Westin Smith: Investing Secrets That Could Make You $18 Million From $100k | DSH #1626

So whatever you have in those accounts, imagine making 60% every single year. Well, the it'll be 60K the first year.

The next year, you're investing 160K, so it's gonna be like two hundred and and if you do the math, if you invest a hundred K after 10 years, you'll have about 18 million dollars.

Dude, off a hundred that that no, that doesn't factor in uh inflation or taxes.

Yeah, if you put it into investmentcalculator.com, 100K one time, no additional contributions every single year, just have it compound, That's 18 million.

Okay, guys, we got Weston Smith on today. I think he's the first guest from Iowa.
We'll have to fact-check it, but I think he's either the first or second. So thanks for the flight over, Matthew.

Yeah, no, thanks for the invite, man. So happy to be here.
I love your show. You got some really, really high-caliber people here.
I'm just happy to be in the same chair as them, man.

Yeah, I'll suited up, too. I love the brown.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, this is my first real podcast, so it gotta look good. Let's go, baby.

I'm uh getting married next month, and all my best men are wearing brown. Oh, yeah? It's a cool color, right? Yeah, I thought it was kind of different.

Yeah, I love it, dude. Well, you've been in Iowa for a while now, or yeah, man.
So, I was born in Nebraska, and then actually, kind of cool story. Different story.

My mom and dad never married, so my dad lived in North Carolina, and my mom lived in Nebraska, so every six months, I'd actually fly back and forth till about four, I think.

And then, yeah, both their families are are from iowa so they decided hey let's just live in iowa and yeah been there since again yeah four or five or so and i know you uh you were in the military was your dad par military no i was the first one um

well actually i wasn't the first one but i was in the army my dad was not uh i did have a grandpa that fought in the korean and vietnam war in the navy and then my great-grandpa he was a tanker in world war ii and he actually saw mussolini being hung in no way he has a picture of it yeah what yeah how did they take a photo back then?

Well, they got pictures and cameras. They had like war reporters and stuff back then for sure.

But yeah,

he saw literally Mussolini being hung. So, I mean, we could probably give that to a museum or something.
Dude, that is nuts. Right? Yeah, you should auction that off.

No, that'll stay in the family

for sure. But yeah, I was in the army for eight years.
So your grandfather pushed it, or you kind of made that decision on your own?

So, yeah, the tanker grandfather, he had passed before I was even born.

Yeah, it was just kind of something in me that i always wanted to do i can't really explain it yeah um you know i was happy where i grew up here wanted to do my service and uh i would have kept going but there's so many red so much red tape and bureaucracy politics yeah man i can't stand eight years so that's two terms right

so actually they keep elongating the term right so world war ii it was like two years yeah and then it was four years and it was six years and now it's when i was in it was eight years so you did six active and two inactive.

Oh, wow. So that's one term.
It's one term. Holy crap.
So you can, there's always a way out of it. You know, you medically discharge, get hurt, or whatever.

But yeah, I thankfully was safe through the whole thing. And

yeah, so six active, you do your service, do your time, do your thing. And then two inactive, where really they'll only call you if like World War III happens.
Got it.

And it looks like that might happen.

It might, but they can't call me anymore, man.

You saw that. I don't know if you keep up with it, but Heg Seth called like a big meeting a couple days ago yeah i mean

that's kind of concerning they've been saying that since like north korea first got their missile capability so

if it happens that would be very very bad and we got a lot more things to worry about if that happens but i think uh america would be okay yeah just because i mean we are the greatest superpower in the world so how hard was it reintegrating with normal society after those eight years

uh so i was in national guard Guard. So I did,

signed up when I was 17. And then, you know, I went to school.

I did still went to college, got my degree, living civilian, and then did the, you know, one week in a month, two weeks a summer type of thing.

That's what they tell you, but it's usually like a month out of summer. And then, yeah, like two to sometimes three weekends a month, depending on what we're doing, what we're training for.

So I wasn't. active.
I was just active,

meaning that I was still going to do those trainings. Got it.

Yeah, there's there's National Guard, there's Army Reserve, and then there's Active Duty Army, where you go, you go live on the bases, you know, you do that, wake up 4:30.

Yeah. Okay.
So it wasn't a big change for you. No, yeah.
It was like, yeah, it was not like very hard. And now I believe you can have companies on the side while you're serving, right?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, they'll pay for your school. They used to be 100%, but again, government making cuts.
It's like less and less each year now.

So I think I was the last year where they fully paid a state-covered, state-sponsored school. Got it.
Wow. So private school, they never will pay 100%, but they'll usually cover just tuition.

Room and board was on me.

So,

but yeah, that was. So they covered your school.
And when did you start your company, Fortis? Was that after or was it? Yeah, so Fortis, I started working on it.

About seven years ago, I didn't really have a direction. I got my life insurance after COVID.

2019 happened or 2020 happened, got my first big boy job. I graduated college in 19.
So I was like, all right, the world is my oyster. And then worked for six months, first guy to get cut.

So yeah, after COVID, you know, like, what do I do? So

found a guy selling life insurance on TikTok, messaged him. And then, yeah, that started it.
And then I slowly integrated, you know, venture capital, private equity, colored diamonds,

gold, silver. So all these other things.
Interesting. Yeah, the life insurance industry.
I've had on a lot of guests in that space. Yeah, it seems like it.
Yeah. So

it's really a hack if people don't know about it. So first off, I personally don't like a term, and I'm going to say why? Because only 7% actually pay out.
Wow.

So yeah, 93%, all that money just goes right to the company. So if you don't really have, you know, like a dangerous job, A, it'd be hard to cover you anyway, but you don't really need the term.

I would always get a whole life as soon as you can because you're locked in at that price with a good company. That's good to know.
Yeah. Other companies, they will continue to charge up.

But yeah, I'm a big proponent of whole life and how the tax code is written

for life insurance to be like an unknown hack, which nobody reads the tax code. CPAs usually don't even know about this either.
Dude, like, yeah, tax attorneys, they're like, no, you can't do that.

Oh, yeah, here's a tax code. Oh, yeah, okay, okay.
Yeah.

Yeah. I had an older accountant.
That's my first accountant. He didn't know shit about that stuff.
Yeah, dude. Accountants now, like

CPAs, accountants, they can, okay, yeah, they know the normal stuff.

Go, if you're a business owner, go buy a car that's 6,000 pounds, get that deduction, you know, use the two-week Augusta rule, whatever. But it's changing all the time.

There's literally writing like or adding to it like every week, it seems like. You got to be proactive these days if you're in that space.
Yeah. And if you're just having a CPA that, you know,

calls you once a year and like, hey, you ready to go? I got all your paperwork ready. And then, yeah, they're not going to do anything for you.

So, actually, another part that I also work with under Fortis, another company I sell for, is

an advisory firm, but they work with you all year long, whether personal or business. So they can help you set up a tax plan.
Again, personal or business. They can get you those deductions.

You got kids. You got business.
You got, you know, when a write-off part of your house,

if you need a plan or if you haven't forgot to file for the past couple of years and the IRS is coming at you, they'll take care of all of that. So that is a huge, huge,

man. I actually got fined for forgetting to file too.
So I know it happens. Yeah, I did too.
Yeah. No one teaches you this stuff.
Dude, yeah. I hate, I hate

the first time I had to pay taxes. I was like.
What? Baffled by the amount. Who's FICA? Who's FICA?

Like, yeah, it's ridiculous. But there's ways around it, and nobody talks about it.

So, yeah, I went online, started making like TikTok videos probably

four years ago, and yeah, I just started giving out all this information for free. So,

yeah,

my whole goal with Fortis is to make wealth common.

That's like my motto, because it should be in the land of the home of the free, land of the brave, and we're supposed to be the richest country in the world.

It sure doesn't feel like it when we walk down the streets, you know?

So, but it can be if we just have the right knowledge yeah so are you seeing a lot of wealth in iowa i've never been there you know what yeah outside of connecticut iowa's the number one hub for life insurance wow there's 27 firms headquartered in des boys iowa or something like that

yeah so and then of course the agriculture scene there's a lot of wealthy farmers out there as well iowa does have one billionaire um who is it

stein is his last name

yeah he he he developed a hybrid seed that's resistant to certain diseases and sold it to Monsanto, I believe, for billions of dollars.

Did they actually use it or that was just like a, let me buy that off? No, yeah.

Oh, shit, we got to buy this guy. Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure they still use it because you can drive down the cornfields and you'll see like Stein, Stein, Stein, Stein Seeds, Stein Seeds.
Yeah.

I've seen it now. Yeah.
There's a, I think there's eight or ten in Vegas. The founder of Panda Express is here.
Oh, nice. One of the Adelson's is here.

Yeah, there's some ballers out here. Yeah.
Where you live is important. Absolutely.

Actually, Pedros Coolian said your power is like the proximity. Power comes from proximity.
That's why everybody wants to go to Miami. Everybody wants to go to LA.
Everybody wants to come to Vegas.

There's a reason for that. Yeah, there's a lot of cool things to do, but there's also people that can help you and that you can help get to wherever you want to be.

So Fortis is the main focus for you right now? Yeah, for sure. Growing that.
How many people are part of that?

So it's all me. It's all me, except I do have a website guy and then some support for sure.

Nobody gets anywhere alone. Because you've done some significant revenue.
Yeah, thank you, man. Yeah, it's been great.

But it's, again, proximity is power, partnering up with the right people at the right time, the right place.

I would say it's all luck, but I don't know if I necessarily believe in luck. I think you could create your own luck.
Absolutely. Yeah, 100%.

Actually, just saw a quantum physics, a quantum physicist study saying that luck can actually be made.

Really? Yeah, they said it increases 15% if you expect it. Dude, I need to look into that.
So that's manifestation, kind of, right? Yeah, kind of. I mean, you could say that.

Yeah, but it's quantum physics, quantum science, you know. Wow.
And people use that word quantum a lot. Yeah, especially these days.
Yeah.

And like Ant-Man, quantum mania, like, I think it's kind of a buzzword, and a lot of people don't know what it means. All quantum means is just small, like microscopic atomic level.

That's what quantum physics is. That is it.
It's just a study of just those super small molecules and how they react. Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean,

I wouldn't be where I am without manifestation, without expecting it, because you don't just fall into, you know, one of the world's top podcasts like this, you know?

Yeah, I mean, I've, I found you, too. Yeah, yeah.
It wasn't the other way around. That's right.
Yeah. So, yeah, thank you for saying that.
Again, right time, right place, right energy, right people.

So everything will happen if you expect it to be. It won't might not always be on your timeline, but it'll happen if you keep going.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm big on energy, big on attraction.

Growing up, were you big on that sort of stuff, like the astral stuff?

No, man. So I grew up, again, small town Iowa.
It's a Catholic school.

Every Friday we had mass before class. Then I go back to Mass again every Sunday with my family.
No, yeah, this stuff was... witchcraft.

You know, anything that's not in that book, not in the Bible, automatically witchcraft, which I don't like. So I'm not an atheist.
I'm not agnostic. I definitely believe in God,

but I believe religion is so

muddled up, muddied. So

re-legare is where the word religion comes from. It's a Latin word.
So legare actually means to tie together, to bring together. Re means, again.

To bring people together,

I mean, you could say any cause is a religion then, if you go by that definition,

but yeah, the way the especially the Catholic Church works now, all these, I think you've had maybe a couple priests, or maybe it was Sean Ryan show as well.

I've had some pastors, yeah, they come on here, and then you know, all the corruption.

And then I think you had you had said to somebody that you try to get pastors on here to like debate things from the Bible, and they won't do it.

They won't do it, it's insane because religions become a business, exactly. And if they were to come and debate, they would lose business.
Yeah. And that's just not the way.

Again, we've bastardized it, and it's terrible. And if

they really believed in God, I mean, what are they doing? Yeah. If they really believe in God, they would do their business without making money.
Yeah.

They shouldn't be like Mother Teresa, just go around helping poor people, but they're all these private jets.

And again, the tax code does help them because every religious entity, all the money they bring in is completely now tax-free. Yeah.

Which is insane because a lot of these celebrities are investing or part of some church to have their money be tax-free. Wow, I didn't even think of that.
So I learned this actually.

The Hells Angels motorcycle gang, yeah, they're classified as a religious entity. I actually just found that out recently.
Yeah, that's nuts. That's yeah, they the biker gang is a religious entity.

So if they rob a place, they don't have to pay taxes on the gains. Yeah, that's insane.
So, yeah, the tax code is, you know, it's

like a $5 foot-long, man. Super thick.

But, yeah, if you know, at least part of it, you'll be so thankful you know that little bit. Yeah, there's so many loopholes.
Did you hear about the cemetery one?

Yeah, if you, like, bury somebody on your property, it's now a cemetery. You don't have to pay property taxes or something like that.
That would save you a lot of money.

I don't know if I'd want their energy lingering around. Yeah, that's another thing, you know, too.

There's a...

There's a limit that, you know,

you can have the $200 in property tax or whatever. Yeah, there's a a limit.
Like, people changing their whole lives to live in Puerto Rico. What do you think about that? I think it's

easy, like, just to physically pick up and move. But if you study trust law, I mean, the United States itself is a trust as well.
And every state is also a trust within the United States.

If you study trust law at all, yeah, you should look up how America, Great Britain, and the Vatican are all still tied together. Really?

Wow. In what way?

I'm not, I'm honestly not like 100% an expert in, but I've heard a lot of podcasts and read a lot of research that America is still indebted to UK. Wow.
Yeah, from the Revolutionary War. Holy crap.

That was so long ago. Yeah.
So 1776, man, is when we gained our independence. Ever since then.

I mean, it kind of even goes back to the 13 colonies, us sending, you know, tithes and offerings to King George. Yeah.

It still goes on today when they don't want you to think that. That is nuts.
I've never heard that. But I mean, when you look at our debt numbers, it's concerning, right?

And part of that is, you know, who are we in debt to? A lot of people ask that question. And a lot of this, you know, yeah, China, Russia.
We buy a lot of things from them.

A lot of it's UK, though, too. Interesting.
What do you think of the whole tariff debate? Where do you stand on that?

I'm not a political expertise at all. I don't really, I can see the math.
Yeah, you put certain prices on other companies that puts pressure on them to come here, gives more American jobs for sure.

I understand that, but it does affect all the mom and pop nine to fivers that are barely scraping by anyway.

So I think the new stat is like less than 70% of Americans have $1,000 in their bank account. Holy shit.
Or can cover an emergency of $1,000?

70%? Yeah, something like that. 70, 72.

Yeah, something like that, which is absolutely absurd. Again, in supposedly the richest country in the world.
Yeah, that's actually insane. That's borderline communism, right?

If you look at it just based off stats. Yeah, yeah, which is, again, why Fortis is I want to make wealth common because it can be.
Yeah.

I don't care how little you have, what your credit score is. It can happen.

Again, if you don't have a lot of cash, if you have terrible credit, it's going to take a little more time.

But yeah, people sitting on money from like the equity in their house, they don't know how to use, but you can use that to invest with.

Or if you want to use the 401k, you can move that anywhere else.

Some jobs don't allow it, but if they offer what's called an in-service rollover, you can move that to an annuity, you know, in a private placement product. Absolutely.

Yeah, that's that's interesting. I paid off 30% of my house.
I wonder if I should look into using the equity. Oh, bro.
Yeah.

It's again, money just sitting there that the bank is using, but you're not.

So, yeah, whatever that is,

usually they'll give you a loan up to like 80%. Yeah.
50 to 80, depending on your credit score and all that.

But yeah, that's cash you can use to, I don't know, expand the studio, bring on bigger, bigger guests, whatever. Yeah, absolutely.
I need to look into that. Yeah.
That's six figures, you know? Yeah.

Put that to work. Yeah.

Again, yes.

Anybody that has money just sitting, that's like my prime target. I can go get them massive amounts of.
passive cash flow for the rest of their life. So you believe in passive income? Oh, yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah. I know that's a hot take, right? Yeah.
I mean, everybody thinks passive income is just, oh,

made some money today. I'm going to go sit on the beach and eat some bonbons or whatever, which some people do, but that's going to get boring.

So, I mean, I could do that if I wanted to, but I want to come on these shows. I want to give the knowledge because there's still more people that need help.

So,

yeah, passive income is, I mean, that's where we all want to be. You know, guys like Ed Milet, you know, Pedros Coolian, Robert Herjavec, they don't have to work anymore.

They work because they want to. We still need to feel productive, wanted, needed.
Absolutely. Yeah, active income is what gives you, I think, purpose, right?

I would say, yeah, passive is more taking care of

the physical needs, and active takes care of like the mental needs, of needing to do something, needing to feel important in some way. Agreed.
Yeah. Yeah.

Active income makes me feel like I have meaning in life. Exactly.
And I'm actively working towards something. Yeah.
Passive income is like.

It's great, but

let's go do something. Yeah.
yeah. Like, I couldn't just live off passive.
No, it'd be really boring. It'd be terrible.
Yeah.

Even if you, you know, travel around the world, you can only go to Bali so many times. You can only go to Thailand so many times.
So, you know, you still need something to do.

That's why all these like lottery winners and athletes go broke because they expect the money, but it's now it's not there. Yeah.

You know, and you know, I've been blessed to be able to help some NBA athletes, Pro Bowlers.

Yeah. Shout out to Chris White, Miami Emmy.
I mean, he's a master networker. Again, power is in the proximity.

Yeah, these guys need good people around them. I just saw a clip of Kyrie Irving talking about how much he's paid in taxes.

But if he knew the right people, he probably could have saved tens of millions. Oh, yeah.
We can get people to pay zero. Even athletes? Anybody.
Because their income is

personal, right? I think it's still considered personal while they're playing. Yeah.

But I don't think sponsorships is taxed the same got it yeah I'm pretty sure that's the way it works so sponsorships are some write-offs and workarounds yeah yeah

but yeah anybody I don't care if you're making a billion dollars a year you can pay zero in taxes there's certain again if you study trust law there is a trust in the United States where you can defer taxes indefinitely yeah you will never pay taxes again look at Trump look at Bezos they pay nothing I don't think I don't know the last time they paid a single dollar in tax they do things a little more difficult you know they set up like the uh I think Amazon especially, they set up like a Shell Corp that owns a company that owns a company that owns a company.

And you can do that. There's a million ways to do something, right?

Yeah, for the simplest way, just open up one of these trusts and you will pay zero dollars in tax for the rest of your life.

Yeah, trust was a great move for me because it's also the privacy thing, too. Yeah, that, yeah, exactly.
Right. So all my businesses are registered in Wyoming for privacy,

low tax, and very low filing fees. Yeah, the car too, right? The car? You got a car in, what is it, Wyoming, or is it I forget what state people register cars in? Uh, South Dakota and Montana.

Montana, yeah. Yeah, they do.

Tax, right? Yeah, it's either low or like $10, something like that. Yeah.
Yeah. Very low there.
Um, and some people make a LLC just to buy a car and that's their only asset in that state for sure.

Yeah. And then are you taking loans out against all your assets? You can, yeah.
Again, another way live off for sure. I don't really do the stocks and bonds things, so I don't take them out that way.

I do the life insurance way. Yes.
I'm a life insurance broker. So by trade anyway, again, it's expanded into all these other realms.
But yeah, you can absolutely do it if it's set up the correct way.

You know, infinite banking, it's such a hot term right now.

And a lot of people don't know what that means. And it's a little misconstrued.
So you don't become your own bank, A, if you don't have any money.

So if you're trying to get one of these policies, they are a little bit pricey to set up and you do have to be healthy because it is life insurance first.

So

if you find an agent that sets it up the right way, they should make not a lot of money. If they set it up the wrong way and have you pay a lot in fees, they make a lot of money.

So, and I know you've had some guests say that too. So,

again, go through your policy. If the death benefit is more than what you really need, the higher the death benefit, the higher the commission for the agent.

That's a simple rule of thumb anybody can remember. Again, for whole life.
For term, it's totally different.

Yeah, that is good to know when you're establishing these policies because people don't ask these questions of of like yo how much are you making off this right yeah they shouldn't and or they they should um but yeah they don't because maybe they don't know them that well or they don't want you know they don't want to ask about money because it's taboo yeah um but yeah i mean some agents you can make thirty thousand dollars off one policy holy shit is that a year from one policy oh so yeah you do get some residual income but that's paid every month when they pay their policy that's nuts It's not going to equal 30,000, but again, depends on the company, depends on how much your pay is.

Because in the life insurance industry, you can get paid up to like 200% of what someone pays in a year. Holy crap.
Yeah, so you're paid as an advance in the life insurance world.

So based on your annual premium, let's say annual premium is 300K.

That's what your customers pay in a year. All your customers together, they pay 300K.

You can make 600K that year if you're at the 200%.

Now, not a lot of people are. Most people are start at the 20 to 30%.

And some people, there's a difference between captive agents and non-captive agents. So I'm non-captive.
I can go to any life insurance company in the world and say, hey, I want to sell this product.

Pay me this much, essentially.

But like State Farm, they're terrible to work with.

They pay a small salary and then I think like 15 to 20% AP.

So

again, yeah, anybody looking to do life insurance, go to Fortis, F-O-R-T-I-S-BuyWest.com.

You can message me, email me, and I will walk you through step-by-step good companies, bad companies, how to get your license.

Another thing is you can't have any felonies because it is in the financial world. You got to be 18.
But yeah, they're just like anything. It's good and bad companies.
Yeah.

Sorry, Jake from State Farm. Yeah.

You got to go, buddy. You got to go.
Good odds. Good, good marketing.
They are good at marketing, but I've helped clients roll over things from

like a state farm annuity, and they are the worst people to work with oh really it should because it's your money you know like the jg went worth commercials it's your money use it when you need it but you should be able to go get whatever money you have with them and take it relatively easily they it took six months for them to give them their money back they requested holy yeah and if you go look up you know state farmer has a ton of lawsuits on them right now because of things like that dude that sounds like paypal what's going on you ever deal with paypal getting your accounts uh frozen No, I don't have any PayPal.

Oh, you don't? Yeah, you're lucky, man. A lot of people I know that use PayPal, they'll lock your funds for six months and then give it back.
But who knows what they're doing in those six months?

They're probably investing it. Really? Yeah.
That's crazy. Does that ever happen to you? Yeah, really? Sometimes years.
Really? Yeah, PayPal.

They call it a reserve because your account's too risky or something. Oh, of course.

But even banks, like you walk in and try to take out 100K, good luck. Yeah, in cash? Yeah, absolutely.
Good luck with that. I tried to do that and they say, oh, we don't have that.
I'm like,

this is from Chase. You're supposed to be one of the biggest banks in the world.
They'll probably call the police on you.

Yeah, they said they have to order it and then it'll be like two weeks. I'm like, it's right there.
Two weeks for 100K. Yeah.
Well, again, this is Iowa. So they probably

Dallas or Vegas where, you know, people blow money like that. But yeah, they said two weeks.
I'm like,

it's right here on my account. You don't have this in this location right now.

They say no. And

even 10K is a toothpull from them. Yeah.
Like, oh, can we give you some of these bills and some of these bills? And so it can equal 10K.

I'm like, just give me the hundreds, wrap the thing around it so I know how much and just give it to me. It's my money.

So, yeah, the banking industry, financial industry, there's some definitely sheisty things going on. 100%.

What was the hardest financial status for you? Was it the first 100K? Was it first million, like first 10K? First 100K is always the hardest.

It is exactly like they said. The first 100K will be a battle.
And then everything after that, it's like the avalanche snowball effect.

You know, it's much easier to compound, grow faster and faster and faster. Yeah, I agree.
I think the first hundred took me a couple years. Yeah.
Yeah. To hit as an entrepreneur.

Because the average entrepreneur only makes, what, 40K a year? Yeah.

I mean, and then on top of that, they got to pay self-employment tax, which, again, is ridiculous being penalized to work for ourselves, but whatever. There's ways around that too.

But yeah, 40K a year, and then that's below the national average salary at like 65K. And you're working double the hours, too.
Double the hours, twice the risk. Yeah.

But again, it can pay off if you expect it and just keep believing in yourself. You will get to wherever you need to go.
You need a lot of resiliency to make it as an entrepreneur. Yes.
Yes.

You got to have the capability to play the long game too. Yeah.
Which a lot of people aren't there. Like you said, they can't even afford a thousand dollar expense.
Yeah.

So Alex Ramosi said that the top 1% make 600K a year. So if you want to make a million dollars a year, A, that's about one in a 300%

chance across the world, let alone just America. But one in a 300% chance.
So if you think you're going to get to

something that rarely ever happens acting like everybody else, it's not going to happen. I love that.
Yeah. Again, that's Alex.
That's not me. No, I mean, numbers don't lie, right? Yeah.

You got to look at these numbers and be real with yourself. And you have to look at what the crowd's doing and do the opposite.
100%. That's probably the biggest piece of advice I've ever received.

That's why on YouTube I only listen to people for the most part that do better than me. Yeah, yeah, because nobody's ever going to criticize you that's doing better.

They'll coach you, but nobody's ever going to come after you. Yeah, Hormozi's been great, though.
I watch his stuff, Layla's stuff. There's a couple upcoming guys.

You got to watch guys that are doing five to time, ten times better than you. Yes.
Yes, 100%. Yeah, his launch was nuts, dude.
Yeah. 105 million in a day.
Dude.

Shout out to him, man. Yeah.
Shout out, Alex, for sure. Putting Vegas on the map.
Yeah. You ever go to one of his workshops? No, not Alex's.
I have not. Oh, yeah.
This is your first time in Vegas.

Yeah. Yeah, he has one every week out here.
Every week? Oh, really? I didn't know they were so common. Yeah.
Really?

Not, dude. Good business model.

So you said no stocks earlier. What about crypto? You own any crypto?

I do have some just because, you know, I got a little money. So I'm like, ah, what the heck? You know, I don't really understand the technology.

I understand it's super anonymous, which a lot of people don't like and government doesn't like. So they're making their own Fed coin or something coming out.
But again, yeah, I don't I don't like it.

You don't like it? No, I don't like it. I don't, I think the technology can be used for a lot of other things like like buying a car or a house.

Oh, this person had it from here to here and you know, they did this to it or whatever.

You know, Carfax kind of does that or whatever, but or like even firearms that'd be really good for help keep crack down on firearms a little bit. And I'm a huge gun guy.

Again, I was in the Army for eight years. I love guns, but I do think there needs to be a little bit tighter control or back, at least checking who can get it.

Interesting. Yeah,

I personally think so. I mean, I have a lot of other fun things outside of just guns, too.
Yeah. Like I got a flamethrower.
Oh, yeah. Was that the one from Elon? No.
So the boring company, no.

So that's more of a blowtorch. It doesn't really shoot out flames.
Okay. This one like propels it out with an electric motor.
Jeez. How many meters is it?

I think without wind, it'll go up to like 15 meters. Holy crap, that's this whole table.
Yeah, it goes out pretty far and it's it puts out heat, man. I have some great videos

every fourth of July. Our family has this big party at the lake house.
So I bring that and like shoot it over the lake at night.

I'll use it to melt ice during summer or winter, you know, since I'm in Iowa. Absolutely, yeah.

Clear driveway with that thing. Yeah, exactly right.
Yeah. So it's it's advertised to be like for pests, like to shoot like hornets' nests and stuff.
Yeah.

But I mean, anybody can take that and go do something really nasty with it, too. Yeah.
So

wow, you can legally own that. Just did they check your ID or what? I just ordered it online.
Walked it to my door. Yeah.
You ordered it online? Yeah. Dude, that's crazy.

I don't think you can in California, but everywhere else. Yeah.
What can you do in California? I mean, yeah, breathe.

They actually don't let you own a gun in California, ironically.

Yeah, and if you want to, it's like a ton of classes, ton of background checks, and you don't even, you can't even hold that, that much bullets.

So that's why i wonder what the actual solution is you make it harder or should you make it easier you know yeah well i saw a study that in texas wyoming montana they had the least amount of murders because they had the most open carry people okay

so open carry kind of intimidates people maybe yeah it could yeah i mean you see a guy packing you know 357 dirty hairy on the hip you're you'll think twice before you try to mug him yeah so maybe open carry but more vetting on who can do it yeah and iowa just got rid of concealed carry license You can open carry or concealed carry anywhere.

Oh, wow. Except like bars, government buildings, hospitals, things like that.
Yeah. And then if a business has like the no-gun sign, and if you bring it in, they can ask you to leave.

And if you don't, then you'll just get a trespassing charge. I like that.
Yeah, because when people say to ban guns, I mean

it would not work. That's an extreme.
Look at the war on drugs, and when they banned drugs, it made it worse. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, I think any extreme is never a good thing, whether it be political, religious, like it's, because there's always a spectrum to everything.

Did the Charlie Kirk self mess you up?

I wouldn't say it messed me up. I think it's really sad, you know.
He was a super young guy, like 30, 32 or something like that. 31, yeah.
31, yeah. Leaving behind kids, wife, and he got shot.

I don't think they really know the political affiliation of the person, but just because someone disagreed with them, I don't think that's okay. Yeah.
That's,

again, we need to decide and keep track of who can even have one.

Shout out to today's sponsor, Quince. As the weather cools, I'm swapping in the pieces that actually gets the job done that are warm, durable, and built to last.

Quince delivers every time with wardrobe staples that'll carry you through the season. They have false staples that you'll actually want to wear, like the 100% Mongolian cashmere for just $60.

They also got classic fit denim and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up.

By partnering directly with ethical factories and top artisans, Quince cuts out the middleman to deliver premium quality at half the cost of similar brands.

They've really become a go-to across the board. You guys know how I love linen and how I've talked about it on previous episodes.
I picked up some linen pants and they feel incredible.

The quality is definitely noticeable compared to other brands. Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look.

Go to quince.com/slash DSH for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. They're also available in Canada too.

And I know, you know, you can always steal a gun, but

I don't know. I don't really know what the answer is, man.
I don't think banning them is the right answer, though. I don't think so either.

Because, I mean, guns are just so ingrained in American history. That's how we got our freedom from, you know, UK.
So

I don't think it's the right answer. You invest in any gun companies?

I don't. I should.

Again, I don't really do much in the stocks world.

I just saw Iron Man last night. They were, did you watch that movie? Iron Man? Yeah.
Of course. Yeah.

The first one in 2008 and how he used to own the gun company. Stark Industries.
Stark Industries, baby. Yeah.

And then he had the realization when the bomb landed right next to him and he said, never again. Morals over money, right? Yeah.
Yeah.

I'm kind of in that stage of my career, too. Conscious capitalism.
Not all money is good money. Yes.
That's something a lot of people don't understand.

Again, when you don't have a thousand to cover an emergency, you act out of desperation rather than forethought thinking like, how does this affect someone or me?

So, yeah, I mean, people invest in these huge businesses in the stock market because they're told to, but those big businesses usually aren't doing great things either. Yeah.
Yeah.

I think what percentage of people lose money on stocks? It's really high. Oh, yeah, especially if you're trying to day trade.
Yeah. Like, if you think it's in the 90s.
Yeah.

It's very rare to find a a successful day trader. Yeah, because those firms just have all these algorithms and stuff to wreck you, right? If you're not playing the long game, you're screwed.

Yeah, if you're like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, you know, they have the best tech, the best computers, the best

analytics. They're going to beat you 10 times out of time.
Yeah. Plus, by the time they're on the stock market, they're already overvalued.
Yep. Right.
You're not getting a good deal.

The only way I would invest in the stock market is in IPO. Yeah.
If I can get it in before. Do you do any private equity and VC stuff? Yeah.
So I do work.

I market for a couple other private venture, I'm sorry, private equity and venture capital firms for sure.

They do things a little bit differently. So most VCs, you go Google venture capital right now.
They buy a company, gut it, and then sell it for parts, basically. This company does the opposite.

They buy it. scale it and then they'll sell it to somebody else for 10 to 20 X their money and they only buy established running companies rather than

like startups. Nothing tech, nothing hot, you know, straight out of Silicon Valley.
If you're making money, they'll consider buying it.

You know, they'll buy your podcast if you're making money with it.

And then through that predictive business, that

again, because nothing new, nothing startups, they go through the cash flow, they say, hey, we can make this much from this company. Okay, we buy it.
They can pay predictable income back to investors.

So, I mean, I can get people anywhere upwards of like 5% a month or like 60% per year on average. So

5% a month? That's not going to, you're not going to find a stock that's like that. Dude, people aim for 5% a year.
Yeah. Again, brainwashing.

So if you think outside the box, there's ways to make money that you don't know about.

Nobody does the research. They just invest in their company's 401k and listen to the HR person that has no financial experience.
Oh, yeah, hey, invest in that. Let it grow.

It's not bad, but you might make some money, but inflation is going to wear that way faster before you can retire. And again, it is still at risk.
Yeah.

When you factor in inflation, you're actually losing money a lot of the times. Yeah, the silent tax.
Yeah.

It's always going to be there. Can't do anything about that.

I mean, they can. They just don't choose not to, I think.
I think the value of the dollar over a hundred-year period has gone down 97% or something like that. Which is mind-boggling.
Insane, right?

Yeah. So our grandkids will have to make $100 million to be a millionaire.
Yeah. At this current rate.
At this current rate, just nuts. Yeah.
I mean, that's.

Like, being a millionaire now is just like.

I mean, it's still a great thing. It's still a good thing.
Yeah. It's still super rare, but it's still not like what people think.

No, it's not like when I was a kid, I was like, I want to be a millionaire. Yeah.
You know, I'll be set for life. I could be a millionaire.
Yeah, right. I'll never have to work again.

Yeah. But it's just not the way it is.
No.

Not like it's everything you see on TikTok, everything you see on Instagram, it's not the way it is. Yeah, nobody's dude, yeah, raising a family with a million is not enough anymore.

Yeah, I just saw like there's no state where a 40-hour work week will pay enough for $2,000 rent or something like that. Wow.
Yeah, and that's nuts. Yeah.

And we can't make enough houses, so it's only going to get worse, it looks like. Yeah, and then all the big private equity, they're buying up all the houses.
That's what I don't like. That's

malicious.

That's malicious.

That's not providing the opportunity we're all promised with the American dream. Yeah, they're controlling whole city markets.

Yeah, they can influence any time a company can influence parts of government. That's not okay by me.
So I don't work with those type of firms. I don't work for BlackRock.
I don't work for Blackstone.

And

yeah, it's just not a good idea. Yeah, when you get to that level, it must be way harder to make the same gains because

your assets are so high, right? Yeah, I mean,

I think they're when people ask me, you know, when is enough gonna be enough for you?

I think my answer should be way different than BlackRock's because they're gonna like own half the world or the world. You know, we need, we need Elon to get on us, get us on Mars, like ASAP.
We need

something else. We need an escape from this, man.
Yeah, for me, I think I calculated it 20 to 30 million liquid. I'll be chilling there.
Yeah.

Because I could live off the passive income for the rest of my life. Yeah, I mean, even on 20, 30 million, you can put that in just a C D

Or a high-yield savings. Yeah, I think I calculated like 7% interest.
Nothing compared to yours, but

man, you're doing some crazy numbers. That's impressive.
Yeah. Oh, thanks, man.
Has that been pretty consistent or is that a one-time thing?

So, yeah, it's consistent. It's never going to go up, never go down.
You sign a contract, you know, full disclosures. You keep a copy, they keep a copy.
Wow. Yeah.
And you get paid once a month. Yeah.

So have about. And that's the life insurance stuff? No, that's those are for

venture capital costs. Oh, got it.
Yeah. And then if they, once they get up a little bit more money, again, taxes are going to come.

Now we can put them in the advisory side and have them pay no taxes. Or they get enough money.
Now they can get a really good life insurance policy.

Now they can, you know, it's, again, the snowball avalanche effect. You start them off.

I like to start them off in that because it doesn't require to be an accredited investor.

So.

Almost 90% of the people I talk to, they're like 60%. Oh, no way.

It's a scam. That's the big thing.
I mean, right?

You know, let's face the facts here. I thought the same thing too when I first heard about it.
But here's the thing.

You don't know what you don't know. So to come in and tell me something's a scam without any evidence,

primary resources, anything like that, you just kind of sound like an idiot. So my thing is like, don't knock it till you try it.
So like start small when you're skeptical and work your way up. Yeah.

I mean, nobody says you got to go balls deep and do a million dollars right away start with 10k or whatever and again that firm is really good to work with because they can roll over 401ks they can roll over ires so whatever you have in those accounts imagine making 60 every single year compounding

so even like 100k that's 60k a year that could cover your rent Well, it'll 60K the first year. The next year, you're investing 160K.
So it's going to be like 230K or something. Holy crap.

And if you do the math, if you invest 100K after 10 years, you'll have about $18 million.

What?

Dude. Off $100K?

No, that doesn't factor in inflation or taxes. But yeah, if you put it into investmentcalculator.com, $100K one time, no additional contributions every single year, just have a compound.

You got $18 million. You got my brain rolling because there's 0% credit cards.
Exactly. So you could get real fancy.

That's, again, companies that I partner with, they offer business and personal 0% interest cards. That is truly free money.
You can get 100, 200K. Yeah.

Or more if you can show profit from a business, half a million plus. So absolutely.
I highly, highly am an advocate for good debt. Robert Kiyosaki's a genius.

That's how I kept the pot afloat with those cards. Really? Yeah.
With the first year, it was tough. Yeah, just like, absolutely.
As any business venture is going to be, you got to find a way.

So congratulations. I didn't know that.
That's all. No, it's a hack, though, because you could do it for each LLC.
Exactly. You could start a new LLC tomorrow and get 50 to 100K.

Yeah, that it, and

that,

it's better if you can buy a shelf corp, you know, and get that aged business.

Age helps a lot. Yeah, they'll give you, you know, 300 to 500K.
Damn. But, yeah, for sure.
Again, and it's all 0% interest credit cards.

So you don't have to pay anything back except 1% of the balance every month. So 100K, you pay back

$1,000 a month,

but you're making $5K a month if you invested that into like say the 60

uh percent yes you got a money money machine money printer yeah it's like a money glitch yeah really credit taxes life insurance and the right venture capital vc companies yes for all that man and again there i work with uh just onboarded a new company where you can invest in uh bali bungalows they're really developing bungalows in bali yeah staying out of a bungalow in uh maldives for my honeymoon yeah yeah it wasn't cheap.

Yeah, no, absolutely not. Yeah, that's a good investment.

Yeah, you probably should have just bought it. Yeah, probably.
If I bought it, it would have been cheaper. It was like 5K a night or something.
Yeah,

those are not cheap places.

Yeah, but I'm all about hacking because there's always, always another way. There's always another way.
If you don't see a way, there's a way. Love that, man.

Anything else you want to close off with here?

Oh, man.

Your controversial opinions. We kind of got through that, right?

Yeah, controversial opinions.

The church is

a company, and I'll probably never set foot in another church again. Wow, you're that affected about it.
Well, see, here's the thing.

So long story short, I was going to a church where I'm, you know, in Iowa, and business deal went sour with a guy.

Nothing that I could control.

Nothing at all.

But, you know, he did lose some money and the pastors found out about it.

And, you know, I got a call from one saying, hey, you're going to come into men's group on thursday and i'm like yeah and he said

maybe you don't come in this week which is an odd thing to hear from a pastor from a church who's a non-denominational so they should be accepting everybody

and you know i said what what's going on so then i called him and i said you know dude what's going on here and he said oh you know i heard about you know so-and-so he lost some money with you and i just didn't want it to be awkward and yada yada yada and I said first off you don't know anything about this situation because that was over a year ago and I've been talking to him every day since then secondly you're choosing to not allow me to come to church for your comfort so you don't think it's awkward is that right he said yeah you know I just you know I want church to be good you know everyone be happy and like that's church is not a place for happy people you go there supposed to go there if you're broken if you need something right

and then if you're happy great you can stay.

But after that,

that really affected me growing up in church.

Oh, so it was the same church you went to your whole life? No, so it was one down

not where I'm from. Oh, okay.
I moved down to the capital, it's in Des Moines.

So, yeah, that affected me because I grew up in the church, you know, grandma's super religious and all that.

So, yeah,

that affected me very deeply. That I heard from a pastor, you can't come to church anymore.

So I said,

okay.

So then I just swore off that church. Probably going to swore off every other church because,

and again, it's non-denominational, so it's not like the Catholic conspiracies and all the things you hear about, but it's a small church that said, you can't come because this deal went sour, and I don't want it to be awkward.

I don't want to be awkward there.

I said, okay. Wow.
That's nuts. Did he ever hit you up again after that? Nope.
Neither of them. But I still see him at the gym.

You wanted to ask me if he talks to me. Does he talk to you at the time? He doesn't talk to me.
He's probably ashamed. He's probably, yeah, he looks down, looks away.

He should be. He took, I think pastors take an oath of some kind.
They definitely go to seminary school to be accepting, to be,

you know, welcoming in people.

And I, and another controversial fact, I know for a fact everything in the Bible is not true. How?

So,

again, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I definitely believe in a God, but the Bible says, for instance, you know, I forget the

timeline here, but I think after Noah, Noah's Ark situation, God said, okay, nobody can be live over 120 years old anymore because Moses, Noah, they were like four to eight hundred years old or something like that.

But The A, the oldest person in recent history has been 122 years old. Okay, so that's wrong.
And if you go back even farther, Joe Dispenza, his book, Becoming Supernatural, have you ever read it?

Yeah, great book. Yeah.
So in the foreword, he actually talks about a guy who lived to be 256 years old. What? Lee Li Ching Yuan.
I hope I'm pronouncing that right, but Li Ching Yuan.

He was an herbalist and martial artist in the Shishuan region of China. He was born in 1677, died in 1933.
Holy crap. And they found this to be true from the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

So they went through about 3,500

resources

brought in by 80 different articles that was translated in 20 different languages.

The Bible said we're not supposed to be over 120. How is this guy 120 or 256 years old?

And every now and then, like, I think in Japan, like, they have a ton of people really close to the 120 age mark. And I'm like,

where is that don't see that covered exactly and then also the Bible talks about another God called L that is above the Christian God

I don't know the exact scripture I can't pronounce it can't can't recite it sorry but if you go look it up EL

he's a god that is supposedly above the Christian God

so are we supposed to

pray to this God, that God and then

the more again since I've been away, you know, if you can zoom out a little bit, it's really based on fear. And,

you know, Christian God's supposed to be all about love. So

if you do things wrong, if you don't do things the right way, you will go to hell and burn in fire for the rest of eternity.

That sounds scary, but I thought you loved me.

You know? Yeah, I had a lot of fear when I went to church as a kid of like doing the wrong things and sinning. Yeah.
And like being ashamed. Yeah, yeah.
And again, that's kind of how all these

catholic um because confession is kind of a catholic thing that you're supposed to go tell your sins to the priest but god also says never confess your sins to another man or you don't have to you know if you if you are um truly sorry i will throw the sins as far as east is from the west and forget about them so why am i going to this 80 year old pervert in the freaking confessional he's telling me to go say eight hell marys for penance, and I'm suddenly forgiven?

No. Yeah, I don't know about that either.
No, no. When did you look start looking into numerology? I know Gary, the numbers guy is someone you've consumed content of, right?

Yeah, so, I mean, even throughout all the Bible, numerology is everywhere. You know,

Jesus died at 33. We have 33 vertebrae, and a lot of people assimilate our third of three vertebrae to be Jacob's ladder.

And our mind is consciousness. Our mind is the creator, right?

I don't know. I'm not an expert on that, but that's what I've heard.
And it makes sense. You know, a lot of things make sense.

Yeah, GG33, Gary, he's awesome.

He's all about the Chinese, you know, Lunar New Year calendar. I found that to be pretty true, too.

You know,

with my girlfriend and I, we're the most compatible on the map and everything's been great

for about almost three years now. So that and then, yeah, just the history of it, because the Chinese culture is one of the oldest that's still in existence, right?

You know, they know something we don't, so let's learn from them. And he has, and you know, he kind of made numerology um mainstream.

That I would say for sure, and I think he has like his own community now, his own app, you know, you can go learn it, take it, but yeah, um,

you know, it's the number of money.

You know, I always do, I always pay bills on eight days, I always shave and cut my hair on eight days to embed that money energy it's been working out pretty good let's go yeah i ran i ran my wedding date by him really i ran my address by him um his app's pretty solid too do you use it yeah i use it yeah yeah i was thinking about uh getting onto that as well yeah it shows you who you're compatible with it's it's pretty interesting man yeah i think it does like um

Does it also recommend like kids' names and stuff too? It might. I know it recommends brands to wear.

what's your year for example what's your so i'm a 96 rat so you're a rat so he would tell you to wear companies that were founded in a rat year right yeah and i was looking that up like even states cities you know when he moved down to florida that was his same year so he just blew up when he moved to florida you know

if it happened once you could say it's a coincidence but if it happened with all of his clients all of his students whatever you know it's not a coincidence there's something he's got hundreds maybe thousands of students now yeah i've met a lot of them too yeah and again I do think the world operates in numbers because that's the universal language.

Yeah.

And again,

God knew that when he created the world. Again, I do believe in a God, just not the way we're taught.
There's definitely something out there. There's no way this came from a little bang.

Not the white guy in the sky with the blue. No, it's not that.
It's not that. It's not that.

Yeah, man. GG33's been really instrumental for me, I would say, my success by implementing those principles.
And I only found about him, you know, for mentors. So,

get a mentor, find a mentor. If you don't have one, get one.
100%. They will remove the minds out of your path for sure.
Anything else, man? Also, thank you for the diamond. Oh, yeah.
Very cool gift.

Yeah, for sure. For sure, man.
Yeah, no problem. Yeah.
Congrats on the engagement. Yeah.
Long, happy. Hope to see you next.
Yeah. Three years.
Yeah, absolutely. It's coming up, huh? Yeah.
Yes, yes.

Three years is coming up. And yeah, so we'll see what happens, man.
Absolutely. Um

yeah, no, no worries. I thought, you know, I love giving gifts.
It's definitely one of my love languages. I like to see people smile, you know, like what you said.

Oh, this is one of the coolest gifts I've ever gotten. Like that, that's so cool.
I love having that effect on people. Yeah.
Gifts are great because they're memorable.

You'll always associate that object with the person. Like someone gave me a wallet.
So now like, now every time I pull it, I'm like, you think of that guy. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, they're great.

I love gifts. Absolutely.
Well, where can people find you, man, and learn from you and everything? Yeah. A-L-T.investments.buy.wes on Instagram and TikTok or F-O-R-T-I-S by Wes.com, Fortisbywest.com.

Boom. Check them out, guys.
Thanks for your time. You bet.
Peace.

Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm.

It helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot.
Thank you guys for supporting. And here's the episode.