Government-Funded Education is Economic Slavery with John Renken

Welcome back to the show. I’m here today with John Ranken. John, how are you doing today, brother?

I am doing good, man, doing good. It’s good to reconnect.

Oh yeah, absolutely. John is the CEO of the sales platoon. He’s an army veteran, corporate sales trainer, and speaker. He’s also a former six-time MMA world champion. He’s got 25 years in business and a whole load of other ****. Like, how do you even find the time, John?

I don’t know if the argument could be made poorly. I mean, it’s so interesting because we think that 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, and 50 years are a long time. But when you break it down, it happens over a heartbeat, it seems like and. I’ve just been fortunate enough, and I’m fortunate enough. Whichever way you look at it, have a life full of many different experiences. 

So, it’s been a crazy ride the whole time, and as long as I can remember, it’s been this way for me.

Oh, yeah, I can hear that. It’s interesting because I have a laundry list of stuff that looks like that. You know, change some of the categories. But it’s a disgustingly long list of things. People have helped with cool things I’ve done in places I’ve been. Do you have a list of all your stuff, or is it like your bio? He’s saying it’s just people listening. He sent me four binders worth of information to the house by the messenger. The poor guy riding the bike just wore the hell out. Do you have any? A master list of this stuff? Or is this what you send to everybody?

So that’s my convinced version. I do have a master list, so it’s funny because I did it really for my kids about this dad’s journal type thing, and it’s like 400 questions and pictures and memorable moments, and like, who’s your dad type thing? And I did that a couple of years ago, and then I just kept adding to it. 

So, just as an example, I have met famous people. Famous places. I’ve gone crazy with the stuff I’ve done. Crazy experiences, all that kind of stuff, and I have some outlandish ones.

So, I mean, I try to keep that stuff, and I don’t keep it for myself or even for stuff like this. So, we don’t know who our parents are when we’re kids. It’s only when we get older in life that we start looking back and going, man. You know what my dad did? What did my mom do? You know? And now you’re older. So, you want to know? 

And so, I wrote it all for my kids, hoping they’d come back and want to know who I was. So, that’s why I have mine.

That’s pretty interesting. I’ve not thought of it that way. I have a friend doing an interview series, kind of like what I do here, but his whole thing is that when you see a veteran, you go to the veteran’s house. They got like a flag on the wall or a plaque up there. If they got there, Shadowbox, but that doesn’t tell you anything about them, right? Unless you know that story or those sets of stories like you don’t, you don’t know. You just look at it. You’re like, these were Dad’s medals, and you know I miss him. And so, I keep his metals around. But that doesn’t tell you anything about it.

So, what he’s doing, what he’s doing with first responders, police, fire paramedics, EMTs, nurses, and then. Military members and veterans are interviewing and collecting that story, so when they, oh, let’s just say a shadow box. 

There’s a QR code on there; you can scan it, go, and hear all these amazing stories about the person and who they are. If they’ve got a rack full of metals, they’re explaining what those are, what those mean, and how he felt when he got them, or whatever that stuff is I had. In the interest of preserving family history or just, you know, conversations, a couple of visits ago, my dad was here. I had him sit in front of the microphone and sit next to him. And, you know, the camera was on him or whatever.

And I just ask them questions, you know. Please walk me through some of these stories. Tell me about your siblings. Tell me about some of these things. And we now have the technology, with something as simple as a zoom, where we can capture and catalog some of this stuff. And it’s a different world than the one you and I grew up in.

For sure. Do you know what it reminds me of? Did you see the movie Hacksaw Ridge? So, in the end, they talked to him and his unit before they died and recorded all that. It reminds me of that, as you can see in that movie… because we know Hollywood fabricates much stuff. You start asking the question, was it really like that? And then they have those. Everyone, at the end. Of the movie talking about him. I thought that was the most powerful part of that whole thing.

Yeah, the whole movie was just setting the table for the main event.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I love that idea. I’m telling you, man, that in a culture where we leave people behind so quickly, and life moves so quickly, you know, that’s why I did it—everybody has a story, but not everybody gets to tell it. There’s especially to their kids.

Oh yeah. I mean, that’s one of them. This show is so important to me that it’s not that. I have a show, and it’s got 100,000 downloads. Don’t you know? Like, that’s not the stuff. When I see all these other interviews, you often have a quick chuckle, an anecdote, or a fun story. And they riff a bit and then say, this is John’s new book. Buy it today. Help them be a New York Times bestseller, and then you’re off. Right? 

It’s a fun little thing. You don’t get to know the person at all. You need to understand what makes them who they are. I only see two people when I talk to people who have done as much stuff as you and I. One is that they went through the wringer early in life and were beaten up in various ways.

And really, they just have to. Achieve, and the other half on the other side of them is people who have Solid accountability in their lives that they’re meeting deadlines. They’re publishing goals and doing all this stuff.

So either your life was awful, or some kind of deadline is pushing you, some kind of accountability partner keeping you moving. And I wonder if I’ve known a third person that is an achiever like that.

I’ve never seen it; you know, I talked about this. So, when I was training in that fifth group, I knew very few people who met that level of professionalism and expertise and didn’t come from a horrible background. Very few.

Yeah, yeah.

Very few.

But you know, like in society, when they talk about these terrible stories or situations, they don’t discuss that as being the forge from which we are created. They’re not talking about how we had to be self-reliant and creative, out-of-the-box solution thinkers because getting through that stuff changes you.

I don’t know if you want to go controversial yet, but I have an opinion of why it’s—that way.

Well, let’s do it, man. Jump right in. That’s what this show is for. Talk about that stuff.

I think there’s an agenda for why those things are not being espoused and highlighted, and I think that it goes through this entire culture that we have that wants to feminize men basically, and they don’t want to talk about what it takes to be that. And we’re seeing it now in all this psychology. So, look, you’re a little bit younger than I am, but when you were a kid, any school got shot up.

No, the first school shooting in Columbine was 4/20/99, and I graduated on June 6th that year.

Yeah. OK. So, when I went to high school, we had our shotguns in the Back of our truck.

That’s the same thing my dad was telling me. Everyone had their guns there to go hunting after school.

You go hunting after school. Squirrel, rabbit, when it was dear season. Whatever. Right now, you know, I have yet to see any research that talks about this. It’s just my opinion. But, you know, if I messed up when I came home, my dad beat my ***.

Yeah, there were real-world consequences for your ****.

Yeah, there were real-world consequences for that kind of stuff, right? Real-world consequences for all kinds of stuff. If you open your mouth to somebody, you usually get blasted, right? If you touch somebody you weren’t supposed to or do something you weren’t supposed to, it was an *******. OK, well, now we have all these pop psychologists. They tell everybody what they’re supposed to do, and you know, you know, you’re supposed to let little boys have their feelings and all this craziness, and then now they’re all shooting up schools.

In my last episode, I talked a bit about feminizing a whole generation of men. We talked a little bit about that journey. When you get into things like school shootings, I don’t know if you’ve seen the statistics on this stuff because we’re at a time when we have a generation of single parents that were raised by a generation of single parents. Just by the numbers, more, more, more likely to be raised by the mom, and the problem is that. Women don’t know how to connect with and teach boys or train them to be men, and when we were growing up, being a man was about responsibility and duty to the family. Those things, like responsibility, duty, and accountability, were like the big three. I guess you could just say it. It was rad, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And we changed how we’re doing this stuff, went from that, and then got some of the needed stuff, right? I share my story on this show because people must know they’re not going through it alone. You guys need to know. It’s OK to talk about some of the stuff. 

The statistics revolve around single-family homes or fatherless homes. What is happening to the men in the country? A full 85% of kids or kids in an at-risk youth program are from fatherless homes. Right, 85% are in jail. Yeah, women are found on the streets and are prone to human trafficking. They’re coming from single-mom homes where they didn’t have a guy in the home. 

Protection shows how to operate on the level of respect, which is the guide communication code, whereas love talks on the level of love. I’m not saying that guys don’t live in that love area, and women don’t talk with respect, but largely, that’s the way you guys speak with each other. And when a guy gets mad, someone says something disrespectful. And when a woman gets mad, someone says something unloving to her. And it creates this whole crazy cycle of how we interact with each other. I had a friend of mine.

Love and respect.

Yeah. Love and respect ministries. Yeah, I love those guys. Everyone, I can’t. Remember where I saw this? This is me regurgitating something that I won’t be able to cite right now. I am trying to remember. I heard it, but they talk about it. The problem with mixed-sex businesses, schools, and all this stuff is that I don’t have anything against anyone I work with that I’ve ever worked with based on any of those innocuous titles.

But you know, when guys interact with each other, tensions rise, and you get to that point. You know what? It takes a little bit longer than it did back in the day. But you know, you know. **** this. We’re going to fight, right? Swings happen. You tussle around whatever the thing is, and eventually, I mean now, it wouldn’t be more than, you know, a two-minute fight. We all wore out, and, you know, I’m older and all that stuff, but when you get to that point, and you know where that boundary is from where we’ve had enough. When it comes to blows like that. It puts the two guys involved on a different level in their relationship. Then almost everything is just kind of understood. 

That can’t happen to a man/ woman arguing about relationships is right because you can never get fed up enough. It’s never OK to hit someone of the opposite sex, right?

Have you? Have you heard? Ever heard of Bill Barr on this? The comedian Bill Barr

Oh, I mean, I know Bill Barr, but I don’t know if I’ve heard this, but remind us.

Yeah. So, Bill has a whole skit where he talks about this. There’s a level where you and I, if we don’t like each other, there’s a level where one of us is—going to knock the other one in the mouth. Yeah, just as we know it, right? And you’re either gunning for it, or you know it’s coming, and you don’t care anymore, right? 

However, with women, there’s always a level. But women operate as though nothing they do deserves getting punched in the mouth. It’s hilarious. It’s got dude, and when you listen to it, you’re like, holy cow, it’s like, I’m not saying you should ever, because it’s like, I don’t think you should. But for you to believe that you don’t ever do anything worth it, that’s a mistake.

I could picture him now because I know what you’re talking about. Are you? You walk in on your lunch break, and she’s doing the neighbor on your bed with, you know, whatever. The thing is, there’s never a reason.

Yeah. And he’s saying that. And so, he talks through this whole thing about how men and women handle conflict. But in his Bostonian smart-ass kind of comedic way. And I mean, it does. Man, there are ramifications to being a man and not doing what you’re supposed to. Be doing, and fortunately, it’s different for women. There’s this other skin; you’ll love it because it’s all in this name.

It’s like a TikTok or a real script or, you know, whatever on Instagram. And it’s this captain. And they hit an iceberg, and that first mate comes in. He’s like, we’re going down.

He’s like, OK. Get all the men and children and tell them. They line up for the boats. And he’s like what he says. Yeah, all the men and women, or all the men and women. He goes; what about the women? He does this. Is 2022. You bigot. He’s like the women have to fend for themselves; you know, it’s so they get out there and sit there, and he’s like, all right, ladies and gentlemen, we have the boats out and men and children first.

And all the women are like that. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he’s like, no, this is what you’ve been fighting for. Equal treatment. It starts today with the sinking of the boat, and then all the women were like, no, that’s not what we wanted. And then they have this one. This is exactly what we fought for; the other four were like…  Shut up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I was in my twenties, I was like, I am starting to learn how to talk about some of these things. At that point, so this is, you know, 20 years ago, I’m like. My thought was that men or women say they want equal treatment, and then they also say that they want to be treated like ladies.

You can have both.

And at no point in time is that the same thing.

No, no.

And I’m sure my understanding of it 20 years ago was that I was, you know, in my early 20s. Many gentlemen and guys I know are just ***** ***** in their 20s. That’s just it; they run their mouths until they get to that limit, and they realize. Oh, people have their limits. You’re like, OK, all right, backing down.

Obviously, we’re talking about this stuff, and obviously, we’re joking about this stuff, and we don’t feel that all men and all ladies fall into any of these categories.

But, you know, it’s an interesting thing to talk about because, you know, you’re a Generation X, or I’m a millennial, and an elder millennial like 81 is somehow millennial. I don’t know if that’s true, but by some Internet troll, I guess what I am. It’s so interesting to see how everything has changed. I know the media, social media, Internet media, 24-hour news cycle—all that stuff changed how we interacted with everyone around us, you know? 

Before TV and radio, how many people did you run into in your lifetime? 

100/ 200/ 250/ 3000. I don’t know. 

Whatever that number is, now you can interact with thousands of people every 10 minutes, right? You can see the same video on TikTok as well.

Yeah, maybe.

A million people saw it.

Right, it’s wild.

And you’re getting exposed to things that other generations were never exposed to or never knew existed simply because we have the technology to do some of that stuff. I’m looking at the map behind your head and can see all the places I’ve been. And I can see news stories from all the different places that are at. And then you can find blogs from Random Citizen in whatever Country is talking about anything and everything; there’s too much to process, let alone process. Divide things between men and women, or most men and most women, like it can’t be done.

Jordan Peterson does a great job with this topic and the idea of equality versus all that other stuff. And you know everybody wants equality until it’s time to eat a bullet. You also know you see few women volunteering to be on the front lines of combat. You know there are—a few. But you know that’s radically just the media.

I don’t see women volunteering to be garbagemen or bricklayers, right? All those things make a huge difference. And the crime ratio: 85% of all criminals come from single-mother homes. You can devalue men all you want, but the bottom line is that they make society.

I need to figure out how or what level. I agree with that. What percentage of me, but I understand what you’re saying. When you look at some of that stuff, it’s just that we don’t understand how to train and bring up the opposite sex. But there’s got to be the feminine, the feminine, and the masculine to create a whole person. It’s just that.

Jordan Peterson, how does he say that? Yeah, I think he says there’s equality in our differences. I think the way he says it is equality in our differences, meaning men and women in value are equal, but our real value comes from our diversity, right? Men are different from women, and women are different from men. And if you subtract one out of the role, it doesn’t matter which side you go to. Going to the hyper-toxic masculine side with no femininity is just as destructive as all feminism with no masculinity. But if they’re both destructive,

Yeah, I think I’ve said. Before that, I thought toxic masculinity was men with the complete absence of any masculinity.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s not masculine at all.

Yeah, I don’t. Yeah. So, I got to know, man; I’ve asked you this before when you were guessing my old show nonprofit Architect. But how Did you get into MMA and then work your way up to being a six-time world champion?

Yeah. So I served in the 90s, so I was in the army from 93 to 96 before I joined the I mean, I was a nationally ranked Taekwondo martial artist, player, fighter, whatever they call them now. I thought that I would be able to join the Army and make the Taekwondo team. And then, and then, I got an opportunity to come to Fort Campbell and be in the infantry. And so very quickly, I was like, I don’t want to do Taekwondo. 

Is that in Tennessee, Fort Campbell? OK.

Yep. Yep. Fort Campbell, TN. Well, Fort Campbell, KY, But it’s really in Tennessee. It’s just that the mailbox is in Kentucky. So.

My squad leader was a judo player who introduced me to the UFC, so I started playing judo, doing jujitsu, and fighting professionally in 1996. So I was, you know, a first-generation fighter. And mandated, they talked about the rough background, right?

I just wanted to be in the cage and fight somebody else who didn’t care who they were, didn’t care what weight they were, and didn’t care what they trained. And I just fought as much as I could when I was in the army. I thought every Tuesday night down in Nashville, at the music, what was called the music mix factory they give you? If you won, they gave you $100.00 of drinking money.

So, I’d fight every week when I was in the army, doing kickboxing and boxing. I had 20/30 fights like that. You know, and that’s how I was drinking so much.

Why do you fight? 

So I can drink.

Yeah. So well, I mean, ultimately, I’ve been fighting my whole life. As my dad talks about it, he’s like, Yeah, you were nuts. When you’re a kid. One of my first real fights was when this kid pulled up a snowball and was in a much higher grade than I was. I was in, like, second grade. I was freaking nailed me in the face.

I was like, oh, OK, and I waited until he started walking off and had his back turned, and I freaking just ran up and jumped on his back, grabbed his neck, and he’s like, I just started beating the crap out of him; you know, he got suspended, and when we got home, my dad was like, what happened? I was like, you’re freaking. He threw a snowball in my face. He was in 6th grade. I was in second grade. 

And my dad was like, you think that was a smart idea? I was like, well, I won. Yeah, you know. And I mean, that’s just that I fought all the time—one of my crazy ones. I was in 6th grade, and I was in Houston, TX. I lived outside Jersey Village, and I started dating this girl. Her ex-boyfriend was a gang member who got upset with me, and we had a power outage when the rights clicked, four dudes in that class jumped me, and then we went down. It was me against those four just taking. I mean, I was fighting all the time. I thought the football team was in. High school, you know. I just like fighting.

Well, why are you just so disagreeable with everyone? That’s what I want to know. As far as I’ve known you, you’ve always been a lovely man.

You have yet to talk to my ex-wife. I guess I don’t know, you know? Yeah.

One fact we got was a little surprise for you, John. Let’s bring out … John’s ex-wife.

Yeah. No, I mean, you know, I think it goes back to the disrespect thing, you know, like I was raised in a pretty turbulent home, and the one thing I wouldn’t put up with is disrespect. And so, I was willing to throw it over. 

And man, I fought through grade school and high school. And until I found pro-fighting, I would fight anywhere like it wouldn’t matter, and it wasn’t even like I would get angry at people. I was just like, OK, you’re ready to go. Let’s throw blows. 

I graduated high school. We’re in downtown Peoria, IL. My buddy Justin and I threw a bottle at his cart and many people. There were ten people, and they threw a glass bottle at his car and messed it up. And he pulls over, and we get out of the car. And I started assessing the situation because I was already training by then. 

And I was like, this probably isn’t such a great idea. And he’s like, Oh man. Get through bottles by car and like. Yeah, but there are like 12 of them. And he’s like, Oh, they’ll back down. I was like, all right, so he starts trash-talking. The kid starts trash-talking back. We’re like 18/19, whatever we are. And I finally looked at him. I’m like, bro, they’re swinging at us. And he turned around, naked. Boom.

So, it was me and him against 12 kids. I just. I just. I love the fight. Man., I got even angry. Well, I just went to work.

Geez, when? When I was born, my mom told me this, and later, it’s not a memory I have, but she looked at me. She’s like, you’re going to be a boxer. I don’t know why. I don’t know why she would say that. I don’t know why she would think that or feel it. No one in her family was a boxer. Right. This baby Travis’s neck doesn’t work in bobblehead to ruin him myself. Maybe that’s why it looked like a boxer just got beat up. I don’t know. 

But I did a little boxing in college. We had ROTC with the Marines at the University of Oklahoma. And Marines love their pugil sticks. And what else do they do? They’ve got that little mcmap.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, make a map, whatever that is—martial arts for the Marine Corps or something. And then, you know, the Navy has always had boxing smokers. So, we had this, like, big event, and this, that, and the other. And, you know, one of us was professional.

So, we had, you know, some red gear. On some different things, I’m not very tall; I’m like 5/8. But I’m broad, right? I’ve got broad shoulders, all this stuff, and we get going, and we’re getting lined up, and they’re, you know, picking people at a kind of the same size, and I’m waiting and waiting and waiting. And I’m. Like, but I can maybe fight this guy, or like, this guy is huge just got 6’2 you. I’m 180, 5’8, and you’re like, you look like you’re pretty big yourself. I was like, OK, we got in there, and I didn’t know what to expect. I got knocked around a little bit, knocked him around a little bit, figured. Out, like if I can. You know, move on that first punch that I can swing back, and about the best compliment I had at the end, he was like, man, that hurt, that hurt. You hit hard. I’m like, yes, yes, I hit hard.

But in the mid-2000s, UFC got big, and I started creating this big following. I thought about it. It’s like, yeah. That’s something I can do and then like. Someone like my kid Like. I’m holding my kid; they have no body controllers flopping around. They hit me in the nose with their head, and I’m like, Nope. I can never be a professional fighter like Nope; I see stars. This sucks, like, yeah. I can’t do it. 

Not my thing. Not my thing.

I loved it, man. It just fed my soul; I don’t know how else to say it when I found out about MMA—I wasn’t training to fight. I mean, I was just doing judo and Taekwondo, or maybe I had started doing Thai boxing by then. And my first professional fight was in an abandoned house in Wisconsin. With no heat, 20 below 0.

Well, that’s a reason to fight right there. I mean, anyone who spends any time in Wisconsin knows that.

Yeah, 20 is below 0. You can look it up online. It’s called the cold, cold house fights got two flights.

The cold house fights. I have to find that we got to. We have to try to link those in. The show House Cold House fights.

No, no, no. That was my first fight. Two weeks later, I bought a 330-pound cop from Detroit, Michigan. Yeah, I was 165. Yeah, I was 165.

330!

Pounds, Frank, and

I don’t usually judge many people, but That’s dude.

Yeah, I would probably say I am. I wouldn’t.

So, did you find that professional fighting helped calm you down? So, you wanted to avoid fighting in the civilian world randomly? Or was it age that tempered you? Or what do you think?

Now, because I was still young, I started fighting professionally. Let’s see, or I would have been 22/23 when I started fighting, so I was still young. But once I started fighting, like once, once I got into the army outside of the pit fights that we would do in the army, I never thought again outside of a legitimate outlet. It was all competitive.

So, because I never felt the need to because I was like, then I’m like, I would fight 2-3 times at the music mixing factory a month, sometimes more. I fought one guy. He was 13 and O as a kickboxer, and I freaking beat the brakes off. So, I was fighting guys that trained, and, you know, there was no need to fight on the street because you’re not going. To do anything.

You’ve gotten your fix.

Yeah, it was mine. It was my fix. It was about being competitive, challenged, and testing myself and men when I got turned on to MMA.

In the arena, yeah.

It was over.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I had a 12-year career—I guess 70 pro fights, 20/30 amateur fights with boxing kickboxing—and I just loved it. I was addicted. I fight. I mean, because in the early days of MMA, you could fight as much as you wanted. I would show up and fight shows with my bag, not scheduled to fight and go. I’m here. I’ll fight anyone.

That, that’s. That’s one of my tenants who is showing up. What does success look like? You’ve got to show up if that’s not step one; the rest of the steps don’t matter. You have to show up. That’s cool, man. I know you’ve got much travel and are now climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. You’ve done all these things. What is it about you? 

What makes you a Titan? What are those qualities? All the stuff you’ve done on your impressive resume happened.

I think the biggest thing is that I don’t let anyone else define what my life should look like. If I get it in my head that this is what I want, that’s the answer I want that I don’t even have to justify. 

And I’ll tell you a crazy story. Right now, I’m making my own drink: honey and wine. And I’m looking at a way to monetize it because I like it and drink it. Everybody’s like, what are you going to do with that?

And I’m like, I don’t know, because I want to; I don’t even care if, like, a year from now. Now, it fails. It’s, you know, I’m like, I want to try it, and I like it. And I’ve made my first couple of bottles, and I’ve got a 5-gallon brewing machine right now at home. And I’m going to. Drink it and give it away. Some of my buddies and see if they like it, and I’m going to look at how I can monetize it, and if it doesn’t ever monetize, I don’t care; I want to. And I think one of the secrets for me, at least, is that I’ve just decided to live the life I want. I don’t care what Travis thinks; I don’t care what my competition thinks.

This is not the first time I’ve heard that you don’t care what I think.

And so, I try to live my life how I feel.

No limit.

And you know, it also set me apart in my career. I don’t want anybody to tell me. When I can, I can’t go to work. I don’t want anybody to tell me how much I can and can’t make. I don’t want anybody to tell me when I can and can’t go on vacation.

So, I want to go this week. I go this week, so I tried to find avenues in business that would Empower me to travel when I want to travel to make money. I want to be present in my kid’s lives as much as possible. And then I did it.

What do you think prevents other people from really understanding and implementing that same feeling in their own life that you won’t let anyone else define who you are?

You know, I think our education system teaches people how to be enslaved, and I don’t think that. So, if you look at the numbers, right for just entrepreneurial businesspeople, it’s something like 95% or 98% of all people fail at their business attempts.

And so, what that does is give you two types of individuals. Now, some people see opportunity or people who want security. And the vast majority of people are probably on the security side. And so, when they want security, there’s no reason to take a risk.

Oh, that is a quote right there. Say that again.

When you want security, there’s no reason to take a risk. 

Wow

I would rather risk doing this in my sales between classes when I interview every candidate who comes to sales for June. So. I’ve got to ensure I can place this guy or this girl, right?

So, I have to be able to find him a job.

So, I must ensure I’m putting them in the right place. So, I ask him, Travis, I will give you two choices. Either is OK. You just have to know what you’re asking for, right? Choice number one: you’ll make 65,000 a year in a base, but the absolute most you’ll ever make is 125. That’s the most. OK. Or you can make as much money as you want. 3/4/500,000 a year, or you could. Make 0, and it’s all on you. Which do you pick, and why?

Oh, I think you know that, for me, the answers have been different at different points in my life, right? One of the reasons the military was so attractive to me was coming out of, you know, trailer parks and foster homes and all sorts of, you know, that security for me. I just needed to create my base-level foundation as a person.

I didn’t know how to do anything. I didn’t understand relationships. I needed help understanding society. I understood the court system and got a lot of that experience as a kid, but like getting into the military, that’s what I needed. One of the reasons I left the military As I started learning about some of these things in business, podcasting, and all this fun stuff, I realized then that the military was just holding me back. 

It was a nice cushion for where I was, but it prevented me from understanding who I was. Certain types of people are a great fit for the military. Although I did it, didn’t serve 22 years, did good things, and got all sorts of promotions, it was a real struggle for me, and I didn’t realize it until the last year or so, why? It was that way. Part of it was in the community I was in, which was just, you know, the strategic nuclear world, right? Everything has hard and fast rules. Everything’s dictated to you. So, part of it was that environment and understanding that I couldn’t challenge the system. 

One of the things that I enjoy and really like is one of the reasons I love these conversations so much. You know, we talked about male and female relationships, and what that looks like is that if we don’t challenge the thoughts we have about those things in those areas, we don’t challenge them. That means we are on board with some other *******. Into our lives, and we just go with it. 

Does it serve us? Does it not serve us? Is it true? Is it right? Is it wrong? How do we know? We only know if we start challenging those boundaries, like when I talked to an amazing guy yesterday. Mark S.A. Smith, He’s just phenomenal. I got a little note saying I wanted to discuss what we discussed. This stuff needs to be improved.

We all know people who just go with the flow, so to speak, and just do that stuff have this lack of Persistence to be right. And one of the things that drives me is that I want to be wrong. I want to be wrong as quickly as possible to get to what right is if I’m wrong. If I’m brewing wine in my garage, I want to know. Does it suck?

Tell me now. It sucks, so I can change it or do something different. Or whatever the thing is. I want to keep looking through. What do you think about the fact that you have it? Your desire to grow and do something different is like your persistence to be right as you feel that drives you.

Absolutely. If so, I don’t know anybody now; they might not. They might need to explain it this way. Would you? So, let’s just argue for a second that you and I both served during World War II in Germany instead of the US.

Right.

Would you, do it?

Would I serve in Germany?

Yeah. Would you, do it?

That’s a good question.

So you would only do it if you were German and thought it was right. Nobody does the wrong thing over and over and over knowingly. It’s about how you’ve been programmed, and I have somebody who always challenges me on this. I’m a die-hard Patriot; I believe in our country; even when that’s up, I believe our country is the best opportunity in the world. And they started challenging me on some things from World War II and before.

My blood was getting heated. I know we’re not perfect, but I was. I was getting pretty ****** because I’m like, no, that’s not what happened. And then you start to read some stuff, and you’re like, ok, I can see where they’re coming from here, right? 

And the whole thing that does not bring that up is that nobody does the wrong thing for themselves, knowing it’s wrong. Just like you and me, I would only have served in Germany if we were Germans programmed to think that was right.

Yeah. Well, I think I was in Germany at that time. You either think What you’re doing is right, and you’re serving, or you’re being persecuted, and you try to flee, or you like or try to flee. That’s pretty much it. It’s pretty much all the options, right? 

That’s right.

You either believe and do it there, or you realize I can’t possibly do this, and you’re trying to get out.

And then, you get, or you’re creating, an insurgency to overthrow that oppressive government.

Right. Yeah, yeah.

Which is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer did.

I love the stories about him. I’m just looking.

You get to see this in a smaller microcosm with athletics. Right. Professional athletics? Because nobody trains the wrong way over and over and over and over. You want to know your flaws and mistakes before the season starts so that you can correct them on your course for perfection or champions.

Yeah, yeah, I like that. I’m just looking at my notes again from Mark S.A. Smith. I was looking for the quote: The people that grow, the successful people, the people that reach greatness. All of them have one thing in common. Maybe they have a bunch of things in common. One thing for sure stands out, and Mark said that if you’re going to be that person, you must have the capacity to change your mind. There has to be a thing. It’s got to be available to you.

You’ve got to do it in my time of growing up in different things. I remember how it used to feel to be around people with more money than me. Right. And when you’re at the trailer park, that answer is everyone else, right? Everyone else has more money than you

Growth mindset.

And I thought that they were the problem, that they were the blame. That’s not true, right? The people that I know that are wealthy are those that I’ve, you know, served with. I’ve done amazing business things with that. I’ve met people I’ve interacted with; they’re phenomenal people.

So, I wasn’t really—I knew nothing about the rich. I just knew that they had something that I didn’t. And because I didn’t have it, I assumed it was their fault.

It’s OK to come out of the closet and admit you’re conservative.

So, this is very controversial, right? I’ve been in this group of Toastmasters. One of the gals there owns our brewing company, and we talked a bit. She is an academic. She has tenure at the university; she’s trying to build an equitable business and paying people in a brewery far above what most people in the restaurant industry would be paid.

And so, she’s struggling right now to get bills paid and to provide an equitable workplace. Right now, she’s stuck between hating capitalism and then trying to use it to do something good. And so, in, in a flip question like a flippant question. I love to challenge these things.

My flip statement was that middle-class people are the most selfish people on the planet. You know, in the country with Rich people, they go out and build businesses, and their wealth is used to revolutionize medicine. They used to create homes for people experiencing homelessness with their wealth. They used to create stable homes for all their employees, which might be 5/50 thousand or 10 million. These guys are so wealthy; knowing when they have that much cash is ridiculous. Do you think they have a money bin in the backyard for cash they go swimming in, like Scrooge McDuck?

No, it’s the valuation of their company. That’s different from what cash on hand was like. Well, you know Jeff Bezos doesn’t need them. How many families does he personally support through Amazon as a business?

Those conversations always frustrate me, so you sound like you can emotionally weed through them better than I can.

If you’re listening to this, please tell me what you think about that statement. If it got you riled up, let me know. Like, go on the Instagram podcast and say dude, you are full of ****, and I hate you. Let me know. Interact with me, right? But the more, the more.

Here’s the truth, though everything still needs to be solved by the government. We both served in the government, but the government is the most inefficient vehicle to do anything like it doesn’t matter. Like, so I won’t. I’ll leave out the company name. But I was working with the company. And they are such a large company that they had so many layers of bureaucracy to make a simple $30,000 decision. I finally threw my hands up and said, how do you people get anything done? Like, that’s the federal government, right? So, I would much rather.

Yeah, that’s part of it.

Take Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Bill Gates and go, hey, can you build sustainable housing? They would get it done faster than the government, and it would be a better option than the government.

Yeah, So we both served, right? Have you seen these like Ford truck commercials, or do they say a military grade? In their commercial, no, it’s Ford F-150. It’s built tough; it’s built this military grade. Anytime I hear a civilian company talking about military-grade, I just think of all the broken, rundown equipment and the terrible living conditions.

Right.

People in the military deal with the equipment they’re like. It’s military-grade. I’m like, oh, my God. If you’re listening, use that in your sales process. Stop, please—dear God. Stop. Because anyone who knows is just going to laugh at you.

They need to understand the government contracting system. Yeah, because we always buy the cheapest. You know, whatever, it’s the most important.

Yeah, multi-$1,000,000 platform. Built by the lowest bidder, good luck being safe, no?

Yeah, right. Oh, you remember when President Obama put out the Affordable Care Act, and they launched that website, and they couldn’t get that damn thing to get up like that?

Well, yeah, and it costs how many millions of dollars are needed to build a web?

Right. I mean, that’s just the height of the inefficiency. Of the federal government. It’s a cosmic picture of what we had to deal with in the military. I’m surprised our aircraft stays in the air; I mean.

Well, that’s the only thing with the biggest chunk, right? So that’s one of the reasons that works, but… When you’re talking about a military-run program versus Industry-run programs, you know, technology has been unregulated, and maybe that’s not quite accurate. With the least number of regulations and technology explodes, right?

You get double the capacity every 18 months, double the speed every 18 months, this, that, and the other. And you look at a government program like education they’ve been socializing us with. And when I say that, I’m talking about the factory workers who came to Congress. Our factory owners came to Congress and said we don’t have people who can work here. They created a system that runs just like the factory floor. 

I think the Education Act of 1893 made kids sit in columns. File right to change classrooms when the bell rings.  The right to have union lunches is only to ask a question to get the answer that is agreed upon, not to ask.

not for free thought.

To understand Right. And then you’re programmed to answer everything that’s asked of you, and it creates the society that we have today, where people aren’t willing to challenge this, yet somewhere you’ve got Montessori schools. 

And in private institutions, people are doing different ways of learning, but when you try to implement some of those through the federal system, know the education program. You can’t do it because that’s different from what it was built for. 

People think education is broken. Education is working exactly as it was designed. Still, it was only designed to create more taxpayers who don’t question the system and keep feeding the government every year, in my opinion.

My conspiracy theory is that when the Democrats realized they would lose the slavery battle, they came out with a new type of enslaved person.

Really, how would you? How would you back up that statement?

People who adopt that factory mentality for employment are enslaved. They’re created to fund the federal government. The W2 employee has no freedom, no ability to deduct expenses, no ability to escape tax liability, and then we give them two or three thousand dollars back at the end of the year of the 20 or 30,000 we stole from their paycheck. We tell them to be happy because they popped out—a couple of kids. So, we took physical slavery, and Democrats fought to keep physical slavery for blacks. That was a losing battle.

So, they created mentally enslaved people. And it’s a system that imprisons people, so people don’t think they can make more than the minimum wage.

Yeah, and it’s economic slavery, right?

Yeah, it’s economic slavery. So, there’s research out there that proves this. Do you know the average American pays between 8/12,000 more in annual income tax than required?

Well, judging by my face, if you’re watching this, I’m making this stinky face like that stink. That suck.

Do you know why? Because you’ve been educated to pay your taxes. Because that’s what the federal government wants their W2 slaves to do. But if you started a side hustle, you would not only be able to make more income, but you would also be able to write off more of your tax burden. And employ people and give them freedom.

Right, right. I have a pair of gals that work for me for podcasts and production. Both 10/90 employees, about 1 gal in Canada. Lorelee, she’s amazing, and I’ve got a gal just north of Tulsa. That’s marrying one of my best friends here in November. I’m performing the ceremony for one month and one day. But when I do and generate podcast revenue, I’m helping support not only my family but those of those two other families.

When you talk about taxes, I will say something a little flippant. Right. Well, I’ll talk about two things. If you need to learn the rules, you will get beat up by the rules if you and I were playing a board game right now that had 25 rules, and I only told you two of them. What is the likelihood that you’re going?

You’re not, right? You’re going to get your *** kicked every time. I’m going to win because I know all the rules where you don’t when you We apply that to anything, like being in the military, not knowing the instructions, being an engineer and not understanding the principles, earning some kind of income, and not knowing the tax rules. You need to learn the rules to avoid getting beat up by them. So, I explained the tax rate. To people, then, this is a very flippant observation. Right on the first page of the tax code, it says to pay this much tax. Every other page of the tax code is about how not to pay the tax that they told you to. On the first page, when you collected it.

The textbook was written for two people. Employers and employees, not rich and poor employers and employees, and you can play the game as an employee and get screwed. Or you can pay to play the game as an employer, like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or whoever, and not pay nearly as much.

Right. And then you get into arguments with people about, well, they don’t pay their fair share of taxes; they pay property taxes on every warehouse that, let’s just say, is Amazon, right? For every warehouse they build, they pay property, healthcare, and payroll taxes. Right. Do they get many tax deferments? Yes. Because they needed to find a way to bring that facility into town to create those jobs. 

I’m in Oklahoma City here. And I know by the airport they’ve built two enormous Amazon warehouse places; I know of at least three in town, but everyone that shows up there to do the thing, like all those. The family is being taken care of financially to some degree.

Yeah. Well, it’s not true. So, the top 10% of the wealthy in the country pay 98% of the country’s tax burden. It’s simply not true.

Pay your fair share. ah

Why would I do that? I mean, think about this. So, we went to war with England over three cents. Increase in our taxes. $0.03. That’s what we went to war over. And we have a government that is ****** us. Your money is taxed when you get it. When you purchase, you are taxed when you get services: taxed on your property, taxed on your vehicle, taxed on your food, and taxed on your clothing. How many times can you tax the same dollar?

Yeah, you, it’s really true, like my thing is when I buy and sell a car. Or buy a used car. Why am I paying taxes on the second sale? It’s already been taxed.

Again, the other person has to pay for it, too. It’s not just you. The other person has to pay the taxes, too.

Because they got taxed on the income, and you got taxes on the sale.

Right. The system’s criminal. And that’s why I say that. I think if you go back and look at the timing of it, right? So, what happened to the economic system as we freed enslaved people? They didn’t have any labor anymore. So, they created a whole new class of enslaved people. But these are slaves of mindset.

Mindset enslaved people. How long were you slaves to your mindset?

I started my own business when I was 11 years old. My first business: I’ve had four W2s, one of which was the army. The rest of the time, I’ve been at 10/99

Yeah, I’m going. I must admit that it took me a lot longer to figure that stuff out. You know, it’s only in the last couple of years that I figured it out. You know what I mean? The last two years, in particular, have been for me—for my journey, for my stuff, for whatever. One of the biggest things I did was start a legitimate business. And the second was to eliminate everyone in my life who didn’t have an abundance mindset. 

I’m not talking about having a bad day. I will not talk about that at all, but if I talk to you Monday about the same thing, and then you talk to me Wednesday again about the same thing, and then Friday again, Hey, man, when are you going to take control of your life and get that **** fixed?

And you have people who respond in one of two ways. Yep. I’m with you. Yep. Thanks for calling me out. Let’s get this done. Or do you have the other side? Right. You know what the **** you’re talking about? You’ve yet to go through this stuff, this and the other, But I know Zig Ziggler says that your attitude, not your aptitude, determines your altitude. 

It’s not the thing. It’s never the thing. It’s always how you feel about it. You walk by a new church being instructed, and they’re laying bricks. You talked to the first guy. What are you doing? It’s like I’m laying bricks. Right. You take the second guy. What is it that you’re doing here? Like, oh, I’m building a nice wall here. You talk to the third guy. What are you building? He’s like, I’m building the sanctuary for the Lord’s people. 

It’s the same task. But it’s the different perspectives on that same task that are the different people. The task is not the problem. The stock market is not the problem. The president is not the problem. Whatever group of people you blame is not the problem. The problem is our perception of what it is our attitude about.

Jim, have you ever heard of Jim Rome? Do the thing

Oh, I do know Jim Rohn. I love.

Yeah. So Jim Rohn was, you know, he went through several different residents and was called in to, I am trying to remember. I think it was like Shell Oil or maybe BB Oil or something. Like that, right? And I was doing one of the transitions between Republicans and Democrats.

So, what do you see over the next couple of years? As they increase and decrease, I see fall and summer. It’s like it doesn’t matter. It’s going to be the same. It’s what you do with the opportunity. There’s going to be an opportunity. What are you going to do with it? It doesn’t matter if it’s a Democratic president or a Republican president. What are you? Going to do it.

Yeah, yeah. No matter where the stock’s number in the stock market is, it’s the highest ever. Then, other people go broke, and if it’s as low as ever, I know people are getting wealthy beyond belief. I know they are walking around the city. You’re sad when it rains, man. The farmers are happy as ****, and when you’ve got days of sunshine and everything’s wonderful, the farmers are sad and the citizens are happy, right?

Well, think about NFL players. How many of those make millions and millions and millions of dollars and then end up declaring bankruptcy?

Oh, have you seen that? ESPN 60 for 60 broke or 90 for 90 broke. Yeah, no, it’s a whole thing. They show. They show how not only is their lack of financial understanding Right but how many people in the NFL come from wealthy families?   A very, very small percentage. 

So, they’ve taken everything they know. About money, which is Jack ****. Right. I’ve been there. I know you’ve been there, right, Jack? **** about money. And then they all of a sudden have millions and an entourage that they’re paying for by spending, you know, $5 a night at a ******* steakhouse, paying for all 30 people’s dinner. You’ve got all of a sudden everyone that pretends to call you family, whether it’s an uncle you’ve never met or cousins you never met, to come out. And they are coming after money.

Pride gets in the way. Ego gets in the way because they don’t want to have anyone tell them their business, right? Because they became millionaires. You didn’t become a millionaire.. You became a professional athlete, and you had an agent that worked the deal for you. You didn’t become a millionaire. You became the king of your Profession. 

It doesn’t mean you know anything about money; they talk about how many people go broke. But in this ESPN 30 for 30, I think they talk about this stuff. Look that stuff up. If we can get those Links in show notes, go watch. You have this incredible accumulation of wealth. Even the shack special that came out recently. Did you watch that on Netflix?

I haven’t seen that one either.

Well, they had. They had something like the Air Jordan 1, right? I am trying to remember what that one was called, but then I saw the Shack version of it, and he said he was an army kid, by the way. He started playing basketball in, like, Germany, growing up.

But the number one thing that Magic Johnson taught him is that it’s not about the dollars. What you earn today is about the dollars you keep over a long time, and to check, that meant buying businesses. He owns something like I can’t remember the number of people.

So I’m just going to say 80 brands. It’s not the right number, but a ridiculous number. Brands he owns. Right and.

Yeah, Papa John’s—I mean, all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, that with his personality and what he did in the NBA, like she’s living that best life, and he’s doing it. It’s a better life because of the businesses that he got into. The NBA was great for something, but it was different. That kept.

Yeah, when you like it, like the NBA, the NFL, or any of those paying all that outrageous money, which is good for them. I’m like, make the money. But they all do foundations to give away their money that don’t do anything but save them tax.

They should be doing foundations and buying businesses to have liquid income after their NFL days, NBA days, or whatever is over, right? What would you do with $10 million if you signed a contract with the New York Jets or whatever your team is, and they gave you $10 million? It shouldn’t be to start a foundation where you give away all the tax liability. That should be done later.

You’d create a family bank through insurance to set up because any insurance payout is tax-free, so whatever money’s accumulating in

Harbaugh did that, right? So, when he signed the contract with Michigan, Michigan did an $8 million whole life insurance policy for him, as the key person of interest, made it non-taxable for both Harbaugh and the college didn’t have to pay taxes on it. Right. So, he has 8 million, drawing 8%. Every year in a whole life insurance policy

Yeah, yeah. If you’re listening to this for the first time and hearing this stuff, one of the ways that rich people stay rich is because they know some rules that we don’t know. And I have an appointment with my guy on Thursday to move my TSP. My first savings plan from the military went into that whole-life account we’re discussing. So, I can get them tax-free payouts.

Is that with Derek?

Nope. This is from a guy at 5 Rings Financial I met several years ago. I met a gal this past week. She teaches people how to stack money—you know, stack gold and silver—and use that as a tax shelter to not pay taxes on and to grow wealth tax-free. 

Oklahoma’s got one of these laws. There’s like four or five states in the country where, when you get sued, and you’re found personally liable, there’s a couple states out there where they can’t touch your house. In every other state, if you get sued and held personally liable, they will force you to sell your house and give you some percentage of that, including all of it. For the lawsuit and give that away.

But in Oklahoma, they can’t touch your house, so we’ve got People like doctors who earn significant income. Oklahoma is one of the cheapest areas in the country, and they’re buying gold, melting it down, turning it into fixtures, turning them into shelves, and turning them into things that are part of the house’s physical structure.

Because if they ever get a malpractice suit, that goes beyond the limits of the insurance. They would be broke, but in Oklahoma, they can’t touch your house. So, then they would take those things that are part of the house.

Well, you could incorporate a trust that owns your score, and then your score owns an LLC, and you create fire breaks between your wealth and your liability.

But not as a W2 employee.

Yeah, you can’t do that as well. You said you could. It doesn’t take much money to do that, but most people don’t think that way. So, did you ever see the movie Accountant with Ben Affleck, who’s got autism?

Yeah, it’s been several years, so it’s pretty. It was way more interesting then I thought it would be. How many accounts do you know are exciting to talk to?

Yeah, none. Well, so if you can watch that movie at the very beginning of the movie, he’s having a conversation with two farmers, and they’re going to have to put their tax costs on a credit card. He looks over and says, did you make that, and she goes? Yeah. Do you like it? And? He goes not particularly. She’s like, OK, it goes, but you might have what the IRS calls a home-based business.

And then he starts explaining it. Do you have a truck? Do you take that truck and buy supplies? Do you have an office space? Do you have this? Do you have this? People don’t realize. And this is what I’m trying to teach our veteran community that if you come into the military at 18 and start a side hustle, you start a business. I don’t care what it is—the freaking underwater basket weaving. 

The mere fact that you would save between 8:00 and $12,000 a year plus be able to make a little bit for your first four years in the military means you could leave the military with 40,000 than you. I had when you came in just for tax savings.

Just in that first tour. I’m not going to pretend to be the authority on this stuff. There’s much stuff. I’ve. I heard, and there’s much stuff I’ve tried, and I know about that I still need to do. I’m not an expert, but do I love talking to experts about their stuff? It’s not how I can do it. It’s who I know who’s already an expert in it and can do it for me if I can pay them a little bit of whatever. Right. Can I change the transmission in the car?

I can. Right. But I need the tools to do it. I don’t have the time to do it. I have to know how to do it; I understand. How to do it? It can. Please do it. I’ve done it before, but man, am I not going to waste my time doing that **** anymore? I’m going to take it to the expert. He will have it done way quicker than I ever would, right? It will cost some extra bucks, but I don’t have to deal with that.

You are better than I am. At some point, your time will be worth more money than it would cost to do something.

Yeah. And if it doesn’t, you are in the wrong field of work, my friend, or you just have terrible money habits or something out there. I mean, I’m loving all of this conversation, John. We’ve talked about economic slavery; we’ve talked about men’s and women’s roles; having an open mind, the willingness to change your mind leads you to success. We’ve talked about money like this; this show’s got it all.

Just this episode right here. It’s got it all. If you have, what would you say to the people listening? Or writing letters. Are you struggling to figure life out, or have they heard some amazing things we’ve discussed? What would you say to people listening right now?

I think I would probably quote Patton. I’d rather take a ****** plan right now than a perfect plan two weeks from now. You just have to get after it, right? You’re going to need help figuring everything out. This is why professional athletes and, you know, high-end people don’t mind failure. I’d rather figure it out now, make those mistakes, and make the necessary changes than wait until everything’s perfect because the truth is, it never gets perfect. It never changes if you don’t start taking action now, so I would probably just requote Patton. However, you said that.

Right. Yeah, I’m with you.

I don’t think it’s a direct quote.

I’m. I’m with you. I ended up talking to you; teenagers get teenagers who come to the house. And you hear them talking about this, that, and the other. And they talk about what we just talked about, right? They’re like, well, it’s got to be this before it’s that. It’s going to be this before it’s that. And I told him what I was like. It’s like, you get your license right. And, yeah, I’ve got my license after two months. Great or whatever, and I’m like, you’re learning to drive a car. You do things in the wrong order. Sometimes I’m like, Did you ever try to turn your wheel?

Like, turn the steering wheel while you are stopped? Like, how? Easy or hard is it to do? Oh, it’s pretty hard, like you got to. Really. Move it like you know; you must put some questions behind it, right? And it’s like, how much easier is it to move the wheel once you’re moving? You’re like, oh, you can just make little adjustments the whole time, and it’s easy. And it’s the same with life and business, right? It’s hard to get something going if you’re not moving in the first place.

It’s like this with life lessons, too. Think about this. What if you waited until everything was right before you got married?

No, you never get married.

Mayor, what if you waited until all your finances were exactly as they were supposed to be before you and your wife had your first child?

Never have a kid.

You never have a kid. See, we understand this when it comes to relationships; we understand this when it comes to getting married or having kids, like, you know, we probably look around and, you know, I don’t know about you, but when we had our first kid, I was like, holy ****, I’m not ready for this. This is way more than I thought it was.

I got my first grandkid a month ago; she’s a month old, Remy? And I’m watching my daughter and my son-in-law. And I’ve got a great picture of my son-in-law, just like With this panic, I looked on, his face holding his baby, and I remembered what our life was like at that time. We had our daughter. I was 20 when I turned 21. My marriage was about two years old. I’ve been in the Navy for about three years, right? I didn’t know how to be a sailor. I didn’t know how to be a dad. I didn’t know how to be a husband. I hardly knew how to be an adult, right? And you got to. Figure it out all at the same time.

Now imagine if We did that with business and making money. The truth is, it’s harder for you to secure a good wife and good children than it ever is going to be. to make money. But we treat. Money is that. That’s the real risk. That’s not the real risk. Anyone who’s divorced will tell you. Pick wrong and see how much. That costs you.

Do we? You could develop our line of T-shirts with quotes from the show. Just from the show, you get a whole line of T-shirts for the stuff I said with the like. Pick wrong and see how much that costs. Yeah, like Willie Nelson said in the Dukes of Hazzard.

Yeah, yeah.

And in that movie, he’s like, why does a divorce cost so much? It’s worth it, you know, like, yeah.

If you think about it when it comes to taking a chance on a side hustle of business, a dream, or a vision you’ve had, it is far less money than what it would ever cost you to choose wrongly. When it comes to marriage and children,

Yeah, it is. When I was in the nonprofit game, I was talking to a She is a little bit north of the Bay Area, kind of getting into wine country and stuff, and she’s running a nonprofit, helping to rescue cats and educate people in the community about how, you know, having your pet spayed or neutered keeps the population down, and you’re doing these different things. And it’s like, cool. 

It’s like, how many people are in your town? And she said 40,000, and she had this real problem with asking people for money like she didn’t. She didn’t want to get that, no. And I was like, So I was like, how often do you leave the house? She said every day. I’m out in public. And how many people do you run into every day? It’s like, oh, anywhere between, you know, 20 and probably 200 every day. I’m like every person that you don’t ask to donate to. Your cause is a guaranteed no. The only chance? You have to get a yes as if you asked.

If you ask,

It’s the only chance you have.

I mean, again, go back to dating, right? What happens if you never ask a girl out?

You. Yeah. Your only girlfriend you will have been Rosie and her five sisters. That’s it.

That’s right. Right. I mean, so we get it in other areas, but there’s some. This is why I say that people have been trained to be enslaved; don’t question doing what you’re told. Get a nine-to-five job; be happy with your $55,000 a year. And maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll live a full life, and we won’t take all your money.

Yeah. Well, then you had Death, taxes, right? Even at the end, they tried to take that **** right. But. 

But here’s the deal: If you’re listening to this, and I don’t imagine you’ve listened this far into the episode and still have that question in your head if you’re working all week to have money for the weekend, whether that’s to take the boat out or drink beer, you’re not living life, you’re not. Are you shooting for new experiences? 

You’re not open to changing your mind. You know those things that life has juice in it for you. That nectar of the gods happens when you start questioning and challenging everything you thought was true. And it’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about understanding that there’s a different way to do something. There’s a way that I do podcasts, and it works for me. It’s been very successful. 

Some people don’t do any of the **** that I do in podcasting but have found a way for their show to. Be successful, right? It’s about something other than the different methodologies that work. Some people work with me who love me and would not have it any other way, and they can’t possibly pick anyone else to help do their show for them, right? 

Some people believe that, and some believe, Travis, you have the worst ******* processes. Procedures. I can’t believe that’s what you charge, right? The two perspectives on the same thing I do have wildly different results, which has nothing to do with me and has to do with them at that point. In time, it’s. How do they view it?

Have you ever seen that quote? It floats around Facebook all the time—somebody doing Better than you. I will never hate you. Or never, like hate. What’re you doing, right? I’ve never. I mean, I don’t ever see Elon Musk bashing new businesses.

No, no. He’s too busy doing his own thing.

Yeah, even the ones he’s competing against, right? I don’t see Joe Rogan telling Travis he has a ****** podcast.

No, but I would love to talk if Joe Rogan is out there.

Joe, if you’re listening, call him, you know? So, it’s this whole idea that, and if those are the people in your life, you probably need to look around your life because people are. You are doing good. Don’t hate people. 

The big misconception is. If you win, I can’t win. That’s a big myth. We can both win. We can both win every day. All day, right?

There’s so much money out there. Have you heard? Have you heard of Patrick Bet David?

I have it, but you mentioned something I wanted to discuss. Joe. Jim Rome, quick. Jim Ryan again says you’re the average of your five closest friends, the five people you spend the most time with. And I know I said this before. If you’ve heard this, you can probably skip ahead 30 seconds. But if you come to a new town and everyone you meet’s got a hot rod, you’ll buy one. If you come to a new place and everyone just wants to go to a casino for a week and have fun, you’re hanging out. With them, you’re going to end up in the casino. 

If you want a big, impressive, cool business, start hanging around the people doing that stuff; they won’t hate you. They’re going to help you. They’re going to mentor you. They will guide you and show you some of the stuff they did so you can get there. Your business stinks right now. And everyone you hang out with has a ****** business. Guess what? There’s a reason why you’re not looking for those people who are in the place you want to be. They’re doing the things that you want to do to have the success that you want to have.

Yeah. So Patrick, but David’s been on this huge Black Rock stateside, and he talks about whatever that other company is. Do you know how much money there is? Circulation is happening right now on the planet.

Nope, I’m just going to guess it’s somewhere in the trillions.

$430 trillion. $430 trillion.

You are cringing, overspending 30 bucks to read a book that will improve your life.

That’s right. And that’s the point. There’s more money available. If you just open your mind, there’s no reason why everybody on this planet can’t make ten grand a month. 

I remember when I thought that would have been a miracle in my life—ten grand a month. When I went to join the Navy, I looked at the pay chart and the pay scale. Well, it’s been published, right? You can go. See how much does anyone in the military make you look at the chart? Well, I said I started. I came in as an E1 and said E1 under two years, and you go down to that thing and extrapolate that out for a year. I made less than ten grand in my first year in the military. 

You were earlier in the 90s. You probably made like six grand and got slapped. That time, you didn’t make any money in the military, but on the same chart, when I signed up as an Admiral in O 10. Four-star Admiral with 20 or 30 years in, they were making in their base pay like ten grand a month. I thought that. It would be a miracle, and that’s where I wanted to go and that’s where I wanted to be. I eventually did 11 years and listed an E6 crossed over the dark side. They had cookies, right? 

And they worked my way up to Lt. No, 3E, and I eventually made 04, but I declined the promotion to retire and get out. I was making more than $10 a month. There was a point when I was in Bahrain with all the extras. I was making a shade less than $15 a month tax-free. If a kid from the trailer park in a foster home can do it, surely you can find a way to figure something out.

Anybody can do it? It’s funny that you bring this up because I’m doing the skill bridge program when you start thinking about it, right? So, I talked to many kids and many guys getting out of the military, and I heard this six-figure talk, right? I just want to make six figures, and I’m like, I don’t think you understand. No. Like, what do you mean? I said this wasn’t. In the military anymore. Six figures in the military usually come with $30,000 of non-taxable pay—all that kind of stuff, kids, you know, whatever. You don’t get any of that stuff anymore. 

So, if you make $110,000 a year as a civilian without having some ability to write off your Taxes right now if you make $110,000 a year, you only take home $80,000.

You’re paying 30 percent of it in taxes.

Yeah, roughly 30 of it is in taxes.

Sounds terrible.

Yeah. So, think about this. So, I bring this up to people all the time. I have somebody that I all the time thinks I shouldn’t be this broke. I make six figures, and I keep laughing. I’m like, why do? You keep saying that. Because I make $110,000 a year, and I go, you don’t make $110,000 a year. You make $84,000 a year because that’s your after-tax income, and you refused to listen to me about starting a side hustle so that you could start writing things off and getting that money back.

I always run into people who need help understanding what that means. So, if you’re watching the video, you get to see my hands move right when you are a W2 employee and you make this much. My hands are far apart. You get taxed on that, right? If you’re in business, you make that much, you have write-offs, you have payroll, and then you have the new equipment that you bought. You only pay taxes on the profit.

So, if your profit, if you brought in $300,000 in business last year, but your profit was only 15 grand, you’re only taxed 15 grand; you’re not taxed on the 300,000.

Even more than this man, this is the secret. This is why these guys make so much money. Listen to this. So, if you have your corporation, LLC, or ASC, it doesn’t matter which one, right? There are pros and cons to each.

If you have your corporation, which costs anywhere from 120 to $1000 to start up, you can buy your home and your corporation. You can buy your car in your corporation, your computer in your corporation, and your cell phone in your corporation. You can put your insurance in your corporation. You could put everything you do in your corporation. 

And then what happens is that everything becomes a tax write-off before you get to your income. So, you might be making only $30,000 a year on paper. But that’s 30,000. That’s like 30,000, not 30,000. And now I have to. Pay all my expenses.

Right.

Right.

It’s just a whole different way to look at something right now. I had a trip this weekend that was canceled. I was going to go out to LA for an event. The red carpet, you know, is all fancy and does all the stuff. It got canceled. 

I told a friend I would be able to make their wedding in North Carolina because I would be in LA. Right, but now I can attend her wedding, and I’ve been discussing this with my wife since last night. We’re looking at plane ticket costs. 

This is not. Another is, you know, I only have to find a reason. Then, to talk business there, the whole trip becomes a write-off: the mileage of the gas, the plane ticket, all that stuff. I can pay with it from my business expense account because I will do some business there and the whole trip. It comes right off.

Yeah, exactly.

Why wouldn’t I?

You can run off your vacations.

Why wouldn’t I?

You can run off your whole vacation. All you have to do is Do business in the middle of it. Like I say. This makes people think I’m crazy.

Well, you are, but that’s why we like you.

Yeah, arguably, I am. I don’t care what the gas is. I don’t care if it gets to $5 a gallon. I don’t care if it gets six gallons, right? Right. Now, for every gas tank I put in my car, I make $340 in tax deductions. Because right now, it’s $0.65 a mile. So, if you track your miles, which I don’t On paper, I have an app on my phone that tracks it.

Mile IQ.

I use. What is this thing called? Hold on. You would have to ask me, hurdler. I use hurdler; OK, my only EQ is good, too. I’ve used that one in the past—that’s a Good one, too, right? So it costs me $40 to fill my tank, but every time I fill it, I get 500 miles per gallon or 500 miles per gallon times $0.65. I don’t drive anywhere if it’s not business.

Right.

I don’t care what the gas rate goes up. This is never going to cost me $300. Fix my car to fill it up.

Right.

So I make a profit every time I fill up my car.

Because you’re using it for business.

I’m using it for business, and my business owns the car.

Crazy how that works, huh?

Yeah, right. So when you start thinking about this from a different lens, It makes no sense that you’re broke.

Yeah, I used to do warriors wallets when I learned many principles about money. And this is like going from a train wreck to building a foundation—not from having a foundation and investing, but from going from a train wreck to a foundation. Then, like if you can’t live on, this is talking about savings, right? Saving 10% or whatever, you can’t live on 90% of your income. You can’t live on 120% of your income because it has nothing to do with the money; it has to do with your behavior. 

The behavior is wrong, or the attitude is wrong. Is the reason you can’t live off 90%? Of your income, right you have. I said yes to some kind of debt out there or some kind of fun. You’re willing just to blow everything on, and then you wonder why you’re bro. Whatever is holding you back, take all your bills and debt if you’re. I love talking about stuff right now. Look at all your actual debt; if you paid it in full, it would be 0, and you would get that payment back. See how much money your payments are? Is it, you know, $800 a month? Is it 1,500 a month? It’s 2,500. A month, right? 

How much more could you do? If you had that $2,500 a month in your pocket to do whatever you wanted, could you go on a vacation every three months for $7,500? You bet you asked. Or could you start a business like John’s talking about with an extra $2,500 a month in your pocket? You bet you asked. You could. But you’re too worried about what alcohol you drink for the weekend. What will your weekend trip look like with the boys every weekend? To have any real money, you’re willing to put that in your card and not pay it off. You want to work against you confidentially instead of having it work for you.

Here’s another one. This is so simple, man. You know you shouldn’t buy a new car. It’s the worst investment possible, right? Just period. I don’t care what anybody says unless you’re in the top 10% of the nation’s wealth and then buying cars to escape taxes. OK, then I get it. And then I’m like, blow your money, bro. 

But if you did this, you put it in every time you bought a car. On Turo, let Turo pay your car payment. How much more could you do with that extra 3-4 $500 a month? If you put your car on toil, you’ll make $3 to $500 a month.

And let’s be honest.

Now, your card becomes a tax write-off.

There’s some app out there that helps other people use what you want. There’s an app if you’ve got a swimming pool in your backyard where people can rent your swimming pool for the day or the weekend. 

There’s an app—TURO, where people can rent your car. There’s an app for someone to use your house for that. It’s called Airbnb or VRBO. There’s an app where you can use your garage or driveway space as a rental area because someone doesn’t want to pay for the storage unit. They’d rather pay you. I will park your boat in my backyard for a year. Suppose you want me to Hell yeah. Please give me that ten grand. Why wouldn’t I?

Right. Why wouldn’t you?

But you’re so busy consuming entertainment, social media, whatever the thing is, you’re too busy consuming; instead of creating, you’re spending all your time, energy, and effort on something with no payout and not learning anything new. What’s the difference between someone who can’t and won’t read anything? Nothing… They’re both broke.

Nothing… they’re both broke. Listen to this. So, I don’t know what percentage of you are veterans but just think about this from a veteran perspective. So, we come into the military at 18, and we’re going to do 20 years. 

What if, when you were 18, somebody came along and said, Travis, you need to buy a whole life insurance policy, put $250 a month on it, and every time you get promoted, you raise it to $100 a month? OK, by the time you get Done. You would have over $1,000,000 in your whole life. OK. Every time you have PCs, you should buy a quad and rent out three.

I am living one around the other three, yeah.

Yeah. Rent out one little one; rent out three. So, by the time you’ve spent 20 years, I have yet to learn about the Air Force. But in the army, we transfer every three to five years. So, you’re going to have four to five quads. OK, at the military. The base is where people are always going to rent, right?

Yeah, you’re going to have what, 16 or 20 units by the time you retire?

You’ll have 16 to 20 units, bringing you a liquid income of about $10,000 monthly plus your whole life policy. Because you own assets, you will have about $6,000,000 in the bank. That’s true. **** you, money.

Yeah, you can do whatever you want.

Want me to do what?

With that money, yeah.

**** you. I’m not doing that. You know, right, plus then.

When I was a

You get your retirement and your disability.

Yeah, when I was a young *******. Now I’m an old *******. When I was a young *******, Don’t tell me what to do with my money. You know I can do whatever the hell I want. This, that, and the other. When I finally got that **** in order, And, you know, I didn’t do it the same way I didn’t. The Dave Ramsey plan paid off debt when I got to where I retired at 22 years old. I had no consumer debt left. We bought a very cheap house in Oklahoma—very, very reasonable. 

I could have. I have bought probably a hundred $150,000 bigger house. But I know that you know that, as an asset, it’s not actively paying you. It’s not an asset. We went the debt-free route when I was overseas. I put $50 in the bank and started podcasting. When I retired, I told John the whole story of this disaster. And when I retired, when my wife had brain surgery, I wasn’t working. Grandma died at the job I had lined up. 

The company went bankrupt. Right. I was probably in dire straits. And had I not been prepared; it could have ended in suicide. It really could have, right? But because I had $50 in the bank and a VA rating of 90, they paid me monthly because I was in the military. Pension is paying me. Every month, I literally could sit around and do nothing. That’s not what I did, but I could do nothing, and we would have been fine. 

We would have been completely fine because of the money in the bank, the recurring income that was coming in our propensity to, you know, my wife grew up on the farm. I grew up in, you know, shambles, right, the pre-election to just not spend money on ridiculous things. Put us in that position where I had the margin in my life, the extra room to try some of them. Stuff, and I had the military do it. John talks about it in the business context. It exists, but it doesn’t matter what you know because knowing is only half the battle. GI Joe, the other half is what you do.

great quote!

It is what it is. It doesn’t matter what you know. It matters what you do. And if you never do anything, it doesn’t matter that you do. Know how to save money? If you ever start saving money, the money still needs to be there. It’s great that you know you need to save money, but failing doesn’t add anything. And it’s true with everything in life, John; this has been much fun. If you want to connect with John, I know his big push is my sales platoon.com. Go ahead and connect with them there or give us a social media handle where people can get back to you.

Yeah, the best right now is because I’m working with almost exclusively corporations, and businesses getting veterans hired for 65/75K a year are to connect with me on LinkedIn—just John Rankin. You should find me because I’m the only ugly dude with that name.

You are the only ugly dude with that name, but we love your spirit. I love your willingness to share your amazing life. We dropped. We dropped so many tips and tricks on this episode. It’s starting to feel like a whole different show. Thanks again, John. Pleasure, as always.

Thanks, man.