The School of Greatness - How to Build a Million-Dollar Portfolio Starting From Nothing | Graham Stephan

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Graham Stephan was relentless about one thing before he had anything else: not spending money he did not have to spend. He calculated the gas cost of visiting a friend and decided it was not worth it. Most people would call that extreme. He calls it the foundation. The habits he built early, consistency, focus, and ruthless saving, did not feel heroic in the moment. They felt boring. But boring done every single day is what compounded into real estate commissions, YouTube income, and an investment portfolio split evenly between property, index funds, and cash. What he did not do was wait until he felt ready. He held off on starting his YouTube channel for years because he did not have a Lamborghini like the other guys. When he finally started, none of that mattered. The deeper conversation here is about what money actually means once you have enough of it. Graham is not chasing a bigger number. He wants to buy back his time, to read a book on a Tuesday if he feels like it. That shift from accumulation to freedom is where this episode gets genuinely interesting. Graham on YouTube Graham’s website Graham on Instagram In this episode you will: Discover the three specific habits Graham used to go from nothing to his first million and why saving was the most underrated one Learn how he structures his investments today across real estate, index funds, and cash, and the simple daily routine he uses to stay consistent Understand why waiting until you feel credible is the trap that keeps most people from ever starting Rethink what you believe about renting versus buying a home and when each choice actually makes financial sense Shift how you think about the end goal of building wealth, from hitting a number to designing a life that gives you your time back For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1925 For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone] Follow The Daily Motivation for essential highlights from The School of Greatness More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Lewis Howes Solo [From $0-1M in 2026] Glennda Baker Dave Ramsey Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What would you say are the three habits that you started to develop early on when you didn't have a lot of money into becoming a millionaire? Could you think back on three specific habits that supported you from going from $50,000 to $100,000 a year to breaking into the first million? Yeah, I would say definitely consistency. I was relentless in just keeping the same habits over and over and over again. I would then say it was the focus of just, I had one goal in mind of just like, I'm going to do this one thing. I'm doing really, really, really well. That's all I wanted to do. And I would also say, saving money.

I mean, I lived really, really, really frugally. You're obsessed about that. Probably. Too frugal. I was too frugal. You were like every penny. Yeah. I can't go out and have an extra sushi.

I can't let you know. Oh, not even. Like, I wouldn't even do the sushi. It was probably unhealthy. I mean, looking back. Like, I can't have regrets about it. But, I mean, it got to a point where I remember, I was talking about this yesterday, I was calculating the cost of gas to go and visit a friend.

And I determined how bad it is, though, like the cost of gas was not worth the time I would be able to spend with his friend. And, like, I did the analysis on that and thinking, well, if I'm only going to see you for two hours and it's going to cost me X amount of, like, that's stupid. Like, I should not be looking at it like that. But that's how I was in the beginning. Where did that come from? Is that like a childhood learned behavior?

Did you model that from somewhere? Where you just, like, why did you feel like you needed to be so obsessive about every penny and decisions of driving to see a friend? Is it worth the money? Like, when? Yeah. A lot of it, I thought of, like, how much I would be making or the cost of, like, my time and then extrapolating from there, like, what my time is worth doing certain activities.

There was also another point, I must have been like 15 years old, maybe 16 and I just got my driver's license And I remembered like how far $20 could get you right. I was like, okay, if I have $20 and that's my budget and that's what I'm spending I could put $10 in the gas tank. I could spend $5 in a subway footlong sandwich and that's like two meals to $2.50 per meal and then I have another $5 left over for like mislain like I remember breaking it down to that degree and then And then just from there, taking that to, well, here's what a dollar could buy and just like appreciating that. But then also going through, there was a time briefly, I think the job was like six weeks. I worked at this gold, precious metals bullion investment firm. I did data entry because I thought I wanted to be an investment bang.

I'm like, this is a great way to get experience. It wasn't. But I think I was, I think I must have been paid like $7.75 an hour. Like it was maybe eight bucks, like max. And this was back in early 2008. And I remember thinking, okay, like, if I'm making like $8 an hour, is a subway sandwich worth 40 minutes of that? No. And then how could I stretch that further?

So I just thought everything in terms of like going back to making like $8 an hour. Wow. Did your parents teach you lessons about money early on? Did you have money mentors? No. What were the things, what were the beliefs you had early on around money? Like what did you think when you thought of money when money came in? Did you think I need to save it?

Did you think money was good? Money was bad? You know, what were your beliefs about it? Yeah, I never thought money was bad. I had always been obsessed with, I guess, like saving and collecting. Like even as a kid, I think it was my grandpa, should have been like his coin collection. And I thought it was so cool. And he showed me a picture of like a 1909 S. VDB penny.

It's like these pennies are out there still. They're like X amount that are probably still in circulation. and like every like and I was like maybe six years old and I'd just be checking penny it's like every penny would be like this is a 1909 SVDB I've never found one but I've just been obsessed with I think just saving collecting like I even if I got like birthday money or Christmas money like I would save it I wouldn't spend it and I liked just to see that accumulate in like an envelope in my room or like seven or something yeah yeah it'd be like a hundred box or something like that of like the

whole year's worth of like saving and collecting I just naturally I think gravitated towards that. What was the, I mean, did anyone teach you about money though? Did you ever like... No, not really. My mom had a book and I think it was like the millionaire mindset. Secrets of the millionaire mind? Maybe.

I don't, something about the millionaire mindset or maybe it was the millionaire next door. And I must have been like 10, 11, 12 years old. And for, like, I just saw the book that's a millionaire on the side of it. I'm like, I'm going to read this book. And I was not a reader at all. Like, it was not reading books. But for some reason, I just read that book and I enjoyed it. And it's just like all these things made sense.

Like, oh, the average millionaire drives a Ford F-150. And it's more common to drive a toy to Corolla than it is a Ferrari. And most millionaires don't make a million dollars a year. They're making an average income and they save for 30 years. And so all of those things, like, I just had an interest in that. What was the year you made your first million? Dollars? Or we're talking about networks?

Yeah. In sales. like that came in, what was the year that happened? Do you remember the year? Yeah, that would have been 2019. And that was a combination of real estate sales and then YouTube adding on top of that. Right.

And the year before, where was it at? Like, was it half as much? Was it close to that? The year before, I think I made $250,000 from YouTube. And then I think 500 grand from real estate. About 750 grand the year before. Yeah, I'll be about that. What do you think was the difference between what you did or how you thought from 2018 to 2019?

I would say I had never, for me it was really YouTube. But that really started 2017 for me because I never thought that I'd make money on YouTube at all. I started making videos just because it seemed like the fun thing to do. And even I remember making a dollar a day on YouTube through ad revenue and just thinking, wow, this is like. like a free sushi dinner that I could, because I was going to do YouTube anyway. So it's like, the fact that it's making $30 a month, it's like, that's sushi once a month for free. And I remember it being like, $100 a month, it's being like, wow, that's my cell phone bill. And then $300 a month. That's my car insurance and gas. Like, this is so cool. And it's just, I guess seeing that I could

make money without having to be like actively involved, even though like I became very involved. But with real estate, I was in sales. And so. And so the bulk of my income at that time was really like, I gotta be there, I gotta show houses. If I don't sell a house, I don't get paid. I could work an entire year or nothing. And a lot of my commission is dependent on my ability to get listings, meet clients, be there for those clients.

And I would drop anything for them at any time. If there's a client I wanted to see a house Friday at 10 p.m., I would cancel anything. I'd be there because that's what I had to do. But seeing on YouTube that I could work around my own schedule, post videos, And like every video is like, wow, if this, if every video I make just makes an average of a dollar a day, I get a thousand videos and that's a thousand dollars a day. And I could, I could be anywhere in the world.

And so something like that was very freeing to me that I knew that I could scale it a way that I couldn't do as a real estate agent. Even the best agents I've seen. Like we're talking about like the top few in the country are making two to six million dollars a year. And they have like huge teams and they've been in the business for 20 years. And I started seeing people on YouTube be like, they're doing this in, you know, a few months and scaling to that point. The reach that I was able to get on YouTube and the benefits that I saw of just like being able to network and meet other people, I could meet a thousand people by making one video

in the time it would take me like years in real estate to like meet a thousand people one-on-one. And that really changed my mind in terms of just seeing what was possible. So 2018, if I remember what you said, about a half a million, came in from real estate, is that right? Yeah, yeah. And then, of course, on top of that, though, you have, like, broker splits and, like, you know, miscellaneous things.

Sure, in terms of, like, sales coming in. You've got expenses and everything, obviously. But that's like, how many homes is that for half a million dollars in commissions? Wasn't much. Well, in L.A., I guess, yeah. Yeah. Is that five, ten homes? What is that?

Probably about that. I would say in a year, I would have maybe 20, and I'd, like, years, this is, like, five years, like, six years. I don't know how many years ago this was. I would say on average, I probably had about 25 transactions a year. A lot of those would be high-end leases. And of those sales. Rentals.

Yeah. And then sales would be, I don't know, five to ten. But usually it would be like I'd have a whole bunch of one and a half to three million dollars homes. And then I'd have like one a year that was like five million or like eight million. And that would boost the bar a lot. Or sometimes I'd get really good. lease commissions. There would be some properties for lease that would make more commission than the sales just because, let's say, it's $30,000 a month, and I'm representing both sides, and we get

like an 8% commission on top of that for a two-year lease. That's pretty big. Monthly. You get a commission monthly? No, I get one check. Sometimes they'll say, well, we'll pay for the first year, and then we'll pay, which is fine. But now, a lot of them would just pay up front. That's amazing. What would you say the top three physical investments that you've made that have paid the best dividends over the last five to ten years? Probably a good computer or faster. I was like on this little mini MacBook for a while that would like pause for minutes and I didn't want to spend money. I finally got like a new MacBook at the time and like it helped my video processing like a ton. Like that has probably been one of the best investments.

Probably good camera for YouTube videos. Besides that though, I would say real estate has been has been a fantastic one. always been like the core of everything I do is like that's the foundation is like good real estate rental properties and that's like the foundation I guess to fall back on if that makes sense. How much real estate do you have now? It is, I'm just trying to, I think it's six properties total. One is my primary in Vegas. But then six, five rental properties? Yep. And then the rest is mostly index funds at the moment or? Yeah, index funds and cash. I pretty much almost got a 30, 30, 30 split between real estate cash index funds.

Really? When did you feel like you were able to break through mentally and emotionally of you see these bigger homes, you see individuals who have made it essentially in a certain way financially? When did you start to realize, hey, maybe I could break through this financial level as well and get to a certain level? Was that when you were 18 getting started? There was more in your mid-20s?

I'd say immediate. Really? Yeah, immediately. Just like seeing and being around these people, I just felt like I, I just felt like, I could do that too. At 18, 19. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Even though I didn't achieve that immediately, it's just, I guess it was a feeling like I felt like I dressed the part too. Like I'd see how they dress. I'd go to H&M and like try to replicate their style for like 50 bucks. And so just doing that. A big change for me too came when I sold my first house and I do what I tell everyone not to do.

I spent pretty much all of it on a car. And I think my commission like after. everything 50 grand something like that like after I split grand yeah like after all splits and everything yeah first house that's huge yeah have 3.6 million dollars how old were you I had just turned 19 or I was just a massive commission yeah it was and that buyer I met doing an open house I had done an open house every single Sunday for nine months and then just a buyer happened to walk in we had a great conversation he was a doctor and straight up just gave me a chance. Like that was one of those things where he was like, I remember when I was 18 and

someone gave me a chance and I wanted to do the same for you. That's cool. I want you to help us find a house. And I did. I was so much to him. But I spent all that money buying a Lotus Elise. And, you know, the car, I think was like 30 grand plus like taxes and stuff like that. And then you also have to pay tax on the commission. So I was left over like nothing afterwards. But that car, I started taking it every weekend to these car meets, like early in the morning. Like early Sunday, wake up at like 6 a.m. go to a car meet like car friends there. Like people driving like Ferraris on Lambo's. And here I got in for the cost of a new Honda accord.

And so like being around those people, like getting into those groups and I loved it. It was just like fun. Like I take the car and go to car meets and right afterwards. I'd go in to an open house. I parked the car out in front. and people comment and like, it helped. So what sounds like you said, what you tell people not to do

was actually a great investment. In hindsight, yeah. Right. It was a bad investment, but it was a great investment. Could have gone the other way too, I think had I been reckless with it or maybe not use it,

like if I was like, oh, I'm going to go pick up chicks in the car now. I'm like not worked. But I just used it as like a passion and a networking tool at the same time. What's the best invisible asset that you've invested in for yourself? Oh man, I... That continues to pay dividends today.

What do you mean invisible asset? Like not a physical thing, but more of a skill set, a learning, something you've developed, a relationship that you've invested in, something invisible that is not a tangible thing I would say just like, I would say just great people and mentors around me. Jason Oppenheim, I say this all the time, has been like one of the best parts of the of like just learning I guess not how to be more assertive but like being able to convey what you want and being able to basically give it give a direction in a way that people will understand and seeing him operate on such a high level just watching him like I just go into the

office and just listen to him speak and see how he negotiates and like those sort of connections and just being able to learn from those people has been invaluable. Yeah, that's beautiful. What's your plan with this year, with the recession potentially going to happen? You're talking a lot about this on your channel. What's your plan to do with the cash? What do you plan to do with it over the next six to 12 months? If everything crashes.

If real estate crashes, if the stock mark crashes, what will you do? Well, I'm buying in dollar cost averaging into the index funds every day. Every day the market's open, I just, it's a habit of mine to wake up every morning and to buy the same dollar amount every single day. How much is that every day? Every day. Five grand a day. Just right in there.

Just always index funds. It's just like my morning routine is just like index funds. Anything above that, obviously tax is like, can take that into consideration. Goes into the cash pile. And in a perfect world, I want a really good commercial property that's Triple Net, ideally in Las Vegas. But I believe we have a ways to go on that because right now I have that money parked in treasuries. And it's earning about 4.4%.

Maybe 4.5, 4.3. It's not bad. Yeah. And I just keep rolling it over. That's not bad. So if I'm making 4.4%, but I'm looking at commercial properties making 4.5 to 5, I don't see the risk premium there yet. So I think if I could find something at 7, 7.5%. To me, that gives enough of a buffer where, like, if the market continues going,

down, I've locked that in, but I've yet to see those deals come up yet. So I'm looking, I look every day and I think it'll get to a point where I could start making offers, but some of the properties that come up, they're great, but I don't want to be like their first week on the market. Here's an offer for 30% less. It's like, I'm not going to shoot myself on the foot. It's offensive to him. But if it's been listed for six months, four months, whatever, then I'd consider making an offer.

Yeah. I know you could ask this question a lot, but if someone had between 20, thousand in cash or 100,000 in cash. And I know you're not a financial advisor. What would you be suggesting as options for them to do to invest it as opposed to holding onto it in the bank? And they wanted to invest it somewhere. What would you suggest? Between $20,000 and $100,000 of extra cash laying around, but they want to invest in somewhere and make an interest. The biggest thing that's made a difference for me is house hacking. One of the best things that I've done is buy the duplex. I moved in one side. I remember.

rented out the other. I think a lot of people, now, not every area has a duplex that you could go and buy, but I found that if you could reduce your housing, because housing makes up 25 to 35% of your income, just a third of it is gone just for a place to live. But if you could find a way to reduce that by using that down payment, leveraging that for, you know, a duplex or a triplex or anything where you could rent out the other units, ideally it'll cover your overhead, but even if it covers half, like to be able to save an extra 20% of your income by building up equity in a property that you could rent out,

I think that's tremendous. But you also have to be okay with being a landlord, putting in the time to like managing a property. Fixing stuff, everything. Yeah, and you also have to be careful about what you buy, that it's a good deal. It's like just because it's duplex doesn't mean it's worth buying. So if you're willing to put it in the work,

I think that could probably yield the highest results. Yeah. What's your thoughts about? about owning a home in general. I know there's different real estate experts that talk about, you know, only rent where you live and own the thing that you rent out, so it brings you in passive income.

What's your thoughts? You own your home, you live there. Do you think people should buy a home or should they rent and use their down payment as an investment to bring in cash some more else? I think it really depends on the area. Places like Los Angeles generally are cheaper to rent. The difference becomes if you plan to live

house for like 15, 20 years and you know it's a place that you're going to be raising a family or for the peace of mind of being able to like not worry about rent increases. But like Los Angeles is an area. It's kind of a bubble. Yeah, where renting is so much cheaper. The majority of the city is rent control. Your rent's going up usually three to five percent a year the very most. It's cheaper. You'll save more money. I mean it's more expensive right here than it is anywhere in the country. Yeah, true. True. True. A lot of other places. It's cheaper to rent versus owning here because it's so expensive to own.

I would say generally, if you plan to live in the house for seven to ten years, it's usually cheaper to own. But you have to factor in also your closing costs, commissions, maintenance. Now in L.A., there was a whole like mansion tax coming out. Did you see this in April? Yeah, I saw that. In April, 5% if you sell a home. I don't think that passed, did it? I'm pretty sure in April, if your house is over $5 million.

I don't think that passed. I think it did. It passed. I have not kept up. I'm glad. You're in Vegas now. I think it did. So it's like if you got a $5 million home, 5% against the mansion tax.

On top of it. I think it's stupid. It's crazy, right? My issue with California is that their solution to everything is tax. Let's not fix everything that's broken here. We just need more money. But they make so much money to begin with. Where does it go?

Who knows? Where does it go? So their thing is just let's tax the rich people. Let's drive everyone out of state. But then let's tax the people who stayed even more. It makes no sense to me. I think California is such an amazing state. It's so much to offer.

It could be incredible. Why did you move? You grew up here. You grew up in Cali and L.A. Why go to Vegas when the weather is perfect here, 90% of time, you've got the ocean, you've got the mountains, you've got industries here. Why move away? I think the quality of life deteriorated to a point where it was better somewhere else.

never thought I would leave, but what really kept me here was doing real estate. And like up until 2020, I was going to the office every single day to the Oppenheim group. And I would do real estate on the set. Like I was like 85% YouTube at that point. But if a client came around, like, I was, and they were looking for a $4 million house, like, I'm going to help them find a house. Anyone else? I had, you know, a cool little referral business within the office of like, I'll give that to so-and-so and I'll give that to this. And it worked really well. And I'd be involved in the phone, like throughout the process, but they would do a lot of the stuff, and it worked really well. But when COVID happened, and I was just like home making videos, I realized how much I loved

just like being able to make videos and like do that. I just had so much fun doing that. Then I realized you don't have to be in Los Angeles to do that. Just checked out Vegas, realized how nice it is in some of these areas of like Henderson and summer. Yeah, Henderson is nice. I really liked it. I'm inside anyway. You're talking about like going to the beach and the mountains.

You don't do that. How many people and I'll really go to the beach? one goes to the beach. Like, sure, you go to the mountains every now and then. I'm inside anyway. So, like, might as well save on property tax. Might as well save on all these things. Like, the quality of life there were like, it was so much better. The house was way less expensive. Way bigger. Twice the square footage. I was able to have a larger off. My office in Vegas was like four times the size of my office in L.A. was able to also have a podcast studio in my house. At the time, Jack was living with me.

He had a bedroom there. So, like, I would say half the house was an office. And that was, like, an entirely separate part of everything. Like, you know, walking, you have the kitchen and everything. And then this left side was office. It was like Jack's room, he was editing, he was doing the podcast, a podcast. Like, it was perfect setup. But then also, it's like, there had no potholes in the road.

There's no traffic. Everyone is really friendly. It's a really great community. I know all the neighbors. And, like, in Los Angeles, you might know the people on either side of you, and that's it. It was so, like, closed off. Vegas was, like, very friendly and nice. It's been perfect for you, yeah.

Yeah. So immediately, I knew, like, this is the right choice. Right. And I would say every now and then I do miss. The weather here is obviously better. Yeah. But I don't mind the heat. You're inside all the time anyways.

I would say the biggest difference, though. I like the people here. I feel like here you get a wide range of people, perspectives, ideas. It's like this melting pot of different cultures that you don't get as much in Vegas. And I miss this sort of like free spirit entrepreneur. There's something different here than you get in Vegas. And sometimes I feel in Vegas, you get in your own little world. It's just like just doing one thing.

And then I come back here and like get to meet and see other people who are doing like much bigger things. And it's inspirational to me to see. Maybe you move back out in the next year. or two. No. Just come out more. But I could come back for work and I could, you know, come back here for a few days and then get right back home. That's cool. I'm happy with that. That's good, man. I'm curious about what is the psychology that happens for you when money comes into your bank account? When you get a check, which I don't know if you get checks anymore, but when money enters the bank account and you get paid on the 20th or 21st on YouTube money

every month or whatever it is, sponsors come in, when it enters and you see it come through. Is there an emotional connection you have to that dollar amount? Yeah. Or is it neutral? Is it exciting? Is it fun? Is it scary? What is the feelings that you have?

So immediately, because it's really hard to separate what I have in my bank account versus what I'll have left over after tax. So whatever money is in there, I just mentally will do. And I do quarterly taxes, but like anything that comes in, I just multiply that by 0.6. And I just assume 40% is going to be gone for taxes, accounting, miscellaneous fees, just random stuff. Just average 0.6%. And then I take what's left over of that, and then I multiply that by 4%. And that to me is how much that money will last for the rest of my life.

And so I do that with everything. So for every $100 I get, I have $0.60 left. Or sorry, 60 cents. For every $100 I have, $60 left, 0.4, I think that works out to be like $2.80 or whatever it works out to be. That's my passive income. And like that's, I'll never go below that. And so that's what I invest everything. I mean, my actual personal expenses and cost of living is very low.

Like everything I do is either for the business, discretionary, personal is like almost nothing. So it's just like everything gets invested for the most part. left over from that. And how does it feel though when you're analyzing this, you see the dollar amount come in, you multiply, you do all these things, does it excite you? Do you feel abundant? Do you feel like, okay, everything's on the right track? Do you feel scarce ever?

I'm sure, I'm sure I definitely, everyone tells me I've got like a scarcity mindset because I'm so much like when I get something, I don't want to lose it. But I've also been very conservative in terms of like building wealth, saving money, in terms of like investment returns like everything I'm like for if I just can average 4% like I'm fine or even three usually 3% but um no for me I just think like I've always increased my lifestyle based on really the 3% rule of like I could spend 3% of what I have invested every single year regardless of how much it makes 3% what can I buy with that and then even of that I'm like okay well I still want to save half So it's like really the one and a half percent rule

But it gives me something look forward to that I know it's sustainable like whatever I want to do as long as I stick with that I can get new experiences I can work my way up to something else in a way that I don't have to worry about it running out and It's feel safer that way Yeah Because at least what I've seen from real estate so many people just like blow all of their money I remember this one person Who was well known and was making five

$10 million a year and they were having difficulty qualifying for a house making $5,000 million a year because they spent it all. Now, their view, I'm sure, was I'm just going to keep making money. Like, it's not an issue. And they've gone on to have a successful career, make a lot of money. But for me, I can never be at a point where, like, I'm spending that much. I'm like, that's the threshold. Like, you have to, because you never want to go down. I think it's really hard to scale back. It's very easy to scale up. So I've always. made sure to like be very careful of once you get used to something like it's hard to go down and it's very easy to go up and you don't want to set the bar too high like just in case so i've

always been like really cautious about like what i do and just knowing that you know lifestyle inflation is a thing and how could i curb that in such a way that is sustainable but still gives me something look forward to how often do you make emotional purchases almost never I don't think there's any purchase that I make that's emotional. Really? Now, I mean, the only thing that I bought without money in mind was my aquarium. It was the only thing that I did not. Yeah, I didn't look at the price tag.

I don't care about how much it costs, and I'm not getting any return on my money. That was the only thing. But I built that into, like, what I have invested. I'm like, okay, if I have X amount invested, that'll pay for the aquarium. And X amount invested, in addition to that, will pay for all the maintenance, all of that. So I just, like, factored it in that and worked towards that being a goal. What were the three biggest lessons that doing real estate sales taught you about life and business in general?

Yeah, I would say not giving up because with sales, it's like you have to stay on it and learning how to differentiate between, like, read people, I guess is a big one because I got fooled so often. Like as a young agent, you don't realize how many fakes there are out there. Like, people who will just waste your time and pretend to be buyers, I had this dude. And I was so naive. Looking back, he was an idiot. He walked into the open house and told me that he was in the market for like 25 to $50 million homes.

The guy wasn't like, you know, representing himself in such a way where he could afford these houses. And nor would a guy of that caliber, realistically, trust an 18-year-old kid who's like brand new to show. Yeah, show me 50. Like, chances are they have business managers. They don't even show up to the houses first. They have assistants do it first. and then they have people vet it and then they show up

and they're very discreet this guy was very flashy about like oh yeah I did this and my company does that like they're talking about I had no idea so I'm sitting there showing him houses and every agent is looking at me

like is this guy prequalified blah blah blah and I'm like oh yeah he's good I'm just an idiot and I remember one agent I would consider her like not a mentor but she really took me under her wing

and she had a listing and she's like bring him to my listing and I'll feel him out for you and she was there anyway And so he came there and she started asking him questions about like his proof of funds He literally goes into his car in his trunk and pulls out papers and hands it to her and she's like this is proof of funds It was like a word document the guy just printed out saying like X amount company blank this this and afterwards She's like this guy is fake he's not real he's not a real buyer And then but you'd already spent 20 listings showing him 20 listings or something I had that Yeah, but then you also ruin your name in the process of like any time you bring a buyer by. These agents remember that.

They know, oh, this is Graham. He's the kid who brought by this, like really bad buyer. He wasted my time. I spent an hour setting up this house and like their time is valuable. My time, I got nothing to lose. And this guy, meanwhile, was just, I think he was just dreaming. And he was using it as inspiration. And he would spend like two hours at the house just like laying back.

Oh, my gosh. I was an idiot. Oh, man. Okay. So learning to read people, never giving up. being consistent yeah but you can't but you can't never give up unless you know how to read the right right know what the really intentions are what's another big lesson you think you've learned from real state i loved it i don't know there was something about it where i just felt i could do this

24-7 and it never felt like work it's just like what i enjoyed you like i got so excited every day to wake up um like you know the feelings sometimes where you had just like a really good day and you can't go to sleep um or like i don't know like maybe like a christmas morning where you can't wait to wake up like you know you're going to Disneyland something like that that's how I felt going to work I just enjoy it like I would wake up early and like be excited every day to be able to go and do real estate and learn and be around these houses because for me it was so foreign to like walk into a five million dollar house get to be around people who could afford that and like everyone I saw like what can I learn from this person I just found it really inspiring yeah that's cool yeah

it really opened up my mind in terms of like what's possible and so I really believe that like having access to Los Angeles just gave me that worldview of like it's insane the possibilities that are out there. Yes. And just believing that, hey, if these guys could do it, why can't I? And you would see that they're nothing special. It's just they've got good at a skill and you don't need to be like the superhuman person. I'm curious about your thoughts on money and relationships.

How has lived, how has been living an extreme? infrugal financial lifestyle supported or hurt you in intimate relationship with your girlfriend. I don't think it's ever hurt. It's never hurt. I don't think it's ever hurt. Even like just dating in general, I think there are cheaper ways to do everything. And people that know me in general, like they kind of would know what they're getting into. Right, right.

They're not expecting you to do something. Yeah, it shouldn't be a surprise. But like, I would say a lot of the things that you would do like in a realist, they're either free or they're very inexpensive. I think it's more important spend quality time with the other person versus like, hey, we're going to go to this fancy rest. I think there's a time and a place for that for sure. But I think at least for the first, like the dating period, it doesn't have to be expensive at all. And with Macy, it's been, it's been really nice because she's, I don't want to say she's as frugal as I. She's okay with spending money on certain things if she feels like

the value's there versus I'm always like the cost. Like, oh, but the value might not be there for this we could get 80% of it you know I want to say with her I've definitely loosened up because I could afford it but a lot of the things still it's like she enjoys contributing I appreciate that I think some of our trips it's like you know she's got credit card points she's like I opened up these credit cards I got the sign-up I was like it's a free trip you know so a lot of things like this they don't have to cost money but I will say I have loosened up really with Macy just in the sense that I I don't fret over like a $60 dinner anymore.

Like five years ago, I was seen that $50 dinner, $60,000, and be like, well, we could do that for cheaper over here. I'm gonna eat a little bit at home, and I'm gonna go there, get one, right? Like I'm bad. It's really bad. Do you wish you would have changed that? If you could go back, would you have done it differently,

have more balanced? I probably not. I mean, I'm sure there are things going back where I'm like, yeah, I should have done that. It was stupid. Like one time, I know I'm gonna get hate for this, but there was a, car meat and I had budgeted and again like it different if you're making like 20 grand a year I was probably

making 100 and I had budgeted that day only for gas I didn't have enough for the food and they're all driving through Malibu and they're going to like this this fancy place for lunch I got a subway instead and you know I sat down at the table and I asked this sort of really nice because it was like a road like 20 people like can I eat my subway here oh my and they were totally cool with it and And I figured the tip that I'd leave them is way less than what I would have spent on this meal that I didn't need. I wanted the subway. I didn't want to spend $50. Sure, sure.

So I just left the tip instead. There you go. And I ate my subway. They were totally fine with it. I forget what, it was a restaurant in Malibu. There was, but there are 20 people at the table. I don't know how big the bill would be. But, you know, anyway, like that's the stuff that I, you know, in hindsight, it was cringy to do.

Oh, the other thing I would do. all the time is if I were out with friends and there's extra food they weren't taking it home, I would be the one being. You would take it home. Everything. Box it up. Everything. But I would get a whole meal out of that.

That's great. Yeah. A whole meal. I need to take more stuff home. That's what I needed to do. Nothing would ever go to waste. Even would we go out with the Oppenheim group. It was usually the six of us.

Oh, they had lots of good food then. And Jason was the type, order everything. And then you'd say you got meat for a week. Yeah, but because he likes. would be like, I'm going to have a few bites of this, a few bites of that, a few bites of this. And then there'd be like half a meal there. And he would just, oh, I'm going to get like, I'm going to take it all home. And that, like, I put it in the fridge and I'd live off that for days.

So that's a lot. Like, when I made one of my, how much I spend in a week videos, I think my, like, grocery bill is like $100 something dollars a month for food. I don't know how you did about that. But now, a lot of that was subsidized by, like, eating really good food, but taking it all home. and then divvying it up throughout, like, it's like a meal prep, but like it's food that would have gone to waste. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious, what do you think of the biggest money myths that keep a lot of people broke?

Oh, money myths that keep people broke. I don't know. I always feel like that you could die tomorrow is a common thing that I would hear a lot of people say. Like, I'd rather just live now than my perspective is that you can always live tomorrow, too? Like, your chances of living tomorrow, not on this, much higher than passing away. Yeah. So I think plan for tomorrow is a probably better approach statistically. I feel like you can live just as easily, like, in your 30s and early 40s as you can.

I'm sure the experiences you're in 20s are different. Looking back, I still feel like mentally, I feel like 23 to 25. I don't think I've grown up since then mentally. I still feel the same age, except I need more sleep now. But I feel like now, like, I've done so much saving throughout my 20s that now I can finally, like, loosen up to a certain extent. Buy an extra piece of sushi or one piece. Yeah, and I still look at prices.

We went out to sushi today. I saw a $28 roll and a $15 roll. I'm like, at the 15, I get two of those versus one of those. I'd rather the two. two. If you had to go back and just imagine your 18-year-old self, how old you now? 32. 32.

So imagine 14 years ago. And imagine that you, in a hypothetical world, you had to become a millionaire in half the time. So you had to hit your first million in revenue and sales coming in half the time from 18 to that time, right? As opposed to when you were, I don't know how old you were. I was 26. 26. You had to do it at 22, 23, right? Let's just say hypothetical scenario you had to.

What would you have done differently in order to get there? What would it even be possible? It would have been YouTube. Really? Yeah, because every day after real estate, I wouldn't watch TV, watch YouTube. Like, that was my version of TV. This was like 2008. Early YouTube.

Very early YouTube. But that was like, I would come home and just watch you. YouTube videos. Like, that was what I enjoyed doing. And I noticed back then that there was no business or entrepreneur content on there. And what really solidified it for me was Rob Dom. He's a car channel posted a video about how he was able to buy a Lamborghini Diablo, 2001. And he made a video in his garage, like way before, like the Tai Lopez stuff, like way before. But he made a really inspirational video about how, what he did for a living to afford a Lamborghini Diablo and was so honest about it. And there was a guy before him. His name was Robert Hillner or Himmler. I don't know his name.

I can't remember his last name, how it's pronounced. He drove a green Lamborghini and was selling a program or a course or something about like how to get rich or something like that. There was some speculation that it was like family money or something like that. But he, I believe, owned like a car customization shop or something like that. So Rob Don made this video basically saying, I'm gonna just tell you what I know for free. I have nothing to sell you. And this is my story. And he posted it.

I was so inspired by that. That for me is like, I want to do that. And what really hit it off for me was that I sent him a message on Instagram. He maybe only had a few thousand subscribers at the time. Or sorry, not Instagram,

Facebook. I sent him a message. And I'm like, hey, I love your content. And I could pull it up here if you want to see it. But my original message back then was like, there's a huge market on YouTube

for this type of content. If you doubled down on this, it could be huge. Really? Yeah. I bet I could pull it up. So this was a video he put on YouTube. Yeah.

But you mentioned him on Facebook. He was just doing a couple videos. He wasn't doing it consistently. Correct. Hey Rob, message from a fan and fellow car enthusiast. I've been watching your videos from before you had 10,000 subscribers and love your videos. I'm so happy how far you've come. You'll be hitting 100,000 subscribers shortly.

You've definitely been a great inspiration. I have two questions for you if you have the time. And I ask like what camera on Mike's used? Sure. And then what did you find give your biggest break? Was it uploading content regularly? Was it car videos? Was it inspirational?

And then I said, just a comment. I believe you could have a great career in motivational speaking in business. There's a big market for young people who don't relate to Tony Robbins and who have never heard of Napoleon Hill before. Just food for thought. This would be a big opportunity. And then he responded back. He gave his answers and said, I want to be a motivational speaker without actually being a motivational speaker. Ha ha.

And then I said, you know, I think you could take these very far in that direction. But that was more than 10 years ago. But I wanted to do that, but I didn't have the courage to do it. Why didn't you have the courage? I didn't have a Lambo. I know how stupid it sounds, but I felt like who would listen to me? And what did I have to have? Like, Rob had a business and a Lamborghini.

He was credible. Yeah. What did I have? You know, looking back, it's stupid because I could have. Like, I felt I needed either a million dollars, a Lamborghini, like something, a show of success, because back then that's what you had to do on YouTube. It was like Lamborghinis just got clicks. And, you know, me starting my career in real estate with, you know, 150 grand in savings or like,

still a lot. Like, looking back, it could have said, like, how to make 100 grand by, like, 20 something. I didn't have the courage. I felt like I would embarrass myself. But had I started back then, I would have been so early. And it was just a feeling. I wanted to do that, but I just didn't put it off for years. So this is something that I'm really excited you're talking about this because I think a lot of people don't have the courage to do the thing they really want to do because they don't feel credible or ready to do it.

So what would you say to people who are like, well, I don't have the money. I don't have the credibility yet. I'm just getting started in this thing and I want to start talking about it or creating content or doing whatever, writing a book about it. But who's going to listen to me? What would you say to those people? I think you just got to do it. It got to a point for me where I guess the intuition of like I want to be doing this, why am I not? Started getting to a point where I just felt if I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it.

And then I thought to myself, what I'd look back in the future and regret not doing this? And then I thought, yes. And so I just secretly made a YouTube channel and filmed the video during an open house. And I like just with my iPhone, one-taked it. and, well, I did multiple takes trying to get ready for it, because people would walk in the house, I'd like, fuck my camera. But I just posted one video,

and I was like, I'm just going to post it up, see what happens. And I had no idea what it was doing. But I learned, like, as I was doing it. You know, I had the window right here, so I realized if I shoot against the window, like, I look too, like, you know, dark, and if I go here, lighting's better. It looked minor things.

Then I looked on YouTube, like, how to edit a YouTube video on YouTube. learned I move you through there, like how to edit a good thumb. Like I just see what's working and like Daryl Eves was a big one for me like learning about like SEO and stuff like that like how to rank. Michael back then was just to rank on the first page for different key search results. So like I wanted to rank first page for passive income. How to be a millionaire, real estate.

But the first one I ranked was 2008, it's so niche. 2008 Lotus Exige S240. And there were like 20 videos on there with like 20,000 plus views. And I was like, I want to be on the first page. So I made my video, Lotus Exige, S240 review, you know, 2000, like, something like that. And I slowly watched it just climb and I shared it online and like that didn't help. But like over time, it just kept doing better. Yeah.

So I just, you just got to start. Do you feel like you have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset? I don't know. probably a degree of both I would say I don't like I don't like loss some really like risk adverse when it comes to stuff like like I'm okay losing a certain percentage because it's like okay if you have a hundred dollars if you lose a penny it's not that big of a deal so it's like things like that in terms of a percentage don't phase me but just in general I'm really against loss so like whatever I get I'm very conservative with it because I want to make it last so

In terms of that, I would say a scarcity mindset. There is some abundance, though, in terms of, like, bigger opportunities and pursuing, I would say, passions. I'm not afraid to do that anymore. But, yeah, financially, I'm just very conservative. Yeah. What's the investment you've made that had the biggest loss? Financial investment. Like in an asset class.

Oh, an asset class. Like stocks or crypto or real estate. Did you ever lose a bunch of money that you're like, man, I put $100 grand in a loss at all? I would talk in dollar amount or percentage? Yeah, dollar amount. Very stupid one. I bought Robin Hood stock. That was probably the worst loss I took.

Individual stock. That was an individual stock I picked. What did you put in it, roughly? 200 grand. 200 grand. How much you lose? I was down like 60, 70% by the time I sold. So 150 grand or something.

Yeah, that was. that was stupid. It still was in the ratios of like what was acceptable to me in terms of like a percentage. But it was stupid. I mean, it was just like that was a gamble. Was that an emotional? It was when their stock dropped.

Like they saw a substantial drop. And I'm like, people are still posting their screenshots on Wall Street bets. Robin Hood has a lot of cash. They're not going anywhere. There's so many places to pivot. take a risk on this. And I think I put a hundred grand in that.

And then it dropped even more. And I'm like, I'm going to double down on this because... Oh, man. Stupid. That was stupid. But again, like, in the big picture, we're talking about, you know, if the portfolio size is, let's say, 8 million box, like, we're talking about, like, you know, 200 grand total of that.

So in a percentage, it's like not that bad. But when you think of the dollar... I don't think of the dollar amount. Like, I really separate it. Like, it's the worst. That was a stupid one now. I do have others that make up for it. Sure, sure, sure.

I think end phase at one point was up like 400 and something percent. The original Tesla I bought was up 2,000 to percent. So like I had winners on that. That's big. And I sold almost all my Tesla too back in March. At the high. Which was luck because I sold it to buy a Tesla Roadster. And then I just kept.

selling it afterwards because I was like, well, now I sold this. I may as well just reinvest it in the S&P. And I'm like, I'm still getting an equal exposure in the S&P to putting it there and it's safer. And that was just luck. But I also had the opposite of that. I sold my original half. My original half, I think I sold in 2020 when it had increased threefold really quickly.

Looking back, I mean, that's still. way cheaper than it is today. Like, oh well, you win some, you lose some. So that's why it's like individual stocks. Such a tiny part of my portfolio. But looking bad, it's a stupid. I would have been better off just putting all of it. But, I mean, you get it out of your system.

Yeah, of course. And a lot has happened the last couple of years with crypto, NFTs, and now AI coming in, a lot of around AI. What's your thoughts on crypto, NFTs, AI? in terms of building wealth for the future, when it seems like there's been a lot of scams and all these different things and get rich quick schemes

and people losing a lot of money, how can people use these tools or should they even consider them to build wealth in the future? I never understood NFTs. That was the one thing that I really tried to get into it. I wanted to buy a Cryptopunk, but I just didn't.

I thought it was kind of neat to have like, Ooh, kind of the original, but CryptoKitties was like the original one. I never really understood. I never got into NFTs. Crypto, I've had an on and off relationship with because I bought Bitcoin originally, 2017. How much? 16, 5, 17.

And I, like, day traded. Because for me, it's like, everyone was talking about Bitcoin. And at the time, it went from basically $1,000 from when I started making YouTube videos to 17. And so that whole rise, people are coming to make a video about Bitcoin. I didn't get it. I'm like, I don't understand it. And I thought when I made that video, I'm going to buy a Bitcoin and see if I understand firsthand what it's about.

And maybe like me buying into it, I could just feel firsthand what everyone else is feeling. That helps. Sometimes when I'm talking about something, it's hard to talk about something, like objectively without having been in it. And then once you're in it, you could kind of see, like, you put on the goggles and you see, like, wow, this is what everyone else sees and experiences. Like, this is why they feel this way. So I bought a Bitcoin, but I was like, I had so much fun trading it because it was like 24-7. It's like you could be there at like, and I was just having so much fun at like 2 o'clock in the morning.

Checking it and going up again. Yeah, but I was making like these little $20, $30 like profits. Like it went up and it just sell. And then I place a limit and like buy it and like do this. But I just like trade it. And then from there, I just spread it amongst a whole bunch of like, you know, crap coins just for fun. But I don't just really focus just on Bitcoin, really. So.

What do you feel like AI is going to be coming now for building wealth? Do you think anything is there around? I think it's probably too early. I worry AI is going to become like the next hypey sort of thing. and I could see it going in that direction. I don't know how that'll come about, but I could totally see, like, a year or two from now, like, AI become the next, like, crypto boom, NFT,

Web 3.0, and all these things, yeah. Something like that. I think, like, with crypto, I could see there being a huge future in that in terms of, like, the blockchain and, like, its use cases. I think, I'm surprised they haven't created a digital dollar yet. Like, I think that's coming.

I think it's going to get to the point where everyone, like, you get a social security number, you get a wallet. I know. And they know exactly how much goes into that wallet, how much goes out, where it goes. Like, imagine every dollar has like a tracking device in it. And they could see like, wait a second, you received this dollar, you got paid from this person, but you paid it out to here. Why wasn't their tax? Why didn't you claim this? Like, I think it's all going to get to that point in the future. There's going to be no privacy. Now, they can't get away with like, without physical money at all

for probably quite some time. It's always going to be legal tender. Like imagine trying to like scrounge of dollars from it. Like you're not going to do it. Well, there's some restaurants that don't take physical currency. You know, in L.A. at least it's like, it's getting that way where it's only through the app. Yeah.

I think it's just going to, they're going to make it so convenient. And they're going to build so many walls around using cash that people are going to go, I'm going to pay attention to it. So I think cryptocurrency is going to provide an option for them to do a digital dollar to track everything. And they'll know if like,

they'll try to curb anything and just track it. Wow. So I could see it going in that direction. So I think it's a ton of opportunity. I also think someone else had mentioned this. It makes sense to me. Like, verifying luxury goods. Like, if you want to buy, let's say, Ferrari, you have something on the blockchain.

So it's like, you are the owner. This is built by Ferrari. Here's all the details. Buy Louis Vuitton bag. And, like, the replicas are getting so good. You want to verify it's that. Here's a little, you know, NFT thing that comes with it. You can scan it.

And, like, you are the owner. Like, this belongs to. Right. So I could see that. That's interesting. So that's where I think it's going, but I think we're just, you know, in that initial boom phase and it's going to develop and I think the potential is huge. And that's why I don't know if like Bitcoin Ethereum is going to be something that stands

out like an Amazon of the dot-com bubble or if it's going to be like a geo-city's where it's like nobody uses that. So I don't think we know quite yet. But I do think it's a ton of potential. I don't know. I'm not smart enough to understand it. I don't know anything about it. Yeah. I think it's really cool. What I was saying in my video yesterday, I think it's going to get to a point where AI is going to be able to create any video you want. Like, imagine you searching and getting a tutorial for anything you need and it's created in AI. Like here's an example. Like here's an example. But it's going to be so lifelike that you're not going to know this isn't a person making it. You're like, imagine you're changing a car in a 2006 Toyota Prius. You type in YouTube. How to change tire?

2006 Toyota Prius. You're going to get videos of people who have made that, but it's not going to be maybe not going to be a 2006, 2005. It's not going to be the same color. There's going to be like an intro, fluff, all that sort of stuff. But imagine if you type that in AI could create that video based on the blueprints of that car. How to change a tire. And it shows your exact car, a 2006 Toyota Prius, how to change the tire? Here's what you do. Here's where the tool is. Here's this. Here's what you do. And if you have a question, how do I get the lug knot on when it's too tight? and it creates a video how to get the lug nut off that's too tight. But why can't it do that in the future? I think it can. I've got a couple final questions for you. What's your money goals? If you could predict, it's 2030, seven years away. Seven years, yeah.

Where would you like to be in seven years with your money goals? With your investments, cash, assets. You know, obviously there's so much that could happen in the next seven years. So many new developments that probably would. will happen that you're not even aware of, but if you could have a goal in mind in seven years, where would you like to be financially? I mean, I feel like I'm already there,

but it would be cool to be able to make a million a year in passive income. I think would be really cool just from investments. I think would be a neat goal to have. I think it's doable. What do you need to make a million dollars a year in passive? How does the calculations work for you?

Probably about 25 million invested in relatively safe investments. Real estate index funds. Yeah, I'm talking net. So like net of all mortgage payments just like purely profit a million a year. So you think you need 25 million in assets? Maybe less if it's real estate. You could probably do that with like 15 to 20, depending on the property you buy and if it's triple net and how much work you're doing on that. So I think it's doable.

It depends on the investment. It just depends on what's the opportunity at the time. But I like having a split between like index funds and real estate because I feel like they're different enough where I'm not too concentrated. Sure. Sure. That's cool. But that would be just a goal if I'm saying anything.

A million a year. Yeah, passive income. It's pretty inspiring. You have a lot of sushi with that. You could. Yeah. Would you start spending more with that million in cash? Would you look at it?

It's like, now I can spend on whatever or what would you think about them? I have no idea. I'd probably get a bigger aquarium. Bigger aquarium. Realistically, though, I would say traveling first class, which you could do with credit card points, but like being able to do that more for a bit, like, I do want to travel. I think that's a goal of mine to do one day. I really want to do van life at some point. Van life?

I'm like, yeah, I really want to get a nice van and go around the country. Yeah, I think take the podcast on the road. That would be fun. I'd like visit all 50 states. I think would be really cool. It's been six months doing that. That's cool. think would be a lot of fun.

Bigger aquarium. But for the most part, like I'm, I think at this point, I just want to buy back my time and just be able to enjoy the things. Like the other day, it sounds stupid,

but like, it was a week day and I just wanted to read a book. Like, I never wanted to read a book. Like, I'm not a reader necessarily for books. Like,

I'll read anything on mine. Like, it's on Reddit, I'll read the whole thing. But I just felt like reading a book. But I was like, well, but I got so much work I need to do.

And, like, I'd feel better getting caught up and, like, than I would reading the book. I really wanted to read the book. So I think I'll probably lean more in the direction of taking more time. Like even doing a trip like this,

like a year ago I wouldn't have done it because I'm like I'm so focused on I just need to make videos and anything that distracts me from that. I don't think it was my happiest doing that because I like, I just felt stressed. Like, you know, there's just random things that I was not fully like in the moment for

because my mind was constantly thinking like YouTube videos. What would be a good title for tomorrow? on his video. Like, people around having conversations, and I'd be there. And I'd be present. But, like, there's, like, that 20% of my brain that's thinking, like, YouTube in the back. It's always there.

I don't think it's going to go away, but I would like to scale back from that a little bit. Just be more in the moment. We'll have to get you out here once every couple months then for a couple days. I think so. That's good, man. Yeah. Graham, Stefan's show on YouTube. You've got some amazing content over there.

I love it. you've got the podcast as well, which is really exciting. How can we, ice coffee hours, it's called for the podcast. You guys can see it both on YouTube. How can we be of best service for you? You've got over 4.something million subscribers now. What can we do to serve you? I don't want anything.

I would just say if you want to subscribe, that would be cool. Subscribe to your channel. I don't know. I'd just subscribe to your channel. Like at this point, I'm, I'm, thought. line, I would rather just, you know, guys subscribe here on this channel would be really nice. Subscribe to both of our chattos, yes. This is one of the questions I ask everyone at the end is called the Three Truths question.

So imagine another hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on earth. You live as long as you want to live. And you accomplish everything. Your money goals, life goals, they all happen. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your content with you. So no one has access to your information, your content. your content, YouTube, whatever else you create,

it goes to some other place when you die in the future. So it just gets deleted? It gets, well, maybe it's just, we don't have access to it. It's somewhere else. So it's private. It's private. Yeah, it's all mystic. But for whatever reason, you have the opportunity to share three final truths with the world,

three things that you know to be true, that you would share as lessons to the world. And that's all we would have of your content left. What would be, again, off the top of your head, those three truths for you? I don't know. I don't know if there's like any absolute truths out there. Or just lessons that you would want to share. Three?

I would say, gosh, like probably self-belief. Like believing you can do something is very important. I think people are drawn to confidence. And so if you could learn how to be your best self and, accept that. I think that would go a long way. And I think the less concerned

you are with what other people think, usually the better they think about you, because you're not afraid to be yourself. I think everyone is scared to be themselves. And so when they see someone else, just like, you know, not caring, other people look up

to that in a way that so many people can't do. So I would say, like, those things universally for me have been true. That's cool, man. Final question for you before I ask it. I want to acknowledge you, Graham, for your commitment and dedication. It's been incredible what you've created over the last five years on YouTube. Every week you show up and give something inspiring, informational, and entertaining.

And I know it takes you days of research and days of work, and you're doing a lot of it on your own. And you've helped a lot of people, educate them, learn, and learn about a scary subject for a lot of people, which is money, in a fun way. So I really acknowledge you for how you keep showing up. And I know it's a lot of work. And I know it's, you know, you've probably got to figure out how to make it happen in the future at scale. But what you've created in the last four or five years has been really inspiring.

So I acknowledge you for your efforts, your intelligence, and your creativity. It's really cool. Thanks. Final question, what's your definition of greatness? Oh, man. I would just say honestly to help others. I think if you make an impact on someone else's life and it's a positive impact and you could, they have a good feeling towards that.

I think there's nothing better than that. Anytime I meet somebody who's like, I bought my first house because of you and my credit score is great and I turn my finances around. Now I have like 10K in the bank and I was broke. Like just the impact

because I know like how that would feel for me. Like for me like meeting Rob Dom for me would be one of those moments. I'm like, dude, you have no idea how much you've helped me. Just like your video on how to buy a Lamborghini was like set me off. and I'll remember that for the rest of my life.

And so just like having that for other people, I think is so insane. Like it's hard to put into words, but it's so neat. And then you feel like you've got a friend. And so everyone I meet who's like, if they watch my videos, I know they're like in a personal finance, investing, building wealth. Chances are they're an entrepreneur. And so like we're instant friends because of that, like no matter what their background is. It's just, it's neat.

And I've never had that before. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcast as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review.

I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.