1:00

Hey , what's going on , guys ? I've got a special guest here today

1:02

. We have Gary Cardone

1:05

. He's been building startups since 27

1:07

years old . He's had five different companies

1:10

in two different countries , in three

1:12

different industries , and he's a Tampa St

1:14

Pete guy . Gary , I'm so excited to

1:16

have you here . First

1:19

off , before we get into

1:21

all this , what is the biggest

1:23

mistake you've ever made in business ? Because

1:26

five companies , two countries , three

1:28

industries it's a lot of stuff and I know you're exiting

1:30

some of these businesses . You've had incredible

1:33

, incredible success

1:35

, but what are some of the mistakes ? Because

1:37

nobody's talking about that .

1:40

Some of the mistakes . I mean holding

1:43

on to positions too long , holding

1:46

on to a business . I

1:48

started my first career when I was 21

1:51

in the all-in-gas business , was

1:53

fortunate enough to join a startup

1:56

at 26 . There was 12 people , would

2:00

stay there 17 years and

2:03

one day I'd never sold any stock . And

2:06

one day the most senior guy

2:08

at the company we were now 6,000

2:10

people , $30 billion corporation

2:13

I mean , none of us actually knew what we were doing

2:15

. We

2:17

were at the right place at the right time and we

2:19

had the right character . A

2:24

monster mistake would have been when I heard

2:26

my boss say , hey , we're going to make a billion dollars in cash

2:28

next year . Literally within 12 hours

2:31

, I sold every drop of stock

2:33

and options that I had ever accumulated

2:35

and then advised them that

2:38

I gave them six months and I was going to retire

2:40

. The

2:43

mistake the reason I'm bringing that up is

2:45

that within 12

2:47

hours , the entire executive team

2:49

was advised by the board . They could not sell any

2:51

stock and

2:54

most of the people that I worked for , they literally

2:56

wore that stock for another four years

2:58

and never got out . So

3:01

you got to know these are not marriages

3:03

and families , they're businesses and

3:05

there's a time where you go . Hey , this industry's

3:08

kind of done . I

3:10

mean , I did things that were very , very different

3:12

as far as career path . Most

3:15

people would consult and would not say , hey , spend

3:17

17 years in the energy sector and then walk

3:19

away from it . For

3:21

me , it was really good because it challenged me

3:23

to go hey , I think I can learn another business

3:25

. I'm not going to become a slave

3:28

to a job , a 401k , much

3:30

less an industry . I

3:33

know how to learn , and so

3:35

I just didn't want to become

3:37

a slave to being a career

3:39

professional working for a 401k

3:43

, and it's worked out pretty well . So , dude

3:45

, we could be here three hours if I shared

3:48

every mistake I ever made , though . I mean I've

3:50

lost millions and millions of dollars

3:52

just being greedy , piggy , stupid

3:55

, ignorant

3:57

, childish , immature , not

3:59

really understanding macro

4:03

.

4:04

Absolutely . I mean , I think

4:06

you bring up an amazing point of being

4:09

that lifelong learner , because one

4:11

of the most impressive things to me is that you

4:13

showed up to the call and you're like I got a notebook . I

4:15

bring a notebook everywhere I go . I always write

4:17

down the things I need to do and most

4:20

people would go Gary

4:22

, that's for a five-year-old . Five-year-olds

4:24

should take notes . Why are you taking notes ? And

4:27

it's just a completely different

4:29

view . So how has learning always been important

4:32

in your life ?

4:34

I don't know , man , if you'd have asked me at 25

4:37

, I would have said well , I hate school , hate teachers

4:39

, hate tests

4:41

. I don't like studying . I was a bad

4:44

student dude . I made C minus . You

4:47

know me , and my brother figured out . We're

4:49

sitting there in Lake Charles , louisiana , living

4:51

with my mom who you know

4:53

her husband died when

4:55

we were nine . My dad and

4:59

Grant and I are looking at each other smoking dope

5:01

every day , partying 16

5:04

, drinking I mean like crazy people

5:06

. And we're looking around at Beth you

5:08

know the straight A student , and we're

5:10

like why the fuck would anybody work that

5:12

hard to make a straight A ? I never

5:15

made any sense to us that

5:17

people would stay up

5:20

to make the straight A . We're

5:22

like C works , c

5:25

works . I'm having a blast , I'm

5:27

getting laid , I'm partying with

5:29

my buddies and the

5:33

truth is , if you ask the deans , dude , the

5:35

deans like the C students too .

5:38

Well , because they're more real .

5:40

No , the C students are the ones that give all

5:42

the money back to the colleges , and

5:45

the A students work at

5:47

the college . That's

5:50

the deal . I mean , I've literally had deans go . Hey , you know

5:52

, we love the C students , the C and D students

5:55

, we love dude . They become the

5:57

people that contribute all the money , because that's where

5:59

all the private equity and building of great

6:02

companies comes is from people that

6:04

don't just fit in a box . Yeah

6:06

, so , and like

6:08

, you have a lot of friends that they've been told by

6:10

their teachers , counselors and what have you , that

6:13

they're wounded , flawed

6:16

human beings because they have ADD

6:18

, hx , yz , llp

6:21

, whatever . And it's like , yeah

6:23

, dude , like you're just bored , you

6:26

need something to do , gary , okay

6:29

. And like , like , when I'm bored

6:31

, I am a danger to society

6:34

, and when I'm really engaged

6:36

in something I don't know anything about , which

6:38

I find really fast , that's to me really

6:41

cool about learning , I'm

6:43

actually a very productive

6:45

member of society , so

6:47

I'm happier when I'm not bored man

6:49

.

6:50

Absolutely , and it's one of these keys that I think

6:52

everyone needs to focus on is understanding

6:55

themselves . The majority of the time

6:58

, we have no idea who we are . We

7:00

throw ourselves go get this job

7:02

, go get this job . I was talking to a

7:05

potential client earlier today and he's like I

7:07

have to go get this whole degree . And I'm like

7:09

why ? And he's like because

7:11

I need to be validated . And I'm

7:13

like but you have the experience . And he's

7:16

I'm like what if you just did it for free ? What if you just

7:18

helped people for free ? Would you learn something ? And

7:20

I'm like maybe you learned that you don't even like

7:22

this and you shouldn't waste five years going to this thing

7:24

. And he's like I've never thought about it that

7:26

way . And I'm like of course , of

7:28

course , the people who got the degrees are going to

7:31

tell you the same thing . Like , of

7:33

course , yeah .

7:36

Yeah , I , dude , I agree . I mean , I don't

7:38

. I don't know why people

7:40

aren't paying people like me right

7:42

out when they get out of high school . The

7:45

parents should be calling me up going hey , I'm

7:47

going to send my kid to you , I'll pay you

7:49

to give my kid an apprentice

7:51

program for a year and a half . Why

7:54

would you pay a school 250

7:56

grand over four years ? You

7:58

waste four years of their life While

8:01

Alexander the Great was probably screwing

8:04

every little slave on the planet

8:06

and conquering the

8:08

entire world at 17 , we're

8:11

coddling these little kids up going hey , go

8:13

study more so you can get yourself validated

8:15

. I don't need to get validated . I

8:17

need to go , look in the mirror and go who the hell am

8:19

I ? Why am I here and

8:22

how can I be as great of a human being

8:24

as possible ? 100%

8:27

.

8:28

I literally sat there and I thought the same thing , because I thought

8:31

the colleges are very interesting

8:33

, because the America we've always been told

8:35

, go to college , go do this . And

8:37

I literally thought I was like what if you

8:39

just joined masterminds for 10,000

8:41

, 25,000 , 50,000 ? Like you

8:43

would learn more in those ? And then you just talk

8:45

to all the people , or if you do the apprenticeship program

8:48

, where it's like , hey , this guy

8:50

has been very successful , he will

8:52

continue to be successful . You should go

8:54

talk to him , he might teach you something

8:56

. It's

8:59

so baffling . So , gary

9:01

, for you , how did you learn

9:03

about yourself ? How did you learn about this energy

9:06

sector ? How did you even get into that ?

9:09

I finished college with an economics

9:12

degree and a marketing

9:14

degree and 21 years

9:16

old at 1981

9:19

, dude , I was terrified . I

9:21

realized , oh shit , school's

9:24

over . What

9:27

am I going to do ? I'm

9:29

from nowhere , with

9:32

a family with a nowhere name

9:34

, don't know anybody

9:37

, I'm not rich , I

9:41

have no contacts . I didn't

9:43

really pay attention in school . I've

9:47

got a personality . I'm

9:50

not dumb . I mean , I was never dumb . I was street

9:53

savvy and

9:56

literally went to my sister in Houston who

9:58

was working for an oil guy , independent

10:02

explorer . I said look , diane

10:05

, just introduce me to someone that's

10:07

a professional . We don't do each other favors

10:09

in my family we

10:12

don't like , oh , let me get you this job , because then

10:14

somebody owes somebody . She

10:16

introduced me to a guy named Dan Montgomery . I'll try to

10:19

make this really , really short

10:22

, but this is a good tool

10:24

for somebody to use . Leaving

10:26

college or high school . I

10:29

said hey , dan , here's my resume . This

10:31

is who I am as a personality . What would you do if

10:33

you were me ? You got to remember . I didn't have a dad , so

10:36

I'm sitting here going . I need to ask

10:38

somebody , and none of my uncles

10:40

they're all dead now , so I'm not trying to shame

10:43

anybody in the family . None of the uncles

10:45

showed up to

10:47

be an alpha dog around my me and Grant

10:49

. Now , that wasn't their job , but

10:53

we had no alpha man

10:55

and just no alpha male . And

10:57

Dan looked at me and said , well , I'd become a gas buyer

10:59

. And it just so happened he

11:02

was a gas buyer and he

11:04

saw my personality . I said , well , how would I do

11:06

that ? I had no clue what it was . And

11:09

he said look , it's a great job . You know

11:11

, you meet all the big oil companies . You

11:13

learn how to study contracts

11:15

. You go to launch , you go to Mexico

11:18

bird shooting Sounds

11:20

awesome to me , man . He introduces

11:22

me to four companies and I talk one

11:25

of them into hiring me . Dude

11:27

, I got the best job in the whole world . I went to work for

11:30

a guy that was 26 years old in

11:34

Corpus Christi , texas , and

11:36

his job was to fill a 36 inch

11:38

, completely empty , brand

11:41

new 36 inch pipeline that ran

11:43

from Laredo , texas , all the way to Houston

11:45

2 billion cubic

11:47

feet a day , and I

11:49

would get to play with that toy and learn

11:52

from reading contracts this

11:54

big . And then there was this regulatory

11:56

change that occurred in the energy

11:58

sector and Gary Cardone

12:01

was perfectly

12:03

DNA genetically

12:05

coded to be in this world Because

12:07

, like , the regulatory change

12:09

that occurred was like

12:12

giving me a ticket to the Super Bowl , and

12:15

this is a very important thing

12:17

for people to understand is that you

12:20

must be observant about what's

12:22

going on around you , and

12:24

that is one thing . I have been given a gift

12:26

of being observant . This

12:29

company I

12:31

would have done anything to go work for

12:33

this company when there was 12 people and

12:37

there's just something inside of me I knew , hey look

12:39

, I'm not really situated for these big corporates

12:41

. I was working for a very large company

12:44

and I was already

12:46

two years into it . I'm already getting like nervous

12:48

and not feeling really

12:51

comfortable . There are a lot

12:53

of meetings , man . They meet , meet , meet , meet , meet

12:55

and they meet and they meet some more , but they don't

12:57

play baseball . It would be like literally

12:59

getting on a baseball team and sitting

13:01

in a stadium and going , okay , let's talk about the plans

13:04

. That's what the bit I'm

13:06

like . Oh , my God , let's just go call some customers

13:08

and do some business , man . Yeah , and

13:12

anyway , I went to work for this company and

13:14

it taught me everything I needed

13:16

to know about the

13:19

energy sector and I just

13:21

thrived in that world for 20

13:23

, 20 some odd years .

13:25

Absolutely One of my biggest takeaways there

13:27

and I think everyone should underline this is

13:29

one is . Gary

13:32

mentioned how he had to ask advice

13:35

of someone that he thought was qualified , even

13:37

though he didn't know , because a lot of us just

13:39

go to our parents and our parents might not

13:41

be the most qualified .

13:42

Our teacher might not be the most qualified . No , no , no . Our

13:44

parents are absolutely the worst qualified

13:47

to give any child advice . I

13:49

really mean that , dude

13:51

, I have friends go . Hey , look , I'm going

13:54

to pick up . Alice is

13:56

going to come work for me in the company

13:58

family business . I'm like

14:00

no , dude , that's wrong . You send

14:02

Alice to me and I'll

14:04

send my kid to you , but

14:07

I need to be able to . I

14:10

needed , when I was at 22

14:12

, 25 , 28, . I needed to know that

14:14

I was going to be fired if I didn't perform that

14:17

. There were no favors . This

14:21

is not good to teach someone that they

14:23

have rights inside of a company . If it's a

14:25

company , I need to treat my

14:27

wife or my daughter in

14:29

that company the exact same way . I treat everyone

14:31

else with the same expectations . But

14:37

I did , and I have asked for advice

14:39

my whole life . Dude , there is no shame in

14:41

asking someone . In fact , if

14:44

you ask me to help you , it's

14:47

probably one of the greatest compliments

14:49

you can give me , because

14:51

you're literally saying to me hey , listen , I value

14:54

what you've done and

14:56

what more can I give you then

14:58

? Some information that

15:01

might help you not make a mistake in the future

15:03

? Me giving you a million dollars isn't

15:05

going to help you . But

15:07

if I go , hey look , you need to think bigger . Dude

15:09

Like

15:12

that , when people look at me and go , you have

15:14

been thinking too small . Oh

15:16

, that's a message , man , yeah

15:18

absolutely .

15:21

I mean , gary's completely right here where you need

15:23

to have that people

15:25

outside of your bubble . But I think it's

15:27

also being able to raise your head above the bubble , because

15:30

a lot of us when I mentioned the bubble , I mean the

15:32

work bubble that we consume ourselves in or

15:34

our life bubble , like a lot of us

15:36

aren't going out here . And that's why I love doing the podcast

15:39

, because I'm forced out of the bubble constantly and

15:41

I'm like what's this guy got to say ? What's this guy

15:43

? And it's just , you learn so much from

15:45

around those other people . So if

15:47

the audience could take anything , it's raise

15:50

your head above where you're at and

15:52

look around and see what other people are

15:54

doing . It's okay to have a friend who's

15:56

crushing it and maybe go learn about that industry

15:58

or jump here or do that , because

16:01

so many times we pigeonhole ourselves and we're like I'm

16:03

the real estate guy or I'm the this guy , and

16:06

that can be so damaging because we're

16:09

all still so young and we all completely

16:11

change identities every single day and we're

16:13

just growing and it's

16:15

nothing against us but we're on a constant

16:17

growth . So how

16:19

did you find that growth , even going

16:21

to ? I know you went over to the UK and

16:24

that's another intimidating thing leaving

16:26

what you knew to go to

16:28

London Like it's a completely different country . They

16:30

have different rules there .

16:36

Well , let's just get back to the family thing

16:38

. Look the family . They have a vested

16:40

interest in you , and some of that

16:43

vested interest isn't necessarily

16:45

the best thing for you . The second thing is

16:47

the parents , their parents

16:49

. It doesn't make them experts

16:51

on everything Like

16:54

it does not make them experts on a career

16:56

. It does not make them an expert on

16:58

blockchain technology

17:00

, future compounding

17:03

interest rates , global conflicts

17:06

, geopolitical issues , macro

17:08

. Most people just live in their own

17:10

little universe

17:13

. If it was a TV

17:15

channel , everybody's got their own little TV

17:17

channel . They're living in their own little bubble

17:19

, and

17:22

I think that's really , really important in early

17:25

years , so that you become highly focused

17:27

in some area . That is the biggest

17:29

trick for somebody is

17:31

to figure out hey , where do I belong

17:34

? If I would have been in the energy

17:36

business and tried to do real

17:38

estate and tried to do some other stuff

17:40

, I would have been a marginal player . But

17:43

what I did is I went deep , wide

17:45

, hard , dude , all

17:47

in and I became

17:50

a leading expert in a space

17:52

. And once you

17:54

have that validation as a

17:56

leading expert in

17:58

the space , you then can

18:00

take that base foundation and go okay

18:02

, I can pivot this information into another

18:05

industry . I

18:07

think the thing that I'm seeing with you young guys

18:09

, is that you're trying to do so much

18:12

and you're going to be like

18:14

Kool-Aid with a bunch of water in it . It

18:16

may look like Kool-Aid , but it ain't going

18:18

to go deep , and

18:21

that's the problem once you go deep into a business

18:23

. So I mean , I've literally spent 20 years in

18:25

energy . There wasn't much

18:27

more for me to learn . Yeah

18:30

, now this thing about traveling

18:32

. It's

18:35

taken me about five years to figure

18:37

this out . The last five years I figured

18:39

this out . I

18:42

would advise everyone at the age of 17

18:44

, 16 , 18 , if you're not going

18:46

to college , leave your home . Leave

18:49

your home , go to another city , leave

18:52

your girlfriend , leave your boyfriend

18:54

, leave all your friends . Do

18:57

not get pregnant , do not impregnate

18:59

anything else and

19:02

leave the

19:04

local area you're in . You will find out

19:06

how much you don't know about yourself and

19:08

the world , and that is the moment you

19:11

begin to learn about yourself . So

19:13

what did I do ? I left Lake Charles

19:15

, louisiana . Grant and I were going to burn that city

19:17

to the ground . If we were like we would

19:19

have gone to prison , dude , like we

19:21

were bored to death . So

19:24

as soon as I got out of there , I went to Carpiz

19:26

, had to make new

19:28

friends . I had to learn how to date

19:30

girls that didn't know who Cardone

19:32

was . I had to learn how Texas

19:35

did it . I had to learn their laws and

19:38

I realized that I was a little particle

19:40

of dust in a shit

19:42

storm and I needed

19:45

to figure out what their gravity was

19:47

. I just learned so much , man , by

19:50

going exterior , getting

19:52

away from the pacifier

19:56

, that little comfort , and

19:59

it's not fair . You cannot bring your girlfriend with

20:01

you . This is the rule . You've

20:03

got to go out on your own , like Alexander

20:05

the Great did . You

20:08

will learn so much . You

20:11

don't learn anything in college about real life

20:13

.

20:15

I would completely agree with all of

20:17

this , because I ended up actually going from Jersey

20:19

, went to school at University of Tampa

20:22

, which was a transition , studied

20:24

abroad , which isn't like it's

20:26

a new adventure , but it's still like the same thing

20:29

. And then when COVID hit , I was actually

20:31

traveling with my . She was

20:33

my girlfriend at the time , she became my girlfriend and now is

20:35

my fiance . But we traveled to five

20:37

different cities because

20:40

and we would stay for a month and the reason

20:42

was I was like I don't really know if I like Tampa

20:44

, right , because I sat there

20:46

and I go , this is all I know . I don't know if this

20:48

is me , and you

20:50

have to challenge everything you do

20:53

because there's

20:55

no way you were placed here

20:57

and now this is the perfect situation for you

20:59

. It just doesn't make sense . You have to go

21:01

out there and try things and see if there's better

21:04

options and whatever that might be

21:06

in different areas . But travel has been

21:08

massive for me and I know you're

21:10

a huge traveler and adventuring

21:13

around . And what was that transition like

21:15

to London ? Because

21:18

that is , I mean , it's still that

21:20

you like everyone's speaking English , but it's still challenging

21:22

with all the different

21:24

rules and regulations .

21:27

Well , you know , look , when

21:31

I went to London , I think the 23%

21:36

of Americans had passports . Wow

21:38

, this would have been in 1992

21:41

. Now I think that numbers up , it's

21:43

still less than 50% . So Americans

21:45

don't travel .

21:48

Most of them stay 20 miles away from their regular home

21:51

their entire life , which is better .

21:53

It's exactly right , okay , so

21:57

the reason that I first

22:00

off back to the writing

22:02

. I have

22:04

been writing , for when I'm

22:06

really doing well in my life , I'm writing

22:08

and

22:12

I wrote down on a piece of paper that

22:16

I was going to run an energy business in Europe

22:18

, build and run an energy business in Europe

22:20

. I'm in Houston , texas

22:22

, running one of the largest NAC

22:25

gas books in the world , sleeping

22:28

with a woman that was working for Enron

22:30

in the same home

22:32

I mean , we were actually living together and

22:34

she's selling into the same market we are literally

22:37

92% of the entire NAC

22:39

gas market in

22:41

the entire West coast of California sleeping in

22:43

the same bedroom and

22:47

I was starting to go a little bored

22:49

and the company that I was working for

22:51

went from 12 to 600

22:53

people . Wow , they started

22:55

introducing . You know , they sent me home one

22:57

day because I was wearing sharks and they

23:00

started putting policies and

23:02

shit . And I'm like man , I

23:05

was 28 and all

23:07

my bosses were 28 or 29 . I'm

23:09

like shit , dude , they're , they're . I'm

23:11

never going to like be able to crack out of this

23:13

environment . So I wrote down

23:15

this thing I'm going to run an energy business . Three

23:18

months later , dude , three

23:20

months later , british gas bought

23:22

25% of the company . I

23:25

had no idea this was going on , not

23:27

a clue . I immediately

23:29

put my hand up and said hey , I want to go

23:31

to London . They laughed

23:33

at me . Okay , they literally

23:36

said dude , we would never send you to London

23:38

with your accent and you're so aggressive

23:40

you don't pay attention to you

23:42

, know , you're not like , you , don't behave

23:44

yourself , we can't control you . And

23:47

they then would proceed to go to 599

23:50

people talk about Americans not moving

23:52

. No one , no

23:55

one , wanted to leave the mothership . So

23:58

I was left with two months later . Hey

24:00

, you still interested ? I said oh for sure

24:02

, dude . See , for me this

24:04

was a once . I write it down

24:07

. And then I see somebody knocking

24:09

on my door , going hey , you have

24:11

now a ticket to England . A

24:13

company just bought into your company

24:16

. What am I not going to be observant

24:18

Like ? I need to go knock on that guy's door

24:20

? Go , dude , I want to go to London . Now

24:22

, it was a massively risky move

24:25

. Okay , most

24:27

people thought that I was going to

24:29

go there , die there and

24:32

never come back and lose my whole career . What

24:37

would actually happen was that we would make

24:39

$200 million

24:42

30

24:44

months later there with

24:47

12 people . I

24:50

mean , like it was . It was crushing

24:52

. We then sold

24:54

that company , tiny little joint

24:57

venture . We would then sell that company back

24:59

to the joint venture partner for 120

25:01

million pounds , oh wow . And

25:03

the guy that bought it took the

25:05

11 staff . They didn't

25:08

like me . They said your boy Gary

25:10

, literally they said it like this your

25:12

boy Gary can play in our sandbox

25:15

. And we were staggered

25:17

, dude . We were like , okay

25:20

, so you just took the 11 people , I hired

25:22

you

25:24

also , and you paid us $350

25:27

million for 30 months

25:29

of work . And

25:31

you're telling me that the guy that just did all

25:34

this , you're cool with him playing in the sandbox

25:36

. So Steven Schutt

25:38

called me and said you want to do this again ? I

25:40

was exhausted , dude . Yeah , like

25:42

I had already had two threats

25:44

. Here is this 90, . This is 1995

25:47

. Okay , I'd

25:50

already had two threats from the European

25:52

political

25:55

bodies to be removed from England

25:57

. Oh my gosh . Oh

25:59

yeah , no , they were starting to get well

26:01

, they lost four billion

26:04

dollars two years after I got there

26:06

.

26:07

Oh , it's an American can ? They didn't

26:09

listen to me .

26:10

Well , I told them it was gonna happen to them . I mean , they

26:13

just didn't like that

26:16

. Their partner is the one that created the problem

26:18

, but it was gonna happen anyway . Okay

26:20

, I mean I didn't do anything

26:22

wrong . I

26:25

literally told this large company

26:27

what they should do . They said , nah , we're not gonna

26:29

do that . Okay , somebody else is gonna

26:31

do it . Anyway

26:35

, chuck and Steve said , you wanna do it again ? I

26:37

had this stupidity say , yes , I'll do it

26:39

. This was 95 . And so we built what

26:41

was called Dynagy Europe and

26:44

that thing would be like become four times

26:46

bigger than the British gas

26:48

play . So

26:51

I think , being at the right time , right place

26:53

and

26:56

being really dedicated

27:00

to being really accurate

27:03

and good at what you do , that's

27:05

all it takes , jordan . Quite frankly

27:07

, it's all it takes is just you

27:10

know study . I mean really

27:13

just be great , be

27:15

understand your information .

27:19

I mean , yeah , and we all have to realize here it's

27:21

directional awareness . So Gary

27:24

could have sat there and been like yo , I've been at the company seven

27:26

years , these guys above me aren't doing

27:28

anything . I hate this . But instead

27:30

he had this vision of I wanna go to Europe and run

27:32

a group as soon as that opens up . Probably

27:35

everyone else was like , oh , dude , do not send me to

27:37

Europe . Like I do not wanna go there , and

27:39

that awareness to go no , this isn't the

27:41

opportunity I've been looking for . I'm coming Like

27:44

think about how many times in your

27:46

life , whoever's listening right now , this

27:48

has actually happened to you and you missed that opportunity

27:51

because you weren't even looking Like

27:53

the amount of times stuff is there and

27:55

they're like I'm not ready , I don't

27:57

know . Like it happens every

27:59

single day to us where there's stuff

28:01

there and we don't take the opportunity . Like even

28:03

this interview I had somebody reach

28:05

out . They're like do you know this guy ? Like you should

28:08

connect with him . I'm like , yes , yes , let's

28:10

do it . And people don't take that opportunity

28:12

and I wanna sit like , yes

28:15

, gary did an incredible thing , but it's because

28:17

he put himself there and he was open to

28:19

these doors and these opportunities .

28:22

Yeah and look , this is a really good example

28:25

of why you can't really rely

28:27

on the people in your universe

28:29

when you're growing up . If I would

28:31

have gone to my mom and said , hey , I'm gonna go do this

28:33

thing and learn , and what value

28:36

of information does she have , like

28:39

, how could she even help me in

28:41

that decision ? I mean , I had my own

28:44

guys at Clearinghouse looking at me going dude

28:46

, you crazy , like we're never

28:48

gonna remember you Once you walk out this

28:50

door . You're fucking gone

28:52

, dude . That was like . This was like being

28:54

a part of a professional football

28:57

team on NFL day and you don't show

28:59

up for the Super Bowl . They're like fuck off , see

29:01

you later . So

29:03

for me it was extremely risky , but it

29:05

was extremely risky for me to stay there

29:08

. It was extremely risky

29:10

for me to know this company is

29:12

getting ready to go from 600 to 6,000

29:15

. And they're not gonna hire me

29:17

to run these 6,000 . They're gonna go hire

29:19

somebody from corporate . Because

29:22

that's what happens when businesses become

29:24

big they become more mature , more

29:27

boring , more rules

29:29

. You know why ? Because that's what big organizations

29:32

need . I mean , they do need that some

29:34

more structure . And I just knew

29:36

that I was kind of this guy that like

29:38

I'd rather play for the B team

29:41

and be on the damn

29:43

game on the field every day

29:45

. This is another mistake fucking people

29:47

make . Dude , I wanna go to Harvard

29:49

, I wanna go to Harvard . Awesome dude , you

29:52

go to Harvard and you came out as middle

29:54

of the tier . Why would you go

29:56

to Brown , bro ? And you

29:58

end up at the top . Everybody

30:00

cares whether it's Harvard , brown or Schmound

30:03

, they don't care , but be at the

30:05

top right . So I was never

30:07

gonna get a top position at ExxonMobil

30:09

.

30:10

Yeah , well , I mean , you're bringing up two major points

30:12

here . One is that and

30:14

this is one thing I've learned from in

30:16

my life when you have a mentor , they

30:18

don't have to be your mentor for everything .

30:21

So they can be your mentor , they should not be your mentor

30:23

for everything and they should not be your

30:25

mentor for long .

30:28

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

30:31

, dude .

30:31

Yeah , if you're growing , your mentor should go dude , get the

30:33

fuck away from me . Go

30:35

get Elon to help you .

30:37

Now you've moved next level , because

30:40

your mentors can only

30:42

and I was explaining this to someone

30:44

earlier today but people can only see where they're

30:46

at , they can't see above . So

30:49

for you they're like oh

30:51

Gary , you're only the Texas oil

30:54

guy or the Texas energy guy , you're

30:56

not the global energy guy . You

30:58

can't do that . And that happens

31:00

over and over and over again . And

31:03

we listen to these people because they're

31:05

the quote unquote authority , but

31:07

you're your own authority . You create your own

31:09

life and you decide how you feel about life , and

31:11

we can't just let people sit

31:13

there and make us feel less then , because

31:16

this person actually has a real insecurity about themselves

31:18

.

31:19

Yeah , and everyone has

31:21

insecurities about themselves . Everyone

31:24

, even your mentors , right , Even

31:26

your boss . I mean there's

31:30

a lot of human issues that

31:32

go on in corporations and

31:35

how to maneuver

31:37

through a career . I mean , I think

31:39

career counseling in schools is so horrifically

31:41

bad . I don't even

31:43

know why . I'd say why you would

31:46

even pay anyone to be a career counselor

31:48

because they themselves

31:50

don't have a proper career .

31:54

Once I realized this , I was like what am

31:57

I doing here ?

31:58

Like you're listening to someone that's

32:00

never had a career . Like

32:02

what are we ?

32:02

learning Like this doesn't

32:04

make any sense , and there's so many times

32:07

where it's like go to the teacher

32:09

or go to your boss , I'm like they

32:11

don't know anything , how do I help them

32:13

? I can't . I can't because

32:16

I'm sitting there and it's not my

32:18

fault , but it's just your place

32:20

in this bubble and you feel less than

32:22

, and it's just not true . It's just not

32:24

true because all of these middle management people

32:26

are just their figureheads , like

32:28

they don't do it and no one does anything , and

32:31

it's just . That's why I think your

32:33

perspective of going global and

32:36

understanding that big picture on

32:38

all the industries you look at is

32:40

so impressive , because you do that and

32:43

then you bring it right down to the little guy . So it's

32:45

the ability to go big and then bring it real small

32:47

, just as I've been researching

32:49

you because it's fascinating

32:52

. There's very few people who can zoom

32:54

out and see the big picture and it's missed

32:57

so many times .

32:59

Yeah , I have . I mean

33:01

, yeah , but I like the big picture

33:03

. I've followed politics , history all

33:05

my life . This thing about knowing

33:07

self too is really , really important

33:10

. It's as important my

33:13

success in business I

33:16

would attribute mostly

33:18

to me being aware of who I

33:21

am Good

33:24

and bad . Like I have a

33:26

lot of monster amount of flaws . I

33:30

think I'm just human right , but

33:33

like my character is

33:35

such that I knew early

33:37

on hey look , I'm probably not gonna ever work

33:39

for Chevron . Yeah

33:41

, and you know what that means . That

33:44

means if you build a Chevron you're probably

33:46

not gonna stay there forever , cause , like

33:48

I don't even like building the Chevron . See

33:50

, once it gets like this last business

33:52

, three or 400 people at Chargebacks . When

33:55

they started introducing like there's a guy

33:57

there chief of staff . Like

34:00

chief of staff , dude , you're grossly overpaid

34:02

for being a chief . Like all you do is run somebody's

34:04

calendar , yeah , and

34:06

now they're the president . Yeah

34:09

, dude , he wasn't a chief of

34:11

staff , he wasn't a good chief of staff . Now he's president

34:13

. What these companies do is they

34:15

keep giving people labels instead

34:18

of money To make them feel

34:22

good . Like Clearinghouse , this young

34:24

company , they

34:27

gave 16 vice president titles

34:29

. One November , december I went into Berkshirem If you've ever seen this

34:32

interview I did with Steve Berkshirem best interview I've ever done . He

34:35

was my mentor and they give 16 vice president titles

34:37

at Jordan . And

34:39

I go to him and go hey , man , give you your

34:42

title back . How about you

34:44

give me another 50 grand ? Because what

34:46

they were doing was they

34:49

were literally throwing titles out so they didn't have to make the bonuses .

34:54

Do you know John Sarasini ? No , I don't know . You know , okay

34:57

, he's this guy who's been running around Instagram

35:00

, social media and he's 2000% rate . I can

35:03

introduce you if you want , but

35:05

he basically runs around and he literally

35:07

built his brand off

35:10

of this idea of like , take your title and shove it . I don't want it , I want

35:12

a 2000% raise . And that's what he

35:14

did . He built the life insurance , sold it , he

35:17

was on the podcast and he's a really cool guy and

35:20

people just resonate with that because

35:22

it's like what are we doing ? Like

35:25

I don't need this fluff , like I don't want

35:27

to get promoted , I don't want any of this . Like

35:30

I want what I really want

35:32

, like , which is money and

35:34

ability to make decision , and

35:38

understanding and not having to be checked

35:40

on all the time . Yeah , no , it's the

35:42

real stuff . Yeah , absolutely , gary

35:46

. So for you , I saw

35:48

that you have a lot of stuff going

35:50

on with your LinkedIn . You

35:52

have mission quotes that you live by

35:54

. What are some of these

35:57

? What do you think about when you think , like when you wrote

35:59

to I only engage with

36:01

others of similar ethics , beliefs and

36:03

operating basis . Stay away

36:05

from hyper ego , centric control

36:07

freaks who cannot stand for their others to shine

36:10

. What ended up happening with that Like

36:12

? What caused you to come up with that as one of your

36:14

missions ?

36:21

I've seen hundreds

36:25

and hundreds , if not billions , of dollars

36:27

. I mean , look , I've seen

36:29

$200 million in this family

36:32

alone . Yeah , be

36:35

eviscerated , because I

36:37

need to be in control . I

36:41

don't think you expand . You

36:44

don't scale trying

36:48

to control every little item . You just

36:50

don't . I don't think you

36:52

scale trying to control

36:54

every

36:57

person's behavior in the group

36:59

. I think my job

37:01

is to show up . I

37:03

remember my daughters one day made a

37:05

comment to me . They said hey , why don't you show up

37:07

on these conferences

37:09

? There's 12 people in the room and y'all

37:12

are talking for an hour and you only said like 10

37:15

words and I think

37:17

their perspective was well , in order

37:19

to be a leader , you got to be talking all the time and

37:22

actually I think I need to listen and

37:25

I need to make room for you to

37:28

shine and

37:30

I need to , like , put you in a position

37:32

. See , my

37:35

career really is

37:37

a lesson to others , because I don't

37:39

have the resume to be here , like

37:41

, if you look at this on a piece of paper , neither

37:44

me nor my brother should be here and

37:47

we took extremely different paths . I'm

37:49

not here to talk about him , but it is kind

37:51

of weird that two people

37:54

came out from the same house and

37:56

dude , like we took massively

37:59

different , they

38:01

were literally juxtaposed to each other and

38:04

the amount of people that were in your position

38:06

who probably didn't accomplish anything

38:08

, let alone you guys who accomplished so

38:11

much . All

38:13

my buddies from energy . I had a phone call just

38:15

the other day . They said dude , how much money

38:18

do you have ? And I said what

38:20

do you mean , dude ? He said how are you getting all

38:22

these interviews ? Yeah , I said

38:24

well , dude , it has nothing to do with money , yeah

38:27

, Zero . And they're like what do you mean

38:29

? Well , one , I actually

38:31

can talk about a broad

38:33

number of subjects . And the second

38:35

thing is I see the

38:38

mainstream media being disintermediated

38:40

by decentralized technology and

38:42

if you can't see that and take advantage

38:45

of it , stick

38:47

your beak into this change

38:49

. They think it's like

38:51

why , How'd you get by that ? Call

38:53

them , Email them . Hey

38:56

, want to do an interview , yeah , yeah

39:00

. And people , it's not any more difficult than that .

39:03

And people , just because it's a fear

39:05

of rejection , fear of failure , because they're just

39:07

like I'm the energy guy , I don't know anything else , and

39:09

that's the identity that they hold . So it's

39:11

these things .

39:12

Well , that's what they locked into , though , see , they

39:14

made that decision Of course

39:17

, it can all be changed at any moment . Yeah

39:19

, like people made fun of me for being getting

39:21

bored . I hear people say , hey , look

39:23

, that guy gets bored really quick . Most

39:27

people I know have the attention of a fucking

39:29

nap . Seriously

39:32

, the smartest people I know do not

39:34

need three hour

39:37

conversations on an idea .

39:39

Yeah .

39:40

Okay , like I think Elon bought . I

39:42

think Elon probably thought about buying Twitter

39:44

for about an hour .

39:47

I don't even know if he thought about it . He just posted it . I'm buying

39:49

it . Well , I know he's like I'm coming .

39:52

I'm reading the book right now . It's fascinating , fascinating

39:55

story . Anyway

39:59

, I just , you know , to

40:03

me the boredom thing is , it's a

40:05

little bit of a message for me it's

40:08

not a bad thing anymore , it's

40:10

. I'm a little bored with this and then

40:12

I start getting into trouble , I start doing things

40:14

that you know are suboptimal , because I'm wanting

40:17

the excitement and

40:20

all I really need to do is switch gears and

40:22

go study something that's fresh and new to

40:25

me , maybe tangential , okay

40:28

, but it's fresh and new and

40:30

it's deep enough to hold my attention

40:32

span . So

40:35

I think the boredom , if you're bored out there , don't

40:37

shame yourself or embrace the

40:39

boredom . Ask yourself why . And

40:42

if you're not being challenged enough , then I

40:45

don't think anyone's challenged . Very

40:47

few people are challenged to max . I'm

40:50

not , yeah .

40:53

And there there's so

40:55

like we just go through this experience

40:57

so many times where we don't . We've

41:01

been conditioned throughout our life where we have all these

41:03

words , like the example

41:05

learning . We relate that to school

41:07

, but we really know that learning

41:09

is having conversations with a wide variety

41:11

of people , learning about different industries

41:14

, different areas , and it doesn't actually mean that I

41:16

have to go take a test . And there's

41:18

a lot of words that have been associated because

41:20

they've been so conditioned to us , like being bored is

41:22

bad and it's like dude . 95%

41:24

of people are bored , like there's a lot

41:27

of different areas . So one of the

41:29

one of the quotes I really liked that you put it up

41:31

was every plan fails at first

41:33

contact with the enemy , and I think this

41:35

is so good because there's so many

41:37

times where we don't

41:39

understand

41:41

how many , how much

41:43

effort it really is going to take . You

41:45

know what I mean . There's so many times where we just

41:48

think , oh , I know this guy

41:50

and this guy and it's going to work out perfectly

41:52

and that could

41:54

be your customer . What

41:56

do you think about that ?

41:59

Yeah , I think you know that

42:02

, that that quote came from one of

42:04

the leading German

42:06

military minds in

42:09

history . I can't remember the guy's name , I probably

42:11

can't pronounce it and

42:13

his deal was hey , you can plan all you

42:15

want , dude , but when you smack , as

42:18

soon as you , you know , light up the artillery

42:20

, everything changes . And

42:23

I think I think it was Tyson

42:26

who said you know .

42:28

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

42:30

Yeah , they did . And I think you know I

42:33

wish someone would have taught that course to

42:35

me in school . See , to me that

42:37

would have been a good business course . Dude , every plan

42:39

fails with first contact with the enemy

42:41

. Every plan . You know the other one you'll

42:44

really dig . I was listening to a general

42:46

who spent a

42:48

tremendous amount of time training the seals . Yeah

42:51

, there's a particular training

42:53

program with the Navy Seals that

42:56

it's like in the middle of it and

42:58

no one passes this test . But

43:00

they make you get in your , your , your

43:02

ribbons and your badges and your , you know

43:05

all your uniform and you're going

43:07

to go out that day and you're going

43:09

to be in the sand , in the water

43:11

and and you get , you

43:13

get a . You have to come out in perfect

43:15

dress . Everything is smooth

43:18

, no crinkles , no wrinkles , no , anything

43:20

. No one ever passes . And

43:23

the guy looked at the general one day and said hey , you're just

43:25

bullshit , dude , no

43:27

one passes this damn test . You

43:29

make me go in this wool

43:31

thing , spend 24 hours

43:33

. Everyone fails . That I got . I

43:36

got sand up my ass , I got it in my

43:38

armpits . And

43:41

the general just looked at me and said well , perhaps you don't

43:43

understand the purpose of this ? Yeah

43:45

, no one's ever passed this and

43:47

the message is you can show up in

43:49

your uniform , have your gun loaded

43:51

, everything perfect , and

43:53

still get a bullet in your fucking head and

43:57

, like business guys don't realize that

43:59

, hey , dude , all

44:01

plans can get fucked up , dude , but

44:04

market you , like most

44:07

people , lose building businesses . Yeah

44:11

, most people , like 90%

44:13

of them , lose building businesses . And

44:17

the gift for me has been I have literally

44:19

looked at every business I've ever built as a

44:21

military exercise man . I

44:25

could see it . It's a war

44:27

event . Like I'm , I'm going to get shot . Yeah

44:30

, I'm going to get a 50 cal . You

44:32

know , visa is going to blow a 50

44:34

cal Right by my head and there's half my face

44:36

. I'm not going to die , but half my face is

44:38

going to get ripped off and they don't even

44:40

know it . Dude , Visa doesn't even know

44:42

it .

44:43

It's just because you saw that at such a young age

44:45

, where the whole industry flipped like

44:47

that and it was like what new rules ? Like what

44:49

do you mean ? Rule change ? I don't know what . You know what that

44:51

means . So , as rules

44:53

change , that means we

44:55

have different ideas and different perspectives . So

44:58

for you , what are

45:00

there's rules around money ? There's

45:02

ways we think about money . There's there's other

45:04

ideas . There's crypto , bitcoin

45:06

. Like how are the rules changing around

45:08

money Because it's happening

45:10

all so fast ?

45:13

You want to get me excited now , huh .

45:14

I know I saw you perk up . You're like like

45:16

it's game time .

45:18

Well , I'll tell you what right now , because I don't have much

45:20

time we have . But this Bitcoin , crypto

45:22

, blockchain thing , um

45:27

, let me . Let me just back up one second , because

45:29

once you realize that change can

45:31

impact your business

45:34

plans and that change

45:36

always occurs we just went through that

45:38

, right , joe Je stuffssaw that Somewhere

45:42

about 25 or 26 years

45:45

old , I figured out , hey , if there is change

45:47

, what if you could help excite

45:49

and make the change ? Probably

45:52

around when I went to London , I'm like , okay

45:55

, last time I

45:57

was an effect of

45:59

the wave of change . How

46:01

about this time ? I create the wave and

46:04

that's why , like , I was so

46:06

massively successful in London

46:08

, but I had already been to the

46:10

World Series , dude , like

46:12

I knew how it was going to roll out

46:15

. Didn't know for sure , but

46:18

my confidence level I remember a guy in

46:20

England 20 years older than me . He's like , dude , I

46:22

don't believe a word you're saying , but

46:24

, my God , you believe , your

46:28

belief in yourself is really

46:30

compelling . He

46:32

was staggered man . He was like I do not believe

46:34

what you say you're going to do

46:36

. You can do , but I really

46:39

believe you believe that you can do it . And

46:41

he lost his job a year later

46:44

and I stayed there another nine years and made

46:46

a shitload of money . So

46:48

if you go into it like a war event

46:50

, you're always pretty nervous about what you're

46:52

doing or

46:55

at least I was nervous about what I was doing

46:57

and always just being

46:59

aware of everything around me . I

47:01

think situational awareness is extremely

47:04

important in business , and it's

47:06

something that founders and CEOs

47:08

don't do as much as

47:10

I think they should do . And

47:13

situational awareness to me means

47:15

, let's say , you're really heavy in tech

47:17

, but that doesn't

47:19

give you an excuse not to understand about geopolitics

47:22

or macro issues or what

47:24

your competitor raised money

47:27

at . Well , I'm a geek . Well

47:29

, dude , then maybe you shouldn't be the CEO . Maybe

47:32

you should be top geek and

47:34

let somebody like me who's used

47:36

to carrying a weapon with them and having

47:39

people rip their heads off , maybe

47:41

that guy needs to be your leader . It's

47:44

just a different . These

47:46

are different skills , man , and I think most people

47:48

don't . They have a good idea

47:50

and they immediately think they need to be the CEO of the

47:52

company . When I went to London , they

47:55

put a boss over me . It

47:57

was the right thing to do , dude . Okay

48:00

, I didn't like it

48:02

, but it was the right thing to do . It literally

48:04

allowed me to go do my job and

48:06

Jake did all the politics

48:08

. Jake went shooting

48:11

and hunting with the guys but , dude , I

48:13

had my head down

48:15

listening to the rail . When

48:18

you're a little tiny guy like me , you need to get your head

48:20

next to the train track and go oh

48:22

shit , man , she's coming . Dawg she's

48:25

coming , let's get

48:27

ready . And every time I took my head off

48:30

that train the sound , that

48:32

sense of a marketplace I'd

48:34

lose money , man .

48:39

I love the fact that you brought up , instead of

48:41

being scared of change like a majority

48:43

of society , you're like I'm coming in , I am

48:45

the change , and I think that's so empowering

48:48

, because there's so many of us who just

48:50

do change happening

48:52

. I don't know what to do and everybody I've

48:54

ever heard is like just go with

48:56

the change , you'll figure it out . You're like no , I

48:58

am the change , I'm coming , I'm looking for

49:00

change , I want to make change , and I think that's

49:03

awesome because it really Well

49:05

, especially when I realized , ooh

49:07

, I'm really comfortable , I'm

49:09

really comfortable in this hurricane

49:12

of change .

49:12

Right , I'm more nimble , In

49:15

fact . Oh gosh , I

49:17

don't really want to work for these big companies . I

49:19

actually want to beat them up because I

49:22

don't fit there . And it's not about

49:24

me not fitting there . I know why

49:26

I don't fit there . You guys are

49:28

too comfy . You're

49:31

comfy and you're not even going to see me coming

49:33

now , and this

49:35

is very , very important for the conversation

49:37

where we're headed , which is technology . Once

49:40

you see this happen and it's

49:42

not with technology , it's just good old

49:44

fashioned supply and demand I

49:47

look at the technology that's going on right now and

49:49

go how is the

49:52

US government going to pivot from

49:54

picks and shovels of pencils

49:56

and spreadsheets that don't even zero

49:59

out to blockchain

50:01

, where there's massive amounts of data

50:04

, digits , trillions

50:06

and trillions of digits of information

50:09

that needed to be stored

50:11

, tracked , traced , monetized , accounted

50:14

for , analyzed

50:16

? Amico

50:18

is not ready for this . Exxon's

50:21

not ready for this . Think about this

50:23

. Name me a top 10

50:25

. All produced , Everyone just failed

50:28

the answer . You guys all thought of Exxon

50:30

, Mobile Shell . They

50:33

don't even make the top 10 list . Dude , None

50:35

of them make the top 10 list . It

50:37

is Russia , Iraq

50:40

, Iran , the United States . These are corporations

50:43

, entire sovereign countries

50:45

that are in control of energy

50:47

supplies today . So we've had a massive

50:50

dynamic shift Everyone

50:52

even thinks about . Wow , never thought about

50:54

that . You have NATO that's sitting

50:56

on top of the Eurozone . I think

50:58

the Eurozone is getting ready to just fall

51:00

apart . Then

51:03

you've got to go well , if Eurozone falls apart , NATO

51:05

has got to fall apart , because that's the only

51:07

thing holding . Anyway , you're sure seeing

51:10

all these pieces and going , wow , there's nothing

51:12

but change , there

51:14

is no stability . The

51:17

only stability is that most people

51:19

your parents are going to

51:21

probably be so

51:23

broke that you're going to have to bury them . That's

51:27

what happens every year in America , man

51:29

, Because of inflation

51:32

, because people didn't make the right

51:34

investment decisions , because people

51:36

are very uneducated , if

51:38

not miseducated , on money and power

51:40

. That's

51:43

what I'm really excited about this world that we're

51:45

moving into , because I do not believe in

51:47

any corporation . I don't

51:49

believe any human being is well situated

51:52

for the change that's getting ready to occur . We

51:56

could spend an hour and a half . I could just walk you through the

51:58

dynamics that this

52:00

planet has never seen before . We

52:05

have trillionaires sitting in the wings that

52:07

nobody even talks about . We

52:10

have multi-billionaires

52:12

that are worth more than

52:15

countries , multiple

52:18

countries . We have

52:20

changes going on that are so radical

52:22

how anyone can keep up with this . I

52:26

think this is the age for the most

52:28

nimble risk-taking

52:32

hey , I'm going to get in there and shake

52:34

it up , type thing as long as you're

52:36

willing to be flexible and be willing

52:39

to pivot . Nimble

52:41

once in a thousand

52:44

year event

52:46

. Oh

52:49

wow , Once in a thousand . Greatest transfer

52:51

of wealth and

52:53

power the world

52:55

has ever seen . It's all happening right

52:59

this second . That's why I remain

53:01

fairly young in my thought

53:04

process , because it is so bloody exciting

53:06

. I

53:09

didn't watch the Super Bowl . Fuck the Super Bowl . It's

53:11

boring compared to what I do . Boring

53:13

dude , Really

53:15

boring .

53:17

I think that's a super important thing , because most people

53:19

think to keep up , they have to know what's going

53:21

on in sports or they have to know these stats . It's

53:24

like , no , you need to build your own stats , you

53:26

need to focus on your own game . You got to build that

53:28

up and make it exciting enough to where

53:30

you're like . I don't want to do that , I

53:33

don't like that activity . That's not fun for

53:35

me anymore . You're going to change and you're going

53:37

to grow . Gary

53:39

, you got me pumped up . Where

53:42

are we going ? Where are we going with this rocket ship

53:44

?

53:45

Well , we're going to digitize Planet Earth

53:47

now . That is what's

53:50

happening right now . That is the biggest piece

53:52

of where we're

53:54

headed . We're moving from an analog

53:56

age , from the eight

53:58

track tape . We

54:00

will never go back to the eight track tape , ever

54:03

. I

54:06

mean , think about it this way I have 40,000

54:08

pieces of music and video on my phone

54:10

. Apple

54:13

created the iPod and

54:16

I haven't listened to Apple

54:19

music in five years . How

54:22

the hell do I have 40,000 pieces

54:24

of music and video on my phone ? The

54:27

very maker who created the entire

54:30

distributed music freaking

54:32

hardware and I'm using Spotify

54:34

sitting on Apple's hardware . I'm

54:39

paying for three or four of these users to

54:41

give me music Penetration

54:47

into this market . If you

54:49

need more clarity of what's happening , you

54:51

didn't even hear the word spot a five , five

54:53

years ago . Yeah , okay

54:56

, I mean , twitter just started charging

54:58

and people are like oh wow

55:00

, people are paying . People were surprised

55:02

that people were going to pay for Twitter . We

55:07

have an entire Bitcoin crypto

55:11

industry that right now

55:13

is sitting paralyzed . This

55:16

will make a great , great , great little

55:18

burner quote here . It's literally

55:20

sitting paralyzed after

55:22

26 days of an ETF

55:25

launch , terrified

55:27

dude of what's getting ready to happen in this

55:29

market . Not one

55:31

human being has been studying crypto

55:34

in the last 10 years , expected

55:36

what's happening in the last three weeks ? Not

55:38

one . Everyone is shocked . They're

55:41

like , oh my God , dude , this is a flow

55:43

of money the likes we have never

55:45

seen before . I thought crypto was like

55:47

nobody knows anything about

55:50

crypto . Well , $500

55:52

million flowed into an ETF yesterday

55:54

. Yeah , okay , that

55:56

was one day 500

55:58

. Like , they were expecting 500 , a billion

56:01

over like the year . At

56:04

this rate , we'll be at $100 billion

56:06

of inflows into Bitcoin

56:09

by the end

56:11

of the year If this were to keep up . I mean

56:14

even 100 million a day . You've got 180

56:16

days left . That's $180

56:18

billion , man , keep

56:21

in mind . Okay , last time they did an ETF

56:23

like this , it was about a billion dollars . After

56:26

a year , it was gold . So

56:29

this is like stunning , okay

56:32

, and what it's telling

56:34

me is that the three

56:37

industries I've been in

56:39

, I can honestly say

56:41

that I grossly underestimated

56:43

what we could have

56:45

done . And now I'm going back

56:47

and interviewing people that I've

56:49

known for 30 years going

56:51

hey , steve , we built a $30

56:54

billion business . What

56:57

are you doing now ? Oh , I'm chairman

57:00

of the board of Williams Energy . Well

57:04

, are there still opportunities , gary

57:07

? We thought there was only 10 years of

57:10

opportunities 40 years later

57:12

. Okay , he's like we've

57:14

only touched the service dude . He

57:17

literally shared a story . He said we

57:19

went and bought . We just went and bought

57:22

a company for $25 million and

57:26

we made $250 million in

57:28

six months .

57:30

Oh , these folks .

57:32

He's like can you believe this shit's still going

57:34

on ? Okay , so

57:36

25 million

57:39

dude made a quarter of a billion . Okay

57:41

, yeah , so we have

57:43

opportunities or staggering

57:45

out there and it just

57:47

needs a lot of minds . And I think

57:49

that once you start

57:52

to unravel this , once you pull the string

57:54

on this , you start to realize how messed

57:56

up the analog age is .

57:58

Yeah .

57:59

This analog age has been going on for hundreds

58:01

and hundreds of years . We don't

58:03

need Excel spreadsheets anymore . Yeah

58:06

, okay , we're not going to be

58:08

sufficient to track what we have

58:11

, because we have an immense

58:13

amount of energy at extremely

58:15

cheap prices . Okay , cheapest

58:18

energy prices in the world going

58:20

lower , by the way , I

58:24

mean natural gas is at $1.63

58:26

today . I started my career it was at $1.63

58:31

. You got oil at $72

58:34

and ain't going to see 120 ever

58:36

, maybe for a war , but

58:38

it's going to go to 40 , if not 30

58:41

. Why ? Because technology , man .

58:43

Yeah , the efficiencies .

58:45

Technology efficiencies . People are

58:47

starting to look at things better . If

58:49

you can measure something , you

58:51

can improve it . Yes

58:54

, right . So , like

58:56

I think energy is mispriced , grossly

58:58

mis . Well , I think everything is mispriced

59:01

. Okay , I think this adage

59:03

about Wall Street is efficient and

59:05

it makes everything work . Well

59:07

, bitcoin just moved from $25,000

59:10

in two and a half months to $52,000

59:14

. Where was that pricing dude ? Because

59:17

it's either priced wrong it's absolutely

59:19

priced wrong today , but it was most certainly

59:21

priced wrong three months ago .

59:24

Yeah .

59:28

Anyway , it's just , the

59:31

world is

59:34

both fragmentating and

59:37

also being connected in a very

59:39

and I think that the

59:41

chairs are being moved around the table

59:43

. Also . We start doing

59:45

things like and this is where businesses

59:48

? This

59:50

is where , I think , if somebody's not careful

59:53

and all they do is read one source of media

59:55

, they become propaganda puppets

59:58

Instead of looking at the real

1:00:00

picture . When the Nord Stream pipelines

1:00:03

were blown up the first day , I was like okay , well

1:00:05

, the CIA blew those up . Now

1:00:08

, nine months later , people are like of course

1:00:10

the CIA blew them up , dude , they had to remove

1:00:12

Germany from buying

1:00:15

energy from Russia a

1:00:18

day after they did the embargo . You can't

1:00:20

have Russia being embargoed and

1:00:22

then all of your NATO countries are still buying

1:00:24

energy from them .

1:00:26

Yeah .

1:00:28

And then you can't nuke Germany , so

1:00:31

let's just go below the pipeline

1:00:33

up and remove this as a problem

1:00:35

. This is an

1:00:37

issue . However , now

1:00:39

Germany's buying energy from LNG

1:00:42

and Lake Charles Louisiana and

1:00:46

Putin's probably going to look at this and go okay , I

1:00:48

just had my pipes blown up . I guess I'm going to

1:00:50

have to mine Bitcoin in

1:00:53

Siberia . Well

1:00:57

, guess what ? His cost to mine Bitcoin

1:00:59

in Siberia versus Germany is

1:01:02

about 10 cents . Once

1:01:04

he moves all that shit all the way to Germany

1:01:07

, it's at three bucks dude . So

1:01:09

if you just blew his straws

1:01:11

up his pipelines up to get it to market

1:01:13

, he's going to look and go . Let's see , I need a data

1:01:16

center sitting in a cold environment

1:01:18

next to an oil well and

1:01:20

a gas well of which I'm extremely

1:01:23

long . Okay , in

1:01:25

order for me to get my gas to

1:01:27

China or to Europe , I have to

1:01:29

transport it for two or three or four dollars

1:01:31

. Hell , he'll just mine Bitcoin

1:01:34

it and no

1:01:36

one can control him . He's

1:01:38

turned natural gas into a digital

1:01:40

currency that he can hold on his balance

1:01:42

sheet , or a digital money , and

1:01:44

he can move that currency around if he wants

1:01:47

to talk to China and say hey , china , here's

1:01:49

a trillion dollars on the USB port , poof

1:01:51

Done . We

1:01:53

were headed there , dude . We were absolutely

1:01:56

headed there . We were headed to a world where energy

1:01:58

and

1:02:00

money and finance are all

1:02:02

very , very , very connected and

1:02:05

it's going to be a geocentric

1:02:07

kind of landscape change about where

1:02:09

the power lies and

1:02:13

we are like in the first half ending

1:02:15

of a 10 or 15 inning game . This

1:02:17

is a career maker right here . Okay yeah

1:02:20

, this is where you can . Literally

1:02:22

no high school education required

1:02:25

. You know what ? We've

1:02:28

never been here before . No one knows anything

1:02:30

about where we're headed .

1:02:32

Yeah , and that's one of the reasons that I was

1:02:35

so excited to have you on , because you're

1:02:37

a combination of these different

1:02:40

industries , which poises you for a great

1:02:42

understanding of

1:02:44

all of this , because a lot of the crypto space is very

1:02:46

not the best

1:02:48

players and you're very transparent , and you're

1:02:50

the complete opposite of that with node 40

1:02:52

and everything you're doing there . So

1:02:56

I just think it's incredible .

1:02:58

Well , it's the conviction level . It's

1:03:01

not really see , I can't tell you exactly where

1:03:03

it's going , but on my

1:03:05

conviction level of one , the

1:03:07

volume of which it's going

1:03:10

to come and the amount

1:03:12

of change that we will not

1:03:15

anticipate . That's

1:03:18

why I'm looking at this ETF thing and the price

1:03:20

is going . Oh , canary

1:03:23

in a coal mine , dude . I've seen this story before

1:03:25

. Okay , now if

1:03:27

me and Steve look back 30 years later and

1:03:30

go , wow , the energy complex really

1:03:32

could have done more . No

1:03:36

one's expecting this , dude . See

1:03:39

, commoditizing energy

1:03:41

told me a lot , right , if I could turn

1:03:43

. There's 111

1:03:45

billion cubic feet a day in the United States

1:03:47

supply chain and natural gas

1:03:49

. When I started my

1:03:51

career , there was 11 billion cubic feet

1:03:53

a day , wow . Everyone

1:03:56

said that if we turn the market into what

1:03:58

we turned it into , which is a short term market

1:04:00

traded on paper , there'd

1:04:03

be no investment . Really , there's 111

1:04:06

billion cubic feet a day . There's LNG

1:04:08

terminals everywhere . There's refining stations

1:04:10

. We're the largest fossil

1:04:12

fuel energy producer on the planet

1:04:15

, dude , self-sustaining

1:04:17

. Don't need anything from anyone

1:04:19

. Do not import one unit

1:04:22

of energy on a 30-day

1:04:25

fucking market . Everyone said

1:04:27

people were going to die If you can do

1:04:29

that with fossil fuel , which defines whether

1:04:31

a country is first , second or

1:04:33

third world ? Dude , we're

1:04:35

definitely doing this with money , yeah

1:04:37

, currency and little accounting

1:04:40

digits , dude , they're just digits . How

1:04:42

much cash do you have in your pocket right now ? Zero

1:04:45

problem .

1:04:46

I found a dollar this morning .

1:04:49

You're already a digital guy .

1:04:51

I mean everybody is , because cash isn't

1:04:54

getting accepted anywhere . People

1:04:56

are literally getting to the point where they don't even want the cash

1:04:58

. That's right , Because

1:05:02

it causes people stealing and it causes a lot of

1:05:04

like . It's just like do the transaction , do this

1:05:06

and it's easier , yeah .

1:05:08

Yeah , gary . So

1:05:12

it's fascinating man . It's a great

1:05:14

time to be alive .

1:05:15

Absolutely , and you are incredible

1:05:18

. And I want to do a second

1:05:20

one because I know we can go another hour and a half easily

1:05:23

. So , gary , what do you want to leave the people

1:05:25

with and where can they find you ?

1:05:27

Well , the thing I would leave people with is

1:05:29

this is the greatest . Look

1:05:32

, I'm 65 years old . This

1:05:36

is the greatest opportunity in the history of

1:05:38

mankind . I have never

1:05:40

seen anything like this . I

1:05:44

also think it's an opportunity for people

1:05:47

to reposition themselves on the

1:05:49

world stage People

1:05:53

like you and me , like our middle class

1:05:55

, lower middle class . That I can

1:05:58

change the trajectory of

1:06:00

my entire lineage , of

1:06:02

my family's lineage , and

1:06:04

at least put them in a position where they

1:06:06

have a better chance than most

1:06:09

. I would say to everyone

1:06:11

is don't

1:06:13

. If

1:06:16

you're lazy and you're

1:06:18

bored and you're

1:06:20

not really excited about life , I

1:06:23

would say , prepare yourself to live

1:06:25

in misery for most of the rest of

1:06:27

your life . And the reason

1:06:29

is the change is getting ready to

1:06:31

take place is so

1:06:33

substantial , you're going to get left behind

1:06:35

. This is not a 1990

1:06:39

internet thing

1:06:41

. This is now getting ready to get very

1:06:43

, very real , where

1:06:46

large people in the 30

1:06:48

to 50 year bracket

1:06:51

are going to wake up one morning

1:06:53

and no longer have a career

1:06:55

and will never ever have a career

1:06:57

anywhere because they didn't

1:06:59

study . What's happening , and

1:07:03

I'm certain of right that technology

1:07:05

is going to displace a lot of people . Now

1:07:08

. I'm very excited about that because I

1:07:10

think that we spend too

1:07:12

much time doing stupid shit and

1:07:15

that if , if , if I don't

1:07:17

do stupid shit that

1:07:21

like owning cars

1:07:23

and having debt and paying

1:07:25

debt and colleges and cleaning

1:07:29

the floor I mean I think some of the cleaning

1:07:31

floor is probably good for you , you know it's good

1:07:33

for , but I

1:07:36

just think that we are getting

1:07:38

ready to you . Have technology

1:07:40

not displace the

1:07:42

McDonald's hamburger

1:07:45

flipper . That's not

1:07:47

the way economics work . Robotics

1:07:49

will displace the most expensive things

1:07:53

in the world doctors , surgeries

1:07:56

, medicine .

1:07:59

Yeah , you'd have to show the Hamburg flippers

1:08:01

to get one surgeon and it's like get

1:08:04

rid of 10 surgeons and move on Totally

1:08:06

.

1:08:07

You know the co-pilot sitting in the airplane

1:08:09

like

1:08:11

he's not needed . That's

1:08:14

a waste of $200,000 a year

1:08:16

. So

1:08:19

if you just see the changes

1:08:21

happening , all you have to do is get on Twitter

1:08:23

and X and realize whoa media

1:08:25

is changing . So

1:08:27

I would stick my head into the

1:08:29

future and get out of the past

1:08:31

, and the

1:08:33

way you do that is you look around the

1:08:36

environment you're in and say , hey , look , or

1:08:38

the people I'm hanging around helping

1:08:41

me move into the future , or they hold

1:08:43

me back into the past . If

1:08:47

you're worried about how much money you're making today

1:08:49

and you can't pay the bills , you have no

1:08:51

choice Now you have to actually study

1:08:53

the future , because this is

1:08:55

going to get more difficult for living

1:08:59

comfortably in an environment

1:09:01

that , I think , gets more difficult

1:09:04

to

1:09:06

be prosperous and to live without fear

1:09:08

. Yeah , that's

1:09:10

that's what I say . Man and read

1:09:12

, dude . I think reading is really really

1:09:15

valuable . We have YouTube now you can literally

1:09:17

read and not have to read a book . You

1:09:19

can learn , and

1:09:22

there's some just beautiful Like . I have met more

1:09:24

wonderful people through

1:09:26

crypto , Bitcoin , x

1:09:29

and this intermediation of

1:09:31

media this

1:09:34

whole little group . They're

1:09:36

really wonderful people . So

1:09:39

, as an older guy , you know most older people

1:09:41

, their , their communities get , get

1:09:43

smaller and smaller . I'm having 400

1:09:45

people over my house in March for a birthday

1:09:48

party You're welcome to come and

1:09:50

they will literally be from all parts of the world and

1:09:52

they're all coming through media

1:09:54

, energy , payments , crypto

1:09:57

dude from all over the world . I

1:09:59

mean like it's incredible , it's not just one little

1:10:01

industry anymore . And

1:10:03

so for me that's like wow , I get to make

1:10:06

a lot of high quality friends . Yeah

1:10:08

, that's awesome , dude , I

1:10:11

get and I get to do business with a bunch of

1:10:13

high quality friends . This

1:10:15

is cool and make a shitload

1:10:17

of money , dude .

1:10:20

Absolutely .

1:10:21

Why not it

1:10:24

would be a sin not to enjoy life .

1:10:28

And I think the way you view it and the

1:10:30

way you're looking at it and the way people

1:10:32

see it , you really do understand that

1:10:34

, like you are living an incredible life , you're

1:10:36

living your best life and you're happy

1:10:38

about it and you're excited , and I think it's

1:10:41

inspiring and people need more of that around

1:10:43

, so this is awesome .

1:10:45

Yeah , I mean , look , if I can earn

1:10:47

a living and have fun , I'm

1:10:50

probably going to be better at it than most

1:10:52

guys , absolutely Because they're

1:10:54

not having fun . Dude .

1:10:56

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

1:10:59

and never produces .

1:11:01

And that's the real message your peeps

1:11:03

need to hear . Do not get a career

1:11:05

that you don't . It doesn't mean you have to

1:11:07

be passionate and have an orgasm all

1:11:09

day long about the business . Okay , Like

1:11:12

there's times when I hate it , but

1:11:14

if you're successful enough , you hire people around

1:11:17

and you go hey , you do the accounting , you do

1:11:19

that , you do the HR . Let

1:11:21

me do what I'm doing , but

1:11:24

to me , I've

1:11:27

never called it working . Yeah

1:11:29

, Literally . I don't think I've ever had a job , Not

1:11:32

really .

1:11:34

Well , I think that again

1:11:36

comes back to the words that we use and how

1:11:38

we phrase ourselves . When people do

1:11:40

that I'm working and I've had a long day

1:11:42

and I can't be with my family , it's like no , no

1:11:45

, I had a great day and it flew by

1:11:47

because I had all these incredible conversations and

1:11:50

I can't wait to talk to people tomorrow or see

1:11:52

who I'm talking with tomorrow , like that's

1:11:54

what it needs to be , like , not this constant

1:11:56

yeah , no , the words we

1:11:58

use are huge .

1:11:59

I agree , I agree .

1:12:01

Gary , you're incredible . I really appreciate it

1:12:03

. Where can people find you ? Where can they learn more about node

1:12:05

40 ? All that , oh

1:12:08

let's see .

1:12:10

Node 40 is a tax accounting forensics

1:12:12

firm that I invested in a couple of years ago

1:12:15

. It's going to be like

1:12:17

charged back to 911 . I'm so

1:12:19

convicted over it . We're

1:12:22

raising . I think we're raising $8

1:12:24

million right now . That'll be the last round

1:12:26

we raise . I think that total raise

1:12:29

will be less

1:12:31

than $16 , $17 million

1:12:33

to build a half a billion to $2 billion business

1:12:35

in three or four years . It's

1:12:39

absolutely essential part of

1:12:41

the whole crypto digital asset

1:12:43

world to be . There's

1:12:46

just not the tools to monitor

1:12:48

and measure crypto Absolutely

1:12:51

From the old world . So at Gary

1:12:53

Cardone at X or at Gary

1:12:55

Cardone at YouTube , I do a lot of

1:12:57

stuff there . I'm trying to expand the , trying

1:13:01

to interview a lot of financial people and bring

1:13:03

them together , kind of bridge old world

1:13:05

and new world . So the

1:13:07

messaging we're talking about right here

1:13:09

, because most people aren't going to hey , where do

1:13:11

I go to meet these people ? Well

1:13:13

, follow me and then you'll meet

1:13:15

all these people that

1:13:18

, like I'm starting to call out , who

1:13:20

can communicate to the world in a really logical

1:13:22

manner without you do not need to understand

1:13:25

the complexities of blockchain and

1:13:27

ASIC computing

1:13:29

and hash rate Like

1:13:32

this is ridiculous . Okay , no

1:13:34

one need . I'm 110 miles

1:13:36

an hour down the damn highway in

1:13:39

my Range Rover . I don't know everything

1:13:41

about how it works . Okay

1:13:43

, I get on my airplane . Dude , I have

1:13:45

no fucking clue how the airplane works , okay

1:13:47

, but I get on it anyway . Then

1:13:49

I get into Bitcoin . I have to understand

1:13:52

the hash rate on the dip . I'm like

1:13:54

bro , you don't even understand

1:13:56

how JP Morgan runs their bank

1:13:58

, so why are you asking

1:14:00

so many dumb questions instead of basic

1:14:04

, fundamental questions ? I'm trying to bring

1:14:06

people together . That just simplifies it .

1:14:08

Well , that and that's so powerful and that's

1:14:10

why you guys definitely got to go follow Gary , because

1:14:13

he's doing it for free

1:14:15

. One , like it's online . You can get the

1:14:17

information if you want to continue learning . It's fascinating

1:14:19

. And then two , it's like I

1:14:21

don't . You don't need to know all the details , you

1:14:23

need to understand the big picture , because that's

1:14:25

a different skill , set in its own capacity , where it's

1:14:28

like understanding it and then giving

1:14:30

out the information a very simple way , where

1:14:32

it's like I didn't ask 27

1:14:34

questions . I asked one question and I presented

1:14:37

one answer . Most of the time , people can't

1:14:39

do that , but Gary you were incredible

1:14:41

.

1:14:42

One thing , just to give you an example . Like last

1:14:44

night I heard a guy pose a question to 600

1:14:47

people hey , what if ? What

1:14:49

if the power goes out ? Man , what

1:14:51

am I going to do with my Bitcoin ? I mean , the power goes

1:14:53

out , oh , my God , you know , and like , I'm

1:14:56

like , bro , that

1:14:59

costs me 10,000

1:15:01

Bitcoin . Okay

1:15:04

, I could have bought 10,000 Bitcoin at

1:15:06

$3 and

1:15:08

I didn't because I sat there going

1:15:10

well , if the power goes out , I want

1:15:13

to build a , get my wallet , and

1:15:15

I just needed somebody to let me . Bro , if the power

1:15:17

goes out , the only cash you have is shit

1:15:19

in your pocket , because your credit cards aren't going

1:15:21

to work either . The ACH isn't

1:15:24

going to work , the wire transfer is not going to work , your

1:15:26

phone is not going to work . I

1:15:29

could have bought 10,000 Bitcoin

1:15:31

at $3 , dude , and I didn't

1:15:33

because I was like power

1:15:36

shortage , I

1:15:38

mean , it would be an issue , but so

1:15:40

with my credit card , we don't never think about that

1:15:42

. See the dumb question . You

1:15:45

don't sit there and go shit . I'm not going to bring my credit

1:15:47

card today in the car because the

1:15:49

power might go out , right

1:15:52

, dumb question . Anyway , that's

1:15:55

what I'm trying to do is like bridge

1:15:57

the gap , make the learning

1:15:59

a little bit less

1:16:01

heavy . Yeah , people

1:16:03

can start making decisions right now about

1:16:06

like this is a window of opportunity

1:16:08

. There are going to be millions of people

1:16:10

that look back on this and go , whoa , I did not

1:16:13

know I could have done that . I'm

1:16:16

trying to spread the word because I'm

1:16:19

not going to gain anything by it . Dude , I'm still going to have

1:16:22

my Bitcoin , but , like my

1:16:24

brother is going to get left behind because he's asking

1:16:26

too many dumb questions .

1:16:28

Absolutely no . But it's like

1:16:30

, guys , you got to realize that Gary's still

1:16:32

convinced of it on this and

1:16:35

he didn't get it at $3 . He probably

1:16:37

bought it at a much higher multiple than that

1:16:39

maybe 300 , 500 , 3000

1:16:41

, 30,000 . It doesn't matter

1:16:43

. You can't have that backwards

1:16:45

vision . You got to know that it's coming and there's conviction

1:16:48

there . And , Gary , you're awesome . I

1:16:51

really appreciate you . Good to meet you , buddy .