Digital Social Hour - The Hidden Wealth Building Tools The Financial System Doesn't Want You To Know | Ben Oberg DSH #1380

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

🚀 From $0 to $400K/Month: Learn the secrets to entrepreneurial success in this game-changing episode of the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 📈 Join the conversation as guest Ben shares his inspiring journey from scraping by with a coffee table and laptop to making $400K per month. Packed with valuable insights on navigating business challenges, mastering financial strategies, and building true wealth, this episode is a goldmine for aspiring entrepreneurs! 💡✨ Discover Ben’s unique approach to leveraging gold, silver, and institutional-grade whole life insurance to become his own bank. 🏦 He opens up about overcoming lawsuits, building passive income through real estate and oil investments, and creating a life of freedom. Plus, hear how his book, "American Mediocrity," dives into conquering setbacks and scaling to new heights both professionally and personally. 📚🔥 Don’t miss out on this insider look at what it really takes to succeed in today’s world. Watch now and subscribe for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 📺 CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:34 - Ben's Early Years 02:27 - Legal Battles 04:10 - Bouncing Back After Losing Everything 06:24 - Starting His Marketing Agency 07:54 - Wealth Creation vs. Mainstream Information 09:19 - Traditional Retirement Plans Are a Scam 11:40 - Making 10% Returns Without Risk 18:14 - Gold and Silver vs. Stock Market 19:55 - Tax Benefits of Real Estate and Oil Investments 24:47 - Investing in Gold and Silver 27:50 - The Case for Undervalued Silver 29:10 - Inflation Impact on Silver 34:10 - Financial System and Poverty 41:19 - US Dollar Collapse Predictions 48:50 - American Mediocrity 53:04 - Contacting Ben APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Ben Oberg https://www.instagram.com/benoberg https://thecapitalistnetwork.com/digitasocialhour American Mediocrity: Oberg, Ben: 9798310592131: Amazon.com: Books To learn how to build wealth with Ben and his millionaire and billionaire investment partners, go to 👉 https://thecapitalistnetwork.com/digitasocialhour 👈 and join his community This is where you’ll get access to the investment strategies, tax strategies, mentorship, and wealth-building opportunities normally kept amongst friends and family. Through TCN, you’ll be able to go at your own pace and get access to deals exclusively offered to TCN members, higher preferred returns on real estate, institutional grade financial products (the kind that financial advisors don’t even know exist), and more. Members get a free, signed copy of American Mediocrity and access to in-person events, conferences, and masterminds! Go to 👉 https://thecapitalistnetwork.com/digitasocialhour 👈 and join now! SPONSORS: SAMRBOSA: https://sambrosa.com/ LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ The views and opinions expressed by guests on Digital Social Hour are solely those of the individuals appearing on the podcast and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the host, Sean Kelly, or the Digital Social Hour team. While we encourage open and honest conversations, Sean Kelly is not legally responsible for any statements, claims, or opinions made by guests during the show. Listeners are encouraged to form their own opinions and consult professionals for advice where appropriate. Content on this podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, financial, or professional advice. Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad #goldprice #silverstacking #silverprice

Gold I a little more abolish on silver right now. You buy the physical or you buy the physical? I don't buy ETFs. The reason I buy physical is because I can stack it all up and I can get a line of credit against it. No way I have a line of credit against my silver and gold. So brilliant because then you could buy more. I literally when I say I am my own bank, I am my own bank.

Okay guys got a very interesting story today. We got Ben here today from zero to four hundred thousand dollars a month. Thanks for coming on man. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me man. Yeah, I gotta hear how you pull that off because that is not a easy number to get to. I started by losing all of it every month for a very long time. That's usually how it goes, right? Yeah. Yeah, I basically every month for a very long time. That's usually how it goes. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

I basically, um, you know, when I got out of high school, I was just looking at people that were going to college and getting degrees and then coming back and working at subway and I'm like, man, this doesn't make much sense to me. So like, is the information college is not working? Like if you're a doctor, a lawyer, engineer, I get it, but I'm like, man, I want to own my own business. I don't know anybody going to college. that's, you know, learning from successful, you know, business professors.

So I just took a minute and I'm like, you know, one thing I like is cars. I'm a huge car fanatic. So I ended up going into sales and being in the car business for like four years, taught me just the foundation of everything I use today in my business. And when I was about 22, I quit. I didn't have a college degree or not a certificate in the world. And so I started out on my own, no money in the bank,

a mortgage, a car payment, all the typical American debt, and just scrape by at a coffee table on a laptop, started my own business. And then I got into investing and learning from people that were multimillionaires and billionaires. But I went from zero to three, 350 K a month and lost it. Had to build it back from scratch. I did that twice.

Damn. I went through three or four lawsuits in business and I learned that if you are successful in business and you've got a product or service that that industry wants, they'll just exhaust you in legal fees because they can outspend you. And so I learned my way around kind of our business legal system. And I'm like, man, the more I can do with investments and things that are a little bit in my control with less people and less big businesses, the more passive I can create, the more it's going gonna have freedom for me. What did you figure out in the business legal side of things

to, I guess, protect yourself better? Trust, super important, have a trust. Holding companies where they're like non-disclosure states, like Wyoming, for example. LLCs, very important. Bracketing assets where, you know, if you've got a certain amount of, you don't own anything.

Like Sean doesn't own anything. Ben doesn't own anything, right? It's a business that's owned by another business that owns that stuff because at the end of the day, it's not, you're not trying to screw anybody over. It's if you are ethical and you hustle and you show up and you get big enough, people will want to fuck with you. And that's just the truth. I've dealt with two so far and yeah, it's unavoidable. Dude, I used to think like, I'll just have like, my lawyer calls me. He's my lawyer and my phone.

You can't have just my lawyer. There's like six lawyers now, you know, you need to allocate like 10, 20%. They say just illegal. Literally every month. Yeah. Yeah. Part of the game. And you have to just go, you know what, except that that is going to be something

in business, because if you let it consume you, it's like, I don't look at lawsuits as a bad thing. It built my character. As long as you're on the good side of it. Right. You can be the defendant, you can be the plaintiff, but if you're the honest one, you're the ethical one, you're on the right side of it. Exactly.

So you just have to know that that's part of business, part of scaling, unless you're staying at 30, 40, 50k a year, probably not. But you scale, you're going to get fucked with. Yup. You could be running a charity. You could be Mr. Beef. You're going to get sued. Absolutely.

You know, it doesn't matter. You could be the nicest guy in the world. Doesn't matter. If you're making a million a month, you're getting sued. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's just part of the game, man. You just got to smile.

It literally, that's why I smile. It makes me laugh because it's like, man man there's so much bullshit that I have been through and all at the same time but you just got to grow. How'd you bounce back the second time or first time I guess too? Oh man um you know I'll keep the uh I'll keep the names and the details out but long story short I had helped a company I had a marketing firm still have it and I And I'd helped this company scale to about $140,000 a month. And on stage in front of 15, 20,000 people, another company took credit for it. And I asked them immediately after why they approached me

and said, we heard you do good work. And I said, of course you did. Because I can just shut all these ads off right now and just turn all the income to zero. But you took credit credit for it you know it wasn't your work. I had a cease and desist the next day and then they instilled a lot of doubt in my clients and I started seeing them drop left to right and I went from like I said about 350,000 a month to zero and about. If you're building something doesn't matter if it's a business a brand or just a better version of

yourself then you already know the work never really stops your brain is always on Ideas at 2 a.m. Problems at 3 plans at 4, but here's the truth If you never shut down you're going to crash fast. That's why I use Sambrosa. It's not hype. It's not some trendy sleep pack It's a legit syrup that helps you fall asleep when your brain won't let you. You take it and 20 to 30 minutes later, you're out. Not groggy, not drugged up, just asleep like you're supposed to be. Then you wake up clear with no brain fog, no dragging yourself out of bed, you get your hours in and you actually feel like you slept. Sleep isn't optional.

It's not self care, it's strategy. If you're not getting it right, you're leaving energy, focus and money on the table. Sambrosa helps me sleep. It helps me execute That's the only reason I talk about it. You want to get ahead start by getting real rest check out the link below in their website WWW S a Sambrosa.com Six weeks I had to fire like 20 people and like I'm 27 or something at that point.

So like, I'm like, just sitting here like, dude, I'm doing good now. My lifestyle's becoming good. I'm able to start achieving some of the goals I want. And that just gets swept out and right during COVID too. So it's like, man, like everything's shut down. It's, it's hard to scale. So I ended up, ironically, you're marketing for all these different clients

and all these different industries. And two of them happen to be financial advisors. And so just out of the necessity to have to adapt and overcome, I'm like, well, it's hard to get results for everybody in all different directions, in all different industries when you're marketing. So why don't we just niche down into an industry?

So we ended up working with financial advisors. And this is like five years ago at this point. And in that five year period of time, I got really good results for advisor one, advisor one referred me to advisor two, and then my company went and started working with a lot of advisors. So we kind of snowballed that back in. But I looking back on it, I'm really glad all of it happened because if I hadn't started working with financial advisors and some of them are great and some of them aren't, I wouldn't have been able to see how little they actually know about building wealth, creating income, paying less taxes. And they don't, they don't know anything about that.

So I, in one hand, I of marketing and generating appointments for what would be considered America's top 5% of financial advisors. Mm-hmm, you know cumulatively managing billions of dollars. These are my clients and in another hand, I'm learning from guys that are Absolute billionaires in assets where they pay way less in taxes and they have way more leverage and they're not waiting till they're 65 to retire. And so it kind of gave me that contrast to go, I'm not gonna listen to any of these people about my money advice, I'm gonna go over here. And so I got the agency back up to making multiple six figures a month but you know I didn't

invest for quite a while because, you know, you can probably relate to this, if you're making 400, 500, a million a month, and you're looking at passive income where you're generating 10, 11, 15% a year, you're like, well, I'll just keep earning my income. Right. And so I'm like, these guys over here are doing 25, 30, 40%. And their effective returns are much higher because they're in assets where they're paying less taxes and that's the problem here is like we learn the stock market, we learn mutual funds, we learn a

little bit about crypto because that's all easy to access. Maybe fix and flips like that's the mainstream information but that mainstream shit doesn't doesn't help you create wealth. It gets you where everybody else is. So the stuff that I started diving into, I realized, well, I was very fortunate because I just really happened to network with the right people. And when I start working with people, it's like, how do they treat people?

Do they show up on time? Can I trust them? Do they do what they say they're going to do? Do they make excuses? If they fuck up, are they accountable? And I'm like, okay, all these people I'm starting to work with meet all those metrics. And so I was able to establish really good relationships with a lot of top dogs

in real estate and oil, um, and institutional grade financial products that most people don't even know exist. And so I learned a lot of these strategies, started implementing them myself and, um, did really well with them. Wow. That's impressive, man. Yeah. You're providing a really valuable service. Absolutely. Not only are you helping them save tax, but a lot of people are happy with 5-10%, you know. Right.

But that shouldn't be the norm, especially with inflation and everything going on these days. You might lose money if you only make 5% a year. Well, that's the thing. So it's like, look, if you go into... Let's talk about what we're taught, right? Go to school, go to college, right? Get a job. And if you want to go to college for the experience, I get it. And the networking, I get it. But most 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds aren't thinking about networking, right?

Think about partying, girls, guys, whatever, right? If you're an athlete, you've got to go to school. If you're a doctor, you have to go to school. But it's the only form of debt collateralized by something that doesn't exist, your future job. You have no idea what you're gonna earn. Two trillion dollars of student loan debt, largest debt of the United States,

or largest asset, excuse me, of the United States government. And so you graduate and now you're gonna go become an employee with benefits where you get a 401k or an IRA or whatever. And so I look at this stuff and I'm like, here's the thing, smart money moves. Institutional grade investors, the big, big, big companies, they move their money around that is dependent on economic cycles.

You go into a traditional IRA, you're in it from, let's just say, 20 years old till you're 60 years old. That's 40 years. In America, on average, in a 40-year period of time, we're going to have six recessions. So why are you keeping your money locked up in something with all this red tape? Riding out these recessions when you can't multiply that investment, you can't increase it, you can't leverage it. So you go into a traditional IRA, 7% annual return, let's just say you put in $10,000 a year, you're gonna have $1.2 million after investing in it for 40 years. Now if you do not live in a state with income taxes and you go to collect that, you're gonna pay

about 37% in income tax. So you've got $700,000 that you've actually collected against your $400,000. So you've net $700,000 that you've actually collected against your $400,000. So you've netted $300,000, but because of inflation, as you mentioned, averaging 2-3%, historically on an annual basis, it's been higher in recent years, your purchase power is like $160,000. So you're going to deploy money for four decades for half of your life and get 160 grand after it and Like I sit here and I'll go over all of this in a little bit here Yeah, but like before I do anything with my money

I'm making almost 11% on it before I even invest it insured. I can't lose it I can't lose it and And very, very minimal taxes as well. And a reason I know most people don't know about what we'll get into here is the type of stuff I use. There's only about 30 financial advisors in the entire United States that are even allowed to sell or offer the type of financial products I use. So you've got to work with, out of the hundreds of thousands of financial advisors,

I get disputes all the time with them. They're like, what you say is a lie doesn't exist. I'm like you're ignorant. You literally do not know so that's the crazy shit Why is this so gay keeps you bank told me 30 have access. Well, you know, that's a great question I don't even know if I I know that answer but I could tell you this so I use a Whole life insurance policy and everybody's got this big thing about insurance policies. They're like, oh no, it'll make sense. Use term insurance. I only use IULs, whatever.

Everybody's been very misinformed about how insurance works. 95% of policies sold in the United States are term insurance or they're what's called an IUL, index universal life policy, or they're a VUL variable universal life policy and they have hidden insurance costs. Only about 5% are what's called a cash value whole life policy. And only about 30 advisors in the entire United States can actually provide institutional grade whole life policies, which are what a lot of banks and

institutions buy, not regular everyday people like you and me. So what I do is I'm like step one, how do I pay as little taxes as possible? And that's not the only thing I look at because if you are in an investment that has a very high return, but it has some tax implications, it's not just taxes. You want to look at like, how long is your money locked up? Is it liquid? Can you manipulate around market cycles so you don't have to be part of them, right? Can you leverage them?

Can you lower taxes? Can you accelerate the cycle of how you're investing so you can keep repeating? And so like my steps are one, I got to be able to be more tax savvy, lower taxes. Okay, so how do I do that? If I'm an employee, there's like a book that's about this big that you get to operate out of. Here's the codes and IRS that you can use.

The minute you start investing under a business, an LLC, okay, and running your expenses, your costs through there, you have a whole different play of tax rules. And this is where a lot more deductions and things like depreciation and cost segregation and all these huge, huge terms that sound confusing but really aren't. You get to play in that rule book. So it's like step one, I got to get in a more tax friendly manner of investing. Step two, some people call it building your own bank. I use two assets to stockpile and I borrow against them. One of them is what I call whole life insurance. I use something specifically called a HECV policy. It stands for high early cash value. Now, a really, really, really good carrier, which has a credit rating higher than the United States Treasury, all right, so highly trusted, and older than Wells Fargo Bank of America Chase.

This is the kind of stuff that Ray Kroc used, McDonald's, JCPenney, Walt Disney to expand like the Disney portfolio and all the real estate that Disney owned. He would use whole life policies that were institutional grade. And so they give you two things. They give you what's called a guaranteed return. And that usually varies like two to 4%. It's not anything crazy. Nobody's happy about that.

But then they have a dividend so long as the company stays profitable. So the carrier I have has never had less than a 6% dividend in the last 50 years. So I have 4% that's guaranteed to me. And that dividend, since it's technically not guaranteed, even though again, they've never failed to pay out less than 6% in 50 something years, I'm getting 10% before I do anything. It's insured, I can't lose it.

So I buy very little insurance. I don't give a shit about the insurance. I don't care so much about the death benefit. I care how can I use it as a wealth building tool while I'm alive. And so HEC-V policy stands for high early cash value. Let's just say somebody dumps $10,000 in, it means the majority is going to go towards cash value, the minority is going to go towards insurance. And if I have a 4% guaranteed return, I'm going off of the policy I have, and a 6% dividend, mine's actually 6.4% this year, I'm making 10.4% before I've done anything, I'm going

to put it back into the cash value, compound interest, right? And I let that build up. And then at a certain point, I go, okay, I'm going to get a line of credit against this. Interest rates right now on houses are 6, 7%. The interest rate on my line of credit against this. Interest rates right now on houses are 6, 7%. The interest rate on my line of credit is 4%. So I have cash growing. I don't keep my money in the bank.

It's growing at 10.4% year after year after year, but I can borrow against it at four. So before I've done anything, I'm already making 10.4, right? And then I go into assets that provide me cashflow, that have very little tax implications and that allow me to pay that line of credit back and repeat the process, keep the rest of the money. So I use, again, step one, pay less taxes. Step two, I use a HECV policy.

And I don't get anything for saying this. I'm not an advisor. I'm not insurance licensed. Like, this is just the shit that I do. Yeah. Right? And I learned this from a guy that owns 60 something rental properties, manages 600 million in assets, and is one of America's top 0.5% recognized financial advisors. I'm like big deal dude.

Yeah. Right? Most advisors, average financial advisor makes $110,000 a year. I will put more money into silver and gold this week than they make in a year. That's crazy. So it's like, and I'm not saying that as an egotistical thing. It's like, why do we listen to people that don't have money on what to do with our money?

It's ironic, right? It's, it's ridiculous. In everything. It's, you listen to the guy in the gym that weighs 420 pounds about what you should do for a workout. You listen to your parents about all their opinions of what about what you should do for a workout. You listen to your parents about all their opinions of what they think you should do with your life, but they're not in your head knowing what your goals

and what your ambitions are, right? So I sit here and I'm like, okay, I stack this money in this policy. And then I go into gold and silver. And these are the two things that I have found I can get lines of credit against for very low rates. And the third step is what am I going to go into now that provides me cash flow and allows me to pay that line of credit back?

Because I don't want to make this too confusing for people. Imagine you get to a point where you've got $100,000 saved up in that life policy, for example, and you have a line of credit against it, you can go into things like oil and energy wells, that cash flow 25 to 35% a year, and you're already making 10 in that policy, right? This is where that 35, 45% annual returns come in. Very easy to pay that line of credit back very quickly,

get all your money out of the deal, and now anything is an infinite return after that point. You have no money in the deal. And what I have learned is that if you were to just study IRS tax codes and laws, which most CPAs don't know what I'm saying, right? You would find that real estate and investing in oil, not the stock market, but actual wells, pumping oil and

natural gas out of the ground, have the biggest tax deductions out of any asset class in the entire tax code. So I just sit here and I invest in real estate and you can do this whether you want to be like that active investor that's buying single families or duplexes. I'm busy. I'm a business owner like you. So I go into funds that I trust and I invest passively alongside them. I pocket the cashflow, pay the line of credit back,

keep the rest, and then I repeat. I get all of those tax benefits extended to me. Right off on the cashflow, if I go into a deal and there's like a big exit, like say I invest in an apartment complex alongside somebody that is in charge of it. I don't do anything. I just give them money. They pay me a check every month. When they decide to sell that apartment complex, I get a big payday. I can 1031 that into the next deal, right? Defer the tax.

But you also get what's called depreciation. So let's just say like a business has depreciated assets. The lights in this room, the fixtures in here, this table, that mic, this mic, all the stuff that's on this table right here, you can depreciate. So if you've got $100,000 a year of passive income, but you have items that the IRS is saying will wear out at a certain point or will lose value, you have items that the IRS is saying will wear out at a certain point or will lose value You can take that value loss right now against that passive income

so if I just let's say I have a hundred thousand dollars of your passive income and I have sixty thousand dollars of depreciation. I can only be taxed on forty thousand now And since it's passive income that rates only 20% anyways. Damn, I need to start doing that. So it's incredible dude. And I have a financial advisor. He never talked to me about this. No, it doesn't talk about this stuff. And I pay them 6k a month. Yeah. So stop that.

Yeah. 72,000 a year, man. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't know. We'll talk about that after this then. So like I go into that and then I go into oil where like I love oil. Oil is so cool because with oil you have what's called tangible drilling costs and you have what's called intangible drilling costs IDC deductions. So at the beginning of the year if you're like all right my name's Sean I want to invest in an oil well you could put let's just's just say, you put $100,000 into an oil well. If that oil well is already permitted, and it's already drilling,

it's already pumping oil out of the ground, you can write off as high as 80% of that investment capital. So that investment, you get rid of almost $100,000 and lower your tax basis to just that remaining $20,000. And then when that oil well starts pumping oil out of the ground and paying you cashflow, there's what's called a depletion allowance, which means your tax basis is only 85 cents per, for every dollar that comes out. Right.

And then you have what's called tangible drilling costs, which are depreciated over a seven year period of time. So the cashflow that you get from participating in oil, you also pay very minimal taxes on. And a lot of people don't know, but when you participate in an oil investment like that, you can also 1031 the exit into another oil deal, or you can go back into real estate,

you can go back and forth. And so what I do as I look at oil as an investment that a lot of times is good at the beginning of the year, because you get the most write-off on your capital that you're investing. And then real estate, a lot of times you see people make decisions before the end of the year, where they're trying to 1031 and stuff like that. So those are the assets that I go into because I'm like, look, I'm going to build my own bank using whole life insurance. It's dividend paying, high early cash value, institutional grade.

I don't want something from Primarico or an inferior carrier. I want to pay less taxes, step one. I want to become my own bank by building up a value and a cash value life policy or gold and silver, which I can talk about. And then I use that, I borrow against them. So I'm holding these assets that are going to continue going up in value. Every time they do, I increase my line of credit as they continue growing. And then I just keep repeating oil, real estate, oil, real estate.

And so the amount of leverage is crazy. And it's not all of this, you know, is maybe something that somebody needs to like rewind and go back into. But again, I keep it simple. I work very, very, very hard. I'm busy all the time. I've got a quality of life. I, you know, other things outside of business that are important to me.

So it's just a matter of learning, having the proximity to the information, having the right mentors and having the opportunities to go into. And you get that policy set up. You get good CPAs that help you pay less taxes. These are all people I have. And then you start going into these investments completely passively. You don't have to own real estate. Like I own very little real estate. I have a little bit, but I'm passive.

I invest in funds that are like high rent growth areas that are red markets that are landlord friendly where tenants have to pay their rent, you know, and I just pocket that cash flow. I do the same with oil. I'm not out there being like the land man like that show that is super popular right now. I just invest alongside people I've identified that are the top industry experts that I've done business with for several years and know them, trust them, have seen their results. Brilliant. You know?

Partnering with the right people. Yeah. And another one is like, golden, you have gold or silver? I have gold. I don't have, actually I have one silver watch. That counts. Okay. You can melt it down.

Silver. Right. So, you know, if we look at gold and silver, it's really interesting. So, you know, when we had 1792, we had this act called the Coinage Act of 1792. And it basically set the gold to silver ratio at 15 to 1, which basically meant that for every 15 ounces of silver, that's equivalent to one ounce of gold. The prices are related, right?

If you go back to biblical times, you're literally talking 10 to 16 to 1. If you go to Roman times, you're seeing that 10 to 12, 16 ounces of silver was equivalent to 1 ounce of gold. Like, I don't know what they were buying, like hay or horses or spears or whatever during the Roman Empire, but that was the ratio. So for thousands of years, it's remained that. And then in 1834, there's the Coinage Act of 1834. In the United States, we regulate the ratio at 16 to 1. And that stays in play all the way into about the 80s. And in the early 80s, we have a recession. And then this ratio starts separating.

We see gold gradually go up, up, up, up, up, and hit $3,300 an ounce, right? While silver, you know, silver's been as high as like $50 an ounce. Right now it's about $33 an ounce. But the point is that ratio is now like one to 100. A hundred ounces of silver is equivalent to the price of one ounce of gold. But it makes no sense. You have to look at 2000 years and prior of gold to silver. And you see only in the last 50 years has that ratio gotten way skewed. And so what that symbolizes, you could say that silver is immensely undervalued or gold is way, way, way too high. Right?

Then you have to look at other economics. Only 28% of silver that is mined comes from silver mines. We have extracted all of the high-grade shallow deposits out of the earth that are easy to get to and that don't cost much to actually mine and now silver is mainly extracted from the earth as a byproduct of like a zinc copper or a gold mine. as a byproduct of like a zinc, copper, or a gold mine. And we look at what's called the ASIC cost, All In Sustainable Cost of mining. That's about $28 to mine an ounce of silver. So only about a $5 margin.

Wow. $33. Gold, the All In Sustainable Cost, is about $1,350. So it could literally go down to $15, $1600. you know, it would could afford to what's it out right now It's at $3,300 and holy crap. Yeah So we look at we have depleted what's easy to get to With silver we have to go after lower or that is farther into the ground which emits more Carbon dioxide and emissions in the air.

So there's some mining difficulties with that when it comes to going green and being environmentally conscious. Silver is the best conductor of heat out of any metal, better than copper, out of anything that's ever been found. We need it in solar panels, need it in medical equipment, need it in vehicles,

need it in solar panels, needed in medical equipment, needed in vehicles, needed in batteries now. And it's literally the most undervalued asset that I see right now. So we're reaching this point where it literally has to go up in price. So stock up on some silver. Stock up on some silver. And what I do is I just stock up on silver, stock up on gold. I'm a little more bullish on silver right now. You buy the physical or you buy the ETF? I buy the physical. I don't buy ETFs. And the reason I buy the physical is because I can

stack it all up and I can get a line of credit against it. No way. I have a line of credit against my silver and gold. So brilliant because then you could buy more. I literally when I say I am my own bank, I am my own bank. I have a bunch of silver and gold. That's so brilliant. Cause then you could buy more. I literally, when I say I am my own bank, I am my own bank. I have a bunch of silver and gold here. Got a line of credit against it. That's interest only.

So it's not like a car payment where I got to pay, you know, thousand bucks a month. It's interest only. And then as long as what I invest in makes more than that interest with my whole life insurance or with this gold and silver, then I'm then I'm cash flowing. So smart. And we have to look at what do people go to?

What does the smart money go into to hedge inflation? You've had inflation very high in the last few years. In 2008, gold went up 25%. During COVID, it went up 24%. In the last 18 months, gold's up 65%. In the last 18 months, silver's up 40%. In the last 18 months, silver's up 40%. Well, there is 15 to 17 kilograms of silver in the Tomahawk missile. All the military equipment we have.

Silver's very much needed in industry. We've got a supply deficit. In 2023, I think Mexico mined 23 or 24% of the global production of silver. If it's not something to worry about, why do countries like Russia, which is the sixth largest holder of silver, they have the sixth most amount of deposits that they can extract out of the ground. If that's the case, then why do they plan on buying $532 million of silver at a federal level, at a country level in the next three years?

So all of these things, like, I come very much from fact. million dollars of silver at a federal level, at a country level in the next three years. So all of these things, like I come very much from fact. I'm not that conspiracy theorist that's, you know, this way or this way or Democrat, Republican, whatever. It's like I come from well researched fact. What I'm saying is just all facts you can go research and go, oh yeah, no, that's, that is true. Yeah.

So I sit here and go, I think silver is great. It's hedged against inflation since the beginning of time. And between that and that life policy, I'm my own bank man. I love that combination. Absolutely. Yeah, we'll definitely see how it plays out, but silver sounds like it's pretty safe for the most part.

I can't see it crashing. No, no, I don't really think so. Yeah, gold, you really could, but gold's also what the U S government recognizes as the only tier one asset of the United States government. But there's a lot of stuff happening because when we went away from the gold standard in 1971, we became what we referred to as the petrodollar. And we were supposed to be the dollar that you purchase energy with, oil and natural gas

and different things like that. And when we decided, hey, we're not going to allow the Keystone XL pipeline, we're going to shut it down, that pipeline is designed to carry 600,000 to 700,000 barrels of oil per day through it. And when we were, this is not a political statement. This is just a fact.

During the Biden administration, we withdrew from Afghanistan. No Karen's on here can argue that with you. You literally withdrew. We, Karen, we moved. We left, right? And when that happened, we left the Persian Gulf unprotected. And the Persian Gulf is what is on the other side of Saudi Arabia. And you've got countries in the Middle East that don't agree with Saudi Arabia, that don't

like Saudi Arabia, that want their oil. So when we seize our pipeline or operations of this very big pipeline that already existed, and then we withdraw from Afghanistan, it tells countries like Saudi Arabia, it tells the world we're not the petrodollar anymore. Combined with going green and all these solar panel initiatives and everything like that, they're like, all right, so the US is going back on that.

So have you heard of what's called the BRICS nations? BRICS, yeah. Right, and so now it's not just Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, it's Ethiopia, it's Senegal wanting to go into Indonesia just Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, it's Ethiopia, it's Senegal wanting to go into Indonesia just joined, all these different countries, 24 more have formed a whole group. And they make up 33% of the world's gross domestic product. They've now figured out how to get rid of the swift banking system, which is our Western

system of transacting country to country. And they just opened up their payment system to non-Brix members. So all of that combined with countries like India stocking up on a record amount of silver. Russia, one of the biggest leaders in Brix. China getting gold and silver. Meanwhile, we don't see that in the news here. Not at all. I didn't even know this was going on. Not at all.

So it's like, I think the lesson to learn is that smart money moves. It doesn't trust its financial advisor that charges them 1% annually or six grand a month to make them 78% on their money, 10% on their money, keep them in capital gains territory, keep them in assets that are locked up. All I do, I don't make it complicated. I look at what does history say about how gold moves, how silver moves, how the stock market moves.

I tend to do less in stocks and more in hard assets because they can be more controlled. I can see what's going on. I can understand them more. I get the tax leverage and I'm able to call my own shots here and, and keep it passive. So I don't, I don't know how much you work, dude, or how many hours you put in. Good amount. I'd say 60 a week.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, you've got to stay mentally healthy, emotionally healthy. If you're managing a relationship and you need time for yourself, like, I don't want to make it a job of investing. But you learn this stuff and you go, gosh, it's not that complicated. Absolutely. Man, this is all really good stuff to know. I'm going to have to switch to you for my advisory. Do you believe the financial system is designed to keep people poor, basically?

A million percent. A million percent. When you become a financial advisor, you've got, you know, Series 6, Series 65, all these licenses. If you look at what these licenses are, it's you need, by law, to become what's called an RIA, a Registered Investment Advisor, if you manage more than $100 million. If not, you're what's called an IAR, an Investment Advisor Representative. This is if you're actually managing money and not just selling insurance products like annuities and life insurance and things like that. And it's all regulated. But if you look at stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities, life insurance, that is like this

much of the whole financial world. Investments, there's private equity, there's business events, there's venture capitalism, there's private deals that people don't even know about, those are the ones that you want to know about that actually create wealth. It's not this, in my book I refer to it as a circle of bullshit, but if you're listening to people that make 110k a year on average, what to do with your money, that don't have any personal wealth, that pay high taxes, that still earn their income at a very high level, that don't really have any investments that are paying off. And they're talking to you about retirement and building towards that.

It doesn't make sense to me. I don't, I just don't personally believe in the concept of retirement. I believe like what, what made you smile as a little kid and people lose sight of that. And I'm all about how do you do more of that and truly love what you do in life, live in a lined lifestyle. Because if you're, if you're doing what you love doing, um, the energy is going to follow that and the money will come. I don't believe in, I've done the grinding. I've done the not a line.

I've done the get sued and climb done the not aligning, I've done the get sued and climb up the wrong ladder, you know, against the wrong building. And I've been through the balancing relationships, having to juggle that, dealing with mental health and trying to stay just, you know, emotionally well, physically well, balancing a business, showing up for, you know, the people on your payroll, making sure that they all can put food on their table. Like it's a lot to juggle as an entrepreneur. So the last thing I want to do with all of that hard earned money is pay more taxes, which for the most part, I think taxes are just legalized theft. I mean, look at where it's going. Yeah. That's been getting exposed recently.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's ridiculous, dude. I'm not here to help the government buy sushi and cake cups. You know, like, we work freaking hard. And this whole, you know, tax the rich and stuff, you know, I didn't grow up wealthy by any means. I have a very middle class mindset dad, amazing work ethic, phenomenal with work ethic, you know, and I learned a lot from him. And mom kind of checked, I don't, neither of them know what I do. Right?

I had to figure everything out myself. So I know what it's like to have nothing. I know what it's like to have to decide, are you buying dog food? Or are you feeding yourself this week? And I've been in that situation multiple times. I know what it's like to have nobody in your corner, nobody believe in you, nobody know the thoughts in your head. All the entrepreneurs that have started from nothing and leveled up, they know what I'm talking about. So to say tax the rich

more, I don't 100% believe in that as a blanket statement. They can afford to be taxed more, sure, but are you the one that's employing hundreds of thousands of people? Are you the one that's creating those opportunities so you can live and have a good quality of life? So I think, I think people need to look a little bit more into that. And I think about, you know, police officers and firefighters and, and military and service workers and people that just slave their ass off, you know, 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week for low

pay, they should be able to keep as much as they can and have the actual means to invest smartly, not with this average information. I think it's a disease to get to 65 and go, now I can enjoy life. I think if these people knew they could get exposed to better strategies to create wealth a little bit more efficiently at a little bit higher return in a way where they don't have to go back to school or make a job out of it they'd go holy shit this is time money energy I can give back to my family yep get to working on cars in my garage or riding dirt bikes or going

hunting whatever it is they want to do, you know? And we just don't do that. We distract people with the news and about bullshit that usually doesn't even exist. Absolutely, I agree. Well, the compound is crazy because I know people listening to this will be like, well, 20% a year versus 10% a year is not a lot of money,

right, but when you compound that, it ends up being millions of dollars over time, right? It's huge. And I mean, you could take out a compound interest calculator, you know, like, if I put, you know, $250,000 into a whole life policy, and the cool thing is I can just contribute to it once or twice and just let it grow, and then all the profits just cycle back in. That thing compounds, you know, four or five X in return after only 15, 20 years. Damn. But people might look at that and go,

it doesn't excite me. It doesn't excite me either. It's how you can leverage it by going into assets that create you more of a return. Like we go back to what I said, I'm making 10% on my policy before I do shit. Right. So if you put a million there, you're making a 100k. Sure. Yes. And you could put in millions if you want to.

You can have multiple policies. You don't just have to have one. You can have policies on your kids, all this stuff. And it's like, if I'm making 10% there when the average savings is making 0.43, losing to inflation, I'm insured, right? I can't lose it, it's gone one day. And then-

Does it insure the full amount or is it 250k like FDIC? It depends on the policy. Yeah, it depends on the policy. And again, what's guaranteed is that 2% to 4% guaranteed return normally. And then that dividend is again, non-guaranteed. But if you look at carriers like MassMutual, Northwestern Mutual, Penn, New York Life, Guardian,

these are some of the top top five carriers. I would say Their dividends have been like five six seven percent as high as nine percent In certain periods and so you combine that with the guaranteed return like there's times where you're making more than ten percent Well, but let's just look at that like oil deals that I look at are doing 18 to 28% a year. So if I'm making 10 and 18, that's 28. Or if I'm making 10 and 28, that's 38%. But then you have to look at what is the effective return in that compared to an annuity that all these advisors sell these retired people that they have to pay income taxes on.

Like the effect of what you keep in your pocket is much higher because the taxes are so much lower, you know? So when I say 30, 40% returns, it's, it's real. Yeah. I know. Cause people don't factor in the income tax, which is like 30, 40% and depending on the state you're in. Right.

Absolutely. Damn. You mentioned Bricks sellers. So are you confident in the U S dollar over our lifetime? I think we still have the world's strongest economy. I think that we've got a president in here that has more testicles than he is a politician. I think that he negotiates deals that other people were afraid of. Running a country is like running a business. You don't want to go start wars, but your first goal is not to a business. It's not, you don't want to go start wars, but you're not, your first goal is not to make friends.

Right? It's like you set boundaries. It's just like a relationship set boundaries. Hey, you cheated on me. I didn't like that. We're not together anymore. Boundary. Yeah. Like yeah tariffs and you know, you go back to uh, you know the founding of america We were founded as a tax-free nation and it it was only the 16th Amendment, which came around in 1913, that made it a thing that income taxes exist. So you're changing 112 years of taxation in the United States. People don't get that. Leave it out of the history books.

Like, I could debate about this stuff all day long. You know? And so do I believe in the US dollar? I believe that we're the strongest economy. I believe that we're the strongest nation. I believe that we're the strongest nation. I believe when we are weak, other countries see that, and that's when they capitalize and try to help make us weaker. And I believe that we're probably going to move

into more of a hard asset backed economy. We see oil production. We see Trump wanting to drill more. We see the World Reserve Banks. And in 2022 through current, our Federal Reserve Banks have stocked up on more gold than any other time in history. So just that's a fact. It cannot be denied.

That's a fact. Does that mean we're going to a gold-backed dollar? I don't know, but it means that we have bought a record-breaking amount of gold. But why is it that like one in 10 people actually own gold or silver? I just thought low It's that low Wow, you know, I think some actually might be one in twelve It's the institutions and the banks that own gold and silver Why is it that the institutions have the institutional grade cash value whole life policies and 95% of people watching this if they have a Policy, it's not that mmm. It's not a speculation. It's just a fact that's crazy

Yeah, I think the tariff stuff scared a lot of people but now you're seeing all these trade deals this week We just had one with China. I think yesterday right there was someone else last week UK Maybe yeah, and the economy seems to be picking up again, and you have to look at like Building materials like this building were in a lot of costs are lumber copper aluminum big costs and we get a lot of lumber from Canada there's a shit ton of forest up there a lot less people there's been a lot less deforestation so we have exemptions on lumber tariffs people think it's just a blanket tariffs on everything and I don't think they understand you know like there's been some word thrown around no income taxes

on people that make less than two200,000 a year. If that actually happened, if that happened, and I believe that the tariffs would support that and allow that, create that opportunity, if you're watching this and you're making $150,000 a year, that's 30 grand more in your pocket. Wow, 30 grand. So if your living expenses remain the same, you have $30,000 more to invest with annually. In a short period of time, you can fuck up a lot of wealth creation strategy with 30K a year.

You can do quite a bit. You can turn that into a million over time. You can do quite a bit. And I don't think people understand that. So, you know, and I think oil is another really good thing. You were, we're at like 60 to $70 a barrel right now, which is a little bit lower. But here's a, here's a secret. Blanket statements and investing are not good.

Blanket statements is what gets you an average return. It's what I call American mediocrity. It's part of why I wrote the book this way. Right. American mediocrity. It's part of why I wrote the book this way, right? And if you go into oil and you don't know, just basic understanding about it, and you were to go into an investment right now in oil where they're just pumping oil out of the ground, okay? It's 60 to 70 dollars a barrel, that's what's happening. But right now, natural gas is up. And so while oil, I believe, will probably stay around 60 to 70 dollars a barrel for the next three years-ish, natural gas is up. And so while oil I believe will probably stay around 60 to 70 dollars a barrel for the next three years ish

natural gas is up so Partners that I work with I work with a guy that's been drilling oil since before I was a sperm I wasn't even an idea there right and He's a big deal dude. He works with Robert Kiyosaki Robert invests with him like he's a big deal. I've seen Robert talk about this Yeah, he made a lot of oil. Yes and silver the owner silver mine really Wow, what a dollar and So if you are drilling in an area where there is natural gas say One of the opportunities that I'm involved with it's 50-50

So for every you know, 50% oil, 50% natural gas. Got it. And if you've got a natural gas that is highly refinable, there's, there's, you can make propane, butane, you can make, um, methane, right? All these different gases, you're getting a premium for them. So as you're getting this oil out of the ground, it's maybe 60, $70 a barrel, but you've got all this natural gas that's highly refinable. If you're investing in an area that doesn't have that, you're not making as much money, but it's not rocket science.

It's where are these deposits? So, uh, it's just knowing that. And that's why I've been really blessed because if you get sued enough, and if you start over enough, you end up getting enough connections to figure out who's real, who's not, and who's full shit. Everything happens for a reason. Absolutely. Yeah.

I believe, like I've dealt with a couple of lawsuits I mentioned earlier, but I'm thankful for them looking back at it. It taught me how to protect myself better, taught me who to trust, who to work with. And in the long run, I'm glad I haven't. It's important because like a lot of people, you know, I came from like the online course world when I was a big thing in 2016 and a lot of people, a way of selling is click funnel, all the shit out of it, bonus stack your offer, write a bunch of good copy and make a couple of cute digital images, put a girl on the

cover of whatever that looks cute and it'll sell. Then people, and it will sell. Then people get in like, this is bullshit. There's no value here. It's not what it is. It's been completely oversold. And I don't believe in that. And so one of the things I pride myself in is like, if I say I'm going to be

somewhere, I'm going to be somewhere. If I say I shaking your hand and here's the deal, I'm going to do it. And if I shake your hand and you tell me what your end is and you don't hold it up, I'm going to hold you accountable to that. And it's the same in a business relationship, it's the same in a relationship relationship. It should be the same with anything. And I think lawyers exist and law exists because we've gotten so bad at keeping our word. And so when I see one of those very few people, I've got a handful of

people I'd consider really good friends. It's because my standards are, I don't consider them high, but it's like, I'm the business owner, I'm the one with all the risks. So if I do a deal with you and I refer you to somebody and you screw them over, who are they going to come to? They're going to come to me. Right. And they're going to talk shit about me.

I don't want anybody else ruining my reputation. If it gets ruined, I'll do it myself. So it's like all of the partners that I work with that I invest in oil, real estate, my financial products, gold and silver, I've worked with them for years. So I didn't turn them loose on anybody until I knew, repetitively, you're going to treat people with respect. You're going to treat people with respect. You're going to do right by them and you're strategic.

You're the best in the business. Yeah, makes sense. Let's end off with the book American Mediocracy. Talk to everyone about that. Yeah. So American Mediocrity, I spent four years writing this. It's really my story, my upbringing, the valuable lessons I learned in sales. It's a book for you if you're an entrepreneur, if you want to become an entrepreneur, your business owner,

you want to get into investing, salesmanship, marketing. It's all the valuable skills that I have learned that I used to this very day. I share my stories of going into the car business when I was 19, the lessons I learned in there. I get into some of that lawsuit stuff. I get into my battle with getting so far out of alignment, trying to build a career in one industry and balancing a relationship simultaneously. And then having to face all that at the same time. Not too long ago, I had a relationship end that I was in for six and a half years.

Wow. a relationship end that I was in for six and a half years. Wow. And you know, I was very emotionally, financially, physically invested in it. And it just didn't work. I'll never talk poorly of her by any means, but it didn't work. And I dedicated a lot of time in it where I was taking my foot off the gas and the things that were important to me. Taking my foot off the gas and the things that were important to me.

And like literally in the last year, it's been almost, I, I very rarely shock myself. I became like unrecognizable in the sense of, I always maintain my physical health. It is like, Holy shit. I am allowing myself to become vulnerable for one of the first times as what I would consider a masculine man, you know, being vulnerable hard. Um, I picked the book back up and I continued writing it. I added chapters to relate to like people that have been through relationships where it didn't work and you're an entrepreneur, you're a grinder. And it doesn't mean that you fucked up necessarily.

Like there can, we can both speak English and not understand each other. Yeah. Right. So it's like, how do you scale life in an aligned way where you're doing things for the right reason with the right people, with the right purpose in mind. And being that entrepreneur that's go, go, go. How do you find time for yourself to just relax and be in your own space?

How do you evaluate your mental health? How do you still show up for these employees? And I'm going through all of this while in a couple lawsuits dealing with the emotions of not being in a relationship anymore. That was, you know, at that point, like 24% of my life, right? I had two dogs die, like back to back. One got cancer and I didn't know like a week earlier and she was gone. And I'm like, you know, I moved out of my house that I had purchased for us. And out of respect, I was like, look, I'm more of the breadwinner. You stay and I'll go and enjoy the house and take a little while to just get a foothold. And I'm like traveling around with my three dogs, having to do business

cross country. I think I drove 60,000 miles that year. Damn. It was crazy. You couldn't fly with the dogs. Couldn't fly with the 80 pound cow, you know? Yeah. And so she ended up passing and then a few weeks later, another one did. And you know, in between emails of you got to show up for this deposition,

you got to do this and I'm finishing this book and I'm building out the capitalist network and all this stuff and showing up for my employees every day and like, dude, and then to get to a point where you're working, you know, 18 hours a day and your brain is going, it's spinning so much that even when you're in the shower, like the moment you should just have peace, it's's still going. I wake up feel like the day isn't even a new day And so all that is in this book because I think there's a lot of people that don't talk about it Especially men is for it's for anybody. Hmm that Have been through some shit and I least want to know somebody else made it through

I know and I smile because I'm like motherfucker. I'm still here. You know, else made it through. And I smile because I'm like, motherfucker, I'm still here. You know, I love it. And I'm definitely give that a read. A lot of what you said I've related with appreciate that. Appreciate. And I will, I will send you a signed copy of this, but that's my books about, and you know, ultimately it gives you that foundation for everything that I teach inside the capitalist network.

We'll link your stuff below. If anyone's interested in working with you. What's the best way for them to hit you up? Best way? Visit the capitalistnetwork.com. Again, that's the capitalistnetwork.com. That is my entire platform introducing to all of my mentors, introducing to all of my investment partners, so that you want to partner with the right CPAs, pay less taxes.

We got you. You want to have your entities set up correctly from like a protection standpoint, we got you. You want to get arguably the lowest prices on silver and gold in the entire United States. We got you. I need the like literally a hundred percent. I work with one of only 27 licensed resellers of the U S mint. Want to get the line of credit.

You want to get the institutional grade life insurance policy. You want to learn how to passively invest and which opportunities to go into in real estate, you want to go into the oil funds, get the tax incentives. We have all of that. I do a newsletter every Monday, which I actually was typing up before I showed up today. We do events every single month. We do masterminds, retreats, and there's a whole community of entrepreneurs to network with from 18 years old, all the way to 70 years old. So that's the capitalistnetwork.com or get me at Ben Oberg on Instagram.

Sounds good. YouTube is of course is a great source of the videos I drop because I teach a lot on there. I love it, man. Thanks for coming on, Ben. Yeah, thank you, man. Yeah, come out guys. See you next time.

See you next time. See you next time. See you next time. See you next time. See you next time. See you next time. See you next time. See you next time.

See you next time.