in the air, they don't sew or reap or work or store way in barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them and takes care of them. They don't have to worry about how they're going to eat the next day. They just do. And yet we're always worried about when our next paycheck's going to come. What's our next job? Because we don't believe that he's going to take care of us, right? Now, if you're not a Christian, I get it. You do need to depend on yourself to do all these things. But if you're a Christian and you truly believe the Bible, this should not be a concern. So, you know, once again, we're talking about, the counter argument would be there's lots of poor Christians. There's lots of people that are struggling. There's, there's poor Christians, but they're still in care of, right? Once again, we're not talking about levels of wealth and millions of dollars. We're talking about he's just going to take care of you. And this is where it really comes down to in the end, right? There's lots of poor people in the Bible. There's lots of rich people in the Bible. And you mentioned this too, like what's the main goal with all this? The main goal is to help people start thinking about eternity. Because we spend so much time thinking about, you know, my one year, you know, business plan, my five year business plan. Well, how are we going to exit this company in the next 10 years, right? We spend hours with boardrooms, team, all this stuff, figuring out that. People spend almost no time thinking about eternity. And the crazy part is, if you just think, we're all logical, practical people on this show, we're going to be dead way longer than we're alive, okay? So if we're thinking about retirement and where we're going to actually be for a long time, eternity should actually be the thing we're thinking about most and planning for that. You know, I actually heard a quote the other day. It said that, imagine this, the next 24 hours of your life, you know, somebody came to say, hey, Scott, the next 24 hours of your life is going to dictate the next thousand years, you know, so make sure these next 24 hours, you really, I just very thought, dude, you really liked it. The crazy part about that is that's not even close to what the actual truth is. Because that's a finite number in eternity is infinite. So even if we get 100 years here on earth, it's still not a 24 hour to a thousand year ratio. It's not, it's infinite. And yet we never think about it. And the truth in a matter is there's so many different belief systems, right? Like, I understand that, right? You know, you're like, man, maybe I should be Hindu. Maybe I should be Mormon. Maybe I should be Christian. Maybe I should be this. It's like, well, almost all of them say there's like one way. Yeah. You better do your research to know which one's true because if there's a slight chance that one of them's true, you've been focusing on the wrong thing. Oh, it's funny because yeah, there is a there is a through line between all religions. Anyways, it doesn't matter what you actually believe. The difference, I think, the biggest, the biggest differences between people that have zero belief versus people that have like even like a little bit of belief. That is the biggest difference because if you believe nothing, I don't even know how you go through life believing that this is it. Like, this is all the, yeah, it's a very, I mean, that's a more stressful thought that knowing that this is the end, this is the end. That's a very stressful thought. Yeah. I don't think I want to ever sit with that thought to be quite honest. Like, I want to have, forget about the fact that it's good to have like some moral compass and definition of good and something larger than yourself so that you don't think that your ego is the most important thing on this planet. I think that those are all good things but outside of it, it's a very scary thought to think that when you die, that's it. That's horrifying. It's depressing. I actually, I'm curious about your opinion on this because I've thought about this a lot. I do see a rise in secularism in society, a lack of God in society. Obviously, I'm sure you think about it quite often. Yeah. Is Godlessness in society? I live in Vegas. Yeah. I live in Miami. Yeah. We know all about it. What do you think the true implications are? Because I'm sure you're closer to this phenomenon than me because you work with people yet are trying to find God and usually there's like an impetus. There's like a reason why they're seeking. Yeah. People usually have to reach a low point for them to finally seek, right? Because they could have had everything and lost it all or whatever and they're like, dude, okay, it wasn't worth it. Or they reached the end of their life, man. They do the plan that they thought was the plan for 30 years and then they're like, dude, I'm still not fulfilled. Like it didn't, it wasn't what I thought it was. And so then they go to seeking. But yeah, I mean, like the impetus for Godlessness is that there's a lot of people going to hell. And that's the truth and that's the sad, scary part about it and people need to hear it. Because like, you know, I'm talking about eternity, right? Once again, that, you know, most people, even if they're not Christian, believe there's a heaven and a hell. I just want to take a second and thank the house by podcast network for supporting today's episode. Now, if you like success story, they're going to love other shows in the network. One of my favorites is the Hustle Daily Show. It's hosted by Juliet Bennett Ryla, Rob Literist, Ben Berkeley, and Mark Dent. It's brought to you by the Hustlebot podcast network, which is really the audio destination for business professionals. Now, the Hustle Daily Show brings you a healthy dose of this irreverent, offbeat and formative takes on business and tech. I was just listening to an episode to give you an example of what they talk about. So they broke down how this 100 year old organization has created one of the most successful business models in the world. Not only does this organization teach young entrepreneurship, they generate over a billion dollars in annual cookie sales. And what I really love about the show is they take these stories and these businesses that we think we know and then they reveal these surprising angles that we never considered. So I really think that you should go listen to the Hustle Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. It's one of my favorites. You're not going to regret it. I wasn't even talking after you die. I was talking while you're still on this planet. Yeah, I mean, dude, you live in godlessness once again, it's not like God gave us those rules. Like, hey, don't do these things because I want to prevent you from having fun. That's not like most people who are practicing all this crazy stuff. Think they're like, dude, that doesn't sound like fun. And it's like, bro, you can only sleep with so many women and you start to realize it. You can only get smashed so many times before you realize it. You can only make so much money and then realize, man, like I've made it all and it's still, I still feel the same. Everybody who goes that path comes to that conclusion at some point. And then you have a choice. You either make a change or you keep numbing the pain. When I look at people that have had massive success, like, like, people that are now billionaires or over a hundred million dollars in exit value and whatever. They're always seeking something after that. They're always, you're never satisfied. Well, you can never be fully satisfied because again, I love that. There's only so many women you can sleep with. There's only so many things you can buy. And ultimately, that's not why we're put on this earth anyway. It doesn't matter what you believe. Those are not fulfilling things. Yeah, whenever I meet a person, because I, you know, I'm around a lot of rich people who do different things. Whenever I meet a rich person who really values their stuff, I kind of feel bad for them. And I don't mean it in a way because I like having nice stuff too. You know, I have a nice house and nice cars. You know, but like, I don't go in, you know, like, just to give a prime example, you know, I meet guys who have these massive car collections. And I'm not saying it's a sin to have a massive car collection by any means. But it's where your heart is at. And I can see there are guys who just keep buying car after car after car. You're because it's like, it's the thing that gets them, you know, make some happy and like, they feel really good. And then they buy the car and then, you know, it wears off after two days. Yeah. And they're immediately looking for the next car. And I'm just like, and then, you know, they love to show it like, dude, yeah, look at this car and this car and this car. And I'm like, that's cool, man. I can tell you really like your car is like, yeah, I don't really care. You know, if you want to lend me one, I'll drive it. I mean, I'm not, I'll drive it. I think it's great. But like, I clearly don't like love them the way you do. When you talk about, okay, so when you talk about the wealthy way, yeah, what is your definition of the wealthy way? What is your version, yeah, of wealth? The subtitle of the book is don't go broke trying to get rich. You know, a lot of people go broke on every aspect of their life trying to get rich, making money. And I think that's a good, you know, kind of hook, my go to writer, my ghost writer thought of that. I was like, that's a good, that's a good line. But yeah, I think it's just having, you know, for me, wealth is not just money, right? It's all the areas we've been talking about. Because you truly need them all, right? Like, I mean, tons of, you know, even broke Christians, right? People who don't have a lot of money that are Christians, that are still living a suboptimal life. Yeah, they're saved. But man, like, they're, they're, they just can't figure out how to get out of the paycheck to paycheck life. And I know they can, I know they can get out of it. They just need to learn skills, right? And so money is, I don't want anyone to think I think money is like not important. But the Bible actually talks about money than any other subject. Why is there that negative connotation? Like, I don't understand that. But there was always this, I don't know if it's true or not, but I always felt that with very religious people, there was this almost negative connotation about money. Yeah. And I never got it. I never really understood where that came from. It comes from ignorance. So the Bible does not talk negatively about like rich people. It's not that rich people are bad or anything like that. You know, it's that camel quote. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, uh, but it's easier for the camel to go through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. And it's true, right? That's kind of a little bit different in that. And this is why my mission has really been to help entrepreneurs. And that's why I left talking about it on shows like this, who a lot of people don't know me. But like, it's hard to get a rich person to, you know, give themselves a Christ because they think they got it all, right? Like everybody's like, bro, you're killing it. What you're doing's awesome. Like, you have all the things you could ever want. And so they don't even realize how much of a problem they have. So that's why that that quote exists. But, you know, in terms of, um, why do we have this poverty minded, this poverty mindset and Christianity? There's definitely like a set of Christians that have that mindset. And, um, I think there's lots of reasons for it. So I can't name all of them. A couple of them are that, you know, uh, misinterpreting Bible verses, right? Like one second Corinthians nine six through seven says like, I don't know, that's, um, I'm talking about giving. But, you know, there's a Bible verse that talks about how, you know, you can't worship both God and money. You know, you can only be a slave to one. And the truth is, if you go back to what I said where it's like, okay, if I worship God and I just trust God for everything, money will come as a byproduct. Now, how much money? I don't know. But I know I'm going to be taken care of it. You know, you might end up a guy like me. You might end up, you know, middle class. You might end up whatever, right? But odds are, you know, you're going to be okay. And then there's what you would have prosperity. You know, my need Christians who think every Christian should be rich. Like, you know, God, but they believe that God blesses those, you know, who are true believers. And if, uh, you're not a true believer, that's why you're broke. Like that's their mindset. And that's also wrong. Um, the truth is God has given us all different skills and talents and abilities. And so, you know, we're called to just play our role. One of my favorite ideas, um, this is not my idea. I can't remember who I originally said this. But if you do not have God in your life, something else will replace God for you. Yeah, and it'll be advice. It'll be, it will kill those idols. Yeah, exactly. And I don't think that's healthy either. I think it's not readily. Well, and I'll say this too. And I, I'll say like I'm acting like I'm the most wholesome guy ever. I am not okay. So, you know, I've had many failures in my life. Man, I've been sued that people lose money. I've done everything you can imagine, man. I like, I don't do so. By the way, that is the right of business. I mean, if you build a big enough business, all this shit happens. Yeah, yeah. You're not going to, you know, bad a thousand, right? But, um, with that, you know, I've just kind of realized that, you know, I'm so thankful that I don't have to like live in that guilt. And I'm also thankful that my career is not my identity. Because, you know, there are times where man in business, I'd be killing it. Man, it's like, you know, everybody's like, bro, you know, how much did you guys do? You guys did so many deals. Look at how many views you're getting. You know, let's interview you about this thing, right? And then all of a sudden, next year, boom, doubles interest rates recession. I was like, dude, I'm losing money. What's going on here, right? And throughout it all, it's like, I just don't let my business career, you know, become my idol. Because that's what a lot of people do. And I struggled with that early on. And God kind of brought me through it with my baseball career. Because I was that way in baseball. Every day, you know, in baseball, you, you know, baseball is a lot different than in business. Because in baseball, you play every day. And your stats are public. Imagine if your bank account, your P&L was public. In every business, every day. They got updated. They're like, oh, Ryan. Dang, Ryan. They didn't make any money. They actually lost money on a deal. And everyone could see it. That's how sports is. It's all transparent. And, you know, that was hard for me as a 21-year-old, you know, trying to deal with. And then you get released. You get fired. And you get to deal with that. I think it's all public. It's all public. Everyone knows. And I did that for eight seasons, man. I had battling identity. And it wasn't until the end when I really started to understand like, man, this doesn't matter. Like, at the end of the day, I can't have my happiness and my peace be defined if I had a good game yesterday. Or if I had a good week. That was a good lesson for business, too. Yeah. And that's why when I came into business later, I had kind of learned all those lessons in my 20s. And I'm like, bro, I don't care if we have a bad week. I don't care if somebody's talking crap online. Yeah. Like, this is nothing. Was there an experience that sort of reshaped your definition of wealth from pure finance to like more of a holistic definition of wealth? Yeah. It was actually the birth of my son. So my son was born in January of 2019. He was born prematurely. So he's two months premature. And you know, I didn't like, it was crazy. You know, she's having contractions. We didn't know like, as her first child, we didn't know what was going on. Like, hey, the baby's coming like right now. And I'm like, dude, he's supposed to come in like two months. What do you mean right now? So stressful. And they're like, well, he's coming right now. And I'm like, is he going to make it? Like, this is pretty early. And they're like, well, we can't say. But, you know, just we're getting prepared. So, you know, I'm praying. Once again, seek God in every situation. And he's born. They say he's going to have a lot of complications and issues. He ends up having to stay in the NICU for two months. So, every day for two months, I had to go, you know, to the hospital in the morning to go see him, go see him with my wife at night. And it was a super stressful time, especially for my wife. You know, she's a brand new mom and she can't even be with her baby. And he can't breathe. He can't eat. He can't do anything. Like, he's got all these problems. You know, finally, we get to take him home. And dude, we're scared because he can't breathe. Like, I'm like, what if he stops breathing while he's at home? Yeah, you know, like, it's just stressful. And, you know, throughout that time too, you know, like, there's a very high chance he's going to have special needs. You know, you're going to have to start getting him in therapies and all these things every week. And so, you know, my wife's learning how to navigate that process of everything. And, you know, that first year was so extremely stressful and hard because it was just all new and all unknown. And also to during that year was like one of the times in business where like, we really had to do a big pivot. And like, it was very stressful as well. And so, I made the choice that year because my wife was really struggling with. And I said, you know what? I was already on the schedule of, you know, Monday through Friday, nine to five. Like, so, you know, for a lot of guys, it might be like, well, dude, I'm like, I'm home a lot. But I could tell that she needed more. And so, I said, you know what? I'm just not going to go and work on Wednesdays either. You know, I'm going to spend Wednesdays with just her and try to give her a break, kind of like be there for her right now in this really hard time. And I did that for most of the year. And that really like was what she needed at that time. And at the end of the year, this was about a week before Christmas. He fell and hit his head. And he had this big old knot on his head. So, we took him to the hospital. And, you know, we're like, is he okay? Like, what's the deal? And they're like, oh, he's fine. Don't worry about it. So, we took him home about two days later or a day later. I can't even remember. I'm looking at him. And we're like, he's not fine. Like, he's, like, he's just out of it. There's no way he's okay. So, we take him to a different hospital. They say, dude, we got to get him an MRI. Like, they didn't even MRI him or X-ray or anything. We're like, no, they said he was fine. So, get him an MRI. And they're like, his brain is bleeding. We need to like do surgery right now. And I was like, oh my gosh. And so, they prepare him for emergency surgery. I'm praying again. And I'm like, God, look, I give up everything to make sure that this surgery is successful. You could take the business. You could take the money. You could take literally everything. Just make sure he's successful. And I was like pleading. I'm like, I will devote everything to you to see him through. You know, you could have it all if you want it. But I'm going to devote everything to you if you can pull him through. And, you know, sure enough, he went for surgery overnight. You know, this is obviously super stressful. Just waiting for that. Like, we had no idea. He's not even a year old yet. And he makes it through. And also during that time too, my wife was pregnant and no one knew. So, we had so much going on that first year as parents. And, you know, he makes it through. We actually got to take him home on Christmas day. So, that was the present. Yeah. And I just learned from that year that, yeah, like I looked at death in the face with my kid, my first born. And I'm like, this ain't worth it. Like, it's not worth it to miss moments of his life being young. No amount of money is worth it. And I just was like, and I have enough money right now. Like, every step of the way, I felt like I've had enough money, you know? Like, whether I was making you know, 70 grand a month flipping couches or 100 grand a month, you know? We've had a million dollar a month. And like, I have not felt any different as far as the money goes. I've just always like, from that moment forward, I realized, man, it doesn't matter. Like, this is what matters. So, you'd never want to wish that experience on anyone else because that's horrible. Yeah. And I think what I want to sort of ask you and pull out of you is for somebody who's not gone through that experience, what is your words of wisdom for them so that they can understand why they can conceptualize how something can be more important than the business or building or the money they're making. Because I agree when you go through rock bottom, it gets very clear. But what I'm trying to figure out is how do you teach that over to somebody before they've gone through this rock bottom moment? Unfortunately, most people have the experience things for themselves. And I've been that way on many lessons. You know, I've had so many mentors and people come through these doors like Ryan, this is what you should be doing. This is what you should be doing. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to keep doing with this. And sure enough, they're right. You know, years later, I'm like, bro, I should've listened to you, but sometimes you just got to take the punches to realize it. So, I mean, like, if you're in the minority and you're able to take it a story like that and truly feel the pain and like, just apply it to your life and kudos. But most people are... You've mentioned a few times. You spend time before major decisions, life events, praying, talking to God. This may sound like a little bit of a strange question, but I actually think it's useful for some people that actually do take that time before big decisions. When you talk to God, do you ask him to just support you or are you trying to map out like a playbook with his help? I don't know if that makes sense. Are you looking for strategy forward? Are you looking for solace? I think there's... It just kind of depends where you're at in the process. So, here's the interesting thing. Because a lot of times, right? People are like, well, how do I hear from God or know he's talking to me? Right? Because it's one thing for me to be like, hey, God, here's the situation. This is a really big problem or a really big decision. What should I do? That part's easy. We can all just go pray and ask right now. The hard part is hearing from God, you know? The question is like, how do you hear from God? You know, is it like some audible voice and God's just like, do this, right? And this is where you go into the very supernatural side of Christianity because we are spiritual beings. I mean, like, I think most people would agree, you know, we have a spirit. And if you look at the Bible, I always just say when you look at the Bible. So I want everyone to know what I say. It's because it's like, this is not my opinion. This is just what has happened, right? Based on the SOP of life that I believe. So throughout the Bible, God speaks to people in so many ways, okay? On a practical side, he's audibly spoke to people. He sent his son, you know, to come speak and teach people while he was here. He sent prophets who spoke on his behalf, you know? He gave them vision. He speaks to people in dreams. He speaks to people through the scriptures, you know, which would be the Bible today. But even when they didn't have the Bible, they still spoke through the Old Testament scriptures to all of those people. Dude, he's even spoken through a burning bush, through a donkey's mouth. Like he will speak through the sky. He is spoken to people anyway and every way you can imagine. So for me, when I'm seeking an answer from God, the first thing has to be, man, number one, do I even have a deep enough relationship with God to know when he's speaking to me? Because I actually think God is speaking to a lot of people. Right now, I think that God is speaking through me to many people listening to this. But can you even recognize when he's trying to tell you something? Because he can tell you something through me. He can tell you something through a donkey. He can tell you something through a dream. He can speak in many different ways. But you would not be able to recognize it unless you actually have intimacy and a relationship with him, you know? It's like, you have no idea what my wife sounds like because you haven't met her. So like if she called you, you wouldn't really know it's my wife, but I would, because I have a deep intimate relationship. I know when she's calling me. I would know if she wrote something on the wall, even if she didn't address it. Because I know where handwriting looks like. I know how she does things. And that's how it is with God. You would have to know, man, is God speaking through somebody else right now? You know, how is he helping you through his decision? And so my point is, I've had him speak many ways on tough things, you know, to give an example with the YouTube thing. You know, I'm sitting there during COVID, 50 properties. I'm not sure if I'm going to go under. I can't go outside, just the government locked us up. And I'm just like, all right, God, what do you want me to do? I literally can't do anything. And I'm kind of scared that this could all just tumble down. And I didn't hear anything right then and there. So I go about my day. Like, I don't, you know, I'm like, I need to hear an audible answer right now. And then I go about my day. So then, you know, there's, now, now here's to be clear too. I've had ideas about different things I want to do. Like I had thought about doing YouTube before. Everyone has a lot of ideas. Like it was never a conviction, but it was like, yeah, I think YouTube and being an influencer and stuff would be good. But like, clearly, I wasn't convicted to like pursue it, right? So I already had multiple ideas and things at the forefront that I thought. So I think that that's important to part of your question. So then I end up, later that day, I get a DM from a guy on Instagram. He goes, Ryan, have you ever thought about doing YouTube? And I was like, well, yeah, actually I have. I go, who do you, like, who do you like watching on YouTube? Like, oh, I like, um, you know, this guy Graham Stefan, and this guy meet Kevin. And dude, honestly, I watched zero YouTube. I didn't know any of them. I'm like, okay, whatever. Like an hour later, another guy DMs me. Ryan, I really think you should start a YouTube channel. And I'm like, huh? Okay. Then another like, I don't even know later in the day, my friend Kong, he's a big real estate guy like on TikTok and stuff now too. At that time, he was like doing TikTok. And nobody was doing TikTok yet. And he had told me a month before he's like, Ryan, you got to do TikTok. It's the big thing. It's going to be the next big thing. I'm like, Kong, I ain't trying to go be freaking some guy dancing around like you doing the stupid TikTok. He attacks me that day. He goes, Ryan, did you start TikTok? Did you, you committed that you were at least going to start a prop? Did you do it? I was like, all right, God. I see this, this is clear. So I'm like, I guess I'm going to do YouTube and TikTok. And that's what I did during COVID. I did it for like three months. And within three months, I had a hundred thousand followers on TikTok. I had a, I don't even know, like maybe 10,000 subscribers on YouTube or something. You know, I got monetized by the end of the year. I had 75,000 subscribers, like 400,000 TikTok followers. And it was all because I had prayed and asked. But I also was aware enough to see that God was speaking through me or through other people to confirm it. I'm going to, I'm going to add on one thing that I think happened that allowed you to do this. I think that because, again, you focus on like ancient wisdom, biblical principles, you have this balance in your life. When you have that balance, you have time to think. Oh, yeah, I'm for creative. Oh, yeah. That's a big one of ideas. Because when you don't have that balance in your life, if you think that working 100 hours a week is a good thing to do and you don't respect your family and your wife and your time to sit down for dinner with them, then you don't, you don't even realize when these ideas come to you that you should action on them or you're not paying attention to the DM you're getting or your friend telling you to start a TikTok. I love that you brought that up. We would call that margin. You had to have enough margin in your life to allow things to happen, right? Because if you're just literally booked out. So like, you know, the reason why you have margin in your life is because again, you follow. Yeah, and I plan for margin. Yeah. Like, I don't think I have to fill my schedule for 12 hours a day with stuff. It's like, no, I got nine to five stuff. And then all the other time is margin. Yeah. And even during the work day, I have a lot of margin. Like today, I didn't... Like, I'll have to do this film with you. But then I just, you know, I find things to do that I think are the best use. But my team will tell you, in the morning is when I pray and, you know, it's always around like five, 30 to six, 30. So I pray and do my morning routine. And I text them when I pray because I don't want to forget. You know, I'll be in prayer. I'll be reading the Bible. And then like, I'll just get a thought. And I'll be like, hey guys, we need to do this. Nobody responds. And then I just keep doing, you know, I just keep on my day. Keep praying and doing my thing. Like, oh yeah, let's do this. Okay, we're going to get this person at the event. Yeah. And like, it's because it's not even that I'm thinking about that thing. I'm not like, man, who's supposed to be at the event? Like, what's the next great ad idea? What's the marketing strategy? It just comes to me. And I believe that that is, you know, divine. I'm actually curious if you got pushed back from an entrepreneurial community when you started including faith in more of your content. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, the Bible says that's going to happen. Persecution will come. So talk to me about, you have this beautiful room where you do events. I think that there's there's God, faith, Jesus Bible, including these events. I was listening to one another podcast and you said that you just started to like just embed it. Yeah, like, it's like, yeah, casually, like, if you're doing an event, we're going to throw a little bit of God into this event now. Yep. Is that been a net positive for the business? Um, probably not. But to be honest, yeah, you know what, here he is. Well, you know, I think I got more, um, bold, let's say the last two years and, uh, yeah, speaking of like one of our events, right, um, you know, we used to hold an event every quarter called WealthCon. Now we're going to do it just once a year. But, you know, we did this literally every quarter for five years and it just kept growing every quarter. It was like 10 people, then 50 people, then 100, then a thousand plus every quarter. And so, you know, we got really good thrown events just doing them so frequently. But, you know, during WealthCon, I mean, people have always known on my Christian, it just started to get way more extreme. And I just became way more convicted the last couple of years. Why? Yeah. Um, I had something happen. This is where now we're going to go into like some theological things. But in the Christian faith and some denominations, there's something called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And so without getting too in depth about it, it's essentially like this supernatural rebirth, where now God is just like essentially like lighting you on fire to like just at this whole new level of faith. So it's very different than, you know, when you first get saved for a lot of people where, um, you know, I grew up in the church, like I said, like I've been saved a long time. Um, but it was kind of like this second awakening, I should say. And this, this, this is biblical. It happened in Acts, you know, there's people getting saved all the time. And then Paul's like, dude, you guys are, um, you know, the disciples keep going to these people are like, you don't have the Holy Spirit yet. Let me bless you with the Holy Spirit. And so, you know, the Holy Spirit comes on them. And they start performing supernatural things. You know, they start healing people. They start speaking in tongues and all these other things. So that's literally what happened to me. Like I started speaking in tongues and performing supernatural things. And I was like, this is crazy. I want to take a second and thank Range Rover Sport for supporting today's episode. 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I was actually at a Christian event. And I was actually unfamiliar with this belief because I didn't grow up in a church that really kind of talked about that. They're just like, you don't get say. Yeah, exactly. Like I grew up in a very conservative denomination where you'll see people like just getting healed at church and like people prophesying over other people talking about things that, you know, a lot of it is the stuff you would see on YouTube that looks all weird and everything else in your life, dude, that looks like fake. That's how I thought about it the whole time, right? And there's definitely some of that, like everything on YouTube. Everything, who knows what's fake? Who knows what's right? Right, like I feel like the don't believe everything you read on the internet is not. Yeah, exactly, right? So I was always skeptical until I started seeing it literally firsthand and it was undeniable. And you know, I had someone lay hands on me. He was like, you know, do you, you know, like wanted to, do you want to basically that kind of power? Do you want to accept it in your life? And I'm like, I don't even know what this is, but sure, it was like lightning shot through me. And the best way to like explain it was, I just didn't even, I even went to my wife. I mean, we've been believers our whole lives and I was like, they, I really don't even know what just happened to me. And I explained it to her the way I'm explained to you now. I was like, I started speaking in some language. I don't even know, like this is weird. Gladden. Tongues are like in the Bible, it describes it as a heavenly language. So it's not a language of their Mac. No, not even. No, I mean, if you, if you just go on YouTube and you search speaking in tongues, you'll see like, I've never gone down this rabbit hole. This is going to really change my explore page. Yeah, yeah. So go down this rabbit hole about baptism of the Holy Spirit. Like I said, there's a lot of denominations who don't necessarily believe in it. And I was one of those people. And then I experienced it and I'm like, this is crazy. So, you know, like, and I'll give an example too, like, just literally three months ago, or no, two months ago, my business coach, his name's Gary, he called me and he had a, he was crying. It was like 630 in the morning. And I was like, why is my business coach called me? It's 630 in the morning crying. He goes, dude, I just found out I have a tumor on my kidney. It's a size of a grapefruit. And I was like, well, let's pray, you know? Like, let's pray for healing right now. And so we pray over the phone. You know, I can feel something happening. And he's like, okay, well, you know, I have to go get checked up. They're going to check if it's cancer and everything else six hours from now. He, by the way, he's already had Lyme disease and other things. Like, you know, he's not in the best shape. He's had a lot of different physical things over his life. And so, but, you know, we pray. And he's like, dude, I like feel like a lot of peace and like warm, like my body feels really warm right now. Am I okay? Six hours later, he calls me. He's like, dude, you'll never believe this. I got a bet you I will. And he says, they said the tumor has liquefied. It's actually just now full of fluid. They're only in half the do surgery. All they have to do is just put a pin in it and drain it. And it's gone. Okay. Yeah, that's wild. That was like two months ago. So, I have literally not only witnessed, but been a part, I mean, if that happens, you I can understand why you eviction. Well, that's why I'm like, people just need to know. Like, none of the stuff matters because I've just seen it now first hand. And I've seen people, you know, do prophetic things. Prophecy, meaning like talk about things to come that have happened in my life. Mm-hmm. So, of course, I have a follow up with this. Because I understand why you have conviction. Yep. I understand why I included in your messaging. And on YouTube and with the events you hold. But you also have to understand that this would turn people off from it. Oh, for sure. Yeah, people what's listening to this right now don't believe me. But if your goal is to help as many people as possible, you have to find a way to sit with your convictions. It still reaches wide an audience as possible. Yeah, and I agree. So, on number one, the way you help people is by giving them the truth, right? You know, so I think it's first and foremost always delivering the truth. Whether they like it or not, that's on them. Now, do I got to just make everything about faith? I'm just going to do what? Well, however we didn't know we were going to talk about this, right? Like, it's just, hey, this is what we're talking about. But, like, at my events, right? Like, I have secular events for profit. You know, we're going to teach you how to make money, do real estate, all that stuff. So, I don't stop doing all the normal things that anyone can be a part of. But, like, what ended up happening in my event? How this whole conversation started? So, two years ago, that happened to me, right? So, I'm starting to talk about faith more at events, like, you know, whatever. So, then somebody says, dude, we should do, like, a prayer meeting at the next event. I was like, all right, let's do a prayer meeting. Like, we'll do it like 7.30 before the event that starts at 9. And, you know, we'll just pray over everybody. It's going to be beautiful. Mind you, you know, there's a thousand people at the event. Well, I do a prayer meeting. I'm thinking maybe like 50 people show up 100. Like, you know, it's early. We just were out late the night before. 400 people showed up. And I was like, oh, this is the thing. All right. Well, I'm like, well, I can't like pray. Like, we're going to have to give a sermon. So, I basically just give an impromptu sermon. And so, then, you know, everybody loves it. And they're like, dude, next time we should bring, you know, somebody to do worship music. Like, let's bring a guitar and like a little thing. And we'll do worship and stuff. And I go, if we're going to go through all that, we might as well just rock out on the stage and just do it all out there. Why are we going to like do it like half effort? And so, the next wealth, I go, all right, here's the thing. You know, we're going to do a worship service. It's going to be part of the event 9 a.m. on day two, right in the middle. And it's going to be like an hour and a half. You know, it's going to be a big part of it. We're going to sing. We're going to pray for people. We're going to see people get saved. I'm going to bring in a famous pastor to give a message. And we did that and people loved it. You know, some people, well, a lot of people loved it. But you know, some people are like, I ain't going to that. You know, because I put it on the schedule. I was like, hey, it's optional if you guys want to come. If not, come at like 10 30. Yeah. But we always went long. So they were there anyways. So we ended up in it anyways. So then after that, each time they're after I was just like, I'm not even putting it in the event. Like just show up 9 to 5. And you know, day two, you're going to walk into something you weren't expecting. I think the people, I think it hits with so many people. I mean, it's going to turn some people off. You bring this into your message. But it's you. So I think that you should bring it in. I mean, yeah, it is part of. Yeah. And they know what I believe. Exactly. And I think that's, I think, and I think that you attract the people that are meant to hear what you have to say. That's really important. But I also think that a lot of people right now in like, you know, try and keep this evergreen as possible. And the 2024. So you know, we recorded this. But I think a lot of people feel lost and stressed I think that again, there is godlessness. And people that know to replace it with. Now life is just stressful and anxiety inducing. And they want, and they need people. People need something. People are hungry, dude. Yeah. I've seen people more hungry than ever to at least hear about faith because, yeah. You know, I think we went through from 2016 to 2022, 2023. Whereas like everybody's wanted to be woke. And it's counter-cultural to do this. Like if you like Trump, freaking everyone wants to start thinks you're a bigot. Yeah. You know, they're doing all this weird stuff and holly was scared people away from traditional values. Yeah. Like, dude, for you saying, oh, I don't believe in gay marriage is like, oh, bro, you're a bigot. It's like, no, this is literally. This is what I believe. It's not on my bigot. It's like, you know, whatever, right? That's the whole thing. Now, people are finally kind of, I would say, back to center where it's like, you know, yeah, no. Nobody thinks it's cool to be woke anymore. You know, you got idiots who do. But, you know, I think majority of America, I mean, they just spoke through the election, right? Majority of America is like, nah, we don't even want to be close to what those people that were even like liberal. We're now getting ostracized by their own people. Yeah, so yeah, it's just ridiculous, right? And so it became this narrative of like hyper liberalism was like, supposedly the norm. It's like, no, dude, it's not, okay? So I think like, the world is now more center. And yeah, I mean, they're more open to receiving now. Yeah, I mean, it's okay to have a family. It's okay to have kids. Weird, yeah. Okay, that I have faith. Like, I don't these are bad things. They were. They were definitely, uh, they were. They were not looked highly of the past couple of years. They've been just nuts. I mean, you have a human corpse as the president for four years. People are like, bro, like, okay, everyone said he was a corpse. And we tried to, okay, we don't really believe anything. I think I think everything's healing now. Yeah, everything's healing. What are you working on now? You have a nonprofit? Yeah, yeah, we have a nonprofit called wealthy kingdom. You go to wealthy kingdom.com. So anyone who's like listening to what I'm saying is like, dude, I love it. Just go there and get plugged in. You know, we have a free community. We do free Zoom calls every month or every week based on what the, like, what is it? Oh, so, okay, great point. So, um, the mission of wealthy kingdom is to bring the kingdom, the Christian kingdom. So we believe to the marketplace. And so, you know, I believe that Bible verse actually reference that it's harder for a rich person to get in heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of the needle. And, um, I'm trying to help business people see, you know, what it's like, you know, because I don't expect them to just walk through church on a Sunday. I don't expect them to understand these things. But, you know, if you get around other, like you and I right now, we're having a conversation. It's like, because we're business people, because we have similar problems and, you know, similar interests. Like, we can have a conversation about this versus you might not be just hanging out with the pastor, you know, like having these conversations. And so, I think that it's good for other business people to get around other business people, whether you're a believer or non-believer. And so, we do that. We also have small groups all across the world. So, we have, I think, 80 of them right now going on. That's, that's good. Yeah, that's very good. So, they're in offices, they're in homes, you know, mines every Wednesday. Um, we, we have them literally all over the world. And some virtual, but most of them are local. So, like, we could plug you into a local ones, all free. Um, then we're doing free events, uh, called Kingdom Nights. And so, we got a couple of those already planned for the next couple of months. Uh, those are going to be amazing. And I think that my goal with those is to do two things. So, it's like, it's, it's two nights. Well, two days I should say one night and then the next morning. But the, the first night is what I would call the spiritual side of faith. So, all things we're talking about. Like, I believe that there's going to be people who get healed. There's people who are going to have anxiety and depression and things just freed from their life. I've seen it so many times now at this point. Um, and so, we're going to be praying for people and really showing that side. And then day two is for the logical guys like you and me who, um, really need some tactical things on how to grow closer with God, how to apply this into their life. And so, um, I'll be teacher for like three hours straight about tactically. You know, here's how we incorporate God into our family. Here's how we do it in business. Here's how we do it. Just one-on-one. So, I'm excited about those. And then, you know, we'll have one massive event called the Kingdom Summit in April. Amazing. Yeah. What would be a last, last piece of advice, you know, words of wisdom, insight, even something that I should have asked you that I didn't you want to leave the audience with? Yeah. I think, uh, obviously I've talked about like what I believe is the most important thing. I think on maybe a, um, lesser level, but obviously very important is, this is just what I tell all the business people and entrepreneurs. Like, I was a guy who pursued many things and I was successful at quite a few things. You know, I've had six seven-figure businesses at one time, you know, that I found it, that I've been the CEO of and like, you know, running them in all different ways. I have since simplified very, very streamlined. I still got, you know, multiple businesses, but they're all like, I would say I'm vertically integrated. They all complement one another. So, it's not even like, in my mind, they're that separated. But yeah, I would say, man, to be really great at something, you got to really focus and go all in. I've just been so guilty of trying to be a master of lots of things at once. And I think you can master a lot of skills. Like I, I have a lot of skills now, but it's because I only focused on those skills for a long period of time, you know. I was good at baseball because that's all I did for a long, long time. Then I did flipping houses for, you know, five, eight years. That's all I did before I then got on social media. Then I focused on social media for five years. That's all I did. Now I'm focused on the non-profit. It's like, that's a whole new world. If I want to have a great non-profit, I mean, like, I got to really focus on it. Where can people connect with you? I mean, you dropped one website, but all the other socials. Yeah, I think just follow me around Panada everywhere on social media. You know, obviously I have other, I have actual real businesses too. You know, like, people can learn to invest in real estate by going to wealthyinvestor.com. We teach people how to do that. I'll put everything in. Yeah, Joe notes too. So all the links everywhere. We'll put them in the show notes. So last question I like to ask. What would be one lesson that you want to leave your kids with? Okay, so besides follow Jesus, because that's definitely for me all I care about. But like, people have asked me too. They're like, do you want your kids to play baseball? Do you want them to do real estate? I'm super into golf now. Like, do you think they're going to play golf? And I'm like, honestly, I do not care what they want to do for a profession or a career. All I care about is that they follow Jesus. If they do that, they could do whatever. I'll support them if they want to start a bakery, you know, whatever. So that's for sure the main lesson. The second thing I would say is for them, man, I just got to teach them work ethic. And that's something that I have because I was forced to have it. You know, my parents lost everything in the great recession. I had to provide for myself while pursuing a career. While being married young, while figuring out like, you know, no mentors or anything like social media wasn't what it is today. And so I was able to work really hard. And I think that I just really want my kids to work hard. I don't want them to be lazy. They're going to grow up in a very different way than I did. You know, they're going to grow up around wealth and like all these resources. And like, it's going to be normal for them to be with like, celebrities and, you know, vacations and all these things. So it's like, I'm really trying to figure out, man, how can I make sure they also are made tough and go through hard things? Because it's important, you know, how? Did, you know, that's one of the biggest issues that you, you know, like, yeah, making sure once you've achieved success, that your kids don't turn into like entitled assholes. Exactly. No, and that's what I'm like really now that I'm, you know, I'm not there yet where it's, you know, my oldest is five. So I'm not there yet where it's, it's, you know, a problem quite yet. But, you know, I think this is actually good lesson. I don't think it's important to have all the answers right now. You know, I think for me, I got eight million other problems. That one is obviously a upcoming problem as time goes on. But I don't think that it needs to get solved right this moment. And I think that people need to realize that's okay.