While our experiences can be varied, there are still some common threads that bind us to reach our financial goals. In this unique episode, Patrick Donohoe works to tie those and create a course that will allow you to take your life—financial, professional, and investments—to the next level. Asking for your help, he shares a survey that will guide him to feel the listeners’ pulse as they try to create wealth and, in turn, offer the best course that can take you there. Join Patrick in today’s show as he breaks down the questions that need your answers and will help you breakthrough to the next level and beyond.
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Introducing A Course Survey That Will Take Your Life To The Next Level
I have an episode that’s different than the past. It might be shorter, but who knows? It can go long. I have no idea yet, but I have prepared some thoughts around some help that I’m going to request from you. This year has been monumental for everyone, including myself. It’s allowed me to introspect a lot more. I’ve shared quite a bit of that on the show. I like to take it to another level. I brought on another person to my marketing team and him and I had made a goal to create a specific course for the show’s audience before the end of 2020. If you are reading this down the road, this is October 2020. I’ve given you a lot of material whether it’s the book or whether it’s courses I’ve done with my company Paradigm Life, but this one is going to be specific to the show.
What I want to do is derive the common things that hold people back and create some curriculum, some education, as well as exercises that allow you as readers to take your life, your financial life, your professional life, your investments to the next level. That sounds somewhat cliché. At the same time, there are those fundamental principles that pertain to unique, personal situations. All of us have a different perspective of the world. There are some things we have in common. At the same time, we all have different experiences that have formed. Our paradigm formed our perspective. Those are all unique at the same time because we’re human. We have some things in common. I believe that there are some end results, some achievements in life that everybody wants. I believe that there are some fundamental principles regardless of the uniqueness of our situation, that if we understood them and if we applied them, we’ll be able to break through to the next level and then the level beyond.
Instead of talking about it on the show, because I know information and ideas have some value. As a business owner, entrepreneur and observer of our modern reality, I realized that ideas are abundant, but what’s scarce is execution. It’s the ability to act and create a new reality based on the ideas that we have. I’d like to first walk you through in this episode the survey I’d like you to fill out. It’s short. There are half a dozen questions or so as well as a statement that you can make. I believe that about 20 would be a good sample size, maybe 30, but for the first 10, I’m going to give you a signed copy of the book and also free access to the course once it’s available.
For the second ten, I’m going to send you a free copy of the paperback. I’m going to walk you through that survey and give you something in exchange. I think this is going to be a great starting place because this specific course, I have tons of ideas around it. At the same time, I want to order it in the right way. I want to make it actionable so it’s not information that you absorb and then try to figure out what to do with it. It’s information you absorb and then are able to do something with it. This isn’t a course that’s available now. It’s going to be available at the end of 2020, but I’m going to start into it.
Let me give you some context as to some of the questions I’m going to ask. The content of the solo shows I’ve done have revolved around disruption, a major disruption in some cases, to all of our lives. I believe disruption is interesting because the scale or the magnitude of that disruption is what I believe impacted people. At the same time, we’re disrupted by things every day. I believe that life and the unique path that we have in our living is going to face specific disruptive events. As I’ve quoted the famous quote from Victor Frankel, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space and in that space lies your freedom,” and it’s the response to the things that happened to us.
It’s the ability for us to stray away from being convinced that the outside circumstances have to align in order for us to be happy. Whether it’s a specific person in a political office, a boss treating you the right way, the partner that you have or the employees that you have. When we start to condition, happiness, success and our achievement around the outside world conforming to our wishes, that’s when things go sideways. At the same time, that’s what we all do. I would say that the course, what it’s going to do is it’s going to help you understand what you want. It’s going to help you define these end results and the purpose behind them. That starts to help you align with the actual financial behavior that you have whether it’s how you spend money, how you save money, what are some of the obstacles you have and the actions you have to take.
Next Level: The meaning that we’ve created around our experiences in life has woven together in the way we perceive things.
However, those actions without the right mindset are going to be fleeting, temporary. Ultimately, you’re going to end up most likely right back where you started, maybe even worse. Let me get into it. I’m going to start with the first question. I’m going to maybe summarize what I’ve already stated. We have these experiences of life and the meaning that we’ve created around those experiences and all of that has woven together in the way in which we perceive things. The way in which we perceive things is mostly subconscious and little is conscious. We have this operating system that gets up every single day and does the same things. We’re in these patterns, even though the day is brand new and the experiences, in a sense, are brand new yet our operating system is the exact same.
We’re going to respond in a similar way, which creates a deeper pattern and then I would say it makes it more difficult to transition out of that into something that can potentially give us what we want. Let me get into the first question. I’ve ordered these strategically and it’s not a perfect order, but I asked the questions and I ordered them specifically for a reason. Here’s the first question. If you could get the world’s foremost expert on any topic for a day, who would be the expert? What would the topic be? Why? I think this is profound because number one, I believe that the answer shows some of the values that you have come to understand over the course of time in your life. You associate those values with somebody. Somebody who demonstrates them in reality. You’re able to identify that, but then also extract some of the potential characteristics and values out of this person that aligned with you and then start to discover why.
The second question. What thoughts about money occupy your mind the most during the day? What do you find yourself thinking about the most? It’s a redundant second part. At the same time, what this does is it allows you to understand the focus of where your attention is. The 10,000-year-old part of our DNA is looking for what’s wrong. It’s looking for danger. It’s looking to protect us. I look at all of us having the tendency to gravitate toward these protectionist type of feelings. At the same time, if we don’t become aware of them and then also know how to process, understand and subsequently respond to them, then we are essentially allowing these patterns we’ve developed over the course of time to run our programs. It could be a virus. It could be some malware or some spyware. It’s essentially infiltrated itself into your operating system and essentially stimulating a process that you don’t necessarily want. This is a question I believe is going to be introspective into what you think about and how that pattern is either helping you move forward or holding you back and preventing you from achieving what you want.
The next question is in a brief summary, tell me about a financial struggle you are facing and what you associate as the reasons for that challenge? I think this is an interesting question because struggles are going to be something we all are going to face for the rest of our life. I believe struggles and adversity, if you contextualize them in a certain way, are the grounds for growth. As we look at them as something that’s holding us back or looking at them as something that is challenging us to face that challenge, push through and grow from it, we’re going to have different outcomes. Sometimes I believe struggle without the right focus can be those preventative things that we believe can’t be conquered.
At the same time. If you look at the miracle we have with communication, with information whether it’s books, courses or videos, most of the world’s challenges from an external standpoint, even from an internal standpoint, from a psychological spiritual standpoint have been overcome. As you start to connect your struggles, what you’re going through, challenges, what you define as in your way, that’s when you can look to those that have overcome challenges. Those that have pushed through and then start to connect what needs to be a belief system inside of you that allows you to be in the right mindset to overcome whatever the challenge is in front of you.
Seriously, it’s any challenge. If you don’t make enough money, if you’ve lost in investments, if you feel guilty about something, if you’ve made a mistake, if you’ve hurt somebody, if you’ve been raised a certain way where you believe that you can’t make more than this or else you’re greedy or unworthy. There are other people that are suffering in the world and who are you to want to achieve great things and leave these other people in the dirt. There are weird stories that we have in the background, in our subconscious, are there. I believe that as you address those, as you become aware of those, you can understand yourself better but also start to take the steps to overcome those challenges.
The next one, and this is the second to last one, what is the biggest obstacle standing in the way of living life at the next level? It’s similar to the previous one. At the same time, it’s not necessarily a financial struggle. It’s a challenge or an obstacle in general. The final one, if I were to build a course for you on the topic of financial independence, what specific subjects would you like me to focus the content on most? As you’ve gone through these other questions, it’ll help me see what amount of content is best to spend on the psychological side of things, the ability to understand what you truly want first to be in the state of mind to have the right paradigm or perspective. Subsequently, how much time and attention and content to spend on actual strategies, the tactics and the accountability associated with that.
I know this is definitely a different episode, but I would love your help. I would love to know especially for those that have read the episodes, what’s going through your mind? What are you struggling with most? What is occupying the space between your ears? What would you like to see in a specific course that will allow you to better understand this material, but also to implement it in a way that is unique to your life? I’m excited. I’ve already outlined quite a bit of the course. This is essentially a survey that’s going to help me refine the order. It’s going to refine some of the initial content and believe me, there’s going to be more that we add to this over the course of time as we iterate based on the results we see you get.
I’m excited about it, so is the marketing team that I have. I can’t wait to start to work on it. It’s 90 days or so before the end of 2020. I want to get moving on it. I’m excited for you to help participate. That’s it for this. It’s a short episode. Thank you for sticking with me. For those that fill out this survey, the first ten, I’m going to send you a signed hardcover copy of the book as well as access to the initial course for free. For the second ten, I’m going to give you a paperback version of the book. Go ahead and access the Google Forms survey and I can’t wait to get your responses. We’ll talk to you again next time. Take care.
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How we view the world is influenced by the groups that we participate in. What ends up happening though is that the desire to be part of a group is so strong that we often don’t question beliefs, perspectives, or assumptions. We’re unable to defend our position because our greater desire or instinct is to be a part of that community that we never really ask ourselves the right questions to be clear about what we want. On today’s show, Patrick Donohoe shares some introspective questions to help you get clear about what you really want. How about you? Are you certain about what you want? Tune in to today’s episode to get clear about what you want so you’re able to make progress towards it.
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What You Want: Getting Clear About Your Goals And Desires
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed our episode with Brock Pierce, the presidential candidate. It made me think a little bit about politics and now is a super chaotic time. I hope you aren’t getting caught up in it. It’s a psychological trap. Hopefully, you are going into it with the most objective perspective possible. I want you to think about a couple of things. This is what’s been on my mind. It loops into what we’ve talked about, as well as our environment. The first is a statement which is, “The decisions you make now are either taking you away from or getting you closer to what you want.” The second statement is, “Life is a dance between what you fear the most and what you want the most.”
In my experience, the problem lies with not being clear about what you want and also not being clear about what you are afraid of. It’s evident that there is a lot of group psychology that goes into perspective. Few people are able to defend their position and rightfully so because one of the instincts that we have is to be a part of a group and a community. It brings out our self-confidence. It validates our strengths, achievements and who we are. We were able to find an identity there. That desire to be part of a group is strong that we often don’t question beliefs. We don’t question perspectives and assumptions.
We’re all part of groups. I’m not excluding myself from this because I’m part of religious and business groups. I’m in the United States. I’m in Utah. I’m in Salt Lake City. I’m from the East Coast. I have friend groups there. I graduated from university. I have a group there. We all have perspectives of how we view the world influenced by these groups that we participate in. What ends up happening, in my experience is those dominate our psychology. They dominate our perspective and we’re afraid of being wrong. We’re also afraid of not achieving what we want that we never ask ourselves the right questions to be clear about what we want. The decisions that we’re making keeps us in this holding pattern.
I believe if we do not ask ourselves specific questions daily, then we’re essentially backtracking or falling behind. We’re not making progress and it’s making it even more difficult to have a paradigm shift. It’s more difficult to understand what we’re afraid of, why and what we want. I’m going to give you some examples based on the experiences I have with clients specifically in the financial advice space, which I play in a lot. I also have a few dozen advisors that work with me directly. I also mentor through a group called the Prosperity Economics Movement with my friend and mentor Kim Butler and her husband, Todd Langford. This comes from me hearing from advisors about what clients want and trying to get clear about what they want.
I’ll use a few simple ones so you can understand this. I’m going to apply it to some business principles. It is one of the best times to be aware, to be objective and to be clear. If you think about money and financial advice, most people want more money. It’s almost universal. They rarely are clear about why they want it. This is an easy way to progress through what you want. I’ll give an example, “I want more money.” Why do you want more money? What is it about money that is intriguing to you? Nobody wants paper and ink or more numbers in a bank account. If you had billions of dollars in a bank account and couldn’t spend it, what good is that?
It’s what comes from money. Why do you want more money? I don’t want to worry. First off, there are two lessons in that response. Number one, most people are clear about what they don’t want but are not very clear about what they do want. You then can get down another trail where you ask about what they want. I want more time with my wife. I want more time with my kids. Now you’re starting to hit upon some of the core values people have, which is important that can ultimately be leveraged for you but also leveraged when it comes to understanding others but wanting to spend more time with kids. The question can go deeper. What about spending time with kids is important to you? Why do you want to spend time with your kids? What’s that time like? Is the quality there? I have two teenage girls and it has to be quality time because they don’t want the quantity time. They want quality time.
What You Want: The desire to be part of a group is so strong that we often don’t question beliefs, perspectives, or assumptions.
What about that is what you want? Going to leverage. Unfortunately, most people are driven to change and driven to action by pain. This is what I usually love to ask when I’m talking with clients who specifically talk about, “I want to spend more time with my family, my wife and my kids.” What about that is important to you? Why do you want to spend more time? What would you do? I asked the question. If nothing changes, you don’t spend time with your kids and life continues on, what is life going to look like 2, 5, 10 years from now? You can get into a person and understanding if I don’t do that, then it’s going to impact me and I’m going to have lots of regrets.
My kids are not going to have the greatest relationship with me or at least the relationship that I want. Grandkids could be part of that equation too. You start to open up and understand that the inaction and making the same decisions as you’re making. Money is always an excuse. Time is like a great arbiter of life. We all have the same amount, but we choose to be a certain way, show up a certain way, and manage our time in a certain way. It’s funny where people will binge on Netflix movies, but they have all the excuses in the world to go to the gym, which ultimately can get you in better shape. You have more energy and show up to more time with kids where you’re in a great mood and state and where the quality is there.
The questions I usually ask myself are, “If I was able to spend the quality time with my kids and I felt the way that I wanted to feel. I felt it fully and completely, what’s even more important that I want.” It gets to deeper levels. I want to have cool experiences with them. I want to teach, educate and inspire them. You start to get into some more core reasons and values. The reasons why you’re driven to get up in the morning into work, to take risks and to have a family.
I look at these introspective questions and you usually get down to the same thing which is I want more peace. I want more joy. That’s what’s interesting and we’ve talked about this on the show before, but there are moments that you can reflect on in a meditative state, understand and experience joy and peace without having to go through all of these different things. It is not to say that growing, earning more money and making more money isn’t important. I believe that’s the hardest way to get what you want. Even more interesting is that when you can go about understanding yourself, being introspective, and living in that state, the more likely and the quicker you’re going to make more money. Grow in your business. Understand what you want to do. That’s what I would encourage you, this one thing, which is to be introspective. You have to be introspective about what you want and why you want it. You then can start to associate not present pain, but future pain. If your decisions continued to be the same, your circumstances continue to be the same.
Here’s where I’m going to go next. I’m huge on personal development and growth expansion. I haven’t personally experienced this, but I have clients who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s so I can attest to this firsthand is that getting to a point where you don’t have to produce and work will not give you a meaningful life. I’m not saying to work 40, 50, 80 hours a week, but finding ways to be productive is east central. The reason why I bring that up is that if your lens to the world is based on how you can be introspective and understand what you believe. Understand what you want most and what you’re most afraid of and start to connect present, and future consequences associated with continuing to believe that way. Continuing to make the same decisions, that is why number one, you’re going to be way happier. Number two, you’re going to start to look at the world differently.
Now, infinite problems and infinite pain. Group psychology, holy crap. It’s the political season. People don’t understand economic principles, tax principles and fiscal principles. They understand aspects of it but what they believe is based on the group that they’re associating with. We banter back and forth. The two dominant political parties have weaponized all sorts of issues. What’s funny is that you have facts and information that can be spun in both directions. That’s why I said in the beginning, don’t get caught up in this crap or you can start to see is opportunities, problems because usually, the biggest opportunities come from the biggest problems and the biggest pain.
What You Want: Most people are very clear about what they don’t want but are not very clear about what they do want.
There continues to be south of a million people claiming unemployment benefits. We’re hurting. Businesses are going out. I imagine you are doing well reading this blog and the ways in which you can improve yourself and your income. Hopefully, you’ve gained some tips and knowledge about how to be a freelancer, be a contractor and all of the opportunities to work remotely that exist these days. It’s fascinating how many opportunities there are, yet there are many people without work. Hopefully, this puts you in the position of looking at your day, your routine and having a new lens. That lens is the problems that exist for people, the pain associated with it, the consequences, but also providing and making it possible a new direction, solution and a new way of looking at things. Articulating a problem and being clear about what’s holding you back. What are you most afraid of? What do you want the most? What is the obstacle that’s in your way?
Understanding that for yourself allows you to an interface, have a dialogue with others and form a meaningful relationship. Hopefully, it’s a business relationship. There are a lot of people that are down and out. There are people that are going to lose their homes. They’re not going to have to rent, which means that rental incomes are most likely going to go up. You’re going to have some challenges with taxes, especially if the administration changes, but even if it doesn’t, we’re in such a fiscal mess that we’re going to have tax changes. If you’re in the financial world, there are many opportunities to spread news, ideas and what you’re doing. Doing it in the framework of this problem, the pain associated with that problem and the possibility that there is a solution.
Now is an incredible time to understand where you’re at. You’re dancing between what you fear the most and what you want the most. It’s never going to change. Fears are going to change and what you want is going to change. It’s like an infinite game, but the dance is not going to change. Your ability to be aware, your ability to be introspective and to know what you want to achieve and accomplish that day. The decisions that you make, there’s more insight into them. There’s more reflection into them and the motivations behind them. I believe that will make you, number one, more radiant happy and peaceful. That is a force for good. It’s a power that allows you to have conversations with people from an attacking perspective, from the energy that wants to help and make an impact.
I know this from experience. I know this from reading and having this insatiable desire to understand human behavior and what makes people tick. Relationships to me are hugely important. I sit in this empty office and I don’t have as much interface with people anymore. It made me understand how important that is to me, but then also make the most out of the interactions and the relationships that I am able to interface and have a dialogue with more often.
Hopefully, this has struck a little bit of a chord. I believe all opportunities, investments, businesses and relationships operate within this framework. If you think about it. Understanding it for yourself is vital. If you don’t understand it, you’re not going to be able to adequately understand the perspective and the paradigm of others. Hopefully, this resonates. There are a few books that I would recommend. Thanks for reading this episode. Go out there and make a difference. Be the solution and the possibility for someone. Those opportunities are everywhere.
With everything that is happening, 2020 is a year where anyone thinking about running for president would think twice. Not Brock Pierce, an independent candidate for the US presidency. A young, wealthy entrepreneur in the blockchain and cryptocurrency world, Brock stands in stark contrast to the older, more entrenched players of the established duopoly. Bringing forth a message of unity and systematic change, he directly challenges the two-party system that he believes has held America back from truly progressing as one nation. A systems genius who has made a difference in the technology world, Brock believes that America needs to upgrade its very operating system. Listen in as he introduces his platform on the show with Patrick Donohoe.
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Brock Pierce: Bringing A Message Of Unity To A Divided Nation
Thank you for tuning in to a special episode of the show. I got to sit down with Brock Pierce. He is one of the candidates for the US presidency. There are more than two candidates. Brock can be found at Brock.vote. It has a great explanation of his political platform as well as his social media channel links. Brock and I met when he was here in Salt Lake City, which is where I’m located. He was kicking off his bus tour amongst other things, and it was a great conversation. You are going to enjoy the interview.
You may have heard his name before. He was a child movie star. He was in The Mighty Ducks. He is also known in the blockchain and cryptocurrency world. He is the Director of the Bitcoin Foundation as well as the Cofounder of Tether. 2020 is a year where anyone thinking about running for president would think twice. It seems like everything that has happened has been weaponized politically and the two parties are shooting at one another.
The American public is in the cross crossfire. At the same time, now is potentially a time where we can wake up to a different message and start to question our assumptions. Maybe Brock is the guy to do that. He’s young, wealthy, and he has made a difference in the technology world. I believe he has a good message. Thank you for your support. I appreciate it.
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Brock, it’s awesome to be with you. Thanks for taking the time. I know you are a busy man.
My hands are full. Running for president is more than a full-time job and I had a few jobs before this.
Did you realize that going in or are a lot of things surprised you since you made that decision?
I understood that running for the presidency is like stepping into the ring of fire. You are calling in the magnifying glass to have every decision you’ve ever made in your life scrutinized and demanding in terms of meetings day and night interviews, answering questions. That’s what you were signing up for is not sleeping much and working on it.
2020 is like a ring of fire on the sun as opposed to other elections.
This one is especially divisive, but it feels like just as a trend, as a nation where we’ve been moving in this. It doesn’t feel like it started. This feels like it’s been accelerating or amplifying throughout the course of my life, but we don’t feel like the United States right now. It feels like the divided states, whether that be politically, economically and racially divided. Simultaneously facing existential threats, environmentally, technologically, conflict and challenges with China. There’s a lot going on.
This is trying times, the vitriol is off the charts and you stepped into the ring. Why don’t you tell the audience about what compelled you to run? What message do you want to communicate to not just the United States, but to the world?
I can summarize why I’m running for office in one word, love. At a time where it feels like our choices are fear and hate. I love this country. I love the American people. I believe in us. I have faith in us and love is the answer. Unity is the answer. We have to find a path forward together. We have to have compassion. We have to be patient. We have to have the understanding and right now, we’re in this path of this two-party system that either comes into collision or full polarization. We are polarized as a nation that we have to find a way back to unity. Hopefully by putting love on the table as one of the choices, we can figure this out together.
You probably have a different perspective now but it’s interesting to try to observe 2020 and you use the word divisive. It’s grown. That chasm is big now. It’s not necessarily people being for something and for something else. It’s being against. There’s a lot of against and not much for. It’s interesting to hear what you are for which I do believe is something that can bring people together. What’s your experience on the road been? What it’s been like? I know you’re about to kick off your bus tour around the country, starting in Salt Lake City, our home base. With the people you’ve interacted with and the pulse that you’re getting, where do you start to have that conversation?
Independent Presidential Candidate: The political system is rigged to protect and preserve the duopoly, red and blue, and anyone that’s trying to present an alternative is essentially shut down.
I’m not running against anyone. I’m running for and with everyone. We are in Salt Lake City. I’m in Utah. The experience has been interesting. The message that we share or the message that I communicate seems to resonate with people that are for this and everything in between. The issue for us is whether or not the message resonates and people are into it and agree with it. Our issue has been in reach and trying to get the message out. The political system is rigged. It’s rigged to protect and preserve the duopoly, red and blue, and anyone that’s trying to present an alternative is essentially shut down and preventing for me to being on ballots and things.
It’s a wild ride and I can explain it from the inside. There’s that challenge the media similarly doesn’t want to present anything that isn’t the two-party system, the debate stages the same way. The debates historically were run by the League of Women Voters, but after the League of Women Voters allowed Ross Perot to participate in the debates, they stripped that privilege away and handed it to one Republican and one Democrat to ensure that no third party would ever make it onto that stage again.
Talk about the different demographics that exist. The Millennial generation is now coming to its own professionally graduating college and they don’t necessarily have the decades behind them that have influenced taking this side or that side even though there’s compelling influence to take aside. What role does the youth have now? How do you feel you can better connect to them than the presidents that represent those two dominant parties?
That’s where our message resonates most. We pull best in the sub-40-year-old category. Whatever happens in this election, this is the beginning. We are laying the groundwork for the future as well as doing everything that must be done for this election cycle. What I would tell the youth is they are the sleeping giant in this country. When the youth wake up and realize how much their voice matters and counts, we can change everything. Forty-three percent of eligible voters in this country are not voting. Over 30% of registered voters are independents, meaning that we are already the majority.
The Republican and Democratic parties are the minority, but we’ve been tricked. We’ve been confused. We’ve been living in the solution that our only choices are red and blue. The question is when will we wake up and bring the necessary change? As Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.” When are we going to do something different?
What have you seen with the youth that is giving you hope? There is influence and the influence starts within the school system where kids are taught facts, not necessarily how to debate them or how to critically think. They have also been influenced and it depends on the state but it has caused them to start taking sides. As they listen to social media, which is a huge influence in their life, they can take sides as well. What’s your advice or what’s your message to them that allows them to maybe pierce the veil of having to choose sides and be able to step outside of that and understand facts, truth and whatever the opposite of rhetoric is?
Unfortunately, we have to unlearn so much of what we’ve learned because history or his story was written by the victors and it’s not always accurate. A lot of those facts are not necessarily facts. What I would encourage everyone regardless of your age is to vote your conscience to trust and follow your heart. Do what you feel is right for you. I would avoid making compromises because compromises around our system of governance, that thing that governs over us does not lead to good things. We hold our family, friends and co-workers to a certain bar of truth. If people lie to you, you stop hanging out with them. If people cheat, you normally stop working with them. For some reason, they don’t have to abide by those same principles and rules that we apply to everyone else. We have to start holding our government accountable to our values and principles and stop compromising.
One more question that I love to pivot a little bit into your professional area of expertise is it seems like people are forced to take sides and there’s a leverage of group psychology that if you’re not with us, you’re against us. What do you say to that especially when it comes to youth? Youth in large part is still gaining a lot of self-esteem and self-awareness based on the groups that they associated with. Not being a part of the group often is highly influential which has them make decisions about political issues as opposed to forming their own opinions and perspective. What message do you have for those that may sit on the line and may not like the side of the cards that they’re dealt, but nonetheless, their group, their influence, their family in some cases, their community, is going to outcast them if they even don’t take their side?
In the long run in life, you eventually have to free your mind and break free from the control and manipulation of others to hear what people have to say to process that information but to ultimately think for yourself. Don’t let others tell you what to do. Don’t let others tell you what to think. Make sure in life that you do you whether you realize it now or later in life, that is when success begins for you. You’re taught in school to conform but what you learn as you become successful in life is that conforming is what prevents success. You have to step out of conformity and become the individual. The independent being that you are and to make your own decisions.
Some will learn that sooner, some will learn that later, but the sooner you learn that normally the better off your life will be. As you get better, as your life improves so will the world around us. You only have the power to change yourself, but through the bettering of yourself, you have the ability to inspire and influence others to better themselves. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Try not to succumb to the fear and hate, it’s me against you. We’re all one. We’re ultimately in this together and to have compassion and to be patient and try to understand where someone’s coming from and why they have a different perspective. To agree to disagree but understand we’re not against each other.
It seems like this might be a pivot, but I think there is some relevance to your area of specialty as a professional, which is a blockchain. I know you’ve had an extensive background there and you can look to the blockchain. Sometimes, I like to look at it as an arbiter of truth to understand what is fair. It’s not just in the political arena. It’s in the financial arena. It’s everywhere where you have interested parties that stack the deck in their favor that may give some truth and hide maybe what would make a person side the other way.
Blockchain in a sense has the future of being able to help us to know what is right and have more facts objectively as opposed to subjectively. With the perspective you have with that background, how do you view whether it’s our political system, whether it’s our monetary system? How do you view it differently than most? What type of message do you want to communicate as far as how that technology could ultimately improve things?
Independent Presidential Candidate: If we want to upgrade the operating system of the United States of America, we need to take a step back and take a look at what are we incentivizing.
Antitrust and trust with truth is an important thing. Blockchain should enable a world that is more trustworthy. Absolute power corrupts absolutely which is why we created antitrust laws. Our government recognized systems of two. Most of our world is run by monopolies and those things that we know over time, we can’t trust. The blockchain hopefully brings and restores trust to systems by creating transparency, accountability and all the wonderful things that hopefully create a more inclusive, and fair world.
A lot of it’s relevant to what’s going on. For example, one of the things that I started was the digital dollar, tokenizing and creating this concept of a stable coin and that system right now, our UST is doing $10 trillion a year in transactional volume. Governments around the world have recognized that technology can be used to enhance their currency at a central banking level. The Chinese government has created the Chinese digital one-off of that framework.
This stuff is becoming relevant which is another reason why we need visionary leadership in our government that understands technology. We’ve seen how social networking has impacted our democracy. If you haven’t seen The Social Dilemma on Netflix, it’s a movie worth watching. Brittany Kaiser is my campaign manager. Also, check out The Great Hack. These are things that are relevant right now as we are in the final month or so of the election. Technology matters, which is why we need leadership with foresight that understands how to navigate the road ahead because technology is moral.
Technology is a tool. How we use it is what matters. With artificial intelligence coming online, robotics, automation, the landscape of work, the world around us is changing and we need leadership with our fingers on the pulse. When you watch our tech giants testified before our government, it’s embarrassing to see the quality of questions that are being asked. Our government does not understand how the world is changing right now and it’s accelerating. It’s changing rapidly that the decisions we make over the course of the next decade will not only determine the fate of our nation but the fate of humanity.
The world has progressed quickly. As you get up in age and you come to a certain perspective and paradigm of the world, it’s difficult sometimes to accept new information and hold new information. You look at the leadership, not just in our government, but leadership in business and religious leadership. They’re all in that same demographic. Things are happening quickly and they’re not able to pivot and make decisions that would otherwise benefit people simply for the lack of knowledge.
Blockchain is one of those things where it’s been a buzzword but it’s gaining more popularity. Those two documentaries, I could not emphasize. I’ve talked about them before on the show, but sometimes information goes in one ear and out the other. Hopefully, this year 2020 specifically can demonstrate how social media, how rhetoric has been weaponized and how much it is negatively impacted things including everybody’s lives. Hopefully, there’s an awakening of sorts.
Sometimes in order to accept another truth, there has to be some pain associated with it. Maybe a punch in the face to have a wakeup call so that you’re open to new ideas and not just sticking to what you’ve always known. Brock, thank you for sharing this. It’s a great message. It’s an inspiring message. I hope that more people will follow you and more people open their eyes because of you. Are there any last words you’d like to say or anything that we haven’t talked about that you think would be important to attend with?
First of all, if you want to learn more, join us at Brock.vote. I’ll close also on some trick game-changing ideas because I’m a systems designer. I understand the power of incentivization. If we want to upgrade the operating system of the United States of America, we need to take a step back and take a look at what are we incentivizing. What is our goal? What is our vision? What is the destination for this nation? What are we aiming for?
Historically, we measured our success by growth. The problem with growth is it assumes infinite resources which we’ve known for some time we don’t have. Therefore, lots of conflicts are occurring between us as we’re trying to take from each other’s pockets. The other problem with growth is it doesn’t differentiate between positive and negative. Cancer creates growth. Locking people in prison creates growth.
Forest fires and hurricanes create growth. What kind of growth do we want to incentivize and the pursuit of happiness? What if we started to measure our success as a nation by life expectancy? What if we started to measure our success by freedom? We’re supposed to be the land of the free. What if we started to measure our success by happiness? I’d like us to start thinking about how do we create America 2.0. How do we shift the gears to bring us to a place in the year 2030 and the America that we all want to live in, a redefined America?
One where the American dream is flourishing. One where we are the light of the world and the bastion of hope that we were always intended to be. One where we are unified, united, aligned and figuring out how to support each other and love thy neighbor’s instead of being in conflict. All these things are possible if we set our minds to it. The last thing, if you are in Wyoming or interested, the Independent National Convention is going to be October 23rd and 24th of 2020 in Cheyenne bringing together the third parties and having our debates and all of those things. I would encourage you to join us online or in-person. If you’re along the campaign trail, I’m in Utah and next up is Idaho, then Wyoming, then Colorado. Send us a tweet. Hit us on Instagram. We’re interested in connecting with every one of you. Thank you for tuning in. I appreciate you having me on the show. God bless.
Thank you, Brock. We wish you the best. Let’s connect again. If you ever need anything, let me know. I think your message is inspiring. I believe this is the year of any, where it’s a wakeup call so that people will listen and take some action. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for your time and best of luck.
Brock Pierce is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with an extensive track record of founding, advising and investing in disruptive businesses. He’s credited with pioneering the market for digital currency and has raised more than $5B for companies he has founded. Pierce is the Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation and co-founder of EOS Alliance, Block.one, Blockchain Capital, Tether, and Mastercoin (first ICO).
In 2017, Pierce co-founded Block.one which sold over $4B tokens in the EOS crowdsale, making it the largest ever. He also co-founded Blockchain Capital in 2013, making it the first sector-focused venture fund that invests solely in Blockchain technology companies. Pierce led the firm through the first ICO of a venture fund, which created the first security token. Blockchain Capital has made more than 100 investments in the sector across its four funds. The firm was named the most active FinTech Venture Fund by Pitchbook. In 2014, Brock founded Tether, the first stablecoin and asset-backed token.
Pierce is an early investor in Bitcoin and one of the largest investors in the Ethereum crowdsale. He is the founder of IMI Exchange, the world’s leading digital currency marketplace for games, with annual sales exceeding $1B and investors such as Goldman Sachs, which was sold in 2016 for more than $100M. Pierce founded ZAM, one of the world’s largest media properties for gamers, which was acquired by Tencent in 2012. He founded IGE, the pioneer of digital currency in online games, achieving revenues exceeding $100 million in 2006 and sold in 2007. Pierce is also a co-founder of D10e, GoCoin, Blade Payments, Five Delta (sold NASDAQ: SRAX), Xfire 2.0, Playsino, Evertune, GamesTV, and DEN. He also advises Airswap, Bancor, BitGo, BitGuild, BlockV, Bloq, DNA, Element Group, Metronome, Shyft, and tZERO.
Pierce is a sought-after speaker who has spoken about the power of blockchain technology and decentralization at global events and institutions.
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The starting point of wealth is in your mindset, not in your assets. Having grown accustomed to certain beliefs about money and wealth, we have in us a self-imposed threshold of what we allow ourselves to wish for as our ideal lifestyle. Have you ever asked yourself what kind of life you really want? What does financial independence mean to you? How much money it will take to get you there? How far beyond that point are you willing to go? In this episode, Patrick Donohoe invites you to participate in this mental exercise that pushes your imagination to its limits and takes you to a world of possibilities. Do you want to know what wealth really means to you? Join in on this exercise now!
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Wealth Mindset Exercise: Visualizing The Ideal Life
Thank you for tuning in for this episode. I’m glad you’re here. I have some things to talk about that hopefully will be a good segue from the last two episodes before this. I hope you took advantage of purchasing that book series called The Tuttle Twins. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, head over to TheWealthStandard.com. You will learn about the two episodes specifically with my good friend, Connor Boyack of the Libertas Institute as well as the author of those fine books. For this episode, I’m going to pick up on that theme. The reason why I wanted to have Connor on is because there is a lot of angst based on some cultural divide or maybe a socioeconomic divide that calls for justice and more equality.
I wanted to have him on because sometimes given the fact that we are not taught to critically think and debate ideas and ultimately encouraged influence to choose a side. We don’t get to think through concepts and issues. I put myself in that category forming opinions based on certain things and not being open to other perspectives. I’m not going to get into that now but I look at wealth inequality. This is something I do for a living. It’s talk about money, investing and strategy. I feel that it’s my stewardship to keep talking about this because it’s prevalent in the news. That’s why I wanted to talk to Connor and get his perspective on things from a libertarian standpoint, but also talk about where we are with understanding ourselves, our beliefs about money, and then figuring out what to do about that.
That’s where I went to children because oftentimes, we’re masochistic in a sense. We have pain and anxiety tolerance, and it’s high. When it comes to our kids though, that’s where we start to draw lines. What we realized is that both our conscious and unconscious behavior about money is teaching and influencing them. Let’s get into it. Going off of Aristotle’s quote about excellence, “It’s not a onetime act, it’s a habit.” It’s having a certain mindset which I believe is necessary. A dollar amount in the bank will not create this amount of cashflow, and the number of doors or property and the amount of business interests will not replace this. I believe that this mindset and this perspective is irrespective of the amount of money and wealth that you have. That’s the starting place. From there, you have a strategy. There’s a formula that I use which state story and strategy. The most important thing is the state, which I believe comes from the belief system that you have about money and wealth, and what’s possible for you. That’s going to be the biggest barrier to you achieving what you want.
Wealth Mindset: We have an idea of what an ideal life would look like, but we never really explore it.
I’m going to take you through some exercises. I hope that this expands your view and your belief in what’s possible for you. I’m going to do some follow-up episodes getting into a specific calculator and formula that you can use to start having some breakthroughs, some realizations, and setting some goals potentially. You’re going to get a kick out of it.
The Ideal Life
First, wherever you are, I want you to think about on a scale of 1 to 10, how are things going financially? How’s your financial life? You can put one being that you’re on the verge of bankruptcy and all you do is worry about money and it’s affecting your relationships with yourself. It’s affecting your health and your work, then ten being financially free where you can do what you want, when you want, with whom you want. You feel completely free. I want you to rank yourself and understand that that ranking is a gut feeling.
We understand where we’re at, whether or not we’re able to look at our financial statement or our bank account. We have an idea of where we’re at naturally. I want you to first be aware of that. This next part is going to be interesting. Sometimes we have this what I call the infinite horizon which is this light at the end of the tunnel or this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s this thing in the distance that never seems to get any closer. Sometimes we have an idea of what an ideal life would look like but we’d never explore it. There’s a psychological way in which you can be open to what you want. That’s what I want you to start thinking about. What does life look like at a ten? What does life look like on your terms. If you were to be financially free, what would have to happen?
This is where I’m going to stretch the perspective. I did an event with good friends of mine who are also in the financial services space. I love doing events with them. We meet every week, we brainstorm, and we come up with cool ideas. We do an event for financial advisors. We had a guest speaker who I consider a good friend. He’s also a colleague. He’s been a mentor of mine. He has inspired me in many different ways. His name is Garrett. He did an exercise on this event that I was impressed by. I also have thought about a bit, but never connected its relevance to the topic we’re on until my preparation for this. I feel that the purpose of this exercise is to connect with who you are, what you want, and then what growth means. I want you to take another moment. You’ve ranked yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 and get a gauge of where you’re at and now understanding what a ten looks like. What I’m about to do expands beyond a ten, which allows you even more room to understand what you want.
First, I want you to imagine that starting next month, whatever month it is next, you receive an additional $1,000 of income on top of everything that you’re making. What would you do with that? Would you save it, pay down debt, go out to dinner at your favorite restaurant a couple of times or take out? What about an additional $5,000 a month? If $5,000 additional money came in every single month on top of what you’re already making, what would you do? Would you maybe look at moving where you live? Would you look at putting money away for college education, savings or build up a reserve? Now, $10,000 a month. If every single month on top of what you’re currently making, what would you do with an additional $10,000 a month? Would you get a new car, upgrade your wardrobe, pay off debt, give money to your kids, go on vacation? What would you do with an additional $10,000 extra per month?
What about $30,000 extra on top of what you are already making? What would you do with that money? Would you get your dream home, quit your job, start your own business or go to an event? Would you move your parents to a nicer place? Would you put money away or save it? If you had an extra $50,000 a month coming in every single month on top of what you’re already making, what would you do? Go to $100,000 a month more than what you’re making. Now $250,000. Every single month, money came in. What would you do? Every single month, $500,000 showed up in your bank account more than what you’re making. What would change? How would you feel? What would you do? What would you not do? $750,000 every single month on top of what you’re making right now, and then finally $1 million extra every single month.
I want you to think about those dollar amounts, the exercise, and I want you to connect with something. Number one, at what dollar amount did you not know what you were going to do? I also want you to connect to at what dollar amount did you start thinking about giving money to others where your lifestyle was complete? You are living in the home of your dreams. You had no debt. You were making investments. The worry factor of money was no longer there. Maybe a new worry set in which is, “With all this money, what am I going to do?”
Breaking The Threshold
The reason why I wanted to do that exercise is because I do believe that there is a threshold to what our ideal lifestyle looks like, what the ideal life is, and what it takes financially to achieve that. I don’t think we ever had this conversation with ourselves or anybody else, whether you feel guilty or you feel that you shouldn’t have that type of lifestyle and that others are more deserving of that. I don’t know. These are all belief systems. I want you to start connecting to that and opening up your mind as far as where you’re at, the money that you’re making, the thresholds, the glass ceilings that do exist. They exist for all of us. I want you to start positioning yourself now on what I consider a hierarchy. I talk about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs every single episode. It’s something that’s important to me because it helps me categorize, formulate, and structure ideas and lots of different information in a simple way.
Wealth Mindset: There is a threshold to what our ideal lifestyle looks like and what it takes financially to achieve that.
When I look at that exercise, it’s to merely open you up to possibilities. Opening your mind to what would you do and what do you want. Subsequently, it breaks beyond the threshold of you and it gets to others. What would you contribute? Who would you help? What experiences would you create for those that may not have the blessings, the opportunities, and the drive that you have? This is where the hierarchy of needs, that physiological, that carnal need like your food, shelter, clothing and those survival instincts from a financial standpoint. This is the category where people are in debt like credit card debt and high-interest debt. They’re living paycheck to paycheck. It’s a survival mentality. They don’t have any savings. They’re struggling to get by. They spend every single dollar that’s in their bank account and go into overdraft every month. This is like that physiological section where you’re surviving.
Graduating from that as you start to resolve those things, you start to pay off debt and eventually get out of debt. This is the safety tier-two of the hierarchy of needs. Maybe you have a good credit score now and you’re responsible. You purchase a home instead of renting. You start saving a double-digit percentage of your income starting at 10%. You have liquid reserves, 6 months, 12 months. You’re essentially creating that safety net for yourself. I look at the next stage, that tier-three as a relationship. It’s where you’re incorporating the building blocks of good, financial wherewithal starting with having a budget, saving money, establishing a will and trust, potentially a college fund for your kids or an education fund. You maybe start investing. You started looking into ways in which you can make more money.
The next rung is self-esteem. Self-esteem is where I would put maximizing your income. Realizing that one of the best investments is in yourself and taking some money in getting a course or getting a certification or learning something new. It allows you to be more valuable to others and subsequently earn more money. This is a stage where you have a spending plan as opposed to a budget. The spending plan is different. Spending plan is, “What lifestyle do I want and how can I create a spending plan where I can have that lifestyle and enjoy life at a different level?” Spending plans and budgets are different. This I believe is when you start to identify with that ideal lifestyle. Maybe some of those thoughts came to mind when you were doing this exercise a moment ago. At what dollar amount would you be able to do what you want to do, live where you want to live, and have fun with the people that you love?
My parents live on Cape Cod in Massachusetts and usually every year we go and visit them. A few years ago, I got to take my dad on this little plane and do a tour over Cape Cod. He had never seen Cape Cod that way, but it was awesome to have that experience with him. I prepaid for a great white shark excursion on Cape Cod to have one of those other experiences with my brother, my nephews, my dad, my uncle and my son. Unfortunately, there’s a wind storm and it knocked out power to the little airport. We did usually was the spotter plane for this boat that went around. Someone was probably looking out for us and that wind soar came in that we did not do the shark tour. That’s on the bucket list. I have some big bucket list items to contribute to the experiences of others.
Those are examples of what I’m talking about. This is where you start to put together what you dream about and what you want to provide as experiences for yourself, your family, and then subsequently people that you love, that may not be able to have the same experiences as you. Finally, you get to self-actualization. It’s this final rung, which you’re growing for different reasons. You’re maximizing your income for different reasons. You’re investing for different reasons. It’s now outside of yourself. You’re growing to contribute to others. It’s not just live a lifestyle that you love, but you do the things that you’re passionate about. You support causes, you create memories and you establish your legacy. Also, self-actualization like career on your terms. You’re working to live. You’re investing, you’re managing to live because you have connected to that lifestyle and not the other way around.
I hope that you guys are connecting with this. The reason why I want to do it is to start getting you to understand that there is a position you’re at financially. That position that hopefully expanded you into $1 million a month. What would I do with $1 million a month? Also, it connected you to where you’re at in the pecking order of things or the hierarchy of things. Are you in desperation? Probably not because you’re reading this blog. Are you in safety, in a relationship, or in self-esteem? Are you in self-actualization? That would be amazing. I want you to connect to where you are and then over the course of the next few episodes, we’re going to speak about what life looks like at those stages above and beyond where you’re at now, and then subsequently, ways in which you can quantify that. You can establish some potential milestones on the way to whatever that ideal lifestyle is for you.
Make sure you stick with me because I’m doing this for a number of reasons. Number one, I’m trying to connect a lot of the previous episodes to actionable things that you can do. Also, I’m hoping you realize by now that the majority of this is psychological. What you believe about money is what you believe about yourself. It’s what you believe you’re worthy to achieve. I look at many different influences that have caused us to think about money and most of them I would say are limiting. Connecting with those and realizing those are simply beliefs. You didn’t necessarily consciously create those barriers for yourself. That will open you up to the importance of strategy and how do you implement strategy, because changes need to be made in order to get to the next level. If the cause is not worthy of the efforts to establish goals, change habits, then you’re not going to do it. It may be an act here and there but as Aristotle said, “It’s not going to be a habit.”
Wealth Mindset: It’s all about what you believe about money, what you believe about yourself, what you believe you’re worthy to achieve.
We’re going to connect potentially some spreadsheets. You know that I posted the Hierarchy of Wealth spreadsheet calculator on the website, TheWealthStandard.com as well as the Financial Independence calculator and other spreadsheets using some of the things I’m talking about. I’m hopefully formulating a way in which there’s a program created so that you can go through some goals, go through ways in which you quantify those goals, and subsequently start charting a path to achieving those goals. That’s where we’re going. Thanks for reading. It’s a shorter episode but I appreciate your attention. I appreciate your participation. Hopefully, you gained from these exercises and there will be more to come in the subsequent episodes. Head over to the website. We have some cool resources there. If you like what you read, give us a great ranking on iTunes because that always helps. Share this with your friends and family. That would be amazing. You are awesome. Thanks again. I’ll talk to you next episode.
As adults, we have developed a threshold over the years that makes it more challenging to make adjustments in our habits. Whether we realize it or not, we are, on a daily basis, influencing our children and what they believe about themselves. However, this incredibly disruptive time has got us shaking out of our routines and patterns enough for us to change our habits and belief systems. On today’s show, Patrick Donohoe brings back Connor Boyack to talk about strategic ways to change our habits and belief systems, especially concerning our health and finance, love and relationships, freedom and liberty, and other ideas. Connor is the author of the Tuttle Twins book series, which has impacted how parents view the world.
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Strategic Ways To Change Our Habits And Belief Systems with Connor Boyack
Thank you for reading part two of my interview with Connor Boyack. I intentionally took a week to think about what I would say in this introduction going into some good points that Connor and I go through as it relates to kids, kids’ influence and specifically, parents and how they convey their belief systems, their physical habits in part to their kids. I came across a quote by Aristotle. It’s one that everyone repeats quite often, but it’s still profound. It’s, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” I thought a lot about habits. I believe that habits are mostly carnal. Most people, if they could snap their fingers and change a habit, they would, but it’s essentially something physical.
As I look at my experiences mostly with Tony Robbins events, it’s like our body craves systems and habits, because it wants to conserve energy. It wants to spend energy in the most meaningful places. It happens on a subconscious level. At the same time, there’s an unintended piece, which is when there’s a habit that we don’t like, we find it challenging to overcome and replace with a new habit. A perfect example is health. Most people want to be healthier and we know what to do. All the education information exists and that relates to business, finance and to anything.
What it causes us is to stay in the same place and not make those changes because it’s carnal and embedded in us. Typically, it’s a function of change. A change of a significant habit is a function of drama or trauma. Drama is like your husband or wife says, “I want a divorce,” or you come home and all their stuff is gone or you get fired from a job or you are one-upped by a colleague. It also is a trauma. A car accident, a heart attack or something physical, which shakes us. It disrupts the patterns and habits that we have and put us in this position where staying the same is more painful, more strain is there than making the appropriate and necessary changes.
That strain is less. Those typically do not happen strategically. They happen by circumstance and happenstance. At the same time, my experience has been, if you truly want to change a habit, there is a strategic way to do it, but most people don’t realize that it has to be very psychological and very physical. I’m going to invite everybody again. I invited everybody to one of Tony Robbins’ events, regardless of your opinion of him, it’s a very crazy, physical experience, but it’s intentional. What it does is it helps you and there is an Aristotle quote which it allows you to give up your past to you and sacrifice it in gain or in part to get closer to who you’re meant to be.
Those events allow you to think deeply, but also have a physical experience in which you can process what you want, what you’re currently doing and what you need to do. It helps disrupt that physical sense, your physical body so that you are in the prime state to be able to make the appropriate changes. It’s virtual. It’s in November 2020. There were almost 30,000 people for the first one. He did it virtually. He did a business one that I talked about a few episodes back. TheUnleash the Power Within which is the event that I invited all of you as my audience, it’s going to be virtual in November 2020.
My experience is that with adults, we’re somewhat masochistic, we have a threshold of pain and strain. We’ve developed that over the years and that makes it a little bit more challenging to make adjustments in our own habits. However, when we make the connection between our habits, our belief systems and our children, something changes. Anything that compromises a child is something that in society does not accept whatsoever. An adult can be assaulted or beat up or hurt. There is a near as much response to that as if it were a child. That goes, subconsciously or unconsciously. What that means is you could do physical harm, but also when you realize that you are on a daily basis influencing your child, what they believe about themselves, what they believe about their life, what they believe about what’s possible for them.
It’s incredible that these subtle things over the course of time form those belief systems and habits in them. I look at 2020 being an incredibly disruptive time and it’s shaking us out of our routines. We had a massive wind storm in Utah that blew these huge trees down like 50 or 60 or 100 years old trees with huge roots. It destroyed everything. It knocked down a bunch of stuff at our house. We’ve been up at our little cabin in the mountains roughing it. As if 2020 wasn’t disruptive enough, we’ve had an earthquake, COVID-19 stuff and this massive hurricane-type wind impact on us.
We’re being shaken. We’re being disrupted with these pattern interrupts. They allow us to think differently about life. Now is a season where our kids are going back to school and we are starting a new year. I believe that taking back control over where our influence is over our children, is something that we can do and oftentimes, that right there is enough for us to change our own habits, belief systems about health, finance, love and relationships, freedom, liberty and other ideas.
We are in a swarm of different ideas and opinions. Ultimately, whatever your belief system is or opinions are, I believe that we have stewardship as parents, as grandparents and as leaders. Anyone, family members that have influence over children, I believe we have a stewardship to convey to them the things that we have discovered positively about life. I hope you gain a lot from this interview. I hope you take advantage of some of The Tuttle Twins literature. It’s amazing. Connor also has a digital course. Thanks again and we’ll see you next time for another episode. Until then.
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This is probably a good transition point because it’s interesting. We’ve done a lot more webinars and trying to talk to people and understand where they’re at and what’s going on, so we can figure out ways to provide value. It was interesting as we’ve looked at all different topics and this is for my other company, but we found an overwhelming difference in the number of people that engaged with content, as it related to their elderly, aging parents and to their children. I find it interesting because I think these are very carnal ways in which we’re reacting to these circumstances. You go through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and there are other models that explain human behavior and the different tiers and levels.
When it comes to your survival, you’re going to do anything and most of it is not rational. It’s all like instinct, “I have to survive.” Then you get to the upper levels where it’s safety, then to relationships, then to self-interest, then to the more spiritual self-actualized role. Most people aren’t even close to that. They are in those lower levels. You look at what people care about and it’s their parents, family, and children. I look at some studies I’ve read through where it solidifies that a lot of how a person looks at life and forms their belief structures happens before the age of fifteen. It is where they observe or they’re taught directly and they are influenced, whether it’s by their family or peers or community, and that is what they carry out throughout their entire life.
Things and circumstances can change, but for the most part, a lot of their belief structures start there. What I find fascinating about the way in which you’ve approached the principles of liberty, and maybe you can speak to this because we haven’t talked about it before, where the books that you have written are directed toward children. It is about these two, a brother and a sister, twins who have all of these different experiences that highlight a lot of the principles of prosperity that you believe in and principles of liberty, but the parental learning as a result of that is something you’ve spoken to before. Maybe talk about the difference that those books have made. I don’t know if you did this by design, or it was unintentional where you made your way into family’s lives based on promoting children’s education and teaching principles, but impacted the way in which parents view the world.
That was totally unintentional. The parents became a secondary market after we started this project. Whereas like, “We’ve stumbled into this opportunity and this value-add,” I think for a lot of parents. Our books are called The Tuttle Twins books. We’ve got books for kids, for teens. We’re coming out with board books for toddlers and cartoon. There’s a lot of stuff that we’re building. We sold over one million books. We’re in twelve languages. In Brazil, we’re selling books by the thousands. It’s hazing off down there. It’s filling a void. When we started The Tuttle Twins series, the whole goal was we want to teach little kids, younger kids the way the world works, civics, economics, ethics, morality, not from a religious standpoint, but like the golden rule and human behavior and all this kind of stuff. This started because I am a dad and I wanted my young kids to learn this. I couldn’t find anything on Amazon that was already doing it. I’m like, “Here’s the opportunity.”
Many books into the series, it is amazing. Think about dopamine drips. People are watching reality TV or soap operas, and they’re addicted to this. I like being bathed in dopamine from every day getting social media posts and emails from parents either or sometimes both saying, “My kids have learned so much. The conversations we’re having right now are amazing,” and/or, “I’ve learned so much that I never learned in school. Why did I never learn this in school? Where has it been all my life?” Our kids’ books are all based on a classic like Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt or Human Action by Mises or all these different books. Ninety-nine percent of the adults reading our books would never read one of these original books.
They wouldn’t have the time or interest. They’re often written decades ago or more where the English are denser and we’re not used to that style anymore for better or for worse. These books simplify things and help parents who are stressed and busy sit down with their children and have this shared learning opportunity. Have some discussion questions at the end that they can go over together and then the recollection comes later where they’re in the grocery store and they’re like, “There are 83 kinds of potato chips. Now I understand why.” Specialization, division of labor, spontaneous order, all these kinds of terms where kids through our storytelling books are learning about these things and finding ways to apply them so that they can better understand the way the world works.
As the author, people look at me and like, “You’ve made this thing. It’s been amazing. How will this impact?” With all honesty and truth, I honestly have no idea how we’ve done this. We’re like, “Let’s make some books and we’ll teach them stuff,” but there’s some kind of magic secret sauce that’s dripped into these things. Not of my own volition, where the response has been disproportionately, passionately positive, where even families who don’t agree with our political philosophy initially, or whatever is totally coming to our side of things. They are totally understanding ideas and glomming onto them just because of, I don’t know if it’s the simplicity, maybe it’s Elijah’s beautiful illustrations that are winning the day, whatever it is, we’re having a ball. I honestly feel the anxiety because the way the world is has diverted more of my energy into this project of late. I feel like, “I shouldn’t be sleeping right now. I should be making more content all the time because the demand is so high.”
The perspective that adults have is challenging to change unless there is a major disruptive event. 2020 has changed the way in which people look at life, society, themselves or their family to get what they want for better or for worse. There are circumstances where divorce rates and child abuse have spiked, but at the same time, you do have families becoming stronger. You have people being friendly with their neighbors. There are lots of positive and negative, but at the same time, this solidifies the idea behind the capitalist mentality, where it’s not about being rich and wealthy, it’s about finding ways to take who you are and bring value to the world.
Tuttle Twins book series
That’s where it starts. There’s a lot of experimentation. Sometimes it works. Oftentimes, it doesn’t work. That’s where you’ve written some amazing books previous to The Tuttle Twins, which are good books. Feardom is one of my favorite reads, but yet TheTuttle Twins made an impact where that wasn’t necessarily the original objective. That’s how things work sometimes. Connor, why don’t you give us some case studies? Give us some things that have happened during the summer, during a very volatile time that relates to ways in which families have benefited from reading The Tuttle Twins or consuming some of the other stuff that you have digitally.
In our books, we have our economic curriculum as well. That’s at FreeMarket.TuttleTwins.com. What’s been interesting is many more parents are homeschooling. This has been all over the news and it looks like homeschooling is probably going to triple in the United States, I think it’s where things are landing now that everyone’s heading back to school. We’re seeing if people are going to change their behavior, not just say they might, in response to a poll. From all the data I’ve seen, it appears that we might triple. That’s millions of kids embarking on this new experiment. These families are clamoring like, “What do I do? What do I teach them? What are the resources? What are the curriculums?”
They’re hungry for material trying to figure out what to do. We’ve nearly tripled our sales since the beginning of the shutdown. We’ve had to try to keep up with everything. It’s been a strong demand. With that increase in volume, we’re getting way more social media posts and stories from families. The interesting thing to me is we get a lot of families who say they have a dyslexic child who won’t read any of their books but will read The Tuttle Twins book. I had a parent tell me about their kid who has massive ADHD and this is like the only books they’ll read. I had one dad say his daughter will only read Barbie books, but then she’ll also read The Tuttle Twins books.
I enjoy hearing from parents like that because it’s like testimonials. It’s like going to church and having everyone say, “Hallelujah. God is good,” and all these things. Here, everyone’s sending me emails and saying, “Connor is good. The Tuttle Twins is good.” I need to keep that ego down and be like, “It’s not me. There’s some other magic here.” What’s amazing to me about it all is like, we’re seeing many parents realize that they can’t wait for the schools to do this anymore. I think the collective failure of the freedom-minded people, however, you want to describe that movement or group is that they have delegated to the schools, the responsibility for their children’s education and with those ideas about civics and economics.
If you send your child to a socialist schooling system because the public school system is inherently a socialist system. Everyone pays for the benefits of a few and redistribution of wealth within that system and everything else, not to mention all the collectivists’ things within the school, that permission to go to the bathroom, batching people by age, regimenting your schedule and everyone on the same conveyor belt. There are all these issues for better or for worse and that’s not the same thing. There are teachers in the system who are often extremely well-meaning, but the system itself is structured. If you send your child to such a system, can you expect that they’re going to learn the evils of socialism or collectivism? The downsides, the opposing sides or even a simple exposure.
There’s a pastor whose quote I once read. He said something to the effect of, “Can Christians expect to send their children to Caesar’s schools and not have them return as Romans?” That encapsulates the idea, even from a political side. Can we expect as freedom-minded people who may have concerns with socialism to send your children to the public school system and learn anything other than the fact that government is great, it solves all these problems and there have never been any problems with socialism or anything else.
What we’re seeing is an awakening of so many more families realizing whether it’s because of the school shutdowns or the mask mandates or the economic conditions or simply the authoritarianism that has run rampant with all these executive orders and governors flexing their muscles and doing everything. There’s this awakening of many more families being like, “What happened to America I once knew?” They think about like, “What are kids learning these days? What are my kids being taught about the way things used to be in America or the ideal of America?”
They start to account for the fact that, “My kid’s school doesn’t teach any of that. How can I assume that burden?” It’s that transition from the delegation to the schools, to the assumption of responsibility that we are seeing a ton of parents now have that awakening and be like, “I’ve got to do this myself,” but then naturally like any good parent who’s busy and stressed and doesn’t know everything about everything, they search online or go on a Facebook group and they’re like, “Help. What do I do?” That’s where we try and step in and say, “We’re here to help.”
There are many different resources out there, but ultimately if the environment is the same, then there’s no need to change, but there is a necessity. The disruption is great that people are seeking other alternatives. At the same time, it’s a bitter pill to swallow. Especially, those who have been raised or have sent their kids to the educational system that for the most part, people associate with good. It’s good to be educated. It’s good to go, learn, socialize and being told, “Our school system is Prussian-based and it was originally designed to train the military and factory line workers.” People don’t like hearing that because they are associated with doing something wrong. At the same time, that’s reality. I look at education and how influential it is.
It’s that pre-fifteen-year old influence that creates the framework in which we view the world. It’s hard to look at things differently. One of the exercises I did to try to get through to my kids is I walk them through the economics of it where, “You go to school, get a job, graduate from school. Here’s the average college debt, the average mortgage, the average car payment, the average cell phone.” We did all the accounting and all the taxes are taken out and there’s hardly anything leftover and then you go to a graduate degree. Even though the salary is bigger, what that equates to when it comes to lifestyle is a car with leather and another bedroom or two. What that did is they started to be intrigued by, “That’s how? No, that can’t work that way.”
I have two teenagers and a six-year-old. The six-year-old even started to understand it. At the same time, as there is divisiveness when it comes to wealth inequality from an education standpoint, that’s another one of those difficult things to tackle. At the same time, a lot of our clients, readers and the audience have raved about you, your books and they talk about how much it changed their life. It takes that slight paradigm shift, that little seed that opens the door to a new reality and that reality allows you to look at things more critically. It allows you to weigh both sides as opposed to gravitate to the side that seems to align with people that are like you. That’s where I see our society. It’s going into such a horrible direction. At the same time, it’s exciting because typically when you have that much disruption and contention, it’s going to cause people to step back and think and hopefully be awakened to a better perspective. Hopefully, one that leads them to more happiness, more fulfillment and more wealth.
What I like about the story you share too is that you’ve got teens and then you’ve got a six-year-old, and even the six-year-old can understand. I think many parents for a long-time have assumed that these are not issues for children. Maybe, once they’re teenagers or about to head out of the home, we can have a conversation like this if the adult parent even feels up to the task of having those conversations themselves, but what we’ve found and I think to some extent, largely proven with The Tuttle Twins is that even these younger kids can understand these complex ideas, social, economic, and civic ideas. As long as you’re explaining it to them in the right way, you’re giving some examples or maybe giving them a little profit incentive, doing a little lemonade stand or whatever, but young kids can understand these old, big and complex ideas if you present in the right way.
That’s something I’ve been blown away at is the response that people are giving us about how their kids are not only reading the books and understanding, but recalling, and then applying these ideas and seeing when they’re watching the news or hearing about some social media thing or whatever. They’re making these connections with these ideas that they’ve learned about. It’s mind-boggling to me the young age at which kids can understand these ideas. It’s incumbent upon us, as you say, within that first fifteen years where those ideas are formed and people set their foundation largely in place to make sure we’re pouring some good concrete for them and not throwing in whatever rocks we can and like, “We’ll deal with it later.” For those of us in the freedom movement, I tell my peers all the time, “Everyone is waiting until these people become adults and then you talk to them because now, they’re voters but by then, we’ve lost them.”
We’ve left them to the left. We’ve left them to the collectivist to propagandize them in these schools and preach the wonders of democratic socialism and the abject racism of American history and toppling statues and 1691, all these kinds of things. If we abdicate that responsibility and if we don’t empower parents to counteract it in their own homes, we’re going to forever lose. We’re going to be playing defense. I like playing offense more. What we’re trying to do is get in there and help parents compete for the hearts, minds, affections and loyalties of their own children against all of those institutional pressures and the outreach that’s being done to try and capture that child’s mind for the future of our democratic socialist country. I don’t want that. I think we’ve got to invest in the future with our younger kids.
Kids these days, we do not give them the credit that they’re owed as far as what they see and the beliefs that are being formed. We don’t also recognize their intelligence, which is much different than the way even you and I were raised because we’re pretty much the same age. They live in a very fast society where they’ve learned to process information. They’ve learned to discard what they believe is malarkey and adopt what they think is true. Kids are questioning the educational system. They’re questioning what’s going on and the decisions that are made. I would say these objective ways of integrating education through books and fictional stories, but true principles allow them to extract that information in a more creative way so that it becomes real as opposed to these in one ear, out the other thoughts.
When you look at the world around us and how quickly those foundation is destabilizing, it’s a testament to the fact that there are these systemic problems, whether we’re going back and talking about the wealth inequality and big economic issues or even what’s happening with our kids and what they’re being taught in school and how we can help our kids understand these forces that aren’t new. These tensions have been there for centuries. They’ve been in other countries and other governmental systems. There are many ideas to learn from the past so that we can better apply it to the present. If our children are historically ignorant of the dangers of socialism and collectivism in the past, it’s no wonder why they’re going to embrace this shiny new object that promises to cancel all their school debt and all these kinds of things.
If they lack the ability to check those claims against historical evidence, if the schools have failed and even worse, if the schools are encouraging that opposite mindset, that pro-socialist mindset, it is all the more reason why I think parents need to step up and make sure that they’re inoculating their own children against that viral disease of democratic socialism. That they are doing their part to give them some resistance where they don’t often have any. That, in a nutshell, is why we do The Tuttle Twins to try and empower those parents, to engage that way and help their children.
I want to talk about what you have available for those that may have not been exposed to The Tuttle Twins or heard about that before, what’s a way they can get started? What’s a way that they can learn more about you, Libertas, but also learn about The Tuttle Twins and a lot of the narrative we’ve been talking about?
Changing Habits: Any good parent who’s busy, stressed, and doesn’t know anything about everything search online or go on a Facebook group for help.
Libertas Institute is our parent organization of everything. It’s the think tank where we publish a lot of material about current events and laws we’re trying to get changed and then we go about changing them. That website is LibertasUtah.org. For the parents that are interested in The Tuttle Twins books that we’ve been talking about, if you go to TuttleTwins.com, you can use coupon, FORTY, and get 40% off our pack of kids’ books. We have eleven books. Each of them is based on a classic text and they cover a wide range of different issues. They come with free activity workbooks and then throughout the checkout, you’ll see other things that we have as well. We’ve got books for teens, which they were popular when we were kids, the choose your own adventure books, “If you want to go in the cave, turn to page 73. If you want to run away, turn to page whatever.”
We have a series of books based on that model, where the young readers, teens, and young adults reading our books can observe the different outcomes based on their political and economic decisions in these stories and observe what that’s like. We’ve got books for teens. In 2021, we’re producing like eight more books. We’re trying to crank stuff out and get stuff out there because the demand is strong. We’ve got a podcast as well, The Way the World Works, you can find that at TuttleTwins.com/podcast. We’d love to help even more families. I appreciate you giving us the platform as always. I love talking to your audience.
Maybe speak briefly as we conclude to the digital course that you have. It talks about the basics of economics.
All of our books talk about these issues, ideas and principles, but they don’t go into a ton of depth. It’s planting a bunch of seeds and giving some broad exposure to a lot of these ideas. It’s up to the parents to go deeper and talk to their kid about more stuff, read the original material and things like that. However, for free market economics specifically, we wanted to empower parents, especially because of the rise of democratic socialism and all these ideas. To help their kids understand the specific nuts and bolts of economics, not in a boring college Econ101 way with supply and demand, curves, and charts and all that stuff. It’s an economic way of thinking. It’s a way to see human action and why people behave the way they do and how that works and why it works.
FreeMarket.TuttleTwins.com is where you can find that there’s a cute video with my kids that you go watch. That’s a fun little bonus. We had a lot of fun doing that little marketing video, but we call it Free Market Rules. It’s a double entendre because free markets rule, they’re awesome but the course also is like the rules of the free market, understanding the nuts and bolts. That’s a week by week content drip. You sign up and that week you get Unit 1 Lesson 1 and then every week you get some additional information to hold your hand throughout and bit by bit helps kids and usually, their parents learn the nuts and bolts about free markets.
Connor, you do so much good. Thank you again for taking the time. We had to do a follow-up to this because there are definitely some things that I believe people are going to respond to. Let’s do a Q&A follow-up.
It sounds great. Thanks as always, Patrick. I appreciate it.
Connor Boyack is founder and president of Libertas Institute, a free-market think tank in Utah.
Named one of Utah’s most politically influential people by The Salt Lake Tribune, Connor’s leadership has led to dozens of legislative victories spanning a wide range of areas such as privacy, government transparency, property rights, drug policy, education, personal freedom, and more.
A public speaker and author of 21 books, Connor is best known for The Tuttle Twins books, a children’s series introducing young readers to economic, political, and civic principles.
Connor lives near Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife and two homeschooled children.
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With a background in economics and marketing, Patrick immediately realized the opportunity to teach investors, business owners, professionals and families on a large scale using modern digital media and communication technology. Since 2007 Paradigm Life has worked with thousands of individuals in all 50 states.
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Connor Boyack is founder and president of Libertas Institute, a free-market think tank in Utah.
