The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - The CBP - Brent Vanderwoude and Mark Krikke - Stewardship, Faith, Bitcoin and Economics

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES This week we welcome Brent and Mark, hosts of the Two Stewards Podcast for what's sure to be a wide-ranging discussion on faith, economics and of course Bitcoin. Make sure to check out their show: Two Stewards - YouTube From a couple of Canucks who like to talk about how Bitcoin will impact Canada. As always, none of the info is financial advice. Website: ⁠www.CanadianBitcoiners.com⁠ Discord: ⁠ https://discord.com/invite/YgPJVbGCZX #Bitcoin #economics #faith #realestate A part of the CBP Media Network: ⁠www.twitter.com/CBPMediaNetwork This show is sponsored by: easyDNS - ⁠⁠⁠https://easydns.com/⁠⁠⁠ EasyDNS is the best spot for Anycast DNS, domain name registrations, web and email services. They are fast, reliable and privacy focused. You can even pay for your services with Bitcoin! Apply coupon code 'CBPMEDIA' for 50% off initial purchase Bull Bitcoin - ⁠⁠⁠https://mission.bullbitcoin.com/cbp⁠⁠⁠ The CBP recommends Bull Bitcoin for all your BTC needs. With their new kyc-free options, there's never been a quicker, simpler, more private and (most importantly) cheaper way to acquire private Bitcoin. Use the link above for $20 bones, and take advantage of all Bull Bitcoin has to offer.

The Canadian Bitcoiners podcast is just two guys and maybe a guest or two discussing Bitcoin, Bitcoin equities, and the related macroeconomic space. It's not meant to be financial advice, so please, if you're doing any investing, after listening to our program, do your own research, do your own due diligence, and understand that any money you invest can be lost. The show is meant for entertainment purposes only, and we hope you enjoy the program. Friends and enemies, welcome back to the CBP. The usual, you know, Wednesday night, Tuesday night episode here. We're drinking some sizzly waters, drinking some regular waters with Brent and Mark of the two stewards show. I got a diet butter.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. No spice in that one. We should, I should do the ads. I should do the ads first.

I'll try and get through them quick here. Easy DNS, best place for you to buy domain, transfer domain, use domain for a website. Do you guys use easy DNS for two stewards? No, we don't.

Who do you use? Oh, daddy. Oh God. We got to get you over to mark go over to mark and uh use the code cbp media get 50 off whatever you buy you guys are using the code i don't know what kind of websites you're starting i haven't seen any but um soon enough i will i'm sure and then the second sponsor bull bitcoin uh you won't find a more extreme group of people than bull Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure my wife, Brent and Brent and I,

my wife were talking before you got here, Mark, and she thinks Francis is quite a character to put it plainly. He is, he's a very nice guy, but we listened to him for like two hours on the way to Washington one time when he did Tom and Nick show. I still don't think she knows really what he's all about,

to be honest with you, except that he's a bit of a firecracker, but in the best way. So if you're going to buy Bitcoin, you want to pay your bills in Bitcoin, Bull Bitcoin is the place to go. They got the best team there. Obviously, Francis is the leader over there.

I don't know what our code is, but you get $20 when you fund your account. Is that what it is? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, 20 bucks. Yeah, 20 or 21. Okay. Are we going to use our code or yours?

Well, my code's going to be in the description.'t know you know what yours is gonna look like but uh yeah you get the idea and uh yeah head there by bitcoins okay so boys first of all thank you for making the trip um yeah thanks for having us dude i i love having people in the studio because it's better conversation especially with two other people like you have these these guests you guys know this because you do a show which we'll talk about but you have guests you really want to talk to especially when there's like two guys running another podcast like you guys or two guys like the bitcoin magazine guys we had a little while ago it's just easier to talk to people when they're in the room as opposed to you know you got some latency you got camera problems you got this you got that right so i'm glad you guys are here tell people for those who don't know who you are maybe like a little bit about yourselves but also about the two steward show

and then we'll go from there so my name is len i think the latency is with your brain sorry what what are you go ahead are Brent. Are we live? Yeah. Okay, so I'm Brent. Yeah, Mark and I, we come from the real estate space. So that's kind of our angle. And we started a show called The Two Stewards Show. And yeah, kind of our perspective is, you know, we both have a faith background, we're Christians. And so we like to talk about kind of this whole scene bitcoin economics money from a christian worldview so that's kind of our our bent

um my background i don't know i'm from down the road from you yeah and uh yeah i came here there was no tents like you said very strong neighborhood yeah but no yeah there's uh you kind of notice there's a lot of changes in our city and um things that yeah how can we be a force for good in the world around us right that's kind of what turns around in my head a lot how did you guys come up with the the faith-based economics podcast because you know these are not simple bedfellows i don't think like religion and the economy some people treat the economy as their religion some people say bitcoin has become a bit of a you know pseudo religion pseudo cult but i mean i listen to a lot of shows i don't really hear anyone talking about religion and the economy together and what it means to be, I think, someone who cares deeply about their faith and also is trying to make a bit of scratch.

How did you come up with this? Is there like a whiteboard somewhere that needs to be immortalized? Like, here's the ideas we had. We're still working on the whiteboard. Well, economics and theology are both pretty dry, you said they're both coming out do i really want to study economics and do i really want to study theology and combine them it's like oh okay is this going to be good no surprisingly there's a lot of interesting connections right because um economics being you know how do you use your time? Right. How do you store the value of your time? How do you economize? Right.

And I think the theology side of it is, you know, how do you look at all of these things from an eternal perspective? Right. Because we are looking at how do we economize our time in the present for the present's sake. There's benefit to that. But then looking at, okay, well, what is the point of being here? The eternal perspective. So do you believe in eternity? And if you start asking that question, you start thinking about, okay,

well, where do I put my time, the value of my time, on an eternal time scale? Yeah. Which, you know, talk about time preference right that's a long time horizon there boys yeah i don't think a lot of people are thinking last time i checked casa's inheritance plan does not have an eternity so i don't know okay so it's okay so let's talk about that a little bit. Um, maybe that's a good place to start. We are in a, an economic moment here. I think a cultural moment as well, um, where there is almost no focus broadly speaking on what comes next for your kids, for your grandkids, for your estate, for your name, um,

you know, for members of your community. Some people don't even have a community that they call themselves a part of. How did we get here? What happened in your view? You guys are both part of a faith community. I'm not. I was raised Roman Catholic, but I don't practice. I don't have what I would call a faith community around me. So tell me, you know, how did we get here and why do you guys what I would call a faith community around me. So tell me, you know, how did we get here and why, why do you guys stay anchored in a faith community and how difficult has it been to stay anchored in a faith community these days? I can't imagine it's been easy the entire time. There's no promises that it's going to be easy. Well, maybe that's the whole point,

right? Is that, is that not the whole point? I don't know. Like how, tell me, give me, give me the, give me the rundown. rundown how do we get here Mark I drove no I mean it's um for me and you know I think for Brent as well you know theology or faith isn't just sort of like one compartment of our life and then here's economy and here's other stuff right is the lens through which we see everything um you know and so people will criticize that as well saying right like how can you possibly look at life that way how can you believe these things how can that inform everything but that's part of i think why we wanted to do the show or maybe we're realizing it is to show people that like sure we're bible're Bible thumpers, whatever you want to call us. Right. But that doesn't, that doesn't necessarily mean what people think it means. It doesn't mean

all these restrictions on, on life, on what you can do. It informs how you behave. But I think Bitcoiners especially kind of understand there is objective truth and maybe not everybody goes all the way down that that sort of rabbit hole but when you realize that there's a problem that fiat is made of like it's not based on anything and then you discover wait there's bitcoin and like i think is it foss that said like math and code equals truth something something like that. Probably, yeah. Among other things. Yeah, says a lot that fellow, yeah. So this idea that there is actually objective truth.

So if there could be truth in the economy, if there can be truth in money, where else can there be truth? And so for us, you know, that's kind of our starting point, right? There is truth and therefore I should orient myself in a way that aligns to that truth. And, you know, exactly how you work that out. You know, that's a whole big conversation, but you know, how did we get here? How did you manage to, maybe, maybe the best sort of segue

is to talk a little bit about the faith-based community you guys are in. You guys are both Christian, like you said, you know, you're not only practicing, it's one thing to practice, right? But it's another thing entirely to really be surrounded by people of the same faith and the same principle set everywhere you go, right? And I think you try and do that. I would imagine not only in your faith community, but also with some of the friends you keep and the business partners you have as much as you can. That's difficult to do. And like I said before, maybe part of the promise of a community like that is that the difficulty, you know, the pressure makes diamonds in some respect.

But I'm curious, you know, this day and age, it's hard, man. Like everyone is telling you that you're wrong. Everyone is telling you that you're missing the great things life has to offer. I't think i agree with that view but i'd be curious to hear some of the things you guys think when you hear that sentiment and how you know how talk to me about how difficult it's been to hang in there with the faith community like these days especially it's you know taxing i'm sure i guess has anybody ever disagreed with you of course right yeah like like len disagrees with you all the time. Honestly, God, like every week I'm taking, you know, I'm taking guff in the chat from people about whether or not I'm correct on something. So for sure.

How do you deal with this? It's from this perspective, right? Because I think of, let's say Christians in China, they have a hard time. I don't have a hard time. Somebody disagrees with me or somebody doesn't want to do business with me. You're like, Oh, boo hoo. Right? Like it's not really that hard. I think, right. You know, yes, there's, we run into people that don't agree with us. Wow. What a shock, right? Um, when you take a principled stand on something, if there aren't people who disagree with you, there's, you're probably not taking a great perspective. So for me, like, you know, it doesn't really bother me. It doesn't really phase me. And, you know, we don't just, or I don't anyways, um, just associate with other like-minded people, right. In, in going to church, like, yeah, obviously we believe the same things and

and that's what we preach but it's not like i will only do business with other christians right there's like what is the point in that if i really believe that we have something special i can't just keep that to myself and i can't just only associate with um people of the same faith right like i would do and close friends are christians and doing a you know this podcast it's a natural sort of consequence of you know having a faith community around you sure yeah okay i get that i and i agree i agree with what you're saying i think that's important i should i should say i'm not trying to say that you know having a faith-based community is a bad idea i think it's a probably a better idea now than maybe it's ever been actually this

this like so say you go to church and um this is an interesting realization that i had is like you're in the pew or in the church auditorium with other believers and basically the only commonality or the only tie that binds you is your faith right like what you believe so you know it's grandma over here young family over there you know newly married couple some other guy who just you know i don't know where he came from like that kind of a thing right like they're all different economic status different summer students right so and then when you start integrating with these people and you have a commonality of shared belief. You can't say these people, Brent. Well, these fellow believers.

Yeah, those. Sorry, I'll fix my language. Oh, God. Oh, God. Good job, sir. You get fired for that. Send help. Oh, that was those people.

Sponsors there. But, yeah, so you start, you go to a bible study with these people there it goes again and um you know really the only thing that holds you together is your faith but you you learn like amazing things from all different right like when the other time in your life would you interact with people who are so diverse from you right like you go to the gym you're with other people who are athletic or like you know conscious of their body yeah you go to the like your sports game or you go to your whatever right like every kind of category of or activity you do in your life is really you know you're you're with similar people a similar mindset even if you go to work right

like everybody's there for the company and they do their thing right and um so church is like a really interesting place like you said okay it could be hard to hold your faith, but it's actually really encouraging to see all these different people actually sharing the same faith and supporting you. Like, I don't know what I'm doing with my business. So I call up a 50 year old guy who has like all the willingness to help me because you see where I was. Right. And like, that's one example of, you know, a way that you leverage the community to help each other.

Yeah. I like that. I think, I think that's a great way of thinking. You know, one of the reasons I wanted to have you guys on, I listened to your show, maybe not every episode,

but pretty close. And I, I have, I'll be honest. I have a soft spot for it because I think that even though I'm not, like I said, in a faith-based community, I find the older I get, the more I see value in some of the stuff that 20-year-old me was just so reflexively against. Wait until you get to Mark's age. How many? That's like 60, 70 years away?

Yeah. Like, what are we talking? No it's but it's true right like i think the one thing i would say and i've said this to people before you know it's kind of nice walking by a church on a sunday and seeing everyone there they know each other they care about each other's well-being i think broadly speaking anyway i won't say you know there's probably drama in every church community, too. But you know what I mean? Like, that's, you know, that's what you expect when you get a group of people together. The thing I really think I would find value in is, you know, the thing you guys are saying about one having a sort of a principled stance that is it's like a pedestal that's, that you're difficult to knock off of, you know, you find value in that and it anchors you and it gives you something through which to

view the rest of your life. Even if that thing is wrong, some of the time you're going to do a lot better than people who are just operating by the seat of their pants all the time. And that's where everyone else is. The other thing is that a sense of community can shield you from a lot of the nonsense that we see in society, on TV, on the news. I joke with people all the time

that my wife is sick and tired of hearing me talk about Bitcoin or whatever. But I have- Yours too. I have, I know all of us are suffering the same, uh, same fate here, but like the, the thing, the thing I always say is like, it's funny to joke about that, but at the end of the day, there are people in your life you can talk to about things that matter to you that are completely, you know, juxtaposed, perfectly juxtaposed with things you see on TV.

Great example, you know, like this idea that Boeing had a plane, I guess, yesterday that, you know, suffered some turbulence. A 70-year-old guy died during the turbulence. Had like a heart attack. 30 people hurt, 70 people died. CBC today, in their infinite wisdom, put out a story about how climate change is causing more deadly turbulence in the air. And so, you know, like a lot of people have that story, you know, fed to them in their

newsfeed or whatever. And what do they do? and so you know like a lot of people have that story you know fed to them in their news feed or whatever and what do they do they they process it alone they internalize it alone they read it alone and they don't have anyone to bounce the ideas off of or express doubt to and so it becomes part of the way they think but for us you know i don't know you guys that well but i bring the story up and we're all just like come on like cbc again oh they're back at it you know, I don't know you guys that well, but I bring the story up and we're all just like, come on, like CBC again. Oh, they're back at it. You know, like you have this little community of people who thinks the same way you do. And that's not to say they always agree, but they think adversarially about the things that come from outside the community.

That's important. So how important that was during COVID, see how important it is when you're raising a family. And I think you see how important it is in economics too. So tell me, maybe let's move to the sort of next subject here. What about your faith has guided some of your, of your views on economics? This is good.

And I'll be disappointed. I don't know if, if you're a sort of subsection of Christianity cares about that story where Jesus flips the tables in the marketplace. You guys like that one. So, so yeah. So please make a reference to that story or a lot of listeners and viewers

will be disappointed. Need that. Need that on the show. Do your listeners know about that story? I think they do. A lot of Roman Catholic kids, you know, like I'm sure we know everyone knows that story.

It's a great one. Yeah. So that that's there's always you can always take these stories different ways right this is jesus goes into the temple and um yeah there's people changing money doing commerce um which technically some of it could be allowed right because uh so yeah how far back do we want to go so if you're going to the temple as an ancient as an israelite you have to go once a year to make a sacrifice okay right we don't do that anymore because christ fulfilled the old testament and the old some of those laws especially the um

ceremonial laws right which included sacrifice so you know if you were doing okay you would bring like a spotless lamb from your flock oh okay if you were not if you weren't wealthy you could sacrifice like a pair of turtle doves or something right so like just small animals and um you know maybe you couldn't catch them but you could go buy them outside the temple and that would suffice for your sacrifice. So what happened is kind of what we see now, which is what a lot of Bitcoiners also are not impressed with is that you had people with predatory merchandising, predatory practices in the house of God, right? And Jesus is like, this is my father's house.

And you've turned it into like just a den of rob God, right? And Jesus is like, this is my father's house. And you've turned it to like just a den of robbers, right? You're taking advantage of these poor people. This is not like they were there, you know, just like altruistically, like, oh, here you need, you know, they never are. The guy selling the sacrificial birds almost never there for altruistic reasons. Yeah. The money chang changes and just making a big big place of commerce and i can look at a lot of churches today where it's the same thing right talk to me about that what do you mean by that well so yeah i'm not about always throwing people under the bus but sometimes a little bit it was me under the bus quite a bit. No, so you've got the prosperity gospel, which is pretty popular, right?

Like, live your life right, do these things, and God wants the best life for you possible. And usually that's accompanied by, and by the way, if you buy this anointing oil from me, right? You sow a seed of whatever kind, which involves paying money to this minister. So you've got these big mega churches and these guys doing faith healing and all these charlatans, which for us as Christians, that really gets us worked up. Us worked up because they're doing these money changers in the temple we're doing. They're taking a good thing. They're taking God's name and using it incorrectly for their own gain. And that's probably getting back to the story of Jesus,

why he was so part of why he was so upset. It's like, you're perverting the truth, right? Talk to the truth earlier. The truth is go and worship your God in that case. So that's why he went in there and he flipped over the tables. He chased them out,

right? Beating them with a, I can't remember. It was a belt or a whip. Looks like a nine tail in some of the pictures I've seen. Yeah. Yeah.'ve seen. Yeah. Not pretty. Yeah, not pretty.

And so the idea of, you can have a righteous anger, and that's what Jesus exhibited at that point, because they were perverting the truth and also taking advantage of the poor. Okay. And the other aspect is like this heart position, right? Because, you know, outwardly, yeah, you have to do this ritual. You have to do a ceremony or a sacrifice in the temple. And that's like your act of worship that will, um, bring glory to God. But, you know, Jesus came to kind of turn these things to kind of point

to the, the underlying truth of the law, like, you know, okay, we are sinners. We can't do this in and of ourselves. We need Jesus christ to save us and it becomes a matter of your heart right like what um you know if you're selling these um animals in the temple and trying to rip people off you know are you are you doing that as an act of worship to god are you trying to right like what what is your heart position here i think that's kind of the more important thing okay and and so like in the modern kind of economic picture what are you guys thinking when you see you know as far as the the faith lens and tell me if i'm way off on this but when i hear you say that you know your faith is the

lens through which you look at everything i don't think that you mean like i have this like there's got to be some passage you, down to chapter and verse where I can see what decision to make here. What I, what I more think is like what you're saying, Brent, about what should I be doing here to, to, you know, make a faith-based decision that makes sense for where I see myself in the, in the eternal perspective, as you guys said earlier, you know, what, what do you, what are you thinking about when it comes to stuff? Like, I don't know, you guys are in real estate, for example, you know, I don't know what the Bible says about real estate. I have no idea. Maybe

you guys don't think about it that much either. I'm not sure, but I think there's a lot of people these days who would say that, you know, the people who own a hundred different doors or whatever, whatever the terminology is, Oh oh it's not really the christ-like thing to do uh people who own too much bitcoin and are not willing to share it it's not really the christ-like thing to do what do you say is it am i wrong pick a passage out of scripture i think mark said like take it out of context yeah right and just apply like well you can't do this and then just say well blanket statement can't do real estate or can't do whatever right um but yeah you as christians we want to mine all of scripture

and understand it well right so you're daily trying to understand it better come into a deeper relationship with god and um from that knowledge that then informs all of these other decisions that you make in your life right so like um you know what is the the beginning of wisdom or wisdom where does wisdom come from knowledge of god right so if you want to make a wise decision um you know you have to know god that's that's kind of plain and simple what the bible teaches right yeah um so come into deeper and deeper knowledge it's kind of like i think about Bitcoin, my Bitcoin journey and understanding, OK, well, you come across it. It piques your interest and you're like, OK, let's look like this is way different.

What's going on? Right. So the first thing I do is like read a bunch of books, listen to podcasts till my ears hurt. And then, you know, talk to my wife. So she's not with the dude. But you try to try to figure out like get some understanding right and then from that you make an informed decision it's like well do you want to hold it custody of your bitcoin or not well if you didn't do the research well maybe you make the wrong decision right the similar kind of thing in your faith life too right you start mining the

depths of scripture and that starts to inform the other decisions that you make in all of life right so i don't know if that answers your question it does a little bit yeah i mean it's important it sounds to me like uh you know you guys do this important but maybe there's not a specific thing that you think about when you do something like real estate or whatever i'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this is maybe a bit controversial but we should do it anyway because you're both here and uh i'm curious for your thoughts on this like it's something that i think is maybe a bit controversial, but we should do it anyway, because you're both here. And I'm curious for your thoughts on this. It's something that I think about quite a bit. I used to coach young people back before COVID. I have a little one of my own on the way now. And one of the things I think about a lot is like, how do I shield, God, I'm going to take

a lot of shit for this. I'm sure at least some of the people listening to this show. How do you shield a vulnerable person in your family from the things that you see all over the place these days? I think it's one thing to say that you don't agree with the way society is headed in terms of like, you know, the big one for me, for example, is relationships. You know, when I was in my early twenties, I loved every stupid meat market app that I could get my hands on. I went to every bar every weekend and just cared about whether or not I was going to, you know, score, take somebody home. You realize maybe in your mids or when you meet somebody who you really care about that you stop you should stop doing those things it's time to settle down and commit and get

something out of the things get something out of the time that you're spending with somebody and build something but not everyone comes to that realization that was 15 years ago or you know 12 or 13 years ago now it's even harder because everyone is sort of pushing you in this other direction. This prosperity gospel takes many forms. Get, you know, go out there and sow your wild oats as much as you can. Never settle down. Uh, for women, you know, it's a touchy subject, but you can't tell me that there's not a lot of very focused attention now on women when it comes to like develop your career, don't settle down maybe they don't want that maybe you don't want your kids only hear that perspective right kid

can do whatever they want but you want them to hear both perspectives how much does faith in the faith community sort of help you guys you know enable you guys i should say to make sure that your children are getting the other side of the photo as well. The other side of the coin, I should say as well, because it seems to me that without that faith, almost like a shield, man, there's almost no way to stop. You're using a biblical imagery. It's an onslaught.

It is a legit onslaught. And my Instagram, by the way, way is not even it's not even like that's not my algo my algo is like retro video games and calf injuries like whatever yeah okay so okay tell me about it i don't know yeah spiritual warfare like the reality is we're in a spiritual warfare with you know raising kids too right there's hostile force you can think about it sounds kind of tacky but it's like no there's hostile forces trying to get you to turn away from your faith from god right and then there's uh you know god's loving embrace and you can read his word and use the truth and not necessarily like, um,

what do you call it? Shield? Like what? I think you use the word like kind of shield or whatever, but, um, you know, inform your decision-making and equip, like equip your children,

equip yourself too. Right. Um, you know, they, they even some really great imagery in the Bible of like spiritual armor, right? You take up these different

implements and you use them in your warfare um yeah there's a scripture passage for everything there is yes i mean there's so there's a couple things i would say joey one is like that's very normal for you to feel that right especially and like the first time you hold your baby as well yes it's going to change you. And people don't get that. I'm positive. Everybody will tell you that. Right. But even now, just knowing that, okay, there's, there's this, this little person that's going to depend on us. And I'm like, wow, what do I like? There's responsibility there. Right. So like, yeah, people can, can give you a, give you a heck for that but like that's normal um i forget what else i was going to say but the the idea that you know brent's talking about spiritual warfare and us being faith-based for us that's like we get it right not everybody gets

that but you you have i think you kind of understand like there's forces in this world and not all of them are good not all of them want good for your kids or for, you know, for everybody. Right. And I think we're seeing a bit of a, we've, we've gone so far woke and progressive. You're seeing a backlash. Some of it is secular and, um, you know, some of it is, is faith-based as well, but even just on the secular front, like people realize realize this like there's more to life than just partying and then i've seen a lot of material out there about you know women who are in their 30s who are single going like oh what now it's everywhere yeah and

you see you know guys i don't know i probably shouldn't't be on social media. No, but the idea that women are like, okay, I need to find a high value man. And, you know, I can't remember the guy's name, but he's like, you know, you're 30, you've 35, you've got three kids by different fathers. Like you're not going to find that high value man. He's looking for a 25 year old. So the idea that, I don't know where i'm going with that but people are starting to realize i think a little bit that yeah you can live it up and you can maybe there's something to these sort of you know trad chads these traditional it is weird right like the idea i wasn't expecting to go down the red pill road here, but we've already embarked.

So the thing I don't understand about the relationship dynamics that people seem to be clinging to on social media, in real life, you see almost none of this in any sort of reasonable circle of friends or family. You see almost none. Even the most staunch sort of career first man or woman will admit at 30 or 31 or 32 that they're starting to feel this, you know, urge to find a partner and build something. They may not articulate it that way. Something as in a family or have a kid or whatever you know

they're looking for it yeah your biological urge yeah it's not just it's not just women who have that clock man it's both and uh you know it's it's funny that this lie and i think it's a lie has been sold to basically only one generation at this point successfully, the generation below you and I, the Gen Zoomers, the Gen Zers. If I look across the landscape at stuff like who's got the highest instances of mental illness, who's on the most antidepressants, who's having the most trouble buying homes or finding partners, who's having the most trouble keeping jobs, who's having the most trouble buying homes or finding partners? Who's having the most trouble keeping jobs? Who's having the most trouble with suicidal ideations? All the bad things.

And the Venn diagram across some of those societal forces that we view as negative. And by the way, in any other silo besides social pressures, any sane person would say that there are forces out there that are looking to cause harm to profit or to gain some other benefit over you or dominion over you. But if you say in the social silo, you're ostracized, the Venn diagram is almost perfect. And it seems to me that our generation is probably a 75, 25, 75, 25 or 80, 20 split between men and women who understood it just in time, found a partner around 25 or 26, finished that sort of last stage of growth together and started something great. And that other 20 or 25%, you know, I still see them at parties.

I still see them at sports. They're not happy. They may claim that they are, but you can see, you know, like, what are we doing tonight? Are we hitting a bar? I don't know. I don't really want to. What are we doing tonight? Are we going to, you know, this house party? I don't really want to. I'd rather, you know, come home and see my wife, you know, put mental energy, even if you're not building directly, mental energy into something that I've built. I don't know how you fix this in the broader community. Because one thing we talk about on our show, and I've heard you guys touch on it. Honestly, you could sell me on that, I think, in a way that you definitely couldn't 10 years ago. And I wonder all, you know, I wonder all the time how he fixes. From an economic point of view, the question I always ask is, how are a bunch of depressed, Adderall addicted, 15 to 25 year olds going to pay for the pensions

here in Canada in 20 years? What's the plan? How are they going to keep the birth rate up? What's the plan? And by the way, these people who are immigrating here, you know, it's not going to help your birth rate problem because guess what they can't afford anything either they can't get jobs either they're out at bars too and they're making bad decisions based on the pressures that we had all these years how do you fix it you guys i'm sure have thought about this since you both

have kids you're in this community of people who are like-minded and i think countervailing in a lot of in a lot of ways to what you see all over the place. I think part of the reason we started the show is because we realize what we have been blessed with and we want to help other people understand it and maybe share that perspective. But that's what stewardship is, right? So our podcast, The Two Stewards Show, we're trying to look at all these things from a Christian worldview, but stewardship is basically just realizing that what you have is not your own, right? Like it's been given to you. And so we believe as Christians, like God is the one who gives us, you know, our time, our talents, our relationships, our money, like all of the things that we have, even just the fact we're in this room, right? Like talking to people like this is a blessing from god that and you know and we quite literally believe that all of those things do not belong to us right there like in the span

of eternity right we have eternal perspective you realize like okay god has endowed us with all this stuff now what right what do we do with it and that kind of gets into the purpose of like why are we here what are we doing right and maybe this is deep no no it's important you're going you're going down a path that people it's true right yeah yeah you don't slow down yeah and so you know you asked a little bit earlier about kids like what do you do how do you protect them it's on my mind it's like a rush the last like few months right like all of a sudden it's like something, it's not just hypothetical. You have to start thinking about it. Yeah.

And like what happened to kids today? Right. So like one thing, and I'm not a parenting expert or an expert on anything. No such thing. Right. That's what everyone says. Yeah. But kids like you can tell them stuff till you're blue in the face, but they watch what

you do and how you act, right? That's where they learn, right? So you have to be consistent in your life. And, you know, if, if you say that you believe something, well, then you better live that way because they'll call you out really quickly if you don't. And then if they see it enough, well, they're going to, they're probably going to live the same way as you, right? If you say like, you know, we're, we're Christians and you know, we, you got to behave properly, but behind closed doors, you act differently. You know, you're, there's so many examples, right? They're going to see that. And they're going to people, children, especially will pick out hypocrisy very easily. Right? So when you're going back to like kids today and the high levels of anxiety and depression,

like, yeah, we're seeing that. Right. But where does that come from? I don't know. I'm pretty, I don't know on our, on our podcast. Anyways, I'm always, you know, giving grief to the kids with purple hair eating avocado toast. Right.

And with no, with no sense of responsibility and all that stuff, but like, really, like I shouldn't, it's not their fault because where did they get it from? Kids learn at some point you're an adult, you take responsibility, but if you've been trained a certain way your whole life, like, where does that come from? It comes from their parents. And the generations before that, where responsibilities have lost their importance, where your rights is what matters. The other thing too, Joey, is like shepherd their heart. So as a parent, like, you know, I have a couple of young kids, but you can very easily want to correct their behavior, right? It's like, okay, don't do that, right?

I just like told you don't do that but what's more important is like what's inside them right like um that they have the wherewithal in their heart to make the right decision right um and that's a super tough thing to to parent right like hey teach them patience as an example it's like i want that it's like well you can't have it like go sit over here i'll give you a candy like now you're just incentivizing the kid right and this is economics talk all the time right like incentives well what's the incentive for the kid to behave properly is the candy he gets on the couch when he watches tv right he enjoys that well you didn't teach him patience right you taught him if i do this i get a candy right so now like act selfishly is what you taught him so taking all of these like daily

example it's so hard as a parent to try and do this but like that that's good that is where like this shield comes up right like if you want to try and shield your children like give them the power like teach their heart basically to make an informed decision and yeah we believe that that decision is informed by the word of god and that's where the power purpose comes c.s lewis i don't know if you're familiar with him he's a christian author writer no one knows he wrote like anything but narnia but uh there's a couple other banners out there i think i have uh what is the one you call um i think it religions in the title you're christian yeah we're near

christianity he's on the bookshelf outside yeah so one of his quotes i'll just paraphrase but he said like the ultimate career is to be a homemaker right to take care of the home to raise buildings for people who don't know what that is these days. Well, but it's, it's pertinent, right? Every other career serves that career. Yeah. So when you think about it, like in our cases, for sure. Right.

We have children and like all of a sudden that's, that's our lives, right? Everything kind of revolves around that. And so it's not about the vacations or even going out like Saturday nights or whatever, like if we can do that, we will, but it all kind of revolves around raising these children. My wife was a nurse, she was a professional. We got married a bit later, um, in, in life. And, um, you know, she kinda, she gave that up right to raise children.

Um, which is, you know, I i don't know i guess in our society that's it's almost it's demeaning right it's not maybe that's a meaning just you're you stay at home with the kids right but it's our perspective is like no that is the most incredible thing you can do because children are the most incredible gift you can have right talked about being stewards right yeah that's one of the they're not ours and And that's one thing I realized too, right? If we're a Christian, anyways, they're fellow saints and we're just here to raise them. But like in eternity, right? I'm not going to be their dad anymore. We're all going to be like on the same level. And so I have this immense responsibility to raise these children. I don't do that perfectly. I haven't done it perfectly. I feel that. But that's, you know, that's the best kind of stewardship. So everything

that I do is not for my career. It's, it's going back to supporting my wife and like, we have a business together, so it's not, she's not just, you know, but everything goes back to that. And that changes then how I look at how we interact with people, how we run my business, how I conduct myself, everything. Right. How do you, like the one thing I was thinking when you guys were talking about this sort of, um, you know, generational thinking, um, I was so frustrated to hear this capital gains inclusion increase a few weeks ago that hasn't been levied yet, but looks like it's going to be as part of an election campaign at some point. Because it's frustrating to me. And I think I told both of you guys separately, for sure. I told Brent, my father's in real estate or has some real estate holdings. He's worked damn hard

for all that stuff over the course of his life. My brother and I had such a great upbringing and he was a civil servant and spent a lot of his time, much like you guys, I'm sure, banging down doors and collecting rent. And there was no e-transfer in 1989. There was no tenant no uh you know tenant landlord board you know if you wanted your rent you had to go get it from these guys and you know it wasn't easy it wasn't easy uh maintaining a house wasn't easy all these things but he did it with friends of his and we benefited that you know the reason i mentioned that is because when i think about this capital gains thing and i think about what you guys are saying about how families who pass on poor habits to their kids find that those poor habits compound.

And now the purple hair avocado aficionados who want nothing more than just to hang out at home and munch soft toast. By the same token, when I hear people say things like, well, you have all this real estate or you have a small business in your family or you have assets. You didn't do anything to earn them. That's, you know, it's my show. I'll swear you guys don't have to. That's fucking crazy to me. You know, like that's the, that's the product of generations of good decision-making, good upbringings, good, you know, how many, how many, what, what is, what is the Delta between high quality family dinner moments

between father and son for the purple hair avocado eater and the real estate, uh, you know, you know, or the two stewards hosts, right? What is, what is the gap there? It's a Canyon. It's a Canyon. Okay. I think it's big. I think it's huge.

You got, you can imagine how many can imagine how many formative moments you had over dinners. Or for me, the big one was driving home from basketball. Three hours in the car. You can only listen to so much Bob Seger. You've got to talk about something. The game was only 40 minutes. He's got a great catalog

on that guy. Sin is a great equalizer. That's the other thing like i could be some big wig guy with a lot of houses and like income and whatever and family intergenerational wealth and like you know i outwardly might have it put together right you have a nice car nice clothes you know you look at me and you're like oh that guy okay right and compared to like you said avocado toast over here well we're both sinners right like that's the way we kind of look at this is we are equal in the eyes of god so we kind of take this whole wealth

thing out of it okay look okay we're we're both like in the grand scheme of things we die we can't take any of this with us right like what are we trying to do here like we're trying to build up all this wealth so that what right like that's where it comes down to the why like the undergirding purpose of everything we're doing so if you're just in the eyes of god a very wealthy person but you're a sinner like you know you need christ just as much as the next guy right right okay so you're actually at a disadvantage and the bible talks about that a lot right like if you're a rich person it's actually a camel for the eye of a needle etc etc right yeah okay and these i went listen i paid attention okay this the time i spent in the church i wasn't just in there dogging it i

was listening all right yeah so it is good that you have these, you know, let's say, uh, good characteristics that you can, you know, have family time, respectable around the table and you can teach your kids things. And that's like a blessing from the Lord, right? Like, yeah, but don't think you earned it and you deserve it and you are better than the other guy. Right. Like he didn't have that growing up.

Okay. Well, how can maybe invite him over for dinner? Huh? Right. Teach him, like, don't give him money but teach him how to store bitcoin whatever right and it that's how you can have an impact and that's what we're here for to serve other people right so i don't know well that's a good that's a good take it's like a very selfless take yeah an angle that obviously i didn't i did not express during

my uh short diatribe there but it's it's important that you don't have to have that kind of thinking that's something i gotta work on for sure like instead of saying okay i have to protect myself from this you know have not what i should be saying is we're even on the most important plane how can i help this guy get you know okay think about jesus making inroads here big time okay yeah so he was like he still is god yeah so how much more perfect can you get and you know how much more glory can you get than being god but he neglected all of that to come here yeah right that's the that's the Christian example. That's what we're trying to imitate and model. Right. Yeah. It's like, okay, we have all this stuff,

but like, really who cares? Right. Like put it all aside, humble yourself, serve. And it's just, it's such a simple truth, but where do you get the most fulfillment? I think you'd probably find like, you know, maybe even just hard day's work, work right like you did a lot of stuff and you feel fulfilled or like you help somebody it's just such a simple little thing right like you feel great and it's a reward right you serve somebody i don't know yeah no that's essentially the christian life is a life of service in every way that you can look at it and with you know with our kids it's super hard to um not super hard but it's something we've focused on, like trying to explain to them, like, you're not like, if you're fighting with your brother over a toy or something, right? Like what's the right thing to do?

And then you expand on that as, as they get older. Right. But try and teach them about service. Little Johnny's eight years old. No, but so you have to, you teach somebody else. I have to model that.

Yeah. And that, you know, part of our, part of the podcast even as well is, you know, how can we help other people? Like part of it is I just like to sound my own voice,

you know, very secret about having your own show. Yeah. Telling dad jokes. But no, like generally, how can we help, right? We come, we have different areas of expertise, whatever, right? I'm more in the short-term rentals. So I do classes, talk to a lot of people about doing short-term rentals.

And it's not about what can I get right if I can help people then I'm happy I gotta make a living too sure of course yeah do that yeah but there's there's there's room to just help people out um and just to serve others so it's it's kind of like in life can you find a way to serve other people which is a different way of looking at it right like how can I help somebody or how can I serve somebody today? And it could be something little, like, I don't know, holding the door open or I'll put someone change a flat tire or whatever, but as opposed to like, how am I going to get mine?

And then when somebody introduces more tax, like, yeah, you know, I just want to same thing, strangle somebody. But on the other hand, like, I get too worked up about it. Yeah? Like, well, because what's, what's. I don't know. I work hard. Sure, we all work hard for our money.

But at the end of the day, it's not my money. That's what Brent said, right? It's a gift from God. Everything I have is from him. This is crazy. Whether that's money. Yeah, lost on me totally. Yeah.

But it's a great perspective. Like, it's, you know what it is? It's different. It's clearly centering two of you in a way that it is not set. I am not centered at all on this. I am tilted. I think the term is, yeah, which is probably where that, you know, little relationship comes from.

I want to switch gears a bit. You guys have been very kind talking about your faith. It's not something we talk about often on the show. So when I had you guys coming, I knew I want to touch on that, but you guys are both in real estate, right? This is the way you make your living. You say you're in short-term rentals. I get the feeling you're in longer term sort of rent rent from me from a year type stuff. How do you view, you know, what's going on in Canadian real estate now? I understand today there was a CPI release. It looks like you're going to get a cut in June for the first time.

There's all these moving pieces in real estate that Bitcoiners either think are stupid, don't care about, or otherwise deride online as a pastime at this point. It's something they're obsessed with. So rent-free, as they say. What are you, what are you seeing now in sort of the Southern Ontario real estate market? One of the hottest markets on the planet, uh, in terms of demand, lack of new builds, demand for multi-unit where, where are the, uh, where are the strengths and weaknesses here? And then afterwards, we'll talk about, uh, maybe some of the risks going forward with the government and whatnot. Yeah. I mean, it is tough

to cash flow right now. And I'm more on the cash flow side of things, right? Doing like short-term rentals. If that's your angle, you're about cash flow, right? You want to build equity as well. But usually when we talk to people, you don't count on equity. And you almost can because of past history, but we've also learned sometimes you can't, right? We've got clients who bought in 2021 and at 1% mortgage rates, right? Now they're paying 5%, 6%. They were at

the peak and now they're getting hammered percent oh yeah they were at the peak and now they're getting hammered and and even with a short-term rental they're having trouble staying afloat so it's challenging but you kind of zoom out right long term what's the long-term perspective and you know what you just mentioned right like there's no new builds for single family homes right there's still some condos goingos going up and those are going to dry up a little bit too, right? There's still, even if immigration gets curbed, still tons of immigration. We're seeing some family formation as well. Millennials getting together, having babies.

So like that, they're late, right? Birth rates notwithstanding. And then look at the regional nature of, of Canadian real estate. You're going to Vancouver, you're going to Toronto, maybe Montreal. And so when I say Toronto, it's, it's GTA, GTA, right? So including Hamilton that, okay. Yeah. If you know, if you were willing to spend $200 a month to

put into your RRSP what would you be willing to spend $200 a month on a property so now it's not cash flowing and it's going to cost you 200 bucks a month let's say would that be worth it if it was worth you know three times what it is now in 10 years, right? I think long-term, and again, I'm not really, I'm not there. And we're actually personally, like we've bought in the States. That's where I just came back from. That's right. That's kind of what I'm looking at, but it's, I think it's still hard to deny. Like Brent Moore works with people on the, on the densification side, right?

You have to be creative and you know Brent can talk about that but I think you know and just in terms of holding real estate like um it will soon be out of reach for most people yeah just to own a single family home yeah so yeah and that's kind of well scary I don't know but it'll it'll be culturally changing right especially in this area for sure for younger people and just to kind of wake up and say i'm not going to be able to buy a house so unless like all my buddies get together and we all share a room kind of thing but um yeah we're kind of on the long-term rental side but more on the intensification right so a lot of the time when you're buying property in this area like in the gta um to make things make sense as an investment we have to add

dwelling units we have to intensify the property do something to it right there's extra doors dwelling units yeah okay so how can you generate more revenue with the same amount of land essentially right so kind of ask that question then get creative within the zoning bylaws and the regulations right and figure out where you can push the limits the most yeah um to get yeah and we we try and focus on producing quality housing right because you can add dwelling units but they're the thing i the thing the thing that concerns me is like i don't have real estate as investment i have my you know the roof over my head and uh I don't really have any desire to move out of Bitcoin

into real estate, for example, or out of my TFSA into real estate. This is a good framing. It's $200 a month, $300 a month in your RRSP. Would you rather it be in real estate when clearly single family, by not allowing... This is like... This is our whole show, man, trying to figure out

whether or not real estate is great. It's incredible to me that people don't realize how valuable single-family homes are going to become in the next 10 years. It's completely insane that they're not building any. And the intention that the sitting government has expressed through that policy is we want to make sure that we're doing high-density housing

so that we can meet the needs of the growing population. And what they're doing instead is making sure that no one, no matter how well you do, ever gets to buy a single family home because they're going to become the scarcest thing in the market. The concern I have is like twofold relates that single family homes are critical for family formation. And number two, you know, single family homes are important to feel like you're in a community to which you can give and support. Even, you know, I had a friend on this guy who goes by Bitcoin scribe when Len was protesting the Bitcoin magazine show. We were talking about how one of the problems that we're

having here in Canada, and it's similar in some jurisdictions in the United States as well. The thing is, when you have a condo, it's not really yours. It doesn't feel like yours. Even these sort of high-end condominiums with the extremely porous Chinese marble on the counter and the stick-on subway tile backsplash in the kitchen. It might be nice to have a glass of wine there, but it never feels like home. And if it doesn't feel like home, you don't treat it like home. And if you don't treat it like home, then your behavior in that neighborhood or in that community is influenced negatively, I think. It really bothers me. And the other concern from the other concern, like from an economic

point of view that I have is, you know, who's to say that at some point, you know, I'm not going to be able to sell my primary residence and move to a smaller place or a bigger place or make a change that's beneficial for my family. Or, you know, if my, if my father or mother gets sick, I need an in-law suite. You know, if if i want to move they're going to tax my primary because they're so starved for money and there's so many people that are never going to have a primary like mine that will just vote against me over and over and over again literally coming over by the boatload every day plane load every day you know real estate is a sitting duck so to speak big time big time it's taxes and regulations it's actually it's actually nuts to me that people And real estate is a sitting duck, so to speak. Big time. Big time. Taxes and regulations.

It's actually nuts to me that people don't realize this. You guys realize it. And so I have to ask you, how do you sleep? Are you sleeping at night? Do you care? Does it bother you? We got Bitcoin. I mean, that's what helps me. But I mean, you guys are teaching classes about it, for example.

That's good information for people the problem is that the rules just change willy-nilly so how do you how do you how do you guys adjust how do you you know i think the short-term rental space has that more frequently yeah airbnb is for sure like a crazy like talk about a target but you know okay look the reality is everyone has to live somewhere so they close one door like another door opens up it has to right good metaphor there if they like mark mentioned this on another show great not even wearing my dad joke i like it great well so he was saying the other show he did like okay if they you know say okay airbnbs you can't do them in an investment property well now all the homeowners

can do them and they're making bank right so now everybody's just gonna like there'll be more coming on okay in a homeowner right so the inventory will just shift and like things change like that over time. Right. So if people need to live somewhere, the government's not, I mean, never put it past them, but they're not going to go to a point where they're just literally legislating people into tents because whatever. Right.

Well, if they do that, we, we got bigger problems anyways. Yeah. Okay. So one thing about, you know, what condos. Yeah. There's a bit of a chicken or the egg thing uh scenario here like why are so many condos being built if there was not demand for them right if it wasn't people who aspire to that kind of yeah you should know

you should know i mean you guys know better than me but when you build a condo you have to sell like what two-thirds or something before the cond goes, before even the state goes into the ground. Right. Is that the whole thing? Yeah. Okay. They're toning it down on this kind of a shift towards rent purpose, built rentals rather than condo,

right. Condo. You can own a unit in the building purpose, built rental. They weren't building that, but if they open financing up for that. Yeah. Okay.

So this, so this demand chicken, chicken egg. Yeah. Well, you're, you're talking about like it's so hard for people to you know you need to have the single family but single family homes so that

people are open to family formation but like i don't think people were right maybe people are thinking about it more now but i think if there wasn't that demand for this this kind of lifestyle asset right this kind of home if there was more demand for single family homes maybe they would have been built more right it's a great term lifestyle asset yeah for condos and i mean you know you can talk about like chinese laundered money and all that kind of stuff well no it's showing very popular yeah very popular i mean it's it's had an effect i didn't show you guys the tour of the basement, but there's a couple of closed doors there where I'm running casinos. So look out, look out.

I don't know. This is a side note, but like what a laughable country we have. So, you know, just as a real estate investor, I shake my head, but also as a Christian, like we have such, we're supposed to be the nice guy country, right? Like, you know, you think of the Mounties and Paul Gross. Nicest people on the planet, right? That's what everyone says. Are you seeing? We're just an open door for money from all over the planet, from corrupt dictators to, to like, you name it, right? Sam Cooper. Yeah. The best.

If you follow him. Who's the best. Yep. Yeah. Willful blindness. that was a great book. Like just really eye-opening, right? About the levels of corruption in this country. And I don't know, it just makes me shake my head anyways. It should, it should. And one of the things, from a cultural point of view, the other thing that I fear is that if people don't own a home, that's one thing. But if you get a whole generation of kids who from 20 to 30 know they will never own

a home, how does that change your behavior? I had a hard time saving for a house because I was just so short-sighted, but eventually smartened up and was able to do it with a little help, of course, from my father. But looking back, if I had thought in my twenties that I could never buy a house, man, I can just imagine what kind of wild child I really would have been, you know, like there would have been no, you know, angel to match the devil on the other shoulder saying, Hey, maybe don't spend another 50 bucks tonight. maybe don't spend another 50 bucks this weekend maybe don't you know because you're thinking about that stuff when you when you can aim for something

you try and get there and it changes the way you think but if you can't it's i can i can just imagine i'm speaking all obviously like entirely for myself here but i can just imagine that it would have been a lot uglier for me. You didn't have, I can't speak to you for sure, but you didn't have maybe a framework. Like I'm hoping my kids will when they grow up so that whatever their situation is, they're not going to despair. You're going to know I have a purpose in this life and I'm not going to go, whether or not I can afford a house,

I'm not going to go spend another 50 bucks at the bar because I'm not going to be at the bar. Because why would I be there? I'm not looking for go spend another 50 bucks at the bar because I'm not going to be at the bar. Yeah. Because why would I be there? Yeah. I'm not looking for. Yeah. Pick somebody up tonight. Yeah.

I'm looking for a life partner to build life with and have lots of babies. Critical importance there, man, that you guys are able to have this community where that's like the expectation. Yeah. It's so valuable. So, yeah. Like you talk about community and that's and that's very attractive, right? Like I'm in a sort of a church plant downtown Hamilton and a lot of people are attracted because they see that community, right? They come to church, we have lunch together, people are friendly and welcoming and that's

great, but not everybody sticks around because when you realize like the hard work is personal, right? It's not just about that community and like, like hey brent like let's go raise a barn together right which your words not mine your words not mine yeah i don't know if you guys are doing that or not but more like sheds okay despite the beard one of my suspenders um, but the hard work comes every day, right? It's that self-discipline of sitting down with your Bible, spending time in prayer, and then also looking for ways to serve others, right? That's every day. That's the hard part about being a Christian, right? Not facing the criticism of other people, but it's like even denying yourself, right? What your desires, whatever your particular temptations are, right?

That's the hard part about it. On a moment-to-moment basis too, right? Like you're on the Friday night when you want to spend 50 bucks, you know, deny yourself. It's hard. It is hard. It's hard. It's hard.

I can't even do it. I can't even do it now. Like there's still stuff now. Like, you know, it's not quite as vulgar as it was 15 years ago. But man, you know, almost every weekend I end up like sending my wife a text message from the basement because I refuse to even go upstairs. Just a pizza emoji. Like, what do you think? We already had dinner.

Okay, I might just go down to, you know, I might just get a small, you know, like you don't need it. I can't even do the pizza, man. I need Jesus more than I know, I'm telling you. I don't know. Everybody does. But this is part of like a Bitcoin journey too, right? Yeah. You see a lot of people kind of start off with like they realize, okay, hold on.

There's an answer to this fiat problem. Maybe I can be a little bit more responsible. I can start DCA and I can have money that actually like is worth something I can save up. So, okay, hold on. What else can I change in my life? Right. And usually it's nutrition, right? That part didn't get to me yet, but I'm working on it. You're early. You're early. Yeah. Right. But all these things that it seems to be a common progression with uh with bitcoiners because you realize like okay and maybe to your point right when there is something to look forward to that can change your attitude as well for sure where you're like okay

you know what i should take care of my body because i want it to last a long time yeah i'm just worried about the weekend yeah and it's kind of so on and so forth. Do you guys think Bitcoin is a gateway to religious living? Can it be? So, I mean, yeah. To be honest, I hope so. Okay. It can be.

Okay. So this is our goal, right? Like we have a show and we talk about money and real estate and bitcoin and having you know getting married and having babies all this stuff right but you know the ultimate goal like i said earlier if i think i have the greatest gift ever it would be really selfish and really cowardly of me not to share that and not to want it for other people and that doesn't mean i could force it on them but at least tell other people about it. So that's, you know, that's kind of my hope is that we, you know,

we want to talk to Christians about Bitcoin because we think that it's sound money based on biblical principles, right? There's some truth to it, but I also want to tell Bitcoiners about Jesus, right? You've discovered there is truth. There is objective standard in the world. And like, guess what? Here it is guys. Now this, this is my, you know, I realize not everybody agrees with that. Um, but you know, this is my take. This is our take on that. Like, yeah, there is truth. And as awesome as Bitcoin is like when you die, that's it, right? There's no Bitcoin heaven yeah but there's

actually a heaven there's actually a new heaven and a new earth where you can live right right that's infinitely better so you know i'm we're i'm passionate about bitcoin about politics in canada and like i get worked up about stuff yeah that's the end of the day it doesn't really really matter right when you look at like 80 years versus infinite eternity time yeah eternity yeah what really matters i want to get people in that infinite loop if i can get them into bitcoin on the way great do you think the same way like about the you know is the bitcoin thing being kind of uh you know maybe adjacent but um yeah it's been well it's been a temptation for me to kind of want to focus on bitcoin more than my spiritual life to be honest right because um you know i've kind of

grown up in the church you read the bible regularly you even teach these things to your kids but you pick up bitcoin it's like wow this is profound right and yeah i find myself spending more time reading bitcoin books to be honest so um yeah it's an ongoing um i think the bitcoin term is rabbit hole right yeah we're constantly learning this stuff and finding similarities like even just the one like you're a bitcoin evangelist right you you took it upon yourself to like in your spare time tell people some kind of like you make money maybe doing it mental illness really you're doing it still bad yeah but but you're doing it because you believe in it right essentially like you actually think it's worth yeah of course talking about

right and then all these people watching or whatever i don't know what they're doing with their lives but they're either watching or listening yeah it's like they also kind of have the same mindset right like it is worth time right um but it's just in the grand scheme of things like mark said is it worth eternity right like where do you draw the line and right like you can make money money is great but like the end of the day you have a kid like do you really care about your money like yeah you store it safely it's good like whatever you can transfer it peer-to-peer only insofar as it helps you serve and the government can't take it but your kid is going to become more important than your money right like and then you know your wife

should be and you know your other community like all of these things right you start trying to make a priority list then you're like how do i make a priority list and then you read the bible and you're like well there's the priority list right there right so that's not to say right that we totally um that we're kind of gnostic and yeah we don't really care about like there's two two planes right there's the spiritual and the physical yeah and you just kind of like the physical doesn't matter right some people go that route. And there's problems with that too, right? Then you can live any way you want physically and it doesn't matter.

Yeah. It's not true. God put us here for a reason. He put us in this studio for a reason. So if I'm going to talk to somebody about short-term rentals or about Bitcoin or whatever, I have to do that to the best of my ability because that's why I'm here. I'm stewarding that particular gift that God has given. And we all, that's the beauty of life, right? We all have different gifts, different talents, different interests. And so, you know, I'm like, yeah, Jesus is the overriding principle in our

lives, but that doesn't mean every minute of the day we're talking about that, because if I have the job to do- You should just see our text back and forth. Cross emojis. No, but if I've got a job, I have to do that job very well, whether I'm an astronaut or a janitor, right? There's still purpose in my life and whatever I'm doing. I'm not doing it, let's say you were my boss. I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for my big boss. Right. God. Right. To please him.

So everything I do, so everything in life has purpose as well. And it's not all, you know, we don't always just sit around reading the Bible or like we've read the sovereign individual, right? Sure.

Holy writ. Can I say that? Is that good? Okay. So I guess maybe, you know, the last question i have for you guys you guys both seem uh you know you're both well spoken committed to your faith clearly and i would guess you have you know a pretty um substantial uh footing in your church communities or i guess you guys the same church community in your church communities, or I guess you guys have the same church community, in your church community, how has the reaction been from, you know, the congregation of which you're both

apart to your, I don't know, obsession may be too strong a word, but yeah, you know, like how do they feel about you guys hopping on the mics every week, every two weeks, whatever it's been, and saying like, hey, here's what we think about this and that. And has there been a lot of pushback on the idea that people should be saving in Bitcoin, using Bitcoin, thinking about Bitcoin? Because if there's one thing I know about the Christian faith, it's that it's very rarely welcoming of new ideas in a lot of ways. And this is not only a new idea, but it really throws a lot of other things on its head. How's the reaction been from the community you guys are a part of?

And if that puts you on the spot, maybe be more broad. How does the church feel about this stuff in general? But I would love to hear about your know, about your, for the church. Yeah. I would love, I would love to hear about, uh, you know, how the community response has been to you guys. But we go to different church congregations. Like we're part of the same federation. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. We don't, yeah. We don't worship in the same building. Okay. We might have different responses,

but I don't know, Mark, what do you think? I've had nothing negative okay right yeah people and like not everybody's interested in it necessarily not everybody gets it um in terms of of the bitcoin side of things but yeah no real negative um negative reactions yeah no i've had like yeah people listen they, they say they enjoy it. Right. Maybe it's just the dad jokes. I don't know. Trust me, we're in the middle of what people are sticking around. Okay. I'll tell you that right now. That's my real career. I should just be able to tell the dad jokes. No, like I don't think we've, I haven't had any pushback anyways.

We're doing our best, I guess, in that sense with the podcast to kind of address that audience too in a way that, you know, doesn't confound them or just confuse them. I don't know. We're trying to get through basic stuff to a Christian audience who has the same value set, right? Right. So there's some assumptions that we make when we do the show

that you kind of have a knowledge of where we're coming from um but yeah people i think are generally receptive yeah and we didn't start with like here's jeff booth right although he was like i see i think tom carads is in the audience right like that's exactly what he did right he like starts off the real estate business then he goes here by the way let's all get together at a golf course and this and this guy tell you how real estate's a joke. Tom's got to read the Reformation.

No, but I mean, he sort of did the same thing. I mean, Tom is the reason that I got into Bitcoin. I've heard that so many times. He's the reason we met each other. Yeah, we met at one of the Really? Yeah. Oh! Well, I'm a few years older than Brent. Yeah, but I would have thought for sure.

Okay, okay. No, we didn't associate. Wow, okay. Yeah, yeah. So anyways, but he kind of laid the groundwork as well. And that's what we've tried to do in our own little way in the podcast. You know, just like it's Bitcoin evangelization, evangelization, right? So you start off and it's just like being a Christian evangelist.

You start off with saying, look, there's a problem. What's the problem. Yeah. Right. And that problem is fiat money, you know? Okay. And if people can understand that, just like in Christianity, that's the biggest hurdle. If you're an evangelist is to get people to understand that there's a problem and the problem is them. I mean, as a Christian, I say, there's a problem. The problem is me, right?

Sin I'm sinful. Right. So on the Bitcoin side of thing, it's like, yeah, there's a problem. And that's fiat money. And like, and then, you know, is it really, so you have to prove that and you look at all the effects and then, but there's any good news. There then, is it really? So you have to prove that. And you look at all the effects. But there's good news. There's an answer.

Right. Right? So we've tried to do that on the podcast as well as build up to that. For the four people that actually listen. Yeah, we haven't had Joey in that long. It's a good show. I'll have to, you know, you'll have to give me the once over before I go in there. Because I got such a foul mouth after doing

this stupid show for so long. My dad tells me all the time, he's like, I want to show your grandmother the show, but I can't because you swear too much. So anyway, leave people with something that they should think about. If they're not a religious person and they are a Bitcoiner, leave them with words of wisdom here that you think makes sense for sense for you guys something has helped you guys out um you know that might that might help them out because i think a lot of people even in bitcoin coming to you know being at the conference on the weekend one of the things i hear all the time and

i feel this way too the the need to be in the room with people who understand what you're thinking and understand you much like you guys assume when you're talking to somebody, they at least understand the Christian lens. You know, a lot of times when I talk to people, I assume they understand that, you know, the Fiat is garbage lens. They don't, man, is it ever frustrating. And my, you know, I found that over the years, my group of friends has grown so small to people that, you know, are the closest thing you can be to blood without being blood and people who understand the basics the building blocks of everything else that i think not everyone has the community that we have how do you you know

give these guys some words of wisdom here you know leave them with some encouraging words words. Well, I mean, so it's, it can be hard. So like as a Bitcoiner, right. Your circle shrinks, you said, because people don't understand that there is a problem, right? Fiat money, like what do you mean Fiat? It's just money, right? It's just the Canadian dollar. People don't get, and if they don't get that, they will never, like, they have to overcome that. So you'll never get there. So, like, for us, you know, from a Christian viewpoint as well, right, people don't get it. We can tell people about Jesus until we're blue in the faith, and we can tell them about sin and redemption and all that stuff. Just try and live, I don't do a good job of this, but try and live in a way that if I have a relationship with you, that you kind of see like, oh yeah, this is what you say and you actually believe it and that's what you do.

And maybe the door is open to have a conversation later. Because most people in Christianity, I think in Bitcoin, don't come into it strictly from a research point of view. Like some people do, and some people have come into Bitcoin like, oh, I realize there's a problem. But a lot of it's like your friend told you. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. It's a thing for Christianity. Most people don't come into it because they've researched and they know there's a problem and there's something missing in their life.

Some people, yes. But most people, it's based on relationships. People they know that they've gotten to know over time. That's a great point. Yeah. So the only wisdom I would have, which is not much, but for Bitcoiners, right? If you understand there's truth and just reflect on the nature of truth is truth just related to the economy or is there like a universal truth that permeates the whole universe and if it

does then what does that mean is there good is there evil and how can you find out more about that that's good yeah that's tough to talk you're gonna you probably wish you went first oh god um yeah hold your hold your bitcoin in self-custody right well you want to have this thing you want to own it um for this life but also to dovetail with mark what mark said is what about the life to come right that's kind of our angle and you can have the most secure awesome money in the world you know in the in the history of the world that's wonderful and you should pursue that right because i think that is a blessing that god has given this world and And we should spread the word about that. But at the end of the day, there is an eternal perspective that we're in this life for a reason and it's beyond money, right? There's a spiritual dimension to everything and it informs what we do. And

that's a perspective as you're seeking out truth. If you find truth in money, that's great. You find truth in other aspects of your life and pursue that deeply. And yeah, you'll be blessed, you know, not in this life necessarily. But are you looking for blessings in this life when they, you know, 80 years, how many years got left? Yeah. You know, 80, 85, you're lucky, right? Yeah. Generally.

Yeah. You will be disappointed if you're seeking after gain in this life right i think so look look to the life to come that would be my kind of good advice that's good that's good advice okay so two stewards podcast everywhere you get your podcast is it when i was putting the show notes together i didn't think the look but my spot my uh podcast app gives me a hard time when I'm searching for shows because I never know whether it's the numerical two or the alpha letter two, which is it. It's alphabet two. T-W-O, stewards, with a D, as in stewarding a mission or something like that. It's not a couple of scottish guys hey

it's not too stew that's right it's not that it's not that yeah not too stews and you guys have had some great guests you had uh you're i was listening to the one with gideon uh which you guys parked the mic i guess 15 feet away from the last minute thing yeah okay so you did that you also had recently um uh ben rabidu which was a great that guy's he's great i would love to have on this show i gotta get a hold of him um he's really good really good guest you guys have had some other guests on the last of the while but i think much the same way people tell me that len and i have good um rapport you guys have good rapport too it's important when you do a show you have good rapport and you have a decent mic as well which thank you for that and uh so i recommend people listen to that i listen to it

len enjoys it as well so go check that out brent and mark you guys have been great thank you so much for stopping by the uh stopping by the studio yeah and i'll do it again sometime yeah let's go check out the other rooms in this house good night night. And appropriately tonight, maybe more than other nights. God bless. Yeah, there you go. Are you a fan of the old school NHL 94 game on the Genesis or SNES? Why not check out my show,

the NHL 94 podcast from tournaments and tactics to the people who make up this community. Check it out wherever you listen to podcasts or find it on youtube