The Pomp Podcast - #371: Rapper FiDi Guy on Financial Education

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

FiDi Guy is a New York City-based rapper who has built a significant following on social media by using hip-hop to share financial education and market insights. In this conversation, we discuss how he learned to rap, why he put out the first song at the intersection of finance and music, what the response has been so far, and what his goals around financial education are moving forward. =============================== Bybit currently has over 300,000 users, with the number growing in double-digit percentages monthly. The exchange has no overloads during volatility and low latency trading plus 24/7 customer live support. At Bybit, we listen, care, and improve to provide the best possible trading experience and create a faster, fairer, and more human trading environment. Visit Now! =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://www.pompletter.com

What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Fight Eye Guy is a New York City-based rapper who has built a significant following on social media by using hip-hop to share financial education and market insights. In this conversation, we discuss how he learned to rap, why he put out the first song at the intersection of finance and music, what the response has been so far, and what his goals are around financial education moving forward. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do as well. But before we get into this episode, I want to talk about our sponsors. First up is Bybit. They

currently have over 300,000 users with a number growing in double digit percentages every month. The exchange has no overloads during volatility and low latency trading plus 24 seven customer live support. At Bybit, we listen, we care, and we improve to provide the best possible trading experience and create a faster, fairer, and more human trading environment. Go check out Bybit using the link in the description for this podcast. Again, go check out Bybit if you want no overloads during volatility and low latency trading plus 24-7 customer live support. Go check out Bybit. Also, don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business technology and finance. I break down complex topics into easy to understand language while

sharing my personal opinion on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, pompletter.com. All right, let's get into this episode with Pied Eye Guy. I hope you guys enjoy it. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All right, guys. Bang, bang. Special treat today. I have Fidei Guy here. What's up, man?

What's going on? What's going on? Thanks for having me. All right. The first time that I came across you, I was just mindlessly scrolling through Twitter and then all of a sudden I saw I think it was a music video with a fire beat and all I remember is you were just trolling about oil going negative and I was like wait wait wait wait what and uh so you got to tell us before we get into the music what is your background how the hell did you get into this rapping about finance is not exactly the thing that I think most people grow up dreaming to do yeah no totally um yeah look i've been rapping ever since i was you know in middle school i just always had uh you know an interest in it i think the part about rap that

like really interested me as like a kid and like has kind of kept me interested is not so much like you know the club type music i just love uh you know the people that are like truly poets that know how to take a concept and know how to talk about things in a way that you know using metaphors and similes really engaging people uh you know through music and in a way you know for them it's a craft and there's people that are phenomenal at that craft you know nas j cole i look at these guys it's like they're genuinely poets you know and i grew up like listening to them uh and i did it you know my whole life but it was really informal you know it was at parties it was hanging out with my friends long car rides etc you know got to college eventually was doing

it at, you know, at parties or like, you know, at the frat house, whatever. And eventually started working. And I kind of felt like rap and, you know, the corporate Wall Street world literally had, you know, nothing in common. And so I kept it a huge secret. I kind of fell out of it a little bit, but I started to feel like, you know, there's this part of me that's this creative side that I feel like has kind of been like suppressed a little bit. I've been so focused on work. And I was like, I got to get back into this. And I'm like, I'm in New York city of all places. Like If you can't get into it here or try to make something happen here, you're shot, right? So there was this freestyle group, you know, a couple blocks down from me in Union Square.

And a buddy of mine saw their video and he's like, you've got to go check this out. Literally went there from work. I had like the typical like Midtown uniform on. I had like a dress shirt on, dress pants, like a vest. It was like the middle of October. And I go there and it's this huge group of people. They just play a beat and everybody's freestyling, improvising, playing. off each other and i'm like dude this is sick but like this is another level and like i'm not sure

if i'm like ready for it but i was like you know what like i've been doing this for a while i gotta get into it i gotta just kind of bite the bullet and go and uh you know i had a good session there and that kind of ignited this like you know uh reignited my passion for it uh and i was doing the freestyle thing and eventually got to a point where look like you know i work in bank in banking now there's not a lot of things i can talk about that are typically in rap songs that anybody is going to resonate with if i talk about it you know what do i know what worlds can i blend uh kind of just fell into the starting to blend finance into rap and you know enough people kind of gravitated towards it to where you know i've been keeping it going and you know luckily

i've had a lot of fun with it so far all right so what is this group it's just like in the park and people just play a beat and then literally it's just a bunch of folks standing around uh and kind of one after the other start freestyling exactly yeah it's called legendary cyphers they started it probably over a decade ago um every friday from uh may through november you know they gather in the same spot in union square um you know anybody's welcome to go the good part about union square it's the high traffic area people going to the subway commuting leaving work so there's always an audience um and it's literally anybody that wants to step up uh they just play a bunch of instrumentals and people just rap back and forth and kind of like the

coolest thing about it honestly is it is these people that are like have such different lives that you would never think had things in common all interacting together people from europe people from white collar america people from blue collar america people from the suburbs people from urban areas everybody's there because they love music and they share this passion um and it's awesome and people are just feeding off of each other you know someone brings up an idea somebody else talked about it it morphs into a new idea people come people beatbox people sing you know photographers come it's it's like this amazing community thing that's all built on you know a shared love for this uh you know for this for this art i love it uh so you get the uh renewed

interest and kind of passion uh and then what gave you the idea what was the song where you mentioned the the oil prices uh was that the first one you did that wasn't kind of a freestyle was more like a produced song uh so i actually did the one before that uh it was called it was called stocks dropping so this guy this guy jack harlow made like this incredible song he's like remixed it with lil wayne and everybody uh called what's poppin right song was like trending was like one of the top songs in america the beat was like absolutely phenomenal um and it was like peak covid when like they basically declared you know new york city everybody's working from home right i was like this is the perfect opportunity to like make a good video

there's so much going on and i basically remixed what's popping with like stops dropping uh and it's like this work from home anthem about working in finance and like the stock drop the stock market dropping and ways to play it and whatnot uh you know it was like kind of goofy i was wearing like a blazer with shorts you know we shot it outside all the stores were closed uh and i think the interest in that one really kind of you know gave me a pulse of hey like this resonates with people you know this is a an underrepresented community in the hip-hop world you know and something that a lot of people don't talk about and I think you know everybody wants representation right and so there's this huge corporate world finance business world that obviously has an

identity that has interested music and so I think parlaying those two together you know really touched on you know a niche that i think people people are into and it really kind of galvanized you know the momentum of hey people like this um you know and i've kind of kept going and uh luckily uh it's gone well so far when you created this song it's you and a friend it's just all you like talk to me about the the process the process of actually creating these yeah it's gotten a little bit uh more official now but the first one was literally uh you know my best friend from college um you know fortunately for me he was on track to go to med school realized that you know his whole family's doctors he just realized like you know i've been doing it i feel like maybe

there's pressure to do it but i don't necessarily it's not my passion and he kind of abandoned that track and went full-on uh music so like audio engineering producing um which is good for me because now i have someone i'm super close with who's plugged into that world right um so the first song we did it was covid couldn't go anywhere i had no equipment i literally recorded just the audio the vocals um on my phone right like in the iphone record he's enough of a stud where he was able to take that put that on top of the beat you know do all his layering and whatnot to make it sound decent and my other roommate literally with an iphone we just took like a very like low budget backyard video put it all together i like downloaded a free trial of like adobe

you know editor uh made it on the computer um and dropped it and um you know we've gotten a little bit more uh you know official now i bought a microphone you know you you realize how ridiculous that sounds right you're saying you got official because you got a microphone yeah so it beats it definitely beats the audio quality of a cell phone so you know got a microphone you So I've got some better equipment and I can do it now in person with him. So I think that's been a big help. And I think it shows in the quality. And then, you know, I've worked with a guy now that shoots legitimate video to kind of

up the quality of the videos. But I think there is something about that, you know, kind of hits people in a certain way when they can just tell it's like a backyard production, you know, just kind of someone put this together, like the $5 that kind of hits. so uh i don't know if you know this story but um i'm assuming that you know a little dicky right of course yeah yeah he um a friend of mine or somebody i knew in college not really a friend but somebody i knew in college uh i think was actually his roommate uh when he was creating like the original videos in san francisco i know a guy that was his roommate in college too okay so

this was uh a girl uh okay so maybe they were all roommates or different times or whatever but yeah but what i remember is like i remember seeing the video and then she told me she's like oh yeah like that like that's a uh my roommate and i'm pretty sure it's roommate maybe it's friend or whatever um but what was so interesting was it was this low budget uh whole thing right it was like basically being filmed uh you know with no real equipment and it was just like hey i've got this skill uh and an interest in doing this like we're just gonna do it right and i think that you're right and that that resonates well with people when they uh when they just see like oh the the quality of this is not in the production value it's an actual person themselves right

totally totally um yeah it's funny you mentioned like little dicky because like before i dropped anything i was like all right like who can i kind of study that's like done this already and to kind of take some lessons and i remember watching him on like one of the talk shows like the late many talk shows talking about like his process and he basically was like you know he was in school i think he went to richmond which is like a very good school um you know and he has he's saved up all this bar mitzvah money um and his parents like what the hell are you doing he's like i gotta take the money i'm gonna make this video i'm gonna produce it uh you know and he he put you know not crazy budget bar mitzvah money type budget um you know into it went to bed woke up

and had a million views on YouTube. And then, you know, nothing's been the same since. Crazy. Yeah, insane, insane. And I think, you know, he hit it at a good time where everybody now is trying to make videos and there's, you know, the market is definitely very saturated.

You know, I think he, anybody that had that insight to kind of leverage, you know, YouTube and any platform at an early, an early phase has, you know, clearly reaped the benefits of that. Absolutely. And so talk to me about like stocks dropping, right? you obviously got kind of the uh the commodity stuff then uh you recently did one where uh you went literally to wall street and uh and you were doing like the instead of the 10 crack commandments

you were basically doing like the 10 uh commandments of financial education um what's kind of the goal here right because it's all finance related but is it to educate people is it just to make hot songs like what talking about kind of like what like what are you optimizing for totally um you know i think i definitely started it to try to have a good time right um and you know even going to like that freestyle group you know it's funny like people can kind of get a sense of like who you are you know what you do what you stand for and like when you kind of touch on those things people just kind of uh it resonates more right so you know i go to these rap groups we're talking about whatever under the sun right but then like every time i would touch on like something

financial i'd mention like a 401k like literally and it's in like some of the like the freestyle videos i have posted people be like yeah spit that financial shit you know like it was just like that's your thing you know so i was like as much as like rap and finance aren't necessarily related at least in you know a responsible way um you know people fucked with it so uh i always kind of kept that in the back of my mind right and so i was making these videos and they were all fun um and i was trying to figure out like okay do i appeal to like high finance like i think the how crude video was like you know you're talking about contango you're talking about storage supply and demand it's not your your lay person doesn't know that right um and i kind of thought

you know with the attention that it gets the people that listen like maybe there's an opportunity here to parlay the two interests parlay the rap with the finance you know rap is a way much more digestible piece of information than someone trying to lecture you on finance right finance is boring people don't know about finance because it's a lack of education but people aren't driven to learn about it because it's boring right um and so i think that you know that realization was okay maybe there's a way to you know combine those two and i think you know while the biggie song obviously has certain applications i think people derive a lot more value from learning about financial principles and learning about how to sell crap right and so my you know my thought was

let's take this classic song that everyone knows about and kind of tailor it not towards high finance but towards you know everybody right and and what i've observed in this whole process um is there's so many people that are highly educated you know they're they're employed they've graduated universities they have masters um they don't know basics about investing they don't even have any money invested they're like yeah i just have my money in a savings account they don't know what an ETF is a mutual fund like basic one-on-one um and it was kind of that realization is maybe I can take you know the music and use that as uh you know kind of an introduction to get people interested I would love you know I want to make hot tracks I want

to make good music I want to make good songs um but it's also that realization that like you know I've been fortunate enough to be in a position to learn about these things that can enhance my quality of life you know it can enhance everybody's quality of life and maybe this is the way you know the medium to kind of get people interested uh and to kind of spread that knowledge for sure and it feels like uh this is while you're like really focused on it and it's kind of you know literally from your name to uh the the actual content um there's still a a kind of macro trend right so when you see you know jay-z and 444 right talking about you know hey i should have bought that building in dumbo right or talking about the appreciation of private art

you just start to see this attitude from kind of the things that can make you money in the streets as these guys have gotten much older, kind of wiser, they've actually got capital to invest now. Now they're actually starting to talk about maybe not personal finance, but definitely talking more about investing and kind of those benefits. And so it feels like there's always been this like reception, because if the best people in the world are doing it right, then it kind of trickles down. And then you come along and you've got no, this is my message. Like people are almost just like waiting for that type of content, right? Yeah, I agree completely. And I think a big part, you know, of why that is like more of a trending topic is because, you know, you know, the wealth

disparity now is, you know, is enormous. And I think a lot of what people are realizing is what you're driving that that disparity, you know, is not people's salaries, right? It's whether they're investing in financial assets the way that you know the stock market um you know is driving you know the stock market uh you know growing is increasing people's wealth in a way that you know your paycheck or your salary or you know whatever you know a small side hustle can't necessarily do right and so i think people are like wait you know if these people are getting uber rich you know mega rich why aren't doing something like this you know the way to compete is to have those financial assets and to you know and to ride that trend and I think people

you know are realizing that now more than ever and you know I think a big thing is too for people is this hesitation with like you know I've only got 500 bucks is that enough and it's like the point is like you just got to start with anything right you could start with ten dollars right if you can find you know find someone that knows some of the basics you just get started you know you don't put everything in at once but you learn like you do with anything right you start off slow you don't put a ton of capital at risk um but you know you develop a plan i'm going to put x amount a month i'm going to buy the s&p once i'm comfortable with buying the s&p maybe i'll diversify internationally you know um but i think for people it's just getting started um you know i've seen you know

firsthand in a lot of ways you know my both of my parents were um you know entrepreneurs you know my dad started his own uh my dad was in health care but started his own practice my mom was in healthcare started her own company you know there was a time where they were doing extremely well um you know but they didn't know about like you know at that level these were the people that are highly educated didn't know about you know building a diversified portfolio having that compound having retirement assets right and i've seen that like kind of firsthand and so for me i've been hyper focused on you know starting young is adds so many benefits um and you know and kind of having that in the back of your mind, you know,

creating a plan and trying to stick to that, you know, it can, it can literally change your life, you know, over, over time. And I think more people need to need to know about that. Yeah. Absolutely. And, and talk a little bit about, you know, you mentioned how you're creating the content, where are you distributing it and kind of where have you seen the most receptivity in terms of is it YouTube, is it Twitter, is it other platforms and kind of how you think about the various platforms?

Yeah. Definitely for me, it was Instagram. just because that's where i built like the initial base uh have been trying to diversify out of that um and you know get it on different platforms um i think the you know what instagram has going forward especially for like content creators is that like it's highly visual um you know you can post longer videos um you know and it's very easy for people to uh to share to share content same with twitter but twitter is you know inherently it's more text based right instagram's highly visual um um but you know i've started to stem out to to youtube start to send out to twitter um you know but a big thing too is i want to kind of create songs that are just

songs and put those on spotify but i think you know in today's day and age i really do think it's uh you know a multi-dimensional approach but for what i've been doing so far i think the it's resonated the most on on instagram for sure got it um and then in terms of the actual skill of rapping like there's a lot of people are going to listen to this and they go you're just born with it like are you born with it can you get better at it you know talk a little bit just about like the actual craft of you know using words and uh you know used word poetry earlier in terms of then layering that with music and how you think about it totally um it's actually pretty funny so i'm like the guy that tries to get all my friends to rap right so like the biggest

thing that we do is like we'll like take ubers like if we're going out doing whatever we'll take ubers and we're always like all right let's put a beat on let's put a beat on and like it's not fun to just sit there and rap alone right so i try to get everybody comfortable i'm like look it doesn't matter if you're good or bad like the point is like like anything just just try figure it out right so it's funny it's like friends that are like not about it at all like over these years have gotten into it to the point where like well we'll be in a car let's take four of us and like me and one guy like are going back and forth the other friend who's like more shy was like dude i do not rap i'll never do it i'll be like all right check it you know and he'll like

come in out of nowhere so it's awesome um and i do think you know do people have a higher propensity for it you know sure but i do think it's just like anything you know if you i think people can get better at it um the key is like practicing find people that are into it that don't like kind of beat you down it's like it's not that good uh but i've encouraged all my friends to to rap to freestyle i feel like you know i help them get better they help me get better and it's just fun you know it's fun um i think the hardest part that people have is not necessarily coming up with the words but it's figuring out how to kind of like flow and ride on the beat and that just kind of comes in practice it comes like listening to some of the guys that are the greats and like

anything you know there's a pattern uh and once you kind of figure out the way that beats are constructed how there's like you know you know units of measurement you know transitions happen at certain times uh and you kind of figure that out that'll that'll definitely help you but i have one buddy uh my buddy needs he's in california right now um he'll get a kick out of this but he's like since college you know he's been the guy that's like he's like like you know i'm not bad but like i want to keep doing this and get better and then now like literally he'll like he'll call me out of the blue i was like hey what's up man he's like dude i know you're busy at work i just had to hit you up like i just had this rap in the shower it was phenomenal i got to

show it to you right and he gets all excited about it and i think that you know other people around kind of see that too so he's calling you after the shower while you're at work he's telling you what raps he just hit in the shower yeah exactly he's like super hyped about it i love it too you No, it's great. It's great. That's awesome. Um, what, what's, what's your goal, right? In terms of, uh, where do you want this to go? Is this something that you're like, Hey, you know, I want to blow this up and, uh, and have come kind of a full-time focus. Is it something that you just enjoy doing on the side, but, um, you know, see kind of a career in finance. Like how do you think about you and how you spend your day, uh, moving forward? Totally. Um, I think what's good about,

you know i'll call this a side hustle i think what's good about this side hustle for me uh in particular is that you know it's not completely separated from what i do i got my day job right you know some people that you know they build furniture but then they work at a bank it's not really much overlap i think what's good is that you know working in finance being in the industry gives me a lot of insights um it kind of helps me parlay that into you know excuse me uh into the tie-dye guy so so i think it'd be great to kind of try to balance it too ultimately what i kind of envision it in an ideal world you know would be creating a platform that is you know focused on music but that kind of branches out beyond that you know it's having conversations

like this where the music is kind of the draw you know and hopefully i can make songs that people genuinely you know listen to and enjoy and they don't all have to be super financy right they could touch on anything but maybe incorporating elements of a business into it by really creating a platform where people that enjoy music you know people that want to be educated on finance or kind of be um you know kept in the loop with what's going on in the financial community kind of a place where they can come uh and experience both and i think you know my reach goal like you know i think the milestone where i'm like okay like i kind of made it is like if i can um you know somehow collaborate with like david solomon who's a ceo of goldman sachs dj d soul uh he's like

commented on one of my videos you know he's he's answered some dms but i think you know i can get to a point where you know we can do something together i think that'd be like the pinnacle of like finance and music um and you know i think that would that'd be awesome i'm i'm gonna hold you to it now i'm expecting a d soul fight eye guy charity uh concert when uh when all this is Yeah. Trust me. I'm trying. I've seen that guy a lot. Sorry for, you know, blowing you up, but he's answered a few times. So. Yeah. Him and what is it? The guy, Jeffrey's a rich handler. I think he, yeah, he's active. He's super active on, on Instagram too.

And I think it's great. You know, that's where, you know, if you're trying to communicate with people and, you know, build your brand as an individual and like someone that's approachable to stand to earth, you know, that's the way to do it. No one's going to convey, you're not going to convey your personality at a board meeting you know yeah uh i think i got turned on to rich because uh he posted from like the trading floor uh like a fit t uh photo he had like the fit t you know like the instagram models do and he was like yeah yeah like basically i think i made it right or whatever i guess his daughter got him to do it uh he was like dude

the ceo of jeffries is doing 50 posts from the trading floor i was like that's pretty cool yeah of course well because i think also it's a it's the authenticity and it also just shows like hey look you know these folks aren't kind of you know our parents our parents parents uh kind of executives meaning that it was you know all business all the time right they have a personality they kind of um really show that look like they want to have fun as well right and they may do it in their own way but um you know who would have thought the ceo of goldman sax would be uh would be out you know djing at like legit clubs and events and like it's not like he's doing it at home with legitimate artists yeah it's awesome yeah so i think all

that's cool um in terms of the message what what exactly like if if you could just wave a magic wand and kind of get any message across what do you think that is from a financial education standpoint for uh from us folks i think it would probably be you know there's basic financial principles that are easy to understand that every person should know that can um radically increase your quality of life right i don't think finance needs to be some esoteric thing that only a few people understand that that are in that universe you know finance you know finances money whatever you want to call it investments affects every single person you know in this country um you know you should understand the basics because they have a huge impact in your life you know

there's ways to get that information in a way that's, you know, easily digestible. And it has huge impacts in your life, you know, you may not see it today, you may not see it tomorrow, you know, 510 years down the road, you'll kind of see the value of being educated, you know, putting money to work, letting your money work for you. And you know, no amount is too small. You know, the key is just to get started. Yeah, I think it's a great piece of piece of advice. And then what's kind of the next step in terms of we talked about your ultimate goal and and kind of where what's the next step down that path is it just creating more uh content and getting it out on platforms or uh anything in the works that the people should be aware of yeah i think for now

you know the focus is on still trying to make content you know create additional um you know create music and create videos but i'm also trying to create additional resources so for example like for the 10 commandments. You know, I also wrote a blog post where I kind of, you know, touched on all those commandments and tried to expand upon them for anybody that was, you know, curious to learn more. And, you know, I think, you know, a great thing would be to work with, you know, certain organizations to work with certain people that have, you know, an additional platform, you know, that have resources, and to work with them to kind of further disseminate, you know, not just the content, but to kind of disseminate the information, right? I think it'd

great to get to a point where um you know it's i want to get invested you know how do i get started is there anything that you know is a good thing for me to do as i'm getting started and to be able to point them in a good direction with people that are that are happy to work with them yeah that's awesome uh i told you to uh to bring some uh some music you got music for us getting any uh Any rhymes? I got some bars. I got some bars. All right.

Okay. He's currently pulling it up on his phone for those that are not watching. Excuse me. I had to talk some water for this one. Hold on. All right. I know just for the time's sake, I'm going to give you the thumbs up when I hit the play button. it's crazy what you receive when you believe simply roll up your sleeves and see this magic

underneath for example i'm sitting here with mr pompliano make me want to celebrate as if it's felice cumpleaños still in here with pomp going crazy on this podcast spitting fire dropping bomb fast accumulating knowledge that you would never learn in college my mission is not stopping till my current conditions abolish i'm polished i acknowledge that it might seem cryptic currently but listen to this man when it comes to cryptocurrency he's basically got a phd in these assets he's been on the move pushing through these tax brackets money it don't do nothing under your mattress inflation will eat away at you when the fact is everyone can benefit from information So listen to my boss before we go in some basic education.

That is fantastic. It is very obvious that if you could do that and teach people, people will pay attention. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, go ahead. No, what are you gonna say? No, I was going to just say, man, I, I, I genuinely appreciate, you know, you having me on and you, you know,

reposting the videos on Twitter and helping to get the word out there and, and, you know, spread the content. So, you know, listen uh i told you before we started i love it i literally when i saw the very first one i think you were sitting in like your living room or something and you were rapping about the commodities i was dying laughing i was like dude we need more people listening to this and i think you're right that most people probably had no clue what you were talking about but they were just like hey this song's hot all right uh and then when when i saw you came out with the uh the 10 commandments i was like oh this is where people are going to get educated

So it makes a ton of sense. And I think you're right in that it takes somebody who's got the music kind of background, right, and is talented and can kind of produce good content. But then you also need people who understand finance, right? And so there's probably not that many people who kind of have that overlap, which is a great kind of path for you to blaze. Totally. Totally. Before I let you go, rapid fire questions, man. First up, most important book. oh um um no i think a good one for me is the art of happiness by uh uh the dalai lama and uh i forget the other off the other author why uh i think it just sets an amazing example and and gives you really good uh you know lessons for how to navigate things that are inevitable to happen in your life. You know, I thought a really good piece of that was, you know, in today's world,

people see, you know, people suffer in some way, or they have some challenge, and they think that they're an outlier. And, you know, he talks about, listen, to live and to exist is to endure, you know, some type of pain, challenge, suffering, no matter what you see online, everybody goes through that every day, right? And I thought that was just awesome advice for how to deal better with, you know, all the curveballs that life throws at you. That's a great answer. Aliens, believer or non-believer? 100% believe. There's just too much out there. There's too many planets, too many suns, too many solar systems for the pieces not to be right in some way to create some system either like ours or like something else. And I think our comprehension of what's in the universe and how it actually works is so small relative to what's actually out there that there's no way that somebody can say that they're not out there somewhere.

It's very fair. I tend to agree with that, as people know. Before I let you ask me one question to finish up, shout out Tom Shaughnessy, who's the one who ultimately connected. I think I shared the video, and then he connected us, which I have no clue how you two know each other, but of course Tom knows you. yeah mutual friend from uh from college got it um and then uh what question you got for me to finish up let's say uh i guess what is your what is your biggest motivation in uh in what you do i have my personal motivation and i have like kind of the the reason why i do everything that i'm doing uh personally like i just enjoy it right like it you know i always joke with people and they're like what do you do and i'm like i'm happy they're like no what do you do and i'm like

no, no, you're, you're missing the point here. Like I'm just happy. Right. And I forget where, where I got that quote from. Um, but, but it's this, this idea of like, to me, I'm going to keep doing this stuff until one day I will wake up one day and just be like, it's over. See ya. Right. And people be like, wait, what do you mean? And I was like, no, like literally I'm not creating content today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like a, yo in two weeks, this is going to be over. It's like, no, today's the day. Like, see ya. Um, so I think that's it in terms of like the the bigger motivation of like why this stuff um i just fundamentally believe that uh educating people on the way money works how the economy works and kind of just personal finance in general

uh is probably the number one thing we can do to create a more equitable world right so like you can do all the philanthropy in the world like i just don't believe that that's how you solve the problems i think it's by giving education to people and like teaching them to fish um is a major piece of that uh then you got to restructure the system right which is why i'm so interested in bitcoin um and then yes the philanthropy stuff can help it's just that you know are you trying to solve kind of the short term and do pain mitigation or are you going more for long-term impact and actually kind of changing um you know the system so that you can affect more people i tend to be much more drawn to the larger scale things rather than just the uh the individual

things that's awesome um i thought of another question actually all right um what's like the the most absurd like dm or message that you've like received on like any of your platforms that's a good one um i mean there's like absurd can be defined many ways like there's the like death threat type stuff right which is like pretty absurd i'm just like what uh it's like there's that stuff uh lately i've been getting lots of uh please sir uh can you send me you know five hundred dollars in bitcoin uh and you go and you look and it's like a handle that's got like 17 000 numbers at the end of it uh so it's just like obviously a bot um but but uh that um the most absurd one that i can probably talk about uh

i'll put it this way there's a couple of people i'm thinking of three in particular they're they're all billionaires that like randomly dm'd me uh and these are all different times they come from different industries whatever but like each time that's happened i've just been like what planet am i living on right like like legitimately like what planet am i living on um and they're absurd because it's a reminder not so much like like i don't get like starstruck right instead it's the exact opposite it's just like it's a reminder that we're all on the same playing field but the internet is a great equalizer right and so it's just like you've got an account i've got an account so does everybody else and like it doesn't matter who you are or

whatever like you still have quote-unquote access to people now does it help that somebody knows it's you versus me versus somebody else yeah of course right but the the idea that like this equalizer of the internet i think it just hits me in those moments where you're like this is crazy you know like what's this person to directly interact with you yeah and and also it's like somebody that you wouldn't normally come in contact with right so so even if you were like trying to get to them like it would be weird and then it also like you balance it with like that person who sent you like the death threat versus the person who's asking for 500 on bitcoin versus you know the billionaire they're all the same they all just have an account right they

come from super different walks of life like all stuff but it's just like the internet's great equalizer so i think that's probably when you're just like whoa right that's awesome yeah i think even Gary Vee touches on that it's like if you were in the 80s trying to get in touch with some billionaire right you'd have to call their secretary call their agent your call would never get through but it's like now you know you're on the internet everyone has their profile and you know you can theoretically get a message from anybody right so absolutely where where can we send people to uh to uh subscribe download consume whatever you want them to do totally um so on all the socials it's uh at underscore fight i guy because someone someone took

at fight i guy so if you type in fight i guy i'm sure it'll pop up but the actual handle is at underscore fight i guy i have a website too where i post some additional content it's where the blog post is with the 10 commandments explained that's just fight that guy.com and you can subscribe there as well i've been starting a newsletter to try to again combine rap music you know insights news um etc so you can subscribe there as well and i'm on instagram youtube twitter uh as the same handle so awesome man fight eye guy i love the name you're crushing it thank you so much for doing this thanks for having me man really appreciate