Don’t Get Played | Crypto Scam & Get-Rich-Quick Schemes

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Every day, young men are getting finessed online; from crypto rugpulls and fake NFTs to “flip $500 into $5,000” DMs. In this episode of Failures: The Podcast, Rich and Justin break down how even smart guys get caught slipping, and why the promise of fast money is one of the oldest traps in the book.

Rich shares how he lost $15K chasing Tesla hype. Justin tells the story of getting scammed for a fake gold chain at 16. Together, they connect the dots on the psychology of scams — urgency, isolation, celebrity hype, and desperation — and lay out the red flags you need to watch for.

👉 The smartest investment you’ll make today? Hitting play on this episode.

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Just two men in our 30s sharing what we’ve learned the hard way—so you don’t have to.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
We'll be right back.

(00:27):
Failures Podcast.
We're back with another one.
Rich.
This episode is kind of fuckedup.
We laughed about it a lot offair, but gauging by our
community's feedback, somethingthat's really serious is going
on online that I can't say thatwe were fully aware of how much

(00:48):
of a problem it is, but it'sdefinitely something plaguing a
lot of young men right now.
And it's online get rich quickschemes.
And what really started thiswhole conversation for us and
wanting to dig a little bitdeeper into it was one community
member said, people dumber thanme are getting rich every day

(01:10):
online.
What am I missing?
What am I not doing right?
And that was like the spark thatcreated a flame in this
conversation.
And I want to get into yourimmediate feedback to that
because it's shiny objectsyndrome, right?
Like you're working, you're nineto five, you're 16, 17, 18 years

(01:30):
old, and you're always scrollingthrough or the internet.
The algorithm knows what youwant out of life and money is
obviously one of them.
What's better than making a lotof money by doing very little?
Sounds perfect, right?

SPEAKER_01 (01:45):
For sure.
Man, I'm excited to talk aboutthis.
I wish I had a big brother thatwould let me know what a crypto
scam looks like, what an NFTscam looks like, what shady
business practices look like,what's the difference between an
ad versus a a real product.
No one ever teaches you thesethings.
So you kind of navigate theworld and consume different

(02:08):
content, whether it be online oron print.
And it's hard to decipherwhether you're being sold to or
you're being given realinformation.
So I'm glad we're breaking thisdown.
And bro, there's a lot ofbullshit out there online,
right?
Especially in the crypto world.
Like you said, it's like a shinynew object that everybody wants

(02:30):
to dip their toes in.
And it really does feel likeeverybody in crypto is getting
rich.
At least that's how they paint

SPEAKER_00 (02:38):
it.
Rich, people should know youhave a background in crypto
professionally.
You were an early investor.
So you're not speaking as an oldhead, an unk that is out the
loop.
You're very much in the loop.
So we talked about this online.
I want you to build on it alittle bit.
You understand why it's soenticing because where there is
new opportunity, where there isnew tech there's usually ways

(03:03):
you can make money quicker thanmaybe people who came before
you, right?
Like it's just, it's the natureof new technology.

SPEAKER_01 (03:11):
Yeah, I think anything new, whether it be
financial or not, people aregoing to try to abuse, right?
Any new industry can have itsvulnerabilities and crypto is
not immune to that.
Early on, people got reallylucky, I would say, and
purchased a lot of Bitcoin, alot of Ethereum, purchased just

(03:32):
NFTs early on back in 2016,2017, and they just kind of
held.
And over time, as those assetsstarted to grow in value, they
made a lot of money, right?
So there's these group of guyswho were like really early on to
the technology and made millionsof dollars.
And people are looking at themlike, hey, how do I replicate

(03:56):
what you did, right?
But you had to be in groundzero.
You had to be Bitcoin was livingin the deep, deep dark webs of
nerd blockchain cryptographyforums.
If you weren't living in thatworld at that time, you weren't
going to know about Bitcoinearly enough to see it be$1,$2 a

(04:18):
coin.
So it's easy to see someone'ssuccess and say, man, I want
that.
But you had to be in the cornersof the internet to understand
that.
the technology and sort of likethe potential.

SPEAKER_00 (04:34):
I'm going to do a fun game with you that's all in
your world.
I want to be clear.
Rich and I are not sellinganything on our platform.
Number one.
Number two, Rich and I havefull-time jobs outside of this
community we're building andplatform we're building.
Number three, Rich and I arejust trying to help young men.
If you're going to fall over ahurdle, I want it to be a hurdle

(04:57):
worth falling over.
Hence, the show named Failures,the platform form name failures
you cannot try to achieveanything in life without
experiencing adversity that'swhat we're here for to make sure
that if you're gonna fall it'sworth falling just want to make
that clear because I can see alot of people already punching
the shit out of their keyboardmad because we're calling out

(05:20):
something that they feelinvested in

SPEAKER_01 (05:22):
yeah

SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
just want to make that clear we're not saying to
not get your hustle on weactually are saying the opposite
get your hustle on but be veryaware when you're sitting at a
bar alone or you're out at aparty alone and a girl just
walks up to you and startskissing you on the neck rubbing
your arm and you've never metthis person you don't know this

(05:46):
person and this person has noreason to love you or like you
or want to fuck you outside ofwanting something from you
that's the comparison so we'rejust saying listen we get it you
find yourself to be veryhandsome and brilliant you
stumbled on some some new getmoney shit, but just be very
cautious.
If it comes too fast, comes tooquick, and it seems too good to

(06:08):
be true, chances are you'regoing to get finessed.
End point.
Rich, I want to play a gamebecause you have a lot of
experience in this world and Idon't.
I'm going to say some words thatare relevant to your space and
you tell me what comes to mindimmediately.

SPEAKER_01 (06:24):
Cool.
NFTs.
NFTs, I would say they'reinnovative.
They're a new way to packageownership digitally and
Sometimes that's hard for peopleto understand, right?
It's like, are you telling methat this piece of art or this,
like a board ape, which is likethe monkey art, is valuable and

(06:48):
worth thousands?
I could just copy and paste orscreenshot it and I could also
own it, but that's not

SPEAKER_00 (06:55):
how it works.
I love that you're saying thisbecause I was expecting you to
go the other way.
So you're pro-NFTs.
Where did the NFTs go wrong whenthere was an NFT bubble?

SPEAKER_01 (07:02):
Yeah, like I said, bro, any new technology and
industry is bound forvulnerabilities, right?
Like this is the wild, wild westof blockchain crypto technology.
And there's no regulation.
I mean, we're starting now, likethe SEC, the many different
governments are starting tobuild regulation around this

(07:25):
industry, but it's very much thewild, wild west.
So if malicious actors, scammerssee a vulnerability that they
can exploit, they're going totake every opportunity to do so
and once they've started to seethat something like an NFT that
could be generated automaticallythrough the use of like some
some AI prompting right oncethey've seen that that could

(07:49):
generate profits if marketedproperly you know they're going
to take the advantage nine timesout of ten so

SPEAKER_00 (07:57):
I like your stance because it feels like you you're
over educated on the subjectyou're saying you can't be mad
at the game you just got to be asmarter player in the game
because there are opportunitiesto make legitimate long-term
investments.
Just be smart when you're beingsold a bad package.
So NFTs are not to bevillainized.

(08:18):
You're saying there is functionin the technology and whatever's
going to come with it.
It's just the people that havecreated get-rich-quick
opportunities off of otherpeople from that market.

SPEAKER_01 (08:31):
Yeah, I would say so.
Just like how not every courtonline is a bad course.
You know what I mean?
Some courses are scammy and dofeel like you're just brought in
to purchase that course and fallinto like a loop where you end
up just buying more courses andbuying more courses.
But there is like good onlinecourses and good education.

SPEAKER_00 (08:54):
Rich, you mean to tell me that a course about
selling courses is not a goodcourse to pay for?
Nah.

SPEAKER_01 (09:03):
You gotta watch who you're purchasing these courses
is from.

SPEAKER_00 (09:06):
You're teaching flim how to flam the flim flam.
Now you're just in an echochamber of finesse.
You're learning how to finesseother people for a living.
I want to stop there becausethere's a lot we can unpack
here, but I did want to touch onAI.
I did want to touch on crypto.
I did want to touch on NFTs.
There's a few other littlepockets within that world, Web

(09:27):
3.0, but the general summary onthat for all of my nerds that
are a part of our community,like you said, they're going to
attack and they're going to maketheir defenses.
I just wanted to make it clearout the gate that Rich is very
much someone that I've known mywhole life to be invested in
what's to come in moderntechnology and investment
opportunities.

(09:48):
So you're not an expert ateverything, but you do have a
good idea to understand whypeople who are in a position of
desperation would take a step inthe direction at wanting to
capitalize on one of theseopportunities.
Air quotes, opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 (10:04):
Yeah.
I mean, listen, when you seeother people getting rich and
other people getting intoprojects early and making a good
profit, it's very appealing.
You're like, damn, I know thisperson.
I could probably do the same.
But usually you're either toolate or you end up being what
they call exit liquidity.

SPEAKER_00 (10:23):
That's smart.
The too late thing is one thingI love.
I remember when during thepandemic i moved back to jersey
close to my mom lived in a nicelittle condo space in edgewater
we weren't talking to a lot ofpeople at that time so everybody
was just kind of locked down iwas working from home and i
swear to you i think some of thedumbest people i went to high
school with were all gettingmoney legit money yeah and

(10:47):
everybody at that time was a daytrader i remember that

SPEAKER_01 (10:51):
oh 2020

SPEAKER_00 (10:52):
you remember that what the fuck was that i swear i
was getting like the I wasgetting advice from every idiot
from high school about how daytrading was the next big thing.
And, and they could quadruple mymoney because their portfolio
shook.
I was, I never put my money downon anybody who hit me up, but I
always felt in my gut, like I'veknown this dude since he was

(11:13):
like eight years old.
He's a fucking idiot.
How was he getting rich?
So back to the, that's probablywhy I stopped when one of our
community members wrote thatlike people dumber than me are
getting rich.
What am I missing?
I think that's the way I felt inthat moment.

SPEAKER_01 (11:25):
Yeah.
I mean, that, was back in 2020,COVID, Trump, the whole world
shut down.
But

SPEAKER_00 (11:32):
how do you deal with that, Rich?
Because you're like in thatworld.
You're not all the way in, butyou know what I mean?
Like, how do you decipher thebullshit?
I think this is a, we're goingto get into practical advice and
red flags for our communitymembers for when you're about to
get finessed that are not soobvious.
But right now, at that moment,how were you staying?
I mean, did you get hit byanything that was like a bad

(11:53):
investment and you believed whatwas wasn't

SPEAKER_01 (11:56):
true?
Oh, for sure i mean listeneverybody was making money back
then it didn't matter what youbought people were buying penny
stocks everything was upeverything was up yeah yeah so
it's easy to seem like a geniuswhen everything is going up
right but i got burned reallybad in that era where um there
was this big talk about teslaand there was this a big event

(12:18):
called battery day and elon muskwas gonna present this shiny new
technology and there was some aiunder tones with this new tech.
And you get caught in thesubreddits.
I got caught in all of it, bro.

SPEAKER_00 (12:33):
Cause they're like, cause they're saying, man, you
could hedge this bet now causehe's going to do this and we
could get ahead of it.

SPEAKER_01 (12:39):
Yes.

SPEAKER_00 (12:39):
Is that, is that like a high mentality, right?
Like you just start believingeverything you read.

SPEAKER_01 (12:43):
Yeah.
Listen, I fell into the socialmedia matrix, like discord,
social media, Twitter, and longstory short, I threw like 15
racks into Tesla.
in options, which I had noexperience trading.
The event was a flop.
Elon Musk didn't presentanything new other than some

(13:06):
numbers that were kind of likeunderwhelming as far as car
purchases.
And I got burned, bro.
Like I lost 15K in one trade.
Wow.
I was sick for about a week.

SPEAKER_00 (13:20):
Wow.
$15,000?

SPEAKER_01 (13:23):
And yeah, one bad trade.
One moment, I believe the hype.
I fell for the...

SPEAKER_00 (13:29):
This is perfect.
We can stop the show right here.
Seriously, I'm curious.
Looking back, what were the moreteachable moments, the red flags
that you ignored?
One of them had to beconfirmation bias.
Once you saw what you wanted tosee, you let the algorithm just
keep showing you more stuff thatwas in that world.

SPEAKER_01 (13:50):
Yeah.
I think for one, it was theurgency, right?
Like, oh, it's battery day.
Elon Musk sells electric carslike urgency you know this is a
once in a lifetime event he'sgonna announce some
groundbreaking information andrevolutionary technology when it
comes to tesla and cars and aiand bro i bought it all and i

(14:13):
was also really up from the 2020penny stocks market boom so i
felt like invincible comfortableenough yeah invincible you were
like

SPEAKER_00 (14:24):
bro i keep getting 21s on black Jack, I got it.

SPEAKER_01 (14:28):
100%.
And yeah, and I was right abouta lot of trades and it got to
this one and I'm like, oh,watch, I'm going to turn this 15
into 100 in just one trade.
And boy, was I wrong.
I was sick for about a week.
Wow.
I could not believe, by the way,15K was a lot of money.
It's still a lot of money today.

(14:49):
And I was like, man, I wish Ihadn't doubled down on that.
I wish I didn't fall for thesocial media matrix, the discord
the, you know, sense of urgency,the once in a lifetime
opportunity, take advantage ofit now.
There'll never be anotherbattery day.
Elon Musk will never announcethis groundbreaking tech.
I fell for it all.
You know, now looking back, Ifeel foolish for falling into

(15:12):
that, but I'll tell you thismuch.
I'll never make that mistakeagain.
I don't think I have made atrade that large since.
And that was back in 2020.

SPEAKER_00 (15:20):
So this is actually perfect, Rich.
It's funny.
We talked about stories on ourpre-prep show that we do maybe
one day we'll put this all onthe patreon where you can see me
and rich vent about our ouradult lives before we come on
air and give advice to youngpeople or anybody that we feel
like we can help and again we'regoing to get into practical
advice and red flags at the endof the show so anybody that just

(15:41):
wants to skip to that go to thatpart right now but me and rich
is kind of sharing stories togive context also i want to
create empathy with ourcommunity i want them to know
that we are not infallibleeveryone can fall victim to
psychological tricks when yourback is against the wall and
your finances are not right andyou're trying to turn one into a
hundred and a hundred into ahundred thousand rich your story

(16:05):
was basically that right youwere up but you wanted to be
more up so you could turn that15 into a hundred and to you it
was certain right it was a lockbased on everything you were
reading up into that moment

SPEAKER_01 (16:16):
yeah yeah and i wasn't the only one that got
burned there was a whole bunchof people that got burned with

SPEAKER_00 (16:21):
do you know do you personally know anybody that was
in on it

SPEAKER_01 (16:23):
i know a couple we

SPEAKER_00 (16:24):
had a little we had a little group a little post
game powwow.
Y'all got fucking toast andbutter because you had no more
money to spend on food.

SPEAKER_01 (16:33):
I remember talking to my girlfriend at the time,
telling her about this mistake.
Was she in on it?
She couldn't

SPEAKER_00 (16:45):
believe it.
You were like, yo, give me$5,000.
I'm going to come back with 50

SPEAKER_01 (16:49):
feet.
That probably was a mistakebecause I don't think she knew
how much money I had.
Just mentioning how much I lost,it It made her recompute how
much I actually had.
But needless to say, I rememberher just, she was cool about it.
She was just kind of like, hey,it's fine.
You're a smart guy.
You'll pick yourself back up.
You'll save.
You'll be right about adifferent trade.

(17:11):
And that did help a lot.
But bro, it took me about a weekof just thinking and marinating
in this failure of a trade.
Why did we do that?
I could have bought a car withthat.
I could have thrown that into mystudent loan.
loans.
I could have thrown that into anaccount for my son.

(17:31):
I started to think about all thethings that I could have done
with that money that I lostinstead of making that trade.

SPEAKER_00 (17:38):
I do want to say this.
One quote that comes to mind is,certainty is an illusion.
And that quote is more for humanbeings, people in your life,
people that you feel like, oh,this person is certain.
They're going to be what Iexpect them to be.
Nothing is 100% certain.
That's a fact.
But I think that quote isrelevant for this world where

(18:00):
you read an entire Discordthread or a Reddit thread or a
blog post or a Twitter thread.
The more you read, the more youbecome invested in what outcome
you want.
I gamble.
I gamble on sports all the time.
It's one of my addictions.
And I probably lose anywherebetween$1,000 to$1,500 a year on

(18:21):
gambling.
But it's the adrenaline rush ofthe up and down, up and down, up
and down.
to win five, lose three, and youget to watch the game and be
invested.
I can see why people that daytrade or in stocks or crypto,
meme coins, shit coins, whateveryou want to call them, they are
also addicted to that rollercoaster of constantly putting

(18:43):
money in, reading what's goingto happen, feeling like you know
the future and your money istied to the future.
So again, this part of the showis to be very clear that Rich
and I are far from perfect.
and we're not claiming to be.
But there are teachable thingsthat should be shared amongst
people that take the step, andeverybody gets burned by it, of

(19:06):
getting rich quick.
Too fast, too soon.
Too good to be true.
All these cliches exist for areason.
So I think that story'sincredible, Rich.
I did have a story when I was ateenager, which is very
different than the climate we'rein online with the internet
right now, because the internetis impulse.

(19:26):
all this credit card informationand I see an opportunity to help
my mother turn$2,000 she has inour savings account.
And I know for a fact, based onthe research I've done, seen the
movie on the Best Buy, likestock, is it Best Buy or no?
GameStop.

SPEAKER_01 (19:43):
GameStop, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
The GameStops.
It's like I could see someoneliving in a fucked up situation
and paying attention to theseforum boards with no money and
convincing people they love toput money in.
And that one story of theGameStops stock being the one
stock that crushed all ofcorporate America.
That's an underdog story.
The probability that is one to azillion, but people will use

(20:07):
that as an anchor to be like,man, it can happen.
This could be GameStop again.
But how many GameStops you'regoing to get in a five, four
year cycle?

SPEAKER_01 (20:15):
Yeah.
Not many.
If one at all.

SPEAKER_00 (20:17):
You know, rare, right?
So I could see the hope.
I think that's what I was tryingto get to.
There's a lot of hope anddesperation and people that have
their back against the wall.
And that's something Idefinitely empathize with
because I didn't grow up with alot.
So we get it.
I think that's the point.
We get it.
And when I was in high school, Iremember everybody was, you
know, this is the 2000sthrowback jerseys, big jewelry,

(20:39):
pinwheel hats, bandanas.
And me and my boys would go toManhattan and we would go to
Canal Street and my mom wouldgive me like a few hundred
dollars to go school shopping.
So rather than going to like theParamus Mall or like Bergen
Line, we would go to New York,jump on the little two dollar
bus and go to canal street andtry to get more for our dollar

(21:02):
but what we didn't know is thatcanal street is notorious for
selling fake products so iremember i had my own money and
then my parents gave me like mymom and pops gave me like two or
three hundred dollars to goschool shopping for clothes
anyway long story short on canalstreet i wind up buying two
bootleg jerseys and i had likethree hundred dollars left and

(21:24):
me and my boys we get pulledover over by these Haitian guys.
And they're like, yo, yo.
He's like, yo, papi, I see youguys getting money.
We look cool.
We're trying to look cool whilewe go shopping.
And he pulled me to the side andhe isolated me.
And this Haitian dude just wentin his pocket and was like, yo,
I ain't going to lie to you.
We just ran up on somebody.
We stole this chain.

(21:45):
I got to get this chain off ofme.
So I see you got jewelry on, butthis is a$4,000 chain.
And I was on some like, nah, I'mgood, bro.
I'm cool.
But he was like, urgency he'slike bro I gotta get out of here
so either you buy this chain orI'm gonna just give it to
somebody but like bro the dudehad a lighter and he lit the

(22:05):
lighter and just started goinglike this with the chain and I
don't know shit about gold butin my mind I'm like yeah that's
that would have melted if it wasfake and then he pulled out like
this little thing to test it andhe test the chain and it came up
with a little green lightbasically he was a fucking hood
magician he just like showed meall these tricks and again I'm
away from my boys anybody thatcould be like nah don't Like,

(22:27):
bro, he's like, try it on.
So I tried it on.
Like, damn, shit looks tough.
He's like, bro, right now,$800I'll give it to you.
I'm like, bro, I don't haveeight.
So he's like, how much you got?
So I'm like, bro, all I got isthree.
He's like, bro, I got to leave,bro.
Just give me the three rightnow.
I'll give it to you.
So I go in my pocket and givehim$300.
Bro, I was happier than amother.

(22:47):
Oh, man, I can't even say it.
I was happier than a pig in mud.
We jump back on the bus, go backhome.
I got my chain on.
I'm happy.
I didn't buy no more schoolclothes.
I had two fake throwback jerseysand a gold chain with$800.
Back then, I mean now, shit,kids buying designer clothes.
But at that time, I go home.

(23:09):
I'm happy as hell.
My mom, my father like, yo,how's the school shopping go?
I'm like, oh, look, I got thischain.
I put two jerseys on the couchand my father looks at me.
He's like, bro,$800?
You got two fucking jerseys?
With$800, you only bought twopieces of what are you going to
wear for the rest of the year ofschool so I'm like nah you not

(23:31):
thinking bro I got this goldchain look at this fucking bro
he grabbed it he looked at meand he just started beating the
shit out of me with the chainlike hitting me with the chain
you stupid motherfucker youthink bro whoop my ass then he
was like bro I'm keeping thefucking chain and I'm going to
wear it until it turns green andI was like what you mean like

(23:53):
that's a real chain bro how yougoing to take my he's like bro
this is fake are you stupid.
Nobody's going to sell gold forone eighth of the price.
Who's going to do that?
Lesson learned.
What I'm saying, I'm suresomebody young is like, what the
fuck does that got to do withinternet money?
It's the same premise, right?
You're getting an insane promiseon your original investment.

(24:17):
The Jane would have cost$4,000,but he was giving it to me for
$300.
Why?
Why would he do that?
Two, urgency.
Y'all got I got to do it now.
I got to make this play now.
Three, you isolated me from myfriends.

SPEAKER_01 (24:31):
Yeah, yeah, the strategy.

SPEAKER_00 (24:33):
Online, you're alone.
You're alone in your room.
You're on your phone.

SPEAKER_01 (24:37):
The equivalent to that is getting the DMs.
Exactly.
Yeah, turn 500 into 5,000.
Let me talk to you over here.

SPEAKER_00 (24:42):
Again, Failures Podcast, we're not gurus.
We're not gods.
We're not above anything.
We're just trying to point outthat we are you, but we're just
you 10 or 15 years ahead.
So even when online schemes,which I'm I'm sure there were
back then.
We're not infallible.
We are going to make mistakes.
Rich just shared a story aboutan investment he made based on

(25:04):
hype.
I'm sharing a story on how I gotplayed outside in the real
world.
But it's funny because a lot ofthese things that cause you to
make these irrational decisionsall have kind of a similar
formula in them.
And we did want to touch onthat, Rich, was the psychology
of a lot of these people thatare peddling a lot of these
online get-rich-quick schemes.
They all kind of follow asimilar pattern.

SPEAKER_01 (25:26):
Yeah.
I think certainly it depends howold you are, right?
Whether you're 15, 16, 17.
I think each one of those agesrepresents a different eagerness
to make money, right?
At 15, 16, you're trying to getthe latest Jordans or trying to
get some fly clothes.
17, 18, you're probably tryingto save up for your first car.

(25:47):
So certainly your age, I think,matters as to the psychology of
why you want money.
I think the trap often that wefall into and we've all fallen
victim to this is it's not badto want money, but wanting money
fast is kind of like the poison.
Usually, Any fast track to moneyis probably a scam or you should

(26:13):
be very cautious, right?
I don't think there's a wayaround hard work, right?
And a lot of times things thatfeel easy usually are not what
they seem.

SPEAKER_00 (26:26):
Yeah.
I mean, get rich quick schemes.
Again, a lot of these phrasesand these taboos have existed
for a long time because they'veexisted since the beginning of
time.
I went down to FTX, Rabo holeshout out to this guy James
Janney on YouTube if you reallywant to get in some quality
documentaries about modern dayscams and like a lot of the

(26:50):
stuff that we're talking abouthere this dude is dedicated the
last seven years of his life tomaking these like 50 to 90
minute documentaries that aretruly Netflix level
documentaries with interviewsresearch and he dives so deep
into these subjects that And healways shares like a very fair
perspective on like why peoplewould get caught in these

(27:12):
things.
So as an extension, Rich and Iwill put the links in all the
descriptions, but he has one onMLMs, multi-level marketing
schemes, which I couldn'tbelieve based on our community
and doing a little bit ofresearch, how many people are
getting played by these MLMs,which is essentially- Like the
pyramid schemes type.

(27:33):
Yeah, it's a pyramid scheme, butit's legal because they give you
product Every time you bring ina new person or the new person
gets product and allegedly thejob is to sell this product,
this inventory, but the realhustle is-

SPEAKER_01 (27:49):
Yeah, bringing people in.

SPEAKER_00 (27:50):
You just bringing in more people.

SPEAKER_01 (27:52):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (27:52):
And I've never been finessed by this, but the
numbers are crazy.
Talking about multi millions ofpeople.
And even though the informationis out there, it's the way they
teach you how to sell theproduct and the way they teach
you how to identify five peoplewho need the help it's almost
like a fucking cult like you'reintentionally identifying the

(28:14):
vulnerable and then you'reselling them this idea based on
how much better your life is andanyone who's desperate and down
bad is gonna fall for this

SPEAKER_01 (28:23):
yeah I think some people are really just really
good at selling these ideasright it's funny my brother was
telling me the other day he saidbro I get these people hitting
me up all the time and now theygot new strategies now he's like
they'll invite you over to likea venue they'll play like UFC

(28:44):
they'll give you alcohol they'llbring food and then like right
before they give you all thesefree amenities they do the
presentation right they do thepresentation they'll have the
event they'll show you a videoor a pay-per-view or a UFC
they'll give you food drinksalcohol and then they'll bring
it back up again at the end tokind of sort of like hook you on

(29:09):
signing up but you're right theydo present you with this urgent
opportunity once in a lifetimelook how well I'm doing this
could be you as well and a lotof that I think stems back to
social media and sort of likethe content that we consume
think on Twitter and Instagramand Facebook you get a lot of

(29:33):
like flex culture so it's likeyou see the pretty cars you see
the clothes you see theinfluencers living this like
extravagant lifestyle and it'seasy to fall victim to that to
say man I want that like how doI get that how do I get that now
right like you know what I meanlike we don't want to take our
time to get to that destination

SPEAKER_00 (29:53):
bro it's the weirdest thing just hearing you
run through it it's like someonedescribed it in our community as
a making money paradox meaningin order to make money I can
teach you how to make money it'sa weird thing to say but when
you really think about it it'slike a house of infinite mirrors

(30:13):
it's like I can teach you how tomake money that's how you'll
make money but if this personwas good at making real money
why the fuck would they tell youfor$50 a month

SPEAKER_01 (30:24):
because you're the product think about it whenever
someone gives you something freenothing's ever free right you
look at social media I'll giveyou a perfect example you look
at social media right you couldcreate a free Facebook account,
a free X account, a freeInstagram, a free Snapchat,
YouTube, right?
Ah, that's a great point.

(30:45):
I love that.
But these products are not free.
You are the product.
How are you the product of theseapplications?
By you submitting your data.
Once you submit your data inthese systems, they're taking
this data, selling it toadvertisers, right?
Selling the information like,hey, Rich Sanchez goes on these

(31:08):
many pages and consumes thisproduct, why don't you sell him
an ad, right?
Like, why don't you present himan ad for Shein Men?
Or why don't you submit an adfor like gaming or AI?
Like he's very much moresusceptible to purchasing a
crypto product, right?
Because that's part of hisinterest.

(31:29):
And that's how that systemworks.
But whenever something is free,10 times out of 10, you are the
product.

SPEAKER_00 (31:37):
The digital nomad culture, the solopreneur, the
you can live my lifestyle withthese five tips.
I'll give you tip number one,but for the other four, you got
to download my course.

(31:59):
Now, I'm 39.
I'm not completely out of themix.
I definitely scour the internetand do enough research for
things that I want to get betterat, things that I want to learn.
Hell, Rich and I are building aplatform from scratch.
A lot has changed since 20 yearsago when we built our first
platform, which we were able toprofit off of and have our own

(32:19):
careers come from.
There is...
an infinite amount of incrediblyvaluable information,
skill-based information onlinefor free.
I believe if you really want tolearn something online, you can
scour the internet if you have alot of free time and truly learn
any skill that can help youcreate wealth, help you create

(32:40):
job opportunities from the freecontent that's online.
Now, if an influencer or someperson that's running a platform
has given you over 200 hours ofquality time content that have
literally taught you a skillthat's changed your life.
and they have a more refinedversion to streamline the

(33:02):
knowledge that's coming for the3.0, I think that's a safe bet,
in my opinion.
Because he's already shown youwith 200 hours of content for
free, you have nothing to worryabout.
I obviously know what the fuckI'm talking about.
And to your point, he's givingyou free content, so he got to
make a living too.
This guy has dedicated his lifeto...

(33:22):
I'll give you an example.
I haven't edited videos in along time.
The last time I edited videoswas when I was in high school, I
was in a video production classand I edited on Final Cut Pro.
Rich and I relaunched thisplatform and I'm trying to
figure out how to edit videos.
And I wind up finding out thatFinal Cut Pro is no longer as
relevant as it used to be, eventhough it is.

(33:43):
And there's this thing calledDaVinci Resolve that it's more
like streamlined and you couldwork on it.
Bro, I've been rocking with thisone.
I mean, I tested about 20different YouTubers, but there's
one guy that me and him arespeaking the same language.
And I wound up buying hiscourse.
This was a really expensivecourse.
But Rich, I've been sending youcut downs and edits of video.

(34:05):
We have to pay X amount ofdollars per video that we cut
for YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 (34:09):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (34:10):
We could learn a skill and expedite that process
if you pay the premium.
So again, it's a gray area ofconversation.
I just want to be clear thatwe're not saying everybody
selling stuff online is a badperson.
We're saying if you go throughall the criteria in order to get
to to the link where you have tomake a purchase.
And he's never discussed thefucking product or how you're

(34:34):
gonna get better.
He just told you how girls arejust gonna jump into your car
window and start fucking you,how you're gonna be rich
overnight, how your friends aregonna envy you, how you're gonna
lift up your shirt and you neverwent to the gym and you're gonna
have a six pack.
That is the buyer beware.
That's the, whoa, whoa, slowdown, slow down.
You've been watching a 40 minutevideo and he's never talked

(34:54):
about the actual thing that he'sselling.
He's just telling you how you'regoing to magically get better,
how you're going to magicallybecome that version of yourself
you always wanted to be.
That to me is, that's fucked up.
I don't even know how todescribe it.
I really wish they could justwipe the internet of all those
kinds of people.
But to your point, Rich, theseare grown young men.

(35:15):
They need to have their owndiscretion.
If you get played, maybe youdeserve to get played because
you needed to learn that lesson.

SPEAKER_01 (35:22):
Yeah.
I mean, listen, to be fullytransparent and to be fair, our
podcast is free, right?
But we're also not selling yousomething.
At some point in time, maybewe'll make some live failures,
merchandise, and we'll build amore monetized version.
Because to Justin's point,editing a podcast costs money
that we're coming out of pocketfor.

(35:42):
So ideally, this platformbecomes self-sustaining and pays
for itself.
Or at a bare minimum, if wefail, we take all these episodes
and hand them down to ourchildren like, here, little
homie, this is a little guidefor you to follow.
Nah.
Knowledge, knowledge, game,wisdom.
Yes, we're coming into thisplatform when we're creating

(36:03):
this with the best intentionspossible.
I think that's where you have tosort of become good at.
Understand that, you know,respect the message, but verify
the messenger.
I think when you look at peoplelike your Goggins, right?
Goggins, David Goggins hasincredible discipline.
I think he has a lot of wisdomto share.
Formal Navy SEAL.

(36:24):
His cardio game is crazy.
But at the same time, At thesame time, he's also doing
conferences.
He's also selling you books,right?
You can follow these people.
You can take advice.
You can be selective about whichcontent you consume, but just
don't swipe your credit cardevery time their name is
attached to something.

(36:46):
Yeah, I think that's the biggesttakeaway.

SPEAKER_00 (36:48):
I want to get into red flags and some actionable
advice because I think we couldtalk about this subject forever.
But the first half of thepodcast was dedicated to letting
people know that they're notalone.
This is a huge category online.
And yeah, you're just not alone.

(37:10):
Rich has been through it.
I've been through it.
I have family members.
My mom got tricked intobelieving that her Amazon
account was hacked and she gotonline with a dude and she
shared her laptop screen withhim and he pulled money out of
her account like this ishappening every day to the

(37:30):
vulnerable to the desperateagain failures podcast is not
about pointing at people andsaying you need to be better man
up no it's showing that we'vebeen through these things and
here are the pitfalls and thehurdles that you may learn from
our failures There's no betterway to put it.

(37:50):
We're just showing you what wesee in our community, what we
see in our family, what we seein ourselves.
So Rich, one thing you justmentioned that we have to talk
about is celebrity alignment andscams.
It's another one of those grayones because a lot of good
products also have celebrityalignment.
But you did send a short listover and I know you can't go too

(38:12):
in depth with these thingsbecause you are aware of the
internet hive mind.
And if you get one thing wrongthey're going to destroy your
home point.
So talk about the few things youdid find online that were more
in line with like crypto andmeme coins and more modern day
scams that are happening rightnow.

SPEAKER_01 (38:28):
Yeah, I think the big one is just influencers
taking their influence andmobilizing people to buy an NFT
or buy a crypto token.
So a couple months back, I thinkit was December of 2024, the
then viral Haktua girl who had aviral moment, created a podcast

(38:52):
and started to have celebritieson and just continuing to build
her influence and momentum fromthat one viral video.
And bro, somehow she just gotpulled into some crypto bros,
right?
And she created a coin calledHawk.
And it famously...

SPEAKER_00 (39:11):
By the way, I don't know anything about this.
This is

SPEAKER_01 (39:14):
great.
Yeah.
So it famously rug pull.
So essentially what happens isShe's responsible for promoting
the coin, right?
It's going to release on X date.
We already have this manybuyers.
Get it while it's hot.
There's a limited amount, right?
The urgency, right?
That's rule number one.
Usually a scam is always urgent.

(39:34):
It's always getting now or haveFOMO forever.
So she releases the coin.
It shoots up to multi-millions.
I think 20 million or maybe evenmore.
I think it was really highmillions.
And within 40 hours, the projecttanks to zero.
Then they trace back all thewallets who made the most money

(39:59):
and took exit liquidity.
And it was like her wallet, herteam's wallet, a bunch of
insiders who bought like really,really early.
And it's a classic case of apump and dump, right?

SPEAKER_00 (40:13):
Wait, I'm sorry.
We're going to have to do thisin the show notes.
Rug pool.
Yeah.
I know you just kind of broke itdown, but what's the really for
dummies version of a rug pull?

SPEAKER_01 (40:24):
A rug pull is essentially a project that was
created with the intentions ofpulling the rug underneath.
Got it.
Right.
No real value to the coin, notokenomics, no roadmap.
It's only intention is to...
Inflate.
Inflate.
And get out.

SPEAKER_00 (40:43):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (40:43):
Right.
And to be fair, there's a lot ofpeople that have made money with
these pumping dumps.
So it's a very, very high riskgame to be playing.
But people fell into the scam ofHawk, right?
Oh, Hawk Tua is so funny.
She's a young, bubbly whitegirl.
She would never scam us.

(41:05):
Turns out she scammed everyone,right?
Other more recent and famousones were Andrew Tate's Daddy
Coin, very similar MO pump anddump.
Another famous one was like likeLogan Paul's Crypto Zoo, where
he was creating like NFTs, likecolorful, like cat creatures,
NFTs.

(41:26):
That was another project thattanked.
Kim K and Mayweather wereactually in a lawsuit for
pushing a project calledEthereum Max.
Wow.
Which ended up also being anillegitimate crypto coin versus
like the legitimate Ethereum.
It was like Ethereum Max.
It's better than Ethereum.

(41:47):
And they were getting paid toperform this coin that
ultimately ended up losing a lotof value.
So part of the problem, and Istated this earlier, it's the
wild, wild west, right?
Even celebrities don't knowwhat's the fine line between
promoting a crypto project ornot.
So they're getting millions andmillions of dollars handed to

(42:09):
them for a tweet.
They're going to do it, right?
Oh, all I got to do is a tweetor one reel?
Fine.
Give me the 2 million.
I'll do the promotion and I'llkeep it moving.
And that's what's beenhappening.
And a lot of these scams,regular people are falling for
them.

SPEAKER_00 (42:25):
Now, again, just to give context, what is happening
on the other side of thesescams?
What is the day trader with$1,000?
And how is he getting pulledinto this?
And what is he doing?
What is money?
And how does it turn out forhim?

SPEAKER_01 (42:39):
The same way it turned out for me when I bought
into the Tesla options duringBattery Day back in 2020.
We're all on our phones 24-7.
We're all consuming social mediacontent.
We're all being fed veryspecific things via an
algorithm.

(43:00):
And it's very easy for you tomobilize an army of people who
want to make a profit and whohave a little bit of disposable
income and who have a little bitmore of a risk tolerance.
And that's how you get them.
So people like Kim K, they carrya lot of influence, right?
People like uh logan paul righthe has a whole like wwe army and

(43:23):
prime army like this dudeliterally has like the youth in
his hands right now so it's veryeasy to fall victim to something
that these people are promoting

SPEAKER_00 (43:30):
all right let's get into it i want to talk about uh
the red flags just generic redflags for shit even older people
i feel like older people mightbe more vulnerable in this world
because i get texts all the timeit's funny i went to the dmv to
pay off.
A lot of money that I owe toDMV, which I don't want to get

(43:53):
into.
I've moved about three times inthe last three years and somehow
my registration got lost in thesauce.
So anyway, I pay a good amount.
Shit fucked me up in terms of mypersonal finance goals, but I
was happy not to have thisfucking debt looming over my
head.
But literally the day after Iget a text, looked like an

(44:14):
official DMV automated.
And I promise you my impulse,because I had just just dropped
a nice bag and it was likesomething about the payment not
going through I'm like that'snot possible because the shit
came out of my account so I hitthe link bro it took me to a
website that looked exactly likeand luckily I was at work when I
hit the link so I went to go dosomething else and I went back

(44:35):
to my phone and I was like ohshit I forgot about this and I
looked at it again I'm like whythe fuck would the DMV text me

SPEAKER_01 (44:41):
right

SPEAKER_00 (44:41):
and at that point I went back and I screenshotted it
and I chat GPT'd it and it waslike chat GPT was like no that
was like the first one word toanswer it was like are you
stupid are you dumb yeah and Ithought to myself like damn
where does that leave like a 70year old grandmother a great
grandmother that's at home andshe got a little bullshit Obama

(45:03):
phone and they have money likeyou know they have bank accounts
that probably have a lot ofmoney older people save a lot of
their money yeah it's predatoryso from the grandma all the way
to the 15 year old kid fuckingjust killing time online what
are some red flags Rich, thatyou think are legitimate advice
that you should be keen to whenit feels too good to be true?

SPEAKER_01 (45:26):
Yeah.
Nobody's immune to this, right?
I do this for a living.
I work in cybersecurity.
That's my nine to five.
And whether you're young or old,the reason why these malicious
actors target people eitherthrough a phishing campaign or
through text or a fake websiteor a fake email is because it

(45:48):
works.
There's people that fall forthem and these people make a lot
a lot of money so you know justjust to set the record straight
like the reason why it continuesto happen is because it's very
profitable to steal from peopledigitally

SPEAKER_00 (46:05):
yeah and attack their vulnerabilities right yeah
like yeah something about theirkids something about um your car
something about something thatfeels urgent that your primal
brain takes over and you're likewait i have to look into this

SPEAKER_01 (46:19):
yeah and and that That's exactly it.
I think that's rule number one.

(46:49):
Gets me every time.

SPEAKER_00 (46:51):
Gets me every time.
I think there isn't a productthat exists on Amazon that
wasn't over 50% off that Ididn't buy in that immediate
moment.
I mean, yeah.
I'm like, how long is thisdeodorant going to be 50% off?
I have to get it while I cansave seven cents.
Yeah.
But it works.
It's these psychological tricksyou're saying.

(47:12):
And if you take urgency and youmix it with money or desperation
or family or a quick fix, flip,of course it's going to work.
But you're saying that's the redflag.
That's the giant label thatsays, warning, give it a minute.

SPEAKER_01 (47:28):
Yeah.
Just like the Haitian guy onCanal Street, like, yo, I got to
go.
I got to go.
Buy this now.
I just stole it.
The cops are after me.
I need to get this off my hands.
That sense of urgency.
You're more susceptible tomaking a mistake when you have
to act quickly and make animpulse decision.

(47:49):
And that the vulnerabilitythey're trying to exploit.

SPEAKER_00 (47:51):
So that reminds me when I used to sell cars, we
used to always do fake scarcity.

SPEAKER_01 (47:56):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (47:56):
Somebody called about the new Benz that we just
got and we put up on thewebsite.
A sales tactic always was, thatwas like part of our job.
If they called, you had to say,no, there's somebody looking at
the car right now as we speak.
It just got to the lot, but Idon't think it's going to be
here too long.
It's obviously if we took a dudewho sold me a fake chain,

(48:19):
someone who got got me to clickon a DMV link.
That person's probably been onmy phone for the last three
weeks just fishing through allmy accounts.
Rich, what should I do actually?
Should I just shut my phone off?

SPEAKER_01 (48:31):
If you should shut your phone off?

SPEAKER_00 (48:33):
I hit the link.
I hit the link.
Now that I'm thinking about it,I already clicked that link.
Are they in my phone?

SPEAKER_01 (48:40):
No, no.
I mean, it depends.
If the link had some sort oflike login page or something,
then you're fine.
Yeah.
Okay.
I mean, we should probably talkafter this.

SPEAKER_00 (48:49):
I'm over here giving advice.
Somebody's cleaning up my wholefucking bank account.
That would be terrible.
Absolutely.
But you know what?
Nobody's immune to it.
So all right, cool.
High pressure sales tactics,fake scarcity, influencer
marketing, the timer trap.
We talked about all that.
What else, Rich?
What are some other red flag

SPEAKER_01 (49:10):
issues?
Yeah, I think rule two, I saidthis earlier with the Goggins
example, but it's just respectthe message, but verify the
messenger.
There's a lot of goodinformation out there.
I think David Goggins is aperfect example.
Even somebody like Andrew Tate,right?
I know he's a highlycontroversial influencer, but
from time to time, he'll saysome shit that hits home, right?

(49:35):
Or that makes sense to you.
But understand that after thefive to 10 to 15 free videos
that he's sending you, he'sgoing to try to mobilize you to
purchase something, whether thatbe a cryptocurrency whether that
be some tape merchandise,whether that be going to a talk
that he's doing somewhere andsome conference or any sort of

(49:58):
like donation mechanism, there'sgoing to be a tactic to try to
get financial gain out of thisinformation that he's sharing.

SPEAKER_00 (50:09):
Yeah.
I mean, I love the way youframed it.
Respect the message, trust themessenger.
The messenger is what'simportant.
And I think that's what wetalked about earlier, Rich.
Obviously we're creating aplatform.
So there's many, many hours ofcredibility with said customer
and said person sharinginformation that to me is no
different than a relationshipwith a mentor that wants to sell

(50:31):
you his old car you know andyeah obviously the car is used
obviously it's not perfect buthe might based on the trust you
have with him he's not goinganywhere you have his phone
number you know how to get intouch with him he has a lot of
proof in at least in yourrelationship that he's someone
that's credible and he's notpromising anything that is
abnormal it's just you got tomake a you got to make an

(50:53):
investment on what you're goingto get back it comes like that
for anything in life shitcollege might be a scam if you
really want to put it in in thewrong category but as long as
you can confirm you're gettingwhat you want out of the deal
and the institution has beenaround for a while and it's a
credible institution or acredible person then yes feel
free to make the investment aslong as it's clear on what

(51:13):
you're going to get so I lovethat idea and I think the
internet has kind of turned intothat and maybe influencers
especially the ones that areplaying the longer game, they're
learning that.
I mean, Steph Curry co-signedFTX.
Is Steph Curry a shitty humanbeing?
I don't know.
Tom Brady was like the posterchild for FTX.

SPEAKER_01 (51:32):
I

SPEAKER_00 (51:33):
mean, shit, the internet could figure it out as
I'm saying it, but Tom Bradylost a lot of his personal
wealth in the FTX debacle.
I think he was one of thebiggest investors.
He invested a lot of his own networth into this idea.
And for what it's worth, I knowit's going to sound crazy, we
brought up two things that willlight up the internet and get us
canceled.
Andrew Tate and FTX.

(51:54):
But for what it's worth, I thinkthe premise of FTX being similar
to Coinbase was the idea,without the Ponzi scheme, yeah,
I don't want to speak onsomething I don't know, but the
premise of FTX being a place youcan trade, that wasn't the
illegal part.

SPEAKER_01 (52:09):
Yeah, no, not at all.
The illegal part was was that hewas misappropriating customer
funds and using them for AlmedaResearch, which was his own sort
of like trading hedge fund typebusiness.
And there were clearly twoseparate businesses.
You shouldn't have commingledfunds.
And if you were going to dothat, you had to let your

(52:30):
customers know.
So he went down for some bigwhite collar crimes.

SPEAKER_00 (52:35):
Yeah.
So the greater point back toyour red flag is Tom Brady and
Steph Curry co-signed Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (53:11):
I think another one for like rule number three, I
want to be clear aboutsomething.
We're not saying to not investin things or not be sort of like
risk averse.
But what we are saying is don'trisk the rent money.
You know what I mean?
The quick flip.
Yeah.
That one is as old as

SPEAKER_00 (53:31):
time.
The

SPEAKER_01 (53:31):
quick flip.
Yeah, bro.
Like if losing this investmentmeans like you can't eat or pay
your bills or you're not goingto make ends meet for the week,
that's not an investment.
That's a gamble.
So be very, very cautious.
The famous saying is only investmoney that you're willing to
lose, right?

(53:52):
Because if you lose it and youhad enough to lose it, then it's
not going to break the bank.
You can still operate, you canstill make ends meet, you can
still pay your bills, your rent,et cetera.
But if it's more than you'rewilling to lose, now your own
personal finances start to takea hit and you can't pay your
bills.
bills and your wife hates youand you're going down a bad

(54:14):
rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_00 (54:16):
You know, a rule of thumb that I've always had with
people is is some people can bean investment and some people
can be a gamble.
And I think it correlates to thenatural terms that are more
involved than finances.
An investment is something thatyou're putting money or time

(54:37):
into something that has along-term horizon.
So you're not necessarily livingin the day-to-day of the ups and
downs of the day-to-day, evenweek to week, even month to
month.
If your success, is correlatedto day-to-day, week-to-week
metrics, and you're living anddying based on what happens

(55:00):
today or tomorrow, that's agamble.
Chances are, whoever told youthat this is the best person to
bring into your life or the bestinvestment to make with your
money, and you have to track itday-to-day because you just
don't know, that's a gamble.
Even the person that made a lotof money doing it that way, they

(55:22):
are living on the edge.
razor's edge and chances arethey could be on an upswing that
is just Luck, serendipity, timeand place, so many variables, so
many macro things going on inthe world that could take
something up.
And the phrase goes, the sameway luck can be given is the

(55:43):
same way luck can take becauseeverything has these natural
ebbs and flows.
So be mindful of gambling versusinvesting.
And to Rich's point, if you'regoing to gamble, gamble, but
make sure you have enough thatif you lose all your money,
you're not risking yourlivelihood.
That is a red flag withinitself.

(56:05):
It's more on the person.
If you need the money, thenmaybe you should focus on
getting more of a bigger bank, anest egg, so you can make bigger
investments.
No one's saying that youshouldn't make gambles to
quadruple your money.
It's possible.
People are doing it.
I know that would be the numberone comment.
You guys don't know anything.
I made XYZ last year.

(56:25):
And that's fine.
We're not saying that that's notpossible.
But- For a younger guy that'sfollowing these idiots online
that constantly peddle the lastwin they got, it's a win from
last week.
It's not a win forever.
You're giving false informationto young people that are
impressionable, that think theycan get it the way you got it.

(56:45):
And those are just short-termgambles.
Long-term investments are yourreputation.
Long-term investments aredeveloping skills.
Long-term investments aretreating your body right, being
around smart people that alsoplay long-term games and a 401k
and bullshit ass above 4% returnon investment historically over

(57:09):
the last 700 years, unlessfucking a meteorite hit the
world, you're probably going toget this money back.
Those are long-term investments.
Now, Rich and I be playingshort-term games, but
asymmetric, right?
That's the rule.
It's like if I bet a thousand,all I could do is lose a
thousand.

SPEAKER_01 (57:27):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (57:28):
But if I hit I could win big.
Creating this platform is anasymmetric bet.
And we'll put the definition ofasymmetric down here.
We're not trying to complicateanything.
It's real simple.
Whatever I put up, I could lose.
I'm okay with that.
But if I win, I could win 10Xplus.
But I know the probability saysI'm going to lose this$1,000.

(57:50):
That's an asymmetric bet.
But you're okay with that.
That's what Silicon Valley isbuilt off of.
That's where tech companies arebuilt off of.
That's where penny stocks arebuilt off You can do it that
way, but just be able todifferentiate a gamble from a
long-term bet.
And I think people and womenfall into that category as well.
Different conversation foranother time.
But I think even humans, friendsare gambles.

(58:12):
Women are gambles.
And then some people, friendsand women are long-term bets.

SPEAKER_01 (58:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (58:18):
Love your rule three.

SPEAKER_01 (58:19):
No, yeah.
I mean, I think you hit rulefour and that's probably the
last rule we have.
It's just play the long game,right?
Oh, shit.
I didn't even...
Fast money.
Listen,

SPEAKER_00 (58:28):
no.
I probably should read thenotes.
I didn't realize that was

SPEAKER_01 (58:30):
four.
That's great.
I'm glad you went off the topthere.
That's rule number four, playthe long game, build skills,
generate assets, and build anetwork that compounds over
time, over years, not weeks.
I know there's a lot of contentout there.
There's a lot of people sharingfake success stories.

(58:51):
It's easy to get consumed by theinternet matrix and be like, oh,
this person's in a mansion orthe Love Island people are And
like this beautiful island.
Right.
And you're like, oh man, I wantthat lifestyle.
I want the car.
I want the money.
I want the women.
It's very, very easy to fallvictim to wanting these things.

(59:11):
The problem is you want tomobilize yourself to try to get
it fast.
Right.
You know, to make comparisons oflike how fast money was back in
the day, back in the day, peopletried to scam, people try to
sell drugs.
I feel like we're kind of pastthat in society.
And now people are just like,all right, what's the two point?
It's like crypto, Web3 scams.

(59:34):
Credit card scams.
Credit card scams.
Yeah.
Cash app scams.
You know what I mean?
For sure.
It's all moved

SPEAKER_00 (59:41):
like- Real estate.
Real estate scams.
Oh, yeah.
Give me your money.
You're in a real estateportfolio.
Bro, can you explain that realestate shit to me?
Because I had about fourdifferent friends.
I feel like this is what thehood is on right now.
So I give my money to a pool ofpeople that are pulling their
money into a larger real estateplace.
Do you know about this?

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:00):
Yeah, that's exactly it.
A whole bunch of people pulltheir money to purchase a real
estate property that ultimatelygets renovated and then sold for
a higher profit.
Once the developer sells theproperty and takes the profit,
he takes that profit, dispersesit back to the original

(01:00:22):
investors and everybody wins.
The problem is...
Yeah, please get to that part.
Most of the scammy developersare just taking your money and
never giving you your rate ofreturn back.
They're saying, oh, man, theproject got delayed.
Oh, man, the time and materialshave increased.
Oh, man.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:39):
This is how people get killed.
This is how people get killed,bro.
I'm

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:43):
serious.
Yeah, it's wicked.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:46):
Bro, if I would have responded to one of these
motherfuckers, I could show youright now somebody that we both
know back home.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:51):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:51):
DM me on bullshit.
I know.
And I'm like, I literallyrespond, bro, get out of my
phone with this crazy shit.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:58):
It's a wicked world out there, bro.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:00):
That's what I'm saying, bro.
This shit is urgent, bro.
Rich, I'm very happy that we arestill very close friends.
Because this shit is happeningright now.
Yes, in real time.
This is not like fucking WarrenBuffett's 50 rules on, nah, we
outside right now, bro.
This is happening right now.
That's sad.
I know people back home aregetting scammed by this guy that

(01:01:22):
we both know.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:23):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:23):
And I was always wondering, I'm like, how the
fuck does anybody send thisperson money?
Does this shit actually work?
Why does it work?
Because people are desperate,bro.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:31):
Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:32):
that's exactly right.
Sorry, I have a rule of five.
All right, this one's big forme.
Because I just thought about mynephew and younger guys that are
in my life that would have gotthat DM about, yo, send me$500
to$1,000 and you could be a partof this real estate.
I don't know what the fuck it'scalled.
We got to find a name for it.
But I'm glad you knew about it.

(01:01:54):
And I'm just wondering, how do Iget my money back if it doesn't
happen?

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:59):
You don't.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:01):
And the one thing that keeps coming up that's
specific to the community thatwe're building, I can't make
this emphasis any more clear,Rich.
It's obvious that every episodewe do is based off of one thing.
And that one thing is thecustomer being in isolation.

(01:02:25):
Women that are experts atgetting men to believe that they
can get something from theirrelationship is based on being
alone, isolation.
We did a episode, maybe one ortwo episodes ago, Suffering and
Silence.
isolation.
You start hating the world.

(01:02:46):
You find communities to developangst.
We're going to go to episode 100and we're going to keep seeing
the common thread is isolation.
Social media isolation.
Digital nomads.
Solopreneur.
Stoicism.
I'm going to stay on this topicbecause I believe it's something
that no one on the internet istalking about.

(01:03:07):
This is where people are gettingtheir fucking noggins cracked
when you're alone.
And the more More and more, youquadruple down on the non-VR
goggles that are the algorithmsthat are all around you, your TV
algorithm, your laptopalgorithm, your phone algorithm,
your friend group.
Everything is gettingstreamlined to these little
communities that are not realpeople, and you're being

(01:03:30):
isolated.
I'm not a fucking conspiracytheorist.
I do marketing for a living.
There are scientists in whitecoats, bro, that are trained to
just keep you on meta all day.
day, keep you on Instagram allday, keep you on YouTube all
day, keep you on Spotify.
This is their job, bro.

(01:03:51):
And if you think these peopleare not competing with their
other platforms that are in thesame lane as them, the only way
they could win the war is bykeeping you on their platform.
End point.
The problem is that sameinformation is available to
people that don't have the bestintentions for the customer.
They're in the wild, wild west.

(01:04:12):
A woman with and OnlyFansdoesn't have any parameters
stopping her from allowing youto send her$4,000.
There's no system that's goingto save you, my boy.
There's no caution sign at theend of a Discord or a Reddit
that says, hey, there's a lot ofhate language for other social
groups here, but you should useyour own discretion and speak to

(01:04:35):
your family about how upset youfeel before you go and purchase
a fucking gun and do somethingabout this problem.
The This is the isolationproblem.
And there's no difference here,Rich.
We're seeing that the more thatthese get money schemes, these
MLMs, these real estateinvestments, these crypto, all

(01:04:56):
these plays catch you whenyou're isolated, you're down
bad.
And the first thing they tellyou is they discourage you from
sharing this information withyour friends and family because
they're going to talk you out ofit.
They don't know what gettingrich is about.
I do.
It's scary out there bro it'sscary out there and to me that

(01:05:16):
shit is eerie like there's likeAI movies about this there's
Black Mirror like it's gettingspooky and I think a lot of
young men because they're sorisk adverse they're just full
of adrenaline they're alwaysgoing to do the thing that's the
most riskiest because they feellike it's the right thing to do
in the moment and that shit isscary because these people know
they're vulnerable and they'realone and they be online all day

(01:05:37):
and they're constantly gettingan echo chamber of information
that they want to see and theywant to hear but bro same as the
last episode, Suffering inSilence, there's a sadness that
comes over me when I think aboutit.
It makes me upset.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:49):
Yeah.
I think I'll close with this.
I think what we're talking aboutis not only about scams.
I think everything, if I couldsummarize everything that we've
just shared, it's that it'sreally a mindset thing.
We're telling you to don't beimmune to shiny distractions.

(01:06:10):
Be cautious about the contentthat you consume online.
Be cautious about the coursesthat you sign up to.
Be cautious with the influencersthat you follow.
Don't just follow people blindlybecause ultimately they're going
to try to sell you a product andthen you go down the rabbit hole

(01:06:30):
of falling victim to a scam.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:33):
Yeah, and if you pay a lot of money for something,
you try to justify it.
Yeah.
I'm sure when you lost your 15,your brain was breaking because
you were trying to justify evenafter you lost it.
Yeah.
No, it's going to be all right.
I can get it back.
I just got to do X, Y, Z.
Right?
That's what your brain does whenyou follow a creator that
doesn't have good intentions.

(01:06:53):
He sells you an ounce oforegano.
You start trying to plant theoregano to justify the money you
lost.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:00):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:00):
But you got played.
I'm sorry, bro.
I'm going to stop.
No, no.
We feel passionate about it.
You're right, though.
You're right.
They need their own discretion,bro.
I don't know how you get it.
That's something that we'reprobably going to have to figure
out in another episode, but it'sfucked up.
It's predatory.
I think that's the best way toput it.
People know you're vulnerableand they're attacking you at
your weakest.
And you need to understand that.

(01:07:21):
I think that alone, if there'stwo young men out there that
know that, I think that's enoughto know, oh shit, I am being
attacked.
That sounds like some Fox Newsshit.
I wasn't trying to be on that.
I meant like, be aware thatyou're vulnerable.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:37):
Yes.
I'll end with this.
Before you invest in any scheme,invest in yourself first.
There you have it.