Hey friend, listen. I know the world is scary right now. Corruption, war, inflation, demographics,
degeneracy, disease, unrest, hatred, and despair. We didn't come here to tell you how it is,
but that it's going to get way better.
Better by Bitcoin.
Hey, hey, welcome in to episode 29. Better by Bitcoin. We are super stoked to just kind of get back
in. It's just going to be myself and Anton today. A couple folks are traveling and just kind of doing
some stuff. But today's topic is what are you even doing? I'll let Anton kind of break down the bigger
thing. But one of the things that we're going to try today is part of the reason we started this was
just kind of like test things and see how we can kind of learn. Because I think that's the whole
premise of this was like learn, inspire, move forward. And so we're going to try and like start
each block and by block, I mean like when we're kind of going back and forth and kind of giving our
takes on things by saying like, what are you even doing? So it's like if it becomes a little
repetitive, it's intentional. But I think the goal is to just kind of like actually hammer home that
point of like, what are you even doing? Like, what am I doing? What are we all doing and all this?
And so I kind of let you break down your take on the topic.
What are you even doing? OK, so are we going to start it every time that way?
I think, yeah, just I mean, this is go whole hog into it and see if people don't get super annoyed.
I'll try to say it in different ways. What are you even doing? Well, the first thing that comes to mind
is people's personal finances. That means different things to everybody.
Everybody's got a different job, a different income, different expenses for different reasons.
You might have medical expenses because of some condition that you have.
You might have no kids. You might have four kids. You might have six kids.
You might have parents that are older and live with you.
You might have a high mortgage, you might pay rent.
So if you're a Bitcoiner, if you've gotten to that point where you're a Bitcoiner,
what are you even doing with your money to make sure that the your investment in Bitcoin is growing?
And. I'm thankful that I discovered Bitcoin because it.
It rewired my brain and my own perspective on my personal finances to.
Value having an additional amount of money to basically make more money than I spend so that I can save money in Bitcoin.
A lot of people already have that perspective. Maybe they automatically do it because of their job.
So they put money into a 401k or they have something that they like to invest in.
You know, I was doing that before I discovered Bitcoin.
I read a book called The Richest Man in Babylon, which it's kind of a self-help book.
It's this allegory that essentially just gives you a story to help you visualize what it means to produce more than you spend.
To take a little bit of extra money and. Give part of it away and be generous and to take a little bit and put it into wise investments.
And why using that simple strategy that your wealth will grow.
To a degree that's way higher than the majority of people, and I was already sort of doing that before I really got into Bitcoin,
but Bitcoin kicked it into a whole higher gear.
I mean, you can look at Bitcoin over the last 10 years.
It's the best investment you possibly could have made when you compare it to things like stocks, the S&P, gold, real estate.
So that's what I'm doing. So, J.D., what are you even doing and what are you doing?
I think. So stupid. I don't know if this is going to last.
I know it's probably not going to last the whole thing, but no, I'm actually curious your take on the richest man in Babylon piece, because it's like I haven't read that book,
but I actually have had it recommended a couple of different times.
And I would be very curious to hear, you know, if you were to kind of like break down the core tenant of that book for.
Like the use case for generosity in a Bitcoin world.
And so what I mean by that is like. Does it even make sense to be generous with a finite resource?
Yeah, well, that's a great question.
I ask myself that a lot, as I have told you that in the last 24 hours, I've been generous to multiple people and just given them Bitcoin.
I've sent Bitcoin all over the world. I've sent Bitcoin to Kenya, to Bhutan, to Peru.
I've spent it in Denmark. And do I have a regret forever having spent Bitcoin?
I was looking yesterday. I bought a drink in Denmark. It was.
It was a pisco sour, I think, and it was twenty dollars U.S.
And I looked at how much the Bitcoin transaction because I paid in Bitcoin.
It's that Bitcoin transaction is now worth one hundred dollars in Bitcoin.
Was that drink worth one hundred dollars? Absolutely not.
So anytime that you've spent Bitcoin prior to now, you lost money.
So if you were generous, had you waited to be generous, you could have been more generous.
So in that sense, I don't think it's probably a good idea to spend Bitcoin willy nilly, even if you're being generous.
But if your income is being generated in fiat.
Then it's kind of all the same.
If you are generous with a portion of your money and then you take that same portion of your money and you invest it in Bitcoin.
What generosity does is it frees you from having your faith in money.
It puts your faith in God or it just I don't know.
You for me, it puts my faith in God.
But it could just take your faith out of this.
Thing, this this thing where the value is just eroding away from it, and it could even give you faith in yourself.
But for me, just personally, it gives me it puts my faith that the one that is providing for my needs is God.
It is not me. It is not luck.
It is not random circumstances.
And so I just believe that if there is this higher power that is taking care of me and looking out for me, then I don't have to worry about spending something that truly is not a finite resource.
I mean, money in the sense of fiat money, it is literally infinite.
Kind of rambling about it, so I'm going to cut it off there.
I actually love that take.
No, I don't think you're rambling at all.
I'm actually very because what I was kind of thinking through as you're saying that is the is the.
Bitcoin may be finite, but adding value is infinite.
And so what I mean by that is like, what are you even doing if you have a scarcity mindset?
Like, seriously, if you have Bitcoin and you have a scarcity mindset, you actually have the incorrect belief system around Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is a scarce resource.
But scarcity is actually what drives abundance, because you cannot have one without the other.
Like, if scarcity didn't exist, abundance wouldn't exist.
And it's the same thing about the point of a scarce resource is to focus you.
Like, what are you even doing if you're spending all of your time on everything?
And I have to remind myself that all the time.
Like, what are you doing if you're flooding your time away on Twitter?
What are you doing if you're putting away your time away, like doing things that don't actually matter?
Like you only have so much time on this earth.
And that is something that you will never get back.
Those moments that you ignored your kids, those moments that you ignored your significant other, those moments that you ignored yourself when you actually needed to take a break.
You actually needed to take a risk.
And so this interesting thing happens when you start changing your Bitcoin mindset around a scarce resource into an abundance mindset.
And you kind of open your hands and you are generous because like the posture of generosity is this.
It's like open, open hands.
And the posture of scarcity is this.
It's fists. Right.
And so if you have a combative fist mindset to the world, they're going to have the same thing back to you.
You give and you or you get what you give.
It's like, what are you even doing when this is your posture?
Right. You're you're you're telling the people that you're not collaborative, that you don't want to be helpful.
You don't want to do anything. But when you do this, you know, you're kind of offering it up.
And you're facilitating an exchange or facilitating trust, you're facilitating a relationship.
And so I actually love the the note you said about generosity, because it's it's actually a really like a counterintuitive way to think about Bitcoin is like.
Spending your Bitcoin, using your Bitcoin, having a posture of this with Bitcoin is how you get more people into it.
You don't get more people into it like this.
You get more people into it like this.
There's a lecture, it's on YouTube by Charlie Munger, the business partner of Warren Buffett.
It's called the psychology of human misjudgment.
There's this concept from that called the iron law of reciprocation, which is essentially you get what you give.
So this happens to me a lot.
You have a neighbor who you see every single day and that neighbor doesn't say hi to you.
They're not excited to see you.
And you don't really know the person.
And sometimes it really bothers me.
And what I learned from the iron rule of reciprocation is that if you every time you see that person get excited the way that your dog gets excited to see you when you come home and you've been gone for two hours and the dog acts like you've been gone for two years and it's just so excited.
If you give that to people, eventually people will reciprocate that same energy back to you.
And so in the same way with saving and investing in Bitcoin and then being generous with the abundance that you have to other people, that generosity will come right back to you.
It's reflected right back to you.
It's like the law of cause and effect.
It is a law.
I love that thought of looking that person in the eyes and being like, you're just being a jerk to people.
What are you even doing?
Have an expectation that somebody is not going to be jerk back to you.
Seriously, what kind of an expectation do you...
What world do you live in that you can have an expectation that somebody is going to be nice to you when you're a jerk?
It's like if you're rich and a jerk, you're still a jerk.
You just happen to be rich.
Yeah, I love that.
I'm definitely going to go and watch that after this.
And I think in my own life and just kind of what I've seen over and over again is even just in one of the things I'm working on now, it's like some...
I'll just give a perfect example.
What are you doing blaming anyone for anything?
Full stop.
The only person in your life you have to blame for anything is yourself.
If you didn't work hard enough, that's your fault.
If you didn't give enough, that's your fault.
There's always a moment where like, sure, somebody could have given you or somebody could...
But that is not within your control ever.
You have no control over this.
What are you even doing with this belief that you owed something or you whatever?
Because the only way you're owed something is if you were the center of the universe and you're not, right?
Like at the end of the day, the center of the universe is not you and will never be you.
And so what are you even doing with this expectation that you should get everything?
You shouldn't.
And so I think it's really interesting to tease out this thought.
Again, coming back to Bitcoin and coming back to scarcity and coming back to like this mindset of like scarcity and abundance.
You cannot...
Like if you have a scarcity, completely scarce mindset, right?
Again, completely scarce mindset is this.
I cannot let go because I will lose everything.
There are moments that you should be holding on, right?
And that's usually the image I have is like the person holding on to the last trickles of time that they have when they're on their deathbed.
But I would argue that if you're holding on to your last trickles of time while you're on your deathbed, your story and your everything ends there.
Because if you're focused on what's happening to me in that moment, you're not actually focused on how do I make this moment last a lifetime and last a lifetime for the people who are sitting around me.
And so I think that like that's one thing that I've been reflecting on a lot.
I'm reading a really good book called The Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom.
Phenomenal book, highly recommend it.
Very similar to the Charlie Munger talk where he kind of like breaks apart reciprocity and those other things.
He's kind of breaking down these like five like time wealth and financial wealth and spiritual wealth and relational wealth and familial wealth.
And the biggest one he talks about is the relational wealth.
But I would argue actually like relational wealth is a mindset thing, because if you just are a jerk like that neighbor that you're talking about, nobody's want to be around you.
And even then, like if you're not a jerk and somebody is a jerk, but you just constantly show them something nice, they're going to come around to it.
Like eventually they're going to just be like, I'm really an asshole.
I can't stop. I can't continue to be a butthead to this guy.
And so, yeah, I think. As much as I don't like to admit it, those people who believe in the secret are kind of right, because the principle, the secret essentially is reciprocity.
And there's a lot of really good research that actually says reciprocity is the strongest of the human emotions.
And it's a perfect way to do it. It's like, you know, if you think about it, like if you were the center of a tribe or you lived in a tribe and you were to, you know, go kill an animal and then give some to another tribesman.
Well, when he, you know, she or whoever were to do the same thing and bring something home, they're probably going to give you some, too.
Right. Are you going to get the same portion? No, but you can't expect that.
So, yeah, I don't know. I just love I love that thought about the like the Charlie Munger.
What is it, the iron iron law of reciprocation?
I don't know. That's actually exactly what it's called. It's there's a there's a few different ways of phrasing, but that's one of them.
What would you what do you think is most missed by Bitcoiners when it comes to reciprocity?
Like, I'm very curious your take on like or actually here's a better way to phrase that question.
What do you think you most took for granted before you were a Bitcoiner?
That is true now in terms of how you treat other people or other people, people treat you or how you expect them to treat you.
What are you even doing if you're an asshole and I'm sorry for being crass, but seriously, what are you even doing if you're an asshole?
If you walk around being negative and pessimistic, how do you not realize that you're bringing that upon yourself?
And, you know, the secret there's there's a problem because people take God out of the equation and they put their faith in the universe.
So they're like replacing God with a thing that doesn't really exist.
But there but it is God essentially, but they're taking God out of the equation.
So the secret can sort of go down a dark path, but they are right because they are practicing this law of cause and effect.
You get in return an equal portion of what you give out.
So it makes sense that if you want positive outcomes in your life, then you need to think positively.
You need to visualize the things that you want and you need to treat others the way that you want to be treated.
It's that simple.
If you want to be treated well by strangers, by the if you walk up and buy a coffee and you're in a bad mood and you're just like, give me a coffee.
You think that that person who just saw 40 other people before you who all were grumbling and are mad that they have to tip and, you know, whatever.
They're on a phone call while they're ordering, not paying attention to the person you have to make yourself stand out.
And the easiest way to do that is to greet people with a smile and cheerfulness.
And it sounds so simple, but it's crazy.
I look around and I see people doing the exact opposite all the time and they get in return a negative world.
And so I somehow Bitcoin for me opened my mind to this.
I think a lot of Bitcoiners have had this experience and I think it's because Bitcoin is just code.
There's no it's like.
If there is systematic racism in the world, which in the American context, the way that that gets framed, I don't think it's a real thing the way that a lot of us are being told that it's a thing right now.
But there is definitely no systemic racism in Bitcoin.
Bitcoin doesn't care who you are.
It doesn't care if you're a man, a woman, gay, straight, what religion you are, what race you are.
It's just code.
It just works.
It just operates.
It is scarce.
It's one of the few things in the world that is truly scarce.
There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin.
And so you have certainty when it comes to Bitcoin, whereas so many things in the world are uncertain.
When you step outside, you don't know what is going to happen.
You don't know what type of people you're going to meet.
And so one thing that you can control in your own life is you can be certain to other people.
You can just make a deal with yourself and you can just tell yourself, you know what?
I am going to practice positivity in my own life.
I'm going to be a light to other people.
I'm going to be humorous, joyful, and a joy to be around.
And lo and behold, in return, you get humor and joy and just good things come to you.
And I think for me and so many other Bitcoiners, Bitcoin has helped open our minds to this concept.
It's funny.
I, you know, literally speaking to myself, I actually asked myself the exact question.
The second I was like, like, what are you even doing being a jerk?
I do like a little yearly like summit with myself in December.
And I literally asked myself, like, what are you even doing with the belief that your family is going to be good if you're not planning for it?
Like you will not find success unless you plan to find it.
You won't. You're not going to happen upon success.
You're not going to happen upon getting thin.
You're not going to happen upon, you know, any of the things that are hard, right?
Any easy thing you can happen upon.
You can happen upon wasting your time.
You can happen upon getting fat.
You can happen upon being poor.
But anything that actually involves, you know, kinetic energy that actually involves the expense of something is going to require effort.
And it's interesting.
But the spark for all effort is here.
You have to actually conjure it in your mind.
And that's, I think, the thing that's the most.
Potent from a like religious perspective is, you know, I think the biggest thing atheists and people who don't believe in the Christian God miss is.
God gave humans or mortals specifically.
The opportunity to.
Be impacted by physics.
And so what I mean by that is in this physical world, we have this really cool thing that angels and other conjured beings, demons, things like that don't have, which is.
The laws of physics, which is momentum, inertia, you know, and, you know, potential energy and actually putting stuff in there.
We like putting it in or taking it out like frictional stuff.
I'm blanking on the laws of physics, but, you know, the TLDR is.
We can be impacted by external systems, whereas angels or conjured beings, as I call them, cannot be, you know, angels.
You know, angels, if you know the context of the history or rather, you know, the biblical teachings and exegesis of like what angels are like.
They are good or they are not.
It is a binary.
You are created to be a good being, and that is your that is your state.
It's kind of like the caste system in in Hinduism, right?
That is not true in Christianity, and that's also not true in actual reality, right?
Like in reality, and if you want to just say just scientifically, you know, if you want to use the theory of evolution, like the theory of evolution is actually a Christian theory would be my belief on it.
Because at the end of the day, the theory of Christianity is unlike Judaism, whereas Judaism is you are a Jew or you're not a Jew.
Christianity is you have the opportunity to change and actually make a decision to put your belief in Christ and become a Christian and gain salvation.
And so it's really interesting.
The. You know, things that I think sometimes people miss if they're like really in tune and really focused on, like the atheistic aspect of this is like, hey, like if you actually take atheism and boil it down to the scientific truths and then take Christianity and boil it down to the scientific truths, you're actually looking at the same thing.
And it's like, what are you even doing?
Ignoring the scientific conclusion that Christianity is real.
Like all you are doing is wasting your time and fighting a frivolous battle.
I'm curious what's your take on that of like the Christian angle of science?
Well.
For whatever reason, for me, evolution was never an issue.
It.
I just watched, you know, Rhett and Link.
So Rhett had.
He did what's called deconstructing.
He had worked.
Both of them, Rhett and Link, had worked for Campus Crusade for Christ.
They were essentially missionaries.
They were professional missionaries.
And both of them have fallen away from the Christian faith and through this process that people are calling deconstruction.
And the thing that made their their faith erode was when they realized that evolution was real.
And for whatever reason, that was never an issue for me.
I learned about the theory of evolution, evolutionary science, since I was like in third grade.
So I didn't come to faith in Christ really personally until I was 19 years old.
So I was already an adult when I when I came to it and and I was in biology classes in college.
So.
Science is just objective, provable reality.
If God is real, if you really believe that, then science is just going to further prove that God is real because science is just objective.
And for me, the Bible, I see it as a true book.
Sometimes it's prose.
Sometimes it's poetry.
Sometimes it's history.
But the Bible is not a science book.
That was never the purpose of the Bible.
So when people try to derive science out of the Bible, I think that's oftentimes where they go wrong, as opposed to letting science drive you to the Bible.
Because how is let's say you're looking at a passage that is poetry.
How are you deriving science from poetry?
It's like is our Bob Dylan lyrics the same as like reading history?
Like, no, they're poetic.
Sometimes, like with the song Hurricane, for example, it's telling a story.
So it is telling a history.
But is it doing it perfectly?
No, he's using rhyming words and and things to get a point across to get a feeling across.
So that's just for me personally.
Evolution is just not an issue.
Hmm.
It's it's funny.
You know, the the the other piece of the evolution side of it is carbon dating always makes me laugh because like two hundred ninety million years, I was like, no, we haven't been around that long.
And what I mean by that is no one can prove that.
So if anybody wants to say two hundred million, a gajillion bajillion years, you just have to be like, oh, yeah, that sounds like, oh, that makes perfect sense.
But it's like that falls apart when.
You realize humans cannot understand the exponential.
It's like, what are you even doing?
Putting all of your faith in these exponentials that people just hypothesize and then beloved about when no one can actually prove them on either side, true or untrue.
And so it's actually like really interesting to me.
When someone's like, oh, global warming is real and I'm not saying it's not real, but they say like, oh, global warming is happening.
We've seen it's like the biggest thing you're worried about is carbon emissions.
So you realize the fires that just happened in California or the, you know, eruption of the volcano that I just saw in Indonesia or whatever it was like the other days, like you realize the amount of carbon that those two events in the past year just put into the atmosphere is.
Exponentially higher than any of the carbon that was put in by all of the vehicles and all of the world times like 10 over the course of like one or two years.
And so it just it blows my mind when we get to kind of like, yeah, you're like Rhett and Link are have lost their faith from this deconstructionist piece.
It's like.
What are you even doing when you're putting all of your faith in science that evolutionary science that can't be proven or disproven?
Right. You can look at some archaeological evidence and see some truth, but you can't see the whole truth.
And so that's when I get really personally curious.
And that's actually where, you know, I constantly look back at the Bible and look at the things that are in the Bible that were that are kind of tracked.
Right. And like Adam and Eve, to me, actually are a evolutionary conclusion that the Bible is true.
And the reason for that is Adam was said to live, you know, eight or nine hundred years.
It's like, OK, so let's walk evolution all the way back.
And like, OK, so how much sediment has happened?
And like, look at the like amount of time that has passed since Adam and Eve and all that time.
It's OK. So Adam and Eve, if God was figuring it out and God created these creatures for Adam and Eve to steward.
So there are creatures that Adam and Eve were created to steward.
Alive at the same time that they were and they, you know, were alive around 50,000 to 100,000 years ago or even just, you know, 20,000 years ago or even just, you know, just taking Jesus, you know, two to 10,000 years ago and then taking Egypt in the pyramids.
It's like. Say it was 20,000 years ago, lizards never stopped growing.
They just grow and grow and grow and grow until they die.
There are other animals that just do that, too.
Even humans, when you die, your fingernails and your hair keep growing. Right.
If you were to look at the length of time that something was to live.
And say it was 900 years, just like Adam before Noah, when God kind of like wiped it out and he's like, OK, these things aren't actually working right, maybe the thing I need to change is how long something lives.
It would actually make sense that dinosaurs were around at the same time as humans, because, again, in the beginning, when God was figuring out the evolution of how long these creatures should live.
He made a mistake and, you know, people like, oh, God doesn't make mistakes is like, well, maybe he knew or he wanted to try something, because, again, I do believe that God tried things.
And that's why we see all these stars. Right. I actually think we're the only experiment that worked.
Personal belief. But that to me just kind of buttresses the Christian faith in my mind is like, OK, so if God is all knowing in my mind, then he would have had to have tried everything because that's how you become all knowing as you try everything.
And the billions of stars that we see in the billions of galaxies that we see are all these attempts at making this thing work in this mortal mortal realm.
And then I would posit, oh, why do we not see aliens? So, yeah, aliens are plausible in my mind.
But the answer to why we don't see them is because we're the only time we got it right.
Yeah, maybe so. I would just say don't be afraid of science as a as a Christian.
Don't be afraid that science is going to disprove your faith because God is either real or not real.
And if God is real and you use the scientific method, it's just going to further prove the reality of God.
People can get into serious trouble when they're they're so afraid of scientific concepts that they just make up a whole lot of stuff around it.
And then you end up looking like a complete weirdo to people who think that they have the upper hand because they're science people.
I'm just telling you, science is not going to disprove God.
So don't be afraid of it.
We've kind of wandered in a bunch of different realms and we're coming up around the midpoint where we usually try and change into the positive.
You know, are there any other pieces on to like what we've been doing this topic that you think would be interesting to kind of like unpack and talk through?
There was one that I want to say.
What are you even doing if you're not making a plan?
What are you even doing if you were not visualizing success?
If you think positively and you act with low time preference, if you put those two things together, it is so incredibly powerful.
You have so much ability to produce, to create things of value, to create momentum that you then can go and do something simple like dollar cost averaging that extra.
Because if you're producing more than you consume, then you have extra.
What that extra is going to come to you in is going to be fiat currency, most likely.
So what are you even doing if you're not making a plan to produce more than you consume, to produce something of value and then to take a portion of that, to be generous with it, to take a portion of that and invest it into Bitcoin.
It is going to make your life so much better.
But you have to visualize success and you have to make a commitment that you are just going to be a positive person in the world.
And that can be difficult.
There are so many people who think that they are just there.
They're just a slave to their genetic predisposition to be kind of a miserable person.
And I'm telling you that you don't have to be that way, but you have to make a commitment that you are just not going to act like that.
Destruction is so much easier than creation.
To blow up a building is super simple.
To build a building is very, very difficult.
It takes time.
It takes effort.
And I go, I'm a trail runner.
Oftentimes I'll go run up to the top of the mountains around where I live.
And I'm usually the only person up at the top because it took a lot of effort.
But I can tell you when I look down upon the city, it gives me this incredible feeling, this feeling of peace, this feeling of accomplishment.
And it took effort to get there.
But every time before I leave, I'm like, you know what, I don't want to do it today.
This is going to be so difficult.
I never regret it when I'm up there.
But it takes the plan and the commitment to get to that point.
And so, yeah, just make a commitment to be a positive person.
Make a commitment to produce more than you consume and you will do it.
But you have to make that commitment.
I realize I'm giving a motivational speech, but it really is that easy.
I just love that.
So I'm hoping we can inspire somebody who's watching.
But like, you know, what are you even doing if you don't believe you can succeed?
What are you doing? You should die.
You should literally just go and die.
And I'm not saying the literal death, but you should metaphorically die.
So that way you can be rebirthed into something that actually can believe in yourself.
You can do it.
And whatever inside of you is telling you that you can't should be killed.
You should go in there and you should do a deep dive and you should figure out what it is.
Is it a belief that you have because somebody told you you can't do it? Kill it.
Is it a moment where you made a mistake? Who cares?
You know, move forward. Forgive yourself and move forward.
Like, what are you doing with the finite amount of time that you have
if all you're telling yourself is you can't do it?
Because as Henry Ford has said, if you think you can, you're right.
If you think you can't, you're right.
What are you even doing if you think you can't?
You're doing nothing. Stop doing nothing.
Stop telling yourself that you're bad or you're wrong or you're whatever or you're lazy.
Because you know what? You're right.
You need to lie to yourself a little bit.
You need to tell yourself, no, I was lazy and I'm not lazy anymore.
I was, you know, foolish and I'm not foolish anymore.
I was making mistakes, you know, but I'm not anymore.
You can make that change. You should make that change.
I think the biggest thing we get wrong as humans is we think we are something and we cannot change that.
The neuroplasticity that you have in your mind is unparalleled.
They've done multiple studies on this and they've shown again and again and again.
When people hit rock bottom, they can completely change anything and everything.
You don't have to hit rock bottom to do that.
It's like, what are you even doing if you believe you need to get somewhere before you can get to something?
You don't. All you need to do is change your mind and you can do that.
What are you even doing if you believe you're stuck?
You're sticking yourself in the same place.
You are making yourself a stick in the mud.
So tell yourself no. As Jocko would say, good.
Fucking figure it out.
And Bitcoin is going to help so many people.
I can say that for us who have thus far gotten into Bitcoin,
we have seen the value that we've put into Bitcoin grow.
And I can't guarantee that that same amount of growth is going to happen
for people who have never invested anything into Bitcoin and start now.
But what I can guarantee is that the fiat currency that is being paid to people
for the effort that they're putting forward is going to be devalued
in an accelerated pattern from here until fiat dies.
And so everybody wants money.
So if you're just living to invest in money, it is going to give you a feeling of hopelessness.
And for a lot of people, if they start learning about Bitcoin,
it is going to free their minds.
It is going to take away that scarcity mindset that does make a lot of people feel like,
why am I going to work and just toil away to never see anything?
I'm never going to afford to buy a house.
I can't buy the car that I want to buy.
I can't get with the spouse that I want to be with
because I'm never going to have enough money to afford that type of person.
But it really is that way for men sometimes.
And Bitcoin is going to free people from that.
Because Bitcoin is not being devalued day after day.
The fiat currency, by being devalued by the money printing that takes place,
is going to put value into Bitcoin.
I can't guarantee that Bitcoin is going to go up tomorrow
or even that it's going to go up next week or next year.
But over time, Bitcoin is going to maintain value
and fiat is going to drain value away from your life.
And so Bitcoin is going to provide hope for a lot of people that feel that way,
that feel like their life is meaningless right now,
that they're never going to accomplish their dreams.
And all of us Bitcoiners who have been in it for a while have been experiencing that.
And I think that's part of the reason why we have this positive outlook.
And I hope that it's contagious for people.
If your dreams are not written down, what the hell are you doing?
Period.
Everything that Anton was just saying,
if you don't have a plan and if you are not thinking about the future
and you're not thinking about how you can help people
and you're not thinking about how you can help yourself,
what are you even doing?
You're not doing anything.
And to what...
I'm sorry, everybody who's listening,
we're figuring this out and kind of going...
I kind of like this interesting format.
Hopefully, I'd love to know if you guys like it or hate it.
But the biggest thing here is like,
what are you doing if you are not focused on tomorrow?
Like literally, what are you doing?
If you're not focused on building a tomorrow that is better than today,
if you're not focused on building a family that means something more than you,
if you're not focused on building relationships that are stronger and better
because you are a part of them,
if you're only focused on consumption,
like what are you even doing?
Like why are you even here?
Because at the end of the day,
you are candidly pretty worthless.
And I don't mean that in a negative way,
but it's just that's parasitic.
Like that is a parasitic mindset
is if all you're doing is looking at consumption.
You know, if your whole goal is just to be able to consume more
without adding any value,
then you failed.
You have kind of failed at life.
You can pick yourself up though,
and you can change that.
You can.
You know, if you learned those bad habits,
those parasitic habits,
I'm sorry that that's kind of what you've been cast as your lot in life
is to overcome that.
But you have to do it
because at the end of the day,
until you have a vision like Elon
or you want to send man to Mars
to make this consciousness exist
and move forward forever,
you're kind of not doing anything.
And I don't mean that if you're a plumber
and your job and what you love
is actually helping people like make their lives
and their everyday better.
Like I'm not saying that that is not admirable
and that is not something that you should admire.
That actually is something you should do
because you're focused on adding value.
You're focused on giving people's lives,
you know, more enjoyment, more betterment,
you know, a lot of good things.
Like if your entire goal though is just like consumption
is just, oh, all I want to do is consume.
And you're a Bitcoiner
and I'm going to go straight into Bitcoin
as the angle like, you know,
if you were blessed enough to, you know,
lucky enough or dumb enough or smart enough
to get in when it was a dollar
or $5 or $10 or $100 or $1,000
or whatever it is.
If your only goal is consumption now,
you got some shit you need to work out
because there's actually
one of the most interesting aspects
about Bitcoin is if your only goal
is consumption and you die
and you haven't actually thought about,
you know, the future
and the betterment of your coins
or where they're going to go,
you actually didn't add any value to anything.
And the only thing that, you know,
Bitcoin will do in a really funny roundabout way
is distribute your wealth to everybody else
because there's that many coins
that are now locked up and will never be used.
And that makes everybody else's coins
that much more valuable.
So it's kind of an interesting thing
of like Bitcoin is going to win inevitably
even if somebody just has a consumption mindset
and if people are focused on abundance
and building more,
Bitcoin doesn't care.
It just kind of allows them
to have a different measuring stick.
This is a terrible point.
So if anybody wants to tell me to GFY,
feel free.
What are you even doing
if you haven't written
a great story for your life?
Because I can tell you exactly
how to make a good movie.
I'm a filmmaker. That's my profession.
You make a good movie
if you have a great script.
If you have a great script,
you're pretty much going to have
a great movie.
I've also been given footage before
as, you know,
I get a gig every once in a while.
Somebody's like, edit this footage.
If I don't look through the footage
and then write a story
for the footage,
if I don't create a script,
I'm going to toil away
at this mess of footage
and eventually I might form it into something.
It's not going to be very good.
It's not going to be super coherent.
If I look at all the footage,
take a step back and I think,
how can I make this into a story?
How do I give this an arc?
I'm telling you,
you can do that for your own life.
You can write a story
for your own life
and you will live that story,
but you've got to write it down first.
So it's more simple
than you might think that it is.
You've got to have these really big goals
and dreams for your life.
And if you have them in your mind,
you're going to come close
to reaching that goal.
It's just like if you wake up in the morning
and you don't have a to-do list for yourself
and you have a full day,
you're going to do some things that are positive,
but you're going to waste a lot of time.
If you put a to-do list together,
it might be a to-do list that's nearly impossible,
but I guarantee at the end of the day,
you're going to look
and you're going to have checked off
and I'm basically encouraging you,
if you're listening to this,
think about the things that you want
and write them down
and they may seem unachievable,
but they're going to be a lot more achievable,
but you have to know what you want first.
Yeah, it's like if you have dreams
and you don't have them written down,
if you have dreams
and you don't have them written down,
what are you doing?
The answer is nothing.
Take out some paper,
take out your phone,
make a list one through 10 and write them down
and then put them in order
of smallest to biggest
so you can get yourself some momentum
and go get some.
Period. That's it.
That is literally the way to live a successful life
is to write down what you're trying to do
because if you don't actually write it down,
you actually won't remember.
Can you think of all the times
that you had a great idea
that you don't actually remember?
And it was so vivid,
but then you forgot the next day.
If you don't write it down,
you will forget it
and you will not achieve it.
Period. Full stop.
That is complete proof.
And without vision,
the people perish.
And so if you do not give yourself a vision,
if you do not give yourself a mission
to achieve,
you will wither away
and atrophy
and you will be nothing.
And so if you want to actually have purpose,
if you want to actually have meaning,
if you want to actually have a way
to achieve something,
write it down
and go get it.
Men specifically love quests.
Men love quests.
You can assign quests
to yourself.
So many people,
they wake up in the morning
and they feel listless
and purposeless.
Suicide is a huge problem.
And part of the reason
why people end up
getting so despondent
is because they're just like,
what is the purpose of life?
If you have a quest,
you have a purpose.
I was watching Long Way Home,
the new Ewan McGregor,
Charlie Borman.
There was Long Way Round
that they did in 2004
where they rode motorcycles
from Scotland all the way
to Canada all the way to New York.
Then they did the Long Way Up
from all the way
south to north of Africa.
No wait, that was Long Way Down.
They did Long Way Down
from Scotland down to the tip of Africa.
Then they did Long Way Up
from the tip of South America
to North America.
The latest one is Long Way Home.
Anyway, great show.
It's on Apple TV.
And the first episode is out right now,
first two episodes.
The point that I'm getting to
is that you have four guys.
You have Ewan McGregor,
you have Charlie Borman,
you have the two producers.
There's a segment where
one of them is playing
with Ewan McGregor's son
who's basically an infant.
He's sitting on this bench seat
in this really nice house
that Ewan McGregor has in Scotland.
His cell phone falls behind the seat.
The seat is in this 200,
300-year-old house.
It's made out of leather.
You can't lift it up.
It's made out of wood.
So they have to jack open the seat.
All four men.
I'm looking at my wife and I'm like,
you know, they're having
the time of their life right now.
This is making them so happy
and filling them with purpose
because they know exactly
what their mission is.
The cell phone fell behind the bench.
They have to take the bench apart.
They have to rescue the cell phone.
Every man wants to take part
in the purpose of this quest.
The point I'm trying to make
is you can assign quests to yourself
and you will derive joy in your life
from fulfilling those quests,
but you have to assign
the quest to yourself.
Those things happen in life.
In this storyline,
this is just a thing that happened.
Their real goal is to do
this whole motorcycle journey,
but here they are having
the absolute time of their life
bonding together over this quest.
You can manufacture that in your life,
but you've got to write it down.
You have to make that story for yourself.
I love that.
Give yourself a side quest.
I love that.
Give yourself a side quest.
Give yourself permission
to have a side quest.
Focus it.
Don't make your side quest
take forever,
but I fully agree
and love the thought of
if you don't know what you're doing,
if you're sitting there asking,
what am I even doing with my life?
Give yourself a little side quest
that brings you joy.
Your side quest can be stupid.
It could be something as silly as,
I want to build a birdhouse
or I want to do something.
I would actually argue,
give yourself a side quest
that doesn't involve a screen.
The side quest you just talked about
was giving yourself a side quest
that involves finding a screen,
but that was a different thing.
It was a side quest
that involved a screen,
but involved using your hands
to get to said screen.
So I think
giving yourself a side quest
that involves your hands
will connect you
to the earth
or connect you to the world around you
in a way that
if all you're doing is tapping
and you're just doing this,
you're not actually achieving anything.
You're not actually getting any momentum.
You can feel psychologically
like you're getting momentum,
but there's an interesting thing about
the stuff that happens
between your ears
doesn't actually do anything.
The only thing it does something for
is you.
You can sit there
and you can be seething
at someone
inside of your head,
but until you open your mouth
and you actually scream at them
or you say a calm word
or you just gently
put your hand down their shoulder
in a way that lets them know
that you're displeased,
like anything that happens here
doesn't matter.
It has to actually manifest
in the real world.
So
what are you even doing
if you don't know what you're doing?
And the answer to that is
just go give yourself a side quest.
Give yourself a side quest
that involves your hands.
Go dig a hole.
Literally dig a hole
and just do it
for the purposes of digging a hole
and think about
as you're digging the hole
the sensations
and emotions
and the thought
because I think sometimes
when you get stuck,
sometimes you just need to go
literally dig a freaking hole.
Get dirty.
Feel sweat.
Feel
the warmth of the sun
or if you're in Britain,
you know,
the drizzle of the rain
and the muddy slush
in your boots.
Go do something.
But yeah,
I love that completely.
Give yourself a side quest.
I think that's awesome.
And what are you even doing
if you're not making things?
Men were made
to make things
with their hands.
You might have a video game
that you like
and you sit down
and you play the video game.
You might beat the game.
You might,
oh, that felt good.
But you can't step back
and look at the things
that you've made.
You could watch a movie,
a great film
or a TV show
and it's like,
oh, that was relaxing.
Then you step back
and you can't look at it.
There's nothing there.
But if you go
and build something
like go into your backyard
and construct something
with your hands,
you will step back
and you will feel
such a feeling
of accomplishment
and you'll go away
or go do something else.
You'll come back
and you look at that thing you made
and that feeling lasts
for a while.
And
there's something
inside of us
that is
is like a
what's the word
that I'm looking for?
It's like primordial.
It's like it's deep
in our genetics
that we are made
to make things
and so often
in our lives
we're not making
anything anymore.
And so we feel
like we have no purpose
because we're not
making anything
and you can solve that
so simply
by just
making something
with your hands.
Yep.
And also
give me something
as simple as
cleaning something
with your hands, right?
Like, you know,
the simplicity
of a
clean space
cannot be overlooked
because your brain
has to filter
and process through stuff.
So as you're going
through and you have
a messy space,
clean your space.
Like that could be
your side quest.
My side quest today
is I'm just going to
clean my desk
or I'm just going to
clean under my chair
or whatever it is.
Like give yourself
something that's small,
but also satisfying
and something that
you can see
progress.
Which one goes back
to my thing about like
if you're just doing stuff
in your head,
like if you're just doing
stuff in your head,
no one can see that progress.
Not even you.
You can feel the progress.
You can feel like,
oh wow, I made some good
progress on that thing.
But like if you want to
actually make some progress
in your brain,
write it down.
Write it down.
Give yourself a goal
to top the page.
It's like I want to plan
this story
or whatever it is.
Cool.
I'm going to plan this story
or I'm going to plan this plan.
You know,
you can do a lot of deep work,
but I think you can get into
a really bad way
of doing deep work
in your head
that you can't
actually extrapolate
that you will forget.
You will.
Because they've done
study after study
that the best way
to remember something
is to write it down
physically with your hands.
And another study
that just came out too
is the people
who are using AI
and offloading
all of that thinking
to the actual AI
are legitimately
getting stupider.
They are legitimately
losing their capacity
for intelligent thought
and problem solving
because they're not doing
intelligent thought
or problem solving.
And so I think
there's a really interesting thing,
especially now,
especially as Bitcoiners,
especially as people
who are trying to like,
you know,
if you want to call yourself
a Bitcoiner
and you're not actually
trying to make something better,
like, what are you even doing?
Like, why are you even here?
Because the whole point
of Bitcoin
is to make a better world.
Period.
There are guys
who just want to degen
and make a bunch of money.
Hey, by the way,
if you were a degen
and trying to make a bunch of money,
you needed to come in
when Max Keiser
didn't know the dollar.
Like, you can make some money now,
but even Bitcoin going to,
you know, a million bucks
is only 10x.
Like, there are stocks
that are going 10x overnight, right?
That you can find
that are kind of doing,
you know, this stuff.
But Bitcoin is probably
not going to do
the same 10x
in the same timeframe
as the people
who got here in the beginning.
And that's okay.
What that means, though,
is that you need to figure out
why you're here
and what you're trying to do
and legitimately get an understanding
of, hey, the value I can add here
is perspective
and the value I can add here
is a side quest
or a large quest
that involves making something better
for some group of people,
be it my family,
be it someone else.
But don't just make it better here.
Make it better here physically.
A lot of people would look
at, you know,
Bitcoin's at 100,000 today, roughly.
And if it goes to a million,
it's only 10x.
Well, Bitcoin did 20x in 2017.
Well, yeah, another stock
might go 10x.
But can you guarantee that?
Can you predict that?
No, you can't predict
that some stock is going to go 10x.
So I don't think that
just because Bitcoin
going to a million
is only 10x from here
that you're going to go,
you know, make more money
somewhere else.
So let's just forget about Bitcoin.
And I wanted to say
on the making something,
you brought up cleaning
as, you know,
basically the same feeling.
It's going to give you
that feeling of accomplishment.
The same thing is true
for refurbishment.
So many things are
so disposable these days.
You could do an experiment.
You could go to
Goodwill or something,
go buy a used mountain bike.
This crazy thing happens
where you can take something
that is old and worn out.
And if you take it apart
and you clean the components up
and you rebuild it,
you can make something
as good as new
or even sometimes better
because you can exchange things.
You can take little components
and just update things a little bit.
There are probably things
laying around you right now
in your life
that are essentially useless to you
that if you just took them
and gave them some TLC,
just cleaned them up,
put a little WD-40 on them,
took it apart, rebuild it,
you're going to take that object.
Let's say you've got
an old rusty cast iron pan.
Go and scrub that thing
and refinish it.
You're going to set that on your stove
and you're going to feel
such a feeling of pride
and accomplishment.
And then you take something
that could have just been thrown away
and you give it new life.
And yeah,
there's just a feeling of purpose
that is derived from doing that.
I love that sentiment.
I'm actually going to take
a step further of not even
just refurbishing old things.
But it's like,
if you have things in your life
that you're ignoring,
what are you doing?
Go solve that problem now.
If you need to refurbish
a relationship,
if you need to go in
and call your dad,
if you need to go in
and do things that
you've been ignoring,
what are you doing?
You don't have time to waste.
The greatest thing you have
is your mortality.
And the finite nature of your life
is actually what gives it value.
And it's the same thing with Bitcoin.
The scarcity of Bitcoin
is what gives it value.
You are a scarce resource
to everyone around you,
your community, your friends,
your family, yourself.
So what are you doing
if you're squandering that?
Don't squander
the great thing that you have,
your life.
You know, Bitcoin is a tool
and it's a great measuring stick,
but that's all it is.
Like the value of your life
is what you can put into
other people, to your community,
to yourself.
That can then be shared
with the generations beyond you.
Because if you're doing
all these wonderful things
and you're just burying it under a rock,
it's not valuable.
So yeah, what are you even doing
when you're ignoring
these things that you know
you need to handle?
Like go handle them.
Go add value.
Go be great
because you can't be great.
That's such a good point.
You know how they say
there's only two things
you can count on in life
and that's death and taxes.
Well, there's only two things
in life that are truly scarce.
Bitcoin and your time.
So use your time really well.
You only have so much
of your life to live.
So don't be lazy.
Don't waste time.
And if you have relationships
that are broken,
especially if you need
to call your parents,
do that immediately.
I've had just recently,
on like a personal note,
I've had a lot of death,
a lot of death of family members.
And what will always happen
when somebody close to you dies
is you're like,
I wish I would have
just called them one more time.
I wish I would have
talked to them recently.
I wish I would have caught up.
Like I did not have enough time
with that person.
So take a little inventory
of your life
and make those phone calls.
Do it right now.
It's a great note.
Great note to end on.
Thank you, everybody,
for kind of jumping in
and bearing with us this week.
But I think that was fun.
I actually liked just kind of like
trying to be inspiring.
Yeah.
It was nice.
Give a little motivational,
inspirational speeches
on what do you even do.
What are you even doing?
So cheers, everyone.
Thanks for tuning in to Better Buy Bitcoin.
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Not financial advice.
Mathematical certainty.