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[upbeat music] Awesome. 1:08 Yeah, I find an hour to be a sweet spot anyway, you know, so it definitely, you know, we can take on a lot of different, uh, adventures, you know, depending on how you want to go about it. 1:19 But welcome, welcome again Michael Freeman. Thank you so much for joining me for today's podcast episode. I'm very excited to be here. I know you are as well. 1:29 I know we've kind of been rescheduling on and off, you know, but I'm finally glad we were able to do this. We've been talking about this since ETHDenver, fam. Me too. So I'm just... [laughs] It's already- Yeah... 1:39 what, beginning of April? Yeah. When was ETHDenver? Where does the time go? [laughs] I know, man. I know, I know. Time goes so quick. It's like yesterday I was 21, now I'm 31 and I got two kids. Oh, my goodness. 1:49 Like what's going on, man? Time flies. But thank you for having me. Oh. I am, uh, very appreciative of the opportunity to come talk to you, talk to your community, and, uh, I'm looking forward to the conversation. 2:00 Yeah, me too. Me too. So yeah, let's get started, fam. Um, let's go before Finance Freeman, before you got famous as a influencer crypto guy. I want to... 2:10 Take me back, I guess, on a little bit of a journey of Michael's entrepreneur endeavors. You know, how did you get started doing what you're doing? 2:19 Uh, I find that most people into crypto, they did something pre- previously in some type of entrepreneurship role. So I'd love to hear more, I guess, of a backstory of kinda like where you come from. 2:31 You can even start from, like, where you grew up, what, what was your first job. I don't care. I just, I kinda wanna... I love starting there, you know? 2:36 And building, like, the foundation, and then as we kinda layer up into your story up until now. So take it away, brother. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like I said- [laughs]... 2:45 thank, thank you very much for having me. Uh, I love the show- Yeah... I love your spaces- Thank you... 2:49 I love everything you do and, uh, it was a pleasure meeting you at ETHDenver, so glad we were finally able to make this happen. [laughs] Yeah. 2:54 But from an entrepreneurial point of view, I've always been fascinated with finances and money. And I would say my journey really started when I was 11 years old. I was... 3:06 My dad had me mowing the yard, and I was thinking, "Well, hey, I mow this for free. What if I was able to mow other people's yards," right? [laughs] So I made flyers, said Freeman Lawn Care. You know- Ooh... 3:17 I'd have pricing on it. I told my dad. Great name. [laughs] And my dad taught me some good lessons as well, right? Mm. Like, he would have me pay him $5 to rent the lawnmower. He didn't need the $5. 3:27 It was a, like a principle thing of- Ah... of learning responsibility and, and how the world works. And so- Yeah... 3:34 I would buy the gas, I would rent the lawnmower, and I would, I would go out and I'd mow yards all day long, you know? And then at the end of the day, I'd have $100 and I, and I couldn't believe it. Nice. 3:44 You know, I worked all day for it. But I, I was very, very proud of that, right? And so- Yeah, so industrious. [laughs]... that's, that's where the, my entrepreneurial spirit- Yeah... kind of came from. Love it. 3:55 And so then, um, fast-forward, you know, I was in high school, I was in sports. And whenever I was 17, I actually met who's currently my wife. And I had- Oh... two routes to go. 4:08 I wanted to be an engineer, so I could've went that route. Mm-hmm. But that required a few things. It required money, it required time, and I was in love, okay? And my wife- Right... my wife's actually from Russia. 4:21 She was 18, I was 17 when we met. Oh, wow. And so she, um... So we decided to get married. So I didn't have college- Oh, young. [laughs] I didn't have money for college. Okay. Did you have money for her? 4:34 [laughs] Uh, barely. Barely. In fact, that's a, that's another very good- We'll go back to that... story as well. [laughs] So- I wanna come back to that, yeah... um, I'll dive into that in just a second. Sure, sure. 4:45 So I had to start working in a pipe shop to start, you know, trying to pay the bills. I was making $11 an hour I remember. Um, I loved it. I loved the mathematics be- behind fitting pipe and everything. 4:58 I loved working with my hands, all of that. Mm-hmm. 5:00 And, uh, my wife, who we had met here in person in the United States, then she went back to Russia and we were talking on the phone for six months, crying on the phone all the time, "I love you, I love you." 5:11 We, we had to get a lawyer to bring her over, right? But I didn't have $2,500- Yeah... for a lawyer, right? I might've had $25. 5:19 And I remember I met with a lawyer and he told me, he said, "Hey, I'll do your case for nothing up front." He said, "Every month, bring me $250 for 10 months." Mm. 5:31 And he told me a story about how somebody gave him the opportunity to do it, or not the same scenario, but a cash type, you know, front, basically. 5:40 And so I ended up paying the man off in about four months, but he did all the work up front, right? And so I've had a lot of people like that give me opportunities, and I try to do the same to, to other people. 5:50 And so I was working in the pipe shop. You know, we were married and everything. I started becoming a pipe fitter. I remember my dream was to make $25 an hour. That was $1,000 a week. I would've been rich. 6:02 And then- Sometimes... uh, something unfortunate happened. I tore my ACL and- Ooh... and so at the time it was a really bad thing. How am I gonna pay the bills? I broke a lease at a, at a apartment, right? 6:15 I'm 18 years old. Mm-hmm. 6:17 But I had a little bit of money, probably about three grand saved up, and my wife and I bought a very old travel trailer and we lived in that while I put myself through college, through, um, a two-year associate's degree I started working for a large chemical company, and they sent me to college for my chemical engineering degree. 6:38 And I did that until I decided to start on this new journey that I'm on. Ever since I was able to have a Robin Hood account or any type of investment account when I was 18, I started investing. Mm. 6:51 I was somebody that was... I, I bought Bitcoin when I was 18 years old, which Bitcoin was under 1,000 bucks back then. Um, now, I didn't have enough capital or sense in my head to make sense of holding it, right? 7:07 Or- [laughs]... uh, probably would have never had to go be an engineer and all that stuff. Yeah. But anyways, I was, I was in- introduced to it very early. 7:15 I remember buying $100 of Dogecoin, and then it went down, like, five bucks and I sold it, 'cause I was, you know, I couldn't- [laughs]... afford to lose any money. 7:23 And then a couple years later, my friend called me and he was like, "Bro, the Dogecoin, do you still have it?" And he turned, like, $300 into 200K. I was doing the math on mine, it would've been worth 75 grand. 7:35 And so- Oh. [laughs]... it was a painful loss, or it was a painful loss of a potential gain, right? I get it. But there's learnings in everything in life. Yeah. I, I found that. Yeah. But so my, my content, 7:48 um, journey started with, one, I've always been a student of the game. I've always been a consumer of content. 7:57 There's people that I look up to, people that I used to look up to and look, lo- watched for years that I now consider friends, and that, that's a really cool thing when you look back on it. But- Mm... 8:08 one time we were sitting there, and I made good money as an engineer and my wife was working in the medical field, and I did my taxes, and they said I owed, like, five grand more. And I was like, "What is this? 8:20 I'm already paying all these taxes," right? Now I pay a lot more taxes, unfortunately. But anyways, so I said, "You know what?" And I started Googling this before ChatGPT, right? Yeah. Yeah. 8:31 I started, you know, how to legally not pay taxes, right? 'Cause I mean, I don't wanna go to jail for not paying taxes, but I also wanna... if I can offset them in some way. Mm-hmm. 8:39 And it said, "Start a home business," and it listed all these write-offs like, you know, a home office, cell phone- Mm-hmm... expense, things like that. And so I said, "What's a easy home business?" 8:49 Click, click, click, click, click. It said, "Start a YouTube channel." I said, "Well, hey, I watch YouTube all the time." Mm-hmm. I said, "I, I love, I, I love this." And at that point, I had already been a teacher. 9:00 I had already been, um... I had created a class at the college that I was teaching in. Mm. And so I've loved educating people. I've taught people English previously, so I've always loved educating folks and, and- Mm... 9:13 and helping people out. And so one day, I just walked into this room, it was all pink at the time and all kinds of stuff. 9:19 [laughs] I had an old laptop from college that I opened up, and you can still see the YouTube video on my channel. It's still there. 9:26 Uh, Bitcoin was 35K and I said I thought it was going lower, so look, n- never financial advice when talking to me. [laughs] But, uh, I've gotten a lot better at technical analysis and, and everything over the years. 9:38 [laughs] I'm still a student of the game. Sure. But so, so that's how it started. Mm. 9:42 And within about six months I was offered my first, you know, promotional deal and, and I've learned a lot on the business side of things. And fast-forward a couple years, uh, I was able to make my wife... 9:55 She originally went part-time and then she- Mm... went, uh, full-time stay-at-home mother. We have two children. Aw. Two beautiful children. Um- Yeah... they get their looks from their mom, they're smart from me. 10:05 That's what I'm saying. There you go. At least- I like that. I like that. [laughs] Happy you like- And-... happy wife. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, sir. And I... 10:12 about nine months ago I, I took the jump and went full time into- Oh... not just content creation, but also investor, right? I think it's important- Mm... not to narrow yourself on anything. 10:25 You know, some people wanna have a 9:00 to 5:00, and that's fine. Work the 9:00 to 5:00 forever, come home, be happy, enjoy your weekend, enjoy your life, retire when you're 60. Nothing wrong with that. Mm. 10:35 Absolutely nothing wrong with that, right? But 10:38 for an entrepreneur, somebody that's working for their self and you have to be ready for a market turndown, this or that, I think it's very important to have a plethora of different revenue streams- Mm... right? 10:52 Never relying just on, on one single source of income. So that's kind of the brief five-minute how I went from Michael Freeman the teenager to Finance Freeman the YouTuber, X, and content creator/investor. I love it. 11:09 I love it. That was more 10 minutes, but it's all right. It's all right. I'm not [laughs] gonna hold you to that. I'm bad at math. My watch is off. No. Funny. F- all right. You got some great points. 11:19 I was writing down, John, some notes as you were talking. Um, I'd love to go back because I, I do not wanna ever miss this, go back to your relationship with your girlfriend, now wife, you know, uh, back in the day. 11:30 I think, uh, that whole love and dumb situation when you don't have any money but you have all the love in the world that you wanna give to this person that you wanna spend your rest, rest of your life with. 11:40 Tell me more about how that went down and how she was able to, I guess, like, still, still be with you even, even before you had nothing, basically, right? 11:51 So tell me more about that, because I feel like that's really important and it's very impactful for your story, and for hers as well. Yes. Um, okay, it gets a little deep. We'll get into it. So- I love it... 12:02 I was a troubled kid, let's say the least. Okay. Right? I, uh, did a lot of fighting, hung out with the wrong crowd, things like that. Yeah. 12:10 And this is a very important life lesson that I hope people can, can take from someone that turned it all around. So I was a troubled kid, right? Um, all my girlfriends, their parents didn't want them around me. 12:22 The friends that I grew up with, their parents didn't want them around me. You know, I was fighting, doing... just doing stuff. I was wild, right? Mm. 12:29 And a lot of people don't see that now if you're, if you're looking at me now, but, you know, I've matured. Yeah, I don't see that. [laughs] I'm a man. Everything's changed. Well, uh, when I was... 12:39 the first week of my senior year in, in high school- Mm... I went to... I got in a fight in school. Mm-hmm. 12:45 Got, uh, suspended for a little bit, went to a party that weekend and got in a fight that ended up being six guys that almost killed me, so- I've got a really big scar on my neck. 12:57 That's right, I remember that from you Denver, yes. Yeah, I don't know if you can see that. I can. I have a big scar on my arm. I, uh- Was that from the fight? I got... Yeah, I got stabbed in the stomach. Oh, my God. 13:07 Okay. So I was officially hit with a beer mug and stabbed with a knife, and cut up with a knife. And- Whoa. So that night was crazy. Ended up getting rushed to the hospital. 13:18 This was very close to the jugular vein- Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah... um, or artery. Yeah, the artery. My wife works in the medical field. She'd correct me if she was here. 13:25 But, uh, the jugular, so it was very close to that. And like I said, I was still very wild at the time. Mm-hmm. And I got kicked out of high school and told I had to do high school on the internet. Mm-hmm. 13:38 And so I said, okay. And I still hadn't snapped completely, you know, to straighten up, and so I really wasn't doing that, but I was like, "You know what? I'll go make money." 13:47 So I went and got a job at a hotel, and that's where I met my wife. She was on a foreign exchange program coming, working for summer- Yeah... doing that. And it was very interesting because- Yeah... 13:59 it was a dark time in my life. Yeah. The only time I could say I'd ever been depressed or anything like that. I've been very fortunate mental health-wise- Mm. Yeah... and family-wise, support-wise. 14:09 But that was the first time I'd ever felt any type of way. Mm. And I used to pray to God, and I said, "Look, I'm, I'm ready to change. My wild days are over. I'm almost 18. I'm about to be an adult. 14:20 I wanna meet somebody that doesn't know me- Mm... that, that doesn't know my past, doesn't know, you know, didn't grow up seeing me fight and doing all this stuff. 14:32 I wanna meet somebody that is a, is a fresh slate," right? And I used to say a girl from another state or something like that. Well, here it was from the other side of the world, right? Right. 14:42 And so i- it's a, it's a really cool lesson because there's a story called the Chinese farmer story that is- Hmm... um, a kid one day... Let me see if I can remember this. So, uh, this Chinese farmer- Mm-hmm... 14:58 his son one day, uh, falls off a horse and breaks his arm, and all the people are saying, "Oh, my gosh, that's horrible. I'm so sorry that happened." Hmm. And the farmer says, "Yeah, I don't know. Maybe." 15:11 And so then the next day, the gates open and a whole bunch of very w- you know, high-value, uh, horses come in. They're worth a lot of money. Hmm. And the guy say, "Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. That's... 15:23 You just made so much money." And he says, "Yeah, I don't know. Maybe." 15:26 And so then the, the son's riding one of the horses, trying to break one of the wild horses, and he, and he, and he bucks off and breaks a leg, breaks an arm, even more stuff. And they say, "Oh, man, that's horrible." 15:39 And he's like, "Yeah, I don't know. Maybe." Well, then the military starts coming and making people go to war who are just gonna go off and get slaughtered, and they walked right past his son. 15:48 And I probably butchered the story a little bit, but the, the whole point of the story is whatever happens to you at any stage of your life, you really don't know if it's gonna be good or bad for you long term, right? 16:00 Mm. And so always think with a glass half full kinda thing because that night that I was sitting there getting stitched up, stitched up in the hospital and everything, kicked out of high school, 16:12 it, it was the darkest time of my life. However, if that had never happened, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you, I wouldn't be married to my wife, I wouldn't have two kids. You know? 16:24 I wouldn't be head coach of this baseball team that, that we're gonna go have practice tonight. Right. 16:30 So you never know what happens to you in life, whether you get fired from a job and it's gonna open up all these other opportunities, or we're in a bear market now in crypto. Well, guess what? That's an opportunity. Mm. 16:43 So it's all about how you, how, how you are able to look at it. Mm-hmm. And pivoting to my wife a little bit, you know, I was so appreciative to meet her. She was very- Yeah... down to Earth. Yeah. 16:52 She wasn't what I was used to at all. You know? Yeah. And I went over to Russia. 16:58 We've been there five or six times now, but I went over to Russia, met her family multiple times and, and we went through the process of getting married, and like I said, it's been 12 years now. 17:08 And you know, I think it would be very hard for me at this point in my life to ever remarry or trust people. Mm. I have kind of trust issues. I have to really get to know people. Yeah. 17:20 And you know, whenever you have any kind of success where you've built a career or something, it's hard to trust somebody with that, especially if you get divorced. 17:29 And I think prenup's kind of a weird conversation to have, or definitely an uncomfortable one. Yeah. 17:34 I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, it's just an uncomfortable position, but I often joke that we had the same net worth when we met and it was zero. You know? We, we both had nothing- [laughs]... to our names. 17:44 And you know, I remember us getting our card declined at Sonic- Oh, my God... and at different, you know, places. 17:49 And so it, it's, it's really a good story 'cause, you know, anything I look at in our house, whether it's this, this cup or the home itself or the kids, we made all of it together. You know? 18:01 It's, it's not- That's incredible. I couldn't have done it without her. Yeah. She couldn't have done it without me, especially building this business, right? 18:08 She's never made a piece of content for it, never edited a video for it, but what she did do was when I was a chemical engineer and I would work from 6:00 in the morning to 4:00 in the evening, I would then come home, give the kids a hug, and I'd come in here till 10:00 or 11:00 at night. 18:24 Mm. And when I walked out, she'd be sleeping, the kids would be sleeping, and we did that for a couple years while building the business, right? Mm-hmm. And so I always say whenever you're building a family, 18:35 y- you're 100%, okay? The family, the Freeman family is 100%, okay? That's all it can add up to, right? Well, some days I may be 75% of that 100, right? Mm. And she may be 25%. 18:48 Some days she may be 90% and I may only be 10 of it, right? Mm. But at the end of the day, we, we are one family and we add up to 100, and I love her with all my heart. So it was a, uh... It's a good story, I think. 19:02 It's beautiful. And, um- Yeah, I, I wouldn't change anything about my past, good or bad, because it all led us to where we are here today, and I'm excited for the future. Yeah. That's a great story. 19:15 Thank you so much for sh- sharing, Michael. Like, um, that warms my heart, you know? Uh, it, it's more of a personal question as well. Like, I, I'm actually a divorcee of about, uh, since 2020. 19:25 I was married to this one girl for about eight years, and I thought we were building something together. During COVID, you know, there was a lot of breakouts, a lot of 19:33 stressful situations with a lot of people during that time, and I was just one of those couples that couldn't keep doing it kind of thing. 19:39 But since that time, you know, I've, I've met a special person that I've been in contact to. We're best friends, but we wanna take it to the next level. But it's like, how do we do it? 19:49 We're, because we basically are kind of starting where you guys started. We're both at net zero. We're both content creators. We're both trying to help each other out. So it's just like, how do we make this work, though? 19:59 And I, and I want to... I want it to work so bad, and she does too, but it's just like getting timing. I feel like it's always, like, a timing issue with people too. 20:09 Um, and, and like, what would you say to someone, I guess, who wants to try to make marriage work for, uh, for, for the now? 20:18 Like, they, they've found, like, this person, but it's just like the economy, like jobs, inflation. Like, there's so many... 20:25 I feel like there's just so many things that just butt up against having good relationships with people nowadays. 20:32 So what would you say to maybe an aspiring couple that wants to have an actual life together and complete that circle that you and your wife have done? I would say wife's always right, even if she's wrong. 20:44 Just, just go with it. Just go with it. I promise. [laughs] If she tells you, if she tells you- Mm... "Hey, money's tight. Don't get me anything for Valentine's Day," don't listen. Totally. 20:52 Pull out the credit card, go and... No, I'm joking. [laughs] Always. I've done that before. "Hey, you told me not to get you anything for Christmas." "I know. I know." Yeah. [laughs] "I know. I'm glad you didn't." 21:02 You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Then you're sleeping on the couch for, for three months. No, I'm joking. [laughs] But, uh, you know, it is tough. The, there's a lot of- Yeah... challenges now. Yeah. 21:11 And it does worry me, just- Mm... not just from the perspective you had, but even a- Mm-hmm... procreation standpoint, you know? Right. If you're looking at 21:20 children being born now, we're at lows that maybe have never been seen, you know? That's terrible, yeah. And if you look, even my wife and I, we have two kids. Mm-hmm. That's really a net zero contribution. 21:31 Like, her and I will die, and then we have two kids, so they replace us, but we're not growing- Right. You're kinda just-... the population at all. Right. 21:39 And I find a lot of people, especially entrepreneurs, um, I would say are choosing not to have kids because of- Right... all the financial reasons, a lot of it. You know, it's very hard. Yeah. Kids are very expensive. 21:53 It, it's very hard- Very... to, to, to grow a family. Yeah. You know? And I'm saying this from a different standpoint in life, so I- Right... it, it's different, but- Right... 22:04 you know, I have done this before, and I would say, you know, money is not everything. It, it, it truly isn't. You have to have a certain amount, right? Right. To, to be able to live comfortable. 22:15 You wanna be able to live comfortable. Right. You wanna be able to give your wife or your spouse or your significant other, whatever- Right... a life that they want, right? 22:25 You, you wanna be able to give your children things that they want. Mm-hmm. 22:30 But the most important thing at the end of the day when you're 80 years old sitting on your rocking chair is gonna be time you spent together, right? Yeah. And, and I, and I'm hard on this. I, I work a lot. 22:41 I work a lot, and I need to get better at, at, at risk management, right? But the- Mm... the number one thing for me is, you know, just trying to manage the f- the finances. 22:51 If that's one of the things you, you feel are holding you back, you know- Mm-hmm... is try to manage that. Don't live an, a elaborate lifestyle. I, I- Mm-hmm... personally haven't really upgraded anything. 23:03 I mean, we- Mm... we both have nice cars. I, I do have a couple watches and, and a little bit of jewelry, but I didn't go out and buy a very expensive house. Mm-hmm. You know, I have a Tesla. 23:12 I think I paid 38,000 for it. I don't have a, you know, like a sports car. Like, I've seen all these influencers going out buying all these crazy cars and stuff, and I'm thinking- Yeah... "Golly, man, you're gonna... 23:24 I'll buy it from you in the bear market. I'll buy it from you [laughs] when you s- you need some money." Yeah. Smart. [laughs] "For a lot less than you paid for it." Of course. But- I got you... 23:33 I mean- Live beneath your means, basically, is what you're saying. Yeah. And then from the relational standpoint, um, that, that's where I struggle the most, right? I'm, I'm- Mm-hmm... always working. Mm-hmm. 23:45 And so I'm not the best advisor on, on that. I can, I can- Right... speak very good on the finance side of things. [laughs] I need to... My wife's been telling me I need to read a book about love languages. Oh, yeah. 23:57 And- There's five of them... I've never, I've never read it. Yeah, yeah, she said five of them. Mm. Uh-huh. She said I'm, what am I? Great. 24:03 I'm, I'm somebody that needs to be told, she said, that, like I'm doing a good job or something. Um- Affirmations. Affirmation Yeah, affirmations. You like to be affirmed. That's one of your love languages. Yeah, yeah. 24:11 I can tell. Yep. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. And that's what she said. And, and hers is more attention. Like, she just wants me to sit on the couch and- Okay... watch a movie with her. Quality time. Quality time. That's hers. 24:21 Just something like that. Okay. Okay. And so it's definitely something I have to improve on from that standpoint. Mm. You know, I spend a lot of time building the business and, and, and building everything up. 24:33 And the most important thing to me now is not trying to get a huge house, not trying to, you know, buy all these nice watches or anything. It's just to ensure that I never have to clock in again. 24:48 You know, and it's not because I'm lazy. If I have to, I mean, before my family ever gets into any kind of distress, I will happily go work any job, go back be a chemical engineer, go work at McDonald's. 24:58 I'm not above anything. But it's the fact that, you know, I get to... This morning I got to wake up and help get my kids dressed. This afternoon I get to go coach my son. Yeah. 25:09 On Fridays I go meet with him and eat lunch with him. Mm-hmm. You know, it's, it's that kind of thing. My son with autism yesterday had a MRI. No problem, I'll be there. You know- Yeah... I was, I was able to go to that. 25:21 We drove to the local city. You know, it was like an hour and a half drive. I was able to be there, support my wife, things like that. 25:28 So, uh, more after the freedom aspect of it versus the monetary, you know, advantages potentially. But I, I know it's hard trying to, to build a relationship, especially as an adult, you know? 25:46 Uh, that's something I've never had to do. Like I said, I was 17 when I met my wife. Yeah. When we got married we first moved in with my parents, then we, then we got us a apartment. Yeah. 25:57 And so we started at zero, right? I didn't have any... Like, our responsibilities pretty much started at zero and then they scaled up to where we are today. 26:08 Versus in your perspective as a grown man, your responsibilities have already done this, right? Mm-hmm. And so you're meeting someone else that's already on that up- upwards trajectory- Mm... 26:20 of a relations- or of a responsibility and trying to build up a relationship. And so I could totally understand all the challenges associated with that. Yeah. I would just say 26:34 if she's the right one, if you think she's the right one, then that's the most important thing. And it sounds cliche, but just, just do whatever it takes to make it work. Yeah. 26:43 Because that's the number one thing that causes, um, unhappiness, I think, is not having a long-term partner. Mm. And then once you find what you think is a long-term partner, the number one cause of divorce is finances. 27:01 So it's a, it's a double-edged sword. Yeah. But, um- Dealt with that. [laughs] I mean, you're at a good point if you're able to build it all together, right? Right. Yeah. What, uh, what type of content does, 27:12 do they make? Um, she, she's just UGC content. She wants to be that type of content creator. She's working on her TikTok right now. She also is into crypto. She does like... 27:22 She's an NFT artist, does architectural photography and then creates these elaborate, you know, designs in InDesign and, and creates these beautiful works of art, which are NFTs, that she was trying to sell. 27:33 But she had to just take a step away. She's dealt with some mental health challenges, but now she's- Mm... basically on her own trying to get work and become more stable in what she's doing. 27:43 But, like, we literally talk every day, you know? And I haven't really had this type of relationship since my ex back in 2020. 27:50 So it's like, I feel like if you talk to the same person every day since, like, August of last year and it's already April, that's been nine months now, and I don't really talk to any other woman like this woman. 28:01 I feel like we should be going places, right? [laughs] Mm-hmm. I mean, that's the kind of keep going forward, even though we're having very personal struc- struggles financially, emotionally, mentally, right? 28:14 Um, me physically sometimes. I'm doing, like, marathon training right now, and I'm doing like so many things, but at the same time she's always on my mind, you know? And I'm like, "Is she okay?" 28:24 Like, we're doing long distance, but it's just that's what we have to do to kind of make this work. But she's okay with it, I'm okay with it because I'm focused on building, right? And she's focused on building as well. 28:35 And I'm just, like, trying to support as best I can. So I, I really appreciate you taking time to just share that with me, a little bit of insight about how your relationship work. 28:43 Because especially even for couples now, even dating now in today's day and age, it is horrible. It's like, it's hard to trust anyone. 28:51 Like, the integrity is just out the window with so many of these relationships now, especially these influencers who talk about dating, but all they want is the clout and the status, and it's just like, oh my gosh. 29:02 There's the documentary, I, I don't wanna rant, but [laughs] there's this documentary I just watched about the manosphere on Netflix. Did you see that? I haven't seen it. Um- I- I... Oh my God, please don't. 29:10 It's horrible. It's, it's ridiculous. This freaking British UK interv- um, journalist just interviews all these, like, men of status, these influencers. Oh. And it- I've seen a clip... it is- Of Myron Gaines. Okay. 29:23 It's My- Yeah. Yeah, that's just one of the influencers. But it's just... And I'm like, "Is this for real or are they actually acting in the documentary?" Like, it, it's like, is this... 29:33 Like, I, I don't, I, I don't know. I don't know how- Yeah... bad it got, but I'm just like, this is sad if society has come to this because- I would say go for it. Thank you. Okay? Thank you. 29:42 I mean, look- I appreciate that... look, y'all are long distance. [laughs] Yeah. You're both content creators. We are. So the only thing I could think of keeping either of y'all in the place you're at is- Yeah... 29:52 other family. Um- I appreciate that... take the next step, move in together and make it, try to make it work. The worst thing that could happen in anything is you fail. Yeah. That's the worst thing, right? 30:07 Well, guess what? You're never gonna succeed if you don't try. That- Mm... that's in absolutely anything. If you're trying to make content, sure you might fail. Maybe you, you spend a lot of time making a video. 30:16 You, you spend a lot of time trying to make this relationship work and it failed. Right. Okay. Right. 30:21 But if you don't try, if you never press record, if you never say, "Hey, let's take this next step," then you're failing anyways, even if you don't look at it as a fail. 30:30 Some people are so scared of, of failing in life when anyone that's been successful with anything, whether it's relationships, whether it's business, nobody, no-by, very, very few people- Mm... 30:42 hit it on their first time, hit a home run the first time they swing. It doesn't happen. Yeah. Most people... Look at, look at the Major League Baseball. If you can hit the baseball three out of 10 times- Mm... 30:53 you're loaded rich You're loaded rich. [laughs] And that's a 70% fail rate. Right. 300 batting average. Hitting the baseball three out of every 10 times you get up would make you a top-tier Major League Baseball player. 31:07 Yeah. So go for it. What do you have to lose? There- I don't... there's, there's nothing I don't, no. Make, make the jump, brother. Take the jump. Take the leap. All right, I love that. 31:15 I always come back to consistency is key with everything, right? With relationships, with building a business, with your finances. Like, this can be applied in so many instances. So I would love to... 31:27 love to go back to your bu- business building. You're essentially building finance freedom, and, uh, I know with content, especially content creation, you have to be consistent with your posting, your scheduling. 31:40 Uh, this is your format, right? This is where you show up for yourself every single day. You do what you do best. 31:47 Give us maybe some tips or helpful advice of maybe future content creators that want to get into what you're doing, not specifically crypto, but just content creation in general. 31:56 Some great, useful advices to creating systems that will keep you on task, that will keep you in a, uh, a positive mindset even when you don't wanna do it, right? 32:07 Because some days you just, you don't wanna create another post. You don't feel excited like you do today, right? You didn't get enough sleep, or y- you ate something bad. 32:15 I, you know, so I, I think, uh, I, I would love to hear maybe some, some advice about that. Yeah. So consistency is definitely key, right? Mm-hmm. 32:25 And, and one thing that's helped me with the creation of content part, and sorry if you can hear my dog. That's my, uh- It's okay... my son's, my son's service dog outside. Okay. All right. 32:35 But, um, you know, consistency is key. Mm-hmm. And sometimes I don't always feel like recording, you know? Right. I don't. But sometimes you do, right? 32:44 And when you do, I used to be in a thing where every day was a repeat of the same schedule. Mm. 32:49 Whereas now I've got one or two days a week where, hey, I'm gonna sit down for six hours, and I'm gonna record long-form videos like my 10-minute individual crypto reviews, things like that, right? Uh-huh. 33:02 And so then I have those already put to the side, right? And so if I don't feel like recording for a day, I can, I can drop that content off, things like that. 33:12 Also focusing on, on different, um, forms of content and maximizing the content, right? Yeah. Um, like I recently started doing live streams. Mm-hmm. 33:23 I started that in February, and then there's a whole bunch of clips that, that come out from it, right? Mm-hmm. 33:30 So if you look over the last two months, I just pulled the statistics, the live streams probably had something like, I don't know. I didn't even pull the data, but if I had to guess, probably like 30,000 views, okay? 33:42 Sure. Uh, but if you look at my clips, they're over four million views, right? Wow. And so just, it's one thing in the efficiency is maximizing the content that you've already spent the time making. Mm-hmm. You know? 33:57 You, you already spent the time making all this content. Clip it up. And there's a lot of useful tools. I have a full-time assistant that, uh, works with me from 8:00 AM to about 4:00 PM my time. Mm-hmm. 34:09 He, he's in Spain. Great guy. He also does all my clipping- Okay... manages the stream, all that. But obviously you don't get there overnight. Mm. But there's also a lot of very good tools. 34:19 You know, i- if you record a video, one tool, Opus Clips, not a ad, not paid by them at all, but it's very good. Not the... 34:27 Sometimes the, the format can be a little quirky, like if you've got different windows open, it doesn't align the clips perfectly. 34:35 But, you know, it's very good for getting, um, like horizontal clips f- uh, for instance, out of a vertical video. 34:44 So I'll take my long-form YouTube video, 10 minutes long, throw it in Opus Clips, and maybe my long-form video got 3,000 or 5,000 views. Mm-hmm. 34:53 And then I get three or four clips out of it that also get 3,000 to 5,000 views. 34:58 And then on YouTube, for the connected video, when you go to a Short, you can connect a long-form video to it, and so then the long-form video is connected there on it as well. 35:09 And so that's from the content, uh, creation point of view, what I would, what I would say. And then also just, just being authentic, being your true self, trying to find your own angle at things, you know. 35:23 I see so many people that, uh, don't wanna give an honest opinion. Nobody likes a bear. For instance, you can go on my X and find when BTC was like 110,000, everybody was calling for 180. 35:36 I was calling for a lower high and said this, and gave data on why- Yeah... I thought we were going lower. Yeah. And obviously under the comments, everyone's like, "Oh, man. 35:45 You idiot," da, da, da, da, da, all this stuff, right? Nobody likes a bear. Everybody likes a bull. Of course. But the truth of the matter is, as an investor- Mm-hmm... 35:53 if you know what you're doing, you can make money both sides. Like we were talking about right before this, I was short S&P 500. Yeah. Did great after Trump's stream, right? That's great. Or after Trump's live. So, um, 36:06 that's a little investor point, but just be authentic as a content creator. And I think that goes a long ways, not just with your viewership, but also for potential partnerships along the way. 36:19 Mm, absolutely love that take. Thank you so much for sharing, uh, Mike. Uh, I was actually, O- Opus Clips, I was just on Opus Clips doing a video, so I was kind of referring, "Is that Opus, the same Opus?" I'm like, yep. 36:30 That's a great platform. It really is for videos- Yeah... content generation. So I'm like, yeah, definitely shout out. Definitely check that out, fam. 36:38 Uh, and then yeah, just your whole systemizing your content, and then like basically you're batch processing it, right? So you're taking, you know, your six hours, you're cutting it down. 36:47 And I have noticed short-form content does perform better than long-form content generally. Yeah. Everybody's TikTok brain, man, you know? Right. I see. People, not a lot of people want to- Yeah... 36:58 sit there and watch a, a, a full video, you know? Yeah. And a lot of people want just short. And, and there's also a difference in the content. Mm. 37:07 So if somebody's looking at a long-form video, I feel like they're wanting to- Not just learn about a, learn of a topic, they want to learn the topic, right? 37:19 For instance, you know, if I make a short-form video and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is the most awesome cup in the world, you know, it, it, it doesn't... Condensate doesn't build up- Mm-hmm... 37:29 and it keeps my coffee warm for, you know, three hours," boom, that's it, right? Mm-hmm. But if you're looking at a long-form video, you, you may be more interested in where the cup's made, how the cup's made. 37:41 Is it- Mm... made out of plastic? Is it BPA free? What are the... What's the company like? Where is the company from? Mm. What kind of, you know, deals are there? What kind of promo?... 37:52 You know, just more in depth, more educational vers- versus the short-form content is more like, "Hey, this cup exists. The cup's gray." You know, kind of more short and to the point a little bit more. 38:06 And so there's- Yeah... there's definitely different audiences. Sure. I spend most of my time watching long-form content. I wanna look at technical analysis, I wanna learn, you know- Right... things like that. 38:16 But there's other people that just wanna scroll and, you know, laugh at, you know, random, random videos and stuff, so. No, I feel that too. And you, and you did mention livestreaming. So you've never... 38:27 You, you didn't use to livestream until earlier this year, you said in February. So why, why the change? I'm curious. Yeah. So I went full time around October-ish of last year, I'd say- Oh, okay. Last year... 38:41 when I, when I officially went full time. Yeah. Um, I'd been kinda half full time in, in, in that period. Yeah. But it was just kind of figuring out... 38:51 I took a little bit of time at the end of the year for holidays and things like that, and then I was trying to build up a team. Mm. 'Cause it's... 38:58 K- a lot of people don't understand, when it comes to promotion, when it comes to any of that, people look at it and think it's expensive. But to, to put on ha- high quality content, it takes a lot of work. Mm-hmm. 39:09 It's very time-consuming, and it's not cheap. You know, I put a lot of money into this business, whether you're talking about the studio or you're talking about monthly overhead expenses, you know? Mm-hmm. 39:21 And so I knew that I... The, the production that I wanted to do on the streams could not be done with just myself. Mm. And I'm still struggling to keep up with long-form videos in the way that I wanna do so. Mm. 39:34 I'm actually looking to add someone else to the team. But, um, I had to find somebody that I trusted as, um, kind of an assistant. Right. You know, somebody that actually has access to my X account as an admin- Okay... 39:49 uh, YouTube as an admin- Sure... somebo- somebody that I could trust. Like a PA. And I actually met this person- Yeah... at Onchain Summit in Base. Oh, cool. A Base event. So it really- Wow... worked out perfectly. 40:00 Was able to meet him in real life. He's amazing. Yeah. Um, accepts crypto. Not everybody accepts crypto. I can just pay- Woo... weekly in stablecoin. There you go. And it's great. I love that. 40:11 And then also there's a, there's a financial aspect of it as well. Yeah. I have stream sponsors. Um- Nice... uh, I have one long-term s- stream sponsor, they're an exchange called BloFin, who I personally use them. 40:24 And so- Awesome. I love BloFin... um, I have- I use them regularly. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, so- They're great... so they're a stream sponsor. And, um, obviously we all have bills at the end of the day, right? 40:35 Yeah. I have bills and all that stuff. Yeah. So that's the stream sponsorship opportunity. But I also wanted to explore an avenue of maximizing content, like I was saying. Mm. You know? 40:47 If I record these long-form videos, they're typically topic derived. So maybe I'm talking about Kaspa, maybe I'm talking about Bitcoin, maybe I'm talk- whatever it is, right? 40:58 But it's specifically on, on some topic, right? Mm. Versus the livestream is more kinda like this, like, you know, letting the community get to know me, um, and then also talking about a plethora of content or topics. 41:14 Mm. Mm-hmm. And then being able to make a lot of content from that livestream, right? So working on all these clips and all of that exposure. Yeah. Right. 41:23 And so that was really the driver behind doing the livestreams, and I've really enjoyed it. 41:28 Freeman Live, we do it every day, uh, Monday through Friday, 10:00 Eastern Time, so I think that's 12:00 PM Central Standard Time, um, coming up in about two hours from the time that we're recording this. 41:40 But, uh, yeah, I found it really cool, and it's a good way to bring guests on, a good way to get exposure to new communities. Because as much research as I do- Mm-hmm... 41:51 there's stuff I've never heard of, or stuff I've heard of but haven't had the time to do the research on, and that's what I really like about it. 41:58 It's a opportunity for people to come in and be live, and I, and I see all the comments versus comments on the YouTube videos and stuff, I typically don't see all of them. I, I- Right... do try to check 'em. Mm. 42:11 But I typically don't see all of them, or they're, like, bot comments. You know- Right... "Buy XA7." Like, they always pick the worst crypto names for these, like- Right... scams or whatever it is. I don't understand it. 42:23 But- I don't either... yeah, just working on maximizing- Yeah... the content and, and r- really getting out there. But the reason I waited- Mm... w- because I always try to do everything to the best of my ability. Mm. 42:36 And, you know, I wanted to get very professional overlays made, I wanted to get professional intro made. You know, I have a 10-minute count now with an American flag behind me, me on the front of it, right? 42:50 I, I went through a rebranding that a good friend of mine, Crypto Empress, did for me. Aw. That's nice. So if you look at my X, all my branding's aligned now. That's good. [laughs] Where before it wasn't. 43:00 She helped me out with all of that. Aw. And, um- She's great. Oh yeah, she's wonderful, man. She is. She's a wonderful- Yeah. That's, that's one thing. You gotta find good, good mentors. This is anything in life, right? 43:11 Mm-hmm. Yeah. But find somebody that you can trust, uh, somebody that's willing to help you but- And just never jeopardize that for anything, right? Like, like- Yeah... there's nobody I trust more in this space than her. 43:25 Mm. And there's nobody that I would have their back more in this space than her, right? You know- That's awesome... 43:30 I'll always look out for her, whether it's partnerships, whether it's, you know, "Hey, let's try to get this, you know, start having her do more video content and getting her into that," or if it's from the other side. 43:42 I'd never hosted a space before. I was like- Mm... 400 followers on X when she found me. Yeah. And she was, like, 90,000 at the time, right? Right. 43:51 And she started helping me, showed me how to do spaces, showed me things- Yeah... like that. And so finding a good mentor, and now we're obviously very good friends, but- Yeah... 44:02 just finding a good circle of people that you can trust, right? And then not forgetting where you came from, because one day when I'm her size, I'll be wanting to help somebody that's smaller than me- Yeah... right? 44:14 And even now, I try to help other people and collaborate with people and things like that, so. No, it's great. Um, yeah, I've always seen her as a mentor as well, as, as well as Rachel on Onchain Media. 44:26 Both of those women are just huge in, in what they do best, right? In helping people learn and educate them about crypto and blockchain technology, so yeah, absolutely love that. Um- Yeah, Rachel's a hustler. 44:37 Top, m- big respect to Onchain Media. She is. Um- I'm part of her creator's program, so she's got me on a deadline for this new video, it says to get in by tomorrow. 44:46 So we're, we're doing, like, this whole comp- it's not a competition. 44:49 I guess it's a program for creators to create content to help, uh, other brands essentially in Web3, you know, with their content, because there's a lot of, um, projects. I, I hate to call them projects. 45:01 Like businesses, Web3 businesses that actually don't... 45:04 Like, i- it's, they, they, they struggle creating good content, so she's bringing this program and having a, a wave of creators like myself to kind of help them mostly with videos, right? 45:13 Because we know, all know it's all, all about the videos, right? Mm-hmm. And about the livestreams. I was gonna comment something about livestreaming because that has definitely taken a seat, especially for 2026. 45:25 More people want livestreams more than anything. Like- Yeah... um, you know, past just content creation isn't enough. They want you to be livestreamers too, right? 45:34 So it's like you have to put yourself on camera, you know? And I've been doing that with TikTok daily lives. I'm starting to get back into them. 45:41 I was doing them a lot, and I'd like to get maybe a little more into, uh, your live experiences besides YouTube, besides X. 45:48 Have you thought about exploring other social media platforms like TikTok or like Instagram for your content? Yeah. I, I have, and even Facebook. So- Oh, even Facebook, yeah... 45:59 actually, I've had a TikTok account for a while. It's not big or anything. I think it's at, like, 500 followers or something. I've only posted a few videos there. Yeah. Uh, I've got a Instagram. 46:09 I don't have anything that's branded yet, and I made a Facebook. It's not branded yet. Okay. And so that's one thing that people don't understand about content, right? Like- Mm... 46:21 not only does it take a lot of time to make it- Mm-hmm... it takes a lot of time to post it. Like, it, it- Yes... actually does take a lot of time to, to post all these different platforms and things like that. 46:32 And I just honed in so much. Originally it was YouTube. I was never even on crypto Twitter. Like- Mm... I don't even know how I found NFTs. I used to invest in NFTs. I wasn't on crypto Twitter back then. 46:42 I just, you know- [laughs]... found them on my own. I, I don't know how I did it, you know? I've just always- Yeah... been a student of the game, like I said. 46:49 And so then I got into X heavily, which really changed everything for me. Um- Mm-hmm... it's, it's the number one way I get in touch with projects, the number one way people find me and then go to my YouTube. Mm-hmm. 47:03 It's been huge for me, but now I'm looking at that next level of- Right... branching across, you know, multiple platforms because my goal is to be 47:13 the, one of the largest, most trusted voices in crypto, and not just crypto- Sure... but finance in general. Right. And so that next step is branching over to those other, those other, you know, platforms. 47:27 But it took, you know, originally... 'Cause I have a wife and two children, right? And so we're both working full time. 47:35 So then I had to make enough money where she could go part-time so that she could pick up the slack with the kids that I wasn't able to do. Yeah. Then make enough where she could quit completely. 47:46 Then make enough where we had a good nest egg of investments and could ride out a bear market and all that. Sure. And then make enough where I could replace my income, right? And so- [laughs]... it was a journey- Yeah... 47:58 getting there. It was a big, big journey getting there. Step by step. Mm. And, uh, yeah. Yeah, it was a lot of steps. So, so now- Mm-hmm... I kind of look at this as the beginning of my journey, like the last few months. 48:09 Mm. A new beginning, so okay. Right. [laughs] A new beginning. This is where I can really start that mass expansion phase. Yeah. And it's, and it's really hard right now for a lot of people because 48:21 w- we are in a bear market. Yeah. You know, stocks are starting to roll over, crypto rolled over, you know- Yeah... last November, October, October 10th- Yeah... whenever we had that liquidation event. 48:32 And so there's gonna be a lot of people that don't make it out on the other side, right? Yeah. Um, a lot of companies, a lot of projects, a lot of influencers, you know, that were 48:42 making, you know, maybe 20, 30, 40 more a month- Yeah... and now they're making zero, and they've got a car that they pay 1,700 a month for, and they moved out to Dubai, and they... 48:55 You know, it's like, man, just keep the lifestyle simple, you know? Right. Right. You don't, you don't need all- Yeah... you, you don't need all that, you know? Yeah. And so, um, 49:06 yeah, the, the bear market's tough for people, but, but I'm looking at this as a time to cement my footprint in- Mm... crypto, you know? As a trusted voice, as somebody that's consistent. 49:20 Because if you can lay down that foundation in the bear market- You're, you're gonna be able to do amazing, amazing things in the bull market. You know, I, 49:30 I didn't start really being able to monetize till probably 70, 50, 70% through the bull run last cycle, you know? Mm. And so, so I know if I can just make it out through that other side, that it's gonna be great, right? 49:46 But again, I think it's very important to diversify, right? Mm-hmm. I've got, I've got multiple revenue streams. Um- That's good... I'm an investor myself. I love the long... I, I like to find tops and bottoms. 50:00 That's what I say all the time. I like to find tops and bottoms. Mm-hmm. I like to short the tops, I like to long the bottoms. Nice. And so, you know, just being able to really diversify- That's good... 50:10 I think, I think is a key. But, um, yeah, as a content creator, building that foundation when, you know, people are starting to post less, maybe somebody has to go, you know, get a 9:00 to 5:00, all of that. Mm-hmm. 50:23 Being able to have the availability to lay down that foundation and grow within the bear market I think will just be exponential whenever we get on the other side. At least that's my hope. So I hope- [laughs]... 50:36 your community joins the Finance Freeman family- There you go... and joins me on the journey. 50:42 No, man, we should all be joining each other's communities and all supporting one another and being that positive influence, right? So- For sure... I, I don't like the futters I see on the timeline. 50:52 Sometimes I'm just like, "Okay, unfollow. You're not positive," right? And I'm just, like, because, you know, you associate with the people that you surround yourself with, right? 51:00 And I, I want to associate my people, like, with you, uh, Finance Freeman. Just people that are positive, uplifting, encouraging. So, um, I'd love to hear a little more about your content. 51:10 Specifically, you, you know, you, you say you're Finance Freeman on YouTube, people can find your channel, subscribe to you. So you're just not crypto, right? 51:18 You're traditional finance as well, or what is most of your content kind of surround when you say Finance Freeman, right? What are you educating- Yeah... people? 51:25 'Cause when I think of, like, fin- Okay, so, like, Dave Ramsey, right? You're helping people get out, you know [laughs] and, and, and embracing the, the, their freedom when it comes to their finances. I don't know. 51:34 That's what I think when I think of it, but. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. It's a good question. So when my journey started, I was called Freeman Finance and Crypto. Okay. Okay? So, so that's what my channel was originally named. 51:47 Oh, okay. And then I decided to drop the And Crypto because I just wanna talk about all things money, all things, you know. Word. There's not... I believe crypto is the next big wave of... 52:01 I think it's the biggest thing we've had since the internet. I think all of finance is going to crypto, but I think we need to bridge the gap between TradFi and crypto. Mm-hmm. 52:15 I think that they are seemingly becoming more of the same. We're, we're starting to see tokenized stocks, which is a form of crypto, right? Mm-hmm. 52:24 So not only investing in these individual projects, but also being able to buy tokenized stocks that a lot of times the, the end buyer will, will never even know. 52:34 But I wanted to talk about all things, because I invest in stocks. Okay. I look at the bond market, I look at oil, I look at crypto. Because what we gotta understand is everything's connected, right? Mm-hmm. 52:47 People are, people are asking, "Oh, well, why is this going down? Why is Bitcoin going down?" 52:52 When really the only chart anybody needs to be looking at right now is the oil chart, because everything is interconnected, right? Yeah. If oil goes up, everything else is going down right now, okay? Right. 53:04 Besides maybe oil stocks, okay? [laughs] And so we, we've- Makes sense... gotta realize that we don't... Finance, the world of finance is not separated, okay? 53:16 There's not a bubble over here of people that only invest in crypto. Mm. There's not a bubble over here where people only invest in stocks. The bond market's not its own market. 53:25 Just like I said earlier, the family adds up to 100%. Mm-hmm. So does the world of finance, right? Mm. Uh, there's always a bull market somewhere, and not everything is down, down, down. 53:38 Nvidia stock's been going down the last three months. Chevron stock's up 30%. Oil's up 10% since last night, okay? Makes sense. Money does not, money does not sit and go to a bank to get eaten away by inflation. Mm. 53:54 Money moves from- Mm-hmm... one medium- Right... to another medium, right? Right. Right. And so, so I think it's very important for people to be diversified. Kinda like I was talking about multiple revenue streams. 54:07 Right. Multiple investment streams, right? Don't just be somebody that's all into cryptocurrency long and you, you have to wait on the price to go up, right? Mm-hmm. Learn how to short the market as well. Mm-hmm. 54:22 Don't be delusional bullish, you know? And you have to look at the macro market. We have to know what's going on with the price of oil, okay? Mm-hmm. Well, what does high oil do to the economy? 54:35 Okay, well, it causes inflation. Well, if it causes inflation, what does that do to fiscal policy? Will the Fed cut interest rates? Uh, well, no, they won't. Okay, so now we're talking about tight liquidity. Mm-hmm. 54:48 And then you're looking at crypto, which is a risk on asset, which does good in times of excess liquidity. Mm-hmm. Not tight liquidity, right? 54:59 And so, um, I've been pigeonholed before where I was all in crypto and, and- Mm-hmm... that's all I thought about, all I looked about. Mm-hmm. 55:07 But I just wanna educate people on how the world really works and how, yes, crypto's a great way to, um, invest. It's a industry that's growing in, in life-changing technology, but that it's, it's all interconnected. 55:24 And so I dropped the And Crypto, and so I was Freeman Finance. And my lawyer said, "Hey, uh, do you have a terms and conditions on a website?" You need a terms and conditions, right? Mm-hmm. 55:35 You're not a financial advisor, all these disclaimers. Mm-hmm. And I said, "No, no, I don't," I said, "but I'll get one." 55:40 So I hired a guy to make me a website and he said- Mm-hmm Freeman Finance is for sale for seven grand. 55:46 Somebody had bought the freemanfinance.com and they were trying to sell it for, like, seven-five or seven grand, something like that. Ah, got it. So I was like, "You know what? I'm Finance Freeman. 55:57 I'm not gonna be Freeman Finance." Right. So I just- Just swapped the- Yeah. Yeah... brand there. Yeah. Alliteration, too, by the way. Asher. Asher. Yeah. [laughs] So, uh, yeah, I think it cost me 25 bucks. Nice. 56:07 I just renewed it last week, so. There you go. There you go. I love it. No, I- it's alliteration, and then also, you know, I- I think it's great that you don't pigeonhole yourself, right? 56:16 I feel like a lot of crypto people do, right? Right. Yeah. And it's like you've gotta learn how to diversify, essentially, like DCA. We talk about that in spaces all the time. 56:25 And so having that mindset and sharing that with the world, too, and I love that you're looking elsewhere. I know we were talking about gold and silver a lot last month, right? Now it's all about oil, you know? 56:35 So it's like- Yeah... where is the money flowing now, right? So. I mean, that's the perfect example, you know? Mm-hmm. I made a tweet that said, "Gold will top when the dollar bottoms." Mm. 56:45 And if you look at the DXY, that's the US dollar index compared to foreign currencies, it used to be valued at 117, and it went down to 90. And if you look at that, why was gold going up? 57:00 Gold was going up because the dollar was going down, and gold is a store of value, so the weaker the dollar gets, the more dollars you need to buy the said gold. Right. And so then when the dollar bottomed, 57:14 gold st- and the dollar started going up in value, well, now you need less dollars to buy the same gold theoretically, so gold had went down. Mm-hmm. 57:22 And so just learning how the real world of finance, how Wall Street looks at things connects, 'cause we're just little ants, honestly, man. We're just trying to play the game that big institutions are moving. 57:35 Right, right. And to know how they're moving it is, is what we need to know. Yeah. So therefore, I talk about everything. I love that. 57:43 You gotta get ahead of the game, that's for sure, and you have to be that top of mind. And, and we live in this attention economy, too. Yeah. 57:49 So creating great content that pulls people, getting that hook, right, and getting them to listen is definitely more than half the battle. Um, and then w- I know we're wrapping up here. 58:00 I just have a f- uh, one or two more questions if you wouldn't mind, Finance Freeman. Yeah. So I appreciate you taking the time, too. Yeah. 58:06 But, uh, tell me a little bit about the future of Finance Freeman, of this brand that you've been building for how many years now? Five years, six years? Um, no, not that long, no. Or, or just a few years. Probably, uh, 58:18 two and a half years. Two and... Oh, okay, okay. Two and a half years. Got you. Got you. So that's not ba- yeah. Yeah. Almost three years now, but, like, yeah- Yeah... 58:24 um, sh- give me a more of a, yeah, picture of the future of where you see Finance Freeman, yeah. Where, where, where's your roadmap? Where are you going? 58:31 [laughs] Yeah, so from a content perspective, you know, I wanna be six figures on YouTube and X, right? Right. And, and I wanna expand to the other platforms just because you never know. You never know. 58:44 I would've never expected X to become bigger than my YouTube when I started it, right? It would've, I would've never thought about that, um- Mm... at least from a subscriber point of view. Yeah. And so I wanna grow that. 58:56 I wanna grow the audience. I wanna maximize the content, but I wanna maximize high quality content, okay? Mm. 59:03 So not only that, but the, the next iteration I believe is that in order to get this word out, I'm only so big, right? I can only do so much. I'm only one, one person, right? Yeah. And so, so I've had to onboard help. 59:16 Like I said, I hired a full-time assistant- Mm-hmm... that works with me. 59:20 But nat- the next iteration is going to be adding more business behind it, where I can offer not only services, apps, maybe trading applications, tools that people can use from, from a business side of thing- Cool... 59:38 but also opening up, bringing other content creators underneath me, and really making the investment inside of them. Nice. And hey, hey, you never know. Uh- No. I would love to talk about- I love it. Yeah, I love that... 59:52 and, and- No, that's a cool idea. I love it... really, really building an umbrella. Like, if you look at- Yeah... Crypto Banter- Yeah... 59:57 he has, you know, people that come on and do livestreams, and then, then he has folks that are under him, and, and- Yeah... and, and it's kind of a large umbrella. Yeah. 1:00:07 Um, got a little, a little ways before I ramp that up. Sure. Uh, probably whenever it comes to the, the bull market pro- probably ramp that up a little more. Mm-hmm. 1:00:15 But I'm doing a lot of things behind the scenes, not just financially, but also, um, structurally to, to be ready for that, whether it's opening up new LLCs or, or- Mm... 1:00:27 getting all the foundation laid for, for that part of thing. But I would say at the end of the day, my number one goal is to be genuine and help as many people as possible. Mm. 1:00:38 And the only way I can do that is if I branch out and, and grow the exposure, and so I wanna be able to provide tools for people, that these will be coming out this year, 2026, tools for people, um, that help people compare all of these things I was talking about, okay? 1:00:58 Like taking the dollar into consideration, gold, price of oil, all these things that nobody talks about. Mm-hmm. Kinda, like, think of it as a macroeconomic tool per se is what I'm working on. 1:01:12 And, uh, then also building my, my platform out. Maybe we have another name change one day. Maybe it's Freeman Media. Maybe it's, you know- Ooh... um, something. But, um- Okay... 1:01:23 but yeah, yeah, working on that because, uh, I want something that when I'm, God forbid something happens to me- Mm... or when I'm done making content, that this is able to, to grow on and, and be something, right? 1:01:38 I have very big, big goals for this. Yeah. And, uh, but it's all based off, number one, educating people because I think there's a lot of people out there that make moon boy type content- Mm-hmm... 1:01:51 that don't really care about their community. They take every deal that comes their way. Right. All they care about is how much they're getting paid. 1:01:58 They'll buy a coin, shill it to their community, dump it on their head- It's just a bad, um, just bad. There's, there's just- Yeah... a lot of- It's a lot of luck. Yeah, it's a lot of luck... 1:02:09 a lot of bad, bad people out there that I don't really have a lot of respect for. But- Yeah... on the other side of things, there's a lot of people I do have a lot of respect for. Yeah. 1:02:16 And it's just finding, finding those individuals. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, I've heard we're gonna have a bullish summer this summer, so, uh, it's gonna be a hot one. 1:02:25 Uh, but, uh, besides that, uh, where can people find you? If they wanna subscribe to you, your community, how do they get activated in joining you? Um, yeah, where, where, where do we go? Yeah. 1:02:38 So the best things to do is @financefreeman on YouTube and X. Um, if you follow there, I'll keep y'all updated when the TikTok and everything else is, is full up, ready to ramp up. 1:02:51 So we have livestreams Monday through Friday, 12:00 PM Central Standard Time. Four or five clips per day come out on X as well, so if you're not able to make the full livestream, you can, you can find it there. 1:03:03 I then have a Discord community that, uh, currently is around 80-something people. It was up to 200, but then you, you have people fall off during the bear market. 1:03:14 But what I really like about it is that, uh, it's, it's... I think it's currently 49.99 a month, I think. But- Okay... 1:03:22 um, the, the 80 people that are in there right now are, like, diehard Finance Freeman community people. Mm. And I just absolutely love them. 1:03:31 Like, for, for Christmas, and I, like, I don't think anybody else did this, for Christmas I was like, "Hey, guys. Uh, merry Christmas. Just a small gift from me to y'all is, um, nobody pays this month," right? 1:03:45 So, like, I went in there and I, and I gave everybody a free month. And- Oh, cool... uh, but the point of it is, you know, they're sticking with me through the bear market and things like that. Mm. 1:03:55 And it's just a really tight-knit community that I'm really honest with. I give my honest takes and, and things like that. I don't really promote it too much. Okay. 1:04:04 But, um, the goal with that is to kinda keep it, like, a, a tight core community kinda thing. But yeah, that, that's what we're doing now. Um, the goal is, I need to get back to it, um- Mm-hmm... 1:04:16 still working on optimizing workflow and everything. Right. 1:04:19 But with every morning at 7:00 AM Central Standard Time, a longform video, so seven, 10 minutes, you know, about either a project or a market update, and then like I said, the livestreams at 12:00 PM Central Standard Time. 1:04:33 But we'll get the, we'll get the full videos. Um, if I'm guessing, by the end of this month we should have the schedule optimized, and maybe bring on another person part-time to help with the editing to be able to- Mm... 1:04:46 get all that content out. Definitely. Definitely, fam. Well, I love your vision. I love where you're going with your roadmap. I totally see you there, um, Freeman, uh, Finance. 1:04:56 I think you have some incredible, incredible dreams, and, and beliefs, and aspirations. I absolutely love it. So I, I really appreciate you taking the time to share with us a little bit about your story. 1:05:09 And, um, I, I, I hope that, you know, the people that do listen to this, they'll resonate and they'll apply some of your life lessons that you've shared with me today. So thank you. Thank you again, fam. Of course. 1:05:20 And, uh, yeah. Thanks for having me. Uh, awesome. Yeah. And you enjoy the rest of your Thursday, and, uh, we'll see you next time, fam. Thank you. [laughs] I sure will. All right, buddy. Thank you. See ya. Bye. [laughs]
