# The Realistic Way To Get RICH In The New Era Of AI (Start With $50!) | Troy Millings (EYL)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlyzykRgmrE

[00:00] Think about that. Like you're talking
[00:01] about a guy [music] who was a phys-ed
[00:02] teacher. He turned $100,000 into roughly
[00:05] 1.3 million. Wow. In 10 [music] months,
[00:08] and I never looked back. I never looked
[00:09] back. One decision, one piece of
[00:12] information can change everything.
[00:14] Artificial [music]
[00:15] intelligence. You called it the greatest
[00:17] wealth transfer of our time.
[00:19] >> We're on the cusp of everything
[00:20] changing, from [music] daily tasks to
[00:22] mundane tasks, to how we go to work. If
[00:24] we're not part of the conversation, if
[00:26] we're left out from a financial
[00:27] standpoint, from a technological
[00:28] standpoint, where do we end up? The goal
[00:31] is let's create a thousand millionaires.
[00:32] But what if I only have $50? $50 is more
[00:35] than enough. For the person that's
[00:36] listening, that's working that 9-to-5
[00:38] job, what in your mind is step one?
[00:40] >> I think it's an important question, and
[00:42] I'm going to answer it with the greatest
[00:44] breakdown that I could.
[00:50] Troy, here's where I wanted to begin.
[00:51] >> Yeah.
[00:53] Cuz you and I, we spoke a week ago. And
[00:55] I asked you, I was like, what is the
[00:57] topic that you're just like obsessed
[00:59] with? Like it's the it's the biggest
[01:01] opportunity that you see right now.
[01:04] And you gave such a quick answer.
[01:06] >> Mhm. That was artificial intelligence.
[01:09] >> Yeah.
[01:10] And so,
[01:12] you said it consumes most of your time,
[01:13] it consumes most of your day.
[01:16] Why is that?
[01:18] Uh because it's the greatest opportunity
[01:20] of this generation.
[01:22] Um we've been lucky enough to live
[01:24] through a revolution. The technological
[01:26] one. Um all I all the '80s babies, uh we
[01:29] lived through the the expansion of of
[01:32] what we now know as the internet. Uh the
[01:34] personal compute. We lived through it.
[01:36] Uh and we're at the the cusp of another
[01:39] revolution, which is artificial
[01:40] intelligence. Uh and it's very rare that
[01:42] that happens.
[01:44] There there's there's a generation that
[01:45] had the Industrial Revolution, that
[01:46] changed the workforce,
[01:48] and how we operated. In fact, some of
[01:50] the things we do now are kind of
[01:51] antiquated, and still resemble the
[01:53] Industrial Revolution, especially
[01:54] schools, when you think of everybody
[01:57] going to the same place, a building,
[01:59] everybody going in at the same time,
[02:01] bells ringing, you moving from place to
[02:03] place, right? And then at the end of the
[02:06] day a bell rings and you go home and you
[02:08] wake up and do the same thing again.
[02:10] And it feels very industrialized, like
[02:13] factory style. Um and so people lived
[02:15] through that um the information uh uh
[02:18] age, which is technology advanced in the
[02:21] '90s and early 2000s, and now we're
[02:24] here. And
[02:26] this one will be the greatest change
[02:29] that we've seen maybe in human kind.
[02:32] And
[02:33] I thought that and then I heard
[02:35] validation from some of the the greatest
[02:37] minds, Jensen Huang of Nvidia,
[02:39] um
[02:40] you know, Bill Gates, who was
[02:42] responsible for a lot of that, him and
[02:44] his team at Microsoft, a lot of that
[02:47] revolution in terms of technology. He
[02:49] spoke recently and said that
[02:51] this is the greatest technology in in
[02:54] the history of his life.
[02:55] And so when a a guy like that who had
[02:58] such a major role and impact inside of
[03:00] technology says that it it weighs heavy.
[03:03] And so that's why
[03:04] you know, I'm looking at it as the
[03:06] opportunity that it is and and trying to
[03:09] encourage people to look at it the same
[03:11] um from a number of standpoints. Number
[03:13] one, how can we use the technology to
[03:16] our advantage? How can we create and
[03:18] innovate inside that technology to our
[03:20] advantage? And obviously how can we
[03:22] invest to use, you know, that technology
[03:26] to help build our our wealth and and
[03:28] build our brokerage accounts. Yeah.
[03:30] You know, I I I want people to feel it
[03:31] because you called it the greatest
[03:34] wealth transfer of our time.
[03:35] >> Mhm.
[03:36] And so if someone listening
[03:39] at home is able to do some of the things
[03:42] or implement some of the things that
[03:43] we're going to talk about in the next
[03:44] 80, 90 minutes, like they smartly
[03:47] participate in this transfer,
[03:51] what is going to be the impact in their
[03:53] lives? Like what is it going to mean for
[03:55] them and their family? I think
[03:56] everything changes. We're on the cusp of
[03:58] everything changing
[04:00] um from daily tasks to mundane tasks to
[04:03] how we go to work. I think how
[04:06] uh education looks, how healthcare
[04:07] looks, all of that is on the drawing
[04:09] board for change and
[04:12] it's an adaptation that we need to get
[04:14] familiar with uh cuz it's going to
[04:16] happen whether we like it or not. And so
[04:19] uh we I just had a call you know right
[04:20] before I walked in here about
[04:22] how can we turn the mundane thing into
[04:25] something that's not part of our daily
[04:26] life?
[04:27] Right? How many emails are you
[04:28] answering? I just spoke to a woman who
[04:30] says she runs a business. Think about
[04:32] this. She runs a business and she hasn't
[04:34] answered an email herself in 65 days.
[04:38] Wow.
[04:39] 65 That's 2 months of not answering
[04:42] emails because she's prompted her agent
[04:45] to answer emails in the structure that
[04:47] she likes
[04:48] to prompt or in the manner that she
[04:51] likes, but also to remind her that she
[04:52] got the email and then send it to her
[04:54] assistants to put any one email that is
[04:57] high importance at the top of the
[05:00] forefront of her text messages. So it's
[05:02] automated. Now, we're used to the age of
[05:05] hey
[05:06] I get a letter in the mail, right? Then
[05:08] we moved to having emails. Now we have
[05:10] agentic AI that's telling us what's
[05:13] happening in our emails. And so we get a
[05:15] couple things back. Number one, time. We
[05:17] get convenience and we get efficiency.
[05:19] So that's three things. But that That's
[05:21] where we're headed. And education will
[05:23] be the same thing.
[05:25] Like I I just had this this this talk
[05:27] um with principals and superintendents
[05:29] about the way school structure will
[05:32] change.
[05:33] Because it won't be about how much you
[05:35] know, it'll be how fast can you learn.
[05:39] And what will you do with the speed at
[05:41] which you're learning?
[05:43] Right? Because if I have an agent that
[05:44] is teaching me
[05:46] and tutoring me 2 hours a day. Do I need
[05:49] to be in school for 7 hours?
[05:52] Right? Do I have to go to college for 4
[05:53] years to get a degree? Mhm. Right? I
[05:55] don't know if we have that amount of
[05:57] time at our hands at the speed
[05:59] technology is moving. And so that
[06:00] changes, healthcare changes. When we
[06:03] talk about
[06:04] you know, I try to get an appointment,
[06:06] it's going to take me 4 months.
[06:08] Well, why?
[06:09] There there has to be There's a
[06:10] bottleneck happening somewhere
[06:13] that an agent will figure out and
[06:15] expedite that.
[06:16] How we're going to treat disease and
[06:18] medicine, that will change. And so
[06:20] healthcare will change. People are going
[06:22] to live longer.
[06:23] Well, what do we do? Because we've
[06:25] planned our whole lives that you're
[06:27] middle age at 35
[06:29] or 40.
[06:30] Well, what happens when people live to
[06:31] 150? Yeah. Right? What does
[06:34] quote unquote social security look like?
[06:36] That will change. So all these things
[06:38] are happening in our lives right now
[06:40] that are going to look very different in
[06:42] the next 10 to 15 years. In fact, they
[06:44] said that the person or people
[06:47] who are going to live to 150 have
[06:49] They've already been born. And so now
[06:50] Wow.
[06:52] Think about that.
[06:53] >> Yeah.
[06:55] you question everything. Am I at middle
[06:57] age at 40?
[06:58] Do I want to live to 100? Right? This
[07:00] This might be optionality.
[07:02] But it also becomes a bit scary in a
[07:06] sense.
[07:08] Right? Because the people who are able
[07:09] to do that
[07:11] most times will have capital.
[07:14] Right? So they have the the the capital
[07:16] to have the technology
[07:18] or use the specialist to their advantage
[07:20] and so they stay alive longer. What
[07:22] about the people who don't? Mhm. And so
[07:24] now there's a have and have not. That's
[07:27] why that greatest transfer of wealth
[07:29] talk conversation like that we were
[07:31] talking about last week
[07:33] is vitally important. If we're not part
[07:34] of the conversation, if we're left out
[07:36] from a financial standpoint, from uh
[07:38] technological standpoint,
[07:40] where where do we end up?
[07:43] That's why these conversations have to
[07:44] be had. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Even
[07:46] you you speak about it with so with like
[07:47] an energy and like a a passion
[07:50] and you say uh
[07:52] you know, like if we're left out. And I
[07:54] can I can tell that's like something
[07:55] personal to you.
[07:56] Um
[07:58] how would you describe the person that
[08:00] you serve? Like when you say if we're
[08:02] left out,
[08:03] >> Yeah. who who are you referring to? I
[08:05] talk to a community that has been
[08:07] underrepresented,
[08:09] overlooked, and undervalued.
[08:12] So, if you fit in those three
[08:13] categories, that's who we're talking to.
[08:16] Um
[08:17] and that that comes from being in
[08:19] education
[08:20] and wanting to make sure that everybody
[08:22] is represented represented. Uh people
[08:26] would fight for equality. I was always
[08:27] like, "Yeah, we're never going to be
[08:29] equal."
[08:30] But we can fight for equity.
[08:32] Let's do that. That becomes a bigger
[08:34] mission.
[08:35] And so, those are the people that we
[08:36] fight for on a daily basis. We did it in
[08:38] in finance um
[08:41] in a way that nobody had ever seen.
[08:44] The guys that had information were
[08:46] wearing sweatshirts, wearing Tims,
[08:48] wearing Jordans, wearing jeans,
[08:50] but we had the knowledge. And we spoke
[08:53] to people who often
[08:55] felt like they weren't part of the
[08:57] conversation. Like like that financial
[08:59] jargon, those big words, and
[09:02] what are they even saying? What are
[09:03] those things that are scrolling across
[09:04] the screen? Let's slow down. Let's break
[09:06] that down. Let's decode it. Like Jay-Z's
[09:09] one of my favorite artists. He had that
[09:11] book Decoded. I was like, "This is
[09:12] great." He decoded his lyrics. I'm like,
[09:14] "We can do that for finance."
[09:15] Let's decode it. Let's look at the
[09:17] matrix.
[09:19] And let's decode it and then bring it
[09:21] back to our people and see what they do
[09:22] with it. And once they
[09:24] realized that they could participate and
[09:28] really use it to their advantage, it was
[09:30] it was over. That's why this is a
[09:32] There's an AI revolution happening, and
[09:34] there is a financial revolution that's
[09:38] happening.
[09:39] The people who were, like I said,
[09:41] undervalued,
[09:43] uh overlooked,
[09:44] and misrepresented,
[09:46] they're now participating at levels
[09:48] we've never seen. Mhm. It's a great
[09:50] change.
[09:50] >> Yeah. You know, so so we're going to for
[09:53] those people, for those human beings,
[09:57] share how they can participate in this
[09:59] like the AI revolution, the wave that's
[10:02] coming. But before we do,
[10:06] I want to get to your story. Okay.
[10:09] Because when we talk about financial
[10:11] literacy or like a financial revolution,
[10:14] it's like so personal to you. And so I
[10:16] want to start in the beginning. And so I
[10:20] If someone's clicked on this, they're
[10:21] not familiar with you and your story and
[10:24] where you came from.
[10:26] What is the context? What is the
[10:28] stories, the moments that they would
[10:30] have to be aware of from your childhood,
[10:32] from the early portion of your life
[10:35] that informs who you are today?
[10:37] Yeah, I mean, it starts with
[10:39] being
[10:41] a child of of Jamaican parents.
[10:44] Uh very proud of that.
[10:46] Uh I feel like we I was born at the
[10:48] perfect time to be Jamaican.
[10:51] Right? It was like Patrick Ewing was a
[10:53] superstar Yeah.
[10:54] >> in the NBA, he's Jamaican. And so we all
[10:56] everybody rooted for the Knicks and
[10:59] reggae was becoming something that was
[11:01] popular here in the States. So, being
[11:03] Jamaican was a cool thing. Um but what
[11:05] came with that was culture
[11:07] and what didn't come with that was
[11:10] financial education.
[11:12] Right? So, it was it was great to be
[11:15] part of that culture and and watching
[11:17] people be accepted of of that or
[11:19] receptive of and and and acceptable of
[11:21] it. But we didn't have financial
[11:23] education in my household. Uh and I
[11:25] would argue we didn't have it in my
[11:27] family.
[11:28] And so where do we get it?
[11:30] There's a constant pursuit of where do
[11:31] we get it?
[11:33] And so I grew up and and I really didn't
[11:34] know much about money, which I know this
[11:36] feels like so surprising. Huh, him? Yes.
[11:39] Me? Yes.
[11:41] Um and so my parents worked uh 9-5 jobs.
[11:44] My my dad actually worked in finance. Um
[11:48] he was working in a credit department
[11:49] for a company and my mom was working at
[11:52] Saks Fifth Avenue. So my dad worked in
[11:54] business and my mom kind of worked as a
[11:56] sales um associate and then later on in
[12:00] district office for for Saks. So she
[12:02] kept us fresh and my dad was, you know,
[12:04] wearing suits every day. So we had the
[12:06] best of both worlds in that sense. And
[12:07] so it becomes our reminder.
[12:09] And so
[12:10] my financial education really starts
[12:14] then.
[12:15] Because I'm watching us move. I'm trying
[12:18] to figure these things out. And I'm like
[12:21] subconsciously, I'm like I I don't want
[12:23] that to happen to me. I want to make
[12:25] sure I'm good with money. My dad wasn't
[12:27] great with money. And so his best
[12:28] decision he could make was to put it in
[12:31] the hands of somebody who would be
[12:33] disciplined, which was my mom. Yeah. So,
[12:36] you know, he loved horse racing,
[12:38] right? He He loved to play the lotto.
[12:41] Sometimes he would go with his friends
[12:43] and they play cards. Well, my mom didn't
[12:45] do any of those things. Mhm. And so if I
[12:47] leave it with her, I know she does none
[12:50] It's safe.
[12:51] But I would always watch him ask her for
[12:53] money.
[12:54] And his her responses were so good. No,
[12:56] that's it. This is it. I'm not giving
[12:58] you any more than this. And I'm like
[13:01] but didn't you work for this?
[13:03] >> [laughter]
[13:04] >> It was watching it it just I'm like, oh.
[13:07] So who do I want to be like? Mhm.
[13:10] Do you want to be him?
[13:12] Or do you want to be her?
[13:14] And so I'm like, uh
[13:17] when it comes to money, I'm going to be
[13:18] like her. Yeah. I'm going to be like
[13:20] her. I'm going to be the person that's
[13:21] disciplined with the money. I'm going to
[13:23] be the person that when somebody needs
[13:25] it, I'll have it. I want to have the
[13:26] structure. I want to feel like I'm
[13:29] needed in that sense when it comes to
[13:30] finance. And so like those lessons, I I
[13:32] realized later that they were around me.
[13:35] Yeah.
[13:36] When we moved to the basement, now I'm
[13:37] getting more lessons. Because now I live
[13:40] in the Bronx with my school is here in
[13:42] Westchester.
[13:43] In order to get there, there's no school
[13:45] bus that's going to take me.
[13:46] So, my dad, we would wake up
[13:49] 5:30 in the morning. We would drive up
[13:51] probably half hour, maybe 45 minutes
[13:53] depending on the day,
[13:54] to school. We're the first kids in
[13:56] school.
[13:57] But he's working in the city. So, I got
[13:59] to get home.
[14:00] I got to take the bus. So, he would give
[14:02] me $4. Me and my brother got $4 every
[14:04] day.
[14:05] And that was for lunch and to get us
[14:06] back home.
[14:07] This is the era of no cell phones. This
[14:09] is the era of maybe beepers, but I
[14:11] didn't have a beeper. I was only 7th
[14:12] grade.
[14:14] I'm like, "Yeah, we got to make it back
[14:15] home." So, I knew This is the discipline
[14:17] now. I got $4.
[14:19] Okay, if I get lunch, that's $1.25.
[14:21] All right. So, I got $2.75 left. I got
[14:24] to get on the bus that's going to cost
[14:25] me a dollar 25, but I got to get two
[14:27] buses. If I get the transfer, that was a
[14:29] dollar 75. I got like 50 cent left. I
[14:32] could at least get a cookie. That'll be
[14:33] my snack. All right, bet. That's what
[14:35] I'm going to do with the $4.
[14:37] Some days I'll just say, "All right,
[14:38] well, we're going to skip lunch."
[14:39] And I told you this, McDonald's had just
[14:41] started the dollar menu.
[14:42] >> Yeah. So, I'm like, I'm going to get the
[14:44] dollar fries. I'm going to get on the
[14:45] bus and go home. But I'm using the money
[14:48] that I have. I'm rationing it,
[14:49] understanding, "Okay,
[14:52] you got $5.
[14:53] Great. $4. Great. What do you do with
[14:56] it? Well, what if you don't spend it on
[14:58] the food? And what if you save it by the
[14:59] end of the week, you might have $10?
[15:01] Okay. So, I started doing that. Yeah.
[15:03] Again, young age, being familiar with
[15:05] money, understanding money,
[15:06] understanding if you don't ration it
[15:08] right, you're not getting home.
[15:09] All these things are preparing you and
[15:12] making you disciplined with money. So,
[15:13] as an adult,
[15:15] it wasn't a shock to me that when I had
[15:17] money, I was going to be disciplined
[15:18] with it cuz I always had been. Yeah. You
[15:20] were You were picking up those lessons,
[15:22] those like financial discipline lessons,
[15:25] and putting the pieces together from an
[15:26] early age.
[15:27] >> the consequence if I don't?
[15:29] >> Yeah.
[15:29] It's catastrophic. You're not getting
[15:31] home.
[15:32] >> Yeah. And who are you calling that you
[15:33] can't get home? Yeah. There's no You
[15:35] don't have a phone.
[15:36] >> Yeah.
[15:37] So, you got to make it home. Yeah. You
[15:39] know what? I I I want to speak about
[15:40] your
[15:41] your parents and their experience for a
[15:43] second. You're one of the families that
[15:45] does the thing. Like you you get the
[15:46] house in the good neighborhood, and like
[15:49] all of your friends and other family
[15:50] members, they're coming to stay with
[15:53] you, or they're coming to you for
[15:54] Thanksgiving dinner, or to watch the
[15:56] Super Bowl.
[15:58] And then there's like that moment where
[16:00] everything changes, and what was this
[16:02] like really happy thing? Yeah. It shifts
[16:06] in nature, and I I even um
[16:08] in the book, you said, "Looking back, I
[16:13] remember the initial emotions
[16:16] of confusion,
[16:17] disappointment, and embarrassment for my
[16:20] parents."
[16:21] >> Mhm.
[16:22] Is that
[16:23] It sounds like it's like a vivid memory
[16:26] for you.
[16:27] >> Okay, so in this episode, Troy talks a
[16:29] lot about using AI to help you become an
[16:31] educated investor. And so, inside
[16:33] ChatGPT, you can actually do this by
[16:36] creating a 30-day investing plan using
[16:39] Gamma. And I'm going to walk you through
[16:41] it because it's pretty cool. So, all you
[16:43] have to do is open your ChatGPT, go to
[16:45] settings, click apps, then you're going
[16:48] to click on add more, and type in Gamma
[16:50] here. And then you go ahead and click
[16:52] yes to reference memory and chats, then
[16:55] just click on connect Gamma. Now, we're
[16:57] going to click on allow, and boom,
[16:58] you're connected, you're ready to go,
[17:00] and you can just click start chat here.
[17:02] And now, I'm going to ask it to create
[17:03] me a 30-day investing learning journey
[17:05] to help me become a better investor. And
[17:08] I'm just going to show you guys what it
[17:09] came up with because I think it's pretty
[17:11] good. And I'm someone I'm a very visual
[17:13] person, and so Gamma just made this a
[17:14] very simple, easy process. And so, if
[17:18] you want to recreate what I just did,
[17:20] you're going to go to the link in the
[17:21] description, you're going to create an
[17:22] account on Gamma, and you can follow the
[17:24] same steps that I just outlined within
[17:26] your ChatGPT account, and you'll have
[17:28] your investment plan. AI is going to be
[17:31] the biggest wealth transfer of our time.
[17:33] And so if you're listening to this
[17:34] conversation, you're the kind of person
[17:37] that's going to take advantage of that
[17:39] opportunity, probably by building a
[17:41] business using AI. And when you do, you
[17:44] want to be very smart and intentional
[17:47] about getting compliant and establishing
[17:49] trustworthy practices early on. And so
[17:52] that's why I'm excited to tell you about
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[17:56] And so one of the things I didn't
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[18:34] And when you use that link, you'll get a
[18:36] thousand dollars off. Thank you to
[18:38] Vanta. Let's get back to the episode.
[18:41] Yeah, it it is still English.
[18:43] I think it very much English because
[18:46] what you don't realize what you're
[18:48] living in is trauma. It's traumatic.
[18:51] Wait, what do we do? Number one for
[18:53] yourself, how do you recover? But you
[18:55] have three
[18:56] children that are now part of this.
[18:59] And so what they were doing, and they
[19:00] did a great job. They they tried to hide
[19:02] it as much as they could. They provided
[19:05] for us as much as they could.
[19:07] We weren't
[19:09] poor,
[19:10] right? But we were living in something
[19:12] that was very traumatic. I'm watching my
[19:14] dad cry because we have to move.
[19:17] We move to an apartment, we lose the
[19:19] apartment, we're living in somebody's
[19:20] basement, we don't have a car, right? We
[19:22] don't have much we we we're
[19:25] we're trying to figure out how we're
[19:26] going to keep this thing together. Do we
[19:28] have to pull the kids out of the school?
[19:29] Do I have to go into school in the Bronx
[19:31] now? Right? Private school's not even an
[19:33] option because we can't afford to do it.
[19:35] How do we do it? And they're trying to
[19:37] figure this out. Meanwhile, you realize
[19:40] they're people, too.
[19:42] Like your mom is a person, your dad is a
[19:44] person. They have a dynamic. How were
[19:46] they keeping that together when you know
[19:49] I've been disciplined, he hasn't been as
[19:51] disciplined. Now look at the situation
[19:53] we're in because we lost the discipline.
[19:55] Did Was I a failure? Did I not see this
[19:58] coming? Am I a failure because
[20:01] we lost a home? Right? There's those
[20:03] dynamics that they're living with. And
[20:05] so it was embarrassing at first.
[20:08] They shielded us from it.
[20:10] But I think the the number one thing
[20:12] that we had was love for each other.
[20:15] It never felt like we weren't loved.
[20:18] It never felt like we weren't going to
[20:20] be okay
[20:21] because we had each other.
[20:23] In fact, I I think our
[20:25] bond became closer. Obviously, mine was
[20:27] with my brother who was with me on a day
[20:29] day-to-day basis going through that,
[20:31] going to school, living through that.
[20:33] But my parents as well because I watched
[20:35] them
[20:37] do the best that they could
[20:39] to provide for us in a way that they
[20:40] could to a point where we were like,
[20:43] "Okay, how are we getting out of this?"
[20:45] Eventually, we do climb out of it. We
[20:47] end up living back in the neighborhood,
[20:49] but it took a long time. We ended up
[20:50] renting somebody's home uh a part of
[20:52] their home for like 12 years.
[20:56] Right? And watching that was a process.
[20:58] It's the same thing. Here's the money,
[21:00] you're going to handle it. I'm
[21:01] definitely handling it now. Um but then
[21:04] you you know, you're paying rent to
[21:06] somebody. Mhm. And as I'm getting older
[21:08] and understanding like we're paying
[21:10] rent, but we don't own this.
[21:12] And they keep increasing the rent.
[21:15] And this house they've had for 25 years.
[21:17] So, we're just really paying the
[21:19] mortgage for them at this point.
[21:21] When are we ever going to get on the
[21:22] other side of that?
[21:24] You know? Yeah. And and so those ideas
[21:28] start formulating your head and probably
[21:30] in my late teens, maybe early 20s.
[21:33] And uh my brother, you know, we we
[21:35] started creating businesses around that
[21:37] time. We obviously were working, trying
[21:38] to figure this thing out. Trying to
[21:40] invest and see if that's going to be the
[21:41] way. Trying to figure out what our
[21:43] careers are going to be, but you know,
[21:46] my parents were still
[21:48] I feel like
[21:49] I wouldn't say traumatized, but
[21:52] hurt by what they had gone through. And
[21:55] almost disappointed in in themselves.
[21:57] Mhm. Um
[21:59] but never gave up on trying to pursue
[22:01] what would be better for the overall
[22:02] family. Yeah. You know what I think
[22:04] about and I even think about this with
[22:05] my own parents.
[22:08] Uh like with my own family.
[22:10] It's just the the number of parents that
[22:13] are fighting like this this like silent
[22:15] battle with money.
[22:17] And it's like they have to they they go
[22:19] to their children. It's almost like they
[22:20] have to have this act and this
[22:22] performance of like oh no, everything is
[22:23] good. Yeah. But then I they have those
[22:26] like quiet moments to themselves or
[22:27] between themselves where they're like
[22:29] it's not good.
[22:30] >> And it's heavy.
[22:31] >> heavy. And here's the question. Who do
[22:34] they talk to? Mhm.
[22:37] Yeah. Right? Like we're living in a very
[22:39] different time now where there's
[22:40] resources. Obviously, there's shows,
[22:42] there's books, there's, you know,
[22:44] podcast, there's articles.
[22:46] But at the time, right? You're first
[22:48] generation.
[22:50] You don't really know.
[22:52] But who really knows around you?
[22:55] Right? So, you
[22:56] you don't really have the person to talk
[22:57] to.
[22:58] And
[23:00] it's interesting. And this is something
[23:02] that that that we we should unpack as
[23:03] well is that who else is buying a home?
[23:07] Remember you moved on up.
[23:09] Everybody else is still living here.
[23:11] So do they know
[23:12] what it is to have a house appraisal? Do
[23:14] they know what home insurance and having
[23:15] a just a rate and fixed rate is? Do they
[23:18] know what an escrow account is?
[23:21] Do they know what property taxes are?
[23:24] No, we just pay our rent over here. So
[23:26] who do you talk to at that level? And
[23:28] that's true at any level of success.
[23:30] The further you go
[23:31] the further you are away.
[23:33] >> Yeah, it's rarefied uh
[23:34] >> It's rarefied air. And so we have to
[23:35] breathe it, make some mistakes.
[23:38] Right? Hopefully they don't cost us, but
[23:39] we're breathing it and living it trying
[23:42] to do it right.
[23:43] It's like the the you know when your car
[23:45] used to break down and they tell you
[23:46] there's an uncle who can fix it? But
[23:48] he's not a mechanic. Yeah. So he's
[23:50] probably going to mess you up even
[23:50] worse.
[23:51] >> [laughter]
[23:52] >> Right? So there was nobody to really go
[23:54] to for information because it wasn't
[23:56] readily available. I think at that time
[23:58] when people thought in terms of money
[24:01] that conversation you only had it when
[24:03] you went to the bank.
[24:05] Like you didn't have it at your kitchen
[24:06] table. Well, at least in our community
[24:08] it wasn't something that was being had
[24:09] at the kitchen table. The information
[24:11] wasn't readily available and we were
[24:13] just trying to figure it out.
[24:15] Whereas now
[24:17] completely different.
[24:19] Completely different. So many different
[24:21] resources. So many different things you
[24:23] can do. So many different aspirations
[24:26] that people have that didn't exist at
[24:27] the time.
[24:29] You know what? And then
[24:31] because you're right. At that moment in
[24:33] time like there was no one there for
[24:35] them to have that conversation with.
[24:37] But if the Troy that's sitting before me
[24:40] today had to like go back in time
[24:43] and have a conversation with your
[24:46] parents, I'm just curious what you would
[24:47] say to them.
[24:50] Ooh, that's heavy.
[24:51] Um
[24:54] I would tell them
[24:57] that they're better off than they think.
[25:00] Because
[25:02] even filing for bankruptcy, like these
[25:04] things that we we didn't have knowledge
[25:06] on, um could have been something that
[25:08] they used to their advantage.
[25:10] Or um using
[25:13] um
[25:14] I know my dad at the time was using his
[25:16] salary as collateral. It got to that
[25:18] point where he needed a loan um because
[25:21] he couldn't figure out how he was going
[25:22] to pay it.
[25:23] Um
[25:24] stop the market, right? Like having
[25:27] having a brokerage account, having
[25:29] reserves,
[25:31] you know, all these things that they
[25:32] tell you to do before you get a home to
[25:33] prep,
[25:35] there's no school book for it. There's
[25:37] no playbook that we should follow.
[25:39] So, I would I would definitely create a
[25:41] a playbook being in the situation they
[25:43] were in.
[25:44] Um
[25:47] Now, they were working pretty hard. They
[25:48] were working like 9:00 to 7:00 a lot of
[25:50] days.
[25:51] Um and so I I I
[25:54] The first thing that I would I would do
[25:55] was try to create a brokerage account
[25:57] for them.
[25:58] Um and then figure out how they can use
[26:00] a line of credit to their advantage. If
[26:03] bankruptcy was an option at the time, I
[26:05] would have explored that. I would have
[26:07] did anything possible or create a plan
[26:10] to make sure that they kept that home.
[26:12] Because if we look at how wealth is
[26:14] built, especially
[26:16] they talk about that American dream,
[26:18] it's not the idea of just having the
[26:21] house with the white picket fence.
[26:23] Cuz it sounds great. It's the idea of
[26:25] having the home that appreciates over
[26:27] time. Mhm.
[26:29] Wealth creation is been built that way,
[26:31] right? Either people
[26:33] own real estate, they own their homes,
[26:35] and those homes appreciate in value over
[26:36] time, or they create or invest in
[26:39] businesses that appreciate over time.
[26:42] That's those are the two ways people
[26:43] create wealth.
[26:44] And so, the fact that they were able to
[26:46] get the home,
[26:48] I would have created a plan to make sure
[26:49] that they kept it um and had it long
[26:52] term. Because that's something that
[26:55] could have been passed down.
[26:57] Right? So, once we lose the home, now we
[26:59] lose everything.
[27:00] And now you're starting back to ground
[27:01] zero.
[27:02] So, now where do you How do you build up
[27:04] the courage? How do you build up the
[27:05] finances to now have a down payment on
[27:07] the next home?
[27:10] It's tough. Right? Most people don't
[27:12] have homes cuz they can't afford the
[27:13] down payment for it. And they can't
[27:15] sustain the payments over time.
[27:16] Well, if we had to borrow money to get
[27:18] it,
[27:19] then could we really afford it?
[27:22] That's a conversation no one has.
[27:24] Like, could we have were we able to
[27:26] afford it at that moment? Maybe not.
[27:29] And I'm grateful for that because if
[27:30] they don't move,
[27:32] who knows what a kid at 7, 10, 14 looks
[27:36] like in the South Bronx in the early
[27:38] '90s.
[27:39] I don't know. Am I here? Yeah.
[27:42] Right? I tell that's the I told my mom
[27:44] this recently cuz when she read the
[27:46] book,
[27:47] she asked me,
[27:49] "Why did I tell this story about the
[27:50] house?
[27:52] Like, are you trying to embarrass us?"
[27:54] Like, she's still It's still personal to
[27:56] them. I'm like, "I didn't tell it to
[27:57] embarrass you. I told it to encourage
[28:00] the next person to not make that
[28:01] mistake."
[28:02] How many people's lives can we change
[28:04] from telling that story?
[28:05] Like, people are going to look at
[28:06] adjustable rate fixed rate mortgages
[28:07] now. That's the goal. We can We can We
[28:09] can call this impact.
[28:11] Um,
[28:12] and so,
[28:14] you know, we
[28:15] we live through it so that somebody
[28:17] doesn't have to.
[28:18] Um,
[28:19] but yeah, I would I would I would have
[28:21] done everything I could to to try to
[28:22] figure out how we could have kept that
[28:24] asset in our name. Yeah. You know what?
[28:27] You You You said this in the book as
[28:28] well. You said, um,
[28:30] because we cuz we talk about and you
[28:31] even mentioned it, like trauma. Yeah.
[28:33] Like, how how many people in our
[28:35] communities are experiencing this level
[28:36] of financial trauma? That not only has
[28:39] it destroyed parts of their past and
[28:42] like their childhood, but it also like
[28:44] sabotages is future.
[28:46] And and you said, uh, you said my
[28:48] parents didn't purchase another home
[28:50] until 2010. Think about that. So decades
[28:53] after the original event. You said when
[28:55] interest rates dropped during COVID-19,
[28:58] I approached them about refinancing
[29:00] their loan to get a lower payment. It
[29:02] was an emphatic no. I could have saved
[29:04] them around $300.
[29:07] A month. A month.
[29:09] Think about that.
[29:11] So at the time
[29:14] man, this is this is great. At the time
[29:17] Earn Your Leisure had started
[29:19] and one of the best things about being a
[29:22] part of of the the brand is that
[29:25] you get information from everywhere. And
[29:27] so I'm around a lot of people in real
[29:28] estate. Shout out to my brother MG the
[29:30] mortgage guy.
[29:31] And he's been in this space for 20
[29:33] years. And so this isn't like the uncle
[29:36] who's a mechanic anymore. I actually
[29:38] have the the guy who's in real estate
[29:41] who originates mortgages.
[29:43] And he's telling me, "Hey, these
[29:44] interest rates are dropping.
[29:47] We may never see this again." His words
[29:49] exactly.
[29:50] At the time
[29:51] I think he approved me for a 2.75
[29:54] interest rate. That would have been my
[29:55] interest rate.
[29:56] We were sitting I mean we weren't in a
[29:58] bad space. I think our rate was
[30:00] 4.
[30:02] 25.
[30:03] And so we're talking about like almost
[30:05] 75 basis points. Which would have
[30:07] equated to $300, but you multiply that
[30:09] times 12 for every every year, 12 months
[30:13] in a year, and you do that for the
[30:14] course of 25 years.
[30:16] It's a huge savings.
[30:19] They were so
[30:21] paralyzed of the trauma that they have
[30:23] gone through during the home buying
[30:25] process
[30:26] that they said, "No, I can't do it. I
[30:28] don't want to go through all that
[30:29] paperwork again.
[30:30] I don't want to have to go through the
[30:31] paperwork. The idea of losing that home,
[30:33] I saw it come back.
[30:35] Well, what if we do something like this
[30:36] and it it messes
[30:38] The idea of something
[30:40] messing up
[30:42] just wait on them.
[30:43] The trauma came back. And I was like,
[30:45] you know what? Rather than putting them
[30:47] through more trauma,
[30:49] we'll just keep the rate as it is.
[30:51] And so, I'm I know that I can get this
[30:53] 2.75.
[30:55] And we co-own the home. They're 50%
[30:57] owner, I'm 50% owner.
[30:59] And I'm saying to myself, this is going
[31:01] to cost me more in the end,
[31:03] but because of the trauma that it might
[31:05] cost them now,
[31:07] I'm going to let this one ride.
[31:09] And then I watch interest rates shoot up
[31:12] 5%, 5 and 1/2%, 6%, 6 and 1/2%,
[31:16] 7%.
[31:18] And I remember MG telling me, "Remember
[31:20] when I told you those those rates ain't
[31:21] coming back?" Yeah.
[31:23] And so, we missed the moment. We missed
[31:25] the moment. Um but,
[31:29] you know,
[31:30] the $300 that I could have saved,
[31:33] I I I often think, what would have been
[31:35] the ramifications from a health
[31:37] standpoint, from a mental standpoint,
[31:40] had we have gone through that? And I'm
[31:42] like, I'll take the cost on it.
[31:44] I'll take the cost. Yeah. You know, the
[31:46] the interesting thing from your story
[31:47] and having spoken with you even before
[31:49] we had this conversation
[31:51] is
[31:52] you juxtapose that level of like
[31:55] financial trauma and the hesitancy
[31:58] that your your parents felt towards like
[32:01] it's like they were they're having to
[32:02] put themselves out there again in buying
[32:04] a home. And like the the fear of like
[32:06] what if this happens again, this like it
[32:09] did the previous time. That word is
[32:10] fear. And That's the word. Yeah.
[32:13] That's the word.
[32:15] Fear. That's what I saw.
[32:17] And
[32:19] I'm glad you said the word fear
[32:21] because it made me, watching them
[32:24] growing up and seeing how they
[32:26] had their relationship with money,
[32:28] it made me fearless.
[32:32] It made me fearless.
[32:35] My mom's favorite quote to me is
[32:38] you live so carefree.
[32:41] You always take risks.
[32:43] And I'm like, yeah.
[32:45] Cuz I watched fear paralyze you, and I
[32:47] don't want to do that, and I don't want
[32:49] to become that. So, I'm going to take
[32:51] chances, and I'm going to live carefree.
[32:54] I'm going to be calculatedly carefree,
[32:56] but I'm going to do it because I know
[32:59] what happens if I don't.
[33:01] And so, they're giving me all these
[33:03] lessons by just being themselves, and me
[33:06] watching them, and watching the angst,
[33:08] and watching the nervous, and watching
[33:11] the quote-unquote that real fear.
[33:14] Oh, I got to go out in the world and be
[33:15] fearless,
[33:16] cuz that's how we get ahead. That's how
[33:18] we make it. Right? So, if we're going to
[33:20] create I remember creating Earn Your
[33:22] Leisure with me and me and Shotti, and
[33:24] not even thinking it was going to change
[33:25] our lives, but just we're going to do
[33:26] it, and then it started to really change
[33:28] our lives, like from a financial
[33:30] standpoint. And I'm like, you know what?
[33:33] I'm not going to uh teach in the school
[33:34] district anymore. And my mom was like,
[33:37] what?
[33:39] Are you kidding me?
[33:41] Like, think about what you're saying.
[33:43] Like, you're going to just your salary,
[33:45] health care. Really like really think
[33:48] about that.
[33:49] It sounds good until it's not.
[33:52] And I was like,
[33:53] there's the fear.
[33:55] Go.
[33:56] Go. That was like the sign.
[33:58] >> Go. Yeah. There's the fear. Here it
[34:00] comes. Go.
[34:01] What are you going to do in this moment?
[34:03] Resignation letter.
[34:05] >> [laughter]
[34:06] >> Yeah. Yeah, cuz I I I know what's on the
[34:08] other end. And because
[34:10] I was fearless, and because we took
[34:12] risks,
[34:13] we went further, and went further, and
[34:14] went further.
[34:16] And then they got to watch it. I just
[34:17] get to lead by example. Yeah. You To
[34:20] your point, the fear is almost like
[34:22] it's irrational.
[34:24] And um you know what? Earlier earlier
[34:26] you mentioned um
[34:28] You said it it was like one decision.
[34:30] Yeah. One decision completely changed
[34:32] the course of like your parents' lives,
[34:35] of your life growing up, but also just
[34:37] like the trajectory of your family.
[34:38] Yeah. And there's so many people even
[34:41] that are listening, it's like one
[34:42] decision.
[34:43] >> Yeah. And sometimes it's also
[34:45] it can be the decision you make, it can
[34:46] also be the decision you didn't make.
[34:48] Yeah. The thing that you missed out on
[34:50] to your point. And so
[34:52] um
[34:53] when we go when we go a bit forward in
[34:55] your in your story
[34:56] >> Yeah. and we go around that period of
[34:58] the pandemic there is a moment
[35:02] where
[35:04] um
[35:05] you were telling me that you were in LA
[35:07] Yeah. and you guys are like shooting
[35:09] content. This is during the pandemic and
[35:11] you wake up one morning Yeah.
[35:15] and you tell your wife that you're going
[35:16] all in. Yeah. Can you share that story
[35:19] with people?
[35:19] >> Yeah, it it changed my life.
[35:22] Um so Earn Your Leisure uh we started in
[35:24] 2019.
[35:25] Um by 20 by March 2020, obviously the
[35:28] pandemic happens. People are home.
[35:31] Can't go outside, so they're consuming
[35:33] content. We had a year's worth of
[35:35] content to figure out what people could
[35:36] do with their money whether it was, you
[35:38] know, start a new business and
[35:40] entrepreneurship uh invest in real
[35:43] estate, vending machines, truck all the
[35:44] things. We became a gumbo soup for
[35:46] people and uh
[35:48] that just intensified in the pandemic.
[35:50] At the time we had shot an episode with
[35:52] with our brother Ian Dunlap, who's now
[35:54] our partner on Market Mondays.
[35:55] And um
[35:56] we created a weekly show about
[35:58] investing.
[35:59] And so what what was brilliant about it
[36:01] is that we hadn't seen it
[36:03] right? Other than CNBC or Bloomberg, but
[36:06] nobody would talk like us on those
[36:08] network television uh stations. And so
[36:11] there was opportunity. Right? We can
[36:12] decode the matrix. We can listen to what
[36:14] they're saying and we can
[36:16] you know, decode it and give it to our
[36:17] audience in a way that they can
[36:18] understand.
[36:19] And so
[36:21] as I'm teaching, this is just like a
[36:22] lifelong skill
[36:24] if I'm going to speak about a topic, I
[36:26] better learn that topic. And not only
[36:28] learn it, I better really grasp it and
[36:31] understand it so I could teach it.
[36:33] Right? Like I can't get out there and
[36:35] not know it. I didn't come from a
[36:36] business background. I have no financial
[36:39] degree, like we none of that. So I
[36:41] better learn this. And so I would teach
[36:42] myself every week getting ready for that
[36:44] show.
[36:45] And then in in June of 2020, we were
[36:49] like, "Look, this virtual thing is cool,
[36:51] but we got to get back in person with
[36:53] people."
[36:54] And so Shaddy was like, "Let And Michael
[36:56] were like, "Yo, I got an idea. Let's
[36:57] just go to LA."
[36:59] And let's live there for a month.
[37:00] I'm like,
[37:02] "I got two kids and a wife." They're
[37:03] like, "No, no, we'll get a we'll get a
[37:04] big house. We'll all live in a house."
[37:06] >> Yeah. So it was like 16 of us in this
[37:07] huge house in LA and we're living there.
[37:10] And I'm still shooting the shows, still
[37:12] learning, getting up every morning,
[37:14] still reading, going to the beach on the
[37:15] weekends. It was great.
[37:17] And I got to a point with my my studying
[37:21] that I felt really comfortable.
[37:24] Um
[37:25] I said,
[37:26] "Okay.
[37:28] I'm going to do something drastic. I'm
[37:29] going to do something drastic." And
[37:32] you know, the market was opening at 6:30
[37:34] a.m. Pacific time, 9:30 Eastern.
[37:37] So I'm up at 4:00 in the morning
[37:39] reading, getting ready for the day.
[37:41] And I tap my wife on the shoulder, I'll
[37:42] never forget, and I said, "Look, babe,
[37:46] I'm going for it."
[37:48] And she looked at me and said, "What?"
[37:51] I said, "I'm going for it. I'm Today I'm
[37:53] going for it."
[37:55] She said, "What does that mean?" I'm
[37:56] like,
[37:58] "I'm going to put $100,000 in the
[37:59] market."
[38:02] And she said,
[38:03] "Okay."
[38:05] And I went right back to sleep.
[38:06] I was like, "All right, that went better
[38:08] than I thought."
[38:09] >> [laughter]
[38:10] >> And so I went downstairs, no one's up.
[38:13] I'm sitting at the table and I'm looking
[38:15] at the plan I'mma draw up.
[38:16] At the time, you know, the market had
[38:18] pulled back to a nice level.
[38:20] I'm like, "I'm going to put this in some
[38:22] ETFs, exchange-traded funds, which is
[38:24] like a basket of companies in a specific
[38:27] sector.
[38:28] And I still got the picture of it. Uh it
[38:30] was SMH. It was X which was a
[38:33] semiconductor ETF.
[38:34] Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD, all those inside.
[38:37] Uh XLK, which is a technology ETF. And
[38:41] Apple and Microsoft were the leaders in
[38:43] that. And XLY, which is consumer
[38:45] discretionary ETF. I think Amazon and
[38:48] and and maybe Google
[38:50] were inside of that at the time.
[38:52] And I said, "All right. How are we going
[38:54] to do this, Troy?"
[38:55] I was like, "No, no. Let's not get
[38:56] three. Let's get four. And with the
[38:58] 100,000, we'll make We'll put 25,000 in
[39:00] each, and that'll be great."
[39:02] And I'm like, "Now you just got to do
[39:04] it."
[39:05] Right? You told me you're going to do
[39:06] it. You said you're going to do it. Now
[39:07] you got to do it.
[39:08] And when the market opened, I said,
[39:10] "Okay.
[39:12] You've never spent $100,000 on anything.
[39:15] But you're going to do this."
[39:17] And I just I yeah, I'm I'm going to do
[39:20] it. I'm going to do it.
[39:22] Let's go for it.
[39:23] And so I couldn't figure out what the
[39:24] fourth one was going to be. Yeah. So I
[39:26] just did it in three. So I went 33%,
[39:28] 33%, 33%.
[39:31] And I pressed it, and it went through,
[39:32] and I was like, "Great."
[39:34] And when she woke up, I'm like, "I I
[39:36] really did it." She was like, "What?"
[39:38] I'm like, "I put the 100,000 in the
[39:39] market." She was like,
[39:41] "What?"
[39:42] >> [laughter]
[39:42] >> I'm like, "Remember I told you?"
[39:44] Um and you know what? I I never looked
[39:46] back.
[39:48] I never looked back. I said, I I stated
[39:51] it. I understand it, and I think that's
[39:52] important when you're investing in
[39:53] understanding what you're investing in.
[39:55] And I had conviction in it. So I'm going
[39:57] with it.
[39:58] Let it go.
[40:00] And I did. And it's probably one of the
[40:02] best decisions I've ever made.
[40:05] And
[40:06] yeah, it's up there. It's top five.
[40:08] Yeah.
[40:09] Um because in 10 months,
[40:12] that investment
[40:14] Each one of them now.
[40:16] Remember I put 33,000, 33,000, 33,000 in
[40:19] each one of them. And
[40:22] they all appreciated by
[40:24] an average of 1,200%.
[40:27] Wow.
[40:29] Think about that.
[40:30] >> Yeah.
[40:31] So, you're talking about a guy who was a
[40:32] phys-ed teacher
[40:35] who most people in the school had
[40:37] thought he had no idea what money was or
[40:39] how to manage it or invest.
[40:42] He turned $100,000 into
[40:44] roughly 1.3 million. Wow. in 10 months.
[40:48] Yeah.
[40:50] And I never looked back.
[40:52] I never looked back.
[40:53] Once I saw that it was possible, I'm
[40:55] like, "Oh, this is it."
[40:57] So, when you hear the passion when I'm
[40:58] talking about investing, it's because I
[41:00] know how life-changing it can be.
[41:02] But, it also goes back to the original
[41:04] story of
[41:05] one decision. Mhm.
[41:07] All I did was make a decision.
[41:09] And for the next 10 months, I watched
[41:11] the benefits of that decision replicate
[41:13] over and over and over and over. And so,
[41:16] now the goal became,
[41:18] "How do we do it again?"
[41:20] "Can we do it Can you do it again?"
[41:23] And then, you do it again.
[41:25] "Can you do it again?"
[41:26] And then, you do it again. And then, it
[41:28] becomes, "How do you make this
[41:29] sustainable?
[41:30] How can you make sure that you do this
[41:32] every year, year after year?"
[41:35] Then, I began to do that.
[41:37] "Well, you need to learn more because
[41:38] now you're being selfish. You're doing
[41:40] it, but are you teaching people?"
[41:42] Okay.
[41:43] "Am I ready to teach people?"
[41:45] Right? Cuz I'm taking risks
[41:47] and I'm figuring this thing out as I'm
[41:48] doing it
[41:50] to the point where
[41:52] and I got to give my brothers credit. Um
[41:55] They're like, "Yo, you need to teach it.
[41:56] You're naturally a teacher. You should
[41:58] teach this. You should actually figure
[42:00] out a way
[42:01] to help people understand what you're
[42:03] doing because you're doing it and you're
[42:05] telling us and we're using information
[42:07] and we're doing pretty well.
[42:09] Teach it to to masses."
[42:11] And I'm like, all right, that's a
[42:12] challenge.
[42:14] Remember, I don't come from a financial
[42:15] background.
[42:17] I didn't study economics.
[42:20] I didn't study, you know, the economy.
[42:24] I just studied
[42:27] what I knew. And what I knew was a some
[42:29] companies and I understood what
[42:31] derivatives were.
[42:32] And I was like, I'm going with that. I'm
[42:34] going to create my own formula. Right?
[42:37] I'm going to listen to a lot of people
[42:38] around me, see what they're doing, how
[42:40] can I change it, how can I be original.
[42:42] And I'm going with that.
[42:44] And that one decision was the
[42:46] validation, oh, you're on something.
[42:48] Do it again.
[42:49] So, every day I'm just trying to be
[42:50] better than I was last year or yesterday
[42:53] or last week.
[42:55] And that's the goal every day.
[42:56] Learn more so you can teach more. Yeah.
[42:59] You know what? I just
[43:00] It's just such It's such a brilliant
[43:02] story. And I I I think about the time
[43:04] that we're in. Yeah. And where we
[43:06] actually started this conversation,
[43:08] which is you said that this AI
[43:10] revolution, like this era that we're in,
[43:12] is the greatest wealth transfer of our
[43:14] time. Yeah. And even if we were to like
[43:17] rewind back to the pandemic, cuz we all
[43:19] vividly like remember that period of
[43:21] time, cuz we you know, people are at
[43:23] home with their like their checks that
[43:26] they got from the government. And there
[43:27] were some people that like it went in
[43:29] the market and then there were some
[43:31] people that they were like, I don't even
[43:32] know, buying stuff with it. And so, if
[43:35] someone like they haven't
[43:37] maybe they've invested here and there,
[43:39] but by no means
[43:41] would they even label themselves or
[43:43] identify as an investor. Mhm.
[43:46] They're hearing this conversation.
[43:49] They're seeing what's happening right
[43:51] now with AI. They want to take part.
[43:54] What in your mind is step one? Okay, so
[43:56] give me 20 seconds because my team and
[43:59] I, we just launched our newsletter, New
[44:01] Era. And the way that we thought about
[44:03] it was so simple. We wanted to take all
[44:06] of the information and the value that
[44:07] you get from these episodes and make it
[44:10] 20 times more actionable. And so what
[44:12] that means is we create these supporting
[44:14] documents and this information and these
[44:16] guides so that you can instantly
[44:19] implement what you hear in these
[44:21] conversations. And so for example, with
[44:23] this Troy episode, we've created this
[44:26] step-by-step guide that you can use to
[44:28] start investing with AI. We literally
[44:31] included in the document prompts that
[44:34] you can give ChatGPT or Claude and it
[44:37] will help you get started in your
[44:38] investment journey. And so if you want
[44:40] to access not only that document, but
[44:43] all of the other documents that we
[44:45] create for these episodes, then you're
[44:47] just going to go to the link in the
[44:48] description, you're going to subscribe
[44:50] to our newsletter, and you're going to
[44:52] get these documents in your inbox every
[44:54] single week. Thank you for supporting
[44:55] us. Let's get back to it. I think this
[44:58] is the greatest time for the person that
[45:00] is exactly in our space
[45:02] because it goes back to the conversation
[45:04] we talked about earlier about the
[45:05] knowledge gap.
[45:07] It's not about how much you know, it's
[45:09] how fast can you learn.
[45:11] And with AI
[45:13] that time frame is expedited.
[45:17] And so I was speaking to students
[45:19] earlier this week and they asked me a
[45:22] brilliant question.
[45:24] Very similar to to the the the scenario
[45:26] that you just just phrased.
[45:28] And they said, "Well, what if I only
[45:29] have $50?"
[45:31] And I think most people would think,
[45:33] "Oh, that's not enough money. What can I
[45:34] do with $50?"
[45:36] And I said, "$50 is more than enough.
[45:38] Here's why.
[45:40] You don't have to know how to invest.
[45:44] If I have $50
[45:46] I can get a $19.99
[45:48] $19.99 subscription
[45:51] to Anthropic.
[45:54] I can get $19.99
[45:56] subscription to OpenAI.
[45:59] And I can use $9 to get You Deserve to
[46:00] Be rich.
[46:03] Once I have those two subscriptions, now
[46:05] I start prompting it. I ask it all the
[46:06] questions that I think I need to know in
[46:08] order to become
[46:11] a beginner investor.
[46:14] Where do I start? What's the right
[46:15] brokerage account? What strategy you
[46:17] think works best for somebody that has
[46:19] $100?
[46:21] What is this thing I heard that's called
[46:23] dollar cost averaging? What's an ETF?
[46:25] What's an index? What are index funds?
[46:29] Can I buy index funds? What's a mutual
[46:32] fund?
[46:33] Here's what's happening.
[46:35] You're asking the questions, it's giving
[46:37] you the answers. You're getting the the
[46:38] information right away.
[46:40] You compound that over a week.
[46:43] Think about how much information you've
[46:44] gained.
[46:45] You do it to the your Anthropic and you
[46:48] do it to your Open AI.
[46:49] You combine it.
[46:51] Then you may say, "Hey, let's use a free
[46:53] tool. Let's Gemini."
[46:55] Now I have three sources of infinite
[46:57] information
[46:59] that are now feeding me information.
[47:01] And so now I say to myself, "Well, what
[47:04] do I do with the information?" The most
[47:06] important thing, go execute.
[47:09] $50 just changed your life.
[47:11] And so the person that's on that
[47:13] doorstep, right? And I think this is the
[47:15] most important time.
[47:17] The pandemic was
[47:20] a reset.
[47:22] This won't be a reset.
[47:24] If we don't get this right in the next
[47:26] two to three four years, two to three
[47:27] years really,
[47:28] there isn't going to be a, "Hey, how do
[47:30] we come back from this?"
[47:32] The technology is going to be so far
[47:34] ahead.
[47:36] Wealth is going to expedite in such a
[47:39] grand manner. In fact,
[47:41] Elon Musk is
[47:43] in the next three years, could be two,
[47:45] will be a trillionaire. If we're still
[47:46] at the ground level,
[47:48] not paying attention to investing, not
[47:50] understanding companies,
[47:52] being entertained,
[47:55] we're doomed.
[47:57] It's that serious.
[47:58] Right? Like there isn't going to be,
[48:00] hey, we can catch up.
[48:02] Industrial Revolution,
[48:03] we were the last.
[48:05] Technological Revolution,
[48:07] we had a lot to do with the innovation
[48:09] of it.
[48:10] We didn't have a lot to do in the
[48:11] ownership of it.
[48:12] >> Mhm.
[48:13] AI's here now.
[48:15] What role are we going to play?
[48:17] Are we going to innovate?
[48:19] Are we going to be engineers inside the
[48:21] space?
[48:22] Right? Are we going to be founders
[48:24] inside the space? Are we going to invest
[48:26] inside the space? We have to answer
[48:27] those questions very soon. Because
[48:30] companies are being built, multi-million
[48:32] dollar companies are being built,
[48:34] billion-dollar companies being built
[48:36] with one or two people.
[48:38] So that means if they have one or two
[48:39] people building those companies, they're
[48:41] no longer hiring people
[48:43] at the same rate.
[48:44] If they're not hiring, that means I
[48:46] don't need you.
[48:47] So we have to realize that what side of
[48:49] this we're going to play on and go out
[48:51] and do it.
[48:53] So this is the most important time for
[48:55] somebody who's just beginning cuz here's
[48:57] the thing about AI.
[49:00] If you don't know much about it,
[49:02] so does your counterpart in the
[49:04] neighborhood down the street.
[49:06] So do the people in in in the city that
[49:09] is running adjacent to yours.
[49:11] It's an even playing field.
[49:13] Right? But we got to participate.
[49:16] Right? Because if we don't, the people
[49:18] who are creating it,
[49:20] think about this.
[49:21] The people who are creating the prompts,
[49:24] the people that are creating the agents
[49:26] in the large language models, they don't
[49:28] look like us, they don't sound like us,
[49:30] and they're creating it in their
[49:31] language.
[49:33] Once they do that,
[49:35] and it has implicit bias, which we know
[49:38] exists in the world,
[49:40] and subconsciously has thoughts,
[49:43] who do you now blame
[49:45] when you're discriminated against?
[49:49] There isn't a person.
[49:50] Right? It's an agent.
[49:51] >> Yeah.
[49:52] So, that bias is now intensified. The
[49:55] same way I told you the information gap
[49:57] is now expedited, that bias is
[50:01] expedited.
[50:01] >> Expedited.
[50:02] So, we got to figure that out.
[50:04] And we have to understand the role that
[50:06] we play in it.
[50:08] How we make things cool.
[50:10] How we make things um
[50:13] trending or trendy
[50:16] and take advantage of it.
[50:17] Yeah. You know, I I I want to make this
[50:19] so
[50:20] clear and actionable for people because
[50:24] and you so someone is listening at home,
[50:26] they have a 9-to-5 job. They're like a
[50:28] salaried like a 9-to-5 job. The first
[50:31] week, right? And they're researching and
[50:35] just getting these models to teach them
[50:39] almost like the foundation of investing,
[50:41] like different funds, mutual funds,
[50:43] ETFs, like the dollar cost averaging,
[50:46] the the fundamentals of what it means to
[50:48] be an investor.
[50:50] >> Here's Here's Here's something even
[50:51] better they can do.
[50:53] How do I create a business that has low
[50:55] overhead but high profitability?
[50:58] Doesn't cost me much
[51:01] but has profitability and can scale.
[51:04] Here's a list of things. Okay, well,
[51:06] which one of these things interest you?
[51:07] Oh, I I I
[51:08] I I think this one. Tell me more. How do
[51:10] I scale this? Do I need partners? How do
[51:12] I find partners? Can you put out a
[51:14] search?
[51:15] All of the things are sitting in the
[51:18] palm of your hand.
[51:20] But, we're searching for the wrong
[51:21] things.
[51:23] We're not We're not taking advantage of
[51:25] it. In fact,
[51:26] fear comes now back into place because
[51:28] we keep hearing
[51:29] oh, it's doomsday. Oh, it's Terminator
[51:31] 2. Here it comes, right? This is I Am
[51:33] Legend.
[51:35] I, Robot. That's where we're headed.
[51:36] They're talking about robots living in
[51:38] your home.
[51:39] Here comes the fear. No.
[51:43] Destroy all the noise
[51:45] and look where we're headed.
[51:46] We can see it. In fact, we've been
[51:48] prepared for it.
[51:50] Whether you like it or not, right? AI
[51:52] has been in your life. You all have an
[51:54] iPhone. I'm sure you've talked to Siri
[51:56] before. Yeah. I'm sure you've talked to
[51:58] Alexa to play your music.
[52:00] You've done it already.
[52:02] Right? You just don't realize it. It's
[52:04] been in your life. You've been prepared
[52:06] for this moment. You get in your car.
[52:10] Hey Troy Millions, welcome back.
[52:13] You go on your phone. You had an idea.
[52:15] It pops up on your screen. Wait.
[52:17] >> Yeah.
[52:17] How
[52:18] How do you know I I needed a washer and
[52:20] dryer? Yeah. How did that happen?
[52:23] The algorithm is already it it's there.
[52:26] It's been around you.
[52:28] Why get uncomfortable with it now?
[52:31] If it's prepped you for this moment,
[52:33] let's take advantage of it. Take me
[52:35] behind the scenes of your process when
[52:37] it comes to
[52:38] what are you reading? What are you
[52:41] thinking about? What is even what goes
[52:44] into
[52:46] the thought process and the decision of
[52:49] like where you're going to invest?
[52:51] Because I think when it comes to AI,
[52:54] people think about it very literally.
[52:55] Mhm. Like, oh, can I invest in I don't
[52:58] know, Chat GPT or in Anthropic, which
[53:02] isn't even possible right now.
[53:03] >> No, yeah. Not public to trade yet. Yeah.
[53:05] So,
[53:06] what is going into cuz there's so much
[53:08] that's to do with AI and its
[53:09] infrastructure. What is going into your
[53:11] process before you make that decision to
[53:14] invest?
[53:15] >> Well, I'm always looking at the story.
[53:17] And I I I always tell people look at the
[53:18] story. Right? What is the overall story?
[53:21] Is AI going to be dominant? Is it going
[53:24] to lead the next revolution? Is it going
[53:26] to lead the economy? Yes. Okay, well,
[53:29] who are the major players inside that
[53:31] space?
[53:32] Right? And so, you start looking at they
[53:34] talk about that five-layer cake. Who's
[53:36] creating the applications? Who's doing
[53:38] the infrastructure? Who has the memory?
[53:41] Who has the energy? Right? These things
[53:43] are all important. And so, if I look at
[53:45] that cake, I start looking at the
[53:46] companies that are
[53:48] primed in those areas. And so, the the
[53:51] first part was the compute. Right?
[53:53] That's the top. So, if
[53:55] I'm looking at compute, who are the
[53:56] companies in compute that are going to
[53:58] lead this revolution? Well, GPUs are
[54:01] going to be the technology, right? The
[54:04] the graphic processing unit is going to
[54:06] lead it. Who has the most dominant GPU
[54:09] in the world? Okay. Where where's that
[54:11] company? All right, Nvidia. Perfect.
[54:13] Okay. Well, if they're number one, who's
[54:15] number two?
[54:16] Okay.
[54:18] AMD. All right, perfect. Who else plays
[54:20] a role in this space, right? If they
[54:21] have GPUs, is there something that could
[54:22] compete with that? Is there a company
[54:24] that does something very similar?
[54:26] Um yeah, Broadcom. Well, what do they
[54:28] do? Uh XPUs. Oh, okay. So, we need the
[54:31] GPUs, they do it. If they
[54:35] design it, is there a company that
[54:36] manufactures it?
[54:38] Because when we talk about the gold
[54:39] rush, everybody knows it's picks and
[54:41] shovels that made the money.
[54:43] Right? The people who were digging for
[54:45] the gold,
[54:46] right?
[54:48] The people who sold them the shovels,
[54:50] they made money. Oh, okay. Taiwan
[54:52] Semiconductor.
[54:54] They produce 90% of the world's
[54:56] semiconductor chips. Okay.
[54:58] I need that company. Wow. Because they
[55:00] have a dominant moat.
[55:02] I'm always looking for moats.
[55:04] Who does something that no one else can?
[55:05] So, if they're producing 90% of the
[55:07] world's chips, chips are going to lead
[55:08] the revolution,
[55:10] all right, I need them.
[55:11] Okay. Well,
[55:13] they design, but what do they use to
[55:15] design?
[55:17] There's got to be something.
[55:18] Oh, there's a machine that they use.
[55:20] The EUV machine. Okay. Well, who who
[55:23] makes that?
[55:24] Right? I'm down this rabbit hole.
[55:25] Oh, ASML. Okay.
[55:28] What do they do?
[55:30] So, they make the EUV machine.
[55:32] That machine
[55:34] is sold to TSM.
[55:36] TSM then manufactures the designs
[55:39] that Nvidia, AMD, Google,
[55:43] any semiconductor Right. So, you you
[55:44] start to see this story.
[55:47] If AI's going to work, ASML ASML has to
[55:49] work.
[55:51] TSM has to work.
[55:53] And then all these other hyperscalers
[55:56] have to figure out how they're going to
[55:57] make money. But, there's other pieces.
[56:00] Okay, so in order for all of that to
[56:02] work, we need power.
[56:04] Right. We need energy.
[56:06] And so now I'm thinking, okay, well,
[56:08] energy's important.
[56:09] What type of energy we're going to use?
[56:11] Right? Because our grid is
[56:14] sad its capacity. So, we need more. Now
[56:16] here comes infrastructure.
[56:18] Oh, well, where are we going to get the
[56:19] infrastructure? Oh, data centers.
[56:21] Ah. So, we need data centers. So, who's
[56:23] going to build the data centers?
[56:25] Right? What goes inside the data
[56:26] centers?
[56:28] Well, data centers
[56:30] it's interesting.
[56:31] They need to be at a certain
[56:33] temperature. They need to be big. They
[56:34] need to be factory size. Where have we
[56:37] seen this before? I feel like I've heard
[56:39] something like this.
[56:40] That they're going to
[56:41] Hmm.
[56:42] You know, in 2012, they used to call
[56:44] this thing Bitcoin mining. They're
[56:46] putting the the racks where the GPUs
[56:48] live.
[56:49] So, now I'm thinking it even deeper.
[56:52] If the racks are going inside there, how
[56:54] many racks?
[56:55] >> [snorts]
[56:55] >> Uh
[56:56] well, they can fit about 300 racks. Ooh,
[56:58] 300 racks per data center?
[57:00] Who makes the racks?
[57:02] Who makes the racks? Cuz if Nvidia's
[57:04] just making the chip, chip has to live
[57:06] on a board,
[57:07] right? The board has to go inside a
[57:09] rack. The rack has to go inside a data
[57:10] center. There needs to be connectivity.
[57:13] We were just at Nvidia last week. How
[57:14] many pieces does it take to fit in this
[57:16] rack?
[57:17] This one rack is a million pieces. A
[57:19] million pieces?
[57:22] Oh, that means opportunity.
[57:24] Because if I know the data center is
[57:25] going to keep expanding,
[57:27] if Nvidia's going to keep selling chips,
[57:29] then it needs connectivity, it needs
[57:30] energy.
[57:32] So, I just keep peeling back the layers
[57:33] and peeling back the layers until I find
[57:34] companies that I watch are partnering
[57:37] with these companies and saying to
[57:38] myself, all right, this is going to be
[57:39] next. I'm always looking for the next
[57:41] thing. But, it goes back to that five
[57:43] layer. Compute,
[57:44] application, energy, right? I'm looking
[57:47] at infrastruct- all those things that
[57:49] are going to be pieces along the way.
[57:51] Yeah. Yeah. Till down to the point where
[57:54] I study the chip and I say to myself,
[57:56] well,
[57:58] a GPU is great, but you know what it
[57:59] needs to You know what how AI really
[58:01] works?
[58:03] It gets smarter the more you prompt it.
[58:05] But, in order for it to be prompted and
[58:07] it should get to smart, it has to
[58:08] remember. Mhm. Memory.
[58:13] So, now, 2 years ago, I'm telling
[58:14] everybody memory is the story.
[58:17] This doesn't work if it can't remember.
[58:19] In fact, the more it remembers, the
[58:21] smarter it gets.
[58:22] And so, you need more memory. All right.
[58:24] Well, let me go find the memory
[58:25] companies that are going to benefit from
[58:28] being in this process. Okay.
[58:30] Good. We got SK Hynix.
[58:32] We got Samsung.
[58:34] Those are the two leaders worldwide,
[58:36] globally.
[58:37] But, those companies are in South Korea.
[58:40] I'm listening to our administration.
[58:41] What's their message?
[58:42] Make what? America first, isn't it?
[58:45] So, who's the leader in memory in
[58:46] America? Mhm.
[58:49] Micron.
[58:50] Oh, great.
[58:51] There you go.
[58:52] I'm investing in that company. 2 years
[58:54] ago, it was $83.
[58:55] Today, it was at $501. Wow. We were
[58:59] early. Why?
[59:00] We saw ahead. Mhm. If the GPU is the
[59:03] heart of the operation that's pumping
[59:04] the blood,
[59:06] memory is the brain of the operation.
[59:08] And the more you prompt it, the more it
[59:10] has to remember. The more you prompt it,
[59:12] the more it has to remember. The more
[59:14] memory it needs. So, every GPU needs
[59:17] memory. Perfect. Okay. Well, in order
[59:20] for this all to work, it
[59:22] the temperatures have to stay at a at a
[59:23] certain degree.
[59:25] It can't go with degree above or the
[59:26] computers will over the chips will
[59:28] overheat and they'll miss that they'll
[59:30] malfunction. Okay, well, what technology
[59:33] could keep them from malfunctioning?
[59:35] Right? We can put ACs but that's going
[59:38] to cost a lot of money to do number one
[59:41] and it really isn't as efficient as we
[59:44] could get.
[59:46] So, liquid cooling becomes a technology.
[59:48] Okay, cool. Liquid cooling will keep
[59:51] this relegated so we can make sure that
[59:52] these function cuz if they go over a
[59:55] degree or under they won't function
[59:56] properly. All right, who's doing liquid
[59:58] cooling?
[59:59] Who's partnering with Nvidia to do it?
[01:00:01] Vertiv. Okay, Vertiv, that's a company.
[01:00:03] We got to circle that.
[01:00:05] I could do this for an hour.
[01:00:07] >> Yeah. But this is how this is the
[01:00:08] process.
[01:00:09] >> Yeah. Right?
[01:00:10] >> Yeah. And then once I find the company,
[01:00:11] now I'm looking at it its chart. I'm
[01:00:14] looking for a couple of things. I'm
[01:00:15] seeing how it's traded. Okay, number
[01:00:18] one, who is his partners? Are
[01:00:19] hyperscalers their partners? Because
[01:00:20] that means large money is being spent
[01:00:22] with them but it means they're a solid
[01:00:23] business that has real deal partners.
[01:00:25] Hyperscalers? Hyperscalers are mega cap
[01:00:28] companies. So, metas,
[01:00:30] Amazon,
[01:00:31] >> Okay, the biggest companies.
[01:00:33] >> company. Hyper, right? This can scale at
[01:00:34] hyper They're spending and can build and
[01:00:36] scale at a different rate than everybody
[01:00:38] else.
[01:00:39] >> Okay.
[01:00:40] And so, I'm looking for who they're
[01:00:41] partnering with. Yeah.
[01:00:43] Then I'm I'm actually looking at their
[01:00:45] technicals, right? So, I'm looking at
[01:00:47] the how the stock is trending. So, all
[01:00:49] right, okay, where is it moving at? It
[01:00:51] is 72-day moving average, right? You
[01:00:54] would prompt that too. Where is it at in
[01:00:56] its 400-day? Right? What's its 50-day?
[01:00:59] Right? What's its relative strength
[01:01:00] index? All these things you're asking it
[01:01:02] and getting responses. So, you're going
[01:01:04] back to Claude or to ChatGPT and
[01:01:06] actually asking it about this specific
[01:01:08] >> only have to do it once cuz if I train
[01:01:10] my agent, it'll do it automatically.
[01:01:12] I'll tell it to give me that report
[01:01:13] every day.
[01:01:14] Right? Convenience, efficiency.
[01:01:17] I train it to give my daily process,
[01:01:19] then it does my daily process. Yeah.
[01:01:21] Right?
[01:01:22] >> Yeah. Now I have my time back.
[01:01:24] And it's going to give me the
[01:01:25] information. In fact, I can have three
[01:01:27] agents doing it.
[01:01:29] Yeah. And so I'm that's the process. And
[01:01:31] every day I'm thinking, "What's next?"
[01:01:33] Yeah. What's next? Okay, I can see
[01:01:35] what's next. I see where we're headed.
[01:01:38] Right? Like
[01:01:39] >> Yeah. I I
[01:01:41] I'm like, "Okay,
[01:01:43] this feels like a futuristic approach,
[01:01:45] but it has to be because the information
[01:01:47] gap
[01:01:49] is closing. Yeah.
[01:01:50] >> And it's happening every day.
[01:01:52] And so while people are saying, "Oh, we
[01:01:53] should invest in Nvidia." Yes, you
[01:01:55] should. But I'm looking at, "Hey, Nvidia
[01:01:57] is at almost 5 trillion. For it it I
[01:02:00] believe it'll get to 6 trillion. That's
[01:02:01] going to It may take some time.
[01:02:03] But the components that are going to
[01:02:04] make Nvidia a dominant company, oh wait,
[01:02:07] those
[01:02:09] those still have some space to grow.
[01:02:10] Yeah. So that's how a
[01:02:11] a SanDisk comes into play, right? I'm
[01:02:13] looking at this company
[01:02:15] because I already studied memory.
[01:02:17] Right? There's memory that actually goes
[01:02:20] high bandwidth memory, which is actually
[01:02:22] on the chip, which is great. Right? That
[01:02:24] helps for for for um
[01:02:26] inference.
[01:02:27] But then you have storage memory. Right?
[01:02:29] So most people, especially on like that
[01:02:31] are doing recording, we know we got to
[01:02:33] have a flash drive or a hard drive.
[01:02:35] Yeah. That type of memory, if we don't
[01:02:37] have enough, we got to get some of that.
[01:02:38] Mhm. All right, so who leads in that? We
[01:02:40] know Western Digital. We've seen that
[01:02:41] all the time. We know SanDisk. I I was
[01:02:43] recording episodes on SanDisk cards.
[01:02:45] Mhm. It became publicly traded. Oh, we
[01:02:47] got to get that. Why? I can see where
[01:02:49] this is headed.
[01:02:50] There's not enough memory. In fact, they
[01:02:51] sold out for 2026 and maybe the first
[01:02:53] quarter of 2027. We're going to still
[01:02:55] need storage. That's going to be a
[01:02:56] company. So we watched that go from
[01:02:59] $36
[01:03:00] to $1,000 today. Mhm.
[01:03:02] Right? Looking ahead, seeing what's
[01:03:05] next, and then
[01:03:07] executing. Yeah. You know what? Your
[01:03:08] your your your process is is
[01:03:10] fascinating. It's like it's so
[01:03:12] interesting. And I want people to
[01:03:14] uh uh, understand the importance of how
[01:03:16] you're thinking about it.
[01:03:17] >> Yeah. Because I think a lot of the times
[01:03:20] we see certain companies in the news,
[01:03:21] right? We always hear about OpenAI or
[01:03:24] Nvidia or now Anthropic. Anthropic and
[01:03:27] OpenAI
[01:03:29] they haven't IPO'd yet. Like they're
[01:03:30] they're relatively new businesses and
[01:03:34] estimated, this isn't exact, it's
[01:03:35] estimated cuz it hasn't IPO'd, they're
[01:03:37] saying that OpenAI could be like an $800
[01:03:39] billion company when it when it I IPOs.
[01:03:43] But the thing I love about what that's
[01:03:45] so interesting about your process,
[01:03:47] you're looking at the non-obvious
[01:03:49] business. Of course. So not the sexy
[01:03:51] name that we're seeing in the news and
[01:03:53] like they're being spoken about in all
[01:03:55] the podcasts.
[01:03:56] >> Yeah. What is building the
[01:03:58] infrastructure,
[01:03:59] the systems and the architecture
[01:04:02] behind the scenes.
[01:04:03] >> Yeah. And if you can isolate those
[01:04:06] businesses that are actually supporting
[01:04:08] the whole thing,
[01:04:09] >> Yeah.
[01:04:10] that's where the return is.
[01:04:12] Because it goes back to the story.
[01:04:14] When you think about a story, it's not
[01:04:15] one page.
[01:04:17] There's many chapters.
[01:04:18] In fact, for it to be a complete story,
[01:04:20] you need all the chapters to work.
[01:04:22] So that's how I'm unpacking it.
[01:04:24] Right? Like
[01:04:25] I told you the manufacturing story. All
[01:04:27] right, well, is there anybody that can
[01:04:28] compete with TSMC? Well, people will
[01:04:30] say, all right, well, TSMC Taiwan, you
[01:04:32] know, China might invade. And I'm like,
[01:04:34] well, yeah, there is geopolitical
[01:04:36] threat. But what have they done since
[01:04:38] the pandemic?
[01:04:39] Right? We had the AI and infrastructure
[01:04:41] bill, $65 billion bill. Why? To help
[01:04:44] bring fabs to the United States. Why?
[01:04:47] Well, if
[01:04:47] >> Fabs? Fabs, so those are factories where
[01:04:50] uh, semiconductors are actually built,
[01:04:53] right? The fabrication process of it.
[01:04:54] And so TSMC is like, okay, well, we'll
[01:04:57] build it in Arizona. So they build a new
[01:04:59] fab that will be online early next year
[01:05:01] and they built a a second one.
[01:05:03] And you realize how important this
[01:05:05] supply chain is. And so rather than have
[01:05:07] it interrupted, they're going to let's
[01:05:09] build here. So you're going to see fabs
[01:05:11] being built in Texas.
[01:05:12] Um I know Micron's building one here in
[01:05:14] New York. They're popping up for a
[01:05:16] reason because they want to have
[01:05:18] all the infrastructure here so they can
[01:05:20] make America
[01:05:23] So, so Troy, cuz
[01:05:25] and even when you were um sharing the
[01:05:27] story earlier about the the $100,000
[01:05:30] that you invested in the pandemic and
[01:05:33] that turned out to be 1.3 million. When
[01:05:35] you were doing it, that was the that was
[01:05:37] like the first big thing that you
[01:05:39] invested in and had like a huge return.
[01:05:41] >> Yeah. You invested in ETFs. Yeah. And so
[01:05:43] I'm curious for the person that's
[01:05:45] listening
[01:05:46] that's working that 9-to-5 job, that's
[01:05:48] like just getting into this
[01:05:50] and it's like opening their mind even
[01:05:53] just hearing the level of depth, but
[01:05:56] like you've been doing this for years.
[01:05:58] Like you spend your time doing this.
[01:05:59] >> Yeah.
[01:06:00] If someone's listening to this and
[01:06:01] they're like, "Okay, cool. I just want
[01:06:02] to get started." Is ETFs and being able
[01:06:07] to, as you described it, you're
[01:06:09] investing in like a bundle of stocks
[01:06:11] within a certain category?
[01:06:13] Is that a good way for people to begin
[01:06:16] and get some exposure to what's going
[01:06:18] on? I think it's important question that
[01:06:20] you asked and I'm going to answer it
[01:06:22] with the the the greatest breakdown that
[01:06:25] I could.
[01:06:26] I think it's the most important way to
[01:06:29] start.
[01:06:30] Um I like to think of my investment
[01:06:32] portfolio and so I in a manner of this.
[01:06:37] I want it to be strong. And so I have
[01:06:39] this table analogy. A a a strong table
[01:06:42] has how many legs?
[01:06:44] Four.
[01:06:45] So,
[01:06:46] that's how I want my portfolio to look.
[01:06:48] I want to have four anchors inside of
[01:06:50] the portfolio. And so those are ETFs or
[01:06:53] they can be indexes. And so for the
[01:06:55] people who are confused or may not have
[01:06:58] heard of an ETF or exchange-traded fund,
[01:07:00] think of it like this. Think of the
[01:07:03] entire stock market
[01:07:05] or an index like
[01:07:07] uh spy, which is uh the S&P 500. Yeah.
[01:07:10] Think of the S&P 500 as the supermarket.
[01:07:15] All of the food you can think of is
[01:07:17] inside the supermarket.
[01:07:19] Right? Or majority of them.
[01:07:21] And so that's what the S&P is.
[01:07:23] Now, if you want something in the bread
[01:07:26] aisle,
[01:07:27] right? That would be very specific. You
[01:07:29] know you're going to aisle 10.
[01:07:31] That's what an ETF is. An ETF is
[01:07:35] a specific sector inside of an index.
[01:07:40] So, if I wanted frozen food, I'm going
[01:07:42] to aisle 13. Right? So, if I wanted
[01:07:44] technology, I'm going to a specific
[01:07:47] technology ETF. Or I'm going to a
[01:07:49] specific industrial ETF. So, you can
[01:07:52] invest in the entire supermarket or you
[01:07:54] can invest in one aisle.
[01:07:57] And so,
[01:07:58] my base is always
[01:08:01] four legs. Usually two to three ETFs in
[01:08:04] an index.
[01:08:06] So, SPY could be a leg.
[01:08:09] Semiconductor ETF SMH can be a leg.
[01:08:13] XLK, which is a technology ETF, can be a
[01:08:16] leg. And depending on where I'm at, I
[01:08:20] leave that that last leg optional. So,
[01:08:22] right now,
[01:08:23] uh I have a memory ETF. That's my fourth
[01:08:26] leg. Right? Because I believe in the
[01:08:28] memory story. I understand it very well.
[01:08:30] I think there's still growth left.
[01:08:32] Here's the best thing about ETFs,
[01:08:33] though.
[01:08:34] It makes investing so much more
[01:08:37] simplified because you don't have to
[01:08:39] guess which companies to invest in.
[01:08:42] Look inside the ETF. It'll tell you.
[01:08:45] Right? So, if I open up SMH, right?
[01:08:48] Which is VanEck uh VanEck uh ETF. That
[01:08:51] That's who runs it.
[01:08:52] I'll look at where they're putting their
[01:08:54] money. So, I'll look at allocations.
[01:08:56] I'll go to their holdings. See what's
[01:08:57] number one.
[01:08:58] Number one, Nvidia. Should that be a
[01:09:01] company I invest in? Well, they're
[01:09:02] investing in it.
[01:09:03] Okay?
[01:09:04] TSM number two.
[01:09:06] All right. Broadcom number three.
[01:09:08] All right. Uh Micron's might be number
[01:09:10] four.
[01:09:11] All right. Those That gives me a good
[01:09:13] case study of where I should be, right?
[01:09:15] I'm following the money. We always talk
[01:09:16] about follow money. All right. So, I go
[01:09:18] to XLK.
[01:09:20] I'll see Apple number one. Maybe
[01:09:22] Microsoft number two.
[01:09:24] It gives me a good idea what companies
[01:09:26] that they're investing in. So, if I want
[01:09:28] to invest on top of my table,
[01:09:31] I'm putting those on top. All right?
[01:09:34] I might go to spy and I'll see the
[01:09:35] number one allocation in spy is Nvidia
[01:09:37] again. Oh, it's here twice.
[01:09:40] Okay. I'm going to have allocation to
[01:09:42] it. Now, here's what happens.
[01:09:44] Volatility is a real thing, right? It
[01:09:46] means the ups and downs and flows of the
[01:09:47] market.
[01:09:49] I'd rather invest in the entire market
[01:09:52] over investing in one company. Why? When
[01:09:54] the market pulls back,
[01:09:56] it will have a pullback and it might
[01:09:58] pull down maybe three, four, five, six,
[01:10:00] seven percent. If it goes past 10,
[01:10:01] that's a correction.
[01:10:02] But, if that company has a pullback
[01:10:04] and it drops 20%? Oh, that's going to
[01:10:06] hurt.
[01:10:07] That's going to hurt. If Nvidia pulls
[01:10:09] back 20%, the S&P is going to pull down,
[01:10:11] but it's not going to drop 20% cuz it's
[01:10:13] the way it's weighted. And so, I used to
[01:10:16] tell uh my boys, I'm like, think of it
[01:10:19] like this.
[01:10:21] Let's take LeBron James.
[01:10:23] All right? Arguably one of the the
[01:10:24] greatest. Is he your goat? He's my goat.
[01:10:27] I'm 28 years old, dog. So, I ain't with
[01:10:29] that.
[01:10:29] >> You You your whole life is what you
[01:10:30] watch, right? So,
[01:10:32] if you could invest
[01:10:34] in LeBron James
[01:10:36] or invest in the Western Conference
[01:10:37] All-Stars,
[01:10:39] which one would you invest in? Mhm.
[01:10:41] Oh, I'm I'm investing in LeBron. If
[01:10:42] we're doing early LeBron.
[01:10:43] >> Early LeBron, right?
[01:10:44] >> Yeah. Cool. What happens if LeBron gets
[01:10:46] hurt?
[01:10:47] Mhm.
[01:10:48] We got a problem. Right. Now, if he's on
[01:10:50] the Western Conference All-Stars and he
[01:10:51] gets hurt, you got a problem? Mhm. We're
[01:10:54] diversified. We got Well, I got a few
[01:10:55] options. All right. Still got KD.
[01:10:58] You got might have Steph. Steph, you got
[01:11:00] Kawhi, Joker.
[01:11:03] Well, Harden's in the East now, but
[01:11:04] yeah, right? But you got all these guys
[01:11:06] to supplement that loss.
[01:11:09] So, that's how you look at it.
[01:11:11] Now, is LeBron going to average 27 and 7
[01:11:14] and 7 on the Western Conference?
[01:11:16] Probably not. He'll give you that
[01:11:18] individually, but he might give you 15,
[01:11:20] 5, and 5. You'll take it.
[01:11:22] Let him do what he does there. And have
[01:11:24] him a part of it.
[01:11:25] Right? But if something had the risk of
[01:11:27] if he gets hurt, and that's all you're
[01:11:30] seeing in your portfolio, Yeah. you're
[01:11:31] hurt. Yeah. If he gets hurt here, we
[01:11:33] still got some strong
[01:11:35] companies, some strong players that can
[01:11:37] help us stay afloat. In fact, still win.
[01:11:40] Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's like the ETFs is
[01:11:43] like the foundation of your portfolio.
[01:11:45] That's like the stability and the core
[01:11:46] of it.
[01:11:47] >> Build my table and put individual assets
[01:11:49] on top the table. Yeah. You know what,
[01:11:51] Troy, before we get out of here, Yeah.
[01:11:53] because I think there's people that are
[01:11:54] listening at home that like uh
[01:11:58] their mind is just kind of like full of
[01:11:59] possibilities. And even the story that
[01:12:02] you shared in the beginning about how,
[01:12:04] you know, in life a lot of the times it
[01:12:05] does come down to one decision. Yeah.
[01:12:07] You know, making that one decision.
[01:12:09] And so, if someone has made the decision
[01:12:12] from listening to this conversation of
[01:12:14] like, "Okay, cool. I'm going to take
[01:12:15] this seriously. Yeah. Like I'm actually
[01:12:18] going to be a participant this time
[01:12:19] around. And they have, you know, a few
[01:12:22] hours, like a few spare hours this
[01:12:25] weekend, or maybe like, you know, after
[01:12:27] their 9:00 to 5:00, they have like a
[01:12:29] Friday evening that's open. They have
[01:12:31] time that they can dedicate to this.
[01:12:33] Can you just give them almost like,
[01:12:36] "Okay,
[01:12:37] after you've listened to this
[01:12:38] conversation,
[01:12:40] this is the immediate thing that you
[01:12:41] should go and do." But And the reason I
[01:12:43] ask you like that, I'm such a big
[01:12:45] believer in momentum. Yeah.
[01:12:47] And like
[01:12:49] taking it from your hearing this
[01:12:50] conversation to like I'm actually doing
[01:12:52] the action is just such a big thing. And
[01:12:55] so if they wanted to know exactly where
[01:12:58] to go next.
[01:13:00] Troy, what are you telling them?
[01:13:03] I'm telling them number one it starts
[01:13:04] with your mindset. So you can listen to
[01:13:06] this episode, you can play it back a
[01:13:08] thousand times. If your mindset's not in
[01:13:10] the right frame, if you don't have
[01:13:12] people around you and resources around
[01:13:14] you that are going to encourage you to
[01:13:15] make that one decision, none of it's
[01:13:18] going to work. So start with your mind.
[01:13:20] I often say that, you know, I was a
[01:13:22] millionaire before my bank account ever
[01:13:23] told me.
[01:13:25] Cuz my mind was there.
[01:13:27] My mom has an essay of me writing about
[01:13:28] being a millionaire when I was nine.
[01:13:31] My mind was already there. I'm going to
[01:13:32] buy you this big mansion. I'm going to
[01:13:34] buy you this car, Mom. And I'm going to
[01:13:35] do it when I make it to the NFL.
[01:13:38] I didn't make it to the NFL.
[01:13:41] Right? And I might not have bought him a
[01:13:42] mansion yet.
[01:13:43] >> [laughter]
[01:13:44] >> But the mindset was there. And so I
[01:13:46] would I would start with my mindset.
[01:13:47] Seeing where I'm at. Seeing what hurdles
[01:13:49] are in my way. Is it fear?
[01:13:51] Right? Is it trauma?
[01:13:54] All those things are introspective.
[01:13:56] Before we do anything in the outside,
[01:13:59] introspection first, right? Be
[01:14:00] reflective. Figure out where can we
[01:14:03] start?
[01:14:04] I tell people all the time, three things
[01:14:06] you can do
[01:14:07] after you listen.
[01:14:08] Right? Start where you are.
[01:14:12] Use what you have.
[01:14:14] And do what you can.
[01:14:17] Start where you are.
[01:14:18] Use what you have.
[01:14:20] Do what you can.
[01:14:21] So wherever you're at,
[01:14:23] that's where you start.
[01:14:24] Right? What do you have? I only got $50.
[01:14:26] That's what we're using.
[01:14:28] What can I do? Invest it.
[01:14:31] It could be that simple. We complicate
[01:14:33] it. We over complicate it. Right? And we
[01:14:36] never start. We're all about and
[01:14:38] especially in our brand it's always been
[01:14:39] about taking imperfect actions. There's
[01:14:41] never going to be the right time.
[01:14:42] There's never going to be the right
[01:14:43] moment. The moment is now.
[01:14:45] What are you doing with the now? Are you
[01:14:47] getting better today than you were
[01:14:48] yesterday? All right, so every day is an
[01:14:50] opportunity for us to get it.
[01:14:51] Today is that day. The reason you're
[01:14:53] hearing this right now is because you
[01:14:55] were meant to hear it. You needed to
[01:14:56] hear this message. We're leading by
[01:14:57] demonstration in real time.
[01:14:59] Today.
[01:15:01] What will you do?
[01:15:03] All right. What will you do? I told my
[01:15:05] kids that this morning. What will you
[01:15:06] do?
[01:15:08] If you don't make a decision, right?
[01:15:10] Two things can happen.
[01:15:12] You're going to make money while you
[01:15:13] sleep
[01:15:14] or you're going to work till you die.
[01:15:17] That's Warren Buffett's quote.
[01:15:18] And this one of the realest things that
[01:15:20] can ever be spoken.
[01:15:23] We have to figure out how we can make
[01:15:25] money while we sleep. We know that
[01:15:27] capital is a real thing.
[01:15:29] We know that that the gap in wealth is
[01:15:31] not going anywhere.
[01:15:33] So, we have to figure out how we're
[01:15:34] going to participate in it.
[01:15:36] And my theory has always been number
[01:15:38] one, mindset. Number two, figure out how
[01:15:40] to create a business. And number three,
[01:15:41] how do we invest in that business or in
[01:15:43] others?
[01:15:44] That's the That's the goal. Yeah.
[01:15:47] Troy, man, you've been a you've been a
[01:15:48] brilliant guest and you know, one of the
[01:15:50] things I want to say cuz we we had such
[01:15:51] a great conversation last week and I've
[01:15:53] been so excited since since we had that
[01:15:55] conversation about this one.
[01:15:58] But also, I just, you know, we're
[01:16:00] filming this in Westchester. Like we're
[01:16:01] filming this in close to the area where
[01:16:04] you grew up.
[01:16:05] >> Yeah.
[01:16:06] And now and now you're back here and
[01:16:07] just like hearing your story with that
[01:16:09] context, I just think it's um
[01:16:13] I think it's like remarkable what you've
[01:16:14] done and what you've built uh
[01:16:16] with your business but also just your
[01:16:18] legacy. Appreciate that.
[01:16:19] >> I just appreciate you being so open and
[01:16:22] transparent with the audience, with the
[01:16:23] people. I'm like, I need to start
[01:16:25] investing more after listening to you.
[01:16:27] >> Yeah. And and that that's the goal. I I
[01:16:29] think um you know, we give a lot of
[01:16:32] information and people take it for
[01:16:33] granted. And at early on it would be
[01:16:37] frustrating.
[01:16:38] But I'm like, nah.
[01:16:39] Remember what you your goal was when you
[01:16:41] started. And the goal was can we impact
[01:16:44] one person today?
[01:16:46] So I didn't get a hundred people to
[01:16:47] listen. Can I impact one? Cuz if I know
[01:16:50] if I can impact one, that person can
[01:16:52] impact five.
[01:16:53] And that person that was five people
[01:16:55] turned into 20 and 20 turned into a
[01:16:57] So let me just get one. Cuz if I get the
[01:16:58] right one, we're good.
[01:17:00] Right?
[01:17:02] I was talking to my boy and he was like,
[01:17:04] "Look, man, we can do this investment
[01:17:06] thing and maybe we can get up to a
[01:17:07] billion."
[01:17:08] And I'm like, "That's not the goal."
[01:17:09] He used to think let's be a billionaire.
[01:17:11] I was like, "Let's go."
[01:17:12] I'm like, "That's not the goal."
[01:17:14] The goal is let's create a thousand
[01:17:16] millionaires.
[01:17:18] Cuz what does a thousand millionaires
[01:17:20] look like in our community?
[01:17:22] Changes things. Everything.
[01:17:25] It changes everything. That's why I
[01:17:27] always give credit to hip hop because
[01:17:29] when I heard Jay say, "If every in your
[01:17:33] click is rich, your click is rugged, no
[01:17:35] one will fall because everyone will be
[01:17:36] each other's crutches."
[01:17:38] How do we get to that?
[01:17:40] Subtract the weak links from out the
[01:17:41] chain and rise and start reigning, Nas.
[01:17:44] How do we get to that?
[01:17:45] Oh, this is how we do it. Give them
[01:17:46] knowledge.
[01:17:48] Give them information. Let them execute
[01:17:49] on it.
[01:17:51] Let's watch this whole thing change.
[01:17:53] That's the mission we're on. Yeah.
[01:17:55] Troy Millings, thank you so much, man. I
[01:17:56] appreciate you, man. This was awesome.
[01:17:58] Yeah, I appreciate you. Shout out to
[01:17:59] London Town.
[01:18:00] >> [laughter]