Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Self-Made Multi-Millionaire Trader: The Game Is Rigged. Play It Anyway and Win.

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribeWatch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanleyThe game is rigged. You've heard it your whole life. Wall Street has the data. The little guy can't win. The system is built for the rich to get richer.All of it is true. None of it matters.Because you can't run in the Victim Olympics and take home a gold medal in wealth. The two activities cancel each other out.In this episode of Finding Peak, I sit down with Chris Sain — self-made multi-millionaire trader, retired at 35, bestselling author, and the leader of one of the largest financial communities in the country. Chris is the millionaire next door. He wears a hat. He drives a used car. He talks plain. And he's spent the last decade teaching everyday people how to actually win in a market designed to shake them out.Inside this conversation:Why your friends might be the single biggest tax on your wealthThe "trick, trap, and frustrate" pattern Wall Street uses on retail investors — and how to spot itWhy you should invest in leaders, not logos (and the two CEOs Chris is betting on right now)The psychology of holding when everyone around you is panic-sellingHow Chris built an empire of 1M+ followers by showing up 7 days a week — wins and lossesIf you're a leader, founder, or operator who's tired of the victim narrative and ready to actually build, this is your playbook.Play it anyway. And win.This is the way.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH CHRIS SAINWebsite: https://chrissain.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisSain1━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH RYAN HANLEYSubstack: https://ryanhanley.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RyanMHanleyX: https://x.com/RyanHanley_Com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━This show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Why financial literacy? Why that topic? We have a poor relationship with money. You can't run in the Victim Olympics around here. I think it's okay to say, I don't want to hang around with someone who talks so negatively about themselves and refuses to change. I don't have time to go hang with Pookie and Ray Ray and have these low-level, low-vibration conversations. I'm the millionaire next door. You wouldn't know that I'm a multi-millionaire. The game may be rigged, and even if it is, you have to learn how to play the game.

We're not a get rich quick scheme community. Anything that is like hot on your brain that I, like for right now, that I wouldn't have picked up just in like research and stuff like that. Any, you know, there's a story or something or you're just working on something. You're like, man, I'd love to just get into this. One thing. If you can shed some light on this, Ryan, I'm in New York right now. I got invited by Patreon.

They got a huge billboard of me in Times Square. I have the largest paid Patreon slash finance community on the platform. And so they're just technology up that kind of unicorn type of feat, if you will. So I'm down here, man, they're doing a huge photo shoot. They got me plastered all over Times Square. So it's right outside my window. I jump from here to come see you. So I think that's a noteworthy type of thing.

just seeing a regular everyday guy build an empire on YouTube. And now we don't made it all the way to Times Square from Michigan, man. So I think that would be more of one of the pressing things. And other than that, man, I like what you do. So we can dive into anything that's pertinent to you or what you naturally talk about. And like I said, when you read that little intro, you might glean some stuff off of that or dive deeper into some of the things that's on there for you. Awesome.

Well, I love it. There's a lot of places for us to go. So let's start with why financial literacy, like of all the things that you could put your career into, and you do a lot of different stuff, but financial literacy is one of the core tenets of what you teach, of the community you've built, of why people have the tremendous amount of respect for you that they do,

why more than a million and a half people follow you and and and you've become such a force of nature. Why financial literacy? Why that topic? To this day, Ryan, believe it or not, man, it's taboo in our community. And when I say our community, I'm talking about the black community specifically, bro. We're not talking about these things at the rate in which we are, which continues to a lot of the gap and the divide to be had because we don't even, we don't, we don't, we have a poor relationship. with money. We have financial trauma that we have become so accustomed to that to hear me and you talk about the things we're able to do from a digital standpoint sounds foreign to people. Or they might think we're not, man, that's just for Chris and Ryan. We don't have that. We can't

do that. No, Ryan got an awesome podcast. He's using technologies. He's using AI. He's using all of these things to bring real stories and real people to life. That's not just something unique to him. But when you block off at the front gate, man, that things we talk about in terms of personal finance, in terms of just simple things like saving and putting some money away for a rainy day and have an emergency fund, like those things are still challenging topics, man. So I have signed up to carry the mantle making sure it's. not only commonplace, but as digestible as possible, which is the one thing I think so many people

has gravitated toward me for. Yeah, and I want to get to the digestible part in a second, but I want to press into something you said there, and this is a very honest question, because I completely believe and understand what you're saying about the black community struggling, but coming out of rural white America like I did, I think a lot of the same things that I see and hear

and coming out of, and I had a guy, his name's Herman on the podcast, he's also big into the more and credit, helping more of a credit side of the equation, but really, and he had a lot of the same comments. And, you know, I'm interested, like, it's seemingly, I do think there's some cultural aspects to it,

but I don't necessarily think, like, black people struggle and white people don't or whatever. I think it's more like they have these odd, cultural narratives in the communities that get, that get created, and mostly on the lower end of the spectrum, right? So, like, I came from country, rural, white America, about as crispy white as it can possibly be in the middle of nowhere in the woods, right? But the same toxic conversations,

toxic belief structures around money that I see, maybe positioned differently, like, what do you think it is that keeps, and I don't mean class in terms of quality of human, but class in terms of financially, from access to education or until there were individuals like yourself who were willing to democratize it, why do you think this access to financial literacy and education was kept from or just seemingly these communities didn't have access to it or weren't able to bring it in and make it part of their everyday lives the way an upper middle caste or maybe an upper class elite is essentially taught from birth around that money.

I think for a lot of people now with so much access to information, it's more used as a crutch and an excuse at this state because there's no reason not to write the wrongs that maybe I didn't get taught this in school. You had U-2 University where it's some of the brightest minds from Ray Dalio to videos of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger talking about these things to people like myself who are, like I told you earlier, digestible and relatable. I break it down even simpler than the guys on Wall Street that I'm next to right now. And so we remove all of those excuses. Now is just a matter of, are you willing to put in the work to learn the nuances of what it is to be financially literate, to not make capitalism the enemy, not to have these negative connotations towards money or towards people with actual wealth? And so it's about, like you said earlier, you said it so eloquently changing that narrative and that negative rhetoric that they've carried for so long that now it's more like, nope, Ryan bucked the system, he come from nothing. Chris buffed the system.

He come from nothing. Now what do you guys got to say? We're not the elites of the world. We're regular everyday people that has shown that it's possible. So it's just about continuing to do the work. I always tell guys, man, listen, those of us in the financial literacy space, we have so much more work to do because although, like in my case, I have a for real cold following. I can go sell out any city, state, venue. They will show up and show out, and we love talking about money. But that's my million followers. There's still a whole bunch of people that ain't ever heard of me. There are some people that's going to watch this podcast today and be like, Ryan, who was that guy? I ain't never heard of him. And that's okay. But that still shows me there's more people to reach and that we got to continue to fish and real more people in. So for me, Ryan, it's just a historical thing that now with all the access to information, we have to do better at being intentional on changing that narrative and that message.

How do you crack someone open who has, I'm going to take a step back. I know you've come across these people a million times in your case, far less than mine, but I have. as well. They talk about themselves, their relation to money, their place in the world. It's not self-deprecating. It's legit negative self-talk. Like, they almost wear their inability to save a dollar or their inability to or unwillingness to learn even the basics of stock market, etc. Like, they almost wear that as a badge of honor, which I find to be very odd. Like, of all the things you'd want to put on your shoulder as a patch, like, I suck at money. It doesn't seem like something you'd want to have there. Like so many conversations, you know, these throwaway comments

where people just talk very negatively about themselves and about their relationship to money. How do you break that mentality down? And like when you're working with someone or you're in front of a group and you're helping them kind of reframe that relationship to money, what are some of the first steps to break them out of that negative self-talk? We call it what it is. Call it out directly. And in our world, it's called running in a victim Olympics. We don't do that. You can't run in the victim Olympics around here. They call me coach in the finance world.

If coach is on your bumper, if you call me for a coaching call, if we meet up at one of our meetups across the world, and I hear you talk. They already know when it come to me, we don't even allow that rhetoric. But you're so right. We call it running the victim Olympics. And as soon as I hear it, soon as I woe is me person. come up. As soon as I hear you looking at blame, something that Ryan did. As soon as I hear that, we nip that in the blood, or I either make the determination, if you're unable to nip it in the blood, you're uncouchable and I don't have time to invest in. So we have a clean cut line on those

type of individuals that carry that mindset. Because to your point, Ryan, they're either using it as a way to stay in bondage at this point and or they are looking for somebody to hold them accountable and they're looking for that breakthrough. You only got two options in this game. And so I'm looking for the ones that's wanting the information, looking to be better and do better moving forward. So that's kind of how we tackle that. No, I love that. And I love that and I think it's the right way to handle it, that you're unwilling to give your time to someone who is unwilling to accept what you're willing to give. And I think that's, I think that's wonderful because there is an aspect of this that I think people can be enabled, right? They have this negative

self-talk. They have this woes me victim. You know, they're running the victim Olympics. And they want you to run right alongside them. And I think that we do our family members, our friends, our community, a disservice when we kind of placate that mentality when we don't, you know, you don't have to be an asshole to them. You don't have to be a jerk, right? You don't have to dunk on them. But I think it's okay to say, I don't want to hang around with someone who talks so negatively about themselves and refuses to change, right? I want to have a positive relationship with money with my career, with, you know, how I evolve and become the best version of myself. And this does feel like one of those things, particularly money as a topic where the five people you hang out with have a major

impact and how you think about money. Absolutely. I had to cut family off for that very reason because you will see it even from them that they are now refusing to grow, refusing to evolve, remaining and stand stuff. And so it's a hard decision that you got to come to, but you have to love them from a distance. You cut them off, not that you don't love them, but you have to put some distance between that running in the victim Olympics mindset to the growth mindset. And so until they are ready to bring themselves at least up to speed in terms of their understanding, you have to create this because you will also notice, Ryan, me and you might have more synergy.

We might be more in alignment than somebody that was friends for us for 20 plus years or that we knew or grew up with. And you just like, man, he's on the same wavelength that I'm on. He's already thinking and projecting on the wavelength that I'm on and I'm trying to go to, I don't have time to go hang with Pookie and Ray Ray and have these low level, low vibration conversations. You feel me? And so absolutely, man. Sometimes, guys, as we listen to this, you got to cut off people that may sometimes be family and or friends that refuse to get on the bar with where you're going in life. I completely agree.

And I don't know if you found this, but I certainly have. when if you can have that, I think some people go about, quote unquote, cutting people off in the wrong way, right? It's like an aggressive, like I need, you know, you're wrong, I'm right, I need to get you out of my life. And I don't think that's the way to go about it unless the person is truly, truly toxic. I think in most scenarios, you know, I'm a Christian and I think in this scenario, it's our responsibility to say, hey, if you want to come along this ride with me, I'd love to have you. But this is where I'm going. And I'm not going to stick around here with you. If you want to stay here, that's fine.

I love you. I wish you nothing but the best. But I got to walk away because there's a better, there's a higher path for me, a higher vibration. I love that you use that term. And what you'll find is the simple act of setting a boundary sometimes will be the push that person needs to go, wait, Chris is willing to walk away from our relationship to become a better version of himself. shit, I kind of want to go with them. Like that sounds better than what we're doing.

Right. Like setting that boundary can actually be a good thing for a relationship and can actually be what brings somebody along. Have you found that to be the case? Right, Ryan. The cutoff is not an aggressive act. It is more or less you walking in your purpose. You walking in alignment with what you were called to do.

And some people see that and feel like you outgrew them or that you've changed or, you know, them said you don't come around anymore and some people see it and say hey i see where you're going see that favor looking real good on you ryan i don't want to get left let me least let me least grab on to your coat tail and come along with you and so they fall by the wayside you are so right we're not we're not aggressively cutting them all it's uh it's a act over time it's a a series of actions and decisions that you have seen made consistently that kind of create the distance if you will again nothing malice, nothing malacious, nothing with ill intent. It's just, you will just see like, man,

even your original question, what got you into this? I'm an athlete at my core. And so as a, as a high level athlete, Ryan, I was always intrigued with men, how do pro athletes that make millions of dollars go broke once their career is over? That alone took me down this rabbit hole of financial literacy. And so when I see now in my current state of life where athletes and or former athletes are struggling to find themselves, we call a life after sports, and if they don't land an analyst job at ESPN or if they don't get that bar stool podcast gig or something from the volume, the rest of them are having a hard time figuring things out. And so understanding football isn't who you are is what you did.

That was something you did for a season of your life. God has plans for your life, plans being plural, that he has called you to do a good thing and more things than just playing football or playing basketball. And so that's where my true passion for the financial literacy piece came. It was a focus on athletes. I always say 1% make it, but God told me to go and get the 99. Go and get the 99 because the 1% that make it, okay, they're among the gifted and the elite.

But there's going to be 99 other athletes, percent of athletes that go professional with something else. And that's how I built my empire off of attracting those, being able to relate to those, having a similar story and journey as those. And so I just made financial literacy and building wealth a cool thing. I'm not flashy. I'm not a flamboyant guy.

I'm not an over-hyped guy, Ryan. I'm the least assuming guy. If me and you were somewhere, I'm the millionaire next door. You wouldn't know that I'm a multi-millionaire and have none of what I have because outside of this, this is the most time I'm going to do. I'm a hat guy. I'm a hat guy. So if you ever want to get me a gift, man, lids will suffice. But I'm a hat guy, man.

So outside of me having on a hat, I'm not doing nothing to attract attention to myself. I drive a used car, for example. My houses are paid off. And I've always been a guy that may sound financial decisions. And so I think the everyday person can see the practical steps that I've made on my journey. And they say to themselves, man, I can be like coach. I can do those things too. He cuts his own hair.

He packs his lunch before he retired from the corporate world. He drives youth instead of driving new every two. He does these things that the everyday person can do. And look at how he built his wealth slowly and methodically. Now it has skyrocketed because now I have global attention on me. I have national attention on me. I have all the corporate sponsors clamoring to do something with me. So now it's system supercharged.

But before, I was just your everyday, and I still am, your everyday regular guy that just put one foot in front of the other. No fanfare, no flashy lights, Ryan. That's what it was. That's what enamored me to your content so much was how accessible it was. Like, just watching you, listening to you talk, like, you're not preaching down to people. You're not trying to put yourself on a pedestal. I mean, obviously, you use the decisions you've made and the life and the path that you've taken as a guide.

But, you know, it feels like, you know, I was watching and I'm going through and looking at it. I'm just like, man, this is, it's so tangible. Like, it feels you're making it very real for people. So how do you take what, I think what happens to a lot of people. And I tend to use my mom as a guide for this, smart woman, but has had the same job for 42 years, enjoys it, you know. I was taught, so the way I was taught growing up was get the corporate job, get the salary, be safe, get a four, like, that was my parents' guide.

I mean, my dad worked for the railroad union, and my mom has been an administrative assistant for, like I said, 42 years. So same company, same job, 42 years. So I was taught this, be very safe, et cetera, et cetera. And so coming out of that environment, I had almost no financial literacy outside of, you know, being able to make $3 work a day to keep yourself alive in college. I mean, like, you know, other than the nuances of staying alive as a poor person, I had no financial abilities. And so as I, as I started to learn just as a naturally curious person, I would run ideas past my mom because I saw her as like kind of a hardworking everyday person, right? Like what and what she would say to me is I want to know, like I want to learn, but it feels so overwhelming. It feels so complicated. How are

you able to and why do you think it's so important to take what can be very complex, seemingly complex topics in finance and all this kind of stuff and boil them down into everyday language that, you know, someone who doesn't want to spend their day thinking about all this stuff but can watch one of your videos for 25 minutes and come away with maybe a new discipline to help their own financial help. My mom was very similar to yours. I was safe, work the job, had the security of a paycheck every two weeks. And so when I first ventured off, not only retiring from corporate America at a very young age, but also doing this, like creating our own creator empires and this world that they still don't quite understand, she really didn't understand it.

You know what I'm saying? It just doesn't make any sense to her. And so she had that level of timidness, of scaredness, of anxiety around the unknown. And so I had to make sure, like, don't put that on me because I'm boss to the walls. I don't have no fear. Failing is part of how you become successful. So for me, when it came to financial literacy and making it relatable, I mean, I listen to Wall Street, and I'm right next to the NASDAQ, for instance. And although I love those guys, and they talk oftentimes above the everyday person head. So, for example, they may use something like the Fibonacci may retrace to the 50-day moving average. Off top, you just lost 500 million Americans when you say that.

But I know exactly what that mean. And so I can come right back the same way and say, hey, check this out, guys. Save some cash. Be ready. When it touches support, which is down here at this price level, right around $293, that's where you want to deploy your cash. That's where you want to buy at. And that's going to produce you the greatest return in your investment. Oh, Coach, thank you so much, man. That made so much sense. And by doing that and just doing the opposite of what they do next door to me in Wall Street,

I was able to, not only create more millionaires, but more six-figure honors, help people pay debt off, help people pay their student loan off because now what was sounding like foreign language to them, and like rocket science to them was now broken down in such a manner, Ryan, that they now see and believe that they can do it to. And so then it became repetition. I post seven times a week, meaning we don't got no time. We're already behind the eight ball. We don't have no time to take no days off. So I talk and teach every day. Okay. And so because I'm so focused on it daily, it's just repetition. Repetition. Practice makes perfect. And so now I'm pounded in the message home. Now, they talk and sound like me. When they call me or they comment, you hear a high

level conversation of retail investors in there if you ever just hang out in the comment section and you will see like, man, they sound sharper than the people on Wall Street now. They sound like the analyst Wall Street is bringing on to CNBC and on Bloomberg and Forbes and what have you. And so now we have raised up a collective of interested people that's gunhole on investing in the stock market. But now they got the lingo. Now they understand what Wall Street is saying when something is coming. Now they know we have this thing called the trick, trap, and frustrate crew. Now they know the traps that are being set on Wall Street, like the Iran War and the ceasefire for two weeks.

We already know what's to come off of that. temporary pause that gave the market a temporary pop. And so we are already ready for the eventual drop because we've seen this movie before. And just teaching them that manner that I'm telling you, I have changed millions of lives doing that and being on top of the game that way. You just described something that I hear a lot in side conversations. Obviously, I don't teach this stuff. So this is more like side conversations with friends. the ones that maybe aren't as sophisticated or don't spend as much.

Be like, why do you even spend your time there? The game's rigged. The game's rigged. You hear this. The game's rigged. The game's rigged. And one of the first things that I took away from your work was one, maybe that's true at the very highest level.

But that doesn't mean that you and I and every other, you know, kind of feet on the ground everyday person can't learn to play the game at a level that allows us to compete. Like, yeah, maybe they have some extra tricks and they can, you know, put derivatives on derivatives and package them up. But as we saw in 2008 and as we're seeing cracks in the market right now, a lot of times these guys, all these fancy games they play, it doesn't necessarily always yield and seemingly quite often, you know, rarely yields these massive returns. You might see one or two winners and that's what you know gets written about in the wall street journal but there's an army of these sophisticated wall street guys that are licking their wounds because you know they're trying to

play this game and i was listening to you and i'm going like holy shit like like i love how you are democratizing this information in a way that now an everyday person who made me you know a plumber who's making a buck 10 a year and taking care of his family he's got a couple kids you know he can spend 20 minutes with you in an evening, and now he's got, feels like he's got the ammo. You know, how do you, like, what do you say to that person? And maybe, maybe use me as an example. Let's say I run into one of my buddies and I get the, I get the games rigged thing. Like, how do I crack that guy open or at least open his mind to the fact that there may be, that may be true in some extent, but that doesn't mean you can't. The game may be rigged. And even if it is, you have to

learn how to play the game. And so fantasy football is rig. The casino in Las Vegas is rig. All of it has a level of human manipulation to it. Our job is to play the long game. The way we eradicate that and navigate around that, Ryan, is to understand we're not a get rich quick scheme community, number one. I'll make that known off top. Don't come over here if you're looking to get rich quick. I'm going to teach you how to build wealth and invest in the stock market. but in a principal methodical fashion. That's number one. But number two, on top of the fact that it may be rigged, over time, the market wants to go up.

Over time, it's a vehicle for wealth creation that wants to trend to the upside. So let some of the rigging serve as a buying opportunity for, like you said, all of those stocks go to hell. They don't all pan out. But you can play the market, the broader market, the essence. P-500, the NASDAQ 100, these indexes over time, over the course of one to five years, they're going to trend to the upside, whether it's 4%, Ryan, whether it's 8%, whether it's 10%, whether we get an outlier year, we get 20 and 30%. You're going to be able to get that plan the broader market versus, to your point, trying to

play an individual hot stock. I remember between me and you, man, I want one of the bigger content creators on YouTube and AMC entered the freight AMC and GameStop. Those two stocks used to annoy me from the standpoint of this. It had everybody chasing the diamond hands, the hodo, to the moon stuff. I'm looking like, man, this is not going to end well. We need to stay consistent with investing in quality companies and or the overall market. But you had so many people gravitating towards that when it didn't pan out, the screams and the cry of being rigged went through the roof. Whereas those of us that just sat back and bought Nvidia, Walt Pallantir, and bought the S&P 500, we all made 1,200% or more in just those two individual stocks in the index alone.

And it's just understanding that. But sometimes the get rich quick, the gravitational pull of wanting what's fun and fast override what's long-term and long-lasting. And so these are the things, Ryan, man, that we try to instill, but sometimes that's hard to come up against. And so therefore, the reg narrative will happen, even like with the Iran thing. And lo and behold, somebody had the right call to know that our president was going to announce a cease. So they were already in it, and the market skyrocketed. But by the time the market opened for us, retail traders, everything was trending back to the downside the whole day.

And so we, this many years in the game, we know that come with the territory. And so you just take your lumps, man, just like you do with anything else. I'm like, do you think there is something going on unique in the economy and market, maybe our society as well right now, that has seemingly so many people chasing the short-term returns? It seems more than, at least in my lifetime, 45 years old. I have been interested in the stock market since I was in my teens, mostly just I love, I love, I don't know how to put this the right way.

Accumulation, progress is maybe better put it, like anything where, you know, my compounded effort creates more, I'm just intrigued by. So the stock market, growing an audience, growing revenue in a bit, like these things just, it's where my focus goes. And post-COVID, it seems like now everyone, even people who you wouldn't necessarily think that they would have this mentality are chasing mean stocks, NFTs. Oh my God, how many people got slaughtered on NFTs, right, over that thing. You know, AMC GameStop, they're always looking,

instead of the discipline of every month, I'm going to take 500 bucks and I'm going to stick it in an index and I'm going to forget that it exists. Right? I'm just going to let it grow over time. Like you said, it's, well, I'm going to take that 500 bucks. I'm going to put it all in GameStop today. Or I'm going to put

it all in some crypto meme coin that X influencer posted somewhere. And that is such a trail of tears, in my opinion, when you're constantly chasing these short-term bursts, but it feels like right now, that is the major mentality, particularly in the youth, like the sub-30-year-old individuals, it's like they are not thinking diamond hands, which guys, if you're not far familiar as a Bitcoin kind of crypto term for people who hold on when things are going really bad, which if you play,

if you play crypto, which is probably the best way to put it, it's going to happen. and they're just chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, and it does not feel healthy to me. You know, what do you think is going on? And, like, how do we help those individuals start to see the light that maybe a very small portion? And I'm interested in your take on this. Like, I've always believed you take a small portion, 5, 10%, depending on your wrist tolerance. Play all day long, you know, take your shots.

You know, that's your moonshot money. But they're using their full stack and deploying it and you're watching people go to zero over and over. And it's like sad. The subjective stuff, man, and phenomenal question, bro. The COVID time period gamified the stock market. When everybody was at home with nothing to do but a little bit of my inner pocket, all of what you're talking about, the structured investors, the fundamental, the ones focused on valuation and the real things that matter in the company, the price to earnings

ratio, those things went out the window when it became gamified. And so the accessibility was a factor, all good things in the totality, but the Robin Hoods, the Weeballs, the various brokerages that made it readily and accessible to so many people, everyday people. Now it became the gamified way of investing. But then listen to this, the emergence of those finance influences, even guys such as myself. Like, for example, I can go viral every Sunday night at 9 if I post stock market is going to go crazy this week. Three stocks to buy for May. When we started learning what the algorithm liked, now mind you, these are legit things, Ryan, but Ray Dalio was listening. Jamie Diamond was listening.

The Reddit boards were becoming more louder than their newsletters. And so now you look, they're looking like, wow, they're not just dumb money anymore. There's some sophisticated guys in the bunch. Yeah, it's some degenerates in there. But it's a few sophisticated ones that's calling this stuff pretty spot on. And so when Wall Street next door to me got a hold of like, they did exactly what you said, Ryan. They started also jumping on, we call it momentum stocks. So Palantir would be one. AMD is another. Crowdstrike is one. SoFi is another. There's a plethora of them. But what I noticed, like, man, between me and you humbly, I used to say, oh, my God, everybody on Fast Money or Squabbox talked about every stock I talked about last night, as if they were watching my videos. Because sometimes they can't talk about certain stocks because they're not a billion dollar valuation or they have, they can't talk about a stock that's,

So I'm a technician. This is my advantage over everybody in the game. I'm a technical analysis expert. So I can tell you, not, you can't time the market, Ryan, but I can tell you when a breakout of a particular stock is coming. But some of those stocks aren't to be talked about on Wall Street because they are, they would be penny stocks or they would be OTC stocks. And I don't do penny stocks, but I'm talking about something like Palantir. Palantir used to be $8 when I first. put the world on to that particular stock. Wall Street couldn't talk about it yet. But I saw like, oh, there, Alice Karp, he's a phenomenal CEO. He's a bold leader.

So he's been my guy since PayPal. I put my whole million people on to this particular plate when it was $8. It ended up going to $210. Wall Street jumped on it at $160 because now it had, Mind of they way late into the party. My community been on it. But their rhetoric and messaging was what I was saying for years when it was $8, $10, $12. But now it reached the valuation that they can cover it on their show.

So I knew big money, smart money was going to come into the stock. Sure enough, they pushed it from 160 to 220. And we made a killing. We had two runs in that from 8 to 160 and then 160 to 220 because now, big money or smart money, hedge funds could now buy it. And it just gave us the lift. Now this year, 2026, it's a cool off year. You digest those earnings.

It's called Too Far Too Fast. It ran. So now it's going to come back for the second goal at once this time again and end of the year, 2020, into 2027. So these little things, this is a technical aspect of what I'm teaching today. But these are the things that was helping us get the. advantage on Wall Street, but they start seeing, oh, these guys are on point. So then you see Josh Brown, you see Tom Lee, you see all the guys that's coming on as analysts saying and speaking about the same stocks we're covering, but they were not the ones they were covering before the prevalence of the financial influencers hit the market. I hope that makes sense. No, it does. And

is that because is the thought there that if a show like, you know, CNBC talks about a stock that's $8. They can actually move that stock too far just because it doesn't have the market cap. Is that the thought process? Like, they can influence the price too much.

That's one of the reason. It doesn't have the liquidity. That it can be moved easily. You know what I'm saying? Once they start pushing their billions of dollars, retail can't move the market, but they can't. With the amount of money they have under assets.

And so, yep, that's one. And then, two, they have a, they have a designation. I believe that if a stock is not a $100 million market cap, they can't cover it. You know what I'm saying? So like you might have some companies that's doing good. You might know a company now. Like, man, Chris, this is a great private company. But the company might be doing well, but they don't meet the threshold to be spoke of on CNBC until they hit that level. So that's why earnings comes around every three months. And that's why it's so like the Super Bowl for investors because we're trying to really see, are they profitable yet? Are they on track to becoming profitable?

Because Washington really sitting back saying, yes, because soon as they do, we can finally talk about it. That's what the game is for them. For us, we just looking like become profitable because we know we're going to have more upside into this play. Okay, because we discovered them first anyway with, again, being boost on the ground. versus them being high level. They're covering the O-Guard stocks, Moderna, Pfizer, you know, seeing Pepsi and Coke and, you know,

Union Pacific. That's the kind of stuff they talk about where we're coming in, telling them about Tesla. They hated Tesla. We're telling them about Palantir. We made, AMD used to be a penny stock. AMD used to be $4.

We made AMD and Lisa Sue. You know what I'm saying? That's not popular. But if you're not in the game, you don't know this. And so Wall Street is a beneficiary of having inside information on what's coming because of the intel and the information we're providing to the system, even at a disadvantage and even in a real way. Do you think it's fair to say that today and moving forward, it is no longer acceptable to be. a naive investor who just puts a matching percentage in their 401k and maybe fills out a Roth with seven grand once a year or whatever. And you just throw it in a couple indexes and you don't think about it. Or do you think today demands that we take a little more ownership of what we're doing

and like part of our life just has to be once a month or once a week or whatever our cadence is spending some time with say your content and a couple other. people's and digging in and thinking. I mean, I, I, uh, I was listening to a show and a guy that I, that I really, um, that I really respect. Not, not an investment guy, but a business guy. And he made a comment about a company, uh, who was doing psilocybin therapy in Canada. And at the time, it was like 96 cents.

And he wasn't saying invest in it. He was just talking about the fact that he believed, he believed in the therapy, that the therapy was helping, particularly, uh, veterans, uh, with PTSD. and those of PTSD in general, which I do believe as well. But, you know, he throws this out there. So then I was intrigued. So I go in. I start digging in research.

I find out, you know, really good CEO who had been around the space for a very long time, like seemingly good groups, some interesting investors who don't put their money in places that usually don't end up panning out in some regard. And I watched this thing go from 97 cents to $9. And, you know, it kind of then came back down and he settled in five. is now starting to grow. But like, you think about it, if I hadn't taken the,

and this isn't about me, guys, it's more like just the initiative to listen to something. And instead of just going like, oh, that's interesting, like actually spent, I might have spent a half hour that night instead of watching some stupid program on TV,

just researching this company, I put a couple thousand bucks into it and it turned into, you know, five figures in the matter of probably 13 or 14 months. And you're going, that's a nice little hit for a half hour, you know, one neat thing thinking about coming. So like, you know, should retail investors be spending this time and taking this ownership or can they get themselves in more trouble and they

should really, if you're not going to invest a certain amount of time, just kind of dumb, put it into indexes, forget that it exists and go about your life. And although I love your story, Brian, and I love that analogy in that scenario, man, I still believe just putting your money in an index or ETF is the way to go. Because it's enough people not even doing that. What you just alluded to is a little more sophisticated, even though it's not. But believe it or not, it is.

People are not even doing that. And so, yes, I would just, at the bare minimum, put your money into an index and or ETF, and at the very minimum, diversify into crypto, Bitcoin, and Ethereum in particular. because even for you to do what you did and get your feet wet in that manner, you spend 30 minutes listening, but then you took action. And then you deployed a amount of money that you were comfortable setting it and forgetting it and letting see what it do over the next 13, 14 months. That's still a little too complicated for a lot of people, whereas they can just put their money in an index and just let it do what it do.

I would just do me a favor and at least do that is where I'm at with it. Yeah, I love that. And I completely agree. I think, you know, that was my, I will call it big bets, you know, moonshots money. You know what I mean? That's the percentage of my portfolio or a percentage of my portfolio that I was like, you know, this one's worth, you know, if it goes to zero, would I rather it didn't? Sure, but is it going to break the bank, not even close?

And, you know, it also, I think. sometimes and guys the beauty of i think and tell me if i'm wrong here chris but like the i'm not a huge i don't if robin hood works for you great but i feel like culturally robert hood can get people in trouble because of just the way it's talked about and you sometimes but even if you take you know with some of these platforms especially if you can buy fractional shares even if you have like a hundred bucks and you can put it into something just as an experiment to watch what happened and how do you react to it i mean like you know i've taught myself over the years if i do invest in individual company don't don't check that shit every day like it'll drive you crazy right like but you know

have a timetable and whatever but i think like how do you react to owning an individual stock like when you see a five point drop in the stock do you lose your mind do you get all 10 and anxious and want to sell? Or can you ride out that wave? Like, it's almost like you have to practice this stuff, just like you would practice shooting a jump shot or tackling someone or hitting a golf ball or whatever your sportive choice is.

Like, it does feel like you have to practice this. And I feel like today with some of the retail tools that are out there, it's not like the old days where if you didn't have 10 grand, you couldn't even open a brokerage account. You know, now with $100, you could buy fractional shares of a company and just see what it's like to watch Tesla go up and down. I mean, Tesla is a great one.

I mean, I love Tesla. And my favorite, I mean, you were probably in it at this point, too, but what was it like four years ago? They did that three for one when it went up to like $900. Like, I remember watching that thing go up going, you know, you knew something was going to happen. It was just moving too fast and getting too big. You knew he was going to have to do a split or something.

But the whole time, guys, the whole time Wall Street would have told you, don't get in it. It's completely overblown. It's going to blow up. And all it did was, all he did was a three for one that then reclaimed its original price in like, in like 12 months.

But so how much, how much do you have to believe in the company? Like, and I guess emotional, knowing the standard retail investor, like for me, when I see Tesla have a major drop, I don't even think twice about it

because I'm hook line and sinker on the long-term vision of where it's going, on the leadership in Elon Musk, on the mission, I believe in the economics. So I have zero anxiety when it goes from 440 to 360 in a week. That literally doesn't even phase me because I didn't need dollar cost averaging in because I believe in it.

But let's say it's a company that, a biotech company that I have no connection to, no, you know, I just think it's a good bet. Like, do I have to believe in it? and how much does believing and understanding the company matter when you go into individual stocks? Or is it just buying good bets, place them? No, it comes down to belief in the company, but more importantly the leadership of the company and the balance sheet. So, for example, Tesla is one of my favorite stocks.

I did catch that particular run you're talking about. I did it two or three times, actually. So Tesla has been good to me, but I like Elon Musk. And so whatever he's doing, I will bet on Elon Musk. What I challenge people to do is this. The world has moved past favorite teams in sports. We now love our favorite players. I would love and challenge people to look at the stock market the same way.

Find your favorite CEOs. Go look at your favorite CEOs that has proven track records at other companies they have been at or the current company if they've been with them for substantial market. a time. So, for example, I told you about Elon Musk, but I like Alex Carter as well. I also like Lisa Sue. Some stuff I'm just investing in because I'm investing in that person and I know they're going to get the job done. Does that make sense? And so just like LeBron for this current NBA is one of my favorite players. I don't care about the Lakers, the Cleveland Cavaliers, or the Miami Heat. Wherever he at, I'm a fan of them for that time.

time being because I'm a fan of him. Steph Curry. I'm a fan of Steph Curry. I'm a fan of KD. I don't care if he's on a rocket. I don't care if he's in Phoenix. I don't care if he'd go in the state. Invest in good people that run good companies

and you'll be okay. And then with the leadership change, then you have a decision to make. Do you still want to be a part of that asset, that company, that investment? And that's when you begin to make the decision. You also said something to, Ryan, that I want to circle back to about learning yourself and how you handle loss and drawdown.

It does take time. A person do have to figure out for themselves, one, the behavior of a stock. So, for example, Tesla will have $100 drops from $460 to $350, stuff like that. Can you stomach that? The first time it might blow your counter. The first time it might be hard for you to stomach. Over time, when you see that's just the nature of the same. stock. You start being like Ryan. You start licking your chaff like, man, I can't wait for the next time.

It dropped a hundred dollars. I got my cash ready and I'm going to deploy it. Okay. And now over time, this is where time and the seat matters, you start to learn the patterns and behaviors and the fluctuation of that particular asset that you're investing in. So it doesn't, it doesn't trip you out as much. It doesn't steer you as much. You anticipate those moves because you understand it comes with the territory. So then you wait for that next move up at Tesla and then boom, now you've got to outsize return in your investment. This is what you can do across the board with quality companies that you know like and love ran by leaders that you know like and love. That would be my word for that. I'll be honestly, I love that. I've, it's funny. I have,

I have Palantir and Tesla are two of my biggest individual positions and it's because I love the leadership of both kinds. I'm not. I'll be honest. I'm. I, I hadn't thought about it that way. This is hitting me real time as you're saying it. But that's a big part of why I like those two companies is because of the leadership. I liked the way they approach business. I liked their aggressive peak on things. But I had never thought about it.

I love that. That's really interesting. That's a really interesting. And it does. It goes with, you know, I, like, I'm a big, I've really come to love Jalen Brunson the way he plays the game. Love them and, love them in Dallas. And now I love them in Dallas.

And now I love him Brunson in New York. Yep. Yes. And I was, it's funny, like, not a Dallas fan. In general, I, I, I, since Jordan left the league, which has been a long time, I've never really followed a team in the NBA. I love college basketball, but I didn't really follow a team. And, like, as I've been watching Brunson, I was watching him in the Mavs and started really like him when he came to Knicks being, I'm in Albany, I'm two and a half hours from where you're sitting. You know, I started to become more of a Knicks fan, but because I love the way Brunson runs that team, especially.

now that he's putting on double-digit dimes every game. Like, it's a whole different player. I love it. That's a different conversation for a different day. But I love this idea of investing in the leaders. I want to pivot our conversation here as we close up. You're sitting in Times Square. You're looking at your window.

Your picture is plastered everywhere because of the work you've done as an educator, as a creator, as a community builder. I would like to spend just the last, you know, five or ten minutes that we have together and talk about, I want, Like, you've over a million followers. You know, it's 1.1 something million followers on YouTube, people that connect and watch your shows. And it comes through in your audience.

When you look at the view counts and the comment counts, you can tell you have this very robust, very dynamic, very committed community. How do you build that? There are so many people that have a thing they'd like to talk about or like to be known for or like to educate on, and they just get stuck in their voice, never cracks the consciousness and just they find themselves.

And there's so many, I come across this a lot in people who are like, I started a YouTube channel, but no one watched. I felt like I was doing okay for a while and then I gave up. How did you persevere through? And again, to broad stroke generating a million plus community in 10 minutes is impossible. But at its core, like, how did you go about building such an vested in dynamic community from an engagement person.

For me, Ryan, it started with trust in transparency. That was the hallmark and the foundation of how I built my empire. Those were building blocks. The trust part was showing up every day. I told you I'll post seven days a week when I'm not traveling and doing stuff, awesome stuff like this with you. But trusting, building that, showing up every day, showing them that whether the market is up or down, I'm not ducking no smoke.

I'm here. I'm covering it. the wins and the losses. Then the other piece was transparency. I am a guy that openly talks about the good and the bad of things, of my life, of my money, the ebbs and flows, the highs and lows. And so when people can see not only like, man, this guy is an honest, genuine person, he has a good spirit.

He takes his time with us. Like you said at the beginning of this show, I don't talk down to people. I'm not condescending. I'm going to speak in an uplifting manner. I'm going to love on you. I'm going to encourage you. I'm going to affirm you. When you get that seven days a week and you might not be getting that at your job,

you might not be getting that at home. You start to look at somebody like, wow, he retired when he's 35. He's a multi-millionaire on YouTube. He's a multi-millionaire on Patreon. He's a multi-millioner on all his other streams of income. This guy comes from nothing but show a motto that all of us, can mimic and emulate on how it's done. I think when people see relatability, it shows them that, man, this is really tangible.

That's a brother that, even if I don't reach his full height, which I believe everybody can surpass what I've done. But even if I just come halfway to what he's done, I'm still doing better than 99% of everyday people. And so I think those traits, dynamics and characteristics are the things that we call the building blocks of how that came to be. I think that with all that being said, Ryan, I think that you can't fake energy. We have a saying in the neighborhood and the culture, real, recognized real. When it really shows up, you're going to know, like, Chris is one of those

ones. It's a whole bunch of people that might get more attention than him that might get the line light over him. But there's something different about him that's different from the rest. and I always tell people you feel it. If you would have met me, if we would have did this interview in person, you'd have been like, you'd have called your wife or your fan. Like, I met the coolest dude today.

It was something about him that one, when his presence came into my studio and everybody say it, everybody feel it. And even I do these meetups all over the country, New York being one right now, because they see it too, like, oh, coach, we love you online. But we love you even more

when we see you. in real life because Ryan, I pride myself on being accessible and relatable. And I think that go a long way with people in this day and age. I love that. And I couldn't agree more. And I think the beauty of it is, like, there's something different and unique about you, but not because, and tell me if you think I'm wrong here, but not because, like, you were given this blessing by God that you were, you know,

meant to be this thing, but you found seemingly, this is my interpretation. is that you found your version of what authentic, transparent, like what that meant for you, like specific to you, not like you were given some gift that I don't have or someone else doesn't have, it's that you were seemingly worked for and were willing to accept the unique authentic nature, right? Like you said at the beginning, like you're not a flashy dude.

There are other people who may be in your position that would wear crazy shirts or they would have, you know, they'd be flashing their bling on screen. Like, I did have this one guy on this show one time. Dude, I just got to tell you this. He was a good guy. He was a good guy. And I mean no ill will, and I'm not going to say his name because it's a great interview.

Like the audio is great. But like, he had this really baller Rolex on, probably my guess, he had some diamonds on. It's probably $65,000, $75,000 watch on his wrist. And, dude, I'm not kidding you. Like, every once in a while, I'd see his hand, like, come up like this. He's, like, showing off to watch. And look, look. like, God bless you. If like that's your thing, that's your thing, right? Like, he was into watches too.

Cool. But like, I just thought it was funny. You know, this guy had to, that's his thing. You wanted to show off this watch he had. That was part of his style. Like, I think it's cool that, that, and part of why people relate to you, like, you could be that guy too if that's who you were. But it's not who you are. You're this version of you. You like cool hats. You like hats you love. Right. You got your style. Like, and I think that's like the key for people. has been, and I know this even myself, the times when I felt the most disconnected from my audience and my content or when I'm trying to be something that I'm not, you know, and I've had, people always want to give you advice, right? They always want to be like, hey man,

like this part of your show, if you like tweet this or you did that or, you know, you need to put, people always tell me you need to put segments in your show. You need to put segments in your show. And I'm like, okay, like, I get that and I get for some people, segments are really cool.

And I understand the thought process and psychology behind it, but I'm like, I don't want, want to have to stop my guests flow because all of a sudden we got to do a segment like I you know I mean like I see my job as you know this isn't like a 30 minute show on a on a television network like I see my job as taking this person who I have brought onto the show to share with my community and saying hey like where does Chris want to go today like what what like I'm watching your facial

expressions watching your mannerisms and saying what things is he jacked up about today and then let's press into that. If I see that you're like super dialed on something and then all of a sudden be like, well, hold on, Chris, we got to do our, you know, our segment on, you know, five things that, you know, five books you read, right?

Like, you're going to be like, hell is wrong with this guy. That's my take, right? Like, that's the way I wrote my show. So I think it's, it is so much not, like what I don't want people to hear is, and I'll wrap up because I know I'm supposed to be interviewing you,

but it is my show, so I can do it all I want. You know, what I think people get lost in like, well, geez, Chris is just, he was given this God-given ability to take these complex things and turn them into easy to understand stuff. I can't do that. It's like, well, that's Chris's thing. That doesn't have to be your thing. Like if you love the nerdy, deep, you know, seven-syllable words, become the nerdy deep seven-syllable

guy now. You know what I mean? Like, there's so much room for people out there. And man, when I find someone who seemingly has. found their voice so naturally as you. It inspires me. Like I get all jacked up, you know, and I love it, man. I'm so happy that you did for you personally.

And I'm also so happy for your community that, I mean, think about that. If you weren't able to find your voice, dedicate to sharing your message and be so consistent, how many people are still making bad financial decisions? I mean, just think about the impact. If you don't find your voice, if you try to be corporate suit guy, Wall Street guy with like a ticker behind you on your show. and people don't relate to it, there's tens, hundreds of thousands of people

that are still making bad financial decisions. And I think that's the beauty of this content game and why I just love it so much is because, man, when you see someone get dialed like you are, bro, you're just helping people. I appreciate it. Ryan, you said it well. You said it in the way I didn't even look at it, man. But it does.

When you notice, both of us being men of God, that when you're walking in your purpose, what they say, when you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. And for me, that's what it fits. None of this feels like work. It just feel like it's part of my calling, part of what I was doing anyway. I did all of this to do this for athletes. I worked in Notre Dame. I was going to work for the Detroit line that the director of player development. That I did was getting me all groomed up. Life has a way and God has a way of turning you towards what he wants you to do. And as opposed to doing it for the Lions,

he just helped me create and curate my own empire. And I still got all the athletes. I got the truck drivers though now. I got the traveling nurses. I got the engineers, the AWS and Nvidia and all kind of people inside my patron around from all the big companies that Mag Sevens in the world. They all in there.

Chris, I'm an engineer. I make all this money, but I don't know how to invest, but I watch you every day. And so I've been able to now reach all of these people that I thought was going to be through scores. But now I've been able to do it through this vehicle, and it just feels right, Ryan. It feels authentic.

I don't have to be somebody. I'm not like you said, man. I get overlooked when I'm in places, bro, because I'm not flashy. Like, I'll be somewhere, and people don't even know who they're sitting next to. And I'm not going to say nothing. And if you don't know, you don't know. But on the same tip, because my audience is so big, when I'm, if you part of the community,

a coach, I walk through the airport, I walk through Times Square, I walk through here or there. And so it's a dichotomy that's unique in of itself. I can be somewhere where it's not my tribe and I'm overlooked. And it's okay. And it's okay. Because God has called me to reach when I'm called to reach and I'm purged. and I'm perfectly okay with that. And so, Ryan, and I thank you for how you pointed that out.

I didn't even look at it from that lens, but you're right. Without me stepping up and to answer the call on my life, there would have been a whole host of people that didn't get turned on to the stock market. It would still be making bad financial decision or at least not having a trusted voice they can turn to for guidance. So I thank you for that. I love it. I love it. My friend, there are going to be a lot of people in my audience that want to go

deeper into your world if they're not already. And I'll say one of the best ways is always go the free route, which is you too. I'm a show up for you guys every day. I'm a show up for myself and teach you the game. I'm not a I'm not a hype guy. I'm a teacher. I am a X's and O's guy. I'm an athlete.

So we talk sports. So everything will be in the sports term. But if you want to go to the next level, that's when you join the Patreon. That's where you get access to the whole system of services, of the whole school, of the whole learning community. And then we have one-on-one coaching beyond that. And then we are prime and we're adamant on touching and seeing you in real life. And so we always have congregating moments or ways we mobilize and galvanize together in your city, your town, your state,

because we believe in in-person communication, in-person fellowship, even though it's about money, and even though it's about learning and teaching technical analysis, it's something about that dynamic of being in person. And so that is the last piece of it that we make the whole thing come together with. So that would how YouTube and then Patreon, which is Patreon at Chris saying, everything is my name first and last thing. Guys, and I'll have the links. Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening, wherever you do, just scroll down. I'll have the links in the show notes in the description. Chris, I know you got a big day today. I know you're in New York City. Your face is up all over Times Square. You've got meetups. You got people to see. I appreciate you carving out this time. I appreciate you. And just keep doing what you're doing, brother. God bless you. Thanks for having you, buddy.