Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Kevin O'Leary (Shark Tank) on Tips For Growing Wealth, Labubu and FTX

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Kevin O’Leary, AKA Mr. Wonderful, joins Nicole for a wide-ranging, no-BS conversation about building wealth, protecting it, and enjoying it (but maybe not with a $5 coffee… or maybe yes?). They debate whether people should treat themselves to that latte, unpack the investment rule that shaped Kevin’s fortune, and dive deep into today’s economic landmines—from real estate and crypto to celebrity prenups and the collectibles craze (spoiler: Kevin’s Labubu is worth way more to him than you think). If you're a newbie investor, you won't want to miss where Kevin says he'd invest $1,000 right now. Plus: Kevin shares personal stories on his marriage, prenups, and how his mother’s money wisdom still guides his financial decisions today. Nicole and Kevin cover: 00:00 Kevin O'Leary's Legacy and Investment Philosophy 12:41 Collectables and Labubu 15:55 The FTX Fallout and Where Kevin Stands with SBF 23:03 Real Estate and Advice For Homebuyers 24:44 Prenups and Financial Identity 30:44 Marriage and Money 39:21 The Coffee Debate: Small Indulgences vs. Financial Discipline 47:08 Economic Outlook and Elon 50:51 Entrepreneurship and the American Dream 54:05 The Importance of Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone 56:32 How to Show Money Rehab Some Love This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Always do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any financial decisions or investments. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative, involves a high degree of risk, and has the potential for loss of the entire amount of an investment. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC.  *APY as of 6/30/25, offered by Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Rate subject to change. See terms of IRA Match Program here: public.com/disclosures/ira-match.

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IRA transfers, and 401K rollovers. If you want an investing experience that's both smart and simple, head to public.com slash money rehab. One more time, public.com slash money rehab. This is a paid endorsement for public investing. Full disclosures and conditions can be found in the podcast description. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Kevin O'Leary truly needs no introduction, but I'll give him one anyway. He deserves the mic drop. He's a shark tank OG.

He's been a shark since 2009. He's a legendary entrepreneur, investor, collector. He's really had his pulse on the world. of business since building the learning company, which was acquired by Mattel for 4.2 billion in 1999. He's built unbelievable wealth for himself. And today, he's here to help you do the same. We talk about so, so much in this episode. It's kind of crazy to go back and listen to everything we covered. I have an all-access group on Instagram. And when we booked Kevin for the show, I asked the group what kind of questions I should ask him. And someone said we should have the

coffee debate. If you don't know, Kevin is one of those experts who tells people not to buy the $5 coffee if they're trying to build wealth. I am the complete opposite. So we really duked it out. And I want to hear who you think won. Be honest. Let me know. Also, my Instagram All Access Group is open to anyone.

So please join for all of the fun behind the seeds moments like this. Beyond coffee, Kevin and I talk about practical money tips, like the investing rule he's used to build wealth and what advice he'd give to want to be homebuyers right now. We also talk about some hot topics like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey's pre-nup, the fallout from Kevin's time as a spokesperson for FTX and the Labibu craze. By the way, Kevin brought a Labubu to my studio and I tried to buy it off him and I was shocked by how much it is actually worth to him. I think the number is going to blow your mind. So let's get into it. Kevin O'Leary, welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for wearing pants.

Yeah, I thought I was going to wear some pajamas, but out of respect to our first time to get, I thought I'd wear some pants. Thank you so much. I feel like the richer you are, though, the less you care. I don't know if that's the case. It's really coming out of the pandemic when I, you know, I started to realize, as you well know, on television, it's the top half that's on camera. So why are you burdening yourself with pants when you don't need them? And that's what I call pandemic chic. And I think I've really started something now because I simply never wear them unless, you know, it's something like this where I really want to make an impression. Thank you. I'm honored.

So thank you so much for coming right before the Emmys. I really appreciate your time and it made me think about how valuable time is. It's our most valuable asset. Do you think about your billable hours? Well, I don't think of them as billable. The whole concept of entrepreneurship is you work a tremendous amount of time during your journey because it's never a destination. It's not about the greed of money and I've said this countless times. You have to be immensely passionate. to work that hard. You must love what you're doing. And out of that work, one day you find yourself free. You have achieved the American dream. You have financial freedom. But not because you were greedy for money. It just arrived because you built something of great value. And then you go into this new

phase where you decide how to use your time. So I only do things I want to do because I don't have to do anything. And so I want to be here today. I was really looking forward to this. I haven't done your podcast before. I've heard all about it. My team said, these guys are amazing. So here I am. And you are. And so let's use our time wisely. But my point is, if you can achieve that in your life, you will even want to work more because you get to do the things that really matter to you anywhere in the world. And that makes life intriguing, I must say. So let's use our time wisely. Just dig into it.

Yeah. Mama wonderful. I love her breakdown of investing. Do you use that portfolio of 20% of every paycheck invested, no more than 5% in a single stock or bond, no more than 20% in a sector? Yeah. She taught me that when I was still a teenager because she was doing that her whole life. And nobody in our family knew this until she passed away.

And I'm the older brother. So the executor called me and said, look, your mother died of. very wealthy woman. You got to get down here. I said, no, she didn't. We're middle class. She was married twice. She really wanted to fiercely be independent, financially independent. Her second marriage lasted a very long time. They're very happy. But she wanted her own money, always. She never wanted a man, any man, to tell her what to do. And I think that's part of her background. She was Lebanese. Lebanese women are very, the whole society is matriarchal, very matriarchal, because that's just how it is in Lebanon.

and, you know, that's how I grew up with a, I'm half Lebanese, half Irish. And so on Sundays, the women would prepare the meal, the grandmother usually, and if you didn't show up, you went to hell. So that's how they kept the family together. It was very important. But the women there ran the show. They just did. Like, that's, they ran the family.

And so she got into that mode early in her life, and she learned diversification herself. She was not a stock analyst. Very simple rule. No more than 5% in anyone's stock or bond, no more than 20% in anyone's sector. And she had a lot of bonds. They paid 7% in those days. And pretty well, all the S&P 500 stocks that paid dividends. Because she lived off the divs and the interest off the bonds for 52 years.

I saw that portfolio. No one beat it. Nobody. I mean, it was really incredible. And so that's changed my life forever. And do you use that? I do. I do.

I built a whole ETF company around Georgette's philosophy called O.E. shares and Alps bought it. It was a very successful business. It was really boring and that's what worked. Everything was so boring about it. But even my kids use it now. Because I always say to them, why don't you buy OUSA, that's our big, that's a subset of the S&P 500, only the good companies that have good balance sheets and pay distributions every month. And why don't you try and beat it? Like put it in your, you know, they have their own apps online and then just beat it every year. see if you can beat it by picking stocks, they get their asses kicked. I mean, I love ETFs because you don't sit around listening to tips and rumors and you're

spending all day stock picking. I'd still do that for fun, but that's not where the big money is. It's in indexes, and that's how it works. Boring. Loving. Boring. Every month, a check. Yeah, you want to have a fun, sexy time?

Go to the Emmys. That's right. Go buy some watches. That's right. I know how to do that. I saw that you had five million bucks in T-bills. I tell people a minimum of 1.5 million by the time you're 65. That's the minimum.

You have to have saved up. You can actually survive off that for the rest of your life if you have a million five, you know, in a very conservative portfolio. Living off 4%. 3.8, 4.1, that's kind of where we're going. And I don't think we're going to get a lot of rate cuts like people think. There's a lot of inflation in the system right now that's still up at 3. But anyways, you have to have a strategy in your, you know, mid to late 20s on how I'm going to get to a mill five with no debt.

That means pay your mortgage off, end up with a million five. And, of course, you have the benefit of compound interest and, you know, market cap going up on the market over 20, 30 years, which it generally does, 8 to 10% a year. If you're an entrepreneur and you're taking a lot of risk, you'll want to get $5 million in T-bills sitting in account. that is what I call an excuse my French the fuck you money that gives you the power to do whatever you want

and you know take care of catastrophic outcomes like illness and everything else that protects you and you have to have the discipline to park that you get to look at it every day and every month

you get a big check off it and leave it alone don't mess with it and start all over again once you have to that nest egg. For an entrepreneur, that's a really good nest egg. Because as an entrepreneur, sometimes you don't get paid for two years. You're starting a new thing. You've got to keep your

salary low. You know, it's sweat equity. But you got that check every month saying, oh, what's that? That's my distribution from my five mil. Not everyone can get there. But if you get your first pass, take five and just put it into tea bills. Really boringo. What is that kicking off every month? Right now I'm getting, I've converted it into half of it is in stable coins, yielding 4.1%. I'm pretty comfortable with crypto now, and I like that we pass the genius bill, so now that's backed by 92-day duration fixed income products, very high quality like T-bills. You can get a slightly higher yield off that. A lot of people are still nervous about crypto, but you've got to learn about it.

I've gone through a real journey with it, so I'm very comfortable with it now. all kinds of, I went through the cowboy phase, all the guys who went to jail phase, the FtX phase, the finance guy in jail phase, all that stuff. And I came out the other end alive because I just was very careful. And what I've learned now, it's a great tool. So that 5 mil is half and T bills, half in stable coins. If you're worried about inflation, what about some tips? I'm not a big tip fan. I'd rather use other products like gold and Bitcoin. That's my head. inflation. And lately, I've got into alternatives because I did a lot of research on alternatives. And the one that really blew me away, collectible sports cards. Who knew? I'm the guy that,

along with my business partners, just paid $12.932 million for a dual logo man, the highest price ever paid. And people say to me, what, are you crazy? You just paid, you know, $12.9 million bucks for a piece of cardboard. And I told them this story. Years ago, I was invited to the matriarch of Tetrapak. She's Swedish. That's the wealthiest family in the world in terms of a private company. Tetrapak is still private. All the packaging is made by Tetrapak. They're all over the world. I was invited to a very formal lunch in her castle. It was really quite something. And she was just a wonderful woman, so down to earth, halfway through the meal, drinking some really good white wine. I'm talking good white wine. I said, I'd like to go to the men's room in the bathroom.

She said, sure, just walk out, take a right. It's right there. And I walk in and above the sink, I look at it, it was a Picasso. In the bathroom. An original oil Picasso. And I know what a Picasso looks like. And it was four inches from my nose. Instead of the mirror, it was a Picasso. I walked out, and I said to her bibs, there's a Picasso in the toilet. She's, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. My husband was a friend of Pablo, and Pablo couldn't afford his rent, so he would just buy a, you know, a painting every week from him. They're all over the house.

We got 40 Picasso's. I said, you must be kidding me. What did you pay for those things? She said, I don't know, you know, maybe back then 1,000 francs or 500 francs, whatever. took for his girlfriend and him to pay their rent. So imagine if you had bought a Picasso from Picasso in the mid-50s or late 50s for 500 French francs, that thing's worth 160 million bucks now. So when people tell me, oh, you know, you bought a Pollock, you have a Chagall, you've got

a Warhol, yes, because those assets, if you get the right ones, and I'll draw the analogy of modern art or contemporary art, you need the piece of Uniques. You're not going to get the capital appreciation. You need that original Picasso oil or the original oil Warhol or the original Pollock.

Even though you paid $10 million for it, it's going to be worth $25 million, 10 years later. That's an alternative asset that really fights inflation. That's why I'm doing this. That's in a girl can dream. But if we bring it back to Earth and somebody who could get into

alts more affordably. Yeah. The Labubu stuff. I have a Labubu. Can I see it? I'm proud to have this Labubu. Let's get it out here. This is my little man purse.

Your Mers. Louis Vuitton, collectable Labubu. Everybody wants my Labubu. Everybody. Stop me on the street all the time saying, is that a Louis Vuitton Labubu? I said, yes, it is. How much is it worth? I think you could buy these for $29 if you could find one.

The highest I've been offered is $3,800 for it, but I'm not selling it. I'm not selling it. There was an Asian woman with a daughter who was her birthday, and she just said, look, you've got to sell me the Lubbubu. I said, can't do it. This Labou and I have a personal relationship. Evan, there's a price for everything. No, I know, but the point is it gives you an idea about collectibles.

Now, this could be more fattish, if you remember, Beanie Babies, but I'm pretty convinced at looking at 11 years of data for trading cards that I'm in a good place, but I didn't stop there. The data from Walmart and Target, they're talking about a billion dollars in sales this year in cards. And so something's happening with the new generation about these things, and that to me is a great alternative. But what I'm going to do in that space is do the Georgette strategy.

I'm going to index. I've quietly been amassing a massive portfolio of cards, and they're all really rare. I mean, sort of prices are 600K to 1.7 million. So I've got way more than that dual logo, you know. I will bring them out at some point, and now I'm indexed. Now I've got tremendous diversification, and I think that portfolio is going to perform very, very well. So how much for the Luboo?

Not selling. A million dollars. I wouldn't sell my Lubu for a million dollars. I'm not kidding, because that Lubu... Ten million dollars. You're making this Labibu famous right now. I'm sure. This Labu...

Someone said, Kevin, here's 10 million bucks. Can I have your libubu? No. You would say no. No, it wouldn't do it. 20? No.

50. Not for $50 million. I don't want to sound arrogant. I don't need $50 million. I want to keep my labubu. Okay? So I'm keeping it because this labubu actually was on my shark tank seat. It's the only libubu in the world.

So this libubu is priceless. It is to me. I mean, that's, you know, there's some things that I would sell, it's not my Laboo Boo, none of my watches. I would never sell any of my watches. My watches are so unique, most of them, made by passionate watchmakers that start their life watchmaking. 14 years old. And the only way they're going to make you a piece unique, that means one of a kind with red elements for me, is they trust you as an investor and as a collector, even more than an investor. Because if you don't respect the horology and the making of the

piece and you flip it to profit, you're banned by the whole community. I've never done that. Hold onto your wallets. Money rehab will be right back. So how do you feel about fees? Because I hate them. Seriously, I always try to warn listeners about fees. It doesn't matter if it's in your mutual fund or in your checking account. Fees eat at your gains and hold you back from becoming the best and wealthiest version of yourself. One thing I do love and think a lot of people can benefit from, banking with Chime. You can open a checking account with no monthly fees and no maintenance fees, plus they have 47,000 fee-free ATMs where you can withdraw your own money free of charge. That's more than the top three national banks combined. Not only does Trim save you money, but it offers other benefits as well.

Work on your financial goals through Trim today. Open an account at chime.com slash MNN as in Money News Network. slash MNN. Chime feels like progress. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. banking services and debit card provided by the Bank or Bank N.A or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Timing depends on submission of payment file. Fees apply at out of network ATMs. Bank ranking and number of ATMs. According to U.S. News and World Report 2023. Chime checking account required. And now for some more money rehab. So you got caught up in a bunch of FTX shenanigans. Yes.

you alluded to it but now that experience has changed how you view crypto so how much crypto of your overall net worth do you have i'm treating a crypto though georgette way no more than 20 percent so i'm at 19.5 right now but let me tell you what i include in the package i don't just buy the asset i buy the infrastructure that means the exchanges so i own robin hood i own coinbase i own WonderFi up in Canada, which was just acquired by the guys at Robin Hood. And so the great thing about an exchange in crypto, you make money regardless of the asset price or the volatility. You're doing an exchange, so it's trading, and you're getting a couple of bips for every trade.

And so that's what I like about that. And the analogy I use for everybody to think about is if 300 years ago, if you had the option in the gold rush, maybe 250 years ago, would you rather own the gene and the shovel and pick factories or taken risk on finding gold. The answer would be the shovels, the picks, and the jeans, because everybody needed those. And if afterwards someone found gold, you could buy it from them at spot prices, which is what I do. But I like the infrastructure. So what I have in crypto and what I've learned through this experience, which was remarkable, I must admit, there are tens of thousands of tokens in crypto. But you only need two to, to

capture 95% of the volatility of the entire crypto market. For what, Bitcoin and Ethereum? Bitcoin and Ethereum. So, and the great thing about those is, and I own a little stable coin, too. So the three that I own in bulk on the asset side is Bitcoin, ETH, and some stable coin. Because you can buy watches with stablecoin now. It's a legitimate transfer asset for payment systems. So the great thing about owning ETH and Bitcoin together is you can stake.

and wrap and get yield so now not only am i you know got this chunk of crypto sitting at 19.5 percent i get a check each month i get a stablecoin distribution and that i just love because i'm not worried about the price of bitcoin tonight or tomorrow morning i don't give it down i don't trade it it's like a it's like my gold assets it's very hard to figure out how to get any yield off gold. And I own the bullion and the GLD, which is an ETF. But this strategy with Ethan Bitcoin, yipi-o-Kiae. I mean, I've had to get a, I have to build a team to do it. It's not easy, but I'm doing it. But the problem is that FTX was supposed to be that infrastructure, too. That didn't work out so well. It did not. But, you know, what I found

about that is, by the way, it looks like FTX will be the most successful bankruptcy in American history. People that had accounts there were being offered 140% of their holdings. because they invested in a lot of assets like Salana and some AI companies in Alameda, which obviously went up in value through the bankruptcy process. So, look, it's unfortunate what happened. That caused me a lot of grief, and I got a lot of scrutiny for it. But I just found, again, from my mother, the lesson she said, just tell the truth, and you'll never have to remember what you said.

And so all through the Senate hearings and all that stuff and the scrutiny from Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC, He fried me like a chicken on there. I just told the truth, which ended up being the truth. And that's how it ended. And I testified multiple times in front of the Senate now on this thing. I showed them. I was the last guy to talk to Sam Bankrupt Friede how CZ, his frenemy, bankrupt him.

And Cizzi ended up in jail, too. He went to a federal prison. So those guys were beating each other up in nefarious ways, and they both paid a horrible price. Have you talked to SBF since then? then? Or has he apologized to you? I don't think I want an apology from him. You know, I'm a big boy. This was a startup, a large one, you know, but I wasn't the only investor. Some of the biggest, you know, companies, financial services companies on Earth were right beside me. We own stock FTX, FTX International and millions of dollars in our account. And he hired me as a paid

spokesperson. He insisted, or at least we negotiated, that all of that payment came in crypto. It was sitting in the account when it got, you know, stolen, basically. And so we're going through that process of cleaning all that up. Sam Bankrupt Fried was a very interesting guy because he was out there on the spectrum. He was a genius. There's no question. Whether he understood what he did wrong or not, I mean, now he must. I also met his parents who were very nice people.

I feel very sorry for them. But in a way, it's those pioneers with arrows in their back. that created this incredible industry. Both he and CZ, the CEO and the founder of Binance, they are the ones that took the hit. And now that were regulated, the upside's immense. It's just immense. And so I'm calling this to be the 12th sector,

the S&P within five years, crypto. So I'm trying to follow all of the sectors you're in. So 20% alts, 20% crypto. 19%. Well, the way I do it is this. I'm mark to market the portfolio. every month with my financial team. We look at everything.

I'm talking about the private equity deals, the venture deals, the liquidity of the trust holdings and all that stuff, and I do a consolidated snapshot of the entire operating company. And if I see something out of kilter in terms of concentration,

it's gotten over 20%, that sends a red light or bell off. The only sector that I let go north of 20% is real estate. It's at 31% right now, but it's always been a third for me, always. So you only check your portfolio and your net worth once a month? No, I mark to market every day at 4.30, but you can't do that with crypto. It's trading 24-7. So I have a dashboard.

I look at it several times a day. The analogy it uses if you can't see your money every moment of the day and you don't know where it is, you're going to lose it. So luckily, for people that are just starting out, there's all kinds of apps that you can use now on your phone, and my kids use them, that can consolidate every one of your bank accounts for you in a moment's notice.

But you have to have a dashboard in your life of where am I sitting in this moment? And a lot of people don't have that, and that's how they get in trouble. Do you like what you see? Yeah, I like what I see. But this is what I do. I don't use debt.

Well, I do use debt in real estate, obviously, but I never let debt become more than 30% ever. Because if you let debt get past 50% and you get a 50% correction, you're wiped out. Well, let's talk about real estate being a big part of your portfolio. You've said that the days of free money and low mortgage rates are over. They are. So what advice would you give to want to be homebuyers right now? You know, this is a great conversation to have with you because people forget for generations, an American mortgage was between 5.5 and 7.5.

Five generations, that's how long. And they somehow built America, and it worked out very, very well for them. And so when people are whining about not having a mortgage for 3.5%, I say, forget it. You're never going to get that again. That was an anomaly during a remarkable period when rates were going down for so long.

What those days were over. And so back in the 50s, when you had a 7% mortgage, you bought a 1,500 square foot starter home with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and you had your first kid in there, and you learned how to manage that mortgage because it was only at least less than a third of your free cash flow. You can't let a mortgage or your home consume more than a third of your free cash flow

per month, or you are fucked. You'll go bankrupt. Again, excuse my French. But that is how much I feel about it. When I see people over buying houses and they can't afford it, even with two salaries, I know one of two things is going to happen. They're going to go bankrupt together or they're getting divorced because the number one reason for divorce is not infidelity.

It's financial stress. Maybe financial infidelity. Yeah, that's right. One outspends the other. But people, you know, never give up your financial identity. I've said this countless times. I have a company I invested in called Hello Prinaup to help women get preempt. pre-ups, even while you're in love getting married, screw that, get a pre-up.

Because once real life hits, stuff happens. And so you've got to start thinking about when you're starting out and you're getting married, you're building a business together. I know it sounds callous, but it's not. You have to get money in that relationship to survive. And so that really matters. Women do something very bad. They give up their financial identity when they marry a guy.

Why would you do that? You have to get your credit score back later after you. you're divorced 10 years later, that's insane. It's very hard to do. You keep your own accounts, you keep your own credit card, and he does the same, and you have a joint credit card that you contribute to each month together, and you decide which things you spend on together and which do you own yourself. You have your own investments and all that stuff. Marriage is a wonderful thing, and you can build a family, but you never give up your identity, your financial identity, or bad things will happen to you.

You've said to your kids that you want them to have pre-naps and not blend their finances with their partners. No, they know that. They know that already. They, I don't even give them money. I mean, I, you know, I have a different philosophy. My mother taught me that entitlement is a curse. It is a curse.

An absolute curse. You may not agree with me on this topic, but when I graduated, my mother came to my graduation and said, I have good news and bad news. I'm here to celebrate your graduation, but there's no more checks. And she said, the dead bird under the nest never learns how to fly. And I said, Mom, what the hell does that mean?

She said, I'm done, not paying you anymore. Because she was helping me right through college and everything. And, you know, that's because she had that portfolio we talked about earlier. I mean, she put my brother and I right through college. Who knew? I mean, that was, you know, but then she said, I'm done. you have to go figure it out on your own. She felt that if you de-risk somebody financially at a time in their life where they're making hard decisions about what they're going to do with their

life, you curse them. And you must know at least a few screwed up rich kids. I do, and I know exactly what happened to them. They are totally screwed up. They've been derisked. Their parents give them money every month. Like they're 40 years old. They haven't done anything because they didn't have to. That's a curse. What a miserable waste of a life. And so after my big, you know, my first liquidity event, I went across the river in Boston and I set up a generational skipping trust. It's a very simple metric. It does not provide to anybody anything after they finish education. But from birth to last day of education, full free ride. Full free ride. Everything paid for, even out of wedlock after I'm gone. But if you drop out of school or you don't make it

to college, you're cut off. I remember my son who's doing really poorly in high school. Came home one day in Boston. We were living in Chesland Hill and he said, look, my friend has a trust. Tell me how mine works. I said, mom and I are going out for a movie. If we get run over by a bus, you don't have to worry. This trust is going to pay until you finish high school. but it doesn't look like with your marks you're going to ever make it to college. He said, yeah, but I don't have to worry about it. I got a trust.

I said, no, this trust stops paying after you finish your education. If you only make it through high school, I'm dead and you're broke. The horror in his eyes when he figured that out. However, it motivated him

to get off his ass and use the next three years to milk that trust to get into college, get his marks up, and he did it, became an engineer, worked for Tesla, got one of the Tesla directors to write him a letter when he applied to Harvard, got in, MIT 2, that's where he is right now. Hold onto your wallets. Money rehab will be right back. And now for some more money rehab. I just got married last year.

Congrats. I hope you've kept your financial identity. For sure. Do you have a prenup? Yes, of course. And think about all of our listeners who do not fall in the same trap that you mentioned that women lose their financial identity. Not our ladies, but you and your wife have been married since 1990, right? So you have some years on me. No, no, definitely. You have 34 years on me. You guys separated, though, for two years. I let celebrity get in the way of my family, which, you know, that's one of the downsides of this. but my daughter, son, you know, said, this is ridiculous, you've got to come back.

And I'm so glad they did. And we worked it out, and it's changed our, you know, I look at it. I would say something for men who are thinking of doing this. You will never have the same relationship with your kids if you separate from your family for a period of time. You can repair it, but it'll never be the same. Most, you know, because that's just the way it is. And I've come to realize that.

proud to be back in the family unit. I'm very focused on making it work. And I do. And I've been that way for many, many years. The grass always looks greener on the other side. It always does. And I know that with certainty because so many of my friends are now going into their third and fourth marriages to women that are as much as 35 years younger than them. It's stupid. But it's not me. It's them. I say to them, you know, when I'm going to their fifth wedding or whatever it is, maybe it's you. It's not them. Maybe it's you. You're the reason that you're getting married for the fourth or fifth time. It's on you. And why don't you ask yourself, why do I need to marry? Like at this point, if you're in your 50s, 60s, 70s, and you've got kids, why don't you just date? Because you're

really bad at marriage. And you're just geometrically decreasing your wealth every turn. Even if you have a pre-up, it's going to cost you a fortune to get married. Well, you have a pre-up. It doesn't matter anymore. It's still expensive. The pre-up for my wife and I, once you have children, pre-ups are pretty weak. And, you know, once you have a family, it's great

to have them. The period you want a pre-up for is that first three to five years, because that's when the majority of partnerships break up. And often there's no child. The minute there's a child, it gets messy. So getting back together with your wife was money a factor because divorce is expensive?

No, the amazing thing was money has never mattered to my wife because we couldn't even afford pizza at our wedding. We actually served pizza at our wedding. We had no money, zero. I was in the middle of my first startup. We had, you know, we had a party at our house. It was fun, but we had no dough. zero. And so she was with me and she was a fantastic mother because I could have never done what I did. I worked so hard the first 10 years. And as the learning company grew, it was in 52

countries. I was on the road all the time. I barely made it back for weekends. So she raised the kids and slowly but surely things started to move. And we started to make money and it was great. But she still doesn't give a shit about it. You know, we don't need for anything. And she certainly doesn't think about it's quite remarkable to you're very lucky to have a wife like that actually she doesn't outspan me i have to go buy her stuff you know like lately she's been stealing my watches so i decided buy her her own watches which has been very good for me because she's not stealing mine anymore but it's sort of that's great that's not what drives her what drives her is family family values getting she's so proud of our kids and trevor and

the whole college thing, that's a good place to be in. That's the way I look at it. What would you tell Taylor and Travis to put in their pre-up? Well, they're under such pressure as celebrities. She's so much wealthier than he is. Celebrity, as it did to me, causes tremendous stress in relationships, and particularly two celebrities. I mean, he's a celebrity on his own, but musicians tend to have a longer career than football players, so he's got to figure out his transition. she'll always be a bigger star than him and that's you know something you're going into the deal knowing but i think if they are successful you know getting a family going and they have a reason to support

each other that way i mean everybody's second guessing what these two are going to do look she's going to need more than a pre-up i mean she's going to have to set up structural trusts that he'll never get access to. So, you know, that's just the way it's going to be. I think she's well over a billion liquid, so he's just going to have to deal with that. Well, she said no to FTX, right? So she's got some smart people around.

That, unfortunately, is not true. She did sign the contract. Sorry to tell you that. It went bankrupt before she executed on it. You know, there's not a lot about FTX, I don't know. but her people spun a hell of a story. I don't blame them for doing it, but sorry, she signed it. So she signed the deal, then they went bankrupt, so she didn't actually appear.

Yeah, listen, I'm pre-programmed to tell the truth. I'm telling you the truth. That's what happened. So, yep, that's what happened. But, no, she's not perfect. I'm not sure she read it. Her people probably did, but she was going to be a paid spokesperson for FTX, and she signed the contract, and they never concluded it because they had no cash.

bankrupt. Okay, let's go back to an allocation. So we talked about your allocation, 20% crypto. So far, I'm trying to keep tabs, 31% real estate. Yes. What is your net worth? I'll do the math. I never disclose my net worth. You know why? And this is again for my mother, and it's great advice. She's a big believer in karma. If you brag about money, one day you won't have any. That scares the shit out of me. You can go online and see all the speculation and all that stuff, but I've never disclosed my net worth, and very few people actually get access to that information. I don't find it useful to stick that out there, and I think bad karma, too. I'm not boasting about money, but I'm happy to talk about individual assets. The cards are now at just over 20 million in a Holtco with three

partners. So I'm a third of 20, including that car we just bought. And as we speak, I'm acquiring or we are acquiring two really remarkable pieces in Osaka, Japan. One of my partners is legendary in the hobby, as it's called. His name is Shine. Matt Allen, is his birth name. He is the number one collector on earth. He is the number one guy that understands every card out there of value. And the reason I did this is two reasons. I didn't want to compete with him in buying that do a logo, you know, the Kobe and Jordan, because Shine thought it would go between $5 and $15 million, and he was right, almost to the penny. It was right in the middle, $12.9 million. By having him, when working together, we're not competing against each other and we're now

partners in this. But I've realized if someone said to me, go build. an index of watches. I want to invest $5 million in watches. I know how to do that because I've been collecting watches for 40 years. I know every watchmaker. I know every watch brand. I know every piece. I know every model. I know every caliber. I know every crystal. I know it all. I don't know that about collecting sports cards. He does. So I needed to find that guy, just like someone have to find me in watches. And I have that guy. And now he's the guy in Osaka. And so You know, every day we're strategizing on what's the next card, et cetera. And I think one day we will be, because, you know,

I never saw anything happen like this when we bought that card. It's only been a couple of weeks. My DMs from kids all around America and around the world, they're going crazy to see that card. These are, you know, father-son relationships that are in the hobby. I had no idea how big this is. You talk to 10 people. Five of them have been collecting cards since they were,

seven years old. This card is the absolute El Supremo card of all cards. It's the dual logo with the gold logo. And this is only one in the world. So I've been thinking to myself, maybe there's a way when the laws provide for it to tokenize the index, to let people have ownership of the index that owns those cards. So they too can enjoy, you know, the value of those cards over time. Yeah. Well, we don't hold the cards anyways, but it's a a vault. You can't take that out of the vault. You know, why? You can't let the signature fade. So the only time I ever look at my card is on my phone. Like everybody else's collection, they all look at the phone. So if somebody has a thousand bucks, how would you

tell them to invest it? At some point, you have to, you know, have a certain amount of money before you get into alt. So let's just say a thousand bucks or 10,000 bucks. If I had 10,000 bucks, I'd use bean stocks, and I'd just get a diverse portfolio of some crypto, some stocks and bonds of pay divs and some T-bills. And then I just look at it in my phone every day. And it doesn't have to be beanstalks. Any app that if you think you can pick stocks all day long, you can't. It's almost impossible.

But an app could take $10,000 and it index you to those asset classes that appreciate over time. But the key is you need the discipline to put away every month something. I do the same thing. You have to force yourself to put something away. every month for the future. Not only yours, but who's coming after you? Like, if you want to take care of the future, you've got to invest. Well, something that you have talked about that we disagree on is the coffee debate. You have said that people who spend $5 on a latte are stupid. Yeah, I'm right. I disagree. Well, then you're wrong. It's that simple. Why, if you can't afford to pay off your

credit card? I think in relationships, the little things matter, the notes that you would write. have an argument. I'm looking forward to it. Let's do it. In finances, it's the big things that matter. It's negotiating your APR. It's making bi-monthly payments on your mortgage, so you're spending less. It's not the $5 latte that actually adds up. Let's do the math. $5 a day, five days a week is $1,300 a year. Plus 4.1% compounded interest. Sure. But then instead, let's say you had a $500,000 mortgage at 6%. You do buy monthly payments instead of monthly. You're shaving off $150,000 on your mortgage.

So what about focusing on the big things, not the little thing? Well, I'm making a different point. I'm saying if you have a credit card balance that goes into the next month and you're spending $5 on a coffee, you're crazy. Because that $5 could have been used or $5 a day. usually it's more because you're getting two coffees a day. You're getting one in the morning, one at night. I'll give you permission to buy a coffee for five bucks

if you have no balance on your credit card at the end of the month. 23% interest. The reason I own all the credit card companies is people that are paying 23% interest. Why would you do that to yourself? I can't make 23% in the market every year. Why would you let someone do that to you? And so, no, no coffee,

for you, except the one you make at home for 19 cents, unless you pay off your credit card. Why can't we agree on that? I think if you're in credit card debt for sure, but studies have shown that if you allow yourself small indulgences, you'll be more likely to stick to a financial plan because you're not in a deprivation mode. So I'm not talking about $500 shoes or watches. I'm talking about a $5 latte that keeps you on track. No, I forbid you to give people that advice. I forbid you. That's just horrible. You've got to pay off your credit card. That's you have to. After your credit card. after credit card i think the problem is that you are saying you can budget your way into wealth you do not i'm not saying that i'm encouraging you to the bit you i like your idea of saying the big

picture there has to be a point in your life when you have no debt it's got to happen in your 40s in your late 40s maybe early 50s if you want to retire one day and you don't have any income anymore other than your investments, you've got to get out of debt. You've got to pay off all of your debts, including your mortgage. Maybe you've got a 30-year mortgage, 20-year mortgage. You're going through your life that 20-year-by. You're paying off that mortgage. But you've got to arrive at 65 years old, hopefully healthy,

with a million-five in the bank that you're actually living off, traveling with, enjoying your life, because you deserve it after working your whole life. But if you burden yourself with debt, you're not going to get there. you're going to have a very bad outcome in your 60s, 70s, and 80s. I lay that at your feet, Ms. $5 coffee. You want to take that $5 and pay down any debt you have. You do not deserve a $5 coffee if you're in debt anywhere. Right, but after debt.

Oh, okay. If you paid off all your debt, including your mortgage... No, I don't think including your mortgage because that's actually debt. Well, I think rich people have a different work for debt. I don't like the way you're calling a mortgage. that's not debt, it's debt. Yeah, but rich people say leverage. Rich people still use debt. It's just called something else. Yes, except wealthy people, rich people use leverage, particularly in real estate construction financing, because it's been around forever. But they have a,

I'll tell you a story about debt for rich people. I met a billionaire sitting in a $15 Walmart chair on a multifamily home. I won't bring his name up because he never wants me to bring it up. And he came over from Poland when he was young, immigrated here. And he told me about his experience in real estate that what he did with his wife when they came over is they bought a home, they scraped, they both were working, and they borrowed money from the homeland and they bought a really inexpensive house. And they ate pasta almost every. day until they were able to pay down the mortgage on that house and they called that a pasta house soon as he paid off the mortgage he started eating steak and he bought the house beside it then the

new house was the pasta house the one that he had paid off the mortgage in he cut it in half and he rented out one side so he lived in a small area in this side this house I think he actually went to the basement and he rented the surface up and he called that his steakhouse, but they started eating protein. So he went from pasta house to steakhouse, and then he got the next house, and then he borrowed money on that, and after he paid all that off, it became a steakhouse. And over time, he did that until he was a billionaire, because the asset value of the land and the houses went up over 30 years.

All he did was run around the neighborhood buying houses and eating pasta when he had debt, and eating steak when he had no debt. That's a good analogy, I think. So if you're going to use debt, you've got to pay it off. You have to have the philosophy of paying it off. Yeah, not all debt is created equal. Mortgage debt and credit card debt are different. What about student debt?

How do you feel about that, Miss $5 coffee? Rank it by highest interest rates. You can't cut off every small indulgence that makes you happy in this life and expect people to stick to a financial plan that's sustainable. Wait, wait, wait, wait, let's stop right there. Why does wasting money, why should that make you happy? Shame on you. Why?

It's not about the coffee. If you don't like coffee, it's something else. It's a small indulgence. Why do you have to waste money at all? It's not about wasting money. It's about buying things that make you happy in life. What else are you doing with your money? Well, maybe you're an addicted person that has to spend money to be happy.

Let's discuss that. I'm not an addicted person, but I think in every sustainable, let's talk about crash diet, they never last because you cut out every enjoyable thing. But I'm just trying to say the mindset is your mindset, your entire adult life, is to pay off all debt so you arrive in a place where you got the mill five in the bank and you have no debt. That is how you're going to be a happy camper. Well, I think every millionaire and billionaire did not get rich by skipping coffee. No, that's different. But you're saying you're trying to compare what an entrepreneur does who takes immense risk. Right, by building businesses,

by real estate, that's how you build wealth. You can't budget your way to wealth. You can budget your way to becoming a millionaire and a million five by simply keeping 15 to 20%. By not buying the coffee? Yeah, you can't buy the coffee, sorry. But you're building wealth through building businesses. I'm not, I mean, you're fixated on coffee. I'm just saying, why waste money? If something costs 19 cents and you're paying $5 for it, why? Listen, I grew up in an immigrant family.

I pick up every single penny I see because I was always told that if you don't pick up a penny, you're not worth a penny. So I get it. I always pick up a penny, too. You know, I do the same thing. If I see it on the ground, I stop, I pick it up. Because if you don't, bad karma. Well, now we can agree on something.

There you have it. I'm glad we did the whole circle in that way. You've said that there won't be any cuts this year for interest rates. Well, I would say 16th is right around the corner. That's when the Fed makes the next decision. I'm thinking 25 basis points, maybe. But maybe not. We have a lot of data between now and then.

What I'm concerned about, you saw the Lulu Lemon report if we're getting into stocks again, but they missed their numbers, huge tariffs. So they're going to have to push prices. They're going to have to raise prices. And so a lot of companies have been holding back. waiting to see where Tafts settle out because the policy's been very unstable. It's all over the place. You know, Japan is at 39, then it's at 10, you know, all over the place. And we have to wait to see where it ends up. If it ends up being around 10% reciprocal, I think everything's

going to be fine. Somebody's going to be paying more. That's very inflationary, and it will be. But I don't think the Fed should be bullied by any administration into cutting rates just because the sitting president wants them cut. They all want them cut. I mean, it's just, just sport to bash the Fed. Every president does it. And so, you know, it's not unusual. But this Fed knows his mandates over in May. And as I've learned over the years with all different feds, they don't give a poo-poo what the president thinks. They don't care. That's not their mandate. Their mandate is to be independent. The whole world likes it that way. They make decisions based on what they think is right for the economy. And their dual mandate is employment and, of

course, inflation at 2%, which we are a long way from right now. now. So if you're getting excited about rate cuts, I wouldn't. I say 25 basis points next. Yeah, I would think you might be right on that, but that will be the last one this year and maybe for a long time. It depends what happens in the back end of the year on inflation. Does it show up anywhere? And let's wait and see the next CPI report. Well, I worry about this idea of glamorizing low interest rates because we remember 2008, interest rates were on the floor because the economy was in the pooper. That was a really bad outcome.

Very bad. I remember how many people got wiped out in real estate because of leverage in 08? That was bad. That's rich people debt. Everybody did. There was lots of poor people got wiped out because their mortgages, you know,

it was bad. It was a very bad. Okay, well, if you were the Treasury Secretary right now or if you were, Powell, what would you do just for one day? I'd hold rate steady. I wouldn't do anything. Economy is doing very, very well. It's near full employment except California,

is they're screwed up. They have 5% unemployment here, but it's a mismanaged war zone state. It just, there's nothing you can do about this place until you change leadership at the municipal level and at the state level. It's a mess. Do you miss Elon in Washington? Look, I'm a big Elon fan. You know, the guy has great executional skills and he's done so much and still is. But I'm talking about, you know, the overall U.S. economy is in pretty good shape. and we just had a new high in the S&P two days ago. Would you hit highs every 20 or so days? Yeah, but you would think with all of the turmoil around the world

and all of the concern we have about tariffs and everything else, I think the economy is looking out about 24 months saying they like what they see. And I think a lot of it has to do with the productivity of AI in every sector. So you're bullish. I am. In fact, my real estate strategy has moved to data centers. That's what I'm building now in real estate. And I've gone from climate control storage, multifamily.

luxury condo into doing data centers, which is very complex, but interesting. And I am bullish. I have a pretty large portfolio of almost 53 companies now and almost 11 sectors, private, but we're doing very well. Good sell through. We're going into holiday now. I mean, it's going to be interesting. We'll see. So I'm an optimist. I never bet against America. It's stupid to do that. Look at the history. I mean, our number one export is not technology or energy, it's the American dream. This is the number one entrepreneurial economy on earth, and it has been forever,

and it will continue to be because of the nature of democracy combined with the American entrepreneur, the American dream. That's why people come here. That's why you're here. That's why I'm here, and that's why it happens.

And so I look at it and say to myself, for those of you that are entrepreneurs, and that's about a third of the population, give it a shot. Like, start your company when you're young because you can, well, time-wise, you can afford it. But the older you get, the more obligations and responsibilities you have, the harder it is. So if you've got two kids, a mortgage and you're both working and you decide you want to quit your job and start a business, you can do it, but it's a lot harder. You've seen thousands, maybe more, pitches?

What makes a good pitch? you know a good pitch is an entrepreneur that first of all can take the heat which is not easy but that understands whatever their thinking is going to happen it won't go that way they have to be able to pivot and they have to express to you and there's two things i ask for now just to make it short and sweet you've got to know your cack customer acquisition cost and your ROAS return on and spend if you don't even know what those mean no chance i will invest in you and i also want to hear that you're using, the inexpensive AI tools that are available now that your competitors using. We use a lot of AI on our businesses now, particularly to generate social media content.

It's cut our cost dramatically. So those are the things I'm looking for. And I will also never invest in a hot sauce. If I see another hot sauce deal, I'm just going to, my head's going to explode. Our big cack energy sweatshirt. Before we go, can you sell me this pen? Yeah. Let me look at it. All right. Oh. You obviously don't understand something about this pen. This is a piece unique.

How did you get this? This is a one of a kind. This is the only one in the world with this logo on it. You'd be out of your mind to even write with this. This should actually be in a case. This could be priceless. I don't know. I mean, if you don't buy it, you're crazy.

I mean, are they like watches? Should I hold one in both hands? Yeah, you should be like, if you can write ambidectrists, that would be amazing. But this is the legendary. I've never seen one. F-39 BP. I've only heard about them. How did you even get this? And if you don't think it's valuable, can I just take it? Do you mind? This thing is... Put it in your collectibles. That is fantastic.

In the vault. That is how you sell a watch. Sold, Kevin. Yeah, absolutely. Still a salesman. That's all I do. I'm just a sales guy. That's it. You sell the sizzle for sure. We end our episodes by asking all of our guests for one final tip that listeners can take straight to the bank, something that we didn't go over. Yeah. Well, I would say this to everybody that I've learned myself, and I wish I'd thought about

this earlier in life, you should spend about 30% of your day doing something that is not in your comfort zone. Something that you're scared to do or you're worried you're going to get embarrassed if you fail at it because, you know, we do a lot of things now about exercise or diet or all this stuff. But the number one muscle in your body is your brain and you don't use it when you get into routine. And so I'm dyslexic, so I have a very hard time memorizing stuff. And I, you know, live TV, I don't have to memorize anything. But I got offered a role across from Timothy Shalome me last year in a movie called Marty Supreme coming out Christmas Day. And Gweth Paltrow's my wife, but the script was like a telephone book, and it really scared

the shit out of me that I was going to have to memorize all that. Like, that's a lot to do. And Timmy told me, you've got to memorize all of it, not just your lines, because when we start shooting this thing, you have to know we're going to be out of sequence because you've never made a movie and this is what's going to happen to you. The first day we shoot will be probably something at the end of the movie, and you're going to say, what? We're not starting on page one.

So you've got to memorize the whole script and know where you are in time. And if you can't do that, you're going to fail. And I said, fuck it, I'm going to do it. I'm going to figure out how to do it. And I used all the tools that I could get my hands on to just help me, including all the software now that the other characters can be,

you can actually practice with them online. It's almost AI-like to learn where you are in the script and learn your lines, which I did. And I hope I'm successful. I'll let you judge and the critics. I'm very proud of the movie. I mean, I've never done this before, but that's 100% out of my comfort zone. But now I feel I could do that again.

And so my whole point is, is it guitar for someone? Is it learning the violin? Is it painting? Is it photography? Is it, you know, learning how to play tennis or whatever it is? Something you think you can't do. That's the advice I'm giving people, because it really makes your life better, makes you more productive, and you feel more confident about everything.

You thought you're going to hit a wall. You couldn't do it. And you did. That's my whole point. Congratulations. Thank you. I'll buy you a latte. Yeah, no, listen, you know, go ahead.

Buy a $5 coffee when you're going into the movie theater. That's Kevin approved. Yeah, absolutely. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan LaVoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab?

Let's be honest. We all do. So email us your money questions, money rehab at money newsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make. You know,