the financial diet
Reacting To The Worst Personal Finance Channel On YouTube
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Duration: | 30:05 |
Uploaded: | 2021-11-04 |
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In this episode, Chelsea and fellow YouTuber Big Joel (aka Henry) react to some of the wildest personal finance "advice" videos from Alux.com, a YouTube channel claiming to provide "advice for future billionaires."
Big Joel's original explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E4vAeuhp8Q
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In this episode, Chelsea and fellow YouTuber Big Joel (aka Henry) react to some of the wildest personal finance "advice" videos from Alux.com, a YouTube channel claiming to provide "advice for future billionaires."
Big Joel's original explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E4vAeuhp8Q
Join this channel to get access to perks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSPYNpQ2fHv9HJ-q6MIMaPw/join
The Financial Diet site:
http://www.thefinancialdiet.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefinancialdiet
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TFDiet
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefinancialdiet/?hl=en
Hey, guys.
It's me. So it's me, Chelsea Fagan of The Financial Diet, and today, it is going to be a very different and new video.
If you're watching this-- which I don't know what else you'd be doing if you've played the video-- you'll see that we are at the TFC set, although this is not an episode of The Financial Confessions. I am here joined by a special guest, and I've got a laptop in front of me-- something that I don't think we've ever seen before on this channel. I'm joined here by Henry of Big Joel.
Mm-hmm. Hi. What's up?
Hey everybody. Hello. Some of you guys may have seen last season of TFC, we interviewed him to talk all about bad financial, political, spiritual, philosophical advice that has poisoned the internet.
I'll link you guys in the description to that video. It was great. But today, I wanted to bring him into the TFC office, because he, on his channel-- and can you give a two- to three-sentence pitch of what your channel is for those who might not know?
It's like if you wrote college essays for your school but they were about garbage, sort of. It's media. I look at media.
I talk about it. Yeah. So like, one video will be about a speech that Ben Shapiro gave, and another video will be about Maury.
Right? You did-- Dr. Phil.
No, Dr. Phil. How dare you?
Why? I mean, listen. They're in the same-- I want to make a video about Maury and Jerry Springer.
You should. Listen, the last time I saw him, I was like, here's five videos you should make. Get on it.
But he recently did a video that I watched actually while getting ready for an event recently-- because I love watching YouTube video essays while I get ready for an event, they're usually just the right length-- about the worst personal finance channel on YouTube. Do you agree with that assessment? I wouldn't know.
Probably. Well, listen. I know a lot of them.
I'm not a connoisseur of the genre, sadly. You are, I know. And also, I doubt it.
When I watch, they're all so toxic in all so many ways. Like, there's a guy who's in the corner who's like, [RUDE LAUGHING] Look at how this poor person is. I don't know.
They're all gross. I hate all of them. Other than TFD.
Other than The Financial Diet, which is the only YouTube channel I've ever collaborated with, so-- It's an honor. No, but I watched this video that he did about this truly god-awful YouTube channel that really inspired me. Because I did not know that this channel existed.
And it's called Alux. Alux.com. Alux.com.
Has like 3 and 1/2 million subscribers, which is very big for a channel. Its videos have millions and millions of views. And I was actually expecting, when looking at a lot of the videos, to see a very high dislike ratio.
But actually, people are loving it. They're loving the content. No, they vibe with it.
They're vibing with it. They're rocking with it. But the advice in it is just-- I would say dystopian.
I don't know how you'd describe it. The video's called "A Dystopian Self Help Channel." So yes, I would agree with the-- Oh my god. I didn't remember that.
I arrived independently at the same conclusion. No. It's a terrible channel.
But outside of just this one kind of weird, borderline AI-generated YouTube channel, because it doesn't seem to have a real host behind it, this is really popular advice in our culture. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah.
So we're just going to react to this. So we're just going to react to these videos, and just talk about this terrible yet extremely prevalent genre of personal finance advice. This channel is very fetishizing of entrepreneurialship.
And it always makes me a bit hesitant to talk about it in a really negative way, because we're entrepreneurs, the both of us. And I like my job. And I don't want to come off like I'm telling anybody, being a business owner for me.
But you get back in your cage. You suck. No.
I just think it's not a decision that I have any stake in whatsoever. No, it's not. But also, literally in the video we're about to watch, one of the first points is be a business owner so you can commit fraud on your taxes.
Yeah. And the idea that if you aren't a business owner, you're essentially a garbage clod trash man is offensive and bad. I'm just saying the decision of whether or not to start a business isn't for me to make for you, or for Chelsea to make for you.
Do it if you want to, and it's a good idea, et cetera. You should. But also, being an entrepreneur does not mean being a hustle bro.
It does for me, but yeah. Go on. You're always posing with your watches and talking about your haters.
If you're not on the sigma male grindset, I don't even know. I don't even talk to you. Sigma male grindset.
What's a sigma male? What? OK.
There's definitely an Alux video about sigma males. Yes. I want to expose that to you.
OK. I'm very excited. So the video we're about to watch is called "15 Things Poor People Don't Know About Making Money," a really fascinating topic.
A topic so fascinating that it has 1.15 million views and 38,000 likes to 812 dislikes. The people are really interested in what poor people don't know about making money. We should look at the comments after, because they are all exactly identical.
But let's play. Let's watch. Let's watch the beautiful video.
Hello, Aluxers. We're excited to be back this Sunday with another cold shower. It's good to be back.
This one should serve as both a wake-up call to some of you, as well as the light that shines your path forward. You're going to find answers to questions you didn't know you had. But for that, you need to put your feelings aside and act like a big boy or girl and be-- Big boy or girl.
I just think one of the most dystopian aspects of this is that it's just stock photos of Manhattan. And they're so faceless. And she's like, hello, Aluxers.
It's like this really painful I think Canadian accent that just drones in this faux enthusiasm while she describes the hell world that you're living in. I love this channel so-- the second you put it on I was like, yes. It's so good to be back watching these videos.
It's so good. --honest with what's actually happening in your life. Welcome to Alux.com, the place where future billionaires come to get inspired. Yeah.
So they put that on every single one of their videos. "The place where future billionaires come to get inspired." We don't have to talk about it each time. But that is the catchphrase of their YouTube channel. I just want you to know that.
I wonder if Elon Musk went to Alux.com before shutting down the Tesla factory in California. If you're not subscribed yet, you're missing out. It's so threatening.
Fundamentally, and this shouldn't come as a shock, poor people are bad at making and keeping money. Otherwise, they wouldn't be poor. Otherwise, they wouldn't be poor.
I also love that it's got an exclamation point. "Otherwise, they wouldn't be poor!" That's it. They're bad at making and keeping money. They do this thing where they're like, otherwise, they wouldn't be poor.
And inexplicably, that's onscreen as a profound quote to take with you through your day. Benjamin Franklin. You can pay little to no money in taxes if you start a business.
All right. This should be common knowledge to almost anyone-- Right into the fraud. Is that true? --but just to make sure, we're going to say it once again.
Is that correct? Can you make little to no money if you start a business? So you can pay little to no money in tax if you start a business.
So that is a complicated answer. But in general, I think the best piece of advice is that to go into owning or running a business with the intention of minimizing your taxes is probably the worst way to make or keep more money. You would be much better off just attempting to get a better salary at a different business, or go into starting a business in order to make a product that you care about.
The idea of, I should start a business so that I can not pay taxes is a terrible piece of advice. How do you carry that with you as a goal? If I was like, I'm going to start a business and it's going to pay as little tax as possible.
That's what we're going to sell predominantly is us paying no taxes. How would I go about doing that? So it depends on the kind of business you have.
But let's say you have an LLC. So technically, an LLC doesn't exist as an entity. It's just the collection of the people who own the LLC.
And if you end the year with no taxable income, like you reinvest all of your income or you pay out a bunch of whatever, whether you're paying contractors or whatever. Basically, if you end the year at zero, you don't get taxed on it because there's nothing left. So you can run down the clock, which is why a lot of businesses will pay a lot of expenses toward the end of the year.
They try to minimize what they're being taxed on at the end of the year. But the entire concept there is you have to spend that money somewhere. And if you're paying it to yourself as income, you get taxed on your income.
Also, this very much ties into one of my least favorite refrains from people who are like, if you didn't tax business owners so much, they would pay their employees more or create more jobs. That makes no fucking sense, because the money that you pay out to your employees doesn't get taxed as income that stays in your company. Wow. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - This is a fundamental difference between businesses and individuals.
To illustrate it in the simplest way possible, business makes money, spends money, then gets taxed on what's left. Individual earns money, gets taxed on that money, and spends what's left. The average American pays somewhere around-- OK. [END PLAYBACK] I wish I knew anything about this.
So I'm sorry, but they're basically suggesting that in order to not have to pay taxes, you filter all of the things that you would be spending on through a business. But unless that private jet-- which I'm not sure why an average person watching this YouTube channel, their next purchase is going to be a private jet. You don't have a P-Jet? [?
Little guy? ?] I don't have a PJ. I'm sorry. No, I don't.
But if you are buying those things for reasons that are not legitimate business reasons, that's how people get audited and go to jail for tax fraud. Pretending that things are business expenses in order to be able to write them off is a huge problem. Say that somebody, like a friend of mine, has, I don't know, like 15 dogs they recently bought.
Purebred, beautiful show dogs. What? And they deducted that on their taxes, because that's what they were told to do by Alux.
What would then be the second step in that? I guess the IRS is coming to audit those dogs. Gorgeous show dogs.
Just those gorgeous dogs. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number two. Making money is about system solving, not working hard. I mean, sadly, that's kind of true. - You make money when you're able to solve-- No, that's 100% true. - --and put together all the pieces in the puzzle.
But right for the wrong reasons, Alux. - [INAUDIBLE] people know how to make money is to work for it, exchanging time and effort and someone-- [END PLAYBACK] I don't even know if working hard is a particularly good reason why people should be paid more. No. I don't believe in any of it.
I don't believe in any aspect of it down the line. I agree with them that I clearly do not get paid for how much I work. That's an objective fact.
And they make this point constantly, that you don't get paid for how much you work. It's always right. And it is a myth that people have about the way capitalism functions.
Those of you who saw our recent billionaires video might feel the same. Did you get backlash on that? Like actually, I work in the pig shit mines, and I work 80 hours, and I'm a billionaire, Chelsea.
Have you thought of that? No. Although actually, listen, everyone was getting Marx pilled in those comments.
And this one guy was like, even if working hard was attached to making money, how could it be physically possible that Jeff Bezos could work harder than the entire country of Bulgaria? How is that even physically possible? I don't think anybody actually believes that.
I think they just say it, and then just hope that nobody will care. Right? I don't think anybody actually believes that anybody works harder than anybody else.
No. Whatever. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number three. Make money while you sleep, or you'll never be rich.
You hear that, plebes? You'll never be rich. - [INAUDIBLE] As long as you're trading time for money, you'll never be rich. Why?
Because there's a limited number of hours in a day that you can trade. Even if you traded all of them, you'd still-- [END PLAYBACK] Isn't this true, also? Isn't this objectively a fact?
No, it's not objectively a fact. Because there are plenty of people. Our lawyer charges like $800 an hour or whatever.
That man's definitely getting rich while he's awake. This channel doesn't take-- Sorry, Greg. --being rich seriously, unless you're in the owning class. For them, they actually take a really strict, Marxist definition of class, which fascinates me to no end.
Every single second, they really act as though there is no such thing as the middle class. There are gods and clods. The funny thing is about this, though, that there are other videos on this channel that talk nonstop about hustling.
But then in this video, they're like, your compensation will never be tied to how hard you work. You will never make your wealth during your waking hours. Which is it, Alux.com?
No, the best case for them is that people are just rewarded not based on how hard they work, but on how genius in their little brains they are. Right? But now that we're talking about it, there is a sort of admirable honesty about it.
And I will say, for our audience who's interested in actual useful personal finance observations, the idea that you could never become wealthy through your labor is not true at all. There are plenty-- I mean, look at what doctors make. Clearly doctors are very high earners, and they're being paid for their labor.
But, this is a channel for-- what do they call it? The future billionaires. Future billionaires.
But you can't be a billionaire without being in the owning class. Yeah. However, I'm sure their version of earning money while you sleep is more about, just having passive income from investments, and not about exploiting massive amounts of labor, which is how people actually become billionaires.
I think they would say I earn passive-- and you earn passive income while you sleep, right? Well, we do. Yeah.
It slaps. OK. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Wake up, go to work, pay your bills until one day, you die. Number four.
It takes the same amount of effort to make $50,000 as it does for $1 million. [END PLAYBACK] No. No. No.
No, that's true. What? Citation fucking needed.
Yeah. That's true. What?
Wait, how is that true? As somebody who has both made $50,000 and a million dollars, and then the next exponential increase would be a billion dollars-- as somebody who's made that, same. Are you being sarcastic?
Yeah. Oh, OK. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - You could earn over $20,000 a month by selling cars or real estate. Oh my god.
The process is quite-- [END PLAYBACK] [INAUDIBLE] No. I'm sorry, but this is why this channel is one of the all-time worst personal finance channels. Because so many people are probably having their first introduction to personal finance content through shit like this, because it's so popular on the algorithm.
But what it always does not take into account-- I mean, aside from basic macroeconomics-- is just the idea of how much more exponentially difficult it is to start making a little bit of money, or to get out of poverty, or to set up even basic financial foundations than it is to make more passive income once you already have money. Them being like, you could sell real estate or cars for $20,000 a month. Where are you getting these cars?
Where do you get the real estate? It is so frustrating. But the few people that actually make it, who actually do those things successfully, will just turn around and give that advice like, if you're struggling to pay your bills and you're a mom on WIC, and you're working three jobs, you should just make a million dollars a year selling real estate.
Right. And this is the entire mental infrastructure that pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing exploits, right? The myth of, you could just own the thing.
You could buy a bunch of things, sell it all, and then that's-- if you spend $5,000 now, then you could solve big problems and get big rich. Right? [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number eight. Over 50% of your income should go toward investments.
OK. Thanks, Alux. - You cannot escape-- [END PLAYBACK] Noted. 50%, investments. Out the door.
All right of [INAUDIBLE] Next piece of advice. No. That's so many of their advice.
Just don't be poor, dick. What are you doing? Stop it.
So much of their how to not be poor advice assumes, all right, stop being poor, and now do this piece of advice. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - $1 million per year isn't a lot of money. You can almost hear-- It's not. - --all the butts clenching around the word as we mentioned it. We all grew up-- [END PLAYBACK] I like how, whenever they say something that's absolutely the stupidest shit you ever heard in your life, they're like, I bet you're probably saying that's super fucking stupid.
It's like, yeah, Alux. I actually was saying that. Why is this your all-time favorite piece of Alux advice?
Oh, it goes places. Oh. What's [INAUDIBLE]?
It doesn't stop. This is one of the few Alux tips that doesn't just stop with the headline. It is hog wild from minute one to minute done, as you will now see. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - --grew up with this idea of a millionaire, that $1 million was enough to set you up for life, because it used to be true back in the '60s.
Maybe it still feels true if you live in a poorer part of the world, and right now believe you don't need that much. Poorer part of the world? What? - The paradox is that only those who are earning in excess of $1 million per year realize it's just a decent earning.
Money is getting devalued every single year. Let us put this into perspective for you, with the US as the main example. So good. - As of the beginning of 2020, there were $1.75 trillion worth of notes in circulation.
That's actual money bills out there in the marketplace. Scared that the economy would tank because of the coronavirus, the Fed decided to print another $2.3 trillion out of thin air, and simply give it to the people and businesses to avoid a financial collapse. Value comes from scarcity.
The more something is found in the marketplace, the less valuable it is. Congratulations. Every dollar you have is worth less than half of what it used to be. [END PLAYBACK] So they just lie about what inflation is.
They literally just lie. They just do not know what it is. Oh my god.
OK. So to contextualize-- and you did talk about this a little bit in your video, but can you explain why that is such an extraordinary statement for you? I actually talked about this in a bonus video that wasn't available to everybody.
Yeah. You're getting that premium content. Yeah.
Go to my Patreon. Anyway, can you talk about this point? The reason why that's so funny is because it's A, verifiably false.
The Fed did not make it so that money is worth less than half of what it was a year ago. What I find fascinating about it is that it presupposes a situation wherein capitalism is literal bedlam. Right?
Where the Fed just goes, whoop, money doesn't mean anything. Now your life sucks, unless you own Pepsi. Well, it's also like, you know how you can verify that money is not worth 30% of what it was worth a year and a half ago?
Go buy any product. Is it literally two and a half times as expensive? No, it's not.
I feel like the thing about the million dollar mark is, OK, if your video is explicitly for billionaires, that's not a lot of money to them, comparatively. But any person with Google could look up what you could afford to do every year with a million dollars, and it's an extraordinarily luxurious life that 99.9% of people could never have. Again, it's another way of making it very, very clear to the audience that there's only two classes in a very traditional Marxist sense.
There is the owners, who own way more than a million dollars a year. And then there's the proletariat who, at the very top, the most a professional, broadly speaking, can make a year is around a million dollars. You're going to have trouble making more than that as a professional.
What if this is all a really long con from Bernie Sanders for America or something? No, yeah. I mean, it's definitely a good intro into harsh-- they start every video with a little bit like, buckle up, snowflakes, because this one's going to be a raucous hoedown.
Actually, you're right. You win this round. Well, also, this is a lie.
It's not true. Capitalism works better than this, which is a very puzzling fact to say, right? Usually you don't go into capitalist apologia and say, well, they're actually making capitalism out to be way worse than it actually is.
The world is not constantly fluctuating such that your dollar is now worth $0.25 two years later. It's a weird [INAUDIBLE]. The thing is that I have way more respect for this as a free market liberal discourse to just be like, in crony capitalism, unless you are worth $30 billion or more, you're getting fucked just like the poor guy is.
Honestly, true. I mean, the only sort of departure they make is to say, and the goal is to be the owner. The world is broken, rotten, fetid, and your job is to own it, is the basic [INAUDIBLE]..
Listen, that's king shit. It's king shit. Literally.
It's literally king shit. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - $1 million per year in 2020 is roughly the equivalent of $250,000 just over 30 years ago. Not just because of inflation, but also buying power. OK.
True. - Real estate is a great barometer of this. Poor people fall victim to the system. They don't understand that keeping money in cash is actually costing them money.
The rich leverage their understanding of the market-- Do they not? I guess people don't understand that. [END PLAYBACK] This makes no sense. Because yes, a million dollars is worth the equivalent of $250,000 however many years ago.
But a lot of the values of goods and services were pegged to that amount. But also, what they're actually saying is that things have gotten more expensive and wages have stagnated. Right, right.
Which, go off, Alux. That's true. No.
You know, there is something a bit interesting. We could sort of call it a generational friction. But there is something interesting in that we used to understand a billion dollars as the height of luxury.
A million, you mean? Yeah. A million dollars is the height of what it means to be a rich person, in a lot of ways.
And now, they are somewhat accurately pointing out that while we still have that sort of myth in our minds, a million dollars is worth a lot less. And it's even less accessible than it used to be. Exactly.
Well, I think it didn't used to be more accessible. That's not true. But here's the thing.
That is a clarifying statement that I'll make a lot when talking about retirement. For a lot of people, if they want to retire with a lot of time left, and they want to live a fairly comfortable life with some basic-- to be able to travel, buy things, et cetera-- a retirement for two is costing you north of a million dollars now. And a lot of people go, I'm not a millionaire.
That's crazy. So in that sense, I agree. But to say that earning a million dollars a year indefinitely-- A million dollars a year is more than being a millionaire, too.
It's vastly more. It's a huge sum of money. It's what, the top 0.03% of Americans?
More than that? Probably even more than that. But either way, let's hear what they have to finish this up with. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - If you made $1 million per year every year of your working life, completely ignoring inflation, and didn't spend a penny, you still wouldn't have enough money to purchase this Rothko painting that sold for $46 million-- What? - --or this one by Newman that sold for 43.8.
What? - Imagine working your entire life for $1 million a year-- That took such a hard left turn. I don't know where I thought that was going. - --and still unable to buy a piece of canvas with two colors on it. Yet-- And then they're like-- [END PLAYBACK] --if you make a lot of money, you should be able to buy anything.
You should be able to buy the most expensive painting ever sold, is really their litmus test. Listen. They really went off here.
No, no. They did it. It's true.
You could make a million dollars a year for 40 years and still not be able to buy a Rothko. So what is that money even worth, really? We're looking at one more video today, and that is one that Henry heavily recommended.
But this one is called "The 15 Risks You Must Take In Life." [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Everything good in your life will happen as a result of taking a risk to get it. Everything good in your life will happen. - There's no return without paying the price, and the price is taking the risk of failure. She's kind of serving here, though. - As a baby-- I like her. - --you need to risk falling if you're going to learn how to walk.
We follow that same trajectory through life and business. There's our boy. - Those who are unwilling to take the risk-- There's a good line here somewhere. - --face an unfulfilled and mediocre life. By the end of this video, you'll have a clear understanding on what are the most important risks you need to take if you want to get everything you want in life.
True. - As a golden rule in life, if the reward is bigger than the risk, always take the risk. OK. [END PLAYBACK] I understand they're just trying to say a trite, boring thing, but that's such quintessentially, famously bad advice. Elaborate.
The lottery would fall into that axiom. "If the reward is bigger than the risk, always take the risk." Ooh, drag them. That's such a good point. They're not taking into consideration risk assessment, which would therefore make the best version of this quote, "If the risk is worth it, take the risk." But they're sort of fetishizing this idea of just doing whatever-- follow any dream you could possibly have, take whatever risk you could, because it's the only way to get out of your mediocre working-class life.
It's really sad, tragic advice. Also, good pointing out that the lottery, where you could possibly win like $30 million or just lose a dollar for the ticket, is a perfect example of this being bad. Because in other videos, where it's like, things stupid poor people do, one of them is play the lottery.
True. True. I'm feeling inspired.
Me too. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - If you're not subscribed yet, you're missing out. You think you're going to be a billionaire? Yes. - Number one.
Good for you. Congratulations. Thanks. - Risk getting incredibly wealthy.
If you're under the age of 35-- Risk getting incredibly wealthy. - --you get one or two big swings at an extraordinary life. What do you mean? What are you talking about?
Of course I will risk it. - This happens because you have little to no downside. There's no one depending on you. This is, by far, the most important piece of advice you can get as a young person.
Take big risks. Oh my god. - You want to hear something that will outrage the close-minded people? [INAUDIBLE] this man. - Everyone who actually wants to be rich can become rich. Oh my god. - Absolutely.
There are over 50 million millionaires and thousands of new-- [END PLAYBACK] I like how they hedge that quote around everyone who actually wants to become rich. So the proof is in the pudding. If you are not currently rich, you apparently did not wish to be so.
Just to get a little heavy here for a second, it is genuinely so depressing thinking of people who are struggling financially watching this video. Yeah. And it's really sad to realize that, what, 2/3 of small businesses fail.
Generally speaking, people are better off selling their labor for a living. It's a really, really hard line to toe. Starting a business and being obsessed with taking huge risks that you think are the only way to get out of your, quote, "mediocre" life is so deeply corrosive to the human spirit.
It's so horrible. Watching this is like a struggling person's Joker origin story. Yeah.
It is. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number three. Risk ridicule in exchange for making your dreams come true. Ridicule. - Criticism and ridicule are part of the process. [END PLAYBACK] They're talking about ridicule?
I'm going to say something bold to your audience right now. If you bring a business idea to your friend and they go, ha ha ha, what? That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard.
Don't start the business. Don't start the business. Do not do it.
It's a bad idea. Also, if you would regularly describe the response you get in professional settings as ridicule, you're probably not in the right career field. Or you're not good at your work.
If you're ridiculed, don't do the thing you're doing. That's my advice to you. Don't do it. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - The risk fades away when you realize that these people are irrelevant to your journey, even if they're part of your inner circle-- You hear that, bitch?
You're irrelevant. - --and their words might hurt. Number four. Risk dropping out or quitting to start your own business.
No. Oh my god. Literally, OK [INAUDIBLE]. [END PLAYBACK] Pound for pound.
Pound for pound, there could not be a worse piece of advice than, you should drop out or quit, insert whatever you're doing, to start your own business. Just statistically, that is probably the worst piece of advice you could give. Probably, there's somebody who-- Bill Gates did it, but you're not him.
And also, why quit? Why quit? Why not just wait until you're doing better in life?
Wait until you've gotten your education. That way if you fail miserably, you have something to do with your life. Well, also, we have done videos about the process of quitting your job to pursue something else.
And it's like a two-year process that involves strategically saving money and managing your money. And also setting up a hundred B plans in case it doesn't work out. Ugh.
I hate this shit. Yeah. It's upsetting. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number 10.
Risk going against the consensus and be right. This is a straightforward path to massive success in life. The more you think about it, [INAUDIBLE] Straightforward path to massive success in life. - If you want to be successful in life, you have-- [END PLAYBACK] I feel like this is just a coded way to tell people to post politically incorrect things on Facebook.
Hell, yeah. Which I'm sure is a huge part of the audience. Don't get the vaccine.
This is a straightforward path to massive success in life. Great. Well, listen.
We watched some bad videos. We heard some bad advice. Where can people go to hear about some good advice, or at least good commentary?
Watch more Financial Diet videos. Don't recommend them to come to the channel they're already on. Just go click on more vids.
Boost your own channel, Henry. I have videos, too. You can find them on the internet.
I go by Big Joel. He's a medium Henry, but he's called Big Joel on YouTube. If you watch my videos, you'll see that people might have a lot of opinions on them.
But you'll see. They're pretty good. He's also always engaging in discourse on Twitter, so go follow him there and see that.
I have so many followers on Twitter now. It's crazy. Follow me.
OK. Brag. It's true.
He's got that grindset. OK. Oh sorry, go on.
Anyway-- It's a problem. As always, guys, thank you for watching. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button and to come back every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for new and awesome videos.
Woo. Yes.
It's me. So it's me, Chelsea Fagan of The Financial Diet, and today, it is going to be a very different and new video.
If you're watching this-- which I don't know what else you'd be doing if you've played the video-- you'll see that we are at the TFC set, although this is not an episode of The Financial Confessions. I am here joined by a special guest, and I've got a laptop in front of me-- something that I don't think we've ever seen before on this channel. I'm joined here by Henry of Big Joel.
Mm-hmm. Hi. What's up?
Hey everybody. Hello. Some of you guys may have seen last season of TFC, we interviewed him to talk all about bad financial, political, spiritual, philosophical advice that has poisoned the internet.
I'll link you guys in the description to that video. It was great. But today, I wanted to bring him into the TFC office, because he, on his channel-- and can you give a two- to three-sentence pitch of what your channel is for those who might not know?
It's like if you wrote college essays for your school but they were about garbage, sort of. It's media. I look at media.
I talk about it. Yeah. So like, one video will be about a speech that Ben Shapiro gave, and another video will be about Maury.
Right? You did-- Dr. Phil.
No, Dr. Phil. How dare you?
Why? I mean, listen. They're in the same-- I want to make a video about Maury and Jerry Springer.
You should. Listen, the last time I saw him, I was like, here's five videos you should make. Get on it.
But he recently did a video that I watched actually while getting ready for an event recently-- because I love watching YouTube video essays while I get ready for an event, they're usually just the right length-- about the worst personal finance channel on YouTube. Do you agree with that assessment? I wouldn't know.
Probably. Well, listen. I know a lot of them.
I'm not a connoisseur of the genre, sadly. You are, I know. And also, I doubt it.
When I watch, they're all so toxic in all so many ways. Like, there's a guy who's in the corner who's like, [RUDE LAUGHING] Look at how this poor person is. I don't know.
They're all gross. I hate all of them. Other than TFD.
Other than The Financial Diet, which is the only YouTube channel I've ever collaborated with, so-- It's an honor. No, but I watched this video that he did about this truly god-awful YouTube channel that really inspired me. Because I did not know that this channel existed.
And it's called Alux. Alux.com. Alux.com.
Has like 3 and 1/2 million subscribers, which is very big for a channel. Its videos have millions and millions of views. And I was actually expecting, when looking at a lot of the videos, to see a very high dislike ratio.
But actually, people are loving it. They're loving the content. No, they vibe with it.
They're vibing with it. They're rocking with it. But the advice in it is just-- I would say dystopian.
I don't know how you'd describe it. The video's called "A Dystopian Self Help Channel." So yes, I would agree with the-- Oh my god. I didn't remember that.
I arrived independently at the same conclusion. No. It's a terrible channel.
But outside of just this one kind of weird, borderline AI-generated YouTube channel, because it doesn't seem to have a real host behind it, this is really popular advice in our culture. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah.
So we're just going to react to this. So we're just going to react to these videos, and just talk about this terrible yet extremely prevalent genre of personal finance advice. This channel is very fetishizing of entrepreneurialship.
And it always makes me a bit hesitant to talk about it in a really negative way, because we're entrepreneurs, the both of us. And I like my job. And I don't want to come off like I'm telling anybody, being a business owner for me.
But you get back in your cage. You suck. No.
I just think it's not a decision that I have any stake in whatsoever. No, it's not. But also, literally in the video we're about to watch, one of the first points is be a business owner so you can commit fraud on your taxes.
Yeah. And the idea that if you aren't a business owner, you're essentially a garbage clod trash man is offensive and bad. I'm just saying the decision of whether or not to start a business isn't for me to make for you, or for Chelsea to make for you.
Do it if you want to, and it's a good idea, et cetera. You should. But also, being an entrepreneur does not mean being a hustle bro.
It does for me, but yeah. Go on. You're always posing with your watches and talking about your haters.
If you're not on the sigma male grindset, I don't even know. I don't even talk to you. Sigma male grindset.
What's a sigma male? What? OK.
There's definitely an Alux video about sigma males. Yes. I want to expose that to you.
OK. I'm very excited. So the video we're about to watch is called "15 Things Poor People Don't Know About Making Money," a really fascinating topic.
A topic so fascinating that it has 1.15 million views and 38,000 likes to 812 dislikes. The people are really interested in what poor people don't know about making money. We should look at the comments after, because they are all exactly identical.
But let's play. Let's watch. Let's watch the beautiful video.
Hello, Aluxers. We're excited to be back this Sunday with another cold shower. It's good to be back.
This one should serve as both a wake-up call to some of you, as well as the light that shines your path forward. You're going to find answers to questions you didn't know you had. But for that, you need to put your feelings aside and act like a big boy or girl and be-- Big boy or girl.
I just think one of the most dystopian aspects of this is that it's just stock photos of Manhattan. And they're so faceless. And she's like, hello, Aluxers.
It's like this really painful I think Canadian accent that just drones in this faux enthusiasm while she describes the hell world that you're living in. I love this channel so-- the second you put it on I was like, yes. It's so good to be back watching these videos.
It's so good. --honest with what's actually happening in your life. Welcome to Alux.com, the place where future billionaires come to get inspired. Yeah.
So they put that on every single one of their videos. "The place where future billionaires come to get inspired." We don't have to talk about it each time. But that is the catchphrase of their YouTube channel. I just want you to know that.
I wonder if Elon Musk went to Alux.com before shutting down the Tesla factory in California. If you're not subscribed yet, you're missing out. It's so threatening.
Fundamentally, and this shouldn't come as a shock, poor people are bad at making and keeping money. Otherwise, they wouldn't be poor. Otherwise, they wouldn't be poor.
I also love that it's got an exclamation point. "Otherwise, they wouldn't be poor!" That's it. They're bad at making and keeping money. They do this thing where they're like, otherwise, they wouldn't be poor.
And inexplicably, that's onscreen as a profound quote to take with you through your day. Benjamin Franklin. You can pay little to no money in taxes if you start a business.
All right. This should be common knowledge to almost anyone-- Right into the fraud. Is that true? --but just to make sure, we're going to say it once again.
Is that correct? Can you make little to no money if you start a business? So you can pay little to no money in tax if you start a business.
So that is a complicated answer. But in general, I think the best piece of advice is that to go into owning or running a business with the intention of minimizing your taxes is probably the worst way to make or keep more money. You would be much better off just attempting to get a better salary at a different business, or go into starting a business in order to make a product that you care about.
The idea of, I should start a business so that I can not pay taxes is a terrible piece of advice. How do you carry that with you as a goal? If I was like, I'm going to start a business and it's going to pay as little tax as possible.
That's what we're going to sell predominantly is us paying no taxes. How would I go about doing that? So it depends on the kind of business you have.
But let's say you have an LLC. So technically, an LLC doesn't exist as an entity. It's just the collection of the people who own the LLC.
And if you end the year with no taxable income, like you reinvest all of your income or you pay out a bunch of whatever, whether you're paying contractors or whatever. Basically, if you end the year at zero, you don't get taxed on it because there's nothing left. So you can run down the clock, which is why a lot of businesses will pay a lot of expenses toward the end of the year.
They try to minimize what they're being taxed on at the end of the year. But the entire concept there is you have to spend that money somewhere. And if you're paying it to yourself as income, you get taxed on your income.
Also, this very much ties into one of my least favorite refrains from people who are like, if you didn't tax business owners so much, they would pay their employees more or create more jobs. That makes no fucking sense, because the money that you pay out to your employees doesn't get taxed as income that stays in your company. Wow. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - This is a fundamental difference between businesses and individuals.
To illustrate it in the simplest way possible, business makes money, spends money, then gets taxed on what's left. Individual earns money, gets taxed on that money, and spends what's left. The average American pays somewhere around-- OK. [END PLAYBACK] I wish I knew anything about this.
So I'm sorry, but they're basically suggesting that in order to not have to pay taxes, you filter all of the things that you would be spending on through a business. But unless that private jet-- which I'm not sure why an average person watching this YouTube channel, their next purchase is going to be a private jet. You don't have a P-Jet? [?
Little guy? ?] I don't have a PJ. I'm sorry. No, I don't.
But if you are buying those things for reasons that are not legitimate business reasons, that's how people get audited and go to jail for tax fraud. Pretending that things are business expenses in order to be able to write them off is a huge problem. Say that somebody, like a friend of mine, has, I don't know, like 15 dogs they recently bought.
Purebred, beautiful show dogs. What? And they deducted that on their taxes, because that's what they were told to do by Alux.
What would then be the second step in that? I guess the IRS is coming to audit those dogs. Gorgeous show dogs.
Just those gorgeous dogs. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number two. Making money is about system solving, not working hard. I mean, sadly, that's kind of true. - You make money when you're able to solve-- No, that's 100% true. - --and put together all the pieces in the puzzle.
But right for the wrong reasons, Alux. - [INAUDIBLE] people know how to make money is to work for it, exchanging time and effort and someone-- [END PLAYBACK] I don't even know if working hard is a particularly good reason why people should be paid more. No. I don't believe in any of it.
I don't believe in any aspect of it down the line. I agree with them that I clearly do not get paid for how much I work. That's an objective fact.
And they make this point constantly, that you don't get paid for how much you work. It's always right. And it is a myth that people have about the way capitalism functions.
Those of you who saw our recent billionaires video might feel the same. Did you get backlash on that? Like actually, I work in the pig shit mines, and I work 80 hours, and I'm a billionaire, Chelsea.
Have you thought of that? No. Although actually, listen, everyone was getting Marx pilled in those comments.
And this one guy was like, even if working hard was attached to making money, how could it be physically possible that Jeff Bezos could work harder than the entire country of Bulgaria? How is that even physically possible? I don't think anybody actually believes that.
I think they just say it, and then just hope that nobody will care. Right? I don't think anybody actually believes that anybody works harder than anybody else.
No. Whatever. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number three. Make money while you sleep, or you'll never be rich.
You hear that, plebes? You'll never be rich. - [INAUDIBLE] As long as you're trading time for money, you'll never be rich. Why?
Because there's a limited number of hours in a day that you can trade. Even if you traded all of them, you'd still-- [END PLAYBACK] Isn't this true, also? Isn't this objectively a fact?
No, it's not objectively a fact. Because there are plenty of people. Our lawyer charges like $800 an hour or whatever.
That man's definitely getting rich while he's awake. This channel doesn't take-- Sorry, Greg. --being rich seriously, unless you're in the owning class. For them, they actually take a really strict, Marxist definition of class, which fascinates me to no end.
Every single second, they really act as though there is no such thing as the middle class. There are gods and clods. The funny thing is about this, though, that there are other videos on this channel that talk nonstop about hustling.
But then in this video, they're like, your compensation will never be tied to how hard you work. You will never make your wealth during your waking hours. Which is it, Alux.com?
No, the best case for them is that people are just rewarded not based on how hard they work, but on how genius in their little brains they are. Right? But now that we're talking about it, there is a sort of admirable honesty about it.
And I will say, for our audience who's interested in actual useful personal finance observations, the idea that you could never become wealthy through your labor is not true at all. There are plenty-- I mean, look at what doctors make. Clearly doctors are very high earners, and they're being paid for their labor.
But, this is a channel for-- what do they call it? The future billionaires. Future billionaires.
But you can't be a billionaire without being in the owning class. Yeah. However, I'm sure their version of earning money while you sleep is more about, just having passive income from investments, and not about exploiting massive amounts of labor, which is how people actually become billionaires.
I think they would say I earn passive-- and you earn passive income while you sleep, right? Well, we do. Yeah.
It slaps. OK. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Wake up, go to work, pay your bills until one day, you die. Number four.
It takes the same amount of effort to make $50,000 as it does for $1 million. [END PLAYBACK] No. No. No.
No, that's true. What? Citation fucking needed.
Yeah. That's true. What?
Wait, how is that true? As somebody who has both made $50,000 and a million dollars, and then the next exponential increase would be a billion dollars-- as somebody who's made that, same. Are you being sarcastic?
Yeah. Oh, OK. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - You could earn over $20,000 a month by selling cars or real estate. Oh my god.
The process is quite-- [END PLAYBACK] [INAUDIBLE] No. I'm sorry, but this is why this channel is one of the all-time worst personal finance channels. Because so many people are probably having their first introduction to personal finance content through shit like this, because it's so popular on the algorithm.
But what it always does not take into account-- I mean, aside from basic macroeconomics-- is just the idea of how much more exponentially difficult it is to start making a little bit of money, or to get out of poverty, or to set up even basic financial foundations than it is to make more passive income once you already have money. Them being like, you could sell real estate or cars for $20,000 a month. Where are you getting these cars?
Where do you get the real estate? It is so frustrating. But the few people that actually make it, who actually do those things successfully, will just turn around and give that advice like, if you're struggling to pay your bills and you're a mom on WIC, and you're working three jobs, you should just make a million dollars a year selling real estate.
Right. And this is the entire mental infrastructure that pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing exploits, right? The myth of, you could just own the thing.
You could buy a bunch of things, sell it all, and then that's-- if you spend $5,000 now, then you could solve big problems and get big rich. Right? [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number eight. Over 50% of your income should go toward investments.
OK. Thanks, Alux. - You cannot escape-- [END PLAYBACK] Noted. 50%, investments. Out the door.
All right of [INAUDIBLE] Next piece of advice. No. That's so many of their advice.
Just don't be poor, dick. What are you doing? Stop it.
So much of their how to not be poor advice assumes, all right, stop being poor, and now do this piece of advice. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - $1 million per year isn't a lot of money. You can almost hear-- It's not. - --all the butts clenching around the word as we mentioned it. We all grew up-- [END PLAYBACK] I like how, whenever they say something that's absolutely the stupidest shit you ever heard in your life, they're like, I bet you're probably saying that's super fucking stupid.
It's like, yeah, Alux. I actually was saying that. Why is this your all-time favorite piece of Alux advice?
Oh, it goes places. Oh. What's [INAUDIBLE]?
It doesn't stop. This is one of the few Alux tips that doesn't just stop with the headline. It is hog wild from minute one to minute done, as you will now see. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - --grew up with this idea of a millionaire, that $1 million was enough to set you up for life, because it used to be true back in the '60s.
Maybe it still feels true if you live in a poorer part of the world, and right now believe you don't need that much. Poorer part of the world? What? - The paradox is that only those who are earning in excess of $1 million per year realize it's just a decent earning.
Money is getting devalued every single year. Let us put this into perspective for you, with the US as the main example. So good. - As of the beginning of 2020, there were $1.75 trillion worth of notes in circulation.
That's actual money bills out there in the marketplace. Scared that the economy would tank because of the coronavirus, the Fed decided to print another $2.3 trillion out of thin air, and simply give it to the people and businesses to avoid a financial collapse. Value comes from scarcity.
The more something is found in the marketplace, the less valuable it is. Congratulations. Every dollar you have is worth less than half of what it used to be. [END PLAYBACK] So they just lie about what inflation is.
They literally just lie. They just do not know what it is. Oh my god.
OK. So to contextualize-- and you did talk about this a little bit in your video, but can you explain why that is such an extraordinary statement for you? I actually talked about this in a bonus video that wasn't available to everybody.
Yeah. You're getting that premium content. Yeah.
Go to my Patreon. Anyway, can you talk about this point? The reason why that's so funny is because it's A, verifiably false.
The Fed did not make it so that money is worth less than half of what it was a year ago. What I find fascinating about it is that it presupposes a situation wherein capitalism is literal bedlam. Right?
Where the Fed just goes, whoop, money doesn't mean anything. Now your life sucks, unless you own Pepsi. Well, it's also like, you know how you can verify that money is not worth 30% of what it was worth a year and a half ago?
Go buy any product. Is it literally two and a half times as expensive? No, it's not.
I feel like the thing about the million dollar mark is, OK, if your video is explicitly for billionaires, that's not a lot of money to them, comparatively. But any person with Google could look up what you could afford to do every year with a million dollars, and it's an extraordinarily luxurious life that 99.9% of people could never have. Again, it's another way of making it very, very clear to the audience that there's only two classes in a very traditional Marxist sense.
There is the owners, who own way more than a million dollars a year. And then there's the proletariat who, at the very top, the most a professional, broadly speaking, can make a year is around a million dollars. You're going to have trouble making more than that as a professional.
What if this is all a really long con from Bernie Sanders for America or something? No, yeah. I mean, it's definitely a good intro into harsh-- they start every video with a little bit like, buckle up, snowflakes, because this one's going to be a raucous hoedown.
Actually, you're right. You win this round. Well, also, this is a lie.
It's not true. Capitalism works better than this, which is a very puzzling fact to say, right? Usually you don't go into capitalist apologia and say, well, they're actually making capitalism out to be way worse than it actually is.
The world is not constantly fluctuating such that your dollar is now worth $0.25 two years later. It's a weird [INAUDIBLE]. The thing is that I have way more respect for this as a free market liberal discourse to just be like, in crony capitalism, unless you are worth $30 billion or more, you're getting fucked just like the poor guy is.
Honestly, true. I mean, the only sort of departure they make is to say, and the goal is to be the owner. The world is broken, rotten, fetid, and your job is to own it, is the basic [INAUDIBLE]..
Listen, that's king shit. It's king shit. Literally.
It's literally king shit. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - $1 million per year in 2020 is roughly the equivalent of $250,000 just over 30 years ago. Not just because of inflation, but also buying power. OK.
True. - Real estate is a great barometer of this. Poor people fall victim to the system. They don't understand that keeping money in cash is actually costing them money.
The rich leverage their understanding of the market-- Do they not? I guess people don't understand that. [END PLAYBACK] This makes no sense. Because yes, a million dollars is worth the equivalent of $250,000 however many years ago.
But a lot of the values of goods and services were pegged to that amount. But also, what they're actually saying is that things have gotten more expensive and wages have stagnated. Right, right.
Which, go off, Alux. That's true. No.
You know, there is something a bit interesting. We could sort of call it a generational friction. But there is something interesting in that we used to understand a billion dollars as the height of luxury.
A million, you mean? Yeah. A million dollars is the height of what it means to be a rich person, in a lot of ways.
And now, they are somewhat accurately pointing out that while we still have that sort of myth in our minds, a million dollars is worth a lot less. And it's even less accessible than it used to be. Exactly.
Well, I think it didn't used to be more accessible. That's not true. But here's the thing.
That is a clarifying statement that I'll make a lot when talking about retirement. For a lot of people, if they want to retire with a lot of time left, and they want to live a fairly comfortable life with some basic-- to be able to travel, buy things, et cetera-- a retirement for two is costing you north of a million dollars now. And a lot of people go, I'm not a millionaire.
That's crazy. So in that sense, I agree. But to say that earning a million dollars a year indefinitely-- A million dollars a year is more than being a millionaire, too.
It's vastly more. It's a huge sum of money. It's what, the top 0.03% of Americans?
More than that? Probably even more than that. But either way, let's hear what they have to finish this up with. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - If you made $1 million per year every year of your working life, completely ignoring inflation, and didn't spend a penny, you still wouldn't have enough money to purchase this Rothko painting that sold for $46 million-- What? - --or this one by Newman that sold for 43.8.
What? - Imagine working your entire life for $1 million a year-- That took such a hard left turn. I don't know where I thought that was going. - --and still unable to buy a piece of canvas with two colors on it. Yet-- And then they're like-- [END PLAYBACK] --if you make a lot of money, you should be able to buy anything.
You should be able to buy the most expensive painting ever sold, is really their litmus test. Listen. They really went off here.
No, no. They did it. It's true.
You could make a million dollars a year for 40 years and still not be able to buy a Rothko. So what is that money even worth, really? We're looking at one more video today, and that is one that Henry heavily recommended.
But this one is called "The 15 Risks You Must Take In Life." [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Everything good in your life will happen as a result of taking a risk to get it. Everything good in your life will happen. - There's no return without paying the price, and the price is taking the risk of failure. She's kind of serving here, though. - As a baby-- I like her. - --you need to risk falling if you're going to learn how to walk.
We follow that same trajectory through life and business. There's our boy. - Those who are unwilling to take the risk-- There's a good line here somewhere. - --face an unfulfilled and mediocre life. By the end of this video, you'll have a clear understanding on what are the most important risks you need to take if you want to get everything you want in life.
True. - As a golden rule in life, if the reward is bigger than the risk, always take the risk. OK. [END PLAYBACK] I understand they're just trying to say a trite, boring thing, but that's such quintessentially, famously bad advice. Elaborate.
The lottery would fall into that axiom. "If the reward is bigger than the risk, always take the risk." Ooh, drag them. That's such a good point. They're not taking into consideration risk assessment, which would therefore make the best version of this quote, "If the risk is worth it, take the risk." But they're sort of fetishizing this idea of just doing whatever-- follow any dream you could possibly have, take whatever risk you could, because it's the only way to get out of your mediocre working-class life.
It's really sad, tragic advice. Also, good pointing out that the lottery, where you could possibly win like $30 million or just lose a dollar for the ticket, is a perfect example of this being bad. Because in other videos, where it's like, things stupid poor people do, one of them is play the lottery.
True. True. I'm feeling inspired.
Me too. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - If you're not subscribed yet, you're missing out. You think you're going to be a billionaire? Yes. - Number one.
Good for you. Congratulations. Thanks. - Risk getting incredibly wealthy.
If you're under the age of 35-- Risk getting incredibly wealthy. - --you get one or two big swings at an extraordinary life. What do you mean? What are you talking about?
Of course I will risk it. - This happens because you have little to no downside. There's no one depending on you. This is, by far, the most important piece of advice you can get as a young person.
Take big risks. Oh my god. - You want to hear something that will outrage the close-minded people? [INAUDIBLE] this man. - Everyone who actually wants to be rich can become rich. Oh my god. - Absolutely.
There are over 50 million millionaires and thousands of new-- [END PLAYBACK] I like how they hedge that quote around everyone who actually wants to become rich. So the proof is in the pudding. If you are not currently rich, you apparently did not wish to be so.
Just to get a little heavy here for a second, it is genuinely so depressing thinking of people who are struggling financially watching this video. Yeah. And it's really sad to realize that, what, 2/3 of small businesses fail.
Generally speaking, people are better off selling their labor for a living. It's a really, really hard line to toe. Starting a business and being obsessed with taking huge risks that you think are the only way to get out of your, quote, "mediocre" life is so deeply corrosive to the human spirit.
It's so horrible. Watching this is like a struggling person's Joker origin story. Yeah.
It is. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number three. Risk ridicule in exchange for making your dreams come true. Ridicule. - Criticism and ridicule are part of the process. [END PLAYBACK] They're talking about ridicule?
I'm going to say something bold to your audience right now. If you bring a business idea to your friend and they go, ha ha ha, what? That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard.
Don't start the business. Don't start the business. Do not do it.
It's a bad idea. Also, if you would regularly describe the response you get in professional settings as ridicule, you're probably not in the right career field. Or you're not good at your work.
If you're ridiculed, don't do the thing you're doing. That's my advice to you. Don't do it. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - The risk fades away when you realize that these people are irrelevant to your journey, even if they're part of your inner circle-- You hear that, bitch?
You're irrelevant. - --and their words might hurt. Number four. Risk dropping out or quitting to start your own business.
No. Oh my god. Literally, OK [INAUDIBLE]. [END PLAYBACK] Pound for pound.
Pound for pound, there could not be a worse piece of advice than, you should drop out or quit, insert whatever you're doing, to start your own business. Just statistically, that is probably the worst piece of advice you could give. Probably, there's somebody who-- Bill Gates did it, but you're not him.
And also, why quit? Why quit? Why not just wait until you're doing better in life?
Wait until you've gotten your education. That way if you fail miserably, you have something to do with your life. Well, also, we have done videos about the process of quitting your job to pursue something else.
And it's like a two-year process that involves strategically saving money and managing your money. And also setting up a hundred B plans in case it doesn't work out. Ugh.
I hate this shit. Yeah. It's upsetting. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Number 10.
Risk going against the consensus and be right. This is a straightforward path to massive success in life. The more you think about it, [INAUDIBLE] Straightforward path to massive success in life. - If you want to be successful in life, you have-- [END PLAYBACK] I feel like this is just a coded way to tell people to post politically incorrect things on Facebook.
Hell, yeah. Which I'm sure is a huge part of the audience. Don't get the vaccine.
This is a straightforward path to massive success in life. Great. Well, listen.
We watched some bad videos. We heard some bad advice. Where can people go to hear about some good advice, or at least good commentary?
Watch more Financial Diet videos. Don't recommend them to come to the channel they're already on. Just go click on more vids.
Boost your own channel, Henry. I have videos, too. You can find them on the internet.
I go by Big Joel. He's a medium Henry, but he's called Big Joel on YouTube. If you watch my videos, you'll see that people might have a lot of opinions on them.
But you'll see. They're pretty good. He's also always engaging in discourse on Twitter, so go follow him there and see that.
I have so many followers on Twitter now. It's crazy. Follow me.
OK. Brag. It's true.
He's got that grindset. OK. Oh sorry, go on.
Anyway-- It's a problem. As always, guys, thank you for watching. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button and to come back every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for new and awesome videos.
Woo. Yes.