When you buy something, there's like uh there's the cheap version, then like when you're talking about something that has utility, like a shirt or bed or furniture or whatever, there's like there's the cheapest version, then there's the version that is like the best quality from a a actual utility perspective. And then anything above that, all you're paying for is brand. So like the difference between a $40 shirt and a $500 shirt, like there's no difference in quality. At some point it's just it's just a nice shirt and you're all you're paying for is you're just handing someone money for the brand that you got on it. What what brands if you're trying to trigger people here do you think are the biggest ripoffs? The biggest ripoff brands? I mean anything that's like a big, you know, like where where you have a big logo on it where you're trying to status signal. No. Uh no, not Lululemon. I don't know. My wife wears Lululemon. I'm like I don't know. It doesn't seem like they're pretty nice. I will say yeah, that stuff's nice. Well, like the biggest ripoffs are when you're getting charged for the fact that they know the reason you're buying this thing is to try to impress other people. So like that is what they're they're praying on your insecurity, right? Like that that is what a a luxury brand is. Like you don't carry around a bag cuz you're like, "Oh, I love the way this bag makes me feel." You carry it around cuz you're trying to signal to other people that you are impressive and of a level of status that they should admire. Like we spend the vast majority of our luxury purchases. If you were to ask yourself when you make that purchase, would I buy this if I could not tell a single person that I had it? If I couldn't take a picture on Instagram, I couldn't show it to anyone else. If you ask yourself that question, I call it the bot status test. Like, am I trying to buy status? Usually the answer is no. You're getting this because you want other people to think you're cool in some way. There's nothing wrong with that. But you also have to acknowledge how often you are living for the benefit of a whole bunch of people that are never thinking about you. Like no one is as impressed by your stuff as you think they are. They don't care. What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about money that hold people back? I think that uh when you are starting out on your journey, you build in your mind this impression that an incremental unit of money equals an incremental unit of happiness. Like money equals happiness, right? because it does in the early days. Anyone that tells you money doesn't buy happiness is lying. Scientifically, it's actually proven shown across every study that in the early days of your life and on the early part of the curve, money directly buys happiness. The challenge is humans are really bad at adjusting to something when when the fundamental calculus has changed. And again, the science is pretty clear that above certain levels, that incremental unit of money does not drive the same incremental unit of happiness that it did in the early days. But we're like mice chasing the cheese. And so what happens is we are still convinced that it will. We convince ourselves that our happiness is on the other side of just a little bit more of whatever it is. And we lose sight of everything else on that journey. And that is basically the trap that everyone falls into that leads you to this like you know rich yet miserable existence which you honestly I mean I I could not conceive of that when I was in my 20s. I was like what do you mean you you have it all? You doing all the things and you're miserable like how's that possible? But that's the reason it happens. Do you notice any difference in mindset and money habits when it comes to like Gen Z millennials boomers? And is one of those maybe better than the other? Yeah, I mean I would say Gen Z um all the recent surveys that I've seen um show that Gen Z has these like dramatically higher expectations for what it means to have made it. I think there was like a survey recently that I saw that said uh it looked at all the generations and like how much money do you need to make in order to have like made it financially and it was basically like $200,000 a year was the number for like boomers, Gen X, millennials. And then for Gen Z, it was like $600,000. It was like completely off the charts. And look, I think like the most common interpretation of that would be like Gen Z's cooked, you know, they don't understand money. They're so crazy. But the other piece of that is like look, they've also come of age in a time when inflation was through the roof. And how's you like it is untenable to own a starter home in most cities if you if you're just like earning a normal salary. And so I think that like there's reasons why people feel that way. It's also crazy. Uh, social media has cooked our brains in a lot of ways. You're like, I hired a I hired a 27y old kid uh, last year. It was his first job. He was like working as personal trainer before. And when I first hired him, he was like, I'm going to be making a million dollars a year by the time I'm 30. And I just looked at him. I was like, how? What? What do you mean? What do you mean you're going to be making? He was like, oh, I'm just going to be involved in some different stuff. I was like, what? There's a fundamental misconception about how you make money. You make money by creating value for other people. To earn a million dollars a year, you have to create $10 million a year of value. And if you do that, you actually probably will in some way. Like you'll probably capture enough of that value to make that money. But like value creation is what making money is about. The the recipe for making a whole lot of money is not that difficult. It is just create value and then receive value. And creating value is just identifying problems, creating solutions, and then scaling those solutions at all points in time. If you're trying to make money, you need to be doing one of those three things. And if you were to go start any job and you just find ways to be valuable to everyone around you, you will find a way to make a lot of money over the long term. It's just not going to be like the immediate dopamine hit instant gratification that social media tells you it will be. So then what are the most overrated wealth milestones people still chase? Overrated wealth milestones. Um, I mean, having a million dollars. Yeah. No, was having a million dollars overrated. Uh, cuz it doesn't There's no change in your life from a million versus like 800,000 is what I'm saying. It's like it's it's not like a um like in the in the diamond world, there used to be this like very funny thing in diamond prices where uh if you were to buy like a 1.99 karat ring, uh the price was one thing and then if you were to get a 2 karat ring, the price was like 40% higher. And it's because like we build up in our minds these like the the next threshold. And so they're praying again on like the guy, you know, is going to go in and like it's his insecurities. He's like, "No, I'm going to buy the two karat ring." So they priced it up a whole bunch. We build up like this significance to these certain thresholds like that that actually have no bearing on your life. It might feel good to say I have a million dollar net worth, but a million dollar net worth is not what it was 30 years ago, 20 years ago. Like the whole idea of a millionaire was like this big, you know, this big thing. But like being a millionaire now that's probably like $5 million to have that same level of of financial significance in how you're able to operate. What is more important, having a lot of money or making a lot of money? Cash flow. Cash flow. Cash flow. Cash flow. I disag all they're actually talking about is cash flow. And like everything comes down to cash flow. When people are like, "Oh, how much is enough?" You see all these debates online, 5 million, 10 million, 30 million. All you're actually doing is in the back of your mind, you're doing this math on it's sitting there what your actual cash flow is that comes off. The cash flow is not guaranteed. Exactly. Right. What do you mean cash flow is not cash flow? So, for example, I'm talking it comes off of accounts and everyone always does this. You're like, "Oh, I've got 10 million sitting in the stock market. That's just going to get me, you know, it's going to get me 500 grand a year." Like, but there are things like failure rates with a 3% withdrawal rate off of X amount lump sum invested in a a broad market index fund. Like, those you can actually apply a certain math to. So, you can have certainty. Okay, there's a 01% failure rate for this sort of investment and I can withdraw safely this amount per year as opposed to you know I've worked in in this sector and I feel like if I job hop I can get another job paying this amount and then your future is just uncertain with that way whereas like you have more broad data all saying that okay if you withdraw this amount your your failure rate is is this percent if you're if you're posing this question as like would you rather take $10 million today or a million dollar salary per year uh Obviously, you're going to take the $10 million today. Like, yes, I I would 100% do that because like the safety and the financial security of doing that is going to matter. But if you pose it as like, oh, I have the skills and knowledge to continue to grow that million dollars a year and I have, you know, an ability to like do that across a diversified stream of cash flows. I would take the million. I think broadly speaking, it kind of dictates the way that like like the the common argument of, hey, I'm not making that much money, but I make a little bit like enough to save a little bit. And you're like, okay, great. Invest that in a broad market index fund. That's one route. Or the other route, which is like, okay, invest that on trying to develop a new skill and trying to day trade or trying to drop ship or trying to do this, trying to do that. that I'm just I'm just saying one route is like investing in yourself and and trying to increase your income and then the other one's saving for the future to try to build up a nest egg. I so everyone should build up a nest egg. Like go through a couple of like basic financial things. The best investment that you can make is having 6 to 12 months of cash in an emergency fund which is so paradoxical because everyone's like well I'm not getting any yield on that. That is the peace of mind that you get from knowing that you are okay for a long period of time will allow you to see opportunities much better. Like that that is the single best investment I have made is just having that sitting there because then I know I can actually capitalize on risk without worrying about these things. Like it gives you the flexibility and the freedom to go and chase the bigger picture things that allow you to go and do that because you know you're safe on the downside. The analogy is like a Formula 1 car driving around a track. What allows them to do that effectively is the fact that they know and they're confident in their brakes. Because if they weren't confident in their brakes, they could not go really fast into a turn. But they know the brakes are there. Like that's what the emergency fund does. You have these breaks. The second piece is like this whole thing of side hustles, investing in yourself. A lot of times those are just like basically distractions masquerading as good opportunities. You're like, "Oh, I'm going to invest in myself." And really what it is is like, "I'm going to take 30% of my cognitive energy and put it towards this random thing that is speculative that I'm not sure if it's going to make me any money, but it sounds good versus taking that same 30% of my cognitive energy and doubling down on the value that I can create in my main thing." And you know, like you like us having a discussion about uh you know, doing a podcast tour. You're like, "Well, why would we do that if we can just like focus on doing incredible episodes, creating incredible clips that maybe are going to go viral and do really well?" Like, that's actually a good point, right? You like this is my main thing. That same cognitive energy, if I start now like piecing it into 20 side hustles, I could just deploy into the thing that I already know works. And like logically, the way to think about that is say I want to uh, you know, I have my main job and then I want to like maybe start a sidehustle agency. like, okay, well, let me just think about this. The side hustle agency for that to be successful, what do I have to do? Well, I have to like figure out what my offer is. I have to go send a whole bunch of cold messages to people. I have to then go take meetings with those people. I have to convert those people. Then I have to provide the service. Then I have to retain them. That's my path to making money on that. All of that energy that you could have put into doing that and how speculative that is. All the things that have to go right for that to work. What if you just put that towards creating way more value at your main thing? Would you not be able to make more money by like doubling your value that you're providing to the main thing that you're doing? That is why assuming this other thing isn't like your life's passion, your life's work that you have to go and do it. If it's just a money play, you're better off doubling down on the value you can create in your main thing.