Business Innovators Radio - Robert Rolih – Investment Educator – On How To Grow Wealth With Simple Strategies

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

In this insightful episode of Megabucks Radio, host Nina Hershberger welcomes international guest Robert Rolih, an investment educator from Slovenia and author of the bestselling book “The Million Dollar Decision.”Robert shares his remarkable journey from building his fortune as an entrepreneur in a small Slovenian village to losing much of it by trusting financial advisors, and eventually reclaiming his financial future through self-education.With over 7,000 students from 73 countries in his online investing program, Robert is passionate about helping everyday people take control of their finances, avoid costly fees, and grow their wealth using simple, proven strategies.For listeners who want to learn more go to https://go.robertrolih.com.MegaBucks Radio with Nina Hershbergerhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/megabucks-radio-with-nina-hershbergerSource: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/robert-rolih-investment-educator-on-how-to-grow-wealth-with-simple-strategies

Welcome to Megabox Radio. Conversations with successful entrepreneurs, sharing their tips and strategies for success, real-world ideas that can put Megabox in your bank account. Here's your host, Nina Hirshberger. Well, hello there. This is Nina Hirshberger. I want to welcome you to today's show. I have a very special guest.

Actually, this is unusual because he's an international guest. I most of the time will be interviewing people here in the United States, but I'm very excited to introduce today. Robert Roley, I would have tried to pronounce it a little different. We'll get to that in just a minute. But he hails from a small village in Slovenia. Still lives there. Built his fortune as an entrepreneur only to lose it by trusting financial advisors. Now, I personally have just read his business.

book. It's a fascinating story about how to, the title of the book is the million dollar decision. So, Robert, welcome to today's show. Hello, it's a great honor to be here. Yeah, so let's go back in time. I always like to know the backstory. So you live in this little village. So how did you become an entrepreneur? What happened? How did you lose it? Tell us the backstory. Yeah, I grew up in a backwater village in Slovenia. This is a tiny country just near Italy in the Central Europe.

And when I was growing up, it was still a socialistic country, you know, so it was a part of the communist bloc. And my parents were blue-collar workers. They worked in a nearby factory. We never had money at home, you know. I can still remember my father, you know, whenever I asked him for something, you know, he was this tough guy with Jimmy Hendricks' hairstyle, the reply was always the same, Robert, we don't have any money,

money doesn't grow our trees, you know. So, when I was growing up, when I was a teenager, maybe that was the reason why I always wanted something more out of my life. I wanted maybe to become wealthy. Maybe I wanted to, you know, to become

someone. And when I was a student, the opportunity presented itself, and I started my own company from scratch in a student dorm. And my first business was a web design business. I learned how to code a bit. This was the early days of the web, of the Internet. And I basically learned on my own how to create websites.

And I started to offer this service to entrepreneurs. Now, after five years of hard work, this company started to produce quite a lot of profits. And I was like in heaven, you know, it was like, wow, amazing, you know, all this money coming into my life. I couldn't believe it, you know. And at that time, I knew that I should invest part of the money that I'm making, you know, for my retirement, for my family. But I was totally financially illiterate, you know. And because I didn't know how to invest, I trusted financial advisors and gurus and bankers. You know, and then after years and years and years of giving them my business profits to invest, you know, I had a conversation with my wife, Sarah, and she said, Robert, I know that you trust these guys, but maybe just, you know, let's take a look at what is happening with all these investments.

So I ordered all the account statements, and when the envelopes arrived and I opened them, it was like, what? are there some zeros missing? You know, money that we worked hard to earn was mostly gone. And that was basically a huge shock for me. It was devastating. It was terrible at that time, yeah. So what did you do? Did you have to start all over?

What happened then? Yeah, it was really painful at that time. I lost my motivation for work, but, you know, I was lucky that I was able to turn things around by realizing that I need to take control over my money and investing. And now I always say, the person who controls the money wins, you know. So you need to control your own money. You should never give up control of your money or your own investments to someone else, you know, especially not to advisors or money managers and so on.

Because in most cases, their interests are not aligned with ours. And they are more often focused on earning commission than growing your wealth. So, you know, you need to learn to manage your money yourself. You need to learn how to invest it on your own because no one will ever care about your money than you do. And this was the biggest lesson that I needed to learn in my life, you know. And later, you know, I realized that, you know, I spent quite a lot of time learning about personal finance and investing. So when I decided to take control of this area, I know in my life, I spent years and years, approximately seven years, learning how to invest, learning what is going on behind the scenes of the financial industry,

talking with the financial industry insiders, reading books. I read more than 300 books over that seven years about investing and personal finance. So later I realized that most people have the same problems that I had in my career. They are trusting their financial advisors, bankers, investing gurus, and they are losing money, you know, without even knowing it. So that is why I started, you know, this career as an investing educator. Yeah, so you call it an investing educator.

I call it a financial educator, but is that what started and that's the reason you wrote your book, the million dollar decision? Yeah, that was the main reason, you know. I said to myself, I need to get this one. word out because all the people I was talking to, they basically didn't have a clue about these things, about the effect of small commissions and fees on your long-term returns and stuff like this. So the main message of the core message of the book is very simple, you know, small fees you pay when investing can lead to big financial problems. And when I was,

when I trusted financial advisors and so on, I didn't realize that one or two percent management fee that they were charging can lead to big, big, big problems. And that is maybe the most important message of the book, you know. In the book I show how even a regular investor, every-day person, someone investing maybe just 5,000 or maybe 10,000 per year, can easily lose over a million dollars by the time they retire, you know.

And all that because of these hidden fees, commissions, and maybe also bad products that the financial industry keeps pushing, you know, and selling, you know. And these small commissions and fees, you know, they don't look dangerous at the first glance. But over time, they compound and they rob you of your financial freedom. So, yeah, it's a very important book, and it already saved a lot of financial lives. If you want, I can share a real-life story of my youngest son's teacher.

You know, last year, my youngest child's teacher invited me to give a short presentation about the book and money and investing to his class. you know, this was like a lively group of 10-year-olds, and I really needed to simplify things, you know. But they listened, they were focused, it was amazing. And at the end of the session, I gave each student a copy of the book and the teacher also took one. Now, the interesting thing happened a couple of months later. I got an email from the teacher, and he told me that after reading the book, he began questioning his investments. His financial advisor has been managing for him

for years, you know. So he did what most people never do. He looked at the actual numbers. And that's when the shock hit him, you know. After years of investing, he realized that he was barely making, breaking

even, you know. And meanwhile, the stock market has gone up more than 40%. So if I simplify this, you know, So let's say that he had 100,000 US dollars invested. Missing out on a 40% gain, this means he lost $40,000 and not because of the market crash, not because he bought the wrong crypto-mim coin or whatever, you know, but mostly because

of one thing, high fees. And he was not even aware of this, you know. So instead of facing maybe financial hardship later in life, this thing. this teacher is now on track to retire with a very, very solid pension pot, all because he read, you know, one book. And that's a story that really gives me a lot of energy and enthusiasm and so on, because I see that it really, you know, the book really helps people. Well, and I think when you release the book, didn't you have immediately lots of sales at that point? Yeah, the book became international best sales. It was also translated into Chinese Mandarin, into Bulgarian language.

It was also published in India as a special edition, Thailand, Taiwan, and several other countries. So, yeah, it was really amazing to see how many people read the book and all the feedback and so on. So, yeah, it's really, it was really amazing. Okay, so you wrote the book and released it in 2017. Fast forward now eight years later, and you described yourself as an investment educator. Tell me then what's happened. So after I wrote the book, I realized that, you know, people started to ask me, you know, if I have any seminars or workshops or, you know, stuff like this.

And I didn't have, I didn't have anything, you know, at the time. But because of all these questions, I said to myself, okay, why don't I create an online course maybe, you know, about this topic. And this was the start, you know. I started to it with the course. I started to educate people about this in an online form. And this really took off, you know. And right now I have members from 73 countries. I have more than 7,000 members from 75.

three countries. So yeah, it's an amazing course. So when you say members, so they can take your online course and what I think I understand you're saying is they decide and they do their own investing. Yeah, so I just teach them how to, how to, what are the best investments, how to allocate their assets, how much to put into low-cost index funds or ETS. These are big baskets of stocks where you invest for a very, very, very low fee. Then, you know, how much to invest in Bitcoin and other big cryptos, how much to put into bonds depending on your age and with capatite. Why investing in gold may be a bit.

We are investing in gold purely because of safety, not because we want gains. and then, you know, so I teach them all about this, about all the mistakes that they can make and so on, how to avoid them. And then I also give them, you know, constant support. And I send them emails, you know, what is happening in the markets, you know, maybe from time to time when I see a good opportunity, I send them an email with buy signal and so on. So, yeah, it's a really good support, you know,

so that they never feel alone in this investing world, and they don't need financial advisors anymore, you know, after they become members. Okay, so you're living in Slovenia, and when you call it, you're investing in the U.S. market, correct? Yeah, correct. So most of our investments go into the U.S. stock market because the U.S. stock market represents more than 65% of the global stock market,

and also United States, is the most entrepreneurial country. All the big tech giants are from the United States. So basically, it's a no-brainer. You need to be invested mostly in the United States. Okay, I want to switch a little bit. Let's go into Bitcoin, because, you know, there's a lot of, you know, opinions on Bitcoin. So tell me what your opinion is on that.

Bitcoin, my take is that Bitcoin is a store of value for the digital age. So it doesn't compete with US dollar, but it competes with gold. Okay, so this means Bitcoin is not meant for buying burgers and groceries, but for long-term storage. Okay, so Bitcoin is not for transactions, but it's for long-term storage, just like gold. And Bitcoin is basically an improved gold. It's transparent, it's liquid 24-7, no central bank can print more of it, no miner can mine more of it, you know, it has a fixed supply. And that is why I sometimes I call gold, sometimes I call Bitcoin, gold for the new generation, you know.

And because Bitcoin is a newer asset compared to gold, it's still tiny compared to gold. This means that approximately 10 times more money is invested in gold compared to Bitcoin. And this basically creates an opportunity for growth. So, yeah, Bitcoin should be a part of any, every portfolio, you know, not as big as stocks, of course, but still significant part, you know. And, yeah, I'm investing in Bitcoin. And sometimes we are maybe also lucky that we know how to maybe buy Bitcoin when the price is low. So, for example, in 2022, this was my best. a signal, you know, that I gave to my members, you know, when Jim Kramer, this is a famous

CNBC TV host, was yelling, you know, because Bitcoin went from $66,000 U.S. dollars per Bitcoin to $16,000 per Bitcoin in 2022. And in November, Jim Kramer was yelling, you know, get out of crypto, get out of Bitcoin, sell everything, you know, because it will go to zero. So this was on the CNBC. And at that time, I gave my big buy signal, you know, for Bitcoin when it was 16,000. So, yeah, we are now sitting on huge gains. So, yeah, it's fun, you know, how markets work.

You know, sometimes you just need to do the opposite of what the crowd does. So the point with Bitcoin is you're not going in and out of it. You're just holding it for that growth of the time. Yeah, and sometimes we are buying it when the price goes down a lot. And sometimes we also take profits, you know, because, you know, Bitcoin has, it's very volatile. Because right now, you know, if you take a look at gold, it's like an, you know, elderly man. It's moving very slowly. there is a little volatility, it's more conservative and so on.

But Bitcoin is like a teenager. Okay, Bitcoin is still young and it's jumping, and it's jumping down constantly. So sometimes, you know, when it skyrocketed, you know, then you, yeah, it's okay to take some profits. We recently took some profits when it was like at $120,000 per Bitcoin. know. So now, Bitcoin is a type of crypto. So there's other crypto, but you're focused primarily on the Bitcoin just like you are with index stocks? We are also investing in some big, other big

crypto projects. These are, I call them business crypto projects, you know, like Ethelium, Solana, sui, and so on. And if you take a look at Bitcoin, Bitcoin doesn't create anything. It's a store of value asset, just like gold. But these business crypto projects create value. That is why I call them technology stocks 2.0. For example, Ethereum, Solana and so on, you know, these are big platforms and there are thousands and thousands of developers who are creating apps on top of these platforms. It's just like, you know, a good comparison would be your computer. It runs on

iOS or if you have Apple or it runs on Microsoft Windows. And Ethereum is just like Windows because other developers are then creating different apps, financial apps, business apps,

games and so on, fitness apps and so on, on top of this technology. And that is why we also invest in this big business this crypto project or infrastructure crypto projects because they are like some kind of platforms, you know, for the future and a lot of different applications run on them. And in the future, there will be much, much, much more, of course, of them, you know.

And the value of these networks or of these platforms will very likely go up, you know. So, Robert, this is so fascinating. So if I can summarize this whole thing, when you had the wake-up call that, your financial advisor had been getting commissions, let me put it that way, which resulted in you really not making any profits. In fact, it was going down. You decided you were going to take the bowl by the horn and you were going to do the learning. You were going to figure it out. And you took seven years to do that and, you know, just really delved into it.

But you don't want to be a financial planner. You don't want to be a financial advisor. You don't want to be certified. You're in Slovenia anyway. No, no. I don't want to do that. But you became an educator. And I think when we talked before we started this show,

I think what you said was you're telling people what you do, but they have to make their own decision, and they make their own trades, and they do their own thing. You just tell them what you give them guidelines. Yeah. First I teach them what. what is good, what is bad, what are the key principles, what are the big mistakes that you can do and so on,

so that they understand what they are doing. So when it comes to investing, you need to understand the investments that you are making. The biggest losses come from investments that you don't understand. Let me give you an example. Boris Becker, this was a very famous tennis star a couple of decades ago, you know, 80s and 90s. He made a fortune, of course, because he was so good at tennis. But then he lost it all.

And he needed to declare personal bankruptcy. Why? Because he invested in some strange opportunities, you know, in Africa and so on. He didn't understand what was he investing into, you know? Like one investment was an oil company in Nigeria that, you know, later they found out that it was a scam. So basically, if you invest in something that you don't understand, then it's a huge, huge risk. So you need to understand the investments that you are making. And that is why I try to educate my members, you know, what is Bitcoin, what is Ethereum,

what are ETFs, you know, what are stock ETFs, how they work and so on, because only after that you can be sure that this is a good investment, you know. And so once you, do that education through your online master class or whatever, then they do, when you call them members, then they can become a member of your ongoing education. I mean, I think you do a few live events, but you also primarily do it through email and stuff? Yeah, so the support, after they join my program, after that I have two times per year, I have webinars for members, so member websites.

webinars every June and every December. And then I also have email updates and signals and so on. So they usually get from, I don't know, six, seven, maybe to 15 emails per year from me because we are long-term investors, you know, we don't want to trade in and out of the market every day or something, you know. And most of my emails are not buy or sell signals, you know. They are just updates, what is happening, where is maybe a. some opportunity.

Like in April when Trump went out with all these tariffs, you know, and the markets went down 40%. We were buying heavily at that time, you know. I wrote two emails and I also recorded a special video for my members because it was such

buying opportunity, you know, such a huge buying opportunity. So yeah, they get a lot of support from me. Yeah. Wow. So if somebody wanted to, and I'm looking at the clock, and so never mind. The last question, though, I want to ask you is, you know, with all of the thousands and thousands of financial advisors and investors and everybody out there, why should somebody listen to you

versus anybody else? Yeah, good question. Mostly because of the results, you know, mostly because of the results. We have been doing this since 2012, and the results are amazing. We are basically outperforming with our strategy, like 99% of the best experts. And I have a ton of success stories, and all of my members. We are basically doing the same thing. So all my members, you know, if they stay with me for a long period of time, they get the same results, you know.

and I can just tell you one example. I have a one of my members, he's a lawyer, well-known lawyer, and he gave me an amazing testimonial. He shared it also on LinkedIn and Facebook and so on. And he said, you know, that he attended my free master class, and then he joined my course. And his friend, you know, was also with him, you know, and they listened to the three mastercast together.

And then he joined, so the lawyer joined, but his friend said, now I will do it on my own. I had a couple of friends who are into investing, and I will follow them and so on. So after three years, then he said, after three years, we met again with this friend, and he was basically breaking even.

Meanwhile, he, the lawyer, who joined my course, he tripled his investment. So it was like, one of the best testimonials that I got. Well, that is quite a testimonial. So I know. I also show it in my master class, you know, but I have a ton of them, you know.

I have hundreds and hundreds of testimonials and six stories. So, yeah, it's amazing. Well, so as I'm looking at the clock, so tell people, I know you've got a free master class. It's about an hour long. How can somebody get a hold of that? Yes, so I've just prepared, it's basically a 90-minute online master class, where I share free keys to investing in the age of money printing and artificial intelligence, and I also

share my number one strategy, smart, long-term investors used to double their returns. So it's free to attend, and they can register, you know, anyone can register at Robert Tolley.com slash masterclass, or you can just go to Robertrolley.com. my surname is R-O-L-I-H. So, Robert R-O-L-I-H.com. And then you can go slash masterclass or also, you know, the registration is on my main page. Well, man, that's very generous of you. Thank you.

As soon as we hang up, I'm going on. Yeah, this master class is basically really, really amazing content, you know. So it's not like selling, selling, selling. Yeah, of course, I present my course in the end, but it's like more than one hour of very, very good content, you know. So even if you don't join, it will really be valuable, you know. Well, that's fantastic. Well, Robert, thank you, thank you, thank you for taking your time.

I know when we started, it was about 9 p.m. your time. They're in Slovenia. So I appreciate you taking the time. and chatting. And I look forward to going through that masterclass myself, and I'm sure a lot of other people will as well. Perfect. Thank you for inviting me.

It was really a pleasure to share some guidelines about investing with fellow entrepreneurs. Yeah. All right. Well, until next time, this is Niner Hersberger, saying go out and make it a great day. Thank you for listening to Megynne. Megabucks Radio with Nina Hirshberger.

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