#171 - Pioneering the Digital Currency Landscape with Gary Cardone

Ever wondered what it's like to ride the rollercoaster of startup life? Gary Cardone, a battle-hardened entrepreneur, joins us to unfold the tapestry of triumphs and tribulations that have marked his journey from the oil fields to the forefront of the digital currency revolution. With a candidness that's as refreshing as it is rare, Gary cracks open the playbook to his success, highlighting the pivotal moments when letting go meant leaping forward and how venturing into new territories transformed not just his business portfolio, but his entire worldview.

From small-town roots to the bustling streets of London, Gary's narrative is a masterclass in adapting and thriving amidst the unknown. This episode traverses the landscapes of personal growth, the audacity of risk-taking, and the profound insights gleaned from life's unpredictable curriculum. It's a conversation that stitches together the seams of geographical leaps, professional pivots, and the underlying drive that propels one to challenge the status quo. Listeners will discover the nuanced dance of listening over speaking, the art of seizing opportunities, and the indispensable value of embracing change.

As we chart the course of tomorrow, Gary decodes the nexus between energy, money, and finance and how this trinity is shaping a new era of opportunity. With stories of multimillion-dollar investments and geopolitical chess moves, this episode peels back the layers of our global economy's shifting landscape. Our talk culminates in a future-facing discussion about the rise of digital currencies and the transformative impact of technology on employment and wealth creation. Strap in for a riveting exploration that promises to arm you with the wisdom to navigate the tides of change and stake your claim in the unfolding digital frontier.

How to Reach Gary:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garycardone/
Node40: https://www.node40.com/

To Reach Jordan:

Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/

Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.

Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:00

Hey, what's going on, guys? I've got a special guest here today. We have Gary Cardone. He's been building startups since 27 years old. He's had five different companies in two different countries, in three different industries, and he's a Tampa St Pete guy. Gary, I'm so excited to have you here. First off, before we get into all this, what is the biggest mistake you've ever made in business? Because five companies, two countries, three industries it's a lot of stuff and I know you're exiting some of these businesses. You've had incredible, incredible success, but what are some of the mistakes? Because nobody's talking about that.

Speaker 2: 1:40

Some of the mistakes. I mean holding on to positions too long, holding on to a business. I started my first career when I was 21 in the all-in-gas business, was fortunate enough to join a startup at 26. There was 12 people, would stay there 17 years and one day I'd never sold any stock. And one day the most senior guy at the company we were now 6,000 people, $30 billion corporation I mean, none of us actually knew what we were doing. We were at the right place at the right time and we had the right character.

Speaker 2: 2:24

A monster mistake would have been when I heard my boss say, hey, we're going to make a billion dollars in cash next year. Literally within 12 hours, I sold every drop of stock and options that I had ever accumulated and then advised them that I gave them six months and I was going to retire. The mistake the reason I'm bringing that up is that within 12 hours, the entire executive team was advised by the board. They could not sell any stock and most of the people that I worked for, they literally wore that stock for another four years and never got out. So you got to know these are not marriages and families, they're businesses and there's a time where you go. Hey, this industry's kind of done.

Speaker 2: 3:10

I mean, I did things that were very, very different as far as career path. Most people would consult and would not say, hey, spend 17 years in the energy sector and then walk away from it. For me, it was really good because it challenged me to go hey, I think I can learn another business. I'm not going to become a slave to a job, a 401k, much less an industry. I know how to learn, and so I just didn't want to become a slave to being a career professional working for a 401k, and it's worked out pretty well. So, dude, we could be here three hours if I shared every mistake I ever made, though. I mean I've lost millions and millions of dollars just being greedy, piggy, stupid, ignorant, childish, immature, not really understanding macro.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Absolutely. I mean, I think you bring up an amazing point of being that lifelong learner, because one of the most impressive things to me is that you showed up to the call and you're like I got a notebook. I bring a notebook everywhere I go. I always write down the things I need to do and most people would go Gary, that's for a five-year-old. Five-year-olds should take notes. Why are you taking notes? And it's just a completely different view. So how has learning always been important in your life?

Speaker 2: 4:34

I don't know, man, if you'd have asked me at 25, I would have said well, I hate school, hate teachers, hate tests. I don't like studying. I was a bad student dude. I made C minus. You know me, and my brother figured out. We're sitting there in Lake Charles, louisiana, living with my mom who you know her husband died when we were nine. My dad and Grant and I are looking at each other smoking dope every day, partying 16, drinking I mean like crazy people. And we're looking around at Beth you know the straight A student, and we're like why the fuck would anybody work that hard to make a straight A? I never made any sense to us that people would stay up to make the straight A. We're like C works, c works. I'm having a blast, I'm getting laid, I'm partying with my buddies and the truth is, if you ask the deans, dude, the deans like the C students too.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Well, because they're more real.

Speaker 2: 5:40

No, the C students are the ones that give all the money back to the colleges, and the A students work at the college. That's the deal. I mean, I've literally had deans go. Hey, you know, we love the C students, the C and D students, we love dude. They become the people that contribute all the money, because that's where all the private equity and building of great companies comes is from people that don't just fit in a box. Yeah, so, and like, you have a lot of friends that they've been told by their teachers, counselors and what have you, that they're wounded, flawed human beings because they have ADD, hx, yz, llp, whatever. And it's like, yeah, dude, like you're just bored, you need something to do, gary, okay. And like, like, when I'm bored, I am a danger to society, and when I'm really engaged in something I don't know anything about, which I find really fast, that's to me really cool about learning, I'm actually a very productive member of society, so I'm happier when I'm not bored man.

Speaker 1: 6:50

Absolutely, and it's one of these keys that I think everyone needs to focus on is understanding themselves. The majority of the time, we have no idea who we are. We throw ourselves go get this job, go get this job. I was talking to a potential client earlier today and he's like I have to go get this whole degree. And I'm like why? And he's like because I need to be validated. And I'm like but you have the experience. And he's I'm like what if you just did it for free? What if you just helped people for free? Would you learn something? And I'm like maybe you learned that you don't even like this and you shouldn't waste five years going to this thing. And he's like I've never thought about it that way. And I'm like of course, of course, the people who got the degrees are going to tell you the same thing. Like, of course, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:36

Yeah, I, dude, I agree. I mean, I don't. I don't know why people aren't paying people like me right out when they get out of high school. The parents should be calling me up going hey, I'm going to send my kid to you, I'll pay you to give my kid an apprentice program for a year and a half. Why would you pay a school 250 grand over four years? You waste four years of their life While Alexander the Great was probably screwing every little slave on the planet and conquering the entire world at 17, we're coddling these little kids up going hey, go study more so you can get yourself validated. I don't need to get validated. I need to go, look in the mirror and go who the hell am I? Why am I here and how can I be as great of a human being as possible? 100%.

Speaker 1: 8:28

I literally sat there and I thought the same thing, because I thought the colleges are very interesting, because the America we've always been told, go to college, go do this. And I literally thought I was like what if you just joined masterminds for 10,000, 25,000, 50,000? Like you would learn more in those? And then you just talk to all the people, or if you do the apprenticeship program, where it's like, hey, this guy has been very successful, he will continue to be successful. You should go talk to him, he might teach you something. It's so baffling. So, gary, for you, how did you learn about yourself? How did you learn about this energy sector? How did you even get into that?

Speaker 2: 9:09

I finished college with an economics degree and a marketing degree and 21 years old at 1981, dude, I was terrified. I realized, oh shit, school's over. What am I going to do? I'm from nowhere, with a family with a nowhere name, don't know anybody, I'm not rich, I have no contacts. I didn't really pay attention in school. I've got a personality. I'm not dumb. I mean, I was never dumb. I was street savvy and literally went to my sister in Houston who was working for an oil guy, independent explorer. I said look, diane, just introduce me to someone that's a professional. We don't do each other favors in my family we don't like, oh, let me get you this job, because then somebody owes somebody. She introduced me to a guy named Dan Montgomery. I'll try to make this really, really short, but this is a good tool for somebody to use.

Speaker 2: 10:26

Leaving college or high school. I said hey, dan, here's my resume. This is who I am as a personality. What would you do if you were me? You got to remember. I didn't have a dad, so I'm sitting here going. I need to ask somebody, and none of my uncles they're all dead now, so I'm not trying to shame anybody in the family. None of the uncles showed up to be an alpha dog around my me and Grant. Now, that wasn't their job, but we had no alpha man and just no alpha male.

Speaker 2: 10:57

And Dan looked at me and said, well, I'd become a gas buyer. And it just so happened he was a gas buyer and he saw my personality. I said, well, how would I do that? I had no clue what it was. And he said look, it's a great job. You know, you meet all the big oil companies. You learn how to study contracts. You go to launch, you go to Mexico bird shooting Sounds awesome to me, man. He introduces me to four companies and I talk one of them into hiring me. Dude, I got the best job in the whole world.

Speaker 2: 11:29

I went to work for a guy that was 26 years old in Corpus Christi, texas, and his job was to fill a 36 inch, completely empty, brand new 36 inch pipeline that ran from Laredo, texas, all the way to Houston 2 billion cubic feet a day, and I would get to play with that toy and learn from reading contracts this big. And then there was this regulatory change that occurred in the energy sector and Gary Cardone was perfectly DNA genetically coded to be in this world Because, like, the regulatory change that occurred was like giving me a ticket to the Super Bowl, and this is a very important thing for people to understand is that you must be observant about what's going on around you, and that is one thing. I have been given a gift of being observant. This company I would have done anything to go work for this company when there was 12 people and there's just something inside of me I knew, hey look, I'm not really situated for these big corporates.

Speaker 2: 12:41

I was working for a very large company and I was already two years into it. I'm already getting like nervous and not feeling really comfortable. There are a lot of meetings, man. They meet, meet, meet, meet, meet and they meet and they meet some more, but they don't play baseball. It would be like literally getting on a baseball team and sitting in a stadium and going, okay, let's talk about the plans. That's what the bit I'm like. Oh, my God, let's just go call some customers and do some business, man. Yeah, and anyway, I went to work for this company and it taught me everything I needed to know about the energy sector and I just thrived in that world for 20, 20 some odd years.

Speaker 1: 13:25

Absolutely One of my biggest takeaways there and I think everyone should underline this is one is. Gary mentioned how he had to ask advice of someone that he thought was qualified, even though he didn't know, because a lot of us just go to our parents and our parents might not be the most qualified.

Speaker 2: 13:42

Our teacher might not be the most qualified. No, no, no. Our parents are absolutely the worst qualified to give any child advice. I really mean that, dude, I have friends go. Hey, look, I'm going to pick up. Alice is going to come work for me in the company family business. I'm like no, dude, that's wrong. You send Alice to me and I'll send my kid to you, but I need to be able to.

Speaker 2: 14:10

I needed, when I was at 22, 25, 28,. I needed to know that I was going to be fired if I didn't perform that. There were no favors. This is not good to teach someone that they have rights inside of a company. If it's a company, I need to treat my wife or my daughter in that company the exact same way. I treat everyone else with the same expectations. But I did, and I have asked for advice my whole life. Dude, there is no shame in asking someone. In fact, if you ask me to help you, it's probably one of the greatest compliments you can give me, because you're literally saying to me hey, listen, I value what you've done and what more can I give you then? Some information that might help you not make a mistake in the future? Me giving you a million dollars isn't going to help you. But if I go, hey look, you need to think bigger. Dude Like that, when people look at me and go, you have been thinking too small. Oh, that's a message, man, yeah absolutely.

Speaker 1: 15:21

I mean, gary's completely right here where you need to have that people outside of your bubble. But I think it's also being able to raise your head above the bubble, because a lot of us when I mentioned the bubble, I mean the work bubble that we consume ourselves in or our life bubble, like a lot of us aren't going out here. And that's why I love doing the podcast, because I'm forced out of the bubble constantly and I'm like what's this guy got to say? What's this guy? And it's just, you learn so much from around those other people. So if the audience could take anything, it's raise your head above where you're at and look around and see what other people are doing.

Speaker 1: 15:55

It's okay to have a friend who's crushing it and maybe go learn about that industry or jump here or do that, because so many times we pigeonhole ourselves and we're like I'm the real estate guy or I'm the this guy, and that can be so damaging because we're all still so young and we all completely change identities every single day and we're just growing and it's nothing against us but we're on a constant growth. So how did you find that growth, even going to? I know you went over to the UK and that's another intimidating thing leaving what you knew to go to London Like it's a completely different country. They have different rules there.

Speaker 2: 16:36

Well, let's just get back to the family thing. Look the family. They have a vested interest in you, and some of that vested interest isn't necessarily the best thing for you. The second thing is the parents, their parents. It doesn't make them experts on everything Like it does not make them experts on a career. It does not make them an expert on blockchain technology, future compounding interest rates, global conflicts, geopolitical issues, macro. Most people just live in their own little universe. If it was a TV channel, everybody's got their own little TV channel. They're living in their own little bubble, and I think that's really, really important in early years, so that you become highly focused in some area.

Speaker 2: 17:28

That is the biggest trick for somebody is to figure out hey, where do I belong? If I would have been in the energy business and tried to do real estate and tried to do some other stuff, I would have been a marginal player. But what I did is I went deep, wide, hard, dude, all in and I became a leading expert in a space. And once you have that validation as a leading expert in the space, you then can take that base foundation and go okay, I can pivot this information into another industry. I think the thing that I'm seeing with you young guys, is that you're trying to do so much and you're going to be like Kool-Aid with a bunch of water in it. It may look like Kool-Aid, but it ain't going to go deep, and that's the problem once you go deep into a business. So I mean, I've literally spent 20 years in energy. There wasn't much more for me to learn. Yeah, now this thing about traveling. It's taken me about five years to figure this out. The last five years I figured this out.

Speaker 2: 18:42

I would advise everyone at the age of 17, 16, 18, if you're not going to college, leave your home. Leave your home, go to another city, leave your girlfriend, leave your boyfriend, leave all your friends. Do not get pregnant, do not impregnate anything else and leave the local area you're in. You will find out how much you don't know about yourself and the world, and that is the moment you begin to learn about yourself. So what did I do? I left Lake Charles, louisiana. Grant and I were going to burn that city to the ground. If we were like we would have gone to prison, dude, like we were bored to death.

Speaker 2: 19:24

So as soon as I got out of there, I went to Carpiz, had to make new friends. I had to learn how to date girls that didn't know who Cardone was. I had to learn how Texas did it. I had to learn their laws and I realized that I was a little particle of dust in a shit storm and I needed to figure out what their gravity was. I just learned so much, man, by going exterior, getting away from the pacifier, that little comfort, and it's not fair. You cannot bring your girlfriend with you. This is the rule. You've got to go out on your own, like Alexander the Great did. You will learn so much. You don't learn anything in college about real life.

Speaker 1: 20:15

I would completely agree with all of this, because I ended up actually going from Jersey, went to school at University of Tampa, which was a transition, studied abroad, which isn't like it's a new adventure, but it's still like the same thing. And then when COVID hit, I was actually traveling with my. She was my girlfriend at the time, she became my girlfriend and now is my fiance. But we traveled to five different cities because and we would stay for a month and the reason was I was like I don't really know if I like Tampa, right, because I sat there and I go, this is all I know.

Speaker 1: 20:48

I don't know if this is me, and you have to challenge everything you do because there's no way you were placed here and now this is the perfect situation for you. It just doesn't make sense. You have to go out there and try things and see if there's better options and whatever that might be in different areas. But travel has been massive for me and I know you're a huge traveler and adventuring around. And what was that transition like to London? Because that is, I mean, it's still that you like everyone's speaking English, but it's still challenging with all the different rules and regulations.

Speaker 2: 21:27

Well, you know, look, when I went to London, I think the 23% of Americans had passports. Wow, this would have been in 1992. Now I think that numbers up, it's still less than 50%. So Americans don't travel.

Speaker 1: 21:48

Most of them stay 20 miles away from their regular home their entire life, which is better.

Speaker 2: 21:53

It's exactly right, okay, so the reason that I first off back to the writing. I have been writing, for when I'm really doing well in my life, I'm writing and I wrote down on a piece of paper that I was going to run an energy business in Europe, build and run an energy business in Europe. I'm in Houston, texas, running one of the largest NAC gas books in the world, sleeping with a woman that was working for Enron in the same home I mean, we were actually living together and she's selling into the same market we are literally 92% of the entire NAC gas market in the entire West coast of California sleeping in the same bedroom and I was starting to go a little bored and the company that I was working for went from 12 to 600 people. Wow, they started introducing. You know, they sent me home one day because I was wearing sharks and they started putting policies and shit. And I'm like man, I was 28 and all my bosses were 28 or 29. I'm like shit, dude, they're, they're. I'm never going to like be able to crack out of this environment. So I wrote down this thing I'm going to run an energy business.

Speaker 2: 23:17

Three months later, dude, three months later, british gas bought 25% of the company. I had no idea this was going on, not a clue. I immediately put my hand up and said hey, I want to go to London. They laughed at me. Okay, they literally said dude, we would never send you to London with your accent and you're so aggressive you don't pay attention to you, know, you're not like, you, don't behave yourself, we can't control you. And they then would proceed to go to 599 people talk about Americans not moving. No one, no one, wanted to leave the mothership. So I was left with two months later. Hey, you still interested? I said oh for sure, dude. See, for me this was a once. I write it down. And then I see somebody knocking on my door, going hey, you have now a ticket to England. A company just bought into your company. What am I not going to be observant Like? I need to go knock on that guy's door? Go, dude, I want to go to London.

Speaker 2: 24:22

Now, it was a massively risky move. Okay, most people thought that I was going to go there, die there and never come back and lose my whole career. What would actually happen was that we would make $200 million 30 months later there with 12 people. I mean, like it was. It was crushing. We then sold that company, tiny little joint venture. We would then sell that company back to the joint venture partner for 120 million pounds, oh wow.

Speaker 2: 25:03

And the guy that bought it took the 11 staff. They didn't like me. They said your boy Gary, literally they said it like this your boy Gary can play in our sandbox. And we were staggered, dude. We were like, okay, so you just took the 11 people, I hired you also, and you paid us $350 million for 30 months of work. And you're telling me that the guy that just did all this, you're cool with him playing in the sandbox. So Steven Schutt called me and said you want to do this again? I was exhausted, dude. Yeah, like I had already had two threats. Here is this 90,. This is 1995. Okay, I'd already had two threats from the European political bodies to be removed from England. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah, no, they were starting to get well, they lost four billion dollars two years after I got there.

Speaker 1: 26:07

Oh, it's an American can? They didn't listen to me.

Speaker 2: 26:10

Well, I told them it was gonna happen to them. I mean, they just didn't like that. Their partner is the one that created the problem, but it was gonna happen anyway. Okay, I mean I didn't do anything wrong. I literally told this large company what they should do. They said, nah, we're not gonna do that. Okay, somebody else is gonna do it. Anyway, chuck and Steve said, you wanna do it again? I had this stupidity say, yes, I'll do it. This was 95. And so we built what was called Dynagy Europe and that thing would be like become four times bigger than the British gas play. So I think, being at the right time, right place and being really dedicated to being really accurate and good at what you do, that's all it takes, jordan. Quite frankly, it's all it takes is just you know study. I mean really just be great, be understand your information.

Speaker 1: 27:19

I mean, yeah, and we all have to realize here it's directional awareness. So Gary could have sat there and been like yo, I've been at the company seven years, these guys above me aren't doing anything. I hate this. But instead he had this vision of I wanna go to Europe and run a group as soon as that opens up. Probably everyone else was like, oh, dude, do not send me to Europe. Like I do not wanna go there, and that awareness to go no, this isn't the opportunity I've been looking for.

Speaker 1: 27:42

I'm coming Like think about how many times in your life, whoever's listening right now, this has actually happened to you and you missed that opportunity because you weren't even looking Like the amount of times stuff is there and they're like I'm not ready, I don't know. Like it happens every single day to us where there's stuff there and we don't take the opportunity. Like even this interview I had somebody reach out. They're like do you know this guy? Like you should connect with him. I'm like, yes, yes, let's do it. And people don't take that opportunity and I wanna sit like, yes, gary did an incredible thing, but it's because he put himself there and he was open to these doors and these opportunities.

Speaker 2: 28:22

Yeah and look, this is a really good example of why you can't really rely on the people in your universe when you're growing up. If I would have gone to my mom and said, hey, I'm gonna go do this thing and learn, and what value of information does she have, like, how could she even help me in that decision? I mean, I had my own guys at Clearinghouse looking at me going dude, you crazy, like we're never gonna remember you Once you walk out this door. You're fucking gone, dude. That was like. This was like being a part of a professional football team on NFL day and you don't show up for the Super Bowl. They're like fuck off, see you later.

Speaker 2: 29:03

So for me it was extremely risky, but it was extremely risky for me to stay there. It was extremely risky for me to know this company is getting ready to go from 600 to 6,000. And they're not gonna hire me to run these 6,000. They're gonna go hire somebody from corporate. Because that's what happens when businesses become big they become more mature, more boring, more rules. You know why? Because that's what big organizations need. I mean, they do need that some more structure. And I just knew that I was kind of this guy that like I'd rather play for the B team and be on the damn game on the field every day. This is another mistake fucking people make. Dude, I wanna go to Harvard, I wanna go to Harvard. Awesome dude, you go to Harvard and you came out as middle of the tier. Why would you go to Brown, bro? And you end up at the top. Everybody cares whether it's Harvard, brown or Schmound, they don't care, but be at the top right. So I was never gonna get a top position at ExxonMobil.

Speaker 1: 30:10

Yeah, well, I mean, you're bringing up two major points here. One is that and this is one thing I've learned from in my life when you have a mentor, they don't have to be your mentor for everything.

Speaker 2: 30:21

So they can be your mentor, they should not be your mentor for everything and they should not be your mentor for long.

Speaker 1: 30:28

Outgrowing a mentor. That's interesting. You're growing, dude.

Speaker 2: 30:31

Yeah, if you're growing, your mentor should go dude, get the fuck away from me. Go get Elon to help you.

Speaker 1: 30:37

Now you've moved next level, because your mentors can only and I was explaining this to someone earlier today but people can only see where they're at, they can't see above. So for you they're like oh Gary, you're only the Texas oil guy or the Texas energy guy, you're not the global energy guy. You can't do that. And that happens over and over and over again. And we listen to these people because they're the quote unquote authority, but you're your own authority. You create your own life and you decide how you feel about life, and we can't just let people sit there and make us feel less then, because this person actually has a real insecurity about themselves.

Speaker 2: 31:19

Yeah, and everyone has insecurities about themselves. Everyone, even your mentors, right, Even your boss. I mean there's a lot of human issues that go on in corporations and how to maneuver through a career. I mean, I think career counseling in schools is so horrifically bad. I don't even know why. I'd say why you would even pay anyone to be a career counselor because they themselves don't have a proper career.

Speaker 1: 31:54

Once I realized this, I was like what am I doing here?

Speaker 2: 31:58

Like you're listening to someone that's never had a career. Like what are we?

Speaker 1: 32:02

learning Like this doesn't make any sense, and there's so many times where it's like go to the teacher or go to your boss, I'm like they don't know anything, how do I help them? I can't. I can't because I'm sitting there and it's not my fault, but it's just your place in this bubble and you feel less than, and it's just not true. It's just not true because all of these middle management people are just their figureheads, like they don't do it and no one does anything, and it's just. That's why I think your perspective of going global and understanding that big picture on all the industries you look at is so impressive, because you do that and then you bring it right down to the little guy. So it's the ability to go big and then bring it real small, just as I've been researching you because it's fascinating. There's very few people who can zoom out and see the big picture and it's missed so many times.

Speaker 2: 32:59

Yeah, I have. I mean, yeah, but I like the big picture. I've followed politics, history all my life. This thing about knowing self too is really, really important. It's as important my success in business I would attribute mostly to me being aware of who I am Good and bad. Like I have a lot of monster amount of flaws. I think I'm just human right, but like my character is such that I knew early on hey look, I'm probably not gonna ever work for Chevron. Yeah, and you know what that means. That means if you build a Chevron you're probably not gonna stay there forever, cause, like I don't even like building the Chevron.

Speaker 2: 33:50

See, once it gets like this last business, three or 400 people at Chargebacks. When they started introducing like there's a guy there chief of staff. Like chief of staff, dude, you're grossly overpaid for being a chief. Like all you do is run somebody's calendar, yeah, and now they're the president. Yeah, dude, he wasn't a chief of staff, he wasn't a good chief of staff. Now he's president. What these companies do is they keep giving people labels instead of money To make them feel good. Like Clearinghouse, this young company, they gave 16 vice president titles. One November, december I went into Berkshirem If you've ever seen this interview I did with Steve Berkshirem best interview I've ever done. He was my mentor and they give 16 vice president titles at Jordan. And I go to him and go hey, man, give you your title back. How about you give me another 50 grand? Because what they were doing was they were literally throwing titles out so they didn't have to make the bonuses.

Speaker 1: 34:54

Do you know John Sarasini? No, I don't know. You know, okay, he's this guy who's been running around Instagram, social media and he's 2000% rate. I can introduce you if you want, but he basically runs around and he literally built his brand off of this idea of like, take your title and shove it. I don't want it, I want a 2000% raise. And that's what he did. He built the life insurance, sold it, he was on the podcast and he's a really cool guy and people just resonate with that because it's like what are we doing? Like I don't need this fluff, like I don't want to get promoted, I don't want any of this.

Speaker 1: 35:30

Like I want what I really want, like, which is money and ability to make decision, and understanding and not having to be checked on all the time. Yeah, no, it's the real stuff. Yeah, absolutely, gary. So for you, I saw that you have a lot of stuff going on with your LinkedIn. You have mission quotes that you live by. What are some of these? What do you think about when you think, like when you wrote to I only engage with others of similar ethics, beliefs and operating basis. Stay away from hyper ego, centric control freaks who cannot stand for their others to shine. What ended up happening with that Like? What caused you to come up with that as one of your missions?

Speaker 2: 36:21

I've seen hundreds and hundreds, if not billions, of dollars. I mean, look, I've seen $200 million in this family alone. Yeah, be eviscerated, because I need to be in control. I don't think you expand. You don't scale trying to control every little item. You just don't. I don't think you scale trying to control every person's behavior in the group.

Speaker 2: 37:00

I think my job is to show up.

Speaker 2: 37:03

I remember my daughters one day made a comment to me. They said hey, why don't you show up on these conferences? There's 12 people in the room and y'all are talking for an hour and you only said like 10 words and I think their perspective was well, in order to be a leader, you got to be talking all the time and actually I think I need to listen and I need to make room for you to shine and I need to, like, put you in a position. See, my career really is a lesson to others, because I don't have the resume to be here, like, if you look at this on a piece of paper, neither me nor my brother should be here and we took extremely different paths. I'm not here to talk about him, but it is kind of weird that two people came out from the same house and dude, like we took massively different, they were literally juxtaposed to each other and the amount of people that were in your position who probably didn't accomplish anything, let alone you guys who accomplished so much.

Speaker 2: 38:13

All my buddies from energy. I had a phone call just the other day. They said dude, how much money do you have? And I said what do you mean, dude? He said how are you getting all these interviews? Yeah, I said well, dude, it has nothing to do with money, yeah, Zero. And they're like what do you mean? Well, one, I actually can talk about a broad number of subjects. And the second thing is I see the mainstream media being disintermediated by decentralized technology and if you can't see that and take advantage of it, stick your beak into this change. They think it's like why, How'd you get by that? Call them, Email them. Hey, want to do an interview, yeah, yeah. And people, it's not any more difficult than that.

Speaker 1: 39:03

And people, just because it's a fear of rejection, fear of failure, because they're just like I'm the energy guy, I don't know anything else, and that's the identity that they hold. So it's these things.

Speaker 2: 39:12

Well, that's what they locked into, though, see, they made that decision Of course, it can all be changed at any moment. Yeah, like people made fun of me for being getting bored. I hear people say, hey, look, that guy gets bored really quick. Most people I know have the attention of a fucking nap. Seriously, the smartest people I know do not need three hour conversations on an idea.

Speaker 1: 39:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:40

Okay, like I think Elon bought. I think Elon probably thought about buying Twitter for about an hour.

Speaker 1: 39:47

I don't even know if he thought about it. He just posted it. I'm buying it. Well, I know he's like I'm coming.

Speaker 2: 39:52

I'm reading the book right now. It's fascinating, fascinating story. Anyway, I just, you know, to me the boredom thing is, it's a little bit of a message for me it's not a bad thing anymore, it's. I'm a little bored with this and then I start getting into trouble, I start doing things that you know are suboptimal, because I'm wanting the excitement and all I really need to do is switch gears and go study something that's fresh and new to me, maybe tangential, okay, but it's fresh and new and it's deep enough to hold my attention span. So I think the boredom, if you're bored out there, don't shame yourself or embrace the boredom. Ask yourself why. And if you're not being challenged enough, then I don't think anyone's challenged. Very few people are challenged to max. I'm not, yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:53

And there there's so like we just go through this experience so many times where we don't. We've been conditioned throughout our life where we have all these words, like the example learning. We relate that to school, but we really know that learning is having conversations with a wide variety of people, learning about different industries, different areas, and it doesn't actually mean that I have to go take a test. And there's a lot of words that have been associated because they've been so conditioned to us, like being bored is bad and it's like dude. 95% of people are bored, like there's a lot of different areas.

Speaker 1: 41:28

So one of the one of the quotes I really liked that you put it up was every plan fails at first contact with the enemy, and I think this is so good because there's so many times where we don't understand how many, how much effort it really is going to take. You know what I mean. There's so many times where we just think, oh, I know this guy and this guy and it's going to work out perfectly and that could be your customer. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 41:59

Yeah, I think you know that, that that quote came from one of the leading German military minds in history. I can't remember the guy's name, I probably can't pronounce it and his deal was hey, you can plan all you want, dude, but when you smack, as soon as you, you know, light up the artillery, everything changes. And I think I think it was Tyson who said you know.

Speaker 1: 42:28

Everyone's got a plan, till they get punched in the face.

Speaker 2: 42:30

Yeah, they did. And I think you know I wish someone would have taught that course to me in school. See, to me that would have been a good business course. Dude, every plan fails with first contact with the enemy. Every plan. You know the other one you'll really dig.

Speaker 2: 42:45

I was listening to a general who spent a tremendous amount of time training the seals. Yeah, there's a particular training program with the Navy Seals that it's like in the middle of it and no one passes this test. But they make you get in your, your, your ribbons and your badges and your, you know all your uniform and you're going to go out that day and you're going to be in the sand, in the water and and you get, you get a. You have to come out in perfect dress. Everything is smooth, no crinkles, no wrinkles, no, anything. No one ever passes.

Speaker 2: 43:23

And the guy looked at the general one day and said hey, you're just bullshit, dude, no one passes this damn test. You make me go in this wool thing, spend 24 hours. Everyone fails. That I got. I got sand up my ass, I got it in my armpits. And the general just looked at me and said well, perhaps you don't understand the purpose of this? Yeah, no one's ever passed this and the message is you can show up in your uniform, have your gun loaded, everything perfect, and still get a bullet in your fucking head and, like business guys don't realize that, hey, dude, all plans can get fucked up, dude, but market you, like most people, lose building businesses. Yeah, most people, like 90% of them, lose building businesses. And the gift for me has been I have literally looked at every business I've ever built as a military exercise man.

Speaker 2: 44:24

I could see it. It's a war event. Like I'm, I'm going to get shot. Yeah, I'm going to get a 50 cal. You know, visa is going to blow a 50 cal Right by my head and there's half my face. I'm not going to die, but half my face is going to get ripped off and they don't even know it. Dude, Visa doesn't even know it.

Speaker 1: 44:43

It's just because you saw that at such a young age, where the whole industry flipped like that and it was like what new rules? Like what do you mean? Rule change? I don't know what. You know what that means. So, as rules change, that means we have different ideas and different perspectives. So for you, what are there's rules around money? There's ways we think about money. There's there's other ideas. There's crypto, bitcoin. Like how are the rules changing around money Because it's happening all so fast?

Speaker 2: 45:13

You want to get me excited now, huh.

Speaker 1: 45:14

I know I saw you perk up. You're like like it's game time.

Speaker 2: 45:18

Well, I'll tell you what right now, because I don't have much time we have. But this Bitcoin, crypto, blockchain thing, um, let me. Let me just back up one second, because once you realize that change can impact your business plans and that change always occurs we just went through that, right, joe Je stuffssaw that Somewhere about 25 or 26 years old, I figured out, hey, if there is change, what if you could help excite and make the change? Probably around when I went to London, I'm like, okay, last time I was an effect of the wave of change. How about this time? I create the wave and that's why, like, I was so massively successful in London, but I had already been to the World Series, dude, like I knew how it was going to roll out.

Speaker 2: 46:16

Didn't know for sure, but my confidence level I remember a guy in England 20 years older than me. He's like, dude, I don't believe a word you're saying, but, my God, you believe, your belief in yourself is really compelling. He was staggered man. He was like I do not believe what you say you're going to do. You can do, but I really believe you believe that you can do it. And he lost his job a year later and I stayed there another nine years and made a shitload of money. So if you go into it like a war event, you're always pretty nervous about what you're doing or at least I was nervous about what I was doing and always just being aware of everything around me.

Speaker 2: 47:01

I think situational awareness is extremely important in business, and it's something that founders and CEOs don't do as much as I think they should do. And situational awareness to me means, let's say, you're really heavy in tech, but that doesn't give you an excuse not to understand about geopolitics or macro issues or what your competitor raised money at. Well, I'm a geek. Well, dude, then maybe you shouldn't be the CEO. Maybe you should be top geek and let somebody like me who's used to carrying a weapon with them and having people rip their heads off, maybe that guy needs to be your leader. It's just a different. These are different skills, man, and I think most people don't. They have a good idea and they immediately think they need to be the CEO of the company.

Speaker 2: 47:53

When I went to London, they put a boss over me. It was the right thing to do, dude. Okay, I didn't like it, but it was the right thing to do. It literally allowed me to go do my job and Jake did all the politics. Jake went shooting and hunting with the guys but, dude, I had my head down listening to the rail. When you're a little tiny guy like me, you need to get your head next to the train track and go oh shit, man, she's coming. Dawg she's coming, let's get ready. And every time I took my head off that train the sound, that sense of a marketplace I'd lose money, man.

Speaker 1: 48:39

I love the fact that you brought up, instead of being scared of change like a majority of society, you're like I'm coming in, I am the change, and I think that's so empowering, because there's so many of us who just do change happening. I don't know what to do and everybody I've ever heard is like just go with the change, you'll figure it out. You're like no, I am the change, I'm coming, I'm looking for change, I want to make change, and I think that's awesome because it really Well, especially when I realized, ooh, I'm really comfortable, I'm really comfortable in this hurricane of change.

Speaker 2: 49:12

Right, I'm more nimble, In fact. Oh gosh, I don't really want to work for these big companies. I actually want to beat them up because I don't fit there. And it's not about me not fitting there. I know why I don't fit there. You guys are too comfy. You're comfy and you're not even going to see me coming now, and this is very, very important for the conversation where we're headed, which is technology. Once you see this happen and it's not with technology, it's just good old fashioned supply and demand I look at the technology that's going on right now and go how is the US government going to pivot from picks and shovels of pencils and spreadsheets that don't even zero out to blockchain, where there's massive amounts of data, digits, trillions and trillions of digits of information that needed to be stored, tracked, traced, monetized, accounted for, analyzed?

Speaker 2: 50:18

Amico is not ready for this. Exxon's not ready for this. Think about this. Name me a top 10. All produced, Everyone just failed the answer. You guys all thought of Exxon, Mobile Shell. They don't even make the top 10 list. Dude, None of them make the top 10 list.

Speaker 2: 50:37

It is Russia, Iraq, Iran, the United States. These are corporations, entire sovereign countries that are in control of energy supplies today. So we've had a massive dynamic shift Everyone even thinks about. Wow, never thought about that. You have NATO that's sitting on top of the Eurozone. I think the Eurozone is getting ready to just fall apart. Then you've got to go well, if Eurozone falls apart, NATO has got to fall apart, because that's the only thing holding. Anyway, you're sure seeing all these pieces and going, wow, there's nothing but change, there is no stability. The only stability is that most people your parents are going to probably be so broke that you're going to have to bury them. That's what happens every year in America, man, Because of inflation, because people didn't make the right investment decisions, because people are very uneducated, if not miseducated, on money and power. That's what I'm really excited about this world that we're moving into, because I do not believe in any corporation. I don't believe any human being is well situated for the change that's getting ready to occur.

Speaker 2: 51:56

We could spend an hour and a half. I could just walk you through the dynamics that this planet has never seen before. We have trillionaires sitting in the wings that nobody even talks about. We have multi-billionaires that are worth more than countries, multiple countries. We have changes going on that are so radical how anyone can keep up with this. I think this is the age for the most nimble risk-taking hey, I'm going to get in there and shake it up, type thing as long as you're willing to be flexible and be willing to pivot. Nimble once in a thousand year event. Oh wow, Once in a thousand. Greatest transfer of wealth and power the world has ever seen. It's all happening right this second. That's why I remain fairly young in my thought process, because it is so bloody exciting. I didn't watch the Super Bowl. Fuck the Super Bowl. It's boring compared to what I do. Boring dude, Really boring.

Speaker 1: 53:17

I think that's a super important thing, because most people think to keep up, they have to know what's going on in sports or they have to know these stats. It's like, no, you need to build your own stats, you need to focus on your own game. You got to build that up and make it exciting enough to where you're like. I don't want to do that, I don't like that activity. That's not fun for me anymore. You're going to change and you're going to grow. Gary, you got me pumped up. Where are we going? Where are we going with this rocket ship?

Speaker 2: 53:45

Well, we're going to digitize Planet Earth now. That is what's happening right now. That is the biggest piece of where we're headed. We're moving from an analog age, from the eight track tape. We will never go back to the eight track tape, ever. I mean, think about it this way I have 40,000 pieces of music and video on my phone. Apple created the iPod and I haven't listened to Apple music in five years. How the hell do I have 40,000 pieces of music and video on my phone? The very maker who created the entire distributed music freaking hardware and I'm using Spotify sitting on Apple's hardware. I'm paying for three or four of these users to give me music Penetration into this market.

Speaker 2: 54:49

If you need more clarity of what's happening, you didn't even hear the word spot a five, five years ago. Yeah, okay, I mean, twitter just started charging and people are like oh wow, people are paying. People were surprised that people were going to pay for Twitter. We have an entire Bitcoin crypto industry that right now is sitting paralyzed. This will make a great, great, great little burner quote here. It's literally sitting paralyzed after 26 days of an ETF launch, terrified dude of what's getting ready to happen in this market.

Speaker 2: 55:31

Not one human being has been studying crypto in the last 10 years, expected what's happening in the last three weeks? Not one. Everyone is shocked. They're like, oh my God, dude, this is a flow of money the likes we have never seen before.

Speaker 2: 55:46

I thought crypto was like nobody knows anything about crypto. Well, $500 million flowed into an ETF yesterday. Yeah, okay, that was one day 500. Like, they were expecting 500, a billion over like the year. At this rate, we'll be at $100 billion of inflows into Bitcoin by the end of the year If this were to keep up. I mean even 100 million a day. You've got 180 days left. That's $180 billion, man, keep in mind. Okay, last time they did an ETF like this, it was about a billion dollars. After a year, it was gold.

Speaker 2: 56:29

So this is like stunning, okay, and what it's telling me is that the three industries I've been in, I can honestly say that I grossly underestimated what we could have done. And now I'm going back and interviewing people that I've known for 30 years going hey, steve, we built a $30 billion business. What are you doing now? Oh, I'm chairman of the board of Williams Energy. Well, are there still opportunities, gary? We thought there was only 10 years of opportunities 40 years later. Okay, he's like we've only touched the service dude. He literally shared a story. He said we went and bought. We just went and bought a company for $25 million and we made $250 million in six months.

Speaker 1: 57:30

Oh, these folks.

Speaker 2: 57:32

He's like can you believe this shit's still going on? Okay, so 25 million dude made a quarter of a billion. Okay, yeah, so we have opportunities or staggering out there and it just needs a lot of minds. And I think that once you start to unravel this, once you pull the string on this, you start to realize how messed up the analog age is.

Speaker 1: 57:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 57:59

This analog age has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. We don't need Excel spreadsheets anymore. Yeah, okay, we're not going to be sufficient to track what we have, because we have an immense amount of energy at extremely cheap prices. Okay, cheapest energy prices in the world going lower, by the way, I mean natural gas is at $1.63 today. I started my career it was at $1.63. You got oil at $72 and ain't going to see 120 ever, maybe for a war, but it's going to go to 40, if not 30. Why? Because technology, man.

Speaker 1: 58:43

Yeah, the efficiencies.

Speaker 2: 58:45

Technology efficiencies. People are starting to look at things better. If you can measure something, you can improve it. Yes, right. So, like I think energy is mispriced, grossly mis. Well, I think everything is mispriced. Okay, I think this adage about Wall Street is efficient and it makes everything work. Well, bitcoin just moved from $25,000 in two and a half months to $52,000. Where was that pricing dude? Because it's either priced wrong it's absolutely priced wrong today, but it was most certainly priced wrong three months ago.

Speaker 1: 59:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 59:28

Anyway, it's just, the world is both fragmentating and also being connected in a very and I think that the chairs are being moved around the table. Also. We start doing things like and this is where businesses? This is where, I think, if somebody's not careful and all they do is read one source of media, they become propaganda puppets Instead of looking at the real picture. When the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up the first day, I was like okay, well, the CIA blew those up. Now, nine months later, people are like of course the CIA blew them up, dude, they had to remove Germany from buying energy from Russia a day after they did the embargo. You can't have Russia being embargoed and then all of your NATO countries are still buying energy from them.

Speaker 1: 1:00:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:28

And then you can't nuke Germany, so let's just go below the pipeline up and remove this as a problem. This is an issue. However, now Germany's buying energy from LNG and Lake Charles Louisiana and Putin's probably going to look at this and go okay, I just had my pipes blown up. I guess I'm going to have to mine Bitcoin in Siberia. Well, guess what? His cost to mine Bitcoin in Siberia versus Germany is about 10 cents. Once he moves all that shit all the way to Germany, it's at three bucks dude. So if you just blew his straws up his pipelines up to get it to market, he's going to look and go. Let's see, I need a data center sitting in a cold environment next to an oil well and a gas well of which I'm extremely long. Okay, in order for me to get my gas to China or to Europe, I have to transport it for two or three or four dollars. Hell, he'll just mine Bitcoin it and no one can control him. He's turned natural gas into a digital currency that he can hold on his balance sheet, or a digital money, and he can move that currency around if he wants to talk to China and say hey, china, here's a trillion dollars on the USB port, poof Done.

Speaker 2: 1:01:53

We were headed there, dude. We were absolutely headed there. We were headed to a world where energy and money and finance are all very, very, very connected and it's going to be a geocentric kind of landscape change about where the power lies and we are like in the first half ending of a 10 or 15 inning game. This is a career maker right here. Okay yeah, this is where you can. Literally no high school education required. You know what? We've never been here before. No one knows anything about where we're headed.

Speaker 1: 1:02:32

Yeah, and that's one of the reasons that I was so excited to have you on, because you're a combination of these different industries, which poises you for a great understanding of all of this, because a lot of the crypto space is very not the best players and you're very transparent, and you're the complete opposite of that with node 40 and everything you're doing there. So I just think it's incredible.

Speaker 2: 1:02:58

Well, it's the conviction level. It's not really see, I can't tell you exactly where it's going, but on my conviction level of one, the volume of which it's going to come and the amount of change that we will not anticipate. That's why I'm looking at this ETF thing and the price is going. Oh, canary in a coal mine, dude. I've seen this story before. Okay, now if me and Steve look back 30 years later and go, wow, the energy complex really could have done more. No one's expecting this, dude.

Speaker 2: 1:03:39

See, commoditizing energy told me a lot, right, if I could turn. There's 111 billion cubic feet a day in the United States supply chain and natural gas. When I started my career, there was 11 billion cubic feet a day, wow. Everyone said that if we turn the market into what we turned it into, which is a short term market traded on paper, there'd be no investment. Really, there's 111 billion cubic feet a day. There's LNG terminals everywhere. There's refining stations. We're the largest fossil fuel energy producer on the planet, dude, self-sustaining. Don't need anything from anyone. Do not import one unit of energy on a 30-day fucking market. Everyone said people were going to die If you can do that with fossil fuel, which defines whether a country is first, second or third world? Dude, we're definitely doing this with money, yeah, currency and little accounting digits, dude, they're just digits. How much cash do you have in your pocket right now? Zero problem.

Speaker 1: 1:04:46

I found a dollar this morning.

Speaker 2: 1:04:49

You're already a digital guy.

Speaker 1: 1:04:51

I mean everybody is, because cash isn't getting accepted anywhere. People are literally getting to the point where they don't even want the cash. That's right, Because it causes people stealing and it causes a lot of like. It's just like do the transaction, do this and it's easier, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:05:08

Yeah, gary. So it's fascinating man. It's a great time to be alive.

Speaker 1: 1:05:15

Absolutely, and you are incredible. And I want to do a second one because I know we can go another hour and a half easily. So, gary, what do you want to leave the people with and where can they find you?

Speaker 2: 1:05:27

Well, the thing I would leave people with is this is the greatest. Look, I'm 65 years old. This is the greatest opportunity in the history of mankind. I have never seen anything like this. I also think it's an opportunity for people to reposition themselves on the world stage People like you and me, like our middle class, lower middle class. That I can change the trajectory of my entire lineage, of my family's lineage, and at least put them in a position where they have a better chance than most.

Speaker 2: 1:06:10

I would say to everyone is don't. If you're lazy and you're bored and you're not really excited about life, I would say, prepare yourself to live in misery for most of the rest of your life. And the reason is the change is getting ready to take place is so substantial, you're going to get left behind. This is not a 1990 internet thing. This is now getting ready to get very, very real, where large people in the 30 to 50 year bracket are going to wake up one morning and no longer have a career and will never ever have a career anywhere because they didn't study.

Speaker 2: 1:06:59

What's happening, and I'm certain of right that technology is going to displace a lot of people. Now. I'm very excited about that because I think that we spend too much time doing stupid shit and that if, if, if I don't do stupid shit that like owning cars and having debt and paying debt and colleges and cleaning the floor I mean I think some of the cleaning floor is probably good for you, you know it's good for, but I just think that we are getting ready to you. Have technology not displace the McDonald's hamburger flipper. That's not the way economics work. Robotics will displace the most expensive things in the world doctors, surgeries, medicine.

Speaker 1: 1:07:59

Yeah, you'd have to show the Hamburg flippers to get one surgeon and it's like get rid of 10 surgeons and move on Totally.

Speaker 2: 1:08:07

You know the co-pilot sitting in the airplane like he's not needed. That's a waste of $200,000 a year. So if you just see the changes happening, all you have to do is get on Twitter and X and realize whoa media is changing. So I would stick my head into the future and get out of the past, and the way you do that is you look around the environment you're in and say, hey, look, or the people I'm hanging around helping me move into the future, or they hold me back into the past. If you're worried about how much money you're making today and you can't pay the bills, you have no choice Now you have to actually study the future, because this is going to get more difficult for living comfortably in an environment that, I think, gets more difficult to be prosperous and to live without fear. Yeah, that's that's what I say. Man and read, dude. I think reading is really really valuable. We have YouTube now you can literally read and not have to read a book. You can learn, and there's some just beautiful Like.

Speaker 2: 1:09:23

I have met more wonderful people through crypto, Bitcoin, x and this intermediation of media this whole little group. They're really wonderful people. So, as an older guy, you know most older people, their, their communities get, get smaller and smaller. I'm having 400 people over my house in March for a birthday party You're welcome to come and they will literally be from all parts of the world and they're all coming through media, energy, payments, crypto dude from all over the world. I mean like it's incredible, it's not just one little industry anymore. And so for me that's like wow, I get to make a lot of high quality friends. Yeah, that's awesome, dude, I get and I get to do business with a bunch of high quality friends. This is cool and make a shitload of money, dude.

Speaker 1: 1:10:20

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:10:21

Why not it would be a sin not to enjoy life.

Speaker 1: 1:10:28

And I think the way you view it and the way you're looking at it and the way people see it, you really do understand that, like you are living an incredible life, you're living your best life and you're happy about it and you're excited, and I think it's inspiring and people need more of that around, so this is awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:10:45

Yeah, I mean, look, if I can earn a living and have fun, I'm probably going to be better at it than most guys, absolutely Because they're not having fun. Dude.

Speaker 1: 1:10:56

Most people, when they're forced to do it, they never produce and never produces.

Speaker 2: 1:11:01

And that's the real message your peeps need to hear. Do not get a career that you don't. It doesn't mean you have to be passionate and have an orgasm all day long about the business. Okay, Like there's times when I hate it, but if you're successful enough, you hire people around and you go hey, you do the accounting, you do that, you do the HR. Let me do what I'm doing, but to me, I've never called it working. Yeah, Literally. I don't think I've ever had a job, Not really.

Speaker 1: 1:11:34

Well, I think that again comes back to the words that we use and how we phrase ourselves. When people do that I'm working and I've had a long day and I can't be with my family, it's like no, no, I had a great day and it flew by because I had all these incredible conversations and I can't wait to talk to people tomorrow or see who I'm talking with tomorrow, like that's what it needs to be, like, not this constant yeah, no, the words we use are huge.

Speaker 2: 1:11:59

I agree, I agree.

Speaker 1: 1:12:01

Gary, you're incredible. I really appreciate it. Where can people find you? Where can they learn more about node 40? All that, oh let's see.

Speaker 2: 1:12:10

Node 40 is a tax accounting forensics firm that I invested in a couple of years ago. It's going to be like charged back to 911. I'm so convicted over it. We're raising. I think we're raising $8 million right now. That'll be the last round we raise. I think that total raise will be less than $16, $17 million to build a half a billion to $2 billion business in three or four years.

Speaker 2: 1:12:39

It's absolutely essential part of the whole crypto digital asset world to be. There's just not the tools to monitor and measure crypto Absolutely From the old world. So at Gary Cardone at X or at Gary Cardone at YouTube, I do a lot of stuff there. I'm trying to expand the, trying to interview a lot of financial people and bring them together, kind of bridge old world and new world. So the messaging we're talking about right here, because most people aren't going to hey, where do I go to meet these people? Well, follow me and then you'll meet all these people that, like I'm starting to call out, who can communicate to the world in a really logical manner without you do not need to understand the complexities of blockchain and ASIC computing and hash rate Like this is ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 1:13:33

Okay, no one need. I'm 110 miles an hour down the damn highway in my Range Rover. I don't know everything about how it works. Okay, I get on my airplane. Dude, I have no fucking clue how the airplane works, okay, but I get on it anyway. Then I get into Bitcoin. I have to understand the hash rate on the dip. I'm like bro, you don't even understand how JP Morgan runs their bank, so why are you asking so many dumb questions instead of basic, fundamental questions? I'm trying to bring people together. That just simplifies it.

Speaker 1: 1:14:08

Well, that and that's so powerful and that's why you guys definitely got to go follow Gary, because he's doing it for free. One, like it's online. You can get the information if you want to continue learning. It's fascinating. And then two, it's like I don't. You don't need to know all the details, you need to understand the big picture, because that's a different skill, set in its own capacity, where it's like understanding it and then giving out the information a very simple way, where it's like I didn't ask 27 questions. I asked one question and I presented one answer. Most of the time, people can't do that, but Gary you were incredible.

Speaker 2: 1:14:42

One thing, just to give you an example. Like last night I heard a guy pose a question to 600 people hey, what if? What if the power goes out? Man, what am I going to do with my Bitcoin? I mean, the power goes out, oh, my God, you know, and like, I'm like, bro, that costs me 10,000 Bitcoin.

Speaker 2: 1:15:03

Okay, I could have bought 10,000 Bitcoin at $3 and I didn't because I sat there going well, if the power goes out, I want to build a, get my wallet, and I just needed somebody to let me. Bro, if the power goes out, the only cash you have is shit in your pocket, because your credit cards aren't going to work either. The ACH isn't going to work, the wire transfer is not going to work, your phone is not going to work. I could have bought 10,000 Bitcoin at $3, dude, and I didn't because I was like power shortage, I mean, it would be an issue, but so with my credit card, we don't never think about that.

Speaker 2: 1:15:43

See the dumb question. You don't sit there and go shit. I'm not going to bring my credit card today in the car because the power might go out, right, dumb question. Anyway, that's what I'm trying to do is like bridge the gap, make the learning a little bit less heavy. Yeah, people can start making decisions right now about like this is a window of opportunity. There are going to be millions of people that look back on this and go, whoa, I did not know I could have done that. I'm trying to spread the word because I'm not going to gain anything by it. Dude, I'm still going to have my Bitcoin, but, like my brother is going to get left behind because he's asking too many dumb questions.

Speaker 1: 1:16:28

Absolutely no. But it's like, guys, you got to realize that Gary's still convinced of it on this and he didn't get it at $3. He probably bought it at a much higher multiple than that maybe 300, 500, 3000, 30,000. It doesn't matter. You can't have that backwards vision. You got to know that it's coming and there's conviction there. And, Gary, you're awesome. I really appreciate you. Good to meet you, buddy.