The Pomp Podcast - #443: McKenzie Collins on Providing For Your Family

Episode Date: December 3, 2020

McKenzie Collins is the owner of Mack’s Flooring Installations. He is an everyday person who lives in Canada and has discovered Bitcoin over the last few years. This is an amazing episode. You can follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/mack.the.builder/. In this conversation, we discuss McKenzie’s background, how he discovered Bitcoin, how he thinks of time vs money, why Bitcoin changed his spending habits, and why an everyday person believes so strongly in the digital currency’s future.  ======================= LVL is a new crypto investing platform that I'm an investor in. They allow anyone to trade an unlimited number of times per month for only $9. If you buy or sell more than $500 in Bitcoin on any exchange, you're spending too much on trading fees. Use LVL to save money and trade as many times you want, but only pay $9/month. https://lvl.co/pomp ======================= Coinbase Wallets are adding support for .crypto and .zil domains through their partnership with Unstoppable Domains. Unstoppable Domains provides an all-in-one solution for blockchain domains. You can send money using these new domains instead of long Bitcoin wallet addresses, while also storing your domain in Coinbase's collectibles section. Go to unstoppabledomains.com in the dapp browser to register and manage your domains.  ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 90,000 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. Mackenzie Collins is the owner of Mac's Flooring Installations. He's an everyday person who lives in Canada and has discovered Bitcoin over the last few years. This is an amazing episode. You can follow him on Instagram at at mac.the.builder. In this conversation, We discuss McKenzie's background, how he discovered Bitcoin, how he thinks of time versus money, why Bitcoin changed his spending habits, and why an everyday person believes so strongly in the digital currency's future.

I really enjoyed this episode. It may be my favorite ever, and I hope you enjoy this. Before we get into the episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Level, L-V-L. They're a new crypto investing platform that I'm an investor in. They allow anyone to trade an unlimited number of times every month for free. That's right. You can go to LVL.CO slash POMP and you can buy and sell Bitcoin for free.

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They're helping bring the decentralized internet to the mainstream. Unstoppabledomains.com. Last up, don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 90,000 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, that's Pompletter.com. All right, let's get into this episode. Mackenzie, I hope you guys enjoy this one. informational purposes only. All right, guys, bang, bang. I've got a very, very special episode for you today. McKinsey is here. I constantly get people who ask me to come on the podcast who

want to hear from kind of an everyday person, not somebody who works in Wall Street or in finance, somebody who doesn't spend all day as a professional investor, but rather somebody who has come across Bitcoin as part of what they do on a day-to-day basis. And so I thought it'd be great to have Mackenzie come on and talk about that. So thank you so much for taking the time to do this, sir. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. This is an unbelievable experience for me. For sure. So let's start just with a little bit of background on you and your family so that people kind of understand the perspective that you're coming from. Where were you born and kind of what have you done in your career until today? Sure. So yeah, I was born actually in the lower

mainland of British Columbia, Surrey, BC. Most of my family's from around that area. So basically, my parents moved to Vancouver Island, which is a small island off the west coast of Canada. And it would have been 89. I was a year old when we moved here. My parents came over for a holiday. They fell in love with it right away. My dad's been a career flooring installer he found work immediately never went back and from then uh yeah we we uh we had a lot of family follow us over um as far as the work end of things um like i say my entire family has been in the flooring industry um it's uh something going through high school growing up i never thought i'd be getting into um you know when you're

surrounded by it you're like oh I might want to try something else but then uh once I got married had kids I started to realize just how uh one profitable and and how good I was at it uh I've been installing flooring with my dad since I was 14 years old that's basically when I started screwing up in school and he made me go to work with him instead of going to the school dance um so yeah it's uh it's been i've had through my 20s a lot of different uh employment opportunities got to try a lot of different things um young family been a father since i was 21 years old and uh but every one of those jobs it's uh it's benefited me in some aspect of what i'm doing now and uh yeah it's been really cool to see those different skill sets all come together to where

I am now. Absolutely. And so how old are you now? And then how many children do you have? I'm 32 and I have two girls, one four and one 10. Awesome. And so when I think about you, you know, I think of you as kind of the quintessential, you know, in America, we would call it kind of the American story, right? But obviously being in Canada of a hard worker who has a young family and you basically are doing everything that you're supposed to be doing in order to build a great life for your family, for your daughters, and kind of accomplish the goals that you set out for yourself. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. At least that's what I'm trying to do.

I think you're doing just fine, my friend. So one of the things as we were talking beforehand and kind of preparing for this that I found very fascinating is the approach that you take, right? Most of the jobs that you've held have to do with some sort of physical labor and the creation of or the production of something in the physical world. So you're not a software engineer. You're not working at a tech startup, right? You're doing flooring or roofing and kind of more construction driven jobs. But that industry has some amazing people and it has a lot of people have bad experiences with. I think your approach to how you service clients and the people you work with is really unique and will play into the value that you see in Bitcoin. But just talk to

me a little bit about the perspective that you have and that you take to work every day in terms of the value and how you work with those clients. Absolutely. So my biggest frustration being in the construction industry is going into someone's home and seeing contractors treating the client as if they're doing them some kind of favor. I don't care how busy it is, how long you've been in the industry, or frankly, how the client's treating you. They are doing you a favor. They are hiring you and they are trusting you and your expertise to do the best job possible um so i guess my my view uh and how i communicate with my clients i don't i guess i'm a little more close with them i i i treat them as if they say they were saying my parents um i don't want them

to uh i don't want them to feel like i am in there just to make make my buck and get out um so yeah a big thing is i understand how hard a lot of small town people people all over the place work for their dollar um i know how hard i work for my dollar and i want to give them the best value i possibly can and it doesn't mean i can't be friendly along the way and especially in a small I live in a town of just under 40,000. Everybody knows everybody. I basically don't advertise. Everything's word of mouth. I don't have decals on my truck. I don't do any of that. It's just word of mouth, being conscientious of the client and making sure that, like I say, I'm giving them the best value for their dollar. Yeah. And you specifically mentioned one thing

that I think is really important, which is this idea of outside of major metros, There's this understanding and belief that people work hard for their money, right? These are people who are putting in long hours, hard hours in comparison to a lot of kind of major metros or software type businesses. And therefore, when you go, when you perform a service, you essentially are saying, hey, look, I need to provide value equivalent to or over the amount of money that they're giving me because I know they worked hard for it. And so I'm going to work hard for them to then give it to me. Is that kind of a fair way to describe the approach you take? Absolutely. And I can't even say, I know my experience is in a small town, but I can't say that I

wouldn't approach it the same way outside. It's just, it's what I expect from someone when I'm hiring them. I expect them to really respect the fact that I am, I'm providing you with a living while you're working for me. And to me, that is everything. You know, that's how I support my family. So yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. And so you are probably not very high on the list that most people would think of as somebody who comes across Bitcoin, becomes a believer in Bitcoin, uses Bitcoin, invest in Bitcoin, etc. Let's start with just like, when was the first time you ever heard

about Bitcoin? And kind of what did you think when you heard about it? sure so uh first time i ever heard about it i was at my buddy's house uh i think they were watching football or something uh placing some bets on the game and one of my buddies who's a software engineer brings up ethereum and bitcoin and how i think i think they were trading ethereum was around $14 at the time and Bitcoin, uh, maybe a thousand. Uh, so I just remember these guys being like, I'm up 15 grand this week. Like this is insane. So of course my first inclination is not what is it? It's how am I going to make money here? Um, it's probably the might be the worst way to go about it. But really that 2016-2017 bull run that started, I made a lot of money

and at the same time lost a lot of money. Luckily, I was about break even at the end of it, but you see these huge gains really quickly. And it's just like gambling. You don't register that that is real money. And you think that this is going to go on forever. It's that whole euphoria that everybody talks about. And it's so real. So the difference is at the end of the bull run, when everything was said and done, I backed away out of the markets for a bit and just went, there's something here. I, I, you know, let's see, let's see what it was. I was really getting myself into. And from there, it's been three or four years of just picking away, trying to understand, understand, uh, the sound money, uh, uh, theory and all, all these different things

that, that, uh, are going to help me keep the money I earn and, uh, yeah, just have more for the future. I'd never invested. I've never invested a penny before Bitcoin came along and it just opened my eyes to a whole, the whole financial realm. Yeah. And so what's interesting to me about this is there's a couple of data points that I think people intuitively believe are true, but hearing them from somebody in your position is really powerful, right? So the first is just the raw honesty from you of like, hey, I came to get rich, right? The price appreciation got my attention and therefore I thought that I could make a bunch of money really fast. I actually think that that is a lot, if not almost everybody who initially comes across Bitcoin specifically in these assets, right?

It is this understanding of like kind of the number goes up, right? But then what ends up happening, whether it's because of a market crash, time spent, you know, curiosity, whatever, is eventually you start to understand more about what is the history of money? What is sound money? Why is it important? How can it protect my wealth? So there's this saying, I think it's my buddy, Marty Bent, who first said it, that's like, you come for the money, and then you stay for the money, right? You come to make money, but then you eventually stay for the sound money, right? And it sounds like that was very much kind of your experience. Is that accurate? it absolutely it is and the hardest thing to do once you have that realization it's convince your family that this is the right thing to do because it is not well understood um like my parents i

you know i've been talking at them for the last four years about bitcoin and not really being able to explain it properly uh like i say i'm a tile setter i am not a financial advisor um but But then I started coming across literature that really helps out. The Bitcoin standard, I mean, that was my foundation. Just understanding all of these different monetary systems and why they failed. They failed for the same reason every single time. And then you go further down the path and you're the sovereign individual in the fourth turning. and you try not to get too apocalyptic about everything because uh you know you gotta wake

up and get out of bed every day but um it's uh like i say it's just been an unbelievable journey um just figuring out step by step why this is happening um because it is it's hard to believe uh for a lot of people that this is this is the new standard this is where we're going and when i know guys like you and me see it but uh it's so weird to be one of those people when the rest of the world is just catching on absolutely and so let's start with um you know you make kind of the initial investment in bitcoin price goes up price goes down um you also it sounds like uh ether and maybe others um and as you kind of go on the education journey so take away the price for a second as you go on that education journey i'm assuming that you're talking about it with

your wife with your parents like what are they saying are they like you're absolutely insane and like stay away from me uh and stay away from that stuff or are they more open-minded like what's kind of the reaction as you're going down the rabbit hole well four years ago i was working uh doing sales and flooring. I thought I'd give that a shot, not my gig. I found that out pretty quick, but I remember trying to explain it with this very basic understanding of what Bitcoin is to my boss at the time. And he's sitting there staring at me, and I don't think it was probably the best play. He's like, okay, if this guy doesn't understand that we want Canadian dollars, is not Bitcoin, that might be an issue. So then then I move on to my parents. And

it's not that they didn't understand, but they're reaching retirement age. And this is especially then the very volatile, high risk asset that maybe they don't want to get into. So and then and then other other family members, I remember being on a family reunion, sitting on a lake in a boat explaining to my dad's cousin talking about bitcoin and my best friend sitting there and uh yeah it's just it you do your best but uh all you all i can do is direct them to the null the the the different areas where i learned and pass that knowledge on to them that way because i'm not the right guy to be to be starting and then as far as my wife goes she is the best she is just she trusts that uh i know what i'm talking about and that i have the

best interest of the family um i tried to get her to listen to the bitcoin standard and she ended up using it as a meditation to fall asleep so that is amazing yeah so talk a little bit uh and obviously don't disclose kind of numbers and stuff But when you think of investing in Bitcoin or holding Bitcoin, is this something where you're thinking of it as like a portfolio and you kind of invest and one day want to sell it? Is it something where you say, no, I want to kind of save and use Bitcoin as a savings technology? Like, how do you think about it? And then how do you think about how much Canadian dollars to hold versus Bitcoin versus maybe other assets? sure well at this point um the way the world is right now it's been really difficult for me

not to go all in on bitcoin um especially in canada here um this covid thing has obviously nuked the country um we have had a lot of support and stimulus from the government which is good and bad there's different ways of looking at it but the bottom line is um i believe we spent 57 percent of our gdp this uh this year and we're getting all of these different benefits whether it be um the cerb twelve hundred dollars every two weeks or or the business loans where uh you borrow 30,000, 10,000 is forgivable. Um, though that all needs to get paid from somewhere. Um, and it's, uh, that's why I've personally, I I've been fortunate, um, with everybody staying at home, they stare at their walls and want tile on them apparently. So I, I, I can't really, uh,

I can't complain in that respect, but, um, it's funny how that works, right? Yeah. Everyone sits around at home is, Hey, I actually need some, some improvements around if I'm going to sit here all day. Absolutely. And it's baffling to me. It's like, and it's the same with interest rates dropping. Our real estate values have shot through the roof and it's like, is real estate really appreciating that much

or are people just getting more access to funds that it's not my place to say whether or not they should be borrowing, but it's there. Tax deferrals, mortgage deferrals, all these different things. like, we're just kicking the can down the road. That's all that's happening here. And yeah, it's an intimidating prospect. Absolutely. And it's pretty crazy too, to think, you know, one of,

you take that mentality that you have of like, everyone works hard for their money and therefore I want to provide value. But also too, it sounds like you've got this idea around, but I work hard for my money as well and I want to protect it. Right. And that's kind of, when you talk about the national debt and a lot of these issues. It sounds like really for you, Bitcoin is much more a way to protect wealth than it is as like a speculative asset or anything like that. Yeah. If I'm being completely honest, it's both for me right now because of where we are in Bitcoin's growth. Yeah. Obviously, I see the upside of it. But in the same breath, if we were 10 15 years down the road and bitcoin was stable and we were in the same position i'd still

be there because like i say this uh where you sell a house for 450 000 a year ago and now it's worth uh you know 570 000 that's not that's insane and that's not uh it's the same you go and buy you know a case of coke or something and that was four dollars last year and it's 7.99 this year it's happening everywhere so so i i'd be a i'd be a liar if i was saying i'm not here for the price discovery as well that's a big part of it but uh no the the stability when you can say i'm confident in the stability of bitcoin even with the volatile uh price swings that are going on, that's saying something. I'm not against paying taxes or anything like that. I'm very much for not having my money taken when it doesn't need to be. Yeah. And what's so interesting to me

is, I think of this as like, you can be described as a hardworking Canadian who simply wants to provide a life for their family, right? I mean, at the core of it, everyone wants to have enough resources to live the life that they want to live and they want to be happy, right? And I think that what is fascinating to me, and I think that you're not alone in this, is something like Bitcoin can pull so many people in and really open their eyes to kind of the macroeconomic world, to the financial investing world, right? Like it almost sounds like over the last three or four years, you've gotten a crash course in a lot of different topics that have a very material impact on you, your family, your finances, but aren't necessarily taught in school in a way that people pay

attention or learn, correct? Absolutely. And that's just the thing. Bitcoin could disappear tomorrow, and I would still be better off for it existing for the time it did. Like I say, it just brought so much clarity. And no, it's not taught in schools. You know, I'm 30 years old, And I went through my twenties, not being aware of any of this and, you know, hindsight's 2020, you can't go back, but, but you just, you just go, man, some of those choices I made for these small short-term gains, these short-term happiness, um, could have developed into something so much bigger. Had I just understood that, that value proposition for long-term savings.

Yeah. Yeah. And we haven't talked about this before, so I'm actually curious to your answer, but do you feel like understanding of Bitcoin, the macro environment, inflation, a lot of the things that we've talked about, has that changed your spending patterns or your saving patterns? I guess there's one part that's like knowledge, the other is behavior change. What, if any, behaviors have changed that you think are noticeable? uh for me in particular massive changes um okay yeah um in what way well well we uprooted ourselves in probably the biggest way you can sold our home to pay down all the debt that we

possibly could um so basically we were at net zero and yeah i mean i wouldn't have thought of doing that two years ago you just think that sitting in your home and allowing real estate values to inflate like that's your retirement at the end of it and if you can pull some money and maybe get a uh investment property and build that way that's one way but i've worked 19 hour days and done that, you know, just grinding, grinding day after day to make the bills get paid at the end of the month. And when I, with my kids, I'm just like, that is not a way I want to live my life. I have no energy. When I get home, I, I, you know, I'm 32 and I don't have energy to play with my kids. What's wrong with that picture. I had this silly idea in my head that if I wasn't

stressed and exhausted, I wasn't working hard enough. And that's not true. That is the root of the problem. And it's the same thing with money. You don't have to, if you just let it do its work for you, then it takes a lot of the stress away. It is so true, right? In terms of one, kudos to you for learning this stuff. Two, having the courage and conviction to act, right? I mean, you know, I say it all the time, but, uh, getting out of debt can be one of the most freeing exercises that you can do. And so being able to do that alone, um, is a big thing. But I think that the third thing you said there that is, um, so true. And frankly, people are taught the opposite is to put the money to work for you, right? Most people are told save, save, save. And

what they don't realize is based on their income and their expenses, there's just not enough money to save to ever actually kind of get out of the rat race, right? What you got to do is you got to be able to have a little bit of money as a rainy day, but then you got to be able to invest everything else and grow it and have it grow faster than inflation so that you're not just having to trade your hours for dollars, right? Instead, you can actually use the investments to help build wealth. And it sounds like that kind of really hit home for you and change your behavior. Absolutely. And I think, again, early 30s with a bad sciatic nerve, I can't do this forever. It's not a long-term play for me, the construction industry. And yeah, it's 40, 45,

50. It's not far off. So it's going to come a lot quicker than I know. So yeah, just like I say, getting prepared for that. For sure. And then, so the last thing I want to talk about is kind of spending habits, right? So one of the things that I personally have seen is I've started to in my head, denominate things in Satoshis or in Bitcoin. So in 2019, I've talked about it on the podcast before, in January 2019, my wife wanted to buy a couch and I was calculating how many Bitcoin that would be. Right now it's like, nah, we don't need a couch. And so that's kind of like an extreme example. But do you see kind of changes not only on the investing side, but also in the spending habits as well? Absolutely. Um, you know, it's kind of tough in certain ways. Like

I look at, uh, the position we're in now, um, the, the thing, the important things are like, uh, my daughter just started an outdoor, outdoor, uh, preschool program that for better or worse, that was a stressful thing for me to know that we're spending that extra money every month. Of course I want that for my kids, but it's still money out the door, which means I'm not home. Um, and so, yeah, that kind of stuff is a lot easier to do, but then the, the trivial, um, little knickknacky things, it, I, like you say, your couch, I, I, we don't need it. We just don't need it right now. Give us, I keep on telling my wife, we're not even looking at houses right now give me some time let's see where this goes we we don't need to rush anything

so yeah and what's interesting to uh kind of your perspective because i don't think a lot of people do this whether it's because they they don't get paid hourly or it's not kind of uh more manual type work but you literally are making a connection between uh if your daughter goes to preschool it's x dollars which means you've got to work y hours and therefore you can make a direct kind of connection between a decision you make on the spending side with an, uh, kind of energy output for you, right? Like, like there's a direct link between I'm going to have to work X number of more hours in order to pay for this. And so I think that that direct linkage makes it much actually clearer for you, uh, to make those decisions, right? For some people, um, that's

harder for them to do. They actually don't know how much money they get paid per hour because they're on a salary or something like that for you, that connection being so clear probably makes it a much, um, at least clearer decision, not necessarily easier, but, but just a much easier to evaluate. It's unbelievably clear to me. And, and it's something that I've had to explain. Uh, it's something my wife and I have discussed because, um, uh, she, she's at home with the kids. And like I say, every dollar I make is I equate it. You equate things to Satoshi's. I equate it to a minute spent with, with, uh, my kids. Um, so yeah, absolutely. It's, I don't look at, uh, I don't look at houses. I don't look at trucks. I don't look at any of those, those

different objects in the world as, uh, what I'm working towards. It's all about time with my kids. if i can make it to some point my goal is at some point i can make it to um my kids still living at home and me being able to work a four-day work week and have three days for them that's still that's still crazy to me that we spend more time at work than we do with our family even in the best case so yeah absolutely that is uh that is the value proposition for me and i don't know if you've ever heard of of this uh kind of framing in the bitcoin world but basically the whole idea is that Bitcoin is time, right? And essentially what you're describing

is exactly that, right? Is there's a direct trade-off between wealth and time. And the less wealth you have, the more time you have to spend. But the more wealth you have, the less time you have to spend kind of doing things you might not want to do, right? So your point of,

I love the idea of you having measurable goals, right? I know I need to get to X number so then I can spend four days working, three days with my kids. Like a lot of people I think have a dream, right? Which is, hey, I want to spend more time with my kids. Okay, that's great. How are you going to get there?

Well, by you setting kind of a measurable goal, right? It's pretty trackable. And something tells me that you're a pretty driven guy so that you'll likely get there as well. Yeah, I sure hope so. I hope so for the sake of my kids because you only get to see them grow up once. And man, it happens fast.

Everybody says it, but it's unbelievable. Absolutely. All right, before I let you go, uh i always ask people the same two questions uh for you what is the most important book that you've ever read okay so uh full disclosure i don't read pomp i haven't since high school um audible is my friend okay audible so you listen to books don't read them well i i'm 10 hours a day working by myself and that's why podcasts all these different things that's my knowledge i get to sit there and just listen and uh what's the best what's the best one

you've listened to recently so recently i'm gonna say the only reason i'm not saying the bitcoin standard is because the fourth turning everything that's happening right now is blowing my mind like every time i i was explaining we watched a social dilemma with my daughter the other day the 10 year old because she's starting to get to that age and uh she uh i was explaining to her how as negative as it looks the fact that we're realizing all this stuff and we're seeing the bad in it that's good news i i see a turnaround coming and i can see a world where if we play things right my daughter never will experience that that draw of social media and all those negative effects and maybe only benefit from the tools uh in it so yeah like i say the fourth

turning i was explaining to her how her generation is the hero generation and they're gonna pull us from all this nonsense online i love that uh second question is more fun aliens are you a believer or non-believer yeah again being a listener of the podcast i got some time to really think about this and i didn't want to have the same answer as everybody um base answer is absolutely um the reasoning for that is i hate to keep bringing up my kids but i i just stare at your kids for long enough and you try and figure out how this person came to be how how how this all came in into fruition and you go yeah i don't have the answer and i'd be ignorant to say that uh there isn't life elsewhere i'm i'm i'm all for believing

whatever you want to tell me when it comes to that i love that uh i the uh parents usually don't like talking about that but the idea of like hey i made this thing uh every single one of my friends who's had a kid who's still got a young kid is just you know they all go through that so i don't think that you're alone there yeah it's nuts awesome man well listen you could ask me one question to finish up what do you got for me okay um i guess again selfish question i slid into your dms there out of nowhere you don't know me i don't have much of a twitter presence i'm purely there to read content and maybe throw a meme in or a gif in every once in a while. Um, but why, why, why did you decide that I was the guy you say you have so many people

bugging you? Why was I the guy? Yeah. Uh, I don't know, uh, is a short answer. Uh, no. So for those that don't have the context, uh, over the last, I don't know, year or so, uh, on numerous occasions, people have reached out to me and been like, Hey, uh, you should basically bring on, uh, kind of an everyday Bitcoiner, right? Somebody who doesn't exist in the financial world, doesn't kind of spend all day doing this. They've got kind of what most people would consider a quote-unquote a normal job, but they have either fallen down the rabbit hole or something. And usually they position it as they want to come on the podcast, they want to discuss, maybe it's a token that they're invested in or a project that they're really excited about. There's always some angle

that they want to capture. I think when you messaged me, it was just like, Hey, this is crazy. But like, I'm just a normal dude. Uh, if you want, like, I'll come talk about it. And I had been thinking like, I need to do that at some point. And for whatever reason, when I read your message, I was like, Oh, this is somebody who has like no agenda isn't coming on to like pitch anything or do anything crazy. Uh, and the thing that I love is, uh, kind of when you articulated, like, here's my work history, here's my family. Like it was just very, I think, um, kind of down the fairway of like, I actually think there's more people like you who are into Bitcoin or in the Bitcoin community than people realize. And while I think a lot of like the media attention

and all of that is kind of the Robin Hood, you know, trading bros, like everyone's going, you know, YOLO long with 100x, you know, leverage, like sure, there's people like that. But I think when you look at Bitcoin specifically, your story is very similar, but it's not just people in Canada. It's not just people in the United States. Your story is the same story that can be told in pretty much every country in the world. And that's kind of the beauty of Bitcoin, right? Is that this is a asset that everyone from Larry Fink, who's the founder of the largest asset manager, BlackRock in the world, all the way to you, me, and millions of other kind of everyday people, Bitcoin can serve the purpose that we want. And to me, when I just read the message,

I was like, all right, I got to do it. Here's the guy. I told you to send me an email because I had to make sure that you weren't, you know, crazy and going to come on and say some wild stuff. But then I thought you were going to ask me for a lot more information than you did, if I'm being honest. No, it was just like, look, just just tell me kind of your story. Right. And you put together a great email and it was just like, hey, like here it is. And again, it wasn't a pitch about anything or whatever. And I said, look, let's do it. And I think that kind of as we've talk today, like part of why I wanted to do this, and you said a lot of things I didn't know you were going to say, but I think are important around, you know, the people who work hard,

right? And again, it's a physical labor type hard. It's not, oh, I spent a lot of hours, but actual physical labor, this idea of when I get home, I'm tired, right? You are trading your time for dollars. And there's a lot of people who spend their entire lives doing that. And they never realize the things you've learned in the last two years, right? But as soon as you kind of get your mind open to this stuff, you immediately realize, hey, there's another path, right? I can use where I am today to drive revenue or income for myself. I can then take that income. I can protect it. I can grow it. I can do things so that I can put myself in a position to spend more time with my family and do the things I want to do. And I think that story doesn't get told enough,

uh, whether it's in Canada, the United States or elsewhere of, you know, the knowledge is such a great equalizer, right? You have the same knowledge that somebody sitting, uh, in a white collar job inside of an investment firm has. And when you get on that level playing field, the things that you can do, uh, are frankly generation defining for you and your family, right? Because if you know this stuff, well, guess what? You're going to teach your daughters this. And if they know they're going to teach their children. And so what you can literally do is kind of change the inflection point of an entire uh kind of lineage of a family all because of knowledge and i think that's the beauty of uh kind of your story and many other people like you is that once you have

the curiosity and and kind of self-starter attitude of like i want to get this information you don't got to be a genius right you're not a genius i'm not a genius there's like five geniuses in the world right they're all billionaires because they're because they're geniuses right but uh for everybody else like you just work hard and you try to do the things that you think are the right things to do and when you're armed with the right knowledge, then you end up being successful. It's, it's put a light at the end of the tunnel for me. And that's, that's huge. That's everything. Um, I, I, I don't know if I heard this somewhere, but, uh, I was thinking about it. I'm not trying to take over the world. I'm trying to take care of my family. And, and

that, that's just the bottom line. Um, and I want to be happy and, uh, be able to enjoy it while it's happening. I love that. We're going to end on that because that is the most powerful best quote that might've ever been said on this podcast. Before I let you go, where can we send people? Now we talked before for 99% of people who are listening, they are not kind of geographically close to you. So for your business, they're going to be kind of out of reach, but I know that we've got some listeners that are in your neck of the woods in Canada. So just talk a little bit about kind of where people can go find out more about your business and then kind of what areas you service in case anyone listening is in that area? Sure. So, um, I'm most active on Instagram. Um,

it's a great space for contractors to share their work. Um, so my, my contact on there is at Mac period, the period builder, um, Mac. Yeah. Uh, growing up with, again, with kids having that, bob the builder uh thing falling all around all the time so um yeah it's mac with a k um like i say it's just a great community twitter i'm not like i say if you read my my bio it says don't mind me i don't know anything and uh yeah yeah i i service uh i'll service the vancouver island but basically the uh the northern vancouver island is uh my home and and where i like to try and stay i've been able to stay busy here so i'm likely to stick around here that's awesome man so mac the mac dot the dot builder on instagram absolutely yeah all right mckenzie listen thank

you so much for doing this i think people are really going to enjoy this and uh we'll have to do it again in the future when uh when you kind of keep going thanks man again thank you so much This has been awesome.